Monday, February 2, 2009

schools in motion again..

Well, apparently when you show up to class in a wrist brace and limping fairly badly... people like to ask questions. And I am at a loss for what to say.

I do not want to bring attention to being gimpy or having problems. So i played both issues off and basically was a vague as i possibly could be without being rude.I got a few weird looks. Ppl were obviously wanting some kind of story to go along with my wrist brace and gimpyness...
But how do you explain without saying you have a weird genetic condition, that

"Oh that? sometimes my joints do that. I have NO clue what I did, but somehow I sprained my wrist fairly badly...its been painful for 4 weeks now.. only slightly better now that's its immobilized and I got a proper brace. And my ankle? Oh i was at a restaurant and silly me! I thought I could take a step onto my left foot..ha! what was i thinking?!"

How am i suppose to explain that... without saying "Oh yea, so my ligaments hate me and sometimes my joints do weird things.. so crap hurts relatively often, but its no biggie, i can still do my job....most of the time."

I HAVE to be fine for nursing. It is too physical not to be. I gotta pretend I'm fine and dandy, simple as that. Once i'm a nurse, it doesn't matter as much.. then I can take sick days if I have to. And if i find myself in way worse shape, I can take a job thats far less physical than floor nursing. Lots of options out there.
Have to be able to get my licence and prove I can take care of my patients first tho. Year and 1/2 to go..

Least my body somewhat cooperated and the majority of my gimp-ness was on break. when I couldn't bear any weight on the back of my foot (heel-area) for a week and 1/2 before school started... and the 4 weeks of the wrist brace prior to school starting (only 2-3 more weeks of school wearing the brace) ... Oh and the hip SI joint tweaking thing it likes to do after car rides lol thankfully that was only 3-4 days. hottub helped greatly with that...

The MAJORITY of it was when i was on break. That was the deal I made with my body. it can break down on break, just not when i have clinicals.

my wrist isnt all better. and i PROLLY should be wearing the brace the 5 other days I'm not in clinicals. it still hurts decently bad but for the most part i can lift things.

trick is i gotta keep myself busy enough so i dont have time to think about things right? right. ignore knees, hips, wrists and ankles. check.

i still need to exercise. i dont want to spend the money but im really thinking of Curves again.. it was nice. minus the stretchy machine in the middle that did more harm than good..(but oh how good it feels at the time..hah)

i wish they had a 24 hr fitness here. i had so many more options when different joints decided to flip out.. knee all funky feeling and slipping? go do something else. hip spazzing out? do something else. lol im worse off than i was when i did curves before but i think itd still work for me alright.
I'd like to know medically exactly what happens when each of my joints do their thing.. I know i don't dislocate fully but.. I wanna know what the sensation/discomfort/pain is. I wanna know exactly what causes each one.

i wish my lungs didnt throw a big fit when i try to exercise outside. damn asthma.

I wish i had a friend here. I'm use to being alone but the total isolation...gets to me sometimes. Its hard when its not my choice. though if i had the same people around.. i probably would spend about the same amount of time alone anyway to be honest. i just like to think i wouldn't.

i should sleep. gotta study my ass off tomorrow.. test on the cardiac system on Tuesday I am ill-prepared for.

6 comments:

BubbleGirl said...

Hi, I just found your blog today, and I read the whole thing. I was diagnosed with EDS 7 years ago, when I was 14. Until then I was told by everybody that I was just accident prone, and possibly a hypochondriac. I've broken 20 bones (not including how many times I've broken the same bones), I dislocate and sublux my joints frequently, and I can do some weird "tricks" wih my joints too.
I saw a surgeon about my knee and my hips, and she told me that I really do need surgery to repair the damage, but they wouldn't operate on me because the success rate is so low with EDS-ers. She told me I should do an exercise to strengthen my hip muscles, and when I told her that it felt like my hip was goin to dislocate she said "I'm a hip surgeon, and yu CANNOT dislocate your hip in that direction, it's impossible" So I continued doing the exercise, and "POP" I dislocated my hip. So I'm just trying to let you know that you're not the only one of us out there that has trouble communicating the issues we have with out joints.
The hip surgeon was also a knee surgeion, and she looked at the range of motion in my left knee, and after she got to the point where she said "this position is where most people start feeling uncomfortable... and THIS position would usually make a person scream in pain" I still couldn't feel anything out of the ordinary for me...

Just thought you should know... You're not the only odd one out there.

Bendy_Clutz said...

oh wow =) thanks for writing..
i just read through your blog too.

while itd be nice to have a doc know what the heck to do with people like us, i dunno about you but i get a minor kick out of their "woa" reactions..when u do things they say are not possible. lol my moms had these encounters more than me thru the years but still!

as much as i hate to know other ppl are suffering, dealing with pain and their joints going haywire... i will admit it is very nice/comforting to know theres a name for it, and im not the only one..ya know?

BubbleGirl said...

I definitely know what you mean, for years I felt pretty isolated, and I still have to explain to people I've known my whole life, "No, I can't help you MOVE... I can barely walk today"..."Why can't I walk?... I HAVE A CONNETIVE TISSUE DISORDER...just like the last time you asked, and the time before that, and the time before that... no, It's not going to get better... thanks for your pity..."

elastigirl said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
elastigirl said...

hey there. your blog speaks to me. i'm 28, live an active life despite the chronic pain and fatigue i've felt for 10 years.

i started an accelerated bsn program this fall and was concurrently diagnosed with eds hypermobility. after so many years of unexplainable pain and treatments that hadn't helped, i suddenly had a set of recommendations to modify my life and activities to decrease pain. without thinking of the consequences, i told school about my eds. though i'd been doing extraordinarily well in classes and clinicals, they dismissed me from the program.

you spoke of a reluctance to tell people about your condition. stay true to that instinct while you are in school. i am glad that your program is almost over...because you're right...once you are an rn, you can manage your exacerbated days with sick calls and taking it easy. so long as you're a student, you have to power through and not give anyone a reason to think that you can't handle the physical load of clinical nursing.

best of luck to you!!!

Bendy_Clutz said...

Lily,
Wow.. that seriously sucks that you had to go through that! What justification did they have? Gotta be all sorts of illegal.. =(

I have 2 more stints of clinicals to get through.. 6 months left of schooling total. Lets hope my body can stay together when it needs to to get through this!