Sept 8: Really? Ya gotta be kidding.....
Kept meaning to post after the last depressing one, but kept getting busy. So:
Cancer scare with Mom, which I didn't share with more than a handful of people. Good news is that the mass in her cecum (beginning of large intestine, over on the right next to appendix) turned out to be a piece of poop. So after 10 days of uncertainty it all turned out well. Bad news: she has a newer compression fracture of L1. That's bad because......
Mom had a bad fall about 30 years ago, ended up with 2 compression fractures of vertebra, T8 & T12, so severe that she lost 2 inches of height. Over the years with disc collapses and etc her height is now down to about 4'9"--at 5'3" (I've lost about 1.5 inches due to disc disease) I tower over her. She is having pain around the waist, which is what lead to the X-rays & CT that showed the mass, but the pain is so bad that she has to wear underwear that is at least one size too big and can only wear 2 pairs of pants that have wide bands rather than elastic. I thought the compression fracture was causing the pain (right distribution of nerves), but it turns out that with the additional decrease in spinal height that she is so short that her lower ribs are now below the pelvic girdle, and the pain is coming from the ribs hitting the pelvic bones. I've never heard of this, but it made perfect sense after her internist said it.
Unfortunately there isn't much to do about this. He's sending her to a physiologist who will determine if getting a kyphoplasty would help (my suggestion), to sort of 'reinflate' the L1 vertebra and might give just enough height to raise the lower ribs up (it's T11 & T12, the 'floating' ribs), or if muscle strengthening or a brace might help. Chances are that none of these will make much of a difference, and the horrible thing is that the cancer would have been easier to treat. This probably means she will live the rest of her life with pain, and since she has no major medical issues that may be for several more years. She is, of course, less than enthused about this.
And then there's me: I've broken my Left ankle.
Fell in the Giant parking lot Friday, thought I'd badly sprained Left ankle, also managed to land on Right knee and Left inside elbow. Michael, Jenn and I were going to a local concert, so I had Michael get the boot from the garage--the irony here is that I've accumulated 3 boots over the time of the 2 multiple Left foot fractures, and just donated to the Phoenixville Free Clinic 2 of them, thought it was the 2 that came up higher and thought I kept the smaller one. Turns out I kept the larger one. Went out with them Friday, with Michael driving me door to door and Jenn helping me in and out of car and such, by the end of the night I was in a lot of pain. Went to bed, woke Saturday and while the swelling was down everything was still quite painful. In the clear light of day I assessed: if a patient came to me with this, what would I say for them to do?
Called my friend Rose, also a PA, and she took me to the ER. There's a nasty abrasion over the Right knee, and the elbow hurts (I broke that 15 years ago), so they X-ray'd all three. I have an avulsion fracture of the Left tibia. If you are going to have a fracture then avulsion is the way to go (at least everyone says that!), it's where the ligaments attach onto the bone, picture an octopus with the tentacles spread out attaching to the bone. When there is trauma to the ligament the force can pull away the layer of bone that it is attached to.
For most people this is a ~4 week healing process, but, of course, I'm not most people. And I'm suspicious of the 4th metatarsal, which I wasn't aware was hurting when the ankle hurt more, but now am suspicious of another break as that one was broken in 2 places before. As long as it took to get better before it will be made worse this time because of being on the prednisone, which slows all healing down. It's three days out, and having stayed off it, wearing the boot, frequent icing, it remains impressively swollen but doesn't hurt. The Right knee, however, hurts like a b**tch. I suspect there is a bruised bone there, which doesn't show up on an X-ray, but makes sense since I landed on that and am on blood thinners.
I'm angry, pissed, frustrated,, overwhelmed........
For some reason, however, there is that part of me that always sees the bright side of things. The chief one is that with not working I can stay at home and be almost totally non-weight bearing (couple steps needed to get to toilet as bathroom too small for rolling chair) without it affecting anyone else's schedule. Had thought about going to my friend Diane's this weekend, out on Cape Cod, so had kept this week open. Can beg off the board meeting for UUMAC on Saturday, which means nothing until gyn appointment next week (which I've waited 2 months for since a new patient). I also have this situation down to a science, made even easier by a 'new' rolling office chair that someone was getting rid of and is much better than my old cheap one. The new changes to the bathroom just made getting a shower much easier and safer, the new electric bed (Mom's holiday & birthday gift last year) makes elevating my feet way easier, and I know a couple more people for helping out. And, not sure if I mentioned, I was planning on going to England again for my 10 year anniversary in October (of 1rst surgery) but hadn't made the plane reservations yet, so no loss of money there except for expediting my passport renewal, which I did in anticipation of needing a little sooner than six weeks. (That was vanity, because my passport expired last fall, and there is no way I was going to get a picture taken with my eyes so swollen from the Sjogren's!)
Appointment Friday with ortho (they like the swelling to be down some) and made sure it was at an office that had X-rays there in case the foot needs to be looked at.
Will try to update here more often, and certainly have the time now, although going back to the bed for a while with ice as can elevate it higher there than on the couch and it's still impressively swollen.
