Saddle Up

It's been a long and bumpy ride the last few months. Needless to say, I've been rather busy what with returning to work, running my home business, doctor appointments, etc. But, since my last post we were able to get a bone stimulator approved through my medical insurance. Our portion of the bill ended up to be a little under $800 - which means my insurance paid a freaking boatload to get the damn thing.

At my two month check up after receiving the stimulator, Dr. L was surprised and pleased with the (extremely) slow regrowth rate that is clearly visible in my most recent x-rays. So, I have to continue using it for who knows how long, but hopefully my next check up report will be even better than this one.

I have not had anymore accidents, but I do suffer from chronic pain in my arm - which is to be expected with my disease. I can't actually remember being without pain as I've lived with it for so long now. Nor have I had anymore medical allergy symptoms - which is largely thanks to my manic head-in-toilet episode in July.

Some things have returned to normal, and others have not. But, despite this I am still living to the best of my abilities. Every day is a new adventure for this Kienbock's girl.

People still don't understand my condition. I have a group of ladies at work who constantly nag at me about my condition on an almost daily basis. It's almost as if my very definite words of "it's incurable" just didn't work their magic in their brain cells. Not that I can really blame them. I'm barely around working 24 hours a week at the moment. I'm not allowed to be in therapy due to the fragile state of my bone, but they seem to assume if I'm not at work, I'm at therapy for some strange reason. "How's therapy going?" is one of the regular questions I get.

Because my illness is not automatically noticeable, I tend to get into a lot of uncomfortable situtations in public settings. For example, I can't hold doors open. But, no one holds doors for me when I kick my foot into the gap when I pull on the door with my left hand - but I don't want to over use it, so I use my foot as leverage to get the door open enough for me to get through. And then, people behind me expect me to keep it open for them. Well, I would LOVE to be your personal doorman, yes I would. However, I do not qualify as I am an alien being from a planet where bionic implants are an everyday feature in people's lives. (shakes head)

Things haven't been great, but they haven't been bad either. I guess I just wake up and try to do it all over again without dying. I suppose that's what they call living day to day. I just call it fate. Well, I suppose destiny would work in there too...but destiny implies (usually) a more positive outcome so I'll just use fate as my placeholder there. I hope no one minds, and if you do too bad. Sucker.

The Adventures and Misadventures of Vacation 2014

I, Kienbock's Girl, have had several adventures and misadventures in the last few months.

My husband and I took my hard earned vacation time to go to Europe and spend time with our exchange daughter and her family. We planned since our daughter left us to visit her this year. Back in February, we bought tickets, and started planning a vacation that ended up taking the 4 months before to plan it out entirely ... and then of course we didn't stay on the schedule we created, but we never do as we add and delete as we go with the flow. So, we spent 2 lovely weeks with our daughter, and a week with her family. Overall, it was a very good vacation but I learned some things.

1. Always travel with the husband - do not fly alone.
2. Only fly with Iceland Air if you're going to Iceland. The seats are too tiny for a normal sized person let alone a 6'1" man with gigantic shoulders, they make you follow ridiculous overhead luggage sizes, and they don't feed you any food (you must pay) and give you drinks 2 times in an 8 hour flight.
3. When flying, attempt to find affordable seats in business or 1st class - or pay for a last minute upgrade if available.
4. When flying, even if the doctor tells you not to take it, take lots of ibuprofin. 
5. I sincerely dislike Belgium. Beautiful buildings, great history, but dirty/stinky cities with some poorly mismanaged transportation systems and no sense of direction combined with expensive food made it a little difficult to fall in love with. 
6. Always travel like a local. I mean, I already knew this, but I knew it even more since I'd never taken the train outside of Germany when living there. 
7. Our exchange daughter does not always like to go to many museums on vacation and spend a lot of time looking and reading everything like I do. Find her a bookshop and you're golden.
8. Buying laundry soap in the ghetto of a French speaking country is not exactly ideal.
9.  Don't let Belgian buses kidnap you. ENTER FROM THE FRONT - they're not the same as Germany!
10. Belgian fries really are better.
11. Vacation isn't a time to relax - it's a time to get out and do stuff!
12. Candlelight wine cruises through Amsterdam are fun. They're even more fun when they stop for a short tour of the Red Light District, and a couple mysteriously disappears from the remainder of the tour.
13. Buying tickets online to the Anne Frank Huis might look sketchy (trust me, it looks sketchy) but it was an EPIC WIN. 
14. No one is kidding about the line to the Anne Frank Huis. By the time we entered (1/2 hour before it opened, we got early entry!), the line queue was around the building, and halfway down another block ... so an easy 2 hour wait minimum. By the time we exited, I'd estimate it was probably 2 city blocks long.
15. Speaking English isn't a crime or shocking to anyone in Belgium or the Netherlands. In fact, so much more English is spoken there than in Germany or any other country we've traveled to, it was like Spanish in America. Except that everyone could understand you ... and most Americans' Spanish is like baby talk. 
16. Take your internet capable phone with you. Even though you can't call people, you sure can e-mail or FaceBook them and post teasing pictures of you and your hubby and daughter.
17. Hotels in Bruges are cheap and SUPER nice.
18. Hotels in Brussels and Amsterdam are expensive and mediocre at best.
19. Renting an apartment in Brussels was kind of cool.
20. Renting an apartment in Brussels was kind of not so cool. 
21. If you forget to eat an unopened sandwich that you bought on the plane, the U.S. sniffer dogs will find it, and get you in trouble and have all your things looked through just to throw the sandwich away ... the sandwich that cost you about $12.

