I return with a semi-broken body!

Florida! I've always wanted to visit there, but it's always been a money issue that's kept me away. Gasoline always jumps in price during the summer.

 

That sucks Now me, I have a secret beach about 12 miles away. There's woodland right up to the beach and it's at the end of a little river valley. A bit rocky, but hey that just means better climbing. If we have a good summer (I may be an atheist, but god willing...) I intend to do a morning run, cycle there and swim a mile back and forth along the beach. Instant triathlon.

 

Keep it up, KE

I'll be thinking of you training hard while I'm sat on a Miami beach this summer drinking ice cold beers while watching the women's volleyball championships under the gorgeous Florida sunshine

Sorry, couldn't resist :evil:

 

Stop it! You're both making me jealous! (except for the beer, since I don't drink)
And Van, Texas women are pretty, too (and potentially smarter). Just sayin'.

Off-topic: I do have some rather interesting news. Due to the shoddy economy here (1 in four people are unemployed in my town) doing TKD right off the bat is probably not the best of ideas for my wallet (or for my joints). On the bright side, with the job that may be getting tomorrow, the pool will be a better option for me in regards to strengthening and toning myself for Fall (and also easier on the wallet). Fall finances will be better, but I may not be able to get back into an actual TKD school until January of next year.

Which, in the long run, works out.

I found a WTF-approved, TKD school up in the area where I'm moving to and, at their rates and my finishing of my degree, I'll be a black belt within 2 years and about five months... give or take for holidays.

So good things will be happening.... slowly. :hat:

 

Heh, there'll be plenty of drinking and lying around at the beach as well. I'm thinking of luring a girl down there.

 

Isn't the water cold, KE?

 

Well, yes. The water's never not cold here, even at the height of a good summer. As a nation, though, we've long since adopted a stoic approach to this. Sometimes you'll even see people lying on the beach on a windy, mainly grey day, pretending that it's sunny.

 

Haha, I see. It's just like how we pretend the water is blue.

 

Exactly

 

You remind me of Ted Bundy.

 

Really? Most people go for a mix of Ronnie Kray, Rod Hull and the helpful fairy.

 

I lol'd.

 

So here's today's update...

There's this really weird thing with South Texas weather. It's humid and muggy and just before it rains the pressure rises then drops rapidly. And lemme tell you: if you've even bruised yourself in the past it hurts like HECK. If you've had tendonitis before... you feel the sharp pains and stiffness all over.

That was pretty much my day today. My siatic nerve was acting up for whatever reason, resulting in sharp, hindering pain in my lower back, through my right buttock and into my thigh... I felt like I got kicked or something and had to limp around on it for a good hour or so before the pain subsided.

As of right now, it is finally raining, but my joints continue to hurt. My left ankle made a dreadful 'SNAP' last night right as I was falling asleep and it's been on and off achy all day today. Even my tendons in my wrists and hands are hurting... and I wasn't even on the computer for most of the day! (Instead, I was cleaning and doing laundry. )

Knees are giving me guff as well, mostly my right ACL where I tried to do some stretching earlier to relieve the pressure off my right hip. Left ACL isn't doing too good, either.

Did I mention my neck and trapezium hurt, too? Now and then I turn my neck to do some regular activity and the darn thing goes 'POP'! It's not audible, but I can feel it down the left side of my neck and into my back.

Ugh, need a good massage or something. And maybe a trip to my orthopedic doctor. Should I give him a call if I'm having so much trouble?


EDIT: OW. I flexed my left ankle forward just to adjust my sitting position and the darn thing goes 'SNAP', followed by pain going up the Peroneal Tendon. Oh my goodness it just does not feel good at all. I should ask about Subluxation with the darn thing... I don't need it to rupture or tear on me.

On a side note: I'm learning a lot of fancy medical terms. Yay?


EDIT x2: Maybe this will better illustrate things. http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/075/d/0/The_Pain_Meme_by_Queen_of_Randomness.jpg

1. Neck/trapezium area. It hurts ever since the car accident from last summer. And yes, I was in a neck brace and all that. Not fun. I went through physical therapy but now and then it;ll hurt like CRAZY.

2. Inner ear canal. I've got an earache from what I believe is probably an ear infection (which would explain my vertigo earlier this week)

3. Elbow tendons. I think it's called "tennis elbow" If I extend it, it hurts on the top, too. If I keep it flexed, it feels a little better.

4. Tendonitis in right wrist. This has been recurring.

5. ACL pain in both knees.

6. Left ankle from injury of last September.

7. Right ankle pain in the inner foot. Not sure why that's hurting... pain sometimes goes up the shin.

8. Headache.

9. Siatic nerve. I might have slept on it wrong and pinched it. Not sure, but it HURT earlier today.

10. General lower back pain. Might be because I'm female and the "Ladies' Days" are coming. Or it could be siatic-related.

11. Pain on forefinger tendons. Probably from weather. The pain starts to extend down into my wrists, where I've had tendonitis before.

12. Left wrist tendons. I've had awful tendonitis in my left wrist from guitar playing before...

13. Sternum. I've had costochondritis before, which is an inflammation of the cartilage around the sternum. It feels like someone's taken a knife and STABBED it into my heart, or into my sternum. On cold days it flares up like crazy.

14. (highlighted in green). This. This is where I get facial numbness from time to time. No one knows why I get it, or what it is, but the whole area (including just under my lips) will go numb. It's very uncomfortable and the only way to "wake up" that part of my face is to pull at the cheek muscle or push on it from the inside with my tongue. I don't know what it is, but some suspect it may be neurological-related.

 

Doctor's appt. 9:15am! YAY!

