Welcome to a blog that will not end tonight. I hope it doesn't end at all. I am going to be reviewing a medical device that is supposed to cut back severe back pain using electricity instead of my usual codeine. The stimulating machine is made by Medtronic. No, they are not paying me. I wish they would though. No one is telling me to do this but I feel the urge to help people suffering from pain.
I have had serious back issues since 2011. They would react to the cold in my job and give me hellacious headaches. It cost me my job. As the back pain worsened, more jobs were lost, including my dream job at Amazon. Nights were filled with pain so severe that my leg would move in the whole range of motion it has left, violently. By now, Codeine was all that would remotely help. It took enough of the edge off to allow me to sleep. My Dr, Dr Carlson recommended we look into spinal stimulation to ease the pain. So much is wrong in my spine that any sort of surgery to fix one thing would make another issue worse. After fighting the insurance company, they agreed to allow the trial run. In the trial, my stimulator is left on the outside of my body to see if it is worth a permanent try. So, the one above is the permanent one. If this works, it would be implanted under the skin.
New wires would be run to the spine and it would all be underground. Right now I am covered in tape on my back to keep it all attached to myself. It comes with a remote control that allows you to change the way it works. If an enemy got a hold of this, they could have fun. I am a remote controlled human. But I must say, the Rep turned it up to full power and it really felt cool. It's like a Tens Unit at the chiropractor but a hell of a lot more powerful, and fun! So, lets begin. Day 1- The unit has been in myself 12 hours. My back is sore from where I was cut, but other than that its pain free. I walked the grocery store looking for ingredients for dinner tonight and the only thin I felt was the 2 discs that push on my spinal cord. Even that was really nothing. The big test came at bed time. When I lie down, all hell breaks loose from my hips to which ever leg it wants to torture. I feel a shock begin to charge and then it explodes down my leg causing me to kick violently. It fucking hurts. I made it to bed at 10:00 and laid there waiting. Nothing. My neuropathy pain was almost to "0" and nothing like it has been. Why I woke up at 2 I can't say, but its nice. There was no pain. Stay tuned for more.
Just so you all know, this entry is being written to myself. The last 3.5 years haven't been what I would call good times. To be honest, they have really sucked porpoise peters. Yes that was crude but this is an entry to me. Live with it. So, I have had open heart surgery, sternum plating, removal of the plating, thumb surgery, elbow surgery and I destroyed my leg in a fall. If we step back in time before that, the arthritis in my body has raised all sorts of hell. Breaking my tailbone in 2007 still pains me today. My L-4 and 5 are trash which can cause pains to shoot down my leg with such force that I kick like a pissed off mule. I have 2 discs in my mid back that are physically compressing my spinal cord, which while standing for any amount of time, hurts like there is no tomorrow. Life really sucks. It hurts to sit. It hurts to stand. It hurts to lay down. I am running out of ways to do anything. As hard as I try and want to be able to do things, my body laughs in my face and says "good luck with that asshole"!
So, where does that leave me? FUBAR comes to mind. I landed myself a fairly decent job here in Salt Lake at the new Amazon warehouse. I had high hopes for working for them and living happily ever after. I started tonight in the sorting department. It was a simple job of removing an order from a tote and placing it in the boxing mail box. Once persons order had arrived in full, the folks on the other side of the mailbox could package the order and send it to shipping. Simple, easy job. I picked it up super-fast and was doing really well. After 45 minutes, the pains began become quite noticeable. After 2 hours I was wanting to die. At the 6 hour mark, I couldn't take it anymore. It felt like I was being stabbed in my back. I resigned from Amazon tonight. The drive home was miserable because it hurt so bad and because I failed. Some have insinuated that I just don't want to work. Whatever! To be able to live life one has to be able to work. I just can't do it anymore. I can't sit for more than 10 minutes and standing is about the same. 10 minutes go buy and the fire begins in my back. I hate my life. As for drawing the line, tonight was the final straw. I have been told by quite a few people to apply for social security disability. You people win. I am going to go find a lawyer to take the case on and see where I come out. I don't want to but what choices are left? I would love to try and get certified as a coder in web page building. You can work out of your home which would be a good thing. Will it happen? With my luck, we all know the answer. So, the line is drawn and who knows what is going to happen. Jeep on my friends!