Thanks for checking in (although there are fewer and fewer of you!), Laurie
Cancer scare with Mom, which I didn't share with more than a handful of people. Good news is that the mass in her cecum (beginning of large intestine, over on the right next to appendix) turned out to be a piece of poop. So after 10 days of uncertainty it all turned out well. Bad news: she has a newer compression fracture of L1. That's bad because......
Mom had a bad fall about 30 years ago, ended up with 2 compression fractures of vertebra, T8 & T12, so severe that she lost 2 inches of height. Over the years with disc collapses and etc her height is now down to about 4'9"--at 5'3" (I've lost about 1.5 inches due to disc disease) I tower over her. She is having pain around the waist, which is what lead to the X-rays & CT that showed the mass, but the pain is so bad that she has to wear underwear that is at least one size too big and can only wear 2 pairs of pants that have wide bands rather than elastic. I thought the compression fracture was causing the pain (right distribution of nerves), but it turns out that with the additional decrease in spinal height that she is so short that her lower ribs are now below the pelvic girdle, and the pain is coming from the ribs hitting the pelvic bones. I've never heard of this, but it made perfect sense after her internist said it.
Unfortunately there isn't much to do about this. He's sending her to a physiologist who will determine if getting a kyphoplasty would help (my suggestion), to sort of 'reinflate' the L1 vertebra and might give just enough height to raise the lower ribs up (it's T11 & T12, the 'floating' ribs), or if muscle strengthening or a brace might help. Chances are that none of these will make much of a difference, and the horrible thing is that the cancer would have been easier to treat. This probably means she will live the rest of her life with pain, and since she has no major medical issues that may be for several more years. She is, of course, less than enthused about this.
And then there's me: I've broken my Left ankle.
Fell in the Giant parking lot Friday, thought I'd badly sprained Left ankle, also managed to land on Right knee and Left inside elbow. Michael, Jenn and I were going to a local concert, so I had Michael get the boot from the garage--the irony here is that I've accumulated 3 boots over the time of the 2 multiple Left foot fractures, and just donated to the Phoenixville Free Clinic 2 of them, thought it was the 2 that came up higher and thought I kept the smaller one. Turns out I kept the larger one. Went out with them Friday, with Michael driving me door to door and Jenn helping me in and out of car and such, by the end of the night I was in a lot of pain. Went to bed, woke Saturday and while the swelling was down everything was still quite painful. In the clear light of day I assessed: if a patient came to me with this, what would I say for them to do?
Called my friend Rose, also a PA, and she took me to the ER. There's a nasty abrasion over the Right knee, and the elbow hurts (I broke that 15 years ago), so they X-ray'd all three. I have an avulsion fracture of the Left tibia. If you are going to have a fracture then avulsion is the way to go (at least everyone says that!), it's where the ligaments attach onto the bone, picture an octopus with the tentacles spread out attaching to the bone. When there is trauma to the ligament the force can pull away the layer of bone that it is attached to.
For most people this is a ~4 week healing process, but, of course, I'm not most people. And I'm suspicious of the 4th metatarsal, which I wasn't aware was hurting when the ankle hurt more, but now am suspicious of another break as that one was broken in 2 places before. As long as it took to get better before it will be made worse this time because of being on the prednisone, which slows all healing down. It's three days out, and having stayed off it, wearing the boot, frequent icing, it remains impressively swollen but doesn't hurt. The Right knee, however, hurts like a b**tch. I suspect there is a bruised bone there, which doesn't show up on an X-ray, but makes sense since I landed on that and am on blood thinners.
I'm angry, pissed, frustrated,, overwhelmed........
For some reason, however, there is that part of me that always sees the bright side of things. The chief one is that with not working I can stay at home and be almost totally non-weight bearing (couple steps needed to get to toilet as bathroom too small for rolling chair) without it affecting anyone else's schedule. Had thought about going to my friend Diane's this weekend, out on Cape Cod, so had kept this week open. Can beg off the board meeting for UUMAC on Saturday, which means nothing until gyn appointment next week (which I've waited 2 months for since a new patient). I also have this situation down to a science, made even easier by a 'new' rolling office chair that someone was getting rid of and is much better than my old cheap one. The new changes to the bathroom just made getting a shower much easier and safer, the new electric bed (Mom's holiday & birthday gift last year) makes elevating my feet way easier, and I know a couple more people for helping out. And, not sure if I mentioned, I was planning on going to England again for my 10 year anniversary in October (of 1rst surgery) but hadn't made the plane reservations yet, so no loss of money there except for expediting my passport renewal, which I did in anticipation of needing a little sooner than six weeks. (That was vanity, because my passport expired last fall, and there is no way I was going to get a picture taken with my eyes so swollen from the Sjogren's!)
Appointment Friday with ortho (they like the swelling to be down some) and made sure it was at an office that had X-rays there in case the foot needs to be looked at.
Will try to update here more often, and certainly have the time now, although going back to the bed for a while with ice as can elevate it higher there than on the couch and it's still impressively swollen.
Thanks for checking in (although there are fewer and fewer of you!), Laurie
posted by Laurie @ 1:23 PM
1 Comments:
At 9:11 AM,
Anonymous said…
Wow,
Sorry for you, but feel really bad fir your mom, I had never heard of that.
Hope you mend soon, and something helps your mom
Deneen
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