Frozen Shoulder

Every week in our LiveStrong  alumni class, we have a theme: this week it is using rubber bands for strength exercises. The advantages of these are that they are cheap and portable. With all sorts of good intentions, I bring these things when I am travelling. Times I used these while travelling? Zero. I also resolved to do some sort of strength training on the weekend. Thanks to Josh, we have a whole set of weights plus I have the therabands left over from my physical therapy days. No excuses..but I did have the cold from hell last weekend. I am still not fully recovered with my froggy voice, cough and constantly draining nose.

While explaining the bands, our instructor asked how many of us have gone through physical therapy. Almost every hand shot up. We are all cancer survivors though it isn't clear that cancer treatment was responsible for every fellow student's need for PT. My oncologist recommended it for me when she noticed a year out from diagnosis, I still couldn't lift my arm on the bad side. I am not sure which of the unholy trilogy (slash, poison and burn) was responsible. I am guessing radiation because during that phase, I had to be able to put my hands behind my head. Afterwards I could not. A woman in my yoga class had to delay radiation because she could not put her hands behind her head so the culprit in that case seemed to be surgery. Anyway, I declined the PT. I had gone through it before and knew the drill. Mobility to my shoulder has been restored to about 95% with all my stretching exercises. There is still some pain though.

Adhesive Capsulitis  aka  Frozen Shoulder. When the shoulder is not moved regularly, adhesions form and the joint fluid needed for mobility disappears making it even more difficult to move. Soon any movement is painful. I had broken the head of my humerus a year before entering Cancerland. They could not set the bone but said if I limited movement, it should heal on its own. I was also given the conflicting info that I would have to move it a little or I would get frozen shoulder. It hurt like hell to move the arm even a little. Two months later, the fracture was gone but the pain remained. I had a very severe case of frozen shoulder ad was sent 3x/week to PT. I had to take Vicodin to make these trips somewhat tolerable. One of the treatments consisted of me lying on my back while they pushed my arm back. When I started therapy, the angle my arm made with the table was about 45 degrees: ideal would be 180. By the time I quit, the angle was more like 135 degrees. They would push my arm back to the point of pain and hold it there. One therapist decided that I must be a wimp and pushed it beyond that point ignoring my screams. After that, I told him that would not ever happen again. I would consider it assault. I was given a bunch of exercises and equipment to be used at home including the therabands. The bill for PT was astounding though at the time, I had good insurance. After 3 months, I decided, I would treat myself. Still on the day I raced 750 miles to see Oliver's birth, I could not stretch out my left arm to pay the many tolls. EZ Pass would have been welcome. (I did get it for my many other trips). My left arm, the formerly broken one, is now just fine. The cancer arm, the right, is not completely though I can do almost everything I used to be able to do.

It is beautiful out but cold. I am waiting for the sun to burn a path through the ice that reformed overnight so I can run.

Winter projects

Favorite photo from Montreal being converted to canvas

Cotswold gardens

One of the many 16x20 photos of me as a toddler. Unfortunately the matting has yellowed

One of the wrapping paper maps

A series of lithographs purchased in York England of the town. Just now got around to hanging them up

I will have one wall in my dining room devoted to my favorite travel photos in canvas. I just ordered the above first two to join a photo of the Ponte Vecchio and another of the alleyways of Gagliano.
For our den, we bought several old maps and framed them. The maps are actually wrapping paper and cost about $3/sheet but look cool framed. We have ancient maps of lower Manhattan, England, Italy and the World.
My father never owned a digital camera but he would have liked the Cotswold photo as every flower is in focus. In the photo of me, every stitch of the sweater can be seen but not the eyes of the horse.Is this horse unusual?  I always thought the mane of a dark horse would be dark. In general, he avoided photographing dark animals especially against a light background. He printed all of his black and whites having a whole series of 'dodgers' that could be used to prevent one area of a print from becoming overexposed. I was allowed to dodge in his darkroom.

And it is snowing again!!!! I still have a cold but maybe I will have enough energy to go out today.
Poor Daniel was hit hard by the RSV virus (again!!!) and spent some time in the ER yesterday. His siblings were much more mildly affected. Even though he is a strong, healthy looking preschooler, being born with premature lungs has made him extra vulnerable. Once a preemie, always a preemie, they were told last night.
Still thinking of a winter escape. One plan already fell through.

