Gadgets

Shoulder Update: In case you missed my tweet last night, I tweeted that my shoulder issue is not bursitis, but a cyst. I received a call from my doctor's office after the radiologist examined the x-ray. I will have to go in for an MRI. I've had an MRI before--tiny space, loud clunks and clangs, very claustrophobic. This time I won't take the two Valium I was told to take--talk about being totally loopy for the next 12 hours! They wondered if I was still breathing many times while in the MRI machine!

Last night I was flipping around on my Kindle because my font size looked a little off.

Yeah, yeah, I know, at my advanced age, I should be thinking of making it bigger, not smaller.

It's not like anyone else uses this Kindle. In fact, my kidlet won a Kindle Fire last year in my hub's company's safety contest--the top 12 pictures/slogans are on a calendar. Here's her picture:

 

This year she drew Scooby Doo and the gang--I think the slogan was, "Safety is no mystery!". We won't find out how she did until later in the year. She's in a new age category now, so the competition is tougher with the older kids.
Anyway, back to my story, I knew there was a text-to-speak option, but I never looked for it. Well, I found it. And for grins I turned it on . . . in the middle of a romantic scene I was reading.

I have never listened to anything funnier in my entire life! Well, I have, so that's an exaggeration! But it was so horribly wrong on many, many levels, with the robotic automation voice speaking in a monologue-tone . . . remember, the 7 AM college chemistry course you had to take because every other time was full? Yeah, that professor.

I won't use this gadget for myself, except maybe to listen to my story on Kindle as I make small changes on my computer.

But this would be wonderful for my mom to use. We gave her a Kindle a few Christmases ago, but since then her vision has gotten so bad that she can't read. Whoops, just discovered a problem. Every time I turn the Kindle off, the text-to-speech disappears. I'll have to figure out how to get Mom to turn it on each time she turns on the Kindle . . . this could be problematic.

I'll figure it out.

But the real question here is, "Will Mom?"

Another gadget that I like, but don't use too often are the gadgets on the right side of my computer monitor. I usually just have a calendar up for quick reference when I need to look for the date or look a head to see what day school starts or whatever.

Just look for Desktop Gadgets.

I like the Countdown Calendar. The biggies are countdown to vacation and countdown to when school either starts or ends.

Though if I ever had a writing deadline, this would be a good gadget to keep my focus!

That's all I have for today, folks! It's errand and Mom day today, so I need to get showered and ready to rumble. No walkies this morning, but maybe tonight after we finish the garden beds.

Later, Peeps!

Bursitis in my Shoulder?

Or is it something more diabolical?

I'm leaning to the more diabolical diagnosis myself for several reasons, but I'll walk you through the steps a doctor must take.

Okay, here's the sitch:

• A few weeks ago, my left shoulder started hurting. My right hurts a little but not to the extent of the left one.
• I'm right handed and can't figure out what dumb thing I might have done to cause my left shoulder to hurt.
• I deal with it, but eventually I go to the doctor--yesterday. NOT because that is the right thing to do, but because I almost couldn't pull my sports bra off after walkies yesterday. The motion of crossing my arms at shoulder height and lifting nearly dropped me to the floor.
• I like my GP doc and usually I can get in same day with no problem.
• I go to the doc, he does range of motion stuff as he feels the shoulder. There's a little popping and some creaks.
• I get an x-ray to see if there is a bone spur or something irritating the tendon--nope, nothing, not even arthritis.
• So I get a prescription for anti-inflammatory pills and a sheet of exercises to rehab my shoulder.

If it's fine, then that's all she wrote. If it's still bothering me, then the next step is taken--a cortisone shot.

I'm okay with all this since it's the way most docs are required to work. It's the KISS rule--Keep It Simple, Stupid. Go with the easiest answer first and work from there. But I still think it's something more diabolical, and here's why:

• In 1992 I ruptured my cervical disc--the disc between C5-C6. I was taking a shower at the time. A pop was heard and then I was on the shower floor crying. It was excruciating. I still vividly remember it.
• This wasn't due to washing my hair, though that was the movement that popped the disc. It was due to my psycho-horse Abe who spent his waking moments finding ways to dump my butt and get me off his back.
• He dumped me in the dirt--A LOT. He spun me off, bucked me off and tried to rear me off. When I learned to sit tight, he tried combining them. I learned to ride anything he tossed at me, but the damage had been done.
• I had been suffering enormous amounts of pain prior to the rupture--left forearm burning pain. It had gotten so bad that I had to cradle my arm while I slept and sometimes when I was a passenger in the car.
• The hospital did an x-ray and found nothing. THAT x-ray was worse than the disc rupturing. Ohmigod! It's called a swimmer's x-ray. *shudders*
• A week later I was scheduled for an MRI--In case you don't know, an MRI--Magnetic Resonance Imaging--takes cross-section images of your body. It detects things that no x-ray can take. You're placed in a small space with lots of clicking and banging. They tell you not to breath while some of the pictures are taken. I don't remember a whole lot of this because the ER doc told me to take 2 Valium prior to the procedure to relieve my anxiety. I was so high, I didn't know what was what. I will NEVER will take two Valium again!
• I go to a recommended neurosurgeon. He tells me I have to have surgery. I flip out.
• A month later, I have surgery. During that month, I was on daily Flexeril (muscle relaxants) and some sort of anti-inflammatory pain killer meds.
• Surgery was successful.
• I was riding my whack-a-doodle horse four weeks after surgery.

One item that I didn't mention was when the neurosurgeon saw the ruptured disc, he mentioned that I had a bone spur on C5.

So Margaret-logic dictates that if my forearm was painful due to a disc rupture between C5 and C6, then the higher up the neck would indicate a nerve irritation from C5--where the spur was located--would be in the shoulder area.

 

Starting to get the picture?

 

I might be overthinking this, but if I'm right, I'll be posting a blog that I'm going in for surgery sometime this autumn.

 

We'll see. Until then, I'll do all the right things and hope I don't have to go through surgery.

 

Later, Peeps! It's time for my walkies.