hi again,

Went to the orthopedist today to find out the results of the MRI. Turns out I have what’s called a bone bruise. From what I understand your bones have a bunch of tiny vessels within them. A bad fall can cause some of these vessels to break. If too many of them break, you get a fracture. if a lot break, but not enough to cause a fracture, you get what’s called a bone bruise. So basically I have a whole bunch of blood built up in the bone of my arm. Yeah, that sort of hurts. He said, if they had known it was a bone bruise sooner they would’ve put it in a cast. But since they usually have it in a cast for six weeks and it’s already been six weeks he doesn’t want to put it in a cast now. He actually wants me to start using it some to help build up the muscles around it. I have a new brace I am supposed to wear some. It’s another of the pre-manufactured kind, but it doesn’t hurt like the other one did. I start with physical therapy next week and will go back to the orthopedist on May 1. I’m not entirely sure how well it will go since I am still in a lot of pain, when not hopped up on my pain meds. But I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Everyone was very nice to me today and the nurse said if I had any troubles, I’m supposed to call back down ortho. So I feel much more assured. What I found online is bone bruises can last from a few weeks up to four to six months. Not too thrilled about that. Considering all the nightmare scenarios I had running through my head this really is quite good news. It’s not actually broken and I don’t need surgery, yay! And hey, workman’s comp can’t possibly blame this on my tendinitis! plus it’s good to know that I’m not just crazy or a wuss for thinking it hurt so much.

Rachel

Well as you should know I fell 3 weeks ago on ice and believed to have sprained my wrist.  After 6 days of it not getting better I went to the doctor. She was very concerned and took me out of the brace I had been using and put me in this huge splint from hand to just below the elbow.  Fast forward to today.  I finally went to the orthopedist, well actually the ortho PA. The nurse had me take my splint off and promptly threw it away!  The PA came in a whirl wind, obviously hadn’t read the file on the accident.  After examining me she went to review my x-rays and talk to the orthopedist.  She came back and said they need to do an MRI on it because it sounds like a ligament injury, tissue damage or fractures that are too small to show up on regular x-rays. She was about to send me on way when I mentioned the nurse had thrown away my splint. She said she’d send her in.  So the nurse comes back with a velcro wrist brace  almost exactly the same as I had before my first appointment and put it on me. I mentioned that the doctors didn’t want me to flip my hand palm up and the nurse said no, they don’t want you to rotate your wrist.  Confused I went up to make my appointments.  My MRI is Monday at 7AM, which was OK I figured I could deal with this crappy brace for a few days. Then we scheduled the appointment with the orthopedist so I can find out what the MRI says. Well he’s on vacation next week and can’t get me in until the next Thursday (2 wks from today)! The woman making my appointment even asked the PA if it was OK for me to wait that long, which it is to her.  So I have to go 2 more weeks without even knowing what’s wrong or being able to start doing anything!  I was very frustrated and as I do, I started to cry, hard, luckily I made it to my car first.

Frustrated I went back to work. I tried to put my arm on the arm rest of my chair but couldn’t because where the metal of the brace is it pushes right on an injured part of my arm. I couldn’t even rest my arm on my leg.   A piece of paper fell off my desk and reflexes kicked in and I reached it to grab it. This sent the worst pain I’ve ever felt through my arm because this brace is letting it move so much more than the splint. I also had a tingling feeling in my fingers since putting it on. I finished up my day and went to the gym to do everything one handed as I have been. Driving home I wasn’t able to use my left hand for turn signals as I had.  Got home, told my mom this story, then took a shower. Got out, put the stupid brace on. I noticed my arm was hurting worse and worse sending constant pain through my arm.  So I ripped the brace off and my wrist had swollen more than it was when I first hurt it. With using the splint I could wrap my middle finger & thumb around wrist completely upon removing the brace they were about 1/4″ apart but grew to 1.5″ in the matter of ten minutes!  I took some Tylenol for the pain (can’t take ibuprofen) and didn’t put the brace back on. It’s down to 3/4″ now. I will be calling in the morning for an actual splint again.

Let me ask you, is it really a good idea for someone to be able to move their wrist in the manner that hurts them the most when you aren’t sure what is wrong and it’s most likely ligament damage? Yeah, not sure whose call the brace was instead of the splint. I guess I’m just used to the wonderful people in family medicine where they care.

Time always goes by so fast this time of year. It seems like 2 weeks ago was Labor Day but next week is Christmas already. It’s hard to stop and smell the roses, as if there are any in bloom in December in Wisconsin. I wrote my Christmas letter this past weekend and I came to realize the thing that I am most thankful for this year, other than Marty of course. You see I’ve struggled with Asthma since Jr High. It was never that bad when I was younger, in fact I used to go to bars in college on the weekends. Then in October of 2004 I came down with pneumonia which reeked havoc on my lungs. I ended up catching cold after cold. I ended up being sick for 7 months straight, save for literally 3 days, and had a total of 9 colds. It was the longest and shortest time of my life because I slept, a lot. Since then I’ve struggled with the health of my lungs, often getting ill and repeating the several colds in a row. This past March I came down with another very bad cold and ended up getting to the point where I was having multiple asthma attacks a day and using my inhaler between 12-15 times a day. After many trips to the doctor she decided to try me on a stronger steriod, preventive inhaler called Advair. A few days later I went to a specialist who told me that like most asthmatics when not having an attack I actually have almost super human lung capacity. He then went on to tell me that if I’m not struggling with asthma at night, then it’s under control. I left his office crying. He said that cigarette smoke (one of my main triggers) is easy to avoid now days. Then why had I had an attack from smoke driving in my car with the windows up that very morning? I was mad and at a loss as to what to do. Over the next few days I tried to decide what to do when something miraculous happened. I was once again in my car, windows down this time, and the person in the car in front of me was smoking and I didn’t have an attack. It had been about 2 weeks since I had started on Advair. Since that time I am attack free most days. I even got a cold in October and figured I’d be sick for 3-6 months, which had become the norm and I was only sick for 10 days! I was so happy I could have cried. My lungs aren’t perfect, neither is my immune system but life is so much better and so much sweeter. So that’s the best thing that’s happened to me this year.

So everyone is harassing me about not blogging, so here I am to tell you that since I do the show notes, I do in fact blog on here. And yeah, maybe someday I’ll write something real.