Cold

I always thought that a cold was a strange name for an illness but for the past two days, I can see why it is aptly named. I just can not get warm. My skin is cold to the touch and my voice is even lower than usual. I just keep drinking hot liquids and hoping this will go away soon. No colds for 9 years and now 2 in a month...

Decluttering

Things I have uncovered in the last few days:

1. Electric calculator circa 1970. Functions: very basic. Presumably cost $150, a lot of money in those days. Does not work even if we plug it in. Steve reluctantly agreed to throw it away but I bet it's squirreled away somewhere.
2. I had winnowed my father's photo boxes from 15 down to one. Somehow they mysteriously expanded back to 3. More throwing out.
3. A big box containing something called WebTV. I don't recall ever using this. It looks expensive but it is obsolete.
4. An original Texas Instrument computer circa 1980. Memory was stored on a cassette recorder. Included are about 50 games with slightly better graphics than Pong.  I am not allowed to throw this out as someday it may be worth something. (I doubt it)
5. Fifteen maps from various years of the NYC subway system. About 5 of the Chicago system
6. Triplicates if not more of almost every state in the country
7. A huge folder containing information about Columbus, Indiana

Bags and bags of useless stuff are now gone but sadly this is only a drop in the bucket. Still would love to make financial records that are more than 10 years old disappear along with folders of monthly statements (wouldn't one yearly statement be enough?)

What else does one do on a snowy day? I did go out for a while as the bike path behind us is sort of clear and  a commercial office park nearby is fairly diligent about keeping the parking lots clear.  Our streets though are a slippery mess. Making plans now to escape this.

Achy Breaky Breast

 What is this gruesome photo of? My achy breaky breast. To be thorough, I should photograph  the huge difference in size between my 'good' breast and this. It is very firm to the touch. It would pass the Ann Landers test. ( Should you wear a bra? If your breast will hold a pencil, yes you should). Initially when I consulted the surgeon, she assured me that she could get everything out with 'good cosmetic effect". I guess what good is  varies with who is looking at it.

Since my seroma broke last month, the size difference has become even larger. The seroma still continues to leak though at a much slower rate. Seromas are very common in breast surgery, particularly in mastectomies but usually they disappear in a few months. Not much word about those which decide to explode 4 years later. Doctors are reluctant to drain them lest they get infected. But they will if they are painful. On the internet, there are cases of grapefruit size seromas in the armpit making it impossible to put ones arms down. But as soon as they are drained, they seem to fill right back up again.

The 70,000th visitor came to this website a few minutes ago. Readership is decling; perhaps I should lead a more exciting life?

Cold, windy and icy again.

The Week that Was

Wednesday night was Restaurant Week with the Moms. Downtown restaurants in Ann Arbor twice a year have special menus for a week. We go to the vegetarian restaurant Seva as some of us are vegetarians of different degrees. I have red curry lentil soup, portabella ravioli, a flourless chocolate  torte along with lots of citrusy IPA beer. We laughed and exchanged stories for 3 hours, lots of fun, then out into the cold to try to remember where I left that car. I swore I had parked it on a certain street but no, it was not there. It was very late, dark and cold and I was by myself...not a good feeling but fortunately I found it a block away.

Thursday the family came in two far apart in time flights. The Seattle sister and her husband stayed at Shanna's mother-in-law's house while we awaited the New Yorkers. Finally at ten at night, they were able to surprise Steve. With the kids and their kids and significant others, we were 15 people: hard to move from one place to another all together. We just stayed at our house some of the time drinking lots of wine. We had a good time sharing stories, some of which I had not heard before. Sample: Steve was 8 years old or so sitting in class with a pair of scissors. He decided to cut off his eyebrows hair by hair fascinated by the pile of hairs forming. Soon it was time for recess. A girl took one look at him and screamed. As soon as he got home, he decided he needed to cover up his cutting job. For the next month or so, he borrowed his mother's eyebrow pencil and filled the eyebrows back in. No one seemed to notice, not his brother who is just a bit younger who shared his room or his mother, who we called to see if she remembered. This story sounds a lot better after you drink a bunch of wine I am now realizing.

The adults, most of them at least, went out  for Happy Hour on Friday which turned into a nice dinner. On Saturday, some of us went to Oliver's birthday party in Canton and looked at the hole in the ground that will be Shanna's house. This is how much progress there has been in 4 months. I swear my parent's house was finished in less than 3. Part of Josh's job, as with Julie who deals with marketing, is to go to the auto show. They took one of our Seattle visitors as he is a car guy though mainly he is interested in fixing up very old foreign models.  He usually is working on several  car carcasses at once. Not sure if he ever finished one.

