Yesterday I finally went to the doctor to see why my arm has been hurting for two months. (I'm nothing if not prompt when it comes to pain.) When I described my symptoms—decreased range of motion, throbbing arm pain at night, shooting pain into my wrist interrupting my blogging, he nodded sagely and pulled over the skeleton from the corner. Then he pointed to the vertebrae, and I wanted to say, "no, not my back, my ARM" but fortunately I held off. One major nerve from the spinal cord heads out to the arm, and it's very likely it's being pinched by one of the disks in the spinal column. That would explain why ibuprofen doesn't work, since it only works on inflammation, not nerve pain.
Perfect. A diagnosis that makes sense, and doesn't involve cutting off my arm, or worse, the "it's all in your head" pronouncement we all fear. I get scheduled for another MRI (I knew I should have had them shoot me further into the machine to get a look at my arm while they were peering at my head!) and a consult with a neuro after that.
Fifteen minutes later, I'm walking across the car park, thinking about how rapidly I'm aging as I approach my next birthday, and suddenly I find myself going down, down, down, right into the asphalt. SPLAT! I catch myself with my knees, palms, and face. Ouch! (And talk about giving new meaning to the term "slipped disk".)
Some nice young men picked me up (Thank you, sonny!, she said in a wavery old-lady voice) and somehow I made it home. Now I've got a sore arm, bandaged palms, bloody, swollen and bruised knees, and a tender cheek. Plus, not insignificantly, my favorite pair of jeans now features an unauthorized hole.
And amidst fitful sleep last night, I dreamed I got a C on my paper, which was covered in red ink. (Blood?!)
Slipped disk, slippery feet, and violent dreams. I'm a mess.
(Political junkies should note that I have refrained from inserting any jokes about sniper fire in this post, although the temptation was great. "Hit the tarmac!" I thought I heard. "Sniper fire coming from the Chillterns!" See how easy that would have been?)
