Friday, December 27, 2013

More Rotten Health Issues

It's no surprise I've been back to the hospital again. My daughter and I went yesterday morning. My left shoulder, elbow and arm have been killing me lately, but I've been trying to ignore it for as long as possible. The pain finally got to be too much and after about a dozen x-rays for me, I find I have a possible torn rotator cuff, damaged biceps muscle and injured elbow. I fell trying to get out of bed the day after my last surgery and caught myself by putting out my hand. BIG MISTAKE!

That means I wear a brace on my left hand for carpal tunnel syndrome, pain patches to let me deal with the pain and a sling to keep the weight off my shoulder. I have to take it off every few hours and move my shoulder around to keep it from freezing. Not a fun thing. Been there, done that, have a massage therapist in the family to fix it. I've already had surgery on this shoulder back in 2006 to remove excess cartilage and had this arm and elbow broken in 1996, so it's about time to just replace it with a bionic shoulder and arm. That would be fun, I think. :).

If the steroids I'm on don't make a pretty significant difference, I'll have to go see a bone doctor and get an MRI and maybe another surgery. Not looking forward to that. I do go for a nerve conduction test in 2 weeks on this arm. That is one of the worst tests pain-wise I've ever had done, so I'm not looking forward to it.

Better get my arm back in the sling, it's starting to hurt a lot.

G

A Post~Christmas Gift

The UPS guy was just here and dropped off a little late gift. It was scheduled to be here yesterday, promised to be here yesterday, but arrived today. Ah well, we're all use to these delivery companies NOT living up to promised delivery dates. I'm amazed it arrived this soon. If it were Fed EX, I'd still be waiting.

So what is my gift? I'm typing on it now ~ a purple keyboard for my Surface 2 tablet!! Purple is my favorite color, so I had to have this one. I don't mind using the built in, on screen touch keyboard, but this is so much easier on me. I was trained to type on a real, honest-to-goodness typewriter back in the Stone Age, not to keyboard like people are taught today. When I was working as a legal secretary, I could type and take shorthand (not even taught anymore since digital voice recorders were invented). I still used shorthand when I was working as a reporter at court because in the State of Penna., electronic recording devices and cameras aren't allowed in court. Without shorthand, I wouldn't have been able to get the proceedings almost word-for-word.

This tablet is my favorite gift for Christmas. For Yule, my favorite is a gorgeous sterling silver pentacle necklace with a ruby at the tip of each point in the star. I love having two holidays to celebrate every December! Anyone else here celebrate Yule?

G

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Christmas Eve

This year is different for us. Both of our children are adults and have decided to open presents tonight, rather than getting up at our usual 5 a.m. tomorrow. We're going to my aunt's house to celebrate with my family. Sadly, Randy's brother & his wife have decided they are too good for us & refuse to even let us see our niece. All our gifts to her are thrown away. The worst part, the brother is my son's godfather. They can't even be bothered to email them a happy birthday. They told my kids when they were 10 & 12 that they were disowning them. Nice, huh?

My Brother's girlfriend has a young daughter and she has already started calling us Aunt Gretchen and Uncle Randy and our kids are her cousins. We aren't related "yet", but she's allowed to stay with us and we take her places. I so love that little girl!!

Anyhow, I'm looking at even more surgery. The stitches were removed yesterday from my last one 2 weeks ago. Now, my left shoulder is torn and needs repaired. I'm also looking at nerve torture tests in 2 weeks, then the possibility f knee surgery.

Randy was being super sweet and bought me a Surface 2 tablet to make it easier on me to play games, blog & surf the net when I'm attached to an IV. I also have Kindle software downloaded with almost 300 books on it. He let me have it early since I've spent half of the past three weeks in hospitals or doctors' offices or driving to one or the other.

I'll upload photos from the gift opening soon.

To my Christian friends, I hope your Christmas is a truly wonderful one, filled with lots of love and family.


G