Then we had the big birthday dinner proceeded by the giving of gifts that I wrote about previously.

But we all had good talks: topic number one...worries about our kids. Will parenthood responsibilities ever end? Not any time soon for us. The next week was full of dealing with various unpleasant issues.

Sunday, sadly they all went home. Our house is so much quieter and lonelier now. We went for a drive to look at places for Josh to live. Living in Dexter will no longer be practical; he .has to move east.

Monday was the day of ice that resulted in the death of one of our cars. It was officially junked today. This was the car I drove loaded with baby stuff across Canada and NY to meet my new grandson. I drove it again with Naomi a few years later to retrieve a crib from Boston. It had a great sound system and a moon roof. This was the car that Josh drove into a deer. The body was made of plastic so the impact completely shattered the front end. But the car looked great as the plastic doesn't rust or even fade. It still looked new though I haven't seen the car since the last 2 accidents. We also had  a meeting with the financial advisor to deal with our portfolio. Hate those meetings..never know if we are doing the right thing but by doing nothing, we are doing a lot of harm. Still to  do, transfer all of the 401K into an IRA so the kids will not be socked with extra penalties if we were to die at the same time. Also need to put everything into a trust.

Tuesday was the day of taking care of a zillion issues. I stayed back with the grandbabies. By the time I was free to run, the thunderstorms started. Our former place of employment's stock went way up. We sold even more of it.

On Wednesday, it was in the fifties. I was full of pent-up energy and went for a run lasting more than 1.5 hours. On it I saw the orthopedic resident(who by now must be a 'real' doctor) out biking with a mud stripe up his back. I met him in the ER way back when I was dealing with my broken arm. The ER resident wondered about my story that I had tripped running. He actually thought I might be escaping an abusive husband. He could not believe a woman my age would be running for any other reason. Then the orthopedic guy stepped in and said he himself, had seen me run plenty of times while he was biking (and that maybe I should bike instead). I have seen him out running with the marathon training group that seems to love my scenic beauty road too. No scenic road for me now. It will take a while for the ice to melt there.

Today, Thursday, more snow. Snow, snow, go away. I hate worrying about all the accidents it causes. I ran at the Y before my LiveStrong class as this month was not great for running and I try to keep to a certain quota. We had Ms. Maya again as Naomi went out to take care of more business. At least she recovered from her bad cold that had made her extra crabby the two days before.

There is more that I didn't cover here that will change our lives.

TV Breast Cancer

So Parenthood had its season finale wrapping up several plot lines with happy endings particularly that of Kristina who was treated for BC that invaded her nodes. Big Drama: her liver enzymes were off ...could be liver mets. She can't consider going to Hawaii with her husband because she might be busy dying. But her liver scans were clear so her doctor told her that she was Cancer Free! Ah big relief. Again no doctor can ever truthfully tell you that you are cancer free. At best, there is no evidence of disease. and then he told her that after 5 years, then she will be truly cancer free. Maybe she had TNBC but with ER+, the risk of recurrence  is still there even after 10 years. And will Kristina have to take estrogen blockers? No mention of these though taking them doesn't play to the audience as well as losing the hair.

Reality check: Liver enzymes are often screwed up by chemo. Mine certainly were but no scans were suggested to see if I had liver mets.

And there was poor Sybil on Downton Abbey in childbirth  being attended by two doctors: one who was titled and got his medical degree probably by just buying it; the other someone who actually had a medical degree and experience but no title. Whose opinion matters most? Ah the one with the title. So Sybil went into eclampsia  dying of a seizure because Dad listened to the gentry. Delivery is the cure for eclampsia so  I was surprised that she died given that she was lucid for a bit after the delivery but seizures can occur even up to week after delivery. Now Tom really has a reason to hate the English gentry. Next step: burning down Downton.

We have a brief period of warmness. I didn't go my class yesterday because I wanted to run in the relative warmth. By the time I finished my baby sitting duties, torrential rains and lightning greeted me. The strikes seemed really close. I was left feeling really grumpy and put out because we' re stuck dealing with issues that really aren't ours. I tried to make up some of the miles today so I feel a lot better.