“You know, Jamie hates falling when she snowboards. And she gets really pissed when she does, and it’s really funny, too. She looks like an angry little elf as she struggles to get up.”

Aubrey, my sister, reminiscing about snowboarding with Nathan and me.

So, it appears I will only get to board once this season. Surgery on my left shoulder is scheduled for December 19th, and that’ll wipe out the following two months of boarding season right there. At least I’ll be able to fence sooner than that, within 10 to 14 days post-surgery (provided I pad the area correctly for impact). I look forward to the snowboarding, though.

My sister did mention that she could go with Nathan and Dane (her boyfriend, who is awesome) and I could sit with their stuff in the lodge. Oh, and that she would be happy to take pictures and videos as they go down the mountain and send it to my cell phone from hers.

She’s so kind. I think she learned it from me.

Well, if I’m wearing blue. Anyway.

This morning, they both decided they wanted to look like this!

Yes, immune system! FOR THE WIN!

The good news is that while I really had a seriously pissed-off and inflamed bursa, there were no rotator cuff tears or any ragged labrum edges. This means less time in a sling and a quicker recovery time. As it is, the sling is for comfort reasons rather than Absolute Necessity. Well, it’ll be for comfort reasons after I’m allows to remove the dressing (Saturday). So the doctor removed the extra bursa tissue and shave off some of the bone to open up the capsule so my other stuff won’t be rubbing against and and causing more problems in the future.

He also found a congenital defect. How wierd is that? It isn’t what was causing the issues with my shoulder (or with my left). Nathan wasn’t quite clear on exactly what the surgeon said (I was still out from the anesthesia) but from what I gathered, there’s a muscle attached to another that normally isn’t attached that way. He took pictures. He gave a copy to Nathan and in the process of leaving the surgery center, they got forgotten. I’ll have to ask for another copy, since I want to see said pictures.

Anyway, though I was incredibly nervous, overall it went well. I also don’t remember much. Actually, pretty much anything. There was getting there, changing, Nathan laughing at my little cap thingy, meeting the nurse, going over the procedure with the doctor, then meeting the anesthesiologist (who was teh awesome). He explained the shoulder block procedure he was doing—that he’d inject a a numbing agent into some spot on my neck that would numb a bundle of nerves (he pointed it out and gave me the name but I don’t recall it) that controls my shoulder, major upper arm muscles, and pretty much stops at the elbow, but could affect the forearm and hand. For some people, the block lasts 8 hours, for others, up to three days. I told him that the numbing agents at the dentist’s office wear off real quick for me and he said then he was pretty sure my block would be like that. He was right, I could use my hand, forearm, and elbow with full feeling since the moment I woke up in recovery. Now I’m feeling the skin (itchy! oh heavens, itchy!) He then explained the on-Q pump—it’ll deliver a ‘caine right to the shoulder for a couple days and then I could take it out. He also said that the first sedative he’ll give me through the IV would make me forget that he’s the jerk who will put a needle in my neck. (His words! His words, not mine!) The anesthesiologist had a great sense of humor. I love that trait in a doctor (or anyone, really).

So after they start the happy-sedative IV, I recall him walking from one side of the bed to the other, then… NOTHING. Not a thing. Not even counting. If there was counting.

Now, apparently Nathan made a smart-alec comment before the knock-out IV and I flipped him off in plain sight of the staff present and make them all laugh. I have no knowledge of this and it certainly doesn’t fit my M.O. Not in any way.

Yeah, I know. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Blinked and I missed it, and found myself waking up in recovery, oxygen mask on my face. I was sleepy and bleary for awhile and the nurse said I must be a really cheap date.

With no sarcasm on my part, I loved the people who worked with me there. They answered my questions, they addressed my concerns, and they were down-to-earth and gave straight answers.

Oh, and because I tend to get the extra-super-crispy-special side effects, Nathan asked the nurse right off what any of the wierd side effects would be from the anesthesia (the general or the block). She named off most of the common ones (we don’t fault her for that because, really, there’s no need to freak out someone who already has a heart rate at 104 and doesn’t push for a Full Answer). We didn’t press.

So after, after Nathan helped me put my contacts back in (I walk better with them on), I noticed that one pupil was quite a bit smaller than the other. Not that one was Overly Large, but that one was Overly Small. o_O (Bit like that, actually). Obviously, my brain sad “Ack!” and we got the nurse to show and ask wtf was up. She thought it was quite cool and went to tell the other nurses. One triumphantly held up the side effect sheet and said it was a side effect listed right at the bottom and that they never got to see it. Then Nathan said, “I told you she’d get one from the bottom of the list.”

