mistakes that let everyone know youre a rookie

Welp, I finally started with a local company last week and on my 4th day of training I turned the tractor trailer like a car into our company yard and the left front trailer bent the fence lol, no damages to trailer just scratches but the already damaged fence was bent in even more lol everyone saw ;(. Rookie move, the next day I didn’t take a turn wide enough and the trailer came 0.1 inch in colliding with the traffic light, had to halt all traffic to back up. Hard to focus on everything: tach, RPM, gears, road signs, left/right turns and having your trainer grade you while driving is also nerve racking! my trainer threw me in the truck the first day driving in LA I was scared shi**less. At school we were never taught how our trailer swings, only “out straight turn late” we were never taught how to pull in and out of the yard.

 

Your going to be fine, after surgery they are most likely going to give you physical therapy and from there it’s an uphill battle of pain, limited range of motion, and a lot of cursing, but your going to be fine! Just make sure to stretch a lot, I come from the PT side and we get a lot of truck drivers complain of neck, back and shoulder pain, always always stretch and walk when you get a chance! God speed.

 

Just imagine the pain coming from something else.. The left hand is the good kind, the right hand let's you know it could be worse...

 

Physical therapy being 5000 dollars a month billable to insurance after my hip surgery, I wanted out.

I tell you about one woman who was a PT at the hospital. Her job is to kick us out of bed day two and get walking with that type of surgery. Here I am not in a mood to get moving and could not be bothered to break a leg trying to get across a room. She had me down the hall and back in 10. *&^%.

What scared me was once she understood what I did for a living, her fast talking instructions had me like a puppet down the hall and back. Might as well be a mile. Nurses rewarded me with a pain shot. Day three. She appears again. Out out out get moving, out out out.

Im not a horse. Thats where the temper came in.

When I got home as soon I reached a particular amount of walking I told the PT thank you sir, but we are done.

But...

Thank you Sir.

Uh...

What part of...

No, I understand. Thank you.

Whew.

I don't mind surgery, I don't mind the aggravation. I don't mind alot of things. But Physical therapy? Just as soon you get moving yourself fire em.

 

Lol, I agree tho, but there are situations where PT’s can help you out! But most of the stuff nowadays you can YouTube it, I learned from experience. Online they have rehab exercises and also pre-hab exercises to prevent injuries. All I’m saying is if you don’t want to do PT make sure after yo ur surgery keep your muscles warm and keep them moving to break up scar tissue! Scar tissue is the worst and will limit how you move. Look up online how to break up scar tissue.

 

If you were to understand the extent of scar tissue within my body it's a miracle I get moving at all. Much less worked as I have.

I have had certain surgeries since 3 months old in life that were very limiting for a period of time until that scar tissue was broken up. Those surgeries continued until 22 adding more tissue of scar internally. About half of me is scar tissue inside today. The new joint at the hip added some more. But thats broken up nicely. But it's there.

My doctors used to be horrified when they learned the extent of the scarring inside of me from a variety of medical work. But they also sing the praises that I was very very very active from about 8 through 40. That helped break up the tissue and keep them from locking me up inside.

Its a little bit harder now in the 50's because I am way less active. But am learning how to bowl again. So... there is that. Next after that is some horse. Which I will have to relearn all over again. And so on. I don't intend to sit.

There is one medicine I take for inflammation. And some days I just as soon reach for some of that Schnapps and skip the inadequate medicine when I push it too much. I am not yet sure if that medicine meets DOT medical but we are working on that.

 

I am a poor surgical risk because of epilepsy and some of the medications that I need to even stay alive. I have already been told to not expect much, in fact, my surgeon told me my chances are less than 50% of the surgery even working. Both shoulders, both hips, and my SI joints are eaten up from Osteoarthritis. This surgery on the 12th is on my right shoulder. I do PT several times a week at the VA hospital. Complicating my pain issues is I can't take Lortabs or Oxycodone, my surgeon is going to mix some things like versed along with some large dosages of OTC pain killers. I also will have a tube in my shoulder for 72 hours with medication deadening that shoulder and my left arm. I will be in the VA as an inpatient for at least while I have that tube in me.

 

out of 16 pain medicines, Norco and Oxy being out leaves morphine which is multiple of one and not strong enough and you are into demerol and diladud which is a factor of two and three respectively. My ER uses Diladud as their biggest gun. And CDC discourages the hell out of Demerol anyway.

That leaves the hydro morphine class medicines and similar which are restricted to just Cancer Patients and Hospice pain control. Those medicines by needle usually provide about 160 to 300 MME daily against what they call break through pain.

Ordinary pain doctors understand what BT Pain is but do not have permission from the state to prescribe that to ordinary pain patients. Not at that class of medicine.

When you get away from semi synthetics like Oxy and move to regular natural medicines like say Morphine things get easier. But you need more of that to get the relief until tolerance kicks in and you need more and more and more.

There is no end. You probably already know this. That leads me to ask you this. Do you know when enough is enough? Possibly not to take the surgical risk perhaps?

 

I was loaded in Washington and put the seal in the wrong place on my trailer, which caused my trailer to not be secured.

100 miles later down the highway another driver flagged me down, I pulled over and seen my trailer door wide open.

 

Honestly, I try to tell people what my therapist told me, “always exhaust all your options before getting surgery” many surgeons want the money and will cut you up for anything! You come in to our clinic and say you have neck pain, well your going to need surgery. And when they get surgery they feel worse. There’s a bunch of things you can look at for pain: CBD oil, marijuana, seeing a pain management doctor, I’ll give you a tip from the pain management doctor I use to work with, look up “turmeric powder for pain” you will see it comes in pill and powder forms, a lot of people at our clinic swears this works. Another treatment you can try that won’t be covered by insurance is PRP injections, these run about $600-800 per injection. Another is ketamine infusion, which runs about $600-1000 per session, you need a total of 4-6 sessions. Even try aquatic therapy, a lot of people love it. Once you have exhausted EVERYTHING, then surgery is your final option!