Stuff about Open Carpal Tunnel Surgery and of course, the fibro...

First, let's cover the surgery thing. I didn't- as I'd mentioned in that video- update anyone after the cast thing came off my hand. So, let's start there... sort of.

If you're on my Facebook, you know how it has been going, because I did not one update, not two updates, not three, or four, not even five (which was the start of the second surgery). I did six, seven, eight, nine  updates on my Facebook. All my posts are public, so you should be able to see them.

My first surgery was amazing. Every single day felt like an improvement and within two weeks, I got most of the feeling back in my fingers. Just the very tips of my index and middle fingers are a bit tingly. But, I can feel things with them- including hot, cold, wet, or dry. My second surgery wasn't quite as fun. The pain after surgery was much, much worse. I spent a lot more time elevating and icing than I had to with the first. Even now, I sometimes have to wear a brace to do things- but the weird thing is that I don't have to wear any kind of brace to sleep with anymore. I've slept with braces on my hands for more than ten years. I was worried I wouldn't be able to fall asleep without them, but I adapted very quickly.

Here's a list of things I wish I knew ahead of my first surgery-

1- if you take a fistful of pills in the morning like I do, get yourself one of those days-of-the-week/month pill holders and set that shit up BEFORE  you go in for surgery. I didn't. Didn't even cross my mind. I take some vitamins (prescribed) and some other blood pressure and edema-related pills every morning. And I take a small amount of pills at night (pain meds, muscle relaxers, fibro med).

2- Get bottles without a childproof cap. My pain meds were in the super-dynamic-engineering type of bottle. I had serious problems getting into my bottles. The spouse- you know him, The Disabled Guy- only has the use of one hand himself, so the two of us trying to wedge a childproof cap off a Vicodin bottle was pretty hilarious... not as hilarious as the two of us one-handed wonders trying to get my giant DDD-cup bra on in the morning. Boy, THAT was an experience in pain and hilarity.

3- Get frozen meals or pre-cook/freeze meals. Not everyone is as lucky as I am to have a disabled spouse who is always home. He handled cooking okay and we had takeout and frozen pizza a lot. (he doesn't like to cook very much).

4- Train all of your pets ahead of time to bring you shit. Not actual shit, that's gross. Like, food and drink. Ice packs. Pain medicine. That remote control you kept dropping behind the sofa because you thought setting it on the pillow next to your swollen hand was a good idea.

5- Chihuahuas make good nurses. At least, in THEIR mind, they do.

Here is a link to a photo of  my left hand with stitches visible, and the right one with stitches and bruising. Here's one of just the scars (at four weeks and six weeks). They're not so bad right now, they look more like a slight discoloration than surgical scars.

Now that's out of the way, let's move on to the fibro thing. I think my Generic-Cymbalta-for-fibro has stopped working. I've been dealing with almost-daily flareup pain for just over a month. I have my semi-annual followup appointment two days from this typing. It started just like last time- I couldn't tell if it was the weather or if I was having issues with the medicine. I even thought that it was related to my hand surgery because that second one sucked a lot more for pain/issues. But it isn't that either. I didn't try to get in at the VA earlier, because I already have this appointment scheduled, so I just let the days drag on till now.

That said, the other day, I picked up some potted flowers at that big orange box store because it'd been SO LONG since I held my beloved Nikon in my hands. And I got a few really nice macro shots of flowers. And now, I share those with you, because what better way to end a blog update full of Facebook links and Mom Jokes? Enjoy!

This is the first batch of photos I have taken since my open carpal tunnel release surgeries. I did do a few snowflake macros in February, but I still had the cast on my arm, so it wasn't much effort to hold the camera. This day, however, I learned just where the pain was internally.

Despite the pain in my hand (which I controlled a bit by wearing a soft Neoprene wrist brace), I loved being outside to take photos again. In the weeks leading up to my surgeries (which were January 22nd and February 5th), I didn't have much chance to do a lot of photos (drab weather, lack of indoor flowers).
















This is the fingertip of my pinky finger. For size reference.

Well... this is a blog post.

As my last post mentioned, I had to get a test done- EMG. WELL... turns out, that's one of the MANY things that the VA hospital will not see me for- and for good reason, really. I'm not a veteran. I'm the spouse of a 100% service-connected disabled veteran. While I can get almost everything I need done at the VA, there are a few specialties that they won't cover because they're high demand for actual veterans. And that's fine. What's not fine is that the list of things they will and will not cover changes often. I never know what's going to come up as not covered. BUT- the VA doctors can give me a consultation letter to see a non-VA doctor and the CHAMPVA insurance will pay for it like any other health insurance (meaning we have a cost-share and deductible).