Welcome to an actual adventure where the fotos are actual fotos of the actual adventure. Say that fast 3 times, I dare you! So, our escape today began up a canyon just north of Portage, Utah. We headed west up the canyon past a few springs till we almost hit the the top of the mountain. A quick right sent us down a side canyon that headed north and took us into Idaho and the Samaria Mountains. Now here is where it got interesting. As we started up this little canyon, we began to see real trees like Quaking Aspen and Pine. For some reason, the mountains west of where I live in Utah are too dry for these big old trees. In one little spot, I swear we saw some old cut down trees from years ago that were easily 5 feet in diameter. They were kinda cool
As we neared the top, we came to a spot where we could see for miles into the western Malad Valley. I got on Google Earth just to check out where the other road went and found an interesting marker. At the spot where we stopped, there were cows everywhere down this little draw. It had looked as if the road went down that way, but it really didn't. Looking on the Google shot of the area, this little draw is call San Libertas of the Good Samaritan. The view from above suggests something might have been there before but as to what I do not know. I did a quick Google search and found nothing. Now I gotta dig deep I suppose and find the truth. I mean all it says is church in Oneida County Idaho. Who knows?
From there the road went across the top of the mountain and headed down to life in the valley. I often wonder things like who built this road and why. With the exception of the High Uinta mountains, pretty much every range in Utah has hundreds if not thousands of miles of dirt roads that seem to go almost anywhere. I am sure that some are fire roads and of course you have the roads built to service mines and other resources. Whatever the reason, most of these roads offer the driver a chance to escape the big city traffic jams and see some things you might not have known existed. Just do a wee bit of research before you go so you don't end up on a trail that could destroy you and your vehicle. That would make for a shitty day! Jeep on my friends.
Buenos dias people! Welcome to another off road adventure. This trip took us into Wyoming for the first time ever. OK, the first ghost town trip into Wyoming. Been there lots of times for other things. A visit to the High Uinta Mountains was our first stop on this expedition. We chose to take Hiway 150 from Kamas over the range and into Wyoming so we could visit Mirror Lake. Mirror Lake is a beautiful, natural lake high up in the mountains. Our first stop on this trip was Provo River Falls. As you can see from the foto, the falls are incredibly pretty. This would be a nice place to build a cabin. As the road continued north we finally made it to the top. The view is really grand........ with one exception. I don't have a foto of it but the tree population in the area is a scary sight to see. I would be willing to bet that somewhere between 25% to 35% of the tree population is dead. As you gaze over the forest below, you can't help but see that the area has some sort of issue with the tree population. It is so bad, in my opinion, that I didn't even bother to get my camera out. It is that bad. Fact is, if they get a lightning strike or some careless camper starting a fire, this whole area will disappear. I can't figure out why the Forest Service hasn't had firewood cutters or professional sawyers come in and thin out the dead trees. There are 1000's of them. And like I said, if it catches on fire.... it is gone.
We followed 150 north towards Wyoming when I noticed a sign saying gold hill. We turned up the road and were greeted with a sign saying 4x4 only trail. I was excited. It wasn't a difficult trail per say, but due to the rocks on the trail, I went into 4lo to make it easy on the Jeep. What was lacking on the trail was any real type of signage. We followed the trail for about an hour or so then headed back. Our goal was to have been Gold Hill Pass but we never found it. I did look it up on Google Earth when I got home so when I go back, I now know where I need to go. Next on the list for the day was the ghost town of Piedmont Wyoming. Piedmont is my first Wyoming ghost town and a Union Pacific tent town from the transcontinental railroad days. The community was built around 1868 and was a farming as well as a charcoal business that fed the Utah mines. The town prospered until the railroad built a tunnel through the mountain and by doing this took the train and its service out of Piedmont. With no cheap way to ship the charcoal, the business soon went under. By 1940 or so, the town gave up and disappeared. Today there are a few buildings still standing as well as the charcoal kilns.
As close as it is to I-80, as well as being on every map I saw, the town is in remarkably good state. Time is taking its toll, but there still is some interesting things to see. I would recommend that you visit it in the spring or fall. It was pretty damn hot out there and there isn't a lot of shade.
We were just 10 miles or so from our final destination and right on schedule. The last official stop for the day was another historical site, Fort Bridger. FB was built in 1842 by the legendary mountain man Jim Bridger. He built the fort to be a supply house for the pioneers going to Oregon, California and Utah. He owned the fort until the Mormon Church bought him out in 1857. They had it for a year and then burned it to the ground. The US Army was on the march to Utah to wipe out the church so they burned just about everything of any value in an attempt to slow them down. Once the army arrived, they took control over the fort until it was abandoned in the 1890's.
