Everything Hurts

Normally, I would be writing about my upcoming lessons but today I’ll be writing about cancelling them. Called the studio this morning because with the way my knee feels, there is no reason to even try. I’m the type that tends to “play through pain” and the knee didn’t stop me from walking the dog this weekend. But that was easy because he’s older and likes to stop and smell the flowers (and then pee on them but that’s another story) so there were lots of built in rest breaks. But dancing isn’t like that and it doesn’t make sense to try to push through when it hurts to put any pressure on the leg.

I’m seriously hoping this is just a flare up of the arthritis that exists in the left knee but has been relatively dormant for many years. Guess its like a volcano – when it erupts everyone look out. Unlike the right knee which just kind of has a baseline level of ache which is tolerable. Over time it rises until I have to do the injections to knock it back down.

Sometimes I get to philosophizing and I think that if the human body were somebody’s engineering project, they’d get a failing grade. Yes, you’ve got all these complex systems but everything seems so freaking fragile and subject to failure. You’ve got these two bones here in the knee and we just put a thin layer of cartilage to keep the bones from rubbing on each other. Oh well, I guess it will just make it easier when the robots arrive to take over for us. Those we’ll design with no flaws.

Then we have the shoulder issues. Thought things were going better and I went for more therapy today and my range of motion is less than my first visit. WTF?!? This is not a positive situation. I don’t know if it made a difference or not but I kind of worked out a bit before the therapy but I mean not like right before. And I tried to focus mainly on legs and core. I did do some arm/shoulder stuff but it was all stuff that didn’t hurt. Maybe I should ask the guy if there are things I shouldn’t do. Yeah, that might be a good idea.

So we went through 45 minutes of a lot of him trying to stretch out my shoulder. By that I mean putting me in positions that were somewhat painful to start with and then pressing on something to create even more layers of pain. “Can you tolerate that?” “Sure no problem” In all fairness, I sometimes couldn’t tell if it was new pain or some of the pressure he was putting on the various parts or leftover pain from the last thing he did. Now I have more stretching and strengthening exercises to do.

Towards the end, he kind of admits that he’s not at all sure what the heck is the problem. I don’t present with classic shoulder stuff but he’s still mostly convinced that the pain in my arm is transferred from the shoulder. Could still be some kind of impingement where moving in a certain way pinches something that causes some pretty serious pain at times.

And, to top it all off, I’ve got one of my 18 hour headaches going on right now. This is the kind that makes me semi-nauseous so I never really get that hungry. Still had to cook something since my wife is fine. I wouldn’t recommend this as a weight loss method given the pain that feels like some alien is banging a hammer on the inside of my skull over my eyes trying to break out. I was supposed to be working on updating my resume but I really don’t feel up to thinking about that. This is less of a mental challenge so I’m fine doing this.

Should I also mention that I’m having some minor surgery on Wednesday? Well I just did so I guess I shouldn’t have asked that. I think I mentioned this but I can never be sure. Anyway, got a little patch of skin cancer on the side of my nose that needs to come out. It’s a common form that doesn’t spread but it can be a bitch to get out. The doc is talking about having to do a little reconstructive surgery since there isn’t a lot of skin on that part of the nose. I’ve decided to not go all the way under but they are going to have me under pretty heavy sedation which is all fine with me.

Seriously, I’m just falling apart here.

There are two pieces of good news. First, despite my current non working status, I do still carry insurance. Secondly, because I don’t have to work, I can just schedule these things whenever. So maybe I can get all put back together and have a better July and August. Not that June was bad but having things hurt and having a surgery hanging over your head can put a bit of a damper on things.