Going under the knife...

 

 

 

I met with 'THE' shoulder guy's PA last week to discuss the results of my MRI, nerve study and to get another thorough shoulder exam.  He was very knowledgeable, thorough, gentle but emphatic that we had to move the joint this way and that, several times over,  to pinpoint what exactly was causing the pain.

 

I told him how awful 'the shot' was, how frustrated I am about not really having a solid answer or even a 'plan' on how to fix it four months into my quest to resolve my pain, and how I really can't go on.  I can't function with this pain one. more. day.

 

I think he heard me.  We studied my MRI.  We looked at the big, nasty site where I have a bunch of osteoarthritis around the AC joint.  He apologized up and down before revealing to me that IF we were going to get to the bottom of this, he would have to give me another shot.  My face fell.  I was just about to resort to throwing a fit, right then and there, when he said that it was just a local anesthetic.  He needed to inject it into my AC joint so that he could pinpoint whether the pain was primarily caused by the arthritis we were seeing in the AC joint (a test that was nicely confirmed on this site), or if the tear in the labrum was also causing pain.  The result of this little test meant a huge difference - an easy surgery with one day in a sling, or a more involved surgery with four weeks in an immobilizer.  Sure... shoot me up, doc.  It hurt.  And it wasn't just one shot.  It was three.  :( 

 

Good news is, is that in about 10 minutes time, I could swing my arm around, PAIN FREE.  I told him it was a miracle.  He told me it was temporary.  Damn.  The fact that it was truly pain free, even after he redid all of the "Does this hurt if I do this?" tests, meant that even though there was a labrum tear, it was NOT the cause of my pain.  The arthritis in my AC joint (see my MRI below), combined with a bone spur digging into my rotator cuff, was the culprit, and could be resolved with a bit of arthroscopic surgery.

 

 

So I meet with "THE" shoulder guy for another quick once-over pre-op appointment this coming Tuesday morning, and then Wednesday morning is the day.  I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 





The shark in the pool...

 

 

 

One of my most unpleasant memories from childhood concerned the neighborhood bully, Alan Aragon.  (oh hell no, you don't deserve the anonymity of the Internet, Alan - I am calling you OUT) Alan lived just down the street from my family, and he was about the same age as my older brother..maybe a little older (I guess to me, he seemed like a really, really big kid) and I was very afraid of him.  He would push kids around at the bus stop, he threw my backpack under the bus as it was approaching, he stole my brother's bike and hit my brother when confronted, and worst of all, he played a mean, mean trick on me.

 

There is nothing worse than someone pretending to be who they aren't.  One day, after school, the phone rang.  We were latchkey kids back then (do they even exist anymore?), so I answered.  The male voice on the phone started out by making sure I was the 'pretty girl who lived in the white house'.  (creepy huh?).  But it was a young kid's voice... so I wasn't thinking that it was a predator.  That was before they existed. (ha!)  The voice continued to lay on the charm, and eventually revealed that he was a boy that lived one street over.  I didn't know this particular boy very well, but I thought he was cute.  He invited me over to his house, where he said he would be waiting out front to give me a 'great big kiss'.  (Ewww).  My 8, 9, 10 ?? year-old self was so incredibly flattered by this. This had never happened before!!!  Go me!!!  So I told my brother I was going to a friend's house.  (This was the 70's, remember?  Back when it was safe for a child to walk 50 ft. down the street.  Alone.)  So I walked.  I approached his house.  There was nobody outside.  I don't recall exactly what happened next - most likely because I've repressed it - but it involved Alan and his buddies approaching, taunting me, laughing and being really shitty.  I ran home.  I. was. mortified.  I have carried that emotional scar for a long. long. time.  I don't like pretenders.  Fakes.  People who pretend to be something they are not, just so they can get a laugh at the expense of others.

 

I've had more than my fair share of fakes in my life.  My ex-husband claims the #1 spot, followed by more than a few sleazy bosses, customers during my waitressing days and a few friends from my school days.  It hurts the worst when it comes from someone you think you know.  It is the pain of the surprise - you didn't see it coming, even though you were evidently swimming in the pool with a shark for the entire time.

 

  





Earning my 'mom' stripes

 

 

 

This week is putting me through my paces...  May is our busiest month of the year.  So 'things' many come to an arbitrary 'end' in May - and even though we homeschool, we get overruled by the conventional school calendar some times.  Recitals, testing, well-checks and summer visitation seem to rule this month, no matter how hard I try to stave it off...

 

The week before last meant well-checks for Owen and Colin (both healthy, although Owen sent up red flags during his hearing test.  I think he was just not paying attention...), the dentist for all kids (Rylan had two baby teeth pulled) - with no cavities - extending our streak to 2 1/2 years - yay us!!  I had a nerve study done (carpal tunnel in the right arm, but no impingement in the brachial plexus), a violin recital, a super-fun MNO, a birthday party to attend for Rylan, and a camping trip for Dean and Jordan.

