Old Man Gout and the Cast Cozy

There seems to be a plague on our house, or rather, a curse on our coachhome. As you know, I'm in a cast for my Schrodinger's Scaphoid (one doctor says it's fractured, one doctor says it's not, a third says that we won't know if it's fractured until we take it out of the cast and have a look: Schrodinger's Scaphoid). Last wednesday, Paul started complaining that his toe hurt. As we know from previous history (http://dorktasticoddments.blogspot.com/2006/01/clot.html), whenever Paul actually complains about something hurting, we end up in Emergency in the middle of the night in January (Yes, twice is more than coincidence.) It turns out that he has gout. The problem is that it's really hard to find a medication for gout that he can take because he's still on the blood thinners from the clots in his arm last January.

I've decided that I don't understand emergency triage. When I went in vomiting blood a week after surgery, I waited for more than four hours to see a doctor. When Paul went in with gout we waited less that 5 minutes. He was taken in over a girl who had been run over by a taxi and had been waiting for over two hours already. We were out before she got in! I just don't get it.

We've decided that the two of us couldn't have any more "old" sounding diseases; Paul with the blood clot and gout and me with bursitis in my left hip. I've taken to calling Paul 'Old Man Gout' (and 'my gouty friend', because 'gouty' is fun to say!)

On to more exciting news, that same day the marvelous Sarah (http://sarahjanet.blogspot.com/index.html) delivered my 'Cast Cozy' just in the nick of time since the weather was really cooling off. My fingers had been pretty cold the first few days in my cast so I had asked Sarah if she would be able to knit me a mitten that fit my cast. I had the idea, Sarah covered design and manufacturing and Paul came up with the perfect name (the three of us should go into business!). I love my Cast Cozy!

Me and my cast cozy!

Cast Cozy in action!

Unfortunately it is quite phallic.

Trip to Camp

Sarah and I decided at the last minute to zip down to Canmore for a whirl-wind tour. The trip featured Amanda, Jana, Ben, and Juno (their new puppy). It was kind of neat to hang out with people who were at such similar places in life; recently married (to partners with different religious beliefs), starting careers, thinking about kids (but not there yet). We spent the night out at the camp where Jana works and lives, went for a walk to the corral in the morning, had breakfast at a cafe in Canmore (at 2 p.m.) with a view of the mountains, went shopping, had dinner at 8:30 and drove home for 2 a.m. A relaxing awesome full day.

This sign greeted our arrival at camp.

The lovely Juno.

Juno liked me (or rather, she liked to lick the peanut butter on my cast).

Mmmm...Margaritas with Amanda!

Virgin margaritas for the drivers....

...although you can't really tell!

Broken

On Friday morning I had an encounter with some ice; a speedy and gravity-driven encounter. Initially I thought I was fine, and was impressed that I didn't hit my head, but before I'd gone too far I realized that my wrist really hurt. What did I do? I ignored it of course! (Okay, I iced it because it really freaking hurt, but did I go to a doctor? No. Did I go to the hospital? Of course not. I worked the entire day, insisting that I had just sprained my wrist and possibly my thumb, and then went home.)

The next day I went to the chiropractor to get all of the things that were de-aligned by my fall re-alligned. He did his best to convince me to get my wrist checked that day, but I was sure that it was just sprained. As far as he got was sending me for xrays down the hall on Monday which I could then bring back to him so that he could tell me it wasn't broken. (Honestly, only my fingers were swollen and my bruise was smaller than a dime.)

My arm was still unusable on Monday (I couldn't move my hand back, not because it hurt too much, but because it just wouldn't go) so I went for the xrays and took them down the hall. Dr. K was swamped so he told me he'd get back to me by Wednesday, which was fine with me because I knew it wasn't broken, it just hurt (at this point I had niggling doubts because of the inability to move my hand).

I walked in the door at home and Paul said, "You broke your hand."

"I know. The stupid thing hurts."

He tried again, "No. You broke your hand. The doctor called."

Sure enough there was a message on the machine saying that I had fractured my scaphoid (teeny bone in the wrist below the thumb) and the end of my radius (bone on the inside of the arm) and should go for casting.

Shit. I broke my freaking arm.

My cast.

How I feel about my cast.

It didn't take long for me to realize that doing anything with my hair was going to be nearly impossible. It was getting pretty long (as shown in photo below).

So I hacked it off (or rather, paid Andrea to hack it off and then make it pretty).

( My hair is crazy-ass at the back. Who knew?)

This haircut is fairly terrifying when it's curly; I haven't been able to figure out how to control the curl yet so curly photos may be a while. In the meantime, my sweet husband is straightening my hair for me (isn't he awesome? Really, he did it once and I'm going to try to sweet talk him into doing it again.)

UPDATE: The radiologist examined my xrays and said that my radius was not actually fractured. Hurray! The scaphoid may still be fractured so I'm in the cast for two weeks, go back for xrays and then if it still appears to be fractured at that point, I will be casted for 8 more weeks. (Boo!)

Blizzard

Today was Blizzard day, as you can see from the forecast I stole from the Environment Canada website.
I enjoyed the pretty blizzard symbol, which I had never seen before.

When I got home, between the 20ish centimetres of snow and gusting winds (especially in our area) some of the drifts were up to mid-thigh and the peak of this beauty (below) was actually waist high on me.

In other places the ground was swept bare and the snow curled up the sides of the banks in gentle ripples.

I really enjoyed this little ledge in the snow; it was like a little cave designed for me to crawl right in. I managed to restrain myself though.

Happy Holidailies

I've officially made it through my third year of holidailies; one as Canoegirl's Reflections (20 Entries), one as Schaapsher Chronicles/Some People Juggle Geese (22 Entries) and this year as Dorktastic Oddments (32 Entries). I'm excited to have finally made it to the top of the list this year. While I didn't exactly write an entry every day, I did write the required 31 entries in 31 days. Go me!

The first year I was pleased to have my entry "Matthew Broderick had it easy" http://canoegirl.diaryland.com/041211_74.html nominated for best of holidailies and I followed it up last year with "The Art of Love" http://somepeoplejugglegeese.blogspot.com/2005/12/art-of-love.html. This year, I had two entries that I was quite pleased about (although they went without external affirmation) but I'm glad that I did holidailies because it inspired me to write them (http://dorktasticoddments.blogspot.com/2006/12/graceland.html and http://dorktasticoddments.blogspot.com/2006/12/catch-22.html).

At any rate, I am somewhat settled into my new home here and I'm wondering if anyone has found me. Christine has left me a couple of comments and Amanda left one too but I don't actually know if anyone else is reading. If you are, drop by and say hi! Let me know what you like and you don't like (although I'm not sure how swayed I am by feedback). Do you want more pictures? Less pictures? Or is the mix good like this? What do you think; inquiring mind wants to know.

Happy New Year

As usual, we had a sit down dinner for 30+ of our closest friends and stayed up talking until the wee hours of the morning. (At one point in the evening, with extreme lack of sleep kicking in, we decided that I should get a job designing novelty birth control items: Pope Hat shaped condoms and Piratey eye patch condoms and diaphragms with a bulls eye pattern and Nuvaring toss.)

Doug's temporary handlebar mustache.

Our traditional hope tree.

The Memory Wall (which I forget to fill out every year).

Our gift to Amanda (who finishes med school in May).

G's "Not Paul Safe" purple shirt.

Pretty friends.

Me and Trish.

Paul and Debbie playing with Deb's new toy.

Melly and Doug (aww!)

Ringing in the New Year.