Cast off!

Much as I enjoy the title, this is not going to be a nautical post. Sorry.

To update: after almost 3 weeks in a cast, and much shuffling from doctor to doctor, there seems to be a concensus that there is, in fact, no fracture (whoo!). There are, however, some pulled ligaments, some partially torn ligaments (nothing bad enough to require surgery), and some deep bruising. There are 8 little bones in the wrist and I have some sort of damage to the ligaments around all of them, and the ligaments between the base of my radius and ulna, plus some in the thumb (if I understood correctly what was going on). Basically, a full month after my injury my arm does not feel any better.

I started physio this week and am making some good progress on increasing the range of motion in my injured hand. I just need to stop doing things like falling in the parking lot. Yes, I fell again. I landed mostly on my knees trying to avoid hurting my wrist but it was either that or eat gravel. I opted for further injuring the wrist. I absolutely cannot wait for this winter to be over. Stop snowing already! (It doesn't help that we came home the other night to find that two and a half feet of snow had blown off the roof onto our balcony (which is how we enter our place). Stupid snow!)

I'm slowly discovering all of the things that I can't do without the cast: grating cheese is near to impossible, pants have suddenly become more problematic, as has scraping the car and carrying groceries. There are things that I just still can't do without a lot of pain: turning keys, using doorknobs, my stupid hair, hooking a bra, writing, and getting out of the bath, to name a few. But I'm delighting in things that I can do now that I couldn't in the cast: showering without assistance, buttons, wearing my winter coat, putting on deodorant. I'm becoming more skilled with Lefty too; on Tuesday I ate with chopsticks left-handed without dropping anything on my shirt (go me!)

It's been a frustrating experience but it makes me appreciate all the more that I have a hand including a thumb, even though it's injured. There are just so many things that are impossible with only one. Get better soon Righty, I miss you.

Unicycle

The other day I was lined up in traffic on my way to work when I saw something very strange coming down the sidewalk towards me. He was peddling like man and windmilling his arms wildly. I couldn't help snapping a couple of photos. (For the record, I have also seen him walking his unicycle in the grocery store.)

Random Photo Day

Driving home on January 22nd, I found perhaps the coolest Snowman ever!

Beaker is sad. (Paul bought him for me.)
Happy monkey!
Evidence of my curly hair.

Me in the morning (poor Paul).

Debbie got this monstrosity for Christmas from her aunt. It might be the most hideous piece of garbage I have ever seen. It does, however, give us some food for thought. What is wrong with someone that they would make and sell such a thing? Who would buy it? Why would they inflict it on someone they theoretically care for? (She received the two-ton glass purse in the background from another aunt. I think her family hates her.)

Google-diculous

Gmail has this funny advertising sidebar that must use the content of your emails to tailor the links featured. I normally just ignore it but lately it has had a few useful and/or interesting suggestions.

Email from Sarah about backing her car into a guy in a BMW:
- How to Get your Guy - MakeHimFallinLove.com/GetaGuy (because clearly wrecking his car is the ideal way to woo him)
- Decorative concrete (um...what?)

Message about trip to Cuba and Passports
- Pirate Murder Mystery (Fancy Dress Pirates in Cuba)
- Repair Any Outlook Error (Is Cuba the Solution?)

Salsa @ On the Rocks
- Chat about Pole Dancing (!!!)

Extended discussion with Sarah about logistics for our trip last weekend
- Shaw PVR (this was the most useful link, as well as one on scaphoid fractures)
- Buffy Scythe (???)
- Colorful Alpaca Yarn (That's fair, but I blame Sarah.)

Dinner plans with Kristy and Cory
- Lose 20 lbs in 3 weeks (I think this might be a commentary on our menu. Mmmm...Fondue...)
- Fat Belly? Lose Stomach! (Augh! I lost my stomach! Have you seen it?)

Invitation to a games night
- Tanzania Honeymoon (No. Ed. Mon. Ton. Much colder than Tanzania.)
- Wedding Favors - Golf Balls (Just no.)
- தமிழ கல்யாணம் (That's not a typo.)

Ultrasound photos
- used ultrasound equipment (Ooo! Now look at my armpit on the ultrasound machine!)

Invitation to an adult's birthday party at Chuck-e-cheese, fancy dress required
- www.e-kilts.com (e-kilts! hah!)
- Pirate Murder Mystery (Again!)

Girls night (with two boys) and snacks
$300 Nestle Survey (Clearly they are hitting their target market)
$75 Taco Bell Survey (Only 75 bucks? Pfah! I'm hitting the Nestle one again!)
Could they be scams? Hmm...Let's put the meat of the url into google...hey! The suggested search is for scams! It must be legit.

I'll bet that the creator of GoogleAds (or whatever) wasn't expecting me to get this kind of entertainment value out of them.

Le sigh. I need to get out more.

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.