Category: Health

T-Rex Arm & Boobies

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Monday (2/1) I saw a shoulder surgeon about my range of motion issues with my left arm. I’ve been going to physical therapy but haven’t seen much improvement, although pain wise it has been better. He diagnosed me with a frozen shoulder, which is what everyone suspected all along, but it was good to get confirmation. They took x-rays to rule out arthritis, and he doctor explained that if it was a tear he’d be able to physically manipulate my arm, but he couldn’t because it’s stuck. He said if we focused on stretching that eventually it would unfreeze and I’d get my full range of motion back. It’s a long process, though, that can last upwards of a year. This began in August of last year so who knows when it will be back to normal. The doctor’s assistant, Dan, gave me a cortisone shot in the shoulder to help reduce pain so my PT can stretch me out more without me being in agony. I really like her. Or I guess I should say them since I’ve been going back and forth between two very lovely women, one of which does dry needling on the area too. They have been my main source of in-person socializing. We’re always joking and whatnot. Yesterday they even sent me home with a slice of cookie-cake from a birthday celebration one of their assistants had. It was covered in frosting and very good too!

The shot was painful, but after the trigger point injections I got in 2019 I can tolerate the pain. The only thing I didn’t like was how the doctor lowered his mask twice to speak. Dude, I can hear you fine, damn! The assistant didn’t do that, though, and spent more time with me, so overall it was fine.

Today (2/3) I had to go back to the hospital for a follow-up mammogram and ultrasound because my right breast looked different on the screening mammogram I had last month. My obgyn told me not to worry since this is quite common, so I actually didn’t think about it much. And he was right – it was nothing to worry about. In fact, after doing the second mammogram they decided an ultrasound wasn’t even necessary, so now someone is gonna owe me some money since I paid my out of pocket portion at the hospital this morning in full ($389). I called their billing department when I got home but they don’t have anything in the system yet, so I’ll need to call back on Monday. I’m sure we’ll figure it out but let that be a lesson to me – only pay the deposit next time instead of the full amount due. I guess I wasn’t expecting them to see everything they needed on the new mammogram. Perhaps I wouldn’t have had to come back in had the original woman been more thorough then. Hard to say, though. This new lady took more angles and took her time. She explained too that the doctor who looked at the scans compared them all the way back to 2012 and didn’t see any differences to warrant an ultrasound.

The one thing that stood out to me this week is how in neither scenario was I asked if I could be pregnant, nor did they shield any other part of my body from radiation. Is this suddenly not a standard practice, or is someone dropping the ball? Usually when I’ve gotten x-rays they would at least ask, and have me wear a shielded apron. They had me do it for my mammogram last month, so that is weird. I guess now that I’m 45 it’s like fuck her uterus?

Ok, I actually took a second while typing up this entry to see what the deal might be, and apparently there’s good reason they don’t shield you during scans anymore. This article eases my mind.

Life Update

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Yikes, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I’ve been so busy, haha!

Ok, the crappy stuff out of the way first –

Unemployed
As of January 15th Joe will be officially unemployed. We knew this was coming for months since his company decided to eliminate his department. He will be getting a generous bonus for staying until the end, plus severance which includes his company covering our insurance premiums through May. His company has been good to us so he’s been looking internally but so far nothing has come up. He is also looking externally but between COVID and it being the end of the year he’s heard nothing back from anyone at this point.

Left arm issues
A few months ago my left arm started giving me trouble. Mostly it would just hurt if I tried to grab/reach for something. I figured it would just eventually go away on it’s own. It did not. In fact, it slowly lost it’s range of motion and now I can’t even lift that arm up past my chest or put it behind my back. This has made washing my hair or shaving my armpits difficult. I saw my doctor (really the nurse practitioner since the doctor is always so busy) and she determined it was likely a rotator cuff issue which could progress into frozen shoulder syndrome. Yay!

I’ve been going to physical therapy since the at home exercises I was given by the nurse weren’t making any noticeable difference. PT has been good, especially once another therapist started dry needling the area. The pain is much less since then and even my range of motion has improved ever so slightly. It still blows my mind that I just can’t move that arm normally anymore. Hopefully it’s just a temporary issue. I have to wonder if moving a bunch of cases of water to prep for our spare room makeovers is what started all this.

