My right side is borked

No, that is not a transformers mask.

I went to a sports doctor/orthapedic surgeon today. Last week, I went to my regular doctor and in passing asked her what was up with my crooked fingers (which I injured in October last year and got X rays on and it never healed) and she ordered more X rays which came out negative (so no fractures) but then referred me to an orthapedic surgeon to see what was up with that.

So I spent two hours at the orthapedic surgeon's office today. The good news is that the hand is munted officially but my fingers are not broken; they just healed funny when they were splinted (on the suspicion of being broken) last year. All the soft tissue knitted up weirdly so that is why my mobility is limited. But it's not bad enough to require anything serious; just some physical therapy should fix that over time. Phew. It's annoying though, since I'm right handed and holding pens is a bit wonky, and not being able to straighten/bend them properly means by typing has gotten really bad so I type like a drunken monkey smashing its head on a keyboard.

Knee bondage rubber fetish time.

But then I also got the doctor to look at two other things: my right knee (which has been crap since I played hockey 10 years ago) and my shoulder. My knee just gets sore a bit, and basically the ligaments holding the kneecap in place are a bit loose so it means there's less support, which means my knee bones actually end up rubbing on each other. It gets really irritated when I do knee falls in derby though, what with the extra force of the ground smashing on it and everything. Even though I am wearing kneepads there's still some kneecap jiggling going on there I guess.

I got some X rays done on that too, and nothing was broken (which was expected, otherwise I don't know how I would have been walking). But since there's a lack of support in the knee, short of building up extra quad strength instantly (leg lifts with weights, leg presses etc--but not squats, because that makes my knee super crunchy) I'd need some extra support on it. It's not like my quads are weak to start with, but it just needs more support. Jumping, changing direction quickly etc. are all pretty brutal on one's joints.

So now I have a super fancy rubberized knee brace thing to wear. It feels really awkward but it does hold my kneecap in a bit which helps I guess. I'll see how well it goes with the kneepads (if at all; it feels kinda bulky) but we can try that out. Otherwise it's back to taping my knee for me. Ugh.

Finally, in passing I was just like "oh hey, my right shoulder is a little bit crunchy and it's been like that since I dislocated it two years ago" (which I talked about here: sadly I didn't seem to follow the moral that I left for myself at the end of the entry). That actually turned out to be the worst of the lot. It doesn't bother me a lot; I usually don't sleep on that side though, when I work I can't use my right arm to point at things, it gets stiff when it's cold and my whips suck as a result.

My hospital appointment form.
Details have been removed to protect the munty.

The diagnosis: a slap tear. That's what happens when you munt the cartilage in your shoulder joint. Basically you've got your scapula, and there's a ring of cartilage on that so that when your arm bone goes into the socket there it isn't grinding on bone. In my case, I've torn some of the cartilage, so when I rotate my arm the arm bone is catching on the flappy piece of cartilage, hence the crunchiness.

For a proper diagnosis, I've got to go to the hospital and get something called a MRI Arthrogram. From what I understand, you do an MRI, but they inject dye into your shoulder and if it leaks into your cartilage then that's how they can tell if there is a tear. The doctor was pretty sure that there was one, but this should confirm it.

And then there's only one way to fix it and that is with surgery. I REALLY do not like the idea of surgery. Ze Boyfriend is saying that ignoring the problem won't help, and that's true. And I guess there's a sense in which the injury limits my ability to do the things that I actually want to be able to do, like point at things and sleep on my right side and give non-wimpy whips. So I should get it fixed. But the idea of surgery (or rather, the subsequent being out of commission for up to SIX MONTHS) sounds really, really horrible.

The upside (relatively speaking) is that the surgery is elective: I only need it if the shoulder REALLY bothers me. That sounds pretty subjective. But I think I should get it done at some point. There's not a super urgency on it or something and being out of commission for 5-6 months is suboptimal; obviously that is a lot of derby time away but also in terms of having my work done, if I can't point at things (the board, students, etc.) that will also suck.

So I am a little bit sadface right now. I am going to make cupcakes, which will help, but yeah, I guess after the MRI I have to decide if I want surgery, and when. Booooooo.