Yes, dear. I certainly did.

Oh! And how random is this: I got a free t-shirt (at least, they said it was free) for having surgery today. It just has the surgical center’s logo, so it’s not like some sort of “I voted today!” but saying “I got surgery today!”

So I got trundled home with a front-sling (yeay no rotator cuff tear repair sling!), ice pack, loads of instructions, scripts for Vistaril (anti-nausea), Celebrex (cox-2 nsaid), and percocet (no vicodin, since it kills me). So far, shoulder is okay, though nerve block is wearing off. The perc doesn’t make me nauseous, even if I don’t take it with vistaril (huzzah!) and vistaril just makes me sleepy. I slept a lot this afternoon, consequently I’m awake now. *rolls eyes* However, vistaril is now makng my eyes cross. Off to bed (propped up on the couch in a reclinded position) I go!

Holy shit.

Dear Fairy Godmother,

You’re probably wondering why I’m writing to you now, when I haven’t written to you since I was six and really, really wanted to be able to ride my bike without training wheels (by the way, that skinned knee? Fantastic job).

Now, for you to understand why I’m writing this email (times have changed since I was six and I’ve lost your snail-mail address), let us take stock of the recent events that have transpired in my life.

1. I come down with some sort of freak illness that no one can diagnose. This freak illness also comes with headaches as an added bonus.
2. Those headaches mentioned in number one? They weren’t caused by the illness. The illness was just a red herring that threw off diagnostics for months. Good one, mate. The doctors found that one knee-slapping as well.
3. During a span of days when I felt well enough to be my normal self, I go fencing. While fencing, I get hit in the AC joint (you know, statistically, I shouldn’t even have gotten hit there the first time. you’re damn good at beating the odds).
4. Things are finally starting to look up. The headaches have decreased in frequency so that only once a week I’m laid out by a monster headache that’s not a migraine. Go lay down during the headache to make myself feel better, you say? It won’t help. It will only make me have a headache and be bored. Nonetheless, I think things are getting better. But ooooh, you trickster, you.
5. Feeling better and halfway through a regimen of methylprolone (that’s steroids to you non-medical people), a regimen, by the way, that was without side effects (I know, I was just as surprised as the rest of you), I go forth with nathan and my sister to snowboard for the first time this season. The first run was beautiful. Swish, swish, swish, carving down the mountain. We go up for a second run. Getting off the lift, the boy stops one foot from where the chair drops you off, and my sister and I crash into him and we slide down the tiny lift-hill in a tangled heap of limbs, boards, and bodies. My right hand (because we just like to pretend I don’t have a left one, don’t we?) gets caught in nathan’s binding, twisted, and then shoved back toward my shoulder socket. Once we’ve all finally righted ourselves, I can barely use my right arm. Right On.
6. So now I just need to get back down the mountain without falling onto my right shoulder and I’ll be fine. Now, I manage to do just that. However, in twisting my body during a fall when my dull-edged board lost traction on some ice on the slope, I at once avoided landing on my right shoulder and instead, managed to land nicely on my left elbow. Now I have two arms that are useless. You just couldn’t have it all on one arm, could you? But I understand, it’s much more amusing this way.
7. I ice the shoulder and elbow when I get home. My shoulder feels decent when compared to what I thought it should be, it’s the elbow that’s more concerning. Two days later, the elbow is nearly back to normal and my shoulder refuses to work properly. Ha! You managed to get my hopes up, there. You’re just too damn good at this.
8. Physical therapist says that the joint is more unstable, much more swollen, and my range of motion is significantly diminished from my last evaluation (which was, by the way, the week before). Physical therapist says to call doc.
9. Call doc. Doc orders x-ray. I go and get my x-ray.
10. Driving home from said x-ray, I am munching away on a Pria bar, and I hear a crunch. Not a “You’ve bitten into a soy crisp” crunch, but a “This sort of crunch should not happen in your mouth” crunch. Further inspection reveals that I have broken a tooth. What’s that you say? I broke a tooth? Yes. I broke a fucking tooth.

Now, let’s take a look at your job description.