Ok, now on to the positive stuff –

Master Bedroom Renovation
Our bedroom makeover has been “done” for awhile but I haven’t posted it because we were on the fence on whether to replace all the furniture. It could use a refresh, as it’s 16 years old at this point. Many of the clips in the dresser drawers have long since broken, so if you pull the drawers out too far they fall out of the track. We are tired of how high up the bed is in the frame, plus I am really starting to hate the footboard. We went to IKEA weeks ago but nothing really struck us, nor did Ashley furniture. So we’re at a standstill right now.

We did get a beautiful shag rug and matching runner and small rug for inside the closet. Speaking of, Joe still needs to install our new mirrored closet door. He’s going to install molding around the opening first, though, because the builders left it rough and just did a really crappy job. It will look much nicer when he’s done. I don’t think I have a before photo, though, which is a bummer. We didn’t put the bed back into the frame so that is hanging out in the loft right now. Wookie can get on and off the bed easier with it being closer to the ground which is nice. I predict the bedroom won’t be fully finished until spring. In the meantime, I am loving the lighter colored walls (we went with Sandstone Cove by Behr, which is the same color in the loft). The bedroom is just way more inviting now. During the day it’s so nice and bring in there, particularly because we haven’t put the blackout curtains back up. I tend to wake up at sunrise anyway so there really isn’t a need for them now.

Wookie’s Health
Wookie has had this bile vomiting issue for as long as we can remember. It usually occurred in the mornings and the vet suspected it was tied to her having an empty stomach and the digestive juices upsetting her stomach. We’ve tried changing dry foods and limiting her treats to narrow down the culprit since some things seem to trigger it more than others (such as dental chews, of course). When she had two bouts of mysterious diarrhea this year we noticed when she was on the special canned food diet her vomiting stopped. So we’re in a trial run right now to see if it was a fluke or not. Unfortunately the food is hella expensive (a week’s supply is $23) so if it does the trick we’ll have to see whether it’s just the dry food that’s the issue and see whether we can find a more frugal food. It would be nice to no longer suffer from the anxiety of worrying she’s going to vomit on the nice new rugs or damage the new flooring if she vomits and we don’t notice right away. She seems not too bothered by the vomiting but I’m sure she too would be happier if it stopped.

Spring Cleaning

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I’ve been on a cleaning/organizing frenzy lately. Partly out of boredom, but also because I actually enjoy doing it, and thankfully now that the brain fog and fatigue have lifted, I have the energy and mental clarity to do so.

At this point if my ear issues went away I would feel about 85% back to normal. I can only hope they too resolve or at least lessen over time. I’m not even sure why I’m feeling better, although I have some ideas, but I’ll write about that in a separate post at some point.

I wanted to document in detail what we’ve been doing around the house.

Master bedroom closet – Got rid of some old bras I had been hanging onto for some reason. As if I don’t have a drawer in my dresser overflowing with them! The irony is I rarely even wear bras these days, but that will change once life gets back to normal.

My nightstand and dresser – I moved my leggings from the closet to my dresser, bras I use infrequently from the dresser to the closet, and just straightened up all my lounge wear. I haven’t purchased any new clothes other than a pair of jeans and two packs of underwear (went down multiple sizes when I lost weight and am still at the lowest I’ve ever been) in nearly a year. I miss going to Savers, but I’m still getting rid of clothes so clearly I don’t need any.

Master bathroom cabinets – Just rearranged things in there since it got messy and I had placed an online order with Target to replenish some personal care items that were getting low.

Since this lockdown we haven’t left the house other than to take Wookie on a walk around the neighborhood. We did go on a drive one day in my car (Joe drove) but stayed close to home. We drove past my old employer and there were lots of cars in the parking lot. I’m so glad I no longer work there!

Hall closet – I just rearranged it a bit as it wasn’t cluttered.

