Me and my wrist

A little over a year ago I tripped over an empty shoe box. Boxes, really. Two of them stacked on top of each other. Doc Martens, to be exact. I fell backwards, hard. I landed on my hip, my knee and then twisted my ankle. I landed so hard I was fairly sure that was the end of my fucked up left knee. But it was fine. I made sure my ankle was okay. Fine, bleeding a little, but fine. Later that day I'd notice a really gnarly bruise. But fine.

Then I noticed my fingers hurt. And the base of my index and middle fingers began to swell and bruise. Fuck, I thought. I just broke my damn hand. I had some meeting I couldn't miss and I began to wonder if I'd have to cancel it so I could get my hand checked out. But I could make a fist and wiggle my fingers. I was fine.

A week or two later I had a doctor's appointment for something else. I was telling her about my fall and how surprised I was that I didn't break anything. I figured part of was because I'm pretty strong and lift weights, so the muscle helped; she agreed.

Fast forward another week or so.... I'm typing away for a couple of hours in my office, something I hadn't done for a long time. And my left wrist began to throb and burn. It hurt so damn bad. I called my doctor to make an appointment. She was pretty sure it was tendonitis, which can be caused by a trauma. The plan: Wear a brace for a few weeks. If it doesn't help, she'd refer me to a hand therapist.

It didn't help. I went to a hand therapist. She made me a new splint. This was December 2018. Some things got better, other things didn't. Then other stuff began to hurt: my shoulder (although my massage therapist gave me a stretch that helped), my elbow, my fingers. By April she said discharged me back to my doctor. I was initially on a six week plan with five goals, after four months, I'd achieved one of those goals. Time for an image.

I got an MRI. It looked like a torn ligament and possible cartilage damage. I was referred to a hand surgeon. Unfortunately, the hand surgeon was retiring and not taking new patients. It was still April and the new guy wasn't starting until July. I opted to see a non-hand doctor orthopedic. He was nice. Really great. He agreed, the symptoms looked like a torn ligament, but he said I really needed to see the hand doctor. Could I wait six week?

Fine.

When I saw him, I had a new Xray. Diagnosis? Ulnocarpel Impingement Syndrome, sometimes called ulnar impaction syndrome. The ulnar bone was a couple millimeters longer than the other bone. This can create pressure and inflammation between the ulna bone and the hand bones and put pressure on the TFCC ligament and cause degradation of the soft tissue. Well, shit.

Conservative treatment: cortisone shots to treat the inflammation. When all else fails: surgery. We did a shot. It hurt. I swore (one "fuck" and one "Jesus christ that hurt!") I could do shots ever four months. Give him a call if I needed another one.

Did it help? No. I waited four months and made an appointment. I was still wearing the brace I'd gotten in December. By this time, I had been wearing some sort of brace for a year. I felt like I had two options: Wear a splint for the rest of my life or have surgery. Based on my previous experience at the same office with a different doctor, I was really worried. I was terrified I'd get there and the hand doctor would tell me to suck it up (buttercup).

When I told him the shot didn't really help, he said, "I'm not surprised given the issue." So we talked next steps, namely surgery (ulnar shortening osteotomy, also: video with blood, without blood). He approached it with a If-you-decide-to-do-this tone. I stopped him, told him I was already in the surgery mindset. I didn't want to wear a splint for the rest of my life. So, we talked specifics. I have a date, I have a recovery calendar. I've done a deep dive into literature about the surgery (success rates, outcomes, etc.). I'm ready. Oh, and to add to this, I've begun to develop tendonitis on the other side of the same hand. Awesome.

And I am. But last night, for the first time in a year, I cried. I did something, like reach for something, and I got a sharp pain in my wrist. It was like a final straw. I teared up and cried. And got angry. Because I am sick and fucking tired of this. I am tired of being in pain. I am tired of feeling broken. I am tired of this splint. I am just pissed off. I'm still pissed off. Its like now that I have a plan and a solution (hopefully), I have reached my fucking limit.

My surgery is scheduled for the beginning of December, and it can't get here fast enough.

My fucked up knees

Three or four years I have found out just how old I am. By that I mean my body began to fall apart. At least that is what it felt like.

Three years ago, I developed a sharp pain in my knee. After a trip to the doctor and some time with my personal trainer, I got an MRI and was sent to an orthopedic surgeon. Diagnosis? Arthritis. And you know what? I cried. I had been in some serious pain for several months. I couldn't walk across the library without it feeling like someone was driving a nail into my knee.

Up to that point, I thought it was a meniscus tear--or something like that because it had come on so suddenly. But arthritis was forever. It was never going away. As I'm sitting there in the doctor's office, all I could think was how this would be my life from here on out. Pain. Lots of it.

During this time, the doctor started telling me how he was five or so years older than me and his knees creaked after he ran, this is what happens when you get old. Surgery couldn't help me. And then he started in talking about weight and exercise. I was like, "So what you are telling me is that I'm old and fat." He was pretty taken aback by my comment. When I cried more, he was like, "It's obvious you are upset." I was offended by his dismissiveness. I tried to explain, that this meant it was forever and I wasn't mentally prepared for that. Shortly after this, he walked out and said, "I'm sorry that it wasn't what you wanted to hear," and he walked out.