From then on, it basically wasn't much of anything but a farm town. Sometime between 1920 and 1935, the property became of interest due to its historical past. The ground was bought and the preservation soon began. Today you can visit the past for just $4 per person. This is another spring/fall visit time. It was damn hot there on our visit so plan accordingly. I do have one complaint tho. There were 2 people there for the whole attraction. If you had a question to ask, there was no one to answer it. Kinda sad if you ask me. Another issue was that 90% of the buildings were locked and the windows so dirty that you couldn't see well enough inside to snap a foto. Yes, I was disappointed. But, its now crossed off the list of things to see. Twas a great day for exploring. A little on the warm side, but that's a lot better than the last one where we got hailed on. Jeep on my friends.
Hi and welcome back. I can honestly say I hate Blogger. I either need a tutorial or a cheat sheet. I have no Idea why but if you add a video, it for some reason centers the text. But if you break into the code and "right" the video, the text goes right too. Anyway, today was kind of unplanned. The original plan got changed at 3am and then an 830am call brought back the need for a plan, but a way shorter plan then the original. Um, OK. Logan Canyon, 3 hours, back home. Didn't happen that way. But, I am not complaining. So, Kirt and I headed up Beaver Creek Canyon with the plan to take it over to Bear Lake and come home. We came down a canyon that was damn near equal to North Beach, St Charles I believe. As we neared the bottom, this huge hill presented itself with a trail to the top to overlook the lake. Old Yellow took the hill without even using the 4x4 system and made it look easy. We took some fotos and video and then went back down. This is the video going back down. We hit the bottom and it was close to lunch time so I decided that we would go north to Montpelier, eat lunch then go over the mountain and come out in Preston. Well, the guilty party decided we needed more time in the hills so we headed north towards Soda Springs.
We go to the outskirts and took an odd route into town. We went through the Beverly Hills of Soda Springs. Beautiful Mountain mansions with tons of wooded areas and the Bear River right in the middle. If I had the money.... So, that tour took us into downtown Soda Springs where we headed west out of town. We got out a few miles then took a left turn and headed south again. This was about the time that we lost the perfect 80° temp and it soared to the mid 90's. No problem tho, we turned on the ac and it made the journey a little bit better. Seriously, it still cools you even with no doors or windows. Its like your chest is cool and your back sweats like a mo-fo. It was along this route to Downey that Kirt mentioned how the pioneers of the valley got irrigation water to their fields. The Bear is really low in the valley altitude wise. It flows through a deep canyon so it wouldn't be easy to bring it up to the fields. Well, these dudes were smart. Up river where it doesn't go through a canyon they tunneled through the lava rock for a mile or so and where the tunnel ends is in these fotos.
So the canal is underground till it meets this gorge. They built a bridge for the canal over the river so it could be distributed to the valleys farms. They are damn proud of this engineering feat and invite you to go see it. Now, this is where "fluming" comes in. There is a trail right to where it comes out of the mountain. The water is moving fairly fast and you jump in and let the current carry you to a spot where you can exit. You climb up on top of the canal, there is a walkway, and walk back and do it again. It seems like it would be a blast. I am much to old and worn out to attempt it but if I was younger, I'd be there in a heartbeat. South of where the tunnel exits, the canal crosses the river again. We walked across, its about 80 feet high, with the canal under our feet. There were 4 kids down below using a rope swing to fly out over the water and land mid river. I have a video of these kids on my YouTube page if you care to watch. Hell, Idaho knows how to have fun. If anyone mentions a canal in Utah, It has to be covered or blocked out by a 15 foot electrified razor wire fence.
The next stop on the tour was out in the middle of a wheat field. As you can see, its the Niter Ice cave. Sometime 1000's of years ago, the area has some active volcanoes. Mother Nature left a hollow lava tube that opens up right in the middle of a field. The state has added some railing to aid in walking into the cave and its pretty damn cool. Literally. If you blink you miss the turn off and you would never know its there. When you get into the cave a ways, there is frost on the walls. We didn't have very good flashlights so we didn't go in very far but it was so nice. What I can't figure out is why the discoverer didn't build their house right next to it. Think about it. Your very own fridge/freezer. The sign does mention that the family did store stuff in there, but the house was a ways away. Anyway, it was kinda interesting. From there it was down to the Oneida Dam on the Bear. We checked it out and decided to head for home at this point. All in all, our 4 hour trip turned into 9 hours but they were 9 good hours. I saw a bunch of new things and saw more trails to explore. Sweet, huh? Jeep on my friends!
