Stupid wrist...

4th lot of x-rays in 6 weeks
Special doc appointment booked
Wearing my splint as instructed

WHY THE FREAK DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF?

Anyway its done and its turning into another interesting experience. I am sure people are just being anal about it all but then I guess this is better than just leaving it and then finding out later that things are not as they should be.

I had a hand therapy appointment yesterday to be assessed. My thumb joint and scaphoid area are "angry" as put by the physio lol. I've been told the most important things is managing the pain to see if we can get it to settle and see if a more localised area can be identified as the problem. I have good ROM (I had been working on this before I went) which is just as well, I am a physio student after all!

I am not to be stubborn...I am to wear my splint, not spend too long doing my Christmas crafts or spend too long in the garden (20 min rather than hours), heat pack it blah blah blah and I'll be going back to see him at some stage in the near future I guess.

I am so so sick of all this, am I ever going to have a time when I can just be normal and like do all the ordinary things people do over summer break? like work and um have fun instead of never ending physio, doctors, specialists, medical tests, blah blah appointments?
Have I or have I not done enough of this for one lifetime????

Day 2

I put off going to the pool yesterday for ages, I was still so tired that I didn't really feel like going at all, but my physio sent me a message saying she had talked to my pain specialist and that he had agreed that I needed to go to the pool everyday (groan).

After dinner my Mum said that I could leave it for that day as it was only once but I felt that if I didn't make an effort, that I would take the easy way out too often and end up not going as often as I need too.

We went to the pool just after 8pm at night and it was really quiet and may turn into being a good time to go to that pool. I even got the slow lane all to myself for over half an hour!

For every length of freestyle I have to do 2 lengths of just kicking but I have to pay attention to how I am kicking and that I actually use my right leg...my physio said she didnt care how slow I moved, I need to focus on my technique and trying to mirror the movement of my left foot. I tend to use my ITband and my hip muscles rather than my calves and even when I am consciously trying to use my calves I STILL couldn't really get them to work.
I have to practice walking slowly, forwards, backwards and side stepping, all the while trying to mirror the normal movement of my left leg and and also just kicking on my back, going really slowly and trying to co-ordinate knee flexion with ankle dorsi and plantarflexion...I hate doing this as she made me hold still to the rail and just practice kicking and this makes the pain so so bad and I dont even feel safe for some reason!
She told me to wear a aqua belt round me to help float my middle as I am so small and it helps but I need to get used to it.

She is hoping that over time I will feel what is the right movement whereas right now I am having to watch what my foot is doing or else I dont know where it is!

But things will get better I hope, still early days and I'm going to see my pain specialist in 4 days so hopefully he will be able to help me out!

No-one said this would be easy....

...but I didn't think I was going to discover just how bad I am! I have just been striped of my smokescreen and goodness, I never realised how thick it was!

I have so many ways of getting around NOT doing movements but when you have a physiotherapist watching you like a hawk, trick movements are spotted right away.

We had hardly done anything when the dreaded words "we are going to go right back to basics" were uttered. As a physio student I know too much, I know what I should be doing, I know in reality the simplicity of them and cannot deal with the fact that I just cant make my body do what I want it to. As a result I feel embarrassment (but I would never feel like this towards a patient, that is the strange thing...if I had a patient like me I would be encouraging and do exactly what my physio did, explain how CRPS makes even just the simplest things too hard to start off with).

The truth is, I find it so hard being the one on the other end. I want to be the physio helping patients-I am not supposed to be the patient myself and this is creating an added obstacle. One I need to get passed so I focus all my energy on getting through the torture that is what this hydrotherapy is to me just now.

One little, essential movement results in tears, not because I am weak or a baby, but because it is interpreted by my brain as harmful...this is what I have to work through and today I face the reality of what summer is going to be-a painful journey but hopefully worth it. i just hope I have the strength, motivation and determination to push through and reach the goal which signal improvement.

I'm glad I'm not working over summer, I am supposed to try and get to the pool most days and I certainly wouldn't cope with this and having to work as well. She is going to talk to the Doctor about a 'rescue med' that I will be able to take to help ward off flares

Happy 2nd birthday!

Its strange how time has just flown by...2 years ago today I was nervously waiting in the hospital for my first ever surgery. I was about to let a surgeon cut me up and dislocate my hip (and mess about) in the hope that his work would allow me to walk again. Just walk again...I wasn't worried about being able to run or skate or bike or dance (ok well I was a hoping a little about dancing), just the thought that I might be able to walk normally and be able to keep up with my friends and not be in so much pain.

2 years on, I am walking mostly without a limp (and when I do its has nothing to do with my hip), I can ride my bike, run a little and dance too! My hip is pretty good, I've not had the pre-surgery pain come back ever and I am still amazed each time I go to tie my shoe laces or try and paint my toenails that I can actually do it.