Fairy Godmother—

noun

1. a generous benefactor
2. a female character is some fairy stories who has magical powers and can bring unexpected good fortune to the hero or heroine

—from dictionary.com

While you have been generous, you have not been a benefactor.

While you have magical powers, you have not brought unexpected good fortune to the heroine (e.g. me).

In fact, you’ve continuously brought unexpected bad fortune to the heroine.

As such, you have not fulfilled your duties as my fairy godmother. Effective this date, you are hereby terminated from your position as my fairy godmother.

Best Regards,
Jamie
Your Former Fairy Godchild

✓ Internal Medicine
✓ Ear, Nose, Throat
✓ Infectious Disease
✓ Dermatology
✓ Ob/Gyn
✓ Urology (long story)
✓ Dentist
✓ Neurology

Down to the last specialist—neurology. At this point, I’m sick of being sick. I don’t want to be sick, I want to be well. I don’t want to be some sort of medical frequent flyer (the neurologist used this term about my visits to my PCP. Fantastic.) I want to be a normal person (as normal as I could get). I want to work and fence and, you know, live my life. I’m sick of doctors and tests. I’m sick of tests that render normal results (I know, I know, it’s a good thing, but you get to a point where you want something to come out and say ‘it’s me! i’m the problem!’)

The issues is that my symptoms indicate a wide range of causes. Fever, swollen lymph nodes, malaise, headaches in one spot of the head, vertigo. So then there’s a bunch of theories. (We’re on to the white board now):

Sinus Infection
Bladder Infection
Skin Infection
Ear Infection
TMJ Disorder
Tooth Abscess
Somewhere in the Body Infection
Lupus
Lyme Disease
Thyroid Problems
Lymphoma (Hodgkins and Non Hodgkins)
Leukemia
Other autoimmune disorders
West Nile
Unknown Virus
Neoplasm
Alien
MS
Migraines
Other causes of craniofacial pain
Irritated trigeminal nerve

So we do tests to knock off one theory after another.

✓ Course of antibiotics
✓ Pretty much any blood test you can think of
✓ Urine Test
✓ Head CT
✓ Brain MRI
✓ Neck CT

Only odd imaging think were the matching extra white matter on the right side of the brain in both the head CT and brain MRI:

We’re down to the last three and the neurologist and whatever else she could think of. I saw her on Friday for an hour. An hour. I don’t even see my shrink for that long. Question after question. Poking and prodding. More questions. Doing all those little tests that make you think you’ve been stopped for DUI. Balance checking (which is weird for a fencer, we tend to have really good balance in the first place). More talking. She said I have a big uvula and asked if anyone had told me that before. Um…no, no, they hadn’t.

Do you say thank you to that or feel embarrassed when you’re told that?

She really thought it was my thyroid and kept looking at the labs and thinking the numbers would change. Nope. She thought my blood sugar was a bit high on my last test, so she ordered a fasting blood sugar. Fantastic. Another repeated test.

So after all this, she came up with three theories:

1. By far her favorite theory—that the dentist irritated the trigeminal nerve when he injected the novocaine.
2. Somehow I sprained the muscle that connects to the occipital notch at the back of the skull (there’s two. it’s the one on the left.)
3. That it’s actually migraines. Atypical, but migraines nonetheless.

Right. So then she starts pondering a plan of attack.

Muscle relaxer. Then there’s a glance at my chart and the neon orange ALLERGIES sticker and that’s I’m allergic to Skelaxin, a muscle relaxer. So she trots out of the room to speak with a pharmacist, who agrees with her that due to the severity of my reaction to Skelaxin, there’s a high probability that I’ll have the same reaction with any drug in the muscle relaxer class.

Muscle relaxer

Valium. “Have you taken Valium before?”

“Yes, it made me cry.”

There’s a long pause and you can see that she’s trying not to laugh. So I say, “It’s okay, you can laugh. Dr. T— did.”

Laughing ensues.

Valium

Five day course of steroids. It would get the nerve inflammation to go away for good. Another study of my list o’ medications. She wonders aloud if it would adversely affect my moods. Another trot out of the room, this time to ask my PCP what she thought. She comes back in, obviously a bit dejected. PCP really thinks that it’s too risky to use the steriod treatment because of it having a high possibility to trigger a manic episode.

five day course of steroids

An injection to block the occipital nerve.

“Um…I really want injections.”