So, that call I was waiting to make that I mentioned before? That was the Patient Administrative Services calling to tell me they weren't going to let me see a rheumatologist because they couldn't allow me to be a "new patient". Except I'm not a "new patient". I saw the rheumatology clinic for my fibro diagnosis and initial treatment. Then they kicked me back to my GP for the maintenance care. If I had been to the rheumatology within the last two years, I'd be allowed back... but their policy to kick me back to the GP... you see the circle-jerk in that whole thing? Yeah.

Anyway, after I got off the phone with them, I called the GP clinic and told them that I'd need a consultation letter. When I got the letter, I called the local place I go to when I need to- and it turns out, you don't even SEE a rheumatologist for this in the real world! I had to go to an ortho. The good thing is, the ortho I had to see is in the same office as my knee doctor. So, from that visit, I was scheduled for the EMG on January 14th. Then this morning, I got a call saying they had a cancellation for this afternoon.

One piece of advice- do NOT Google "Does an EMG for carpal tunnel hurt?" because you will find the scary stories from people who were either exaggerating or complete and total wimps. The test wasn't painful, really, just uncomfortable. And kind of weird. There are needles involved but the needle thing didn't even hurt. The weird cattle prod thingy- that was worse than the needles.

Basically, they put these sensors on your hands in different places and then use that weird cattle prod thingy to send a jolt through various nerves from different places in your arm/wrist. After that, there is a session with a needle in specific places to test muscle activity and such. You get to hear your muscles. I didn't even know my muscles made noise. And let me tell you, mine were noisy bastards!

Because I'm me, I took some photos. But because I'm not an asshole, I won't show you the photos without warning. They'll be in links. Click them if you want to, but I will tell you what they are before you click it.

This is the machine used in the EMG.

This is my hand with some of the senor doodads on it (they move those around at different points of the test).

This is the needle being held up by the doctor so I could take a photo. It is a really thin needle and I barely felt the needle at all.

This is that same needle in my forearm. The doctor took this photo with my phone for me. There is no blood or anything, just the super-thin needle in my arm.

This is the bruise I got in my biceps on my left arm. I don't think I have any other bruises and it doesn't even hurt.

Now see? That wasn't so bad! And if you need one of these, don't worry! You can't even see them putting the needle into your muscle and I could barely feel it.

As for the results of this test- I have severe nerve damage in both hands. I am definitely going to have surgery for it because I really don't have much of a choice at this point. And because my nerve damage is so severe, I will probably always have numbness in some of my fingers. The surgery will help, but it can't fix what's so far gone.

NOW... a little discussion about the fibro thing. Because of the holiday or because I miscounted- I was without my fibro medication for three straight days. I took my last pill on Sunday night. On Monday, when it didn't come in the mail, I decided to give it one more day, because of the holiday. On Tuesday, when it didn't come, I called the VA. It turns out it was mailed out on Monday afternoon. I got it today. However, I couldn't take it till I got home from all the running around I had to do today. So, I did the EMG, I drove home to pick up the Disabled Guy to drive him to Rockford. Oh, yeah- last Thursday (New Year's Eve), he was driving down a road and a woman pulled out in front of him. He was going about 45 MPH and had no stop signs or lights. She was turning left onto the road from a stop sign. How she didn't see the full-size pickup truck with running lights is beyond me. He's fine, but his truck has been officially totaled.

So for the last week, I've been dealing with insurance companies, chauffeuring the Disabled Guy around, juggling my doctor appointments with his anti-coagulation appointment, AND dealing with life without fibro medicine. Let me tell you- I'd forgotten how much this disease sucks without that medicine. And stress suuuuuucks even harder. So, today, I had to drive a half hour to one town to be zapped and prodded and stabbed, then drive the half hour home, get the Disabled Guy, drive forty minutes to where his truck had been towed to get his big-ass toolbox that was mounted in the bed of his truck, then drive him the forty minutes home, and THEN go to the grocery store. Then... I had to cook dinner.

But I digress... or do I? I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm on my full amount of nighttime medication right now. Let me sum it up a little...

Good news: I was moved up a whole week to get the EMG.

Bad news: I have severe and permanent nerve damage in my hands. (in case you forgot, I kind of use my hands for, well, everything. But most importantly, I use my hands for photography).

Goo- No, wait... bad news: I have to have surgery.

Good- No, wait, still bad news: the Disabled Guy's truck is totaled, we have to wait for the insurance company to settle things with the lien holder before we can get him a new vehicle.

Good news: (no, really!) it should only be a couple weeks before we get the check from the insurance company to get a new truck.

Bad news: I have to put up with the Disabled Guy not driving himself around for another few weeks. He can't drive my vehicle because it isn't big enough for him to tuck his disabled half out of the way so he can reach everything with his un-disabled half.

Good-Bad news: The recovery time from a carpal tunnel surgery can take up to three months. The reason that's good-bad is that I have plenty of time between now and May (the Janesville Ren Faire), but the bad part is that because of my fibro, recovery time may be longer.

