Tuesday, June 28, 2011

I Bought It!

No don't worry, not the farm, but I did turn another year older. Thank you to everyone who called and everyone who thought of me and sent a birthday wish my way.

I bought the Red Table I eluded to a post or two ago. I am not sure the pictures do it justice. I love the piece so very much that I spent the better part of my weekend in The Cave with PJ teaching me how to make friendship bracelets. (I caught on quickly, it seems it's like riding bike you don't forget all the things you knew in grade school)

The boys would pop in The Cave now and again and join us for a while then they would run around outside and come back and play with PJ and I.



It is 120+ years old, made of Elm and even has the wax seal on the back that authenticates that it is indeed significantly older than I am.



I think I only need one more piece of furniture to make The Cave complete, I just need to decide on a colour. I have been thinking a bean bag chair in there would be perfect for the kids, it would give them a place to flop when they come down to chat with me, a good way to make them feel like they can join me anytime with a book or a craft project. Any ideas on the colour? Can you have to much red?

Friday, June 24, 2011

Got Bumped?

I have been having some problems with my left shoulder for a couple of years now. I could not tell you what triggered the whole thing but it has been a hell of journey.

It started as tendonitis and bursitis. That in and of itself bugs me as these are both symptoms that Drs. like toss out there like they are a diagnosis. Tendonitis simply means inflammation of a tendon, likewise bursitis means inflammation of the bursa. I always ask my patients what caused the inflammation? Over use? Poor bio-mechanics? Trauma? I wish I had an answer.

Eventually my shoulder simply started to seize up, the up side of this was the tendonitis and bursitis eventually settled down (it turns out if you can't get enough range of motion to use the involved tendon and bursa they become far less angry) the down side of this is really poor range of motion and therefore a decrease in overall function.

I started treatment with the easy stuff, chiropractic and massage therapy. When those things did not work I tried acupuncture and did a spiritual workshop in an attempt to hear what my body was trying to tell me with all this pain and dysfunction. I have worked with people and their bodies for 15 years and in that time have learned so very much, I understand that pain is not just physical but that it can be emotional as well. I see many patients that I believe get something they need out of their pain experience and I wanted to explore the idea of this being the root of my shoulder dysfunction. I wanted to know if there were emotions in my life I had chosen to ignore until they decided to make themselves known with physical pain. With all this work I had still come up with no answers and no relief.

As I traveled this road of treatment protocols my thoughts have always been of working from the least invasive treatments and gradually into more invasive treatments if the less invasive stuff did not work. At this point the next up was seeing a pain specialist who injected lidocaine into the joint space to numb the entire shoulder and have Paul attempt to move my shoulder through the range of motion and break up some of the scar tissue thereby increasing my range of motion, breaking the pain cycle and putting me on the road to recovery. No go. In fact we were never able to numb the shoulder enough to increase the range of motion more that maybe 10 degrees, and that improvement only lasted days.

Next up was cortisone injections, some would put this under less invasive than the last procedure, but in fact the long term damage from cortisone shots can be quite severe. Most medical practitioners do not use cortisone as it is meant to be used. The idea of cortisone is to turn off the pain response so you can rehab an injury. Today most Drs. use the shot as the treatment protocol by itself and leave the rehab portion out, I believe this is one of the reasons why some Drs. find themselves giving cortisone shots every six months or so for the same injury. They have in essence used the cortisone to shut down the pain, but have not taken any advantage of that period of pain relief to change the function of the injury they are treating. The cortisone did give me temporary pain relief but by this time I had so much scar tissue in the shoulder my range of motion was very poor and limited my rehab, so this was an unsuccessful treatment protocol for me. I have wondered if it may have worked if I had been less stubborn and tried it before I lost so much function.

This has left me with no options except surgery. Over a year ago I saw a surgeon who said I was one of the worst cases of frozen shoulder he has ever seen and that I was indeed a surgical candidate. He put me on his wait list.

A year and a bit later and I had my surgical date. Until yesterday I was scheduled for surgery Wednesday June 29th. Yesterday I got the dreaded phone call from the surgeons office. I got bumped! After all the planning, organizing and time booked off work I got bumped!

I should not be so dramatic, I am very lucky that only got bumped a week. My new date is for July 6th. I am so thankful that I am not the emergency that someone had to bumped for, I am thankful that I got bumped only week and not three months. I am thankful for the fact that they tell me they are not allowed to bump me again.

Random photo: I was downloading the pictures off of PJ's camera for her and came across this one, they clearly took this one of themselves. I love it, it made me smile so big I thought I would share it with all of you. That is PJ, Paul's mom Judy and Paul 's sister Jodie. Aren't they beautiful!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The Cave

Months ago I told you I planned to show you the craft room. I am so happy with the room that I have been spending time down in my Cave instead of on my computer. There are even several finished projects I should show you soon.

You may remember the naked pine cabinets I showed you many moons ago. Here is one of them all loaded up with yarn. I have to say I don't know weather to proud or embarrassed about my stash. There is quite a bit of yarn on display in this post. When people walk into the Cave and gasp, "You could open a yarn shop!" it makes me wonder if should be seeking out a some sort of ten step program for fiber addicts.



I love my red tool box. That is a hand me down from Paul. Years ago he bought a bigger one for his tools in the garage and I asked him if I could have the small one for knitting tools. The thought just occurred to me that I may feel slightly less sheepish about showing you my Cave if I did a post on Paul's garage. He has a wonderful collection of stuff it would put my hobby to shame.



Here is my project desk, where all the ideas happen. I love sitting here with my iPod on the dock listening to an audio book while I swatch or work on a project. Shannon you may recognize the little desk, I think it is a drafting table, Shannon and Will were kind enough to pass it on to me when they no longer had a use for it.



A place to spin and read:



The white cubes you see are the cubes my yarn lived in under the stairs, in a space we called the Kissing Cave. I would ask the kids to come down and help me pick out yarn for projects and then I would shower the kids with kisses and tickle them once they were under the stairs with me. That is how the craft room got the name "The Cave" I am thinking maybe "The Room of Good Intentions" might be better. Maybe we test drive calling it "The Room of Requirement" What do you think?

One last photo of the second yarn cabinet and bit of mess. The wire rack with the cloth bins on it is soon to be moved. That is where the kids put there winter boots when thy are not on their feet and each kid has a bin to put there mitts and toques in so they don't get lost. I will move that soon as I have been eyeing up an antique red table to put there. I have been eyeing up the table for months, I think I need to bite the bullet and buy it before someone else does. Maybe for my birthday.



A huge hug to Aunt P for sending me the nudge I needed to finish the post that has been half written for months.