The Hell That is Frozen Shoulder

I have Frozen Shoulder. Again. I had a it a few years ago, before I started blogging. Never heard of it? Neither had I. It's officially called Adhesive Capsulitis. See, your tissues freak the hell out and form bands of tight, inflamed adhesions throughout the capsule surrounding your glenohumeral joint. This scarred and inflamed capsule constricts the joint, locking it into its own private hell. Range of motion is severely restricted, pain is basically comparable to having your shin broken with an axe, and duration can range from a few months to two years or more.

This shit hurts, people. It has three stages:

• FREEZING: this is when you're basically wracked in pain. All the fucking time. Two kinds of pain, actually: chronic pain that is worse at night, and acute just-kill-me-now pain when you accidentally move past your ever-decreasing range of motion. This is where I am now.
  
• FROZEN: this is when the pain supposedly starts to fade, but the capsule has basically locked your arm into a very limited range. Good luck wiping your ass. This is the time to introduce excruciating physical therapy, in order to try and coax your shoulder into moving again.
  
• THAWING: this is where your motion is supposed to gradually come back. It's not very common to regain your full range of motion. The agonizing PT is continued through this phase.

So yeah, I had this three or four years back. Took over a year and a half to run its course. I remember when I was diagnosed. I thought Frozen Shoulder sounded stupid. Like some wimp-ass diagnosis for big crybabies or hypochondriacs. Adhesive Capsulitis sounded better, but still. Didn't sound like a "real" condition, like torn rotator cuff, or bone spur, or something badass like that. I soon found out different.

Frozen Shoulder is not for pussies, people.

Put it this way; I had three babies with no drugs. Two of the offspring were just under nine pounds, one was just over nine pounds. No drugs. I made it through shin splints in basic training with only Ben-Gay for relief. Hell, I made it through basic training, period.  I had two wisdom teeth pulled with only local anesthetic. I can do pain. I'm a woman. But dealing with that Frozen Shoulder wore me down. It was rough.

And it's back.


The other night my shoulder suddenly seized up in a cramp. (This would be the aforementioned "acute pain".) I screamed like a girl and cried. Literally. Screamed and cried. Male Offspring was about to take me to the emergency room. Of course, he probably just wanted to drive, but still. He gave me what he called hug therapy afterward. This is from a teenage boy, folks. If I had to deal with that pain for the length of a labor ... I couldn't do it. I'd be screaming for the drugs in five minutes.

When my shoulder started hurting a few months back, I figured I had wrenched it somehow, you know, with my active lifestyle and all, and didn't think much of it. But as time went on, I had to face the fact that I was having a relapse. According to the literature, relapses are extremely rare. Surprise, I'm one of the lucky few who get to experience that rare treat.

Whee.

This time is worse. Worse because I know what I'm in for. The first time, I could trick myself. You know, say things like, "Maybe I'll be one of those people who heal in a few months." or "The physical therapy will speed up the process." Complete bullshit, but it had a psychological placebo effect. This time, I know what's up. I don't think I can do this again, people. It's like getting scared of childbirth once you're already pregnant. Ain't no getting out of it now - you're in it for the duration.

And my neck's not long enough to gnaw my arm off.

I can't tuck in a shirt, let alone reach in a back pocket. I can't hook my bra. I can't reach across to wash my other shoulder. Shaving under that arm? Please. Deodorant is spotty at best. Taking a coat off sucks.

Washing, drying, and styling my hair mostly one-handed is frustrating, painful, and makes me mad as hell. It also renders me unable to let go of my anger and resentment toward Laura, the heifer who butchered my hair. Every day I hate her more, and I'm not generally into hate, except for George Bush. I'm telling you, every day it festers, and that shit's not healthy. Catching her in an alley while armed with a pair of pinking shears has replaced winning the lottery as my main fantasy.

Showering has become a dreaded ordeal and leaves me feeling like a big crybaby. I've considered going to work in pajamas rather than face getting dressed. And my pajamas aren't pretty, people. Sleep is difficult. That's an understatement. I'm ODing on Valerian and Unisom. I don't want to go on prescription pain relievers or sleep aids, because of the length of time involved with this thing. I mean, popping hard drugs for a couple of weeks or even a month is one thing, but when you're talking upwards of a year, that's something else. Who wants to end up like Rush Limbaugh?