Hi there and welcome to another post where the fotos really aren't from today. Again, I can do this because this is my blog! Let's do something new, sorta...... 6:15am Awakened by my bladder. 6:20am Phone rings. Caller ID says Sam. Hello? Dad I called the ambulance. I cant walk and I am in Pain. OK I will leave now. Text me when you know where they are taking you. ok 6:35am Hop in yellow Jeep and head south to be with my daughter. Received a text saying she went to a hospital(nameless). 7:45am Arrive at hospital and go into the ER. They send me back to room 9 where no one or no bed is. Nurse says patient went for MRI. Begin to read paper. 8:02am Patient returns to room in a lot of pain. Asks for more pain meds and is finally given some. 9isham Dr comes in and says the MRI says there is nothing wrong with patient and she will be processed to leave. This begins a long 1 sided conversation where the Dr berates and bullies the patient with questions like "What do we have to do to get you out of here?" After roughly 25 minutes of this, he leaves the room and the patient crying. I then leave the room and call the front desk and ask for the head honcho of "said" hospital. I get a manager on the phone and begin a short conversation on how totally fucking rude their employee is and how someone had better get down here before it gets ugly. Within 5 minutes, Dr appears at doorway and asks if there is a problem. I tell him no conversation will be had till some management is in the room. Finally a lady shows up and the conversation begins. I proceed to tell him that Asking a patient what she has to do to get out of there in the tone he did was unacceptable. Then I explained how he is a Dr and we are paying patients. We are there because she is in pain and cannot move her leg at all. "Well the MRI shows nothing! What do you want me to do?" You are the Dr... we are paying you to find out. Out pop more excuses blah blah blah. Finally I was at the blowup point. You are a big mean bully! Do you bully all of the other patients. I mean we all know you did it to Sam on a previous visit. "What do you mean?" Sam tells the story of her first visit there 6 months ago where he did the same thing to her as well as when he called her PCP and hung up on her as well. At this point he apologizes to patient and leaves the room. Now the 2nd manager is in the room and she is able to calm me down. She says we will work this out and there is no way she will be sent home unable to walk. Oh and get this, they called Security on me! Some time passes and 1st manager comes back whining like a 2 year old about how its so hard to admit someone when the MRI says they are OK. I'm like "does she look ok to you?" Point taken. she leaves and comes back after a while saying we are admitting you under pain management and your insurance probably wont pay for it. Blah blah blah. By now its probably 10:20 and they send a nurse in to say we are waiting on a room upstairs. About noon, the 1st manager returns and does an inventory or Sam's belongings and finally transports her to room 4#*. Things should be better now...... by the way, we never saw the ER Dr again.
Our patient is finally getting settled. The nurse comes in and is very polite. They give her more pain meds and life looks better. I go to lunch and come back to the room. A GREAT physical therapist named Joe comes in and does an evaluation on her and shows her some exercises she can do in bed to begin the healing process. He answered all the questions and was awesome. He leaves and a few minutes later in comes another therapist. She is not as nice. Fact of the matter, she was and probably still is a rude bitch! She begins to berate Sam like the ER Dr did. Blah blah blah. Her last sentence out of her mouth was "well, if you don't feel better, we will have to ship you to a group home because you obviously can't take care of yourself". She then stormed out of the room. Sam turned and looked at me and shook her head. I then told her nice nurse that this type of treatment is unacceptable. You don't tell a patient that unless they get better they are going off to some rehab center. PEOPLE....WE ARE AT A HOSPITAL TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS WRONG.... YOUR JOB IS TO DO THAT!!!!! Just after that spout off, the floor manager came in. Our reputation had followed us. I told her she should have been in there 5 minutes earlier. She apologized and said she would talk with the therapist. Needless to say, we didn't see her again. The floor manager made sure we were ok and even got me a donut. Yes, she was that good. So, a bit of time passes and the floor Dr comes in. She is from Venezuela and was extremely helpful and kind. She said what the plan was and made sure Sam was ok with it and left. The rest of the afternoon was uneventful, thank heavens. I ran into the security guard a few times and chatted with him. I apologized that they had to call him but explained the situation. He was cool. We had dinner and at 6:30pm I checked out. I feel bad not being able to stay the night but without my drugs, it would be an ugly night. Needless to say, this was an interesting day. We had a couple of Dr Jekyll's and quite a few Mr Hyde's. I just don't understand how a Dr with such shitty bedside manners can keep a job??? Seriously...The ER was dead. No one was there. Yet he tried his damnedest to kick her out the door as fast as he could. I look back on my visit to the Tooele ER and how slammed that Dr was. He didn't try to shove my ass out the door. He made sure I was ok and understood there were some serious cases ahead of me. I knew it and said its great, no problem. Today I learned that if i happen to need a hospital when I am near that certain town.... I'll go on to Salt Lake. Jeep on my friends!
