A Two-Fer

 February 1, 2022

Cervical spine MRI ✔️ PCP called the next day with results: negative for herniation, impingement, stenosis, etc. I still had not heard anything for the EMG/NCS. I was also certain this was muscle/ligament/tendon related, so I began searching for a hand & wrist specialist. Having found one in town, I made an appointment – March 2, 2022. I also sent an email to my PCP to see if there was anything else we could do to move toward diagnosis & treatment. (Side note: I hate CRPS. The fact that we had to consider this was a possible spread pissed me off!). This entire process was emotionally & mentally taxing. I hadn’t suffered a trauma. We (Brittani, Shawn and I) spent several nights trying to figure out what could possibly have happened. The only thing that came to mind was that I had woken in the middle of the night with my wrist bent funny & hurting-I must have slept on it wrong. But to have damaged something??? Hmmm. Nevertheless, my PCP ended up scheduling a wrist MRI for late February.

February 24, 2022

Wrist MRI done. As I laid (lay?) there during the MRI, my mind went to: “If this is a CRPS spread, we are going to have to change a few things” “How am I going to watch Elara safely going forward?” “I’ll bet nothing shows up” “This is stupid” “Now I’m just going to have another bill to pay for nothing” “Oh yay, more random pain that won’t get treated” “What the hell did I do to my wrist?” “What if I need surgery?” And, as always, I counted the songs to figure out how much time was left. 

My PCP called the next day with results: Scaphoid fracture. What??? There’s a fracture??? They referred me to the hand & wrist specialist I already had an appointment with in a few days (yay me!). A fracture. I have been dealing with fracture pain for 6 weeks. God I love the “opioid crisis” in this country 🤦🏼‍♀️

Let’s turn the page here…

The First One

 January 18, 2022

With the pain & swelling worsening a bit and Brittani off work, I decided I needed to see my primary care provider (PCP). The way my doc does it, he has scheduled appointments and they also run walk-in hours. Since I had called the day before, I knew walk-in was the way to go. The NP did an exam and ordered X-Rays. She told me to use the brace and gave me samples of an anti-inflammatory cream. So I went next door for the X-Ray, went home and called it a day.

                                        

The following day, they called with the results: negative for fracture or anything significant. YAY!!! No fracture! But I actually didn’t think it was-I didn’t fall or almost fall & slam into the wall or drop anything or any traumatic event. So what was next? The nurse asked when my last cervical spine MRI and EMG/NCS(nerve testing) was. I had a cervical MRI in TN after a car accident several years ago & had never had an EMG/NCS on my upper extremities. I sent those reports to my PCP and he ordered a cervical spine MRI as well as an upper extremity EMG/NCS. The MRI was easy & scheduled in the following two weeks; the EMG/NCS was a bit more difficult as there were only 2 places in town that did them, and I had a bad experience with one of those places. I waited a couple days and called the place for the EMG/NCS. Let’s just say I now had bad experiences at both places 😠

Let’s turn the page here…

So it begins (continues?)

 January 14, 2022 (at least that’s the first day I have photo evidence)

I woke up with my left hand & wrist swollen and painful. I could move all my fingers and my thumb. A few positions caused the pain to increase but not by much. I checked my capillary refill because of the swelling. Cap refill <3 sec. After finishing my quick little assessment, I took my morning medication and headed to the bathroom, did my business, washed my hands-which, quite frankly, caused a lot more pain than I thought it should. I then let the dogs out & went outside with them.

I had Elara that day so I started looking through my drawers and the hall cabinet for a wrist brace. I KNEW I had one somewhere! Sure enough, way at the bottom, I found not only 1 but 2! One was just a neoprene sleeve, the other was an adjustable neoprene with a metal stay. I tried the one that was just neoprene but it was a bit tight and didn’t give enough support, so I settled on the one with the metal stay. Elara had woken up and wondered what the heck Gramma was doing and wanted her own wrist brace. So…we ended up twinning 

Why did I happen to have a left wrist brace lying around? When I was 18 I had gotten a puppy. He was an all black Labrador & Doberman mix (Lab-A-Dobe) that we named Stroh’s (yes, after the beer). When I was walking him, he ran around my feet and tripped me. I scraped up my palm but thought nothing of it until I had to go to the bathroom and couldn’t zip up my pants. A quick trip to the ambulatory center (that’s what we called “walk-in clinics” back in the day) and an X-Ray later, I had fractured my scaphoid bone. Truth be told, I could never remember which bone I broke, I just remembered it was the bone in your “snuff box”, so I googled it again. I don’t even remember how long I was in a cast. That was a crazy time-my childhood home had all but burned to the ground and my parents were staying in an apartment just down the street from me. My dad was actually the one who took me to the ambulatory center. Anyway, every once in a while when the weather was weird, my wrist would ache a bit, so I would throw a brace on.