The worst is making involuntary movements - like if you stumble and try to catch yourself, or automatically reach out to catch something, or if something startles you and makes you jump. Agony. There's a fraction of a second between the time you make the movement and the time that agony slams you like a rabid water buffalo on crystal meth, when you realize what you've done. That's the fraction of a second you consider bashing your head on concrete to knock yourself out. But there's not enough time.

To add to the fun, it's my right shoulder. I'm right-handed. I already mouse left-handed at work, so that's okay, but I'm starting to do other things left-handed. I'll be ambidextrous by the time this shit's over.

I've heard of some people who get bilateral FS. That's right, both arms at once! How the hell do those guys wipe their asses? Or drive? Or eat? Or do anything? Holy hell. If that happens, you'd better hope you have a partner or a live-in aide, because I don't see how you'd manage. It sucks having FS as a single person, even with only one arm affected. Basically, I can reach forward, to a certain height, with no problem. Any other direction is a definite no-go. At least I can type. Good thing -- that's pretty important for my job, hello. Like anyone needs a reason to stand out in this economy.

There is a surgical treatment option, but my HMO wouldn't go for it. Likewise the cortisone injections I've heard some patients get. The only treatment my HMO approves is physical therapy. Cheapass bastards. Last time, they did a few initial sessions with me, but basically handed me some papers with instructions and cartoon illustrations and told me to do it on my own at home. Then they collected their copay. But hey, we've got to guard against the evils of "socialized medicine" because US medical care is the best in the world!

Actually, maybe I was better off doing it at home. Check out this poor bastard. I can't even imagine being able to move my arm up that high, so he must be coming along nicely. Pay no attention to the screams. It's all about progress in physical therapy. No pain, no gain.

Brutal. My former drill sergeant is probably a physical therapist now. The one who got kicked out for trainee abuse. Anyway, this whole thing is making me really pissy.

I mean more than usual.

Puke & Rally!

The son is projectile vomiting.


He woke up seemingly fine this morning, and was skillfully working my nerves about getting his driver's permit (St. Christopher, I'm ready to believe in you.), when I suggested we go pick up cinnamon rolls and coffee cream. Then things took a turn for the worse.

Male Offspring: If I had my permit, I could drive, and you could go in the store.

Me: If you had your permit, you'd be a sophomore. Oh ... you're a freshman. Sorry. Let's go.

MO: I seriously don't want to go to the store.

Me: Cinnamon rolls? Please. Lets go.

MO: [whining] My stomach feels weird.

Me: You look pretty normal to me. No fever, no swelling. Seriously, you're not driving, son.

MO: Landon's driving.

Me: Sophomore.

MO: [walking to the bathroom] Yeah, but he had his permit when he was a ...................BRRRAAAAUUUGGGHHH...........

I made him ginger & chamomile tea to settle his stomach. "Sip it slowly," I said, for the ten-thousandth time since drawing that first placebo of a Lamaze breath two decades ago. "I know," he replied, chugging it. Three minutes later the tea was hurled into the toilet with a force that made me suspect the boy was on performance-enhancing steroids.

He's in the bathtub now, mere inches from the toilet. Four episodes of hurling. Dry hurling. The boy can't even keep water down. The offspring and the dogs all have one thing in common: emergency medical situations or extreme illnesses only occur on weekends or holidays. Anything after 5pm on Friday is fair game. In this instance though, I'm not really worried. Not yet, anyway.

Male Offspring is affectionately known as the 24-hour kid when it comes to getting sick. He'll pop up with some serious projectile vomiting, or bust out with a 103.5* fever until you can practically see green ickiness wafting from his pores. During these times, the boy will be seriously sick. Until the next morning, when he wakes up feeling fairly close to fine. It's like he takes a normal 5-day sickness and condenses it into this fevered, mondo-puke-o-rama deal.

So I'm hoping he'll feel better by tomorrow. If not, it's off to the urgent care weekend clinic. Whee. As for me, I'm still coughing like a smoker in LA, even though I (finally) am feeling better. The cough just will not leave. I'm thinking I need to cast it out like the devil, with some sort of cough exorcism ritual. I'm finally starting to get caught up at work though, and am actually cleaning the house this weekend. Brain and body have just been operating in such a fog this year; I feel like one of those gross hairy moths emerging from a cocoon of illish yukkery. I'm so ready for spring, both within and and without.