I'm sure there's more I could put here, but let me just say it was a vacation we'll never forget, and believe me when I say we took thousands of photos to prove just that. 

Cars and Bones and Other Fashionable Rides

After high school I spent a year to myself. I went on an exchange program to Germany, and I worked a full-time job at my uncle's engineering firm. I went to college the next fall at Washington State University. I enrolled in the school of Music as a Music Major. My primary instruments were piano and flute - I've talked a little bit about this before. In the year that I spent away from school, I recovered from my neck injury. It wasn't a fun process let me tell you, but in October of that year, a full 4 months later, during a storm, I hydroplaned into another car who was merging onto the freeway in downtown Seattle. I wasn't going more than 15 miles per hour, but such a low impact jarred my neck badly, and I remember holding onto the steering wheel so tight, that my arms were straight out in front of my trying to brace myself for the whip backwards. They had a tiny scratch on their car, but I was the one worse for the wear.

I sometimes wonder if this is what caused the bone in my hand to collapse - it would make a lot of sense. Low impact car accidents are absorbed by the passengers of a vehicle. Hitting a car at low speed can slip a disc for example.

I'm not a bad driver, but the last few years have made me extremely afraid to be behind a wheel. I haven't had a car accident since this time, so 12 years later when an act of nature called black ice took me careening for around 600 feet downhill into a rock wall planter, I wasn't surprised to find out I have a slipped disc in my lower back. It is highly plausible that such an event as a small car wreck could cause a radial difference to have put intense pressure on my hand bones.

Today, driving is still not enjoyable. I lost that sense of adventure years ago. I mostly drive with my left hand. Things like changing gears, adjusting the rear view mirror and turning the wheel are all obstacles when you have Kienbock's disease. If I do use my right hand, I rely on my fingers for grip and my arm from about my elbow for the control I need of the wheel.

When it comes to other forms of transportation, I seriously have to weigh the cons before I step away. I do own a bike, and I do like to ride it. The problem is though, that using your hands and arms for balance and direction is key. I can no longer ice skate (not that I was EVER any good), roller skate, roller blade, or skateboard/mountain board if I wanted to - not that I do but just as an example. People who fall from these modes of transportation used their hands. It's an automatic reflex if you wobble; you put your hands out. Additionally, I have to rule them out because you cannot trust other people in the world.

I remember in elementary school, every year our school would rent a roller rink and we'd have a huge school party (I went to private elementary, so this was not a large amount of kids). One year, I recall being hit so hard from behind that I fell and was knocked out. My parents wouldn't let me skate for the rest of the day. I mean, think about it. People bump other people, people push and shove, people sidle by.... cars are on the road, animals are on the road, the weather can be drastic, etc. Deciding to go for a bike ride or a rollerblading adventure would just be plain stupid of me. Distractions and invaders are everywhere. I'm not paranoid, I'm practical. It's not worth risking the loss of the use of my hand to go ice skating. If I fell and landed on my hand or arm, I could do some real damage that might not be repairable in ways it would be for other people. I have an extremely thin radius and calcium deficiency because I'm lactose intolerant and have to rely on other foods or vitamins for calcium.

Some people might not understand how this is living life. They'd say if I wanted to do something, to just do it. But, as a realistic and practical person, this is stupid advice. The only way you could do these activities would be in a controlled environment - something many people don't have access to in their everyday lives. As much fun as owning a gym like WSU has, I'd really just rather say it's not worth the risks involved and find other avenues to pursue.

At the end of the day, I never regret my choices to stay out of harm's way. I know I cannot control everything, but I can avoid situations that make it dangerous for my physical health.