EDIT: Sorry that was so vague; got called away to clean the fridge. Anyway, my orthopedic doctor is gonna have a look at me tomorrow morning to see what's going on.

Best case scenario: I get sent home with painkillers/ cortisone injected into my joints.
Worst case scenario: I'll have to undergo surgery of some sort to correct things.
Even worse than that: Recommended for physical therapy (which is sort of expensive so I'd rather not) or "Nothing is wrong, go home".


Ideally: Just send me home with painkillers and braces for my knees and ankles. That way I can take some time to recover with proper support before jumping right back into physical activity.
We'll see what the doctor says!

 

GAH I hate the night before doctor visits. Always a pain to deal with my nerves.

Got to doing something semi-productive, though. I know I've had physical trauma from the car accident and repeated activity jumping up and down in various sports. Yet I have a lot of diabetes in my family, blood issues and so on and so on. And with my whole body basically hurting (including my siatic nerve, which has NEVER happened before) I figured not all of it was trauma-based.

So based on my symptoms and my medical history (and that of my family), I have come to these conclusions and have either one or two or all of the below listed:

1. I have lupus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_lupus_erythematosus
Never been tested for it but my mom's got it and she has all sorts of issues with it.

2. I have either an iron overload or a deficiency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemochromatosis#Terminology
Iron deposits in tendons and tissues? Could be possible.

3. Rheumatoid arthritis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheumatoid_arthritis
It's connected to lupus.. which is interesting.


I'm not trying to scare myself silly. I've already faced cancer once in my life (was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2008), so nothing really scares me anymore in regards to my health. It still annoys me, of course.

 

I've got some bad news. At least maybe it's bad news.



I dragged myself to my orthopedic doctor this morning with my pain-diagram in hand to show him where everything was hurting. He took a look at my ankles and joints and manipulated them, hand me walk, etc. He looked fairly concerned and didn't talk much (which is NEVER a good sign with him). He finally said, knowing all my medical history and that of my family, "your pain is too sporadic. There is no pattern. There is an underlying cause to all of your discomfort". He also pointed out my weight gain and said, "this isn't natural. [This is more than a poor diet and lack of exercise]." He was also aware of my lymphoma-like symptoms back in 2008. My lymph nodes were swollen for more than six weeks, then subsided and no one, NO ONE could figure out how or why.

I then mentioned the inflamed cartilage around my sternum, how it wouldn't hurt at all until BLAM! It comes at random and literally stops me in my tracks.

At my mention of this his eyes went wide and he said, "I'll be right back." He returned with a list of endocrinologists. He highlighted four and said, "they can test you for lupus."

LUPUS????

Oh yes. It would seem that I have a huge amount of red flags that point to lupus... which would explain the excessive weight gain, the random pain, the fact that my asthma has worsened over time among many other signs (which I know because my mother has lupus and lupus is an autoimmune disease and is known to attack joints and lungs). Lupus isn't known to be genetic so far, but it can set in upon injury or infection or a variety of other triggers.

If the blood test comes back and I test negative, then we'll all be for a loop. One of the other possibilities is I have a thyroid problem, which means a possible removal of my thyroid. Which I wouldn't mind because that means my weight would literally drop off. The last possibility is Rheumatoid arthritis. Which.... I dunno, I still think 19 is too young for arthritis.

As of right now, I literally have no pain at all. I've taken no painkillers yet I was running around this afternoon with my mom and I felt fantastic, after all of the pain I had the past few days. Which is also another characteristic of lupus, because it can go dormant and come right back with a vengeance. My mother cautioned me, "you're feeling good now because it's warm. When it gets cold tonight, you'll be hurting again if it is lupus." We'll see.


So I'll be trying to fit into a doctor's office this week to get some tests done (besides the blood test). Now that we have a lead on what's going on, I might have some answers to all this mess. I WILL get to the bottom of this.


What does this mean for my Tae Kwon Do training? Well, until I have some solid test results back I can't do much more than simply wait. TKD is on hold, but school isn't. Lupus or thyroid or whatever, I'm heading back to school in the fall, even if I have to crawl to class, goshdarnit. And because we're catching this early, whatever it is, I can have a long, healthy life and still remain active and happy and keep up with TKD.

At least, that's the plan. For now.


Thoughts? Support? Suggestions?

 

Holy crapola :jawdrop:

Get well soon.

 

Thanks, Van.

I think I could've slept for forever. I just woke up and it's 9am.. I was awake at six, but I couldn't will myself to rise. The meds make me feel like a pile of sludge.

Anywho, I'm feeling groggy and need to go get breakfast so I can start on the second set of meds. Also need to set up an appointment to get blood tests done.


EDIT: Just remembered... I had THE WEIRDEST dream last night.

I was in charge of some group that was supposed to bring this misbehaving teenager in. His older sister gets me trapped between two vans and puts her fists up and is like, "bring it on!" To which I obliged her by busting out with some really awesome MA moves... and she didn't seem to be expecting it at all because she immediately backed off and I pursued her, throwing wicked kicks and punches. I finally managed to grab one of her fingers and pushed it back, jamming it. She took off after that, clearly put out that I trashed her. And as I slept on I actually thought in my sleep, "y'know, I could've used an arm lock on her instead of letting her get away..." Generally I don't THINK and reflect on something I just dreamt while I'm still sleeping. So that part was weird.

Later on I ended up subbing in an awards show for Eva Longoria, who was sick backstage.

I know, I don't get it, either.

 

I miss sparring so bad.

 

I just made a homemade resistance band out of pantyhose. Prepare for awesome kicking action!!!

... or at least minor conditioning of my arms and back.

EDIT: Nevermind. That was a really stupid idea.