 To end on a better note, here are some macro photos I took of some flowers (I bought myself a bouquet of flowers from the grocery store and a couple days later, a friend dropped by and gave me a Yule basket of goodies and some flowers). Also, I took some really cool photos of the Disabled Guy's train set. If you'd like to see those- here's a link. Some were taken with my phone, some with my camera. (the camera shots are awesome!).

And now, on to the flower macros! I took the two flower vases outside while the sun was still out to get a handful of photos. The sunlight was filtered through some thin, white clouds.

And then I had to go and try to change things...

So, I found that wonderful sweet spot in the medicine cocktail I take for my fibro. I had a long stretch of feelin' good and doing stuff and baking things and photographing people and being a human and all that neat stuff you guys do all the time like you're Superman or something.

And I thought to myself: "Self, the whole point to you finding a fibro treatment that works is so you can stop taking so much pain medicine."

And like I dumbass, I replied: "You know, Self, you're right! Let's fuck some shit up like the dumbass we are, because I hate feeling good enough to live life like a goddamn human!!"

So, I decided that since I was feeling so good, I could cut back on the amount of muscle relaxers I was taking.

Just a reminder, here is what I have been taking for the fibro- the "sweet spot" I referred to in the first sentence- One 10 mg muscle relaxer between 530 and 6 AM, two 5/325 Hydrocodone tablets between 10 and 11 AM, three 5/325 Hydrocodone tablets between 6 and 630 PM, and two more muscle relaxers and the generic Cymbalta between 7 and 730 PM.

This is just the pain meds. This doesn't include all the "stay-alive" pills
I take in the morning after my first muscle relaxer.

My first step was to take only ONE muscle relaxer at night. I still fell asleep that night, I still slept, and I still woke up. Except I didn't sleep good. I woke up at least twice. But hey, it was one night and this is winter (our weather is unpredictable). So, I took only one muscle relaxer a second night. (this is along with everything else- I just cut back a single 10 mg tablet of muscle relaxer).

I woke up the next day with my arms, shoulders, neck, and hands so sore and so stiff that I could barely move. I said "Fuck this shit" and took two muscle relaxers at night and damned if I didn't feel better the next morning. Not 100% better, but significantly better.

So, what I can garner from my absolutely unscientific shot in the dark experiment is- Don't fuck with a good thing. If it ain't broke, stop fucking with the ain't-broke thing, you stupid, stupid human. It took me another two days before I felt better. And I still don't feel as good as I felt before I tried to fuck with things. My hands are still a bit sore and yesterday, my right elbow and wrist were so sore that I couldn't fully straighten or bend my arm. I walked around with one arm crooked slightly, like the worst C3P0 cosplay in the history of terrible cosplays. When I woke up this morning, my elbow didn't hurt at all.

I'm not going to mess with any doses of my fibro cocktail until it stops working for me. And then I'll talk to my doctor first. Because I'm a stupid, stupid human.

And to end on a much prettier and less-stupid note, I took a bunch of macro photos the other day. My son gave me a batch of tulips for Valentine's Day (and also some chocolate, because I have a good son). So, I took them over to the window, spritzed them with a water bottle, and snapped a few shots. The purple flowers are from a hyacinth I picked up at the grocery store a week or so before Valentine's Day.  Click on any photo to go to the Flickr album...

The new year, another flareup, and something pretty

Here I sit, at 3 AM on a Friday morning. Last night, I went to bed between 930 and 10, because I was tired. I had a long day of holding down this office chair with my ass. That's a lot of work, I tell you what. (In reality, I had to go to the hardware store for steel wool. Imagine my surprise when the Ace Hardware guy knew what I was going to do when I told him I was using it for photography).

On Wednesday, daytime, around 330-ish, my body decided it was unhappy being upright and fully functioning. I fought the feeling for a while and finally at 4 PM, I had to admit that it was time to go lay down. Some days, my muscles feel electrified, like they're trying to twitch. They feel all tensed up and I refer to it as being "twitchy" although I'm not actually twitching. On those days, I can go lay down for about a half hour and be okay. I set an alarm in case I fall asleep because I don't want to sleep too long and have it screw up my nighttime sleep patterns.

So, I get into bed, fully clothed, shoes and all (my feet were off the edge of the bed). I had the TV on- I'm pretty sure it was a marathon of "NCIS" because, well, it was daytime and it was the USA network. I set my alarm for 430 PM, giving me plenty of time to cook dinner before my friend's radio show came on. Somewhere in that half hour, I got a text message. Then another. Basically, I was awakened about every ten minutes. When my alarm went off at 430, I did something I don't usually do- I hit "snooze" instead of "dismiss". I hit snooze enough times to make me not get out of bed till about 510 PM.