She didn’t really feel comfortable with them either.

injection

More thinking. Finally, she comes up with a bunch of ideas to use together:

Physical therapy
Weaning myself off caffeine
Not having anymore artificial sweeteners
More regular exercise (two hours fencing three nights a week is apparently not enough)
Not taking tylenol or naproxen
Putting heat pads on the back of my neck

I see her again in a month. I need to see if I can still have splenda. If I can’t, pretty much all I can drink anymore is water. Plain ol’ water.

Caffeine
artificial sweeteners
Tylenol and Naproxen

…and there will be much discord and gnashing of teeth.

“Sounded like he thought a short acting speed drug for bedtime is helpful for people like you who get bored trying to fall asleep unless something hits you with a sledgehammer.”

—a friend about a presentation on new treatments for ADHD that she attended and how new findings could apply to me.

The best part is that each of my doctors has recommended either a sledgehammer or baseball bat in order to make me fall asleep. More than once.

Here’s my answer. “No. But they figured out it wasn’t killing me.”

And there you have it. I get to have periodic tests to make sure whatever-illness-it-is isn’t killing me. Otherwise, it’s a medical mystery and I have no real want to go through more testing. Excessive sweating remains a problem, as does pulse and blood pressure. I’m certainly not as tired as I was and am getting my usual excessive energy back (which my friends must be thrilled about, I’m sure). The one med change made was switching the celexa back to brand-name from generic. That’s it.

As for the cortisone shot, my shoulder hurts less now when I’m not using it. Before the shot, it hurt no matter what, and the pain got worse from movement. Now it’s a dull-ish ache I can ignore when I’m not using it and hurts more when I use it, especially certain movements.

One day, I’ll be able to play like the other kids! It’d better not be rotator cuff damage. I tried fencing left-handed on Thursday night and it was like a drunken monkey trying to fence. In case you’re wondering, that is not a pretty sight. Entertaining, yes. Pretty, no.

Anyway. Questions about when the pain started, what kind of pain, for how long, has it felt like your shoulder pops out of the socket?

“Um, no.”

Then came poke, prodding, and manipulating. And me saying ow, ow, OW.

He seemed rather indecisive about whether it was my tendonitis Acting Very Badly or a different injury. He did say I’d already done things he would’ve told me to (ice, Celebrex, PT exercises) and thought PT wouldn’t help because I already know and do the exercises.

Soooo. He gave me a cortisone shot. I’m to lay off my arm/shoulder for the next five days. Yes, this means no fencing right handed. Also no PT exercises, no weight training for my upper body. Nothin’, man, nothin’. I’m clueless when it comes to cortisone shots. The actual shot didn’t hurt at all, really. A brief pinch when the needle went in, then pressure as the fluid was injected. No big deal. After a minute or so, I got an odd burning sensation in my throat. Still feels kinda funky, but whatever.

Except.

Good god, my shoulder and arm hurt. My right arm is practically useless right now. I can use my hand, as long as it’s independent of actually moving my arm. After doing a bit of Googling, I believe it’s this:

Also note that some patients may have a reaction to the cortisone injection called a ‘cortisone flare.’ A cortisone flare is a condition where the injected cortisone crystallizes and can cause a brief period of pain worse than before the shot. This usually lasts a day or two and is best treated by icing the injected area.

—about.com orthopedics

I think their definition of “brief” and my definition of “brief” are decidedly different.

Wrong!

Though, I still hope it’s just that. Maybe it is. After two weeks of the shoulder not getting better—worse, if anything, my coach said I should see the doc. I’d already called the doc, who said to ice and rest. Called again, saw her this morning.

She said stuff like, “rotator cuff” and “MRI” and “orthopedist” and “frayed” and frowned an awful lot. So yeah, I got referred to an ortho doc. Called up the one she recommended (I’ve also heard from several other folks that he’s a really good doc). First appointment with him was for December 6th. Too long. I said I needed to get in sooner. Fine, set me up with one of the physician assistants there. What? November 23rd? Fine, I’ll take that.

Then I called the ortho I’ve seen before. He’s got an opening on Thursday morning. Nice.

Now, the doc didn’t say not to fence. Except my friends are saying, “You’re an idiot if you fence.”

…

Gabriel swore at himself for not having more sympathy. Mathias had to deal with a lot more than he did, all that stuff going on in his head, having to see those doctors all the time, having to take all those medications.

But he couldn’t help but think that sometimes, his brother was just a shithead.