and the ortho says....

Frozen shoulder. He didn't think the tear was significant.

I don't know. Maybe? He didn't seem convinced himself. He kept asking me if my shoulder was stiff, and I kept telling him I couldn't move it through it's full range. That's different from stiff, right? Stiff is where you move slowly, but after a while, it isn't so bad. I wish doctors would use the same language the rest of us use. It would make things so much easier.

And he doesn't seem to understand the connection between shoulder problems and hand problems. Or he doesn't talk as if he understands.

Anyways, he prescribed PT. I'm willing to try just about anything, but I am dubious since he decided against any specific instructions to the therapist, on account of him being not so sure himself. Well, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised with an unusually good therapist.

very slight update

So, apparently I have a torn tendon. I don't have an appointment yet with the ortho, but it will be soon. I hope something good can be done, because my hand keeps going out of place now, too. Not that it takes much to make that happen, but still, not having it lock up on top of everything else would be nice.

Eventful events are eventful

As promised, a long-delayed blog post!

These past couple of weeks seem to have been conspiring against me getting online again. But I found a place that actually fixes power jacks for cheap and without a bunch of caveats, so here I am again! Yay! The little beast is working better than it has in years, so I am hopeful of maybe now having it for some years to come yet.

It's been frustrating not having the laptop since work has been so busy I haven't been able to do much more than sometimes clean out my in-box of emails that didn't absolutely need to be answered and mark everything in my RSS feed as "read". If you said something that you were really hoping I in particular would read, and I haven't responded, give me a holler. Sorry for the inconvenience.

At least, the laptop woes coincided with the weekend Carapace and I had planned to go to TRF. I have some pictures, and I will post a few later if all goes as planned. We camped, as usual. As is not usual, the weather was as close to perfect as it can get for a Texas autumn and Carapace managed to have not one single significant seizure! I, sadly, had my usual allergies keeping the entire campground awake (ha! That'll teach those guys who put their tent right up against ours!) and, despite my efforts to plan, perimenopause played the hormone roulette wheel and came up red. Still, that did not negate the very important experience I had using a pair of hiking sticks instead of just my cane, or even pair of canes. With the hiking sticks, I escaped having notable leg and hip pain for the first time in years--and that despite my period! It had gotten to be so bad previously that I wasn't even looking forward to going. So, I highly recommend getting yourself some if you are a cane-user and have started to miss out on events that require a lot of walking.

My niece is out of the woods as far as the overdose is concerned. She's facing a long stint in psyc rehab, though. She prefers that to going home, I know, since the home environment is currently unstable due primarily to financial strains. There are other issues, too, but I don't like talking out of school about other people's personal lives. The one thing I will say is that, my family is in denial about how pervasive mental illness is in our family. It isn't just one individual with a problem. Most of us are untreated, uncounseled, and our coping skills are ad hoc, to put it nicely. I really admire Glenn Close and her sister, Jessie, for their decision to speak out about mental illness in their family. I hope that it will encourage other families, including my my own, to take positive action and be more supportive of each other emotionally. (And, in case my family stumbles onto this and puts two and two together, I love you all. Just, wouldn't it be nice to stop pretending and start dealing with reality instead?)

In more horrifying news, a coworker of mine has an aunt who is likely to not emerge from the coma that her husband put her into. It is a classic case of an abuser first isolating his victim, and then escalating the abuse. I am astounded that the husband is out on bond. How can this be? Why isn't domestic abuse taken more seriously?

Oh, and finally, much less universally depressing but potentially more annoying for me personally, it looks like I have a torn rotator cuff. And that I am actually going to have to do something about it, what with not being able to use my left arm being a real nuisance, what with me being left-handed and the driver's side door being on the left in the US. I don't know if it will mean surgery and then PT, or just PT, but, either way, I have a feeling I am facing a lot of PT. And I hate PT. So, expect a lot of griping.

My precioussssssss is returned!

Oh, laptop, darling, darling laptop! Don't ever leave me again!

The past week or so has been eventful, and the next few weeks also promise (threaten?) more of the same. So, I should blog about that. But not right now. Right now, I should get back to work. But this weekend, I'll be sure to catch you all up on my exciting life.

computer woes

I won't be online much for a while until I can get this dang computer to work consistently. So, please, I'm not ignoring you or unappreciative of you all. I just can't get my power jack to work.

a bad day

I feel miserable. I have cried from the pain.

And now I learn that my niece has overdosed. This has just happened. My heart breaks. I don't know how she is yet.

Update: It looks like they got to my niece in time. She has a hospital stay in front of her, and we all have some drama to come, but I am grateful that she is still with us. She is a beautiful, sweet girl. I hope she can learn to be a strong woman.