Drama Trauma

Chapter 1:  PRP, the future is now.
So in my attempt to avoid season ending shoulder surgery, I opted for Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Therapy to repair my torn rotator cuff. Faster recovery, less pain, and just as good or better recovery rate, what's not to like. I found a place with the recommendation of friends and finally got in. Scheduling an overnight road trip with a 3 month old added complexity to the trip, but baby RC was a trouper and we made it across Missouri. The next day we woke up, had some breakfast and headed to the clinic bright and early. Filled out paperwork and was ushered into the room at 8am. Chat with the nurse and doctor, and they offered to inject my knee too. Awesome! It has been a 25 year problem for me with knee replacement as the only proven prognosis. So I have been waiting on the high tech treatments, like spray foam injection or something. If this works, I may not be able to run marathons, but hopefully I will be able to jog farther than across the street without paying for it. "Yes, please!" Blood was drawn from my arm, then rolled me over and jabbed me with railroad spikes to take marrow from my hip and some fat cells from my muffin top. The juices were filtered and sprinkled with magic grow dust in preparation for reinsertion. Then guided with a sonogram the parts were injected, 4 times in the shoulder and just once in the knee. With local anesthesia, pain was at most a moderate discomfort, most so in my shoulder, as the deeper and more intricate joint, I think. In and out in 2 hours, sent on my way with post care directions and a script for pain, which was filled with our first stop! Lunch and a 4 hour car ride as my shoulder starts stiffening up, half way home I take the hydrocodone/apap, but is didnt seem to have really any effect. Oh well, we made it home, with less whining from the baby than me.

Chapter 2:  to ER is human.
Upon getting home, I let Xan unload the car and I got the mail and cooled off. When I took my shirt off, I realized I had bled though one of the patches on my back and stained my nice new seersucker shirt. We sat down on the bench in the dining room to change the dressing on my back. Xan got the first one done and was cleaning up the mess on the second when I started to feel woozy. I tried to hold on while she finished the second then the next thing I know I am looking up at a concerned looking wife talking on the phone. First thing I said was, "I'm OK." Evidently I passed out, falling backwards against her hitting my head on the hardwood table before getting laid on the bench. Unable to detect breathing or pulse, she punched my chest a couple times, then grabber her phone and called 911. Firemen then EMT's showed up as I was still trying to regain my wits and hooked me up to various monitors and cuffs. I tried to sit up, but soon felt woozy and my extremities where tingling almost painfully and had to lay back down. The crew had to rearrange the living room to get the stretcher in, so when asked if I wanted to go to the hospital I agreed. With the medical bills already paid this year we have got to be close to our out of pocket max with insurance, and I have never ridden in an ambulance, and Xan wouldn't have let me not go, better safe than sorry... they loaded me up and away we went. Xan grabbed a shirt and, unsure if I had any pants on, a pair of shorts, as well as the baby and met me at the emergency room. It was a busy day in the ER, as I think they all are so it took a while. But a couple liters of saline, a blood draw and umpteen probes and feet of tape stuck to hair, a head CT, an EKG, 5 diaper changes and 6 hours I was declared healthy. Some vasovagal episode, not sure of the trigger, dehydration, stress, pain, sitting... well, hope it doesn't happen again, I don't think Xan liked it very much.
I am taking it easy today, this blog will be the most effort I will put out today. Hydration, medication and staying cool are my goals.

There was Blood

I am not the biggest risk taker, but have crazy stunts on my resume. Mostly unintentional. First time I got called Evil Knievel I was 3 or 4. We lived in Upton, WY, a small town a long way from no where. I had gotten my first trike, and it was a little too big for me, I couldn't reach the pedals. But I could sit on it and get around, coast or push with my feet. I learned that I couldn't go very far in the grass, so I was staying on the sidewalk, which slowly started to slope down hill. I accelerated, feet held up, tightly gripping the handlebar, right down the cement stairs, across the sidewalk and into the ditch! My parents came running, drawn by my bawling, I suppose, to find me crawling up those same stairs, pools of blood collecting on each step. I think the trike survived, and I lived to ride another day.

Not the first time I bled from my head in Upton. The Trombone incident... the vicious coffee table...

But the best scar I have from my years in Upton is on my foot. Riding in the baby seat on the back of my mom's bike... this is back in the day before they were made of a single molded piece of plastic... with padded cardboard leg panels... one of which had been stolen from the bike rack at the high school where my dad taught. Anyway, we headed down the long hill towards downtown, and despite being told to be careful, I clamp my legs together to hold on, unfortunately the action put the back of my foot into the razor sharp spokes which pealed off the back of my shoe and cleaved my left heal off! Ouch!! Another 90 minute race to the hospital. (I wonder how we paid for all my trips there?) Ask to see the scar, it is probably what kept me from being a professional athlete or ...

Rusty Trombone

My first musical instrument was a trombone. I was maybe 4 and I wanted to grow up and be in the marching band. (Early indication of what a dork i would grow up to be...) I would practice marching around the house and yard playing my trombone, swinging around like I saw the big kids do. I even got to march with the high school kids at half time once. I don't know if this trombone was rusty or not, but the slide didn't slide easily. It was either under-oiled or I was too small and weak to stretch my arm out. Anyway, that dream came to an end one day I was marching around and let the nose drop into the grass, jamming the mouthpiece into my lips! Ouch! I was driven to the hospital (over an hour away and across the state line) to get several stitches leaving 2 lumps in my not quite as talented lips that can still be seen today. And just as big a traumatic loss, I missed out on having the oh so rare soda when the carbonation burned my stitches. That is when I learned how to pout. I put down that dangerous trombone and decided I wanted to be involved in safer activities, like football! OJ Simpson became my new hero! I could run in slo-mo, spinning around defenders/living room furniture and diving into the end-zone/couch. Of all the things that I have hurt myself doing, football wasn't one of them. Later I took up the saxaphone, which I played until high school, when all band geeks had to be in marching band. My tramatic experience with marching band (and the increase in dorkdom I would be subjected to) made me quite band once and for all. Even though, I still grin when I think of 76 trombones leading the big parade.