Since my appointment with the orthopedic, I had had come to Jesus moment where I realized I needed to take control over my body. It felt like it was failing and I needed to stop that. I bought a bike. I began working with a personal trainer. I began to build muscle to replace the cartilage I'd lost. I began to feel better. Then the other one began to hurt in a new way. New because I fucked up my right knee when I was in college and it had hurt off and on for twenty-plus years. But it began to hurt in a new way.

I went back to my doctor who sent me back to my physical therapist. It was my patella--again. That was the problem the first time with my right knee, but now it was the other side. After a few weeks, she sat me down and said I needed to go back to an orthopedic and advocate for myself. She suggested I go to Seattle and see a sports doctor, not a local surgeon. I wanted to see a local surgeon first. I asked to go to the same doctor a friend went to. And you know what? He was great.

I mean, it's the same issue. I have arthritis. But he told me straight up, "You have the arthritis of a 65 year old." I didn't realize how much I needed to have someone validate my pain. He took the time to explain the issues and answer my questions. Surgery still wasn't an option. I was too young. My BMI was too high (not by much, he said. If I lost 20 pounds I'd be under the limit). My age was the big one because, basically, my insurance wouldn't pay for it. He began to go into the you-need-to-be-more-active speech. I cut him off and told him I exercised.

This is the thing, I'm short, but I am not small. I get really pissed off when people look at me and assume I don't exercise or work out or take care of myself. I don't have high blood pressure. I have low cholesterol, I workout four to five days a week.

So the conversation changed: And I doing more damage when my knees hurt when I walk or workout. The damage is done, he told me. The cartilage isn't coming back. Know my limits, manage the pain, and live my life. If I had knee replacements put in now, I'd probably need two if not three more total replacements by the end of my life, and there would be a good chance they wouldn't be able to do a third one (you lose bone with each surgery). If this happened, I'd be wheelchair-bound. I didn't like the answer, but I understood it. I asked if I saw a third doctor if he'd tell me the same thing. Yes, he said. And if they didn't, they were offering surgery for the wrong reasons.

I had a bunch more questions about different types of treatment. For the most part, my knees were too far gone for those to help. So, great. Thing is? I left his office feeling pretty good. I had answers and I knew what my answers were. But more than that, being treated like my pain was real (because it was)? It was everything.

I worked with my trainer to develop a plan that would maximize muscle in my knees and that would help me develop the strength I needed. I began to take control of my body. Three years later, my knees still bother me but not like they did. I'm still working with a trainer. I'm still not small, but I am strong as fuck. I have upper body strength. My back is strong. My legs, stronger. I can deadlift 210 pounds (I started at 65).

I still have arthritis. I still hurt from time to time. I get stiff, but I know how to handle it. And, goddammit, at some point in my life, I want new knees.

Why all this now? Because for the last year, I've had a fucked up wrist. And in a little over a month, I'm having surgery. And my experience with this has made me look back on the experiences I had when meeting with doctors about my knees and how much it shaped my expectations now. But I'll continue that story in another post.

I'm a Shitty Sick Person

I really am. I get bored. Like super bored. Super duper bored.

Last May I was out with strep. Yes, strep. that thing that you probably haven't had since you were 16. Well, I tested negative for strep, but the doctor was like, "I looks like strep, it sounds like strep, we're treating it like strep." I was out for two weeks, but I stumbled into work when there was something I needed to be there for, and then I'd stumble home and sleep for 48 hours.

Now I have whatever version of head cold is making its way through campus. It's now Monday, and I've been home since Thursday afternoon. I even put a "I'm Sick" away message on my work email because I left in the middle of the day and didn't know how long I'd be out.

This is what I've learned--or re-learned--in the last few days.

• Grocery delivery services are the Best Thing Ever. I had groceries delivered Friday AM. I got things like cough drops, orange juice, NyQuil, soup, and Kleenex. As soon as I opened the door, the woman delivering my groceries said, "I hope you feel better.,"
• Sick Day TV is boring as fuck. Last time I watched a lot of Murder, She Wrote but I kept falling asleep in the middle of it. This time it's been the Food Channel. 
• Not all sleepy time sick medicine is made the same. When I had strep, NyQuil was worthless. So this time I took the same sleepy time cold medicine but it didn't do jack shit. So I was awake at 2am, groggy, watching Beat fucking Bobby Flay on the Food Channel before I finally gave up and took some NyQuil on top of what I already took. Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't mix medicines, blah blah blah, but I lived. And slept. 
• I tried playing Fallout Shelter on my phone. My dwellers keep having babies but there's not enough water, electricity, or food. So I stopped. Apparently those dwellers are still having babies. 
• Unfortunately, NyQuil only goes so far. Saturday night I slept most of the night (meaning I didn't wake up every two hours), but I did wake up at 5am coughing and feeling shitty in a whole new way. So I moved to the couch so I could sleep sitting up. I woke up at 8am feeling like I'd slept sitting up on the couch.
• I went outside today. Outside! For the first time since Saturday. I took out the recycling because it was driving my crazy. And it completely wore me out. 
• Twitter and Facebook are keeping me company. 
• My friends are awesome because one of them delivered pho to me Friday night and another delivered some groceries I forgot to order (frozen strawberries for smoothies, dish soap, and coffee). 
• I ordered a bunch of shit off Etsy. 
• The cats are super happy I'm home. 
• Being sick sucks.