I do have residual issues from the surgery itself, I still have visible swelling around the incision site, I also have quite a bit of pain all round the incision too so when I bump it (or someone bumps into me) it is rather painful.
I don't have amazing ROM but that is because I haven't worked hard to improve it, I feel safer know that it cant go too far (I still have some impingement so was told to be careful anyway).

But despite these surgical issues, I would do it again in a heart beat...being 21 at the time and not able to do so much and being in constant pain because of a FIXable problem was horrible.
I only wish that my surgeon had been right when he said that my fixing my hip would also deal with the pain issue of my foot (now known to be CRPS). Had I known then, what I know now I wouldn't have been so optimistic. But at least my hip got fixed so I am able to do so much more than I had been able to do then-it was worth all the hard work and more.

So Happy 2nd Birthday remodeled right hip!

2nd year physio...tick!

Wow-can you imagine how great I feel just now? Finding out that I actually passed all my papers and my practicals and even (dare I say it) got an honest grade average!

No just missing out, no just scraping in, just good reasonable passes that anybody should be proud of and I am glad to say that I actually feel good about it.

If I had got these grades say 3 years ago, I would be hanging my head in shame, I probably wouldn't have told anybody about them and I certainly wouldn't be beaming with accomplishment.
But back then I was a different person, I didn't have much getting in my way-I was a machine working my nights away while studying during the day. Everything was easy for me then and I sometimes wish I could go back to being that person...I had things easy and didn't what it was like to really have to work for something.

I have learn't a lot, I have learn't to celebrate my achievements, having pride in what I am able to do DESPITE living my life. I never gave up (though some times I thought it would have been easier) and I never lost hope. I sometimes panicked and worried myself sick but that goes with the territory.

I am PROUD of my 68% (B-) grade average (ok so I am more used to A grades) and this is in my heart...through the perseverance of my friends I have accepted that this is just as worthy of celebration as my previous results. My results though not as high as previous years are just as great, if not more of an achievement because of what I overcame to accomplish them!

Bring on 3rd year!

Oh I'm sorry...

...but I didn't realise I was invisible.

Please can someone explain why it is so hard to walk around someone WITHOUT collecting them with your bag/shopping basket/trolley/arm/shoulder/*insert object of choice here?
I'm sure I'm not invisible and I don't think everyone who does it can plead vision impairment, or maybe they can and I'm just being unreasonable...I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

But surely they would then apologise when said person who got walked into with said object cried out in pain and jumped due to the unexpected collision? I am sure I do not know...but instead they appear to just stare at you as if you are crazy (oh maybe I am) and like nothing happened, or else totally ignore you.

Well sorry if I speak out of turn but you violated my personal zone and it just so happens that I do not appreciate it, and probably much to your amazement and bewilderment, it actually hurts-sometimes enough to make me cry (as much as I try to hold them back).

So I'm just asking, really nicely (pretty please with cherries on top) that you please watch where you are going with your belongings and that you are not collecting strangers (who just might happen to be afflicted with a hidden condition that doesn't like your thoughtless actions).

There ends my rant for today

This seasons latest fashion statement

Positively chic!

Its time to celebrate...

...if only I had the energy!

Finally the university year has come to an end and my last exam has been completed, it was touch and go for awhile whether I would actually make it this far.

After the last post I decided to focus my energy on getting through my exams, supposedly in one piece but life had other plans. I certainly didn't have any spare energy for updating here, I decided that I had more important things to think about.

Life is always exciting when you wear my shoes lol, I am currently sporting a very dashing green cast on my left wrist (not my dominant hand thank goodness) which may or may not be immobilising a scaphoid fracture...no definite fracture has shown up on x-ray as yet. Moral of the story? there is no moral-though I'm sure Jess would say it was dont use the stairs!

I caught my foot and superman dived down some pretty majestic concrete steps less than 2 hours before my first exam...my friend took me up to our paper coordinator and she patched up my dripping knees after having a hard time finding anything big enough to cover them. My stupid wrist was really sore but I had an exam to sit and no time to investigate so the trusty bunch who watch over me, dressed me in my lab coat, put my glasses on and helped me up the DR stairs.
By the time we had finished our 8 station anatomy exam (3 and a half hours for me) it was too late and I was too tired to think much but promised if my wrist was still painful in the morning I would get properly checked out (all the while hoping it would not).

As aways seems to be for me, things were not simple in the morning, so I duly took myself to be checked and several hours later (after being sent for x-rays) emerged with a plaster cast for my troubles.
I have since had practicals (boy were they fun with an arm in plaster) and then more x-rays and more indecisiveness and am now sporting this funky green fibreglass cast for yet another 2 weeks of frustration!

I'm am very relieved that I made it through my exams, now comes the waiting part to see if I made it to a pass, I am hoping I did but a bit worried about the anatomy exam (I was in quite a bit of pain because of the fall) and also the pharmacology exam but for now I am going to throw my worry away and enjoy my days of rest before I go back home!