 

Last week was birthday week.  No appointments, but no less crazy.  I will write about it soon.  After I recover from this week.

 

This week is the marathon week.  Monday was violin lesson followed by an appointment for me to see the orthopaedic surgeon (more about that in a different post) and Jordan skipped his scout meeting so that he could do his make-up belt testing instead.  Belt promotions is really this Saturday, but Jordan will be camping, so we had to do it this way.  Tuesday was awful.  Jordan began the day with academic testing.  He spent a little over three hours taking his math and reading MAP tests.  He did very well, but since it went way longer than I planned on, we had to break up the testing and added an additional testing day (tomorrow) to finish up.  I just couldn't ask him to do another hour, hour 1/2 when he was already mentally tired.  We spent the afternoon of Tuesday racing around to different appointments.  Jordan had his camp physical well-check, followed by a tune-up at the orthodontist, and then karate rounded out the day.  Yesterday was a little more sane - just an eye appointment for Owen.  Today was fun, followed by no fun.  We spent a lovely morning at a small farm north of town, milking goats, chasing chickens and riding horses with the daisy scouts.  When I could finally drag the kids to the car, we dashed home, scarfed down lunch and got Jordan to his ped. psychiatrist for a periodic med check, followed by the dermatologist for a periodic check on his incredibly persistent and aggravating warts that are on his hands. 

 

 

I don't think I did anybody any favors by stacking up the week like this, but sometimes it just has to be done.  Jordan leaves for a three-week stay in OKC on Monday.  And then he comes home and goes straight to boy scout summer camp, and then he goes back to OKC for another three weeks.  It takes a lot of forethought to make sure we cover our bases before we send him forth.. meds in hand, forms signed.. it is a real headache sometimes to manage the multiple facets of his healthcare, but I would rather send him prepared than leave to chance.

 

One more day to go... then I can breathe just a little bit...

Lucky...

I am one lucky mom, wife and daughter. This was my 7th Mother's Day, and it just keeps getting better every year. I have few requests when it comes to celebrating Mother's Day. There are just a couple of must-haves: breakfast in bed (along with long stretches of quiet time) and handmade cards from the kids. My husband achieved this with flying colors again this year. Jordan fried bacon and helped Dean with the dishes, and Rylan and Owen flipped pancakes. Dean brought up a venti mocha from Starbucks, Jordan delivered granola with fruit a little while later, and then a while after that he brought up a fully loaded breakfast tray with juice, bacon and pancakes. I was stuffed! The kids each made a card - all sweet and endearing in their own way.

Worthy of special mention this year was the fact that Owen wrote on his card. He printed 'mouse' on the front - complete with a drawing of one on the front of the card...

 

And a message on the inside...

 

This is extra-special because this is the first handwriting sample of his that I have. His very first writing sample was made on Thursday, when he signed his name on the inside of the Mother's Day card that the kids sent off to their grandma in OKC. Up to this point, all I have been able to encourage him to write was the letter 'f' in his Explode the Code workbook, a couple of weeks ago. Owen is five years and four months, and he is the kid that has previously avoided anything that involved drawing, coloring or writing. It took serious arm-twisting to get even a little drawing as a 'signature' in other cards and so forth... So this is huge - and I have my husband and his idea to use Bananagrams to thank.

We had an awesome day, and it was even better since I got to celebrate both Mother's Day and Rylan's 7th birthday on the same day. Happy (belated) Mother's Day to every mom, caretaker and mentor out there. It is a hard job, but oh so rewarding...

 

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The Merry Month of May

 

It's birthday week around here... Jordan turns 13 on Thursday, and Rylan turns 7 on Sunday (what a neat Mother's Day! :). We have some very nice, laid back plans, so I am actually looking forward to it. Jordan wants to go to the Hibachi (a Japanese steakhouse) for his birthday dinner, and then he will play laser tag with his good friend Abbi this weekend, hopefully. Rylan has a small(ish) party planned later this week, painting pottery with her fellow Daisy scouts friends. We will have a family dinner out on Sunday at a Mexican food restaurant that Rylan requested.

Jordan wants his usual request for birthday cake: chocolate blackout cake. I will be making allergy-friendly dairy/gluten/artificial 'anything' free chocolate frosted cupcakes for Rylan's party, and then I get the joy of puzzling out how to make a 'pond' of blue cupcakes as a base for Silvermist (the Pixie Hollow water fairy) to sit on - on a lily pad, of course, for Rylan's official birthday cake with the family on Sunday. Way easier than a doll cake, (last year's effort). Not sure if my teenage son and nephews will be thrilled to eat pretty blue cupcakes off of Tinkerbell plates - and at a public restaurant no less - but there you go. That is the wish of a certain soon-to-be seven year-old girl, and since she is the only girl in both our families, she is given a lot of latitude. :)

Jordan is getting close to reaching his savings goal for an iPad. He was initially shooting for a laptop, but I think we have finally convinced him otherwise. His birthday money just may get him there this week. I just love super-easy birthday presents.

