Frozen Shoulder - The fast track to manipulation

Ever since getting a diagnosis of frozen shoulder a few months ago, I've been taking pain medication (weak stuff... a prescription dose of naproxen sodium, which is just aleve) and going to physical therapy twice a week, both of which put me in a terrible mood (sorry, Katie!). The original plan was to give physical therapy a try, and if after a month or so I wasn't regaining range of motion, we'd have to consider manipulation under anesthesia - a procedure where you're put under general anesthesia and the doctor will force your arm to move in a normal way, breaking up the adhesions tying the muscles together (no incisions made, though).

Well, I missed two weeks of therapy due to a stomach bug and family stuff around the holidays, out of the total of 6 weeks my family doctor gave me to make progress... and on my 6 week follow up to my doctor, he decided I need to go to an orthopedic specialist to consult about a shoulder manipulation. I went, the orthopedic doctor agreed with the manipulation under anesthesia idea and so we scheduled it for the 29th of January (yesterday).

Yesterday at 6:30 AM, Katie and I arrived at the hospital's day surgery area and shortly after met with the anesthesiologist, the orthopedic doctor and a few nurses. I got into a hospital gown, had an IV put in, had some sedatives just before surgery and also a nerve block at that same time. The nerve block was the only real surprise, and in retrospect probably a great decision. It creates long lasting numbness by applying an injection of medication directly to a nerve. In my case, they had to poke around to find the nerve in my neck, then gave me some sedatives through the IV and finally gave me a shot in the side of my neck to the nerve that controls the right arm.

Just after I got the pain medicines, nurses came in to wheel me down the hall to the operating room... and I was already a little loopy, making jokes about the nurses being sure that they knew I was not there for any kind of testicular removal. I also remember bits and pieces of other crazy things I said just before and after surgery, and Katie filled me in on those to make sure I was properly embarassed.

The manipulation probably only took 10 minutes or so, just some gentle force to move my arm the way it should've always been able... some snapping and popping and I was outta there into recovery, asking for a sprite. I couldn't feel or move my arm, which was great, mainly due to the nerve block they gave me. The ortho doctor came by to say that he had regained all my range of motion during the surgery, and that it would be up to me, in physical therapy again to keep that range of motion over the next few weeks/months.

So, yesterday, Katie played nurse on me and helped me get into bed and do some stretching every couple of hours... and a few more times before I went to sleep. I didn't regain feeling totally in my arm before going to bed, but I started to be able to move my fingers around 7 and could raise my arm to give a thumbs up at around 9. I still couldn't feel any pain in the shoulder... that nerve block was a great idea.

Anywho, so this morning we're headed off to physical therapy and will start the fun stuff. I'll be going 5 days a week for a bit, then we'll see if I can drop down and go less frequently. When I switched jobs in October, I went from salaried to being an hourly worker, so every physical therapy appointment is money spent and money lost at the same time.

I was very nervous going into this whole manipulation deal, since general anesthesia was involved, but it wasn't so bad. The nurses and doctors at Schumpert Highland were great, making sure I was prepared, fixed, and well equipped for the after surgery pain. I'm just glad to be making forward progress on my shoulder again...

Start off your day the right way...

A doggie daycare business (Back in the Pack) up north has created a flickr group for pictures of their dogs. The following link is a slideshow of their images. They're worth a look.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/backinthepack/show/

World of Goo Review For You

I'd been looking for a reason to break out the wii, and finally found one last week when looking at video game web sites. I found a WiiWare title (newly developed, downloable games on the wii shopping channel, as opposed to the older emulated games for sale in the wii channel). World of Goo kept getting mentioned as one of the best WiiWare games, and one of the more enjoyable wii titles available, so tonight I made my wife turn off the golden globes (after she saw that Heath Ledger won one) and bought World of Goo.

She was hesitant at first because I didn't have enough details about the game ("World of Goo? I don't think I'm gonna like that."), and when she saw the game at first she didn't like the idea very much, until she saw me play the first level ("You better come sit over here and give me some turns too!").

The object of the game is to take little goo blobs and arrange them in a structure so that they can reach a pipe, which vacuums up the goo blobs that weren't used in the structure and counts them. If you use too many goo blobs in reaching your goal, you'll have to start over, because on each level you have a required number of goo blobs that need to be sucked up and counted (which means that you have to build your structure to reach your goal only using a certain number of goo blobs). It probably doesn't make much sense when I describe it, so take a look at the following video (via IGN).

I wanted to post about the game since it's an original puzzle type game, and since I'd been burned out on most video games lately. Maybe someone else can find some renewed interest in their wii as a result. My wife sure has. I left her in the living room playing so I could come make a post, and I don't think she's noticed that I'm gone. She's struggling on a level and looks like she's concentrating hard enough to pop a blood vessel.

Oh - the jig is up - I'm being called to help her. Buy the game, it's 1500 wii points (I think that's $15)... and also available for $20 on PC. It's well worth it for IGN's Wii Game of the Year.

What's going on

The good:
Katie managed a semi-promotion at work. She was expecting to get the position of Assistant Director of Admissions shortly before the state issued a hiring freeze. Monday she was told that she'd be taking the office and assuming the duties of that position until her department could secure an exception, or until the hiring freeze was over.

The bad:
My iphone got busted up. Stopped working. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I was able to restore the original firmware (with a non-functioning screen), cleaning off all my junk from the phone and returned it to ATT (only had it for a week). Today I went and picked up a replacement... all I had to pay was a restocking fee.

My shoulder feels like it's been used to break down a few doors. I missed two weeks of physical therapy and started again today... and I managed to forget my pain medicine before going. My shoulder made crunching noises and I made painful (more so than normal) faces.

The ugly:
I want to buy slippers... to wear outside the house. It's an ugly situation when I think emulating Mr. Rogers is a great idea. The first thing I want to do when I come home is slip into one of the hoodies in my growing collection and a pair of slippers.

Naturally, once in these slippers I can't leave the house, a problem which I am determined to rectify. I found a pair of slippers that have soles and could pass for shoes, and they will be mine.

Of course, the problem could also be resolved by having the house's insulation beefed up. Since I live in this centuries old house of Katie's, drafts blow in and out of here like the Santa Anna winds, making the hoodie and slippers that much more comfortable.

When it's 32 degrees outside at night, the heat kicks on every minute or so inside and there's a spot directly under the AC vent that's warm. The rest of the room gets an ice cold draft (not the good beery kind, the bad, nosehaircicle kind). I've never been in a house where the heat kicks on and the house actually gets colder... it violates the laws of physics.

I opened a closet in one of the back rooms we rarely use, and there was a dinosaur fossil curled up in the corner. It probably died in the first ice age.