OK I must make a quick disclaimer. This foto has nothing to do with today. I'll explain in a few. So, a semi-local 4x4 club I am interested in joining did a run on Saturday that piqued my interest. They went to the Paris Ice Caves located north-west of Bear Lake in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. I had never heard of the cave so I thought to myself, I need to go. I talked to Womak and we agreed that it would be a fairly simple Fathers day run. He called at 11 and said lets go. I was thinking it wouldn't be till mid afternoon but hey, more time to explore this new area. We headed over to Logan and proceeded up Logan Canyon to the Franklin Basin turn off. I must explain that there are various ways to get there but he promised this one would be fun. It had rained lightly 30 minutes before we hit the trail so the dust was non existent. I was very happy with this and thought this is gonna be a good day. We followed the road across the basin and went down Hell's Canyon, according to Womak, and then continued by going up the trail to Mink Creek. We passed a really nice Boy Scout camp along the way and began the climb up the mountain. We arrived at the turnoff and I was like, what the hell? German Dugway.... The road was marked travel at your own risk. The road is barely wide enough to fit a Jeep so I knew this was going to get interesting. I put Old Yellow in 4-LO and began crawling up the hill. It was 2.4 miles of some of the gnarliest rock crawling I have done in a long while. I must interject that the sky was looking like the 20% chance of rain was going to be 100 and right quick. I can say I would not do this trail if it was wet. So, seeing what was coming, I pushed the pedal a little bit more so we wouldn't be on it when the storm hit. I really wish I had used the GoPro on this trail. It was quite the adventure. Needless to say we made it to the end and were rewarded with a lot nicer trail. But, Mother Nature was mad she didn't hinder our Dugway trail so she opened up the heavens and all hell broke loose. Seriously....it was a freezing cold rain mixed with some descent sized hail stones. We went from a lovely 75 degrees to like 52 in 2 minutes. Of course, when I read that there was only a 20% chance of rain I figured I wouldn't bother putting on the bikini. Big mistake. Everything became soaked within 30 seconds. Plus, every time one of the hail stones hit you, it really hurt like hell. I understand the name now. Hail=hell. We tried to duck under some of the trees there but that was worthless. We decided what the hell and made a mad dash to get down off the mountain. Now, I had planned on taking a bunch of fotos at the cave but we blew by it with just a quick glance. 25 minutes later we hit pavement in Paris Idaho. We parked under the canopy of the local gas station while we decided what to do. The lady there was really nice and gave us several garbage bags to try and keep us dry. Too late for that! Womak wore his and I covered my camera bag. The interesting thing about this storm was that there was breaks every so often. One break hit while we were there and so we decided to head for home. We made it to Garden City and Womak had me pull into a KOA Campground. He wasn't feeling very good so he decided to rent a cabin and spend the night dry. I was ok with that. I went next door and bought a tarp and covered the Jeep before I went in to dry out. Now, I gotta tell you this. The people we ran into today were so very nice to us. A young man named Collin I believe showed up at the cabin door with a hot pizza for us. He was so awesome. The staff there helped us get settled in and life was ok for the moment. Everyone who knows me knows I have RLS. (look it up) I can't sleep or function after about 7pm without certain drugs. Womak Passed out on his bed and I twiddled my thumbs dreading the 13 hours ahead. My body turns into a Mr Hyde and life becomes unbearable. Womak woke up at 8:30 and asked if we should make a run for it or stay the night. I have 2 weather radar apps on my phone for situations like this. I told him there would be a break in about an hour and we could make it home. He went and dried his clothes and my shirt and we packed up and split. We made it about 5 minutes before all hell broke loose again. We went like 40mph for about half an hour because I couldn't see out the windshield. The wipers did fine on the outside but the inside was just a wet mess. As we passed Beaver Mountain Ski Resort the break showed up. The rain went down to almost nothing so we sped up and ran for home. It was dry the whole way pretty much. It did start to sprinkle again in Garland, but it was really nothing. Later this morning I get to go clean out Mother Natures war on my Jeep. I did learn something though. Hail stones have dirt in them. My back was covered with this fine dirt from where all the stones hit. Weird huh? So, ya. What a great day for the most part. I have updated my first aid kit and now I need to update what I carry. I think I will now carry a change of clothes and a days worth of the drugs I take. Plus, next time it says 20%, I'll know it really means 100. Jeep on my friends!