In better news, this is the weekend when I can finally take Batman out for a walk. Tomorrow is Day 28 of his captivity. I haven't been able to let him run since he hurt his leg, four excruciatingly long weeks ago. You try keeping 70 pounds of crazy locked up for 4 weeks. 150 pounds, if you count Mason. Honestly though, I have to say he's been a very good dog considering he's been imprisoned for the past month.

Anyway, I've been trying to get around to everyone's cyberspaces and sling some comments around, but the online stuff has been flagging along with everything else. Such is life. Spring is coming though, and hopefully a big ol' batch of healthy for everyone along with it.
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UPDATE:
As hoped, the son is no longer feverish, no longer hurling. The 24-hour kid strikes again. He is asking for a taco and burrito dinner tonight. Always a good sign.

Remote Area Medical: on the Homefront

Remember the guy from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom? Not Marlon Perkins, I mean the guy who actually did all the work, the guy down in the trenches with the alligators and water buffalo, before Steve Irwin even knew what a croc was. That man is Stan Brock. I saw him on 60 Minutes tonight, but he wasn't sporting his trademark khakis.

Mr. Brock heads up a different kind of wild kingdom these days. He founded Remote Area Medical (RAM), a volunteer organization that brings needed medicine and medical care to remote locations around the planet. He takes no salary, and lives at the headquarters in Tennessee, a former elementary school. He pilots the planes himself. The medical personnel, all volunteers, parachute to their destinations, and serve without benefit of showers, electricity, or other modern conveniences. Medical supplies are donated. RAM expeditions go to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, East Africa, India, Nepal, Guyana, and Tanzania.

Now here's the shocking part: currently, 60% of RAM's expeditions are right here, in the good old US of A. New Orleans, yes, but also Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia. That's right, instead of deploying its resources to "remote areas", as per the original intent, turns out RAM's services are needed right here, in the richest country in the world.

60 Minutes covered Brock and his team setting up a two day no-cost clinic in Tennessee. The people waiting to be seen were from six states. People slept in their cars, or stood in below-freezing weather, not wanting to chance their shot at medical treatment. They were issued numbered tickets, in order of arrival. The RAM team treated over 900 people.

They turned away 400 more.

Some of the stories were just heart breaking. Like the guy who slept in the parking lot all night, hoping to be one of the lucky ones to make it in. He'd had a heart attack a couple of years before, and had had treatment at that time, but he couldn't afford the follow up care. He'd also been living with an infected tooth for weeks. Yes, actually, he does have health insurance, through his job as a truck driver, but the deductible is $500. He couldn't afford it. He noted that he was fortunate in that he had a vehicle for the two hour drive and all night wait.

There was an elderly woman, in tears because her ticket number was too high to make the cutoff. She was on social security and needed glasses. The interviewer asked what she'd do now, and she hesitated, finally saying she had friends and a church, "... but I hate to ask," she said, breaking into tears. "I've worked all my life ... I hate to ask." (RAM volunteers did end up seeing her, and issued her glasses)

A 28-year-old mother of three had been treated for cervical cancer two years prior. She was supposed to be getting Pap smears every six months, and follow-up care. With three kids and her husband's job loss last year, they couldn't afford it. She got her first Pap smear since the surgery.

Another woman confided it had been 25 years since her last breast exam.

The interviewer asked one of the volunteer doctors who these folks were, this crowd of people so desperate for medical care.

They're the working poor, middle of their lives, most with families, most not substance abusers, and most employed without adequate insurance ...

These folks are people just like you and me. Most of the people seen during those two days are working hard, paying (or have long paid) into a system that is not taking care of them or their families. American families have a right to expect health care from a system we're contributing to. Given the current expeditions of Remote Area Medical, it doesn't look like that's the case.

And Another Thing (A Health Care P.S.)

Just a piggyback thought, while we're on the subject of health care and I'm still feeling pissed off about it. (read the previous post, if you don't know why) I recently saw the movie Man of the Year, where a comedian (Robin Williams) was elected president.

Guess folks want a change, even in movie land. Anyway, the comedian-president says,

HMOs will pay for your Viagra, but they won't pay for your glasses.

It was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't actually funny at all on account of it's true. I paid a shitload of money for my daughter's glasses, and I am fortunate enough to have "good healthcare" through my 9-to-5. If, however, I were a man wanting Little Richard to perform, that shit's paid for! Just take this to the pharmacy, buddy, we'll get you taken care of, wink-wink!

