Now, I just miss my family. I miss my kids running over to hug me when i come home. I miss smelling whatever Mrs. BG happens to be brewing up for dinner and the smell of the house when people are actually living in it. A house, this one at least, literally has a different smell in it when I come home now. Now I can hear you out there in internet land saying "Brian, that smell is your moldering socks and stuff!" And i say to you, au contraire!!! I have safely sealed the dirty laundry pile in the hamper, which is in the closet with the door shut in the bedroom. I assure you, no smell is escaping that area. Speaking of which, i suppose that I'll have to do laundry again this weekend. The problem with that is that it means I'll have to take the clean clothes out of the dryer where they are perfectly happy and fold them. This is far more tedious than just turning the dryer on for 20 min each morning when i get up and pulling something out fresh for wear that day.
Moving on, a few of my friends have most graciously provided me with victuals during this enforced bachelorhood. I've been to eat at Mr. and Mrs. Engineers house twice since I've come home and enjoyed the meal immensely both times. Here is a sampling of my last dinner there.
Yep, that's some steaks, freshly boiled farmer's market corn and some zucchini and potatoes. A great dinner. For dessert we had some Ghirardelli's brownies. I brought the box and bade Mrs. Engineer's wife to bake them. I had a bum arm you see and that made it difficult for me to make them. I ended up leaving half there and taking half home, and my half did not make it through the following day.
Why you may ask was my arm hurt and how? I really wish I knew. I simply woke up last Wed. with an incredible pain in my right shoulder.
I'd completely lost the ability to move the arm more than an inch or two from my side. I literally could not raise my arm to be level with my shoulder without excruciating pain. I medicated and iced and arranged to see my primary doctor. The conversation at the primary doctor went something like this:
Me: I can't move my arm and it hurts like the dickens. I think i need to go see an orthopedist can you write me a referral?
Her: Hmmm. Are you sure you can't move it? Did you do anything to hurt it?
Me: yep, I'm sure and no I didn't do anything unless sleeping is bad for your health.
Her: (examining me) Does it hurt when i push here? (ow) How about here? (OWW). How about if i put more pressure here? (OWWWWWW) Hmmm. I'm really just an Internal Medicine doc and not so great with bones and joints. I think you should see an orthopedist.
Me: (Almost sobbing) Thank you.
I love my doc by the way, she's been great the few times I've had to go see her since i moved to the Pacific NW and she left the room for a little while to get me an Orthopedic consult. She went above and beyond and found a doctor that accepted Tricare and verified that they had an appointment they could see me at within a few days and assured me she would put the referral in. Fast Forward to today.
Off I go to see the orthopedist, my arm is quite a bit better but still definitely not up to par. Aches, can't really drive with it etc.... I show up at the doctor's office this morning and the receptionist asks me for the hard copy of my referral. I politely tell her that Tricare usually faxes that directly to the doc and could she please take a look for it? She looks around and says it's not there and we'll need to call Tricare because if i see the doctor without a referral it's going to cost me the arm I'm trying to get fixed. So I sat down and eavesdropped into the conversation she had with Tricare. The gist of which was that Tricare had denied the referral to her doctor. Why? Because he was "in Network" but not "preferred" whatever that means. Tricare had instead changed the referral to have me go to some other guy. They did NOT inform the referring doctor, the referred to doctor or the referee (myself). Now these folks have my email address, my phone number, my work number, my work email and I wouldn't be surprised if they had the ability to speak directly inside my head. No contact was initiated though and so there I stood. Luckily the doc that Tricare wanted me to see had a spot open at 1400. So what did all of this turn up? The doc thinks I've made a labral tear or lesion. See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slap_lesion
I really hope that he's wrong but he was able to describe my symptoms very very well. So, an MRI of the shoulder is next for final diagnoses. I had really hoped it would be just a pinched nerve as it's much better today than it was on Wed-Fri, but the doc is not optimistic.
So that's all I've really got. Momo is currently in the bedroom curled up on Mrs. BG's side of the bed. Every now and then she lets out a "woof" to make sure some passing squirrel knows that death awaits it inside the house. It can actually be pretty annoying. But she's a good dog and comes over every now and then to check on me and see what I'm doing. One of the coolest things she does is every night when i come home she runs around the house with a stuffed animal in her mouth, one of my eldest daughter's discarded ones, and runs to each room whimpering. She then comes back to me and looks at me very expectantly as if she is asking, "OK, where's my girls?" I tell her again that they aren't here and she goes and flops down with this weary sigh. I imagine she is thinking, "so I'm stuck with you AGAIN?" Ever hear the story of how Mrs. BG and I met? No? Yes, but want to hear it again? Next post.
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