The Long Road

I was upset yesterday by the appointment I had with my doctor, for my wrist. For the longest time my doctor was unsure what was causing problems. Now he walked into the room with his mind made up that what I have is just a second degree sprain. I couldn't believe what he said! Growing up playing sports, I've had all three degrees of sprains. From all the doctors I've talked to over the years, sprains never took over three months to heal. So here I have a wrist injury from mid-way through February, and I'm six and a half months over a surgery (where over two months was spent with my wrist in a cast and completely immobilized). There's no way in my mind I can comprehend a sprain being the diagnosis for what is wrong with me since I am still having a great deal amount of pain. My doctor was all set to pretty much sign me off and re-examine everything this upcoming spring. I wanted to cry. Here I am where not even Tylenol takes the edge off of my pain, and my doctor wants to wait. All I could do was say that I understood what he was saying but it really concerned me that with the amount of pain that I have and he wants me to wait. He said that he'd go through with a second MRI if I really wanted it, but he doesn't expect it to show up anything to show up since nothing showed up last time. And all this is after he poked and prodded my wrist yet again and I still have a hot spot that makes me jump with pain. I never did go to medical school, but I have reasons to doubt just about everything from this appointment. Not only is it that I doubt it's a sprain that I'm suffering, but I really am starting to believe that there is something wrong with the cartilage. That's where all my pain is coming from. What I don't understand is why there is so much pain there when in the surgery my doctor had cleaned up the fraying that had been in my cartilage. The other reason why I think there is something else that is wrong is the fact that I had to come off of physical therapy because the pain was getting worse. That just doesn't happen with a sprain--this much I do know from experience. Well my second MRI was accepted by L&I today and I have it scheduled for next week. I just won't be able to get in to see my doctor again to go over the results until the first week of December. I am becoming so emotionally drained with this whole issue. I want to get better. I want to be healed. I want a normal life back again.
This week I was asked to write up a description of Kindergartners learning styles and what not for the manual for our children's ministry. That was the highlight of my week so far. After three years of working with Kindergartners, this is the first practical thing that I have had the opportunity to do with what I've learned to help other people working with Kindergartners. Most of the adults that I know are nervous with working with this age group. So my whole goal was to give them the information to make them excited to work with this age and do it most successfully. Kindergartners are really great to work with. Other than that, the other project that I've started this week is a quarter's worth of curriculum. I've got some great ideas going, so once I get all the written parts down, and even start putting together some of the visuals (such as power point), I will be able to pitch my ideas with Naara. What I am looking forward to is giving the curriculum a run through. Then make any tweaks that may be necessary. After that, I will be able to market it. Who would have thought that the first thing to possibly get published will be a children's church curriculum? But I do love doing things like this for the kids! They are really great to work with.

Nothing new with the wrist. I've regressed to having to wear a wrist brace quite a bit more than I've ever had to do since the surgery. Not very encouraging. But next week I have the consultation appointment with another doctor for a second opinion.
Last week I had an appointment with a vocational counselor, through L&I. That was actually an emotional roller coaster for me. First of all, I had tried putting it off because it's too early for me to even consider going back to work, with the state of my wrist. L&I though otherwise, and so I had to do it. The vocational counselor thought that it was too early as well. In fact, she thought that from what she's seen of my file that she's leaning towards expecting another surgery. She was even talking about the procedure of what will happen when the doctor might say that there's nothing more he can do for me medically. Now that's nothing anyone wants to hear. Sure compensation would be good, but I'd rather have a healthy and pain free wrist right now. I'm leaving out a lot of that conversation because I really don't want to start crying again. I'd like an end to all of this, but I'm not delusional enough to tell myself there is an end in sight. And because I can't see the end, that's frightening enough on it's own. But I can say there was a good thing that happened in the appointment with the vocational counselor. I was able to talk to her about my concerns every time I hear the words about returning to work for light duty. For the first time I saw that I had finally forgiven everyone involved for what happened the day before my surgery. I was able to talk to the counselor about the challenges that I had to go through the whole time I was working while injured and how the cafe I was in was not a good environment. In fact, for the first time I was able to look back through the whole ordeal and see how others were observing what was going on. No one was able to work with me because they did not take the moment to see how my injury was effecting me. I tried to work at a level where my injury would be least invasive to the team, but because of that, they expected me to work uninjured. And I think that was what caused the failure. Am I still leery in returning back to working with them, oh yes. But I no longer have that worry. My doctor is looking out for me. And now I have my vocational counselor to look after me.
Now on to the personal....
I had a great time going to the corn maze! How I love making a way through mazes in the dark. So meeting a whole new group of people, always brings out the nerves, but these people were a great bunch--when I learned when I could be myself around them and not think too much about it. For example, (the mazes were at Merris Farms) there was a live band that was playing. As we walked passed them I joined in singing with the songs and doing a little a dance. The funny thing was everyone else joined in on the singing and dancing. That kind of tempered down a little when someone noticed that were turned into the entertainment of an older couple. We only kept on because I didn't care what the older couple thought. I was having fun and do it by myself anyway. Although I was glad that I didn't have to do it on my own. It's always more fun when others join in.
It was great for my ego to go out. There were three men who showed up. Two of them had at one point in our conversations told me that I was beautiful. Yes, that is definitely good for the ego. But honestly, the best part was that they were genuine compliments and not just lines to get into my pants. That and for once, it was not a problem that I've used my brain and have opinions. In fact one conversation had it where everyone has to have opinions. So here it is, I found a group of people where I can fit in with. That's always been a hard thing for me. I'm not the typical traditional girly type of woman. And that has always been a problem. But the men that I was talking with, they were sure of themselves (had a healthy confidence level). So here, I had a night with some real men. And that was reason enough for me to pay attention to my own feelings and desires. Especially when there was one of the men that we kept running into each other through out the night. That and there were a couple of times where he had actually put his hand gently on my lower back to help not running smack dab into me or to direct me through the maze. It had been waaay too long since I've been touched there and that was driving me crazy. And not in the bad sense, which is my problem. I'm a touch kind of girl. So touch is something I can easily lose my head over and therefore something that I have to watch and make sure that I don't do just that. That aside, that night was a great night. It just felt good to get out and do something.
So I made my plans for group activities for November and December. I couldn't make my schedule work for the EMP/SFM, so I have the SAM (Seattle Art Museum) instead, which I'm looking forward to. That is going to be a fun event, since there are quite a few interesting displays going on. That is for next month. In December I have a little get together scheduled to talk about a book and have a little Christmas party. So now, I've been initiated in leading group activities. I can't wait to see how that will all turn out. But hey, as long as I have fun, I'm sure it will translate.