Tag Archives: pain

Ow… The Burning

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According to the knee doctor, I have bursitis of the knee. Even the little walking I’ve done (and every time I bang it into something, which is a lot) has kept it aggravated enough that it hasn’t healed. So, he gave me instructions similar to the instructions my doctor gave me almost 2 months ago: don’t bang it into things, baby it, ice it, and let it heal. Unfortunately, I’m a horrible klutz… guaranteed to bang my knee into things more often now that I’ve been told that I should avoid doing so.

He also told me to try a muscle rub that he gave me the name of, claiming that it’s better than BenGay (which is fine since I’ve actually been putting arnica on it of late). The reason it’s supposedly better than other stuff is it has capsaicin in it. I hit the drug store after my appointment and spent 10 minutes trying to figure out if I should get the regular strength (0.025% capsaicin) or the “high potency” (0.075% capsaicin). I ended up getting the high potency in the fear that the regular wouldn’t be strong enough. When I apply this ointment to my knee it feels fine for a few moments, then the burning starts… and the burning, we are told by the packaging, is normal. Oy! Hopefully, this works.

Meanwhile, The Husband and I just finished watching Anthony Bordain’s new show, No Reservations. This episode had him returning to New Jersey, the land of his youth. They were in a bakery getting cannolis, and boy, do I miss good cannolis… I only lived in NJ for 4 years, but that was plenty long enough to appreciate a good cannoli. (I am ever on the search of a good cannoli and good NY style pizza here in CA… still looking… although, I did find good pizza made by New Yorkers in Arcata, CA of all places.) During this scene, I made some comment about pizza… The Husband took offense at me saying I haven’t found good pizza here. Zachary’s is good, but it’s too big to be considered pizza in my mind — pizza should be flat and have cheese on it. (I’m not asking much, now am I?) The conversation ended when The Husband was unable to stop laughing while making comments about how I’m such a NY girl (which is to be expected I guess, I was born there, and my family has lived there since 1642).

Mmmmm… cannoli…

One more hour

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I get to head out to my knee specialist appointment in about an hour. Hopefully, I’ll soon be enlightened as to why my knee still has stabbing pain 2 months after the accident. I was slightly afraid that I would get to the appointment and find that my knee feels better than it did when I made the appointment a week ago. But, that doesn’t appear to be the case; in fact, it hurt all on its own this morning. The Husband thinks the pain is due to the walking I did this weekend, which sucks cause I actually like walking. So, I’m killing time here at work, worrying over two stupid knee-related things: that there’s nothing wrong with my knee, I just banged it up real good, and I’m about to waste my time and the doctor’s, or there truly is something wrong with my knee, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms. *gah*

Meanwhile, I composed a blog entry about my opinion of the Knitpicks.com flap, and decided that I come off totally bitchy, so it’s staying in draft form. All I have to say now is “Chill!” Too many other more important things in this world to worry about.

At least my doctor’s appointment will have me home at a relatively decent hour… I’ll probably curl up on the couch and knit while I wait for The Husband to come home.

Friday

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The Husband is going out to play Vampire tonight, leaving me home alone with a movie, wine, and my knitting.

But, what I really want to do is spin… and I can’t. My knee is still too sore to use it that way. All the talk about spinning that’s going around is making me miss it. I haven’t spun since the last weekend of May. I had just started spinning up the fiber I had dyed.

Of course, I also want my knee to get better, so it might be time to pull out a drop spindle.

I’ve got 2 increases left on the first sleeve for my Ribby Cardi. I’m not sure if I’ll continue working on the sleeve or if I’ll try to work on Birch tonight.

Fun car news
Last week I discovered the chrome on the inside passenger side door handle was peeling off on my car. How did I discover this? Why I managed to slice 2 fingertips open on it while trying to get out of the car. While chrome may look insubstantial, it’s rather quite sharp. Thankfully, neither injured finger is terribly important for knitting.

So, yesterday I took my car in for it’s 35,000 mile oil change and asked them to take a look at it. Wouldn’t have been any problem except the warranty that covers such things expires at 36,000 miles, and I was a bit late bringing my car in at 37,000. I managed to use my blonde powers (don’t worry I only use them for good) and the nice car guy ran off to speak with his supervisor about. He was back within a minute to inform me that they’d cover it. Woot! So, they replaced the door handle assembly; no more sharp chrome.

The Husband took a co-worker out to lunch today and discovered that the new, shiny door handle doesn’t work. You can’t open the door from the inside. Unfortunately, he was unable to get it in today, so we have an appointment Monday morning to have them look at it again. *sigh*

Loopy Liz

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The painkillers must have made me a lot more loopy last week than I thought they did. One of the first emails I got this morning at work was about an alert not being up on the website. So, I check, yup, not there. But, I was sure I had done it on Friday… it was one of the last things I did before leaving… I thought. Perhaps I had made the necessary changes, but forgot to change the dates it should be viewable… nope, it wasn’t there at all. Oops. I’m still pretty sure I took care of it on Friday even though I now have pretty clear evidence that I didn’t. So, loopiness is the only explanation.