Kitchen cabinets – We have too many glasses thanks to gifts we’ve received. I stacked them so they take up less space, and rearranged our lesser used kitchen appliances. We bought new dinnerware/plates (whatever you want to call it) in February to replace these after I read how most plates have lead in them. I was tired of all the mismatched bowls and plates anyway. We got Corelle white glass dinnerware which I’m really liking. We bought a set from Amazon and then purchased additional cereal and pasta bowls from Walmart. They are lighter and stack nicely in the cabinets and dishwasher.

Refrigerator shelves – Wiped them down. I had done a full cleaning of the inside a month and a half ago so it wasn’t looking too bad.

Medical paperwork and entire desk area – I was dreading working on this but it had to be done, and now I feel better. Plus my desk is is so clean and streamlined which makes me happy.

Pantry – I’m always rearranging our pantry, but Joe organized our second pantry in the workout room a few days ago since we’ve stocked up on more food than we usually do. We would just rather not have to go out every week for supplies to reduce our chances of catching anything.

Under the kitchen sink – I just finished rearranging this area yesterday, in fact. I gave it a huge overhaul in February of last year so I just moved things around to make it more convenient to grab the most frequently used items. Plus I switched from using a bucket to a caddy when cleaning around the house. It was harder to see stuff in the bucket because it would get buried. I’m really not sure why I switched from the caddy to the bucket in the first place.

Other things I organized this morning – under the bed in the master bedroom and the buffet table by the front door. I also got out all the rechargeable batteries and recharged them in anticipation of getting this battery case from Amazon soon:

Battery Case

Battery Case

Right now they’re stored in a cheap plastic box and there’s no way to keep them from falling over or rolling around which is super annoying.

Weird Dreams & Health Update

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The entire time I’ve been sick I haven’t really dreamed about what has been going on, that I can remember anyway. However, in the past week I’ve had two dreams about COVID-19, both involving me having to go out in public and people not respecting social distancing.

The first dream also had me visiting my grandmother, who passed away in 2003, right after being out in public which was disturbing because I can’t remember having dreamt of her much, if at all, over the years as much as I would have liked and then the one time I do I’m risking her health in the dream? Talk about cruel! The second dream involved me going to Michael’s craft store during this pandemic which for all sorts of reasons doesn’t make sense. Then when I left the store my car was gone because someone stole it. Apparently I had a way to track it via GPS built into the key fob, though. Dreams are so strange!

In other news, I wanted to document that there are certain things that have gotten better. Namely, the pain in my arms at night isn’t as intense or radiating all down my arms and up my head like before. Also, I am not super fatigued or suffering from brain fog. My main issues now are jaw and ear related. My jaw just feels tight, sometimes slightly sore, and my bite is weird. Wearing any of my mouth guards doesn’t really help, though, and seems to encourage me to clench more at night. The main tinnitus sound is less bothersome but the weird siren-like sound can be really annoying when playing off other sounds, or when I’m trying to sleep. Plus the inside of my ears keep fluttering to certain stimuli which is extremely uncomfortable. I have to speak softly to avoid triggering the right ear and the left one is still being set off by certain noises, particularly if they originate from my right. If I turn my head toward the sound, or get close to it, the ear doesn’t vibrate. I don’t understand ANY of it, but I hope it goes away as I start taking herbs for Lyme disease. I had a more sensitive test done and it came up “negative” but with two positive bands which means my body recognizes it. Since I have no other explanation for all this craziness I’m pursing Lyme now.

I want to die

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Every day the tinnitus gets a little worse and I seriously don’t want to go on anymore. Ever since Joe and I got together we’ve worked hard to save our money so we could enjoy our retirement, and now I can’t see that ever happening. I’m so jealous of people who have properly functioning ears. People who don’t have pain all the time.

I can’t even figure out what’s really causing all these symptoms so how am I ever going to get better? It all seems so hopeless and I’ve never been so anxious and depressed in all my life. I keep praying for miracle or just SOME improvement, ANY improvement, to give me hope, but it has yet to come. If not for the body pain I would just sleep 24/7 to escape the hell I’m living in.

All my life I’ve feared dying. I didn’t realize there were worse things than death.