Blogging the 12 days of christmas. 3

A festivus miracle.

Since I fractured my shoulder one of the tasks i've found hardest to do is dress myself.

In the 5 months since 'Fi V Tree' I have managed to reduce the time taken to don a short sleeved tshirt from 45 minutes down to less than 1 minute. (that is with minimal pain).

Like with tshirts the most comfortable (& least painful) clothes to dress in are anything with an elastic waist (currently leggings and skirts)

Anyhow on Christmas day I achieved something that I hadn't been able to do since July.

I wore a dress.

And I put it on all by myself. And it only took 30 minutes to do it.

My family was so proud...

My sister was on standby to come round early to help me if needed but all i needed her for was to do up my necklace & bracelet clasps.

Mind you undressing was a bit (lot) more problematic - it took me 45 minutes to get the dress off and required painkillers to achieve.

Still it was good to be wearing something other than my usual uniform of tshirt, leggings, & elastic waisted skirt.

I try to find a positive (and journal it) for my shoulder everyday.

The Christmas Day Dress is a major positive as far as I am concerned.

Blogging the 12 days of christmas. 2

so a couple of days before the 18th december (the day we were having our family christmas) i was surfing the interwebbys looking for info (for a genealogy post i was writing) on one of the primary schools i attended.

as i was wading through the search results i came across a link to a pdf about the football club my father started in 1969 so that my then 5 year old brother could get a game of footy.

The pdf had photos of dad in it (and photos of 2 of my brothers). From 1969 until we moved to Sale in 1973 the footy club was an important part of our family life.

Anyway the pdf was 45 pages so I downloaded, had 6 copies printed, had each one bound and gave each member of the family one for Christmas.

I even gave a copy to my youngest brother who wasn't born during the 'Donny Heights' era.

We were all involved with the club. 2 brothers played for the 'tackers'. Dad was secretary &mum ran the match day canteen.

my sister and I were club statisticians, helped out in the canteen, occasionally ran the boundary and did anything else that needed doing.

My mum was so rapt to be given the book. It prompted a lot of reminiscing, family stories and anecdotes over the christmas table.

I'm going to contact the club and see if i can get copies of their photos and offer them copies of our photos of the club.

Blogging the 12 days of christmas. 1

We had our official family christmas last sunday as brother 1, s.i.l 1, nephew 1 & niece 1 were going to perth for Christmas.

I drew S.I.L 1 in the family kris kringle and gave her a bottle of her favourite perfume. The nephews were easy.

I bought mr 14 an itunes card and a 'cool' tshirt.

Master 6 got some beach clothes (he's having a growth sport), some gel pens, a book about science and a zac power book.

Master 4 has requested a 'very fast' scooter. Apparently his existing scooter doesn't go as fast as master 6's new (in october) razor scooter. I suspect that the weight to speed ratio of tall, solidly built 6 yr old versus average height, slightly built 4 yr old has something to do with it but master 4 says no it's the scooter. So i got him a razor scooter (and it goes very fast).

Almost 12 yr old niece received a dance bag and a bling case for her ipod touch.

Hydrodilatation continued

So took freshly hydrodilatated shoulder to physio this morning.

No pain (yes!), increased movement (yes!) and the cortisone will still be doing its job for up to another 2 weeks.

Feeling very optimistic and happy.

Hydrodilatation

*warning - contains my shoulder*

So this morning i had hydrodilatation performed on my shoulder.

what is hydrodilatation? I hear you ask

Well click here for a patient info sheet...

or here (this is the crowd wot done me shoulder).

My 'medical' team think i have a reasonably high pain tolerance level and maybe, just maybe, this supports that thought.

I found the procedure uncomfortable (oh so uncomfortable) but not painful.

First they injected a (shitload, according to my GP) of local anaesthetic into my shoulder, this was followed by cortisone, and then by a small amount of sterile solution.

At several points during the procedure the shoulder is xrayed to ensure the injections are where they will do the most good.

I could (if i'd wanted to) watch the procedure reflected in the xray machine above my head. I did not wish to do this however so rather I stared intently at the left side wall - especially where the wall met the ceiling (there was a small crack at that point , near what i assume was once a chimney breast)

The whole procedure took about 25 minutes. I was advised not to drive for the rest of the day unless I had to and definitely no driving for 30 minutes after the procedure. I'd also been warned that the pain might be worse for 2 or 3 days after the procedure once the anaesthetic had worn off.

So i sat outside in the morning sun, drinking a coffee & eating chocolate until my sister arrived to pick me up and drive me home.

I've had an afternoon nap, and the arm is still pain free - surely the anaesthetic has worn off my now!

The one in which my shoulder does not get an A

-

So I had the shoulder (arm?) measured for range of movement last week.

The results were a little disappointing.

Forward movement was around the 65 degrees mark (90 degrees is shoulder high). I could get higher if i swung into it but the measurement is based on me lifiting my arm as high as I can and holding it there.

Sideways movement (lifting my arm out to the side) 35 degrees (uh oh).

My right arm also has the strength of a kitten (the heaviest thing i can lift is a can of pepsi max).

My physio tells me my arm (and range of motion) is improving but instead of listening to her, and believing her, I'm just depressing myself by reading about gymnasts who are doing somersaults on a trampoline (whilst wearing a sling) 2 weeks after shoulder surgery.

I guess the key emotion here is frustration - I'm pretty much sling free so i look normal but i can't do 'normal' things at work which is confusing and irritating for customers & staff; and frustrating as all getout for me.

Last week's big achievement was doing up a seatbelt or the first time since July 22nd.

I need to focus on the (albeit small) positives & improvements and deal with the frustrations by(say) tossing birds at pigs.


*

The one in which my shoulder returns to work

So the shoulder has returned to work (albeit part-time and on modified duties).

The work itself is not too bad (or pain inducing) but the preparation for work each morning - that is an ordeal...

Everything takes soooo much longer than it used to.

Having only one usable arm slows everything down. Showering, dressing, breakfasting, etc; (no such thing as a quick shower at the moment.) Not to mention I have to start each day with painkillers to facilitate the getting ready for work process.

Mind you I have reduced my tshirt donning record from 45 minutes down to under 10 minutes (we take our victories where we can, however small)

Once I get to work i'm exhausted (and sore) from the getting ready, the work itself is ok, at this stage it's more about managing the pain, and not overdoing things (and finding out what I can do) rather than anything else.

I'm also finding that the combination of painkillers and 8 weeks off work has meant i currently have the concentration span of a carrot (or a 2 year old).

So baby steps in everything I do.

I have a range of exercises that I do many times every day.

* 3 or 4 variations on the pendulum swinging of the arm (to get the shoulder joint moving),

* a couple of exercises using a cane (think an arthritic fred astaire sans top hat),

* a pulley system (sailing rope and a hook in the neighbour's carport)

Sounds weird I know; hopefully they will help the shoulder regain it's former pristine level of fitness (the exercises along with the determined effort of my physio to rip my arm from its socket twice a week)

we shall see how it all goes...