What the hell is wrong with this country that Viagra is covered so men can get their dicks up, but opthalmology and dentistry are considered, what, extra? Superfluous? A special privilege? They can get dick-pills so they can get off, but eyeglasses and teeth cleaning, well, hold on just a minute there, little lady, that's not altogether necessary.

Anyway. I just thought of that line from the movie, and thought how ironic it is that some man somewhere was getting it up courtesy of our health-care system, on the same day that a 12-year-old boy died from a toothache, because his family didn't have health insurance.

Goddamn, people. That is just wrong.

The Greatest Country on Earth Handles a Toothache

Last night, just as my son was coming to tell me goodnight, I came across a news article about a boy not much younger than he is, a story I could not get my head around. A story about a 12-year-old boy who died from an abscessed tooth.

Deamonte Driver, some mother's son, died from an abscessed tooth.

In this country. In this wealthyass country, a child DIED from a friggin' TOOTHACHE.

WTF??

So, I'm reading this story, hand over my mouth, not believing it, and my son asked me what was wrong. He looked at the picture of Deamonte Driver, showing the scar from his brain operation as a result of his abscessed tooth, and asked, "But, Anyu, how can that even happen? Can a kid really die from a bad tooth? Couldn't their dentist just fix it?"

Yes, a dentist could've easily fixed it. In fact, the tooth never would've been abscessed at all, had Deamonte had regular dentist checkups, the same yearly checkup my son complains about.

The family did not have health insurance. This American family could not afford health insurance. The abscess in Deamonte's tooth got so bad it spread to his brain. Before he died, Deamonte had emergency brain surgery, had seizures and complications afterward, had a second brain operation, then physical and occupational therapy.

Oh, and they extracted the tooth.

• Diamonte's medical bills totalled out at $250,000.
• Extracting the tooth would've cost less than $100.
• With regular checkups, he wouldn't have needed the extraction to begin with.

How about a comprehensive universal health care system, people? Is this enough of a wake-up call? When is the US going to realize that investing in our society benefits all of us? Preventive health care would save money in the long run; $250,000 worth of savings, in this case.

I am so sick of the Blame The Victim mentality in this country, that whole bootstrapper thing -- you know what I'm talking about: If this family had just pulled itself up by the bootstraps and worked a little harder, why they could've had health insurance like the productive citizens of this great land! If they couldn't afford it, well, they must've been Doing Something Wrong. They must be lazy. Probably a single mother. Probably she didn't have control over those kids anyway, I mean, they didn't even brush their teeth enough! She probably spent their toothbrush money on malt liquor.

No, do not even try and tell me I'm being dramatic, because you know there are people who actually think that shit. 

I am sick of the shortsightedness of this country in everything from health care and education to roads and building construction. Seriously, these things are handled (on the whole) by choosing whatever costs the least in the short run. Whatever is cheapest and keeps things afloat during our watch, that's what we go with. No one wants to pay higher taxes. No one wants to invest in anything or anyone except themselves.

Has anyone seen the UNICEF report on international child welfare for this year? Check this out: (from the International Herald Tribune, 14-Feb-07)

The United States and Britain ranked at the bottom of a U.N. survey of child welfare in 21 rich countries that assessed everything from infant mortality to whether children ate dinner with their parents or were bullied at school.
The Netherlands, followed by Sweden, Denmark and Finland, finished at the top while the U.S. was 20th and Britain 21st in the rankings released Wednesday by UNICEF in Berlin.
One of the study's researchers, Jonathan Bradshaw, said children fared worse in the U.S. and Britain — despite high overall levels of national wealth — because of greater economic inequality and poor levels of public support for families.
"They don't invest as much in children as continental European countries do," he said.
Bradshaw cited thin day care services in both countries, and poorer health coverage and preventative care for children in the U.S.

So there you have it. As rich as we collectively are, we are failing our children because we are not interested in a collective, because we are interested in individuals who can pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

Funny how the top ranked countries have universal health care. The topped ranked countries are interested in a collective. They are investing in their society.

I wonder when a Norwegian or Finnish kid last died of a toothache?

I am ashamed and angered and so, so sad that this little boy died over something so goddamned stupid and unnecessary. I am amazed by the fact that had he been born Swedish, instead of American, he would still be alive.