More Misadventures Of Being Me

Two and a half weeks ago, on a Wednesday, I was bringing something up from downstairs, maybe laundry - I can't remember, but something requiring both hands.  I lost my balance a little bit but steadied myself as I was coming up, but I was off to the left side.  I stepped up right into a handrail on my left shoulder.  Me, rushing a bit up the stairs and my left upper quarter suddenly and unexpectedly stops dead.  Wow, that hurt!  But I didn't drop what I was carrying and, after a few moments and curse words, I shook it off and completed my task.  I don't think I even thought about it again after that, well, not until the next day.

Before I continue, maybe I should explain how it came to be that there is an odd handrail on the way downstairs.  There were no handrails for the first parts of the stairs when we moved in, only the one on the steps downstairs starting where the wall ends at the basement.  I added the two short pieces of handrail to cover the first 3 steps down and the first few steps after the corner until the handrail starts at the bottom of the wall.  When I bought the piece, 8 feet was the shortest length available so I had a good size piece left over.  So, being a tall person and admittedly rather clumsy I had the idea of adding it along the base of the wall, giving me something else to grab that may be more solid than the rail that starts below.  It may look a bit odd but I use it often on the way downstairs and I'm glad I installed it as it has helped me greatly in the past.

The next day at work, it was Thursday afternoon, my neck started to get a bit stiff.  The following day my neck was still stiff and my shoulder started to ache.  I still did not even remember that I hit it at all until later Friday night as it got more and more sore.  Over the weekend it affected everything I did and disrupted my sleep, so on Monday I went to work and let them know I intended to get in to the doctor that day.  My doctor was off so I saw a Physician Assistant that agreed with my assessment of a rather bruised shoulder.  I had full movement and it didn't seem like anything serious happened to the structure of my shoulder, just badly bruised soft tissue internally.  She gave me a prescription for painkillers, which is the reason I went in, and sent me on my way.  I got through the rest of the week dealing with the pain and taking pain killers as needed.  When it got to the weekend I had seen no improvement so I requested more pain killers and received a few more, but not many.  I rationed them as best I could but it was not feeling like it had improved at all.

The next week, now this last Wednesday, two weeks after I hit my shoulder, I left work again to go to the doctor.  This time I saw my own doctor.  My old doctor I had for over twenty years, until he moved up and became a Vice President so I had to find a new primary care physician.  This new doctor I have only seen a few times so I have yet to really trust him fully.  He looked at my shoulder and determined that it was the rotator cuff that I injured.  While he was going over the plan of care I was saying to him that that just didn't seem right with the pain I had.  He came over and started poking and prodding my shoulder again and Yowza!  He found the spot, all right.  He pushed his fingers in to check out my biceps tendon and I almost jumped out of my chair!  The diagnosis changed to Biceps Tendinitis.  He upped the amount of painkillers he was going to give me and mapped out exercises for me to do.  On the way out he had me stop for x-rays, later he sent me a message that they were normal.  He also wants me to consider physical therapy but I declined for now.

Last night I also found a lump on the outside of my bicep that is exactly where the base of the wall ends if my shoulder is under the rail, so I must have hit that pretty good, too.  In fact, that is the source of most of my pain, though I still have issues in my neck, shoulder and scapula.  For now there is nothing I can do but pain management, hot/cold packs, maybe a few exercises and hope it heals sooner than later.  If not, well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Sorry to be long-winded.  I didn't write this to complain and I'm not asking for your sympathy, but I haven't written anything since it happened so I thought I'd share what I've been dealing with lately.  Now for some more painkillers and whiskey...