The weekend was thankfully rather uneventful. The Husband and I went to the LYS on Sat for a couple hours. I regaled the usual attendees with the details of my accident soon after which a motorcycle ran into an SUV at the nearby intersection causing all sorts of excitement as cops and an ambulance arrived with flashing lights. This all lead into an interesting conversation of the worst accidents we had ever seen/been in, which for some reason lead into a conversation about stupid criminals. Never a dull moment at my LYS.

Sunday was spent mostly in my pajamas. 🙂 I didn’t get dressed until about 3 pm. Then, we headed out to go to the hardware store, where an adapter was acquired to attach a coil garden hose to the kitchen sink. This was an amazing feat because with this simple hose adapter I can now water my plants with incredible speed. Previously, I would lug pitchers of water from the sink to the balcony upwards of 8 times to get all the plants watered. Now, I simply attach the hose (w/adapter) to the sink and walk out to the balcony, the hose slowly uncoiling behind me. 50 feet of purple coiled hose… it’s a wonder. And, it even came with a spray nozzle with different spray settings… fancy. 🙂 Yes, I truly am that excited about this… come the melty hot days of July, when the plants have to be watered every day or else they crisp beyond repair, I can keep the plants refreshed with minimal effort on my part. If my knee didn’t hurt, I’d be dancing a jig. 😀

Beginning to feel human again

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I saw my chiropractor on Monday, which helped to get rid of most of my upper body pain (it was all coming from my neck). Saw a doctor on Tuesday (not my doctor cause this is the week she has chosen to be in Boston), and was told if it still hurts in a week I should see my doctor, then I was given a sample of Celebrex to help with the inflammation. Unfortunately, I can’t take any of my happy 600 mg Motrin while taking the Celebrex, but the Celebrex did reduce what’s left of the swelling by half… and I can still take the Vicodin (wheee!). And the doctor said I don’t need to wear the infernal brace anymore. I just wish I didn’t have to come into work. I can’t seem to find a comfortable position to put my knee in, and it feels stiff whenever I get up. *ugh* And, of course, my knee, which hadn’t hurt for the first 4 days, hurts now that I’m at work.

At least tomorrow’s Friday.

I think the Vicodin has been affecting my brain… I was putting some arnica on my bruises the other day and got thinking about how I could dye some yarn with a orange-y yellow, a reddish violet, a bluish indigo, and a blue black and call it “Bruised.” It would certainly match the bruise on my hip. It would just be a matter of getting the colors right…. definitely the Vicodin.

I’ve been slowly working on the new shawl I’m doing with the Brooks Farm Duet. I still haven’t gotten to the end of the part of the ball that I ripped out of the Beginner’s Triangle Shawl. I hadn’t realized I had used that much yarn. What I do need to do is come up with a good name for it… Sadly, nothing is coming to mind when I look at the shawl. Purple, blue, and black just don’t bring anything to the front of my brain… and it’s missing the yellow and reddish tones for my bruise colorway idea. *grin* I also need to commit to a lace edging. There are a couple in Heirloom Knitting that I am considering; perhaps whichever one I choose will lend a name to the shawl.

Dope Fiend

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So, I would have posted this last night, but we didn’t get home from the hospital till almost 10 pm.

I had a bit of an accident on my way home from work yesterday. The cars in front of me stopped suddenly. I put my scooter down instead of slamming into the back of a car.

Thankfully, nothing is broken. I was walking (albeit with a limp) and talking after it happened. (I doubt anyone who stopped to help me reads any blogs, but I would still like to put my thanks out there.)

I called Josh to tell him what had happened and he left work. The nice people in the car behind me had called 911 and said an ambulance was on it way, but it never showed. A cop did cruise by, but I guess since I wasn’t still laying in the road he figured everything was cleared up. I’m glad I had my knitting with me, it gave me something to do other than losing it in a Safeway parking lot (Besides, my favorite Elizabeth Zimmermann quote is “Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises”). Josh arrived and it was decided that he would follow me home, then I would get in the car and we would go to the ER.

The nice ER people weren’t too worried about my head, since I had no head pain or vision problems and had been wearing a helmet. The main reason I went was the searing pain in my right knee and hip (the first 2 things to hit the ground). They took x-rays of my knee, but they looked fine. The doctor pronounced contusion and hematoma, saying something about the cartilage on the back of my knee cap. My hip is just bruised (ha, just bruised… the thing is about 5 inches across… ow). I was set up with a knee immobilizer and a prescription for Vicodin and 600 mg Motrin (just so you know, regular Advil is 200 mg)… the Motrin stuff is kinda scary… the instructions say in big capitalized letters “Do NOT lay down for 30 minutes after taking this medication.” WTF?

As the triage nurse assured me, I am feeling pain in places I didn’t know I had today. My shoulders and down the tops of my arms are stiff and sore. I’m going to try to see my chiropractor on Monday to make sure I don’t have any whiplash problems. Thankfully, my knee and my hip only hurt if I touch them. But, I pretty much feel like I would expect after hitting the road at about 30 mph.

Sorry, if this is a bit disjointed… I’m going to blame it on the happy drugs.

The really sad thing is I just started spinning up some roving a dyed a few weeks ago… now I probably won’t be able to get back to it for at least 1-2 weeks. *sigh* At least I’ll have plenty of time for knitting. 🙂