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.

"Life's funny sometimes"... but Life is also a jerk sometimes

So, 'sup? Been over a month now. Any news?

*waits*

*waits more*

Oh, wait, that's right. This is my stupid blog and I'm supposed to be sharing news.

I wanted to write some stuff a week or two ago, but I was putting it off because I had a problem. My problem was this- my human knee started to hurt. At first, I couldn't tell if it was a "fibro hurt" or if something more was going on. So, I did what I do best- I tried not to think about it. Guess what? If you guessed "nothing happened", you're right. The pain in my knee varied in intensity. Some days were just a mild ache. Some days were so blindingly painful that I cried from it. Driving became a horrible chore. Pressing down on the gas pedal wasn't so bad, but holding down the brake pedal because so painful I'd white-knuckle grip the steering wheel and contort my face into some pretty epic expressions in an effort to not scream: "OW!MOTHERFUCKINGSONOFABITCHCOCKSUCKER!" (because swearing helps ease pain).

Last week, my daughter asked me to come to her college (a 90 minute drive, made mostly with cruise control and a few cooperative stoplights) to take production photos of the play she's stage managing. So I did. And it was fun (and the play was cool). But, I was up and down and standing and walking for several hours. I didn't really feel the full impact of all that till the next day. The next day when every single moment was agony and I cried and I was in so much pain I couldn't even sit here to process the RAW files. And if you know me, you know that I never let a photo sit without processing. It ended up taking me almost four days to do what should have taken two days. Because of this goddamn human knee. It was that day that I called and made an appointment with my knee doctor. I didn't bother to go through the VA first. If I had, I'd still be waiting for that appointment.

I hate using a cane. It pisses me off. I used a cane for three years and a huge chunk of that time was spent with two canes (I named them "George and Gracie"). So, because I was doing this more often than I wanted, I made that appointment.

My worst fear was that I'd have to get another knee replacement. I had my left knee replaced in 2009 and while it was the best thing that ever happened to me (because it opened up my life and I got to go "out" and do "stuff" and have "fun" like "all the normal people do"), I don't ever want to go through that again. I've given birth to three babies. Without drugs. Two of them in Army hospitals (the middle one was at a civilian hospital because the Army is a dick to families). Three babies, no drugs, and one of them was 11 pounds even and 22 1/2 inches tall. And the knee replacement pain was worse. Much worse.

How much worse? Well, allegedly, women "forget" the pain of labor to go through it again. My kids have 2 1/2 years and 1 1/2 years between them, so I guess in my case, that's true. I had my knee replaced SIX YEARS ago and I STILL remember how much it sucked in the three weeks that followed. Pain and agony and so much work to just get normal enough to get out of the hospital. I stayed for two weeks for in-hospital physical therapy and then I spent two weeks at my parents' fully-handicap-accessible house before coming to my own house. Well, I don't have that luxury anymore (since my parents passed away).

So, I did not want another goddamn knee replacement. I've gone through scenarios in my head on scheduling it after faire season because I'd have six months between Teslacon and Janesville Faire. I only needed five months the last time (I had my knee replacement five months before my first trip to Bristol). But... instead, this is what has happened.

I took two photos of my X-rays. One from pre-replacement in 2009 and one from today.

You'll notice that they're leaning (I did them backwards, they're leaning in, not out). That's partly because I'm so overweight that my thighs are pushing them and partly because I hyper-extend my knees, well, all my joints. Christine hates it when I hyper-extend my fingers, it grosses her out. Jason likes it because he can do it to his elbows and he used to do MMA (mixed-martial arts fighting) and his opponents couldn't make him tap-out with an arm bar. I'm not sure how my oldest- Kat- feels about hyper-extended joints.

So, let's zoom in on these bad boys and I'll show you some things.

Here's the right knee. The yellow arrows are pointing to two bone spurs that have started to grow. The blue arrows are pointing to the bright white line, which indicates that the bones are rubbing and starting to wear down. The purple arrows show the gap between the bones, which means I still have a little bit of cartilage in there.

This is my left knee, from 2009, about a month before my knee replacement. The difference here is that the gap is much smaller. The blue arrows are pointing to the white line (which was all around the entire bone, not just those bits on the edges). The yellow arrows are pointing to the bone spurs that were growing, including a third one on the edge (I could feel that one. I remember that quite vividly).  Those bone spurs were worn down, and one of them may have been broken off. The green arrow is pointing to a folding-over-like edge. Like an ice cream cone is just melting a little, the edge of the ice cream is just holding on. That was all around the bone as well. I have a plastic model of my knee joint around here somewhere and it has all the flat spots and overhang of bone. I didn't point out the gap. As you can see, there's a lot less gap there.

So, it is obvious to me (and the doctor, because he explained it to me) that my right knee is in no way as bad of shape as the left one was. Probably because I saw him within a month of the pain starting. When it happened to the last one, I had to wait for almost two years before I was given the consultation letter to see the surgeon away from the VA. (I can see this doctor now, because my knee replacement was done by him, so everything that happens to my knees now falls under his umbrella of care- that umbrella thing is my own analogy, not the insurance's).

Instead of terrifying me with another total knee replacement, we're doing the cortisone shots. I have "significant arthritis", but not enough for a total knee replacement. He said if it works out, I'll be fine for up to six months. So, what's happen next is a photo of a two-inch long needle. And the one after it is a photo of him pressing the syringe into my knee. I didn't feel it at all. He just jammed it in and there was no pain, no anything. I felt a little tingle when he hit the plunger bit down, but other than that, nothing. And, I know if I end up not feeling any relief in the next week or so, to come in again and we'll do something else (I assume the next step up would be "rooster injections", which are so named because they're made out of rooster waddles. Yes, your "what the fuck?" reaction is entirely appropriate).

So, here's the warning, if you don't like needles or what it looks like when a needle is inserted into the knee to the point you can't see the needle anymore, don't scroll down.

This is the end of the blog for you, as far as your needle hate is concerned.

I'm not going to add any photography stuff to this post because it's already laden with photos. So if you stop now, you won't miss anything but needle stuff.

...

Last warning. 

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One more warning. 

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FINAL WARNING!! 

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Okay, you were warned. Here are the two photos-

And this one- I might use this as my 365 for the day.