It did help a bit. I wasn't quite so twitchy and I did cook dinner before Shake Hands with Danger Radio came on at 6 PM. And everything was fine, for the most part. I've remained in a state of mild muscle tension. But the out-and-out pain comes and goes. And the freakin' neuropathy in my foot. That shit has got to stop. I can't stand that feeling. I try to describe it but "Numb with pain" makes no sense to the normies out there. Across the top of my right foot, from around the bend of my ankle to the big toe and second toe... that narrow triangle of area is a tingly-not-quite-numb feeling combined with a burning, tense sort of pain. Touching it has no affect (effect? It's after 3 AM, I'm not even sure I'm using "they're", "their", and "there" correctly right now). If I'm wearing a shoe, I have to remove it. Sometimes, sticking my foot up on that bracer thingy on the back of my desk helps, but not much.

My ankle-foot-calf thing is almost gone now. My ankle still hurts when I flex my foot out like a ballerina. Yeah, I can do that. I've never taken a dance class, I'm actually dancing impaired. It isn't pretty. And you can't really make fun of me because the whole spectacle is so frightening and sad to watch. I'm just really, really bendy.

So, what brings this blog post to us in the middle of the goddamn night? The itching. I went to bed tonight and about thirty minutes after I got all snuggly under the covers, with my swollen legs elevated, the millions of hairy-legged spiders started to break-dance under my skin. Combined with the tense muscles, I think I actually did start twitching. I tried to sleep for almost three hours. I finally got up. I stared at the wall, then the ceiling, then the other wall. I turned on the TV, I changed the channel a bit. Then I said, "Fuck this shit" and got out of bed.

I just ate some breakfast and took a couple more Vicodin. I'm tired now and the itching has gone down a bit.

But, let's talk about the something pretty I mentioned in the title. Tuesday, January 1st, I was having a bitch of a flareup. Gravity was harsher than usual. Pain everywhere. Aching joints. Tight muscles. If I tried to flex or stretch at all, I had a muscle spasm. So, I went upstairs, stripped down to naked and crawled under my soft fleece blankets. I watched the "NCIS" marathon and even dozed off for about ten minutes. I stayed in bed for almost three whole hours. And as long as I didn't move, I felt okay. But if I dared to move, even just my arms or a leg, pain would shock through that appendage and then cause the rest of my body to say: "Oh, is that all you got?! How about THIS!?" and it'd spasm something else.

I got up around 3, 330- I don't recall exactly. But it was later in the afternoon, close to sunset. I took the dogs outside and while I was waiting on them and struggling to stay upright and not turn into a human question mark on my deck, I noticed a couple icicles with sunlight glowing through them. After I got the beasts indoors, I picked up my camera. I tried a couple shots with my zoom lens. Terrible. I switched to my macro lens and got these- (and if you're on my Facebook, you've already gotten a look at these).

That's the setting sun behind the icicles.





I went inside and announced: "I can't pass this up. Fibrofuckingmyalgia be damned, I'm going down to the river and taking some photos."

The Disabled Guy said: "Whatever."

He was unconcerned as he was watching "NCIS" and repeats of a show he's seen several times is somewhat more important than his wife. Trust me on this.

So, I threw on some real shoes (I was wearing slippers, I put on my Docs) and headed down to the river. And then this happened....




















There are a lot more shots. A lot more. So, despite the flareup and the pain (and the Raynaud's that flared up because of the cold), I call that day a win. Because I got out and I did something productive. I hurt like a sonovabitch for hours after and my Vicodin did very little to help me, but goddammit, I got out there and took photos.

And today? Well, yesterday... you know, THURSDAY... I was going to go take photos of a section of the river that was iced over, but the ice was so flat and smooth it reflected the shoreline and trees like a mirror. Except when I stepped outside with the dogs for the second time that morning, it was snowing. Tiny little dandruff flakes.


How tiny? THIS TINY!



And these few photos are just a portion of the shots I got from that tiny snowflake flurry.















So, no matter how bad fibro makes me feel, as long as I can get myself upright and out the door, I know I'm gonna be okay. I know I'm lucky, too. There are people who can't get themselves upright. They can't get up or get out or do anything they enjoy. And sure, I hurt from it, and I pay for it later, sometimes for days. But dammit, I'm lucky. I'm lucky I can escape with that Nikon D5100 in my hands. I'm lucky that I can do this and then share this with all of you. (yes, you! And you too! Yes, even you!)

It has taken my 30-ish minutes to type all this and to get the html for the photos and so on. Even though I had a rough few days this week and tonight has been a terrible sleep night, I know how lucky I am. And I'm grateful that I can lose myself in snowflakes for ten, twenty or even thirty minutes.

I hope you enjoyed my photos. Because I enjoyed taking them.