Rylan is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her Barbie Dreamhouse that is on its way from Amazon. I am so proud of this girl. She has been saving for months, and fully funded the purchase herself. A combination of Christmas money, allowance, chore money and tooth fairy money got her there. In fact, the final push was the surprise removal of two bottom teeth at the dentist this past Friday. She earned a whopping $10 dollars (such a generous Tooth Fairy!) for that. Get this - on Friday evening, Rylan speculated how much the Tooth Fairy was going to leave her. She laid the two teeth out on the counter to compare them. One tooth was tiny - practically one sneeze away from falling out on its own (in fact, the dentist did that one for 'free'...) and the other had a very, very long root. So Rylan figured that since the long tooth was the same length as 'four' of the little tooth, then it should be worth 4x the going rate for a tooth ($4 a tooth, in our house). So she did the math and figured that the Tooth Fairy would be leaving her $20. Ahem. I informed her that I wasn't positive, but I was pretty sure that the Tooth Fairy didn't base her payment structure quite like that... I did think, however, that the Tooth Fairy did take into consideration if you went through a painful tooth extraction when you lost your tooth. So, in the end, the Tooth Fairy must have calculated a 50% increase in payment for the extracted tooth, which I think is pretty fair.

So, here's to a busy, but fun week ahead. Hope you have a good one too!

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A diagnosis..sort of

My MRI was bright and early Tuesday morning. When it was over and I was preparing to leave, the technician told me that I would hear from my doctor in a few days. Surprisingly, he called that afternoon. He said the MRI shows that I have tendonitis in the rotator cuff, and a torn labrum. What's a labrum? It is like a cup of cartilage that anchors the top of your humerus into the shoulder joint. Picture this: a beach ball and a dinner plate. The 'ball' is the round head of the humerus and the 'plate' is socket. Ligaments are at work to hold the joint together, but the labrum functions to 'deepen' the socket.

 

Injury to the labrum can happen several different ways. Whenever you fully dislocate your shoulder or stress the joint so much that it becomes unstable (subluxation), you will tear the labrum (among a host of other things). If you fall and put you arm out to brace yourself, you could tear it as well. There is significantly less blood flow to cartilage, tendons and ligaments, so whenever you do have an injury, the healing process takes a lot longer than if it were just a muscle tear. A tear in the labrum will eventually heal, but it might reattach in the wrong place in the socket, or a torn bit can fold into the socket, causing a 'catch' whenever the joint moves.

 

Several ligaments of the shoulder attach to the labrum, as well as the bicep tendon. The bicep tendon attaches to the labrum at the superior point of the socket, and then the labrum extends around in an anterior and posterior direction (front and back). If you tear the labrum at that attachment point (the superior region of the socket, closest to your head), it is called a SLAP lesion. (Superior Labrum Anterior and Posterior). I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I think that this may be what it is. There are several different degrees and locations of tears, but in thinking about my pain and the one injury that I can recollect in the past year, this makes the most sense. I was already hurting quite a bit in the shoulder when it happened. I had Colin up on the changing table, and as I stood him up to pull up his pants, he launched himself off of the table, to my right. I stuck my arm out at a 90 degree angle to catch him. Oh. My. Gosh. Did that ever hurt. I heard a 'pop!' I was thinking at the time that it was still my shoulder, and that I must have pulled more muscles when it happened. Now I wonder about that. Catching a falling object that weighs 35 lbs or so with an outstretched arm will put quite a strain on the bicep. My pain before this incident was limited to my shoulder and pectoral area. Now it involves my bicep and my shoulder blade too. I don't recall exactly when it happened, but it has been a few months.

 

So what does this mean? Most likely some shoulder surgery. I have an appointment this afternoon to do a nerve study. There might be an issue with my brachial plexus since that is a nexus point of pain and that I have numbness going down the underside of my arm. I also recently discovered that operating a can opener or nail clippers with my right hand is getting very difficult - I just don't have the hand strength to do it. The results from this test will go to the orthopedic surgeon to go over, and then we'll go on from there.

 

Now, if I could just get a handle on the pain while I wait, that would be great.

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Happy May Day!

 

 

 

I actually don't mind the snow - this is the only time our backyard looks semi-pretty. :)

 

It is also a great reason to stay indoors, sip cocoa and make a big pot of chili for dinner.

I'm going to miss winter, whenever it actually does leave...so I will enjoy this day immensely!

 

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