As the day went on, the swelling increased. Thinking the brace was too tight, I would take the brace off. My wrist would start hurting more, or Elara needed to be picked up, so I put the brace back on. Then my hand would swell, so I took the brace off…That was the jest of the day-on, off, on, off. You get the idea. Since my wrist would ache for a bit on occasion, I decided to take a wait & watch approach, plus since I don’t drive anymore I needed to make sure someone could take me. Over the next couple days, I noticed the swelling wasn’t really going down (sometimes it was worse) and I had occasional numbness & tingling.

Let’s turn the page here…

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

 Allow me to get caught up.

After completing some mild/moderate renovations on my house, my youngest son & his girlfriend moved in. Then my youngest daughter & her husband moved in. My daughter was about 7-8 months pregnant at the time. There were a few bumps and my son & his girlfriend moved out. My daughter had her baby-my first granddaughter! I started going to a pain management clinic and my health began to decline rapidly. I believe most of that decline was due to some of the procedures I had. I became unable to continue working in any capacity.

I went to visit my oldest son, DIL & grandsons in Texas a couple times. I decided my leg LOVES Texas! The decision to move to Texas was made. We started looking into land & manufactured homes. My son in law was in a car accident that altered our timeline quite a bit. Then, my oldest son got orders for Greece and after some discussion, we decided to rent his house so we could acclimate there & he would have familiar faces taking care of his house.

The quest to transfer my medical care was a bit daunting. I thought I had found a wonderful Primary Care Provider (PCP). She was friendly, appeared to be attentive and the location was easy to access. Things did not go as a anticipated. Many diagnoses were incorrectly coded, scheduling was a nightmare and it was very clear by the incorrect diagnoses, she did not in fact listen. 

I did end up finding a very amazing PCP! While not an M.D. or D.O., he has his doctorate in nursing. As a nurse myself, I know the levels to which nurses assess and plan care. Knowing he has the HIGHEST nursing education one can get gives my great confidence in his skills & knowledge base. He DOES listen. He forms a plan of care with ME & MY GOALS in mind! 

I was then hooked up with most of the specialists I needed. Most went well. Some did not. Texas is a vast state with a LOT of nothing between cities & towns. The city we live in is considered a big city by population. But just to give you an idea of the rural feel: the entire county’s population is only 30,000 higher than the city. Specialists are not easy to come by. The next big city is 2.5 hours away, in Dallas, so you kind of work with what you have-until you can’t.

While we continue to unpack & discover more about or new city, random health issues pop up here & there. Oh, and there was “The Great Texas Freeze”. 

“The Freeze” happened in February 2021. Temperatures dropped to record levels & our power grids went down. (Wikipedia has more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis) We ended up having to stay at a hotel as the temperature in the house dropped to around 40°. After 2.5 days, the power was restored & we returned home. Only to find there was a water line that had ruptured. We shut the house water off & were able to find the leak. Luckily it was the line to the refrigerator so we could shut that off, no harm no foul. Until 10 days later when the kitchen ceiling collapsed from the water build up! We rigged a temporary solution until contractors were able to permanently repair everything. 

The big new health issue that came up actually started the end of September 2020 but I didn’t know it. Well, I knew it was something, just not what. (I had a “spot” open up and start bleeding on my right breast) I saw a dermatologist outside our city who determined it was “a skin tag” (basically nothing) but I had a feeling he was wrong. (He was also kind of a jerk but that’s a whole different tale) After being pretty much blown off about it, I decided to ignore it. Found my amazing PCP & decided to take another look. Found a dermatologist in town and made an appointment. Doc prescribed a cream and we made a follow up appointment for a few weeks later. The cream didn’t help, so he took a biopsy (not fun). The biopsy came back as actinic keratosis.

Actinic keratosis is skin damage from sun &/or tanning bed exposure. Since it was on my breast, it most likely was from the year I spent going to a tanning salon. Actinic keratosis (AK) is a form of pre-cancer. While it only turns into cancer about 10% of the time, almost all squamous cell cancers start as AK. So we removed it. It took quite a while for it to heal & I now have a lovely scar.             

                 (PSA:ALWAYS USE SUNSCREEN)

I think that brings us to the next big new health issue, which is where this new journey begins.

Let’s turn the page here