Monday, February 22, 2010

Walking the walls

I broke my left humerous (not funny!) 2.5 years ago tripping over a tree root running through the woods. Immobilization of my arm for 3 months left me with severe adhesive capsulitis (frozen shoulder). I could not extend my arm in front of me. Lying on my back, it was difficult to push it back beyond 90 degrees (good motion would be 180 degrees) Three months of 3x/week physical therapy plus work at home fixed it. After a year, I was 95% better (I still felt a little pain when forced to have my arms completely back for the MUGA scan needed to see if I could tolerate Adriamycin).
Now my right shoulder seems to be frozen. Initially the pain made me fear bone mets but the onc said my symptoms are not consistant with those (thankfully!!!).Why my arm is this way is a mystery as I didn't have an acute injury. I suspect radiation had something to do with it. One of the exercises for frozen shoulder is to see how far one can climb the walls walking with the fingers. While dealing with my left arm, I made little marks on a door jamb with dates. Now I can extend the left arm way beyond the highest mark but come no where near with my right. I could not get radiation with my arm this way as I can not put it behind my head. I guess I have to try harder to get rid of this. It is making my life difficult. I had to fix a toilet that a friend left running last week and it really hurt to extend the arm.
We've been hit hard with snow. The official total as of early morning was 7 inches but I think it is closer to a foot where I live. As Steve has been gone for a week, I needed to shovel..not so much fun with my damaged arm though I managed to find a way to have my left do most of the heavy lifting.
A minor victory last week as it was not immediately assumed that I was elderly due to gray hair. The train officials were busily helping older folks off the train but when it came to me, no help. At first, I was annoyed..what am I ..chopped liver? But then I thought more optimistically, oh, they think I am younger because I have no gray hair!!! Of course not having full use of my dominant arm made things tricky with the suitcase.
School was cancelled for Naomi. It took Josh more than 2 hours to go to work with accidents everywhere. I think I will torture poor Spud with a bath and nail clipping. He didn't enjoy plowing through the snow that came to his ears but he was not willing to wait for me to clear a path for him.

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