I'm gonna self ban for awhile

Actually, I’ve just come back from another two weeks away, and the weirdest things seem to happen when I’m away…

Firstly, at the start of last month we heard that some school friends of my children had lost their father - he had been having some problems with drugs and his wife had sent him off to rehab to get sorted out. He had been clean for a month, but then overdosed at the start of September (quite possibly accidentally - he had valuables and money in the apartment and had just got paid, so he wasn’t at rock bottom) and was found about a week later. We’ve been spending quite a bit of time with the family over the last few weeks, but at the end of the month the mother asked me to help her collect some keepsakes from the apartment he’d been staying in. So on the first week away from BB I found myself collecting family photos and other things from this one room apartment with basically everything but the body still there - drug paraphernalia by the sink (I guess the drugs themselves had been removed by the police), dead guy juice all over the sofa and the widow right there next to me. Quite a memorable experience.

This week, my wife had been having more trouble with her shoulder (which I mentioned in a previous thread). By this point, she’d seen 10 doctors, physiotherapists and chiropractors, who had all tried to help without much success. She’d had four x-rays, one MRI and a sonogram. Last month’s intensive physiotherapy stopped after one day because the physio gave her tendinitis, so she was given a steroid injection and told to wait for two weeks before trying again. In the meantime she had another MRI, and was told that her biceps tendon had moved out of its position. It was too late to operate with much hope of success, and they basically told her that they were trying to deal with the pain but couldn’t do much about the root of the problem. She might need more steroid injections, which would get more risky after the second one. As you can imagine, this was pretty depressing, especially as it might mean that she would have to leave the nursing career that she loves. In any case, at least we had a diagnosis that made some sense, so she spent some time online and found some possible chiropractic treatments. One of them seemed straightforward enough, so I tried it and… it worked. Literally in the space of 15 minutes, she went from serious pain to just stiffness and general tenderness in that area. Last night she had her first proper sleep in seven months and she had full mobility and a lot more strength in her arm pretty much immediately. This morning her physiotherapist couldn’t understand it and greatly revised her plan. We had been planning a trip to Marseille in two weeks and had decided to cancel, but now it looks like we can still go. Our Christian friends are feeling vindicated for their prayers and I have some serious brownie points right now. Obviously it’s still quite early and things could change again, but it doesn’t look like a high risk operation is necessary at all and it should be possible to make it less likely for the tendon to slip out of place again. So I guess you can find weird tricks online that actually work.

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Hope so. In the meantime, take it easy!

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Most excellent news! Glad you guys caught a break.

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Dude, the one thing I’ve learned about doctors: don’t believe what they say. Well done for doing the research. The docs don’t.

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This one weird trick actually worked??

Honestly though reading this made me feel a little better today. Perhaps good things do happen :smile:

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She just got the all clear today; they will give her a small amount of physiotherapy over the next while but she’s able to return to work in the meantime. There’s still a little discomfort, but she doesn’t need pain medication any more. Her doctor had never heard of this treatment before and he will share it with his colleagues. We’re happy to help, I guess, but it doesn’t instil that much confidence in the system!

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That is so wonderful to hear. Pain medication is useful, bit life is so much better when you don’t need it.

Positive thought Ray in your direction engaged .

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You’d think in this day and age there’d be a Siri type thing to assist with best treatments!

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We had this in the US once too - we went to the doctor about our son’s illness, only to see him checking the symptoms on Google… I get the point that a little knowledge can be dangerous and self-diagnosing can be a problem, but doctors aren’t perfect and sometimes there are solutions that they haven’t thought of (the doctors seemed to be thinking in the direction of an operation that should have happened within a few weeks of the accident, while the physiotherapists and chiropractors were focusing on other parts of the body - the main chiropractor thought that her body was just out of alignment). I think I missed my calling in life though:

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Wow. I hope you get things figured out. We’ll keep the place in good shape for your return.

Always take breaks from Internet.

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Hi. My name is slybevel, and I’m a bOINGaholic.

Well it turns out I’m going to California tomorrow. I’m not quite sure what the itinerary is, I think Disney is involved.

Anyway I’ll be very much AFK until…well let’s say Thursday.

I’ll probably lurk on my tablet and phone, and I’ll watch for PMs.

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Wooo Disney. For as much as I don’t like the modern over marketed/merchandised Disney I was quite impressed with and had a lot of fun at Disneyland and would happily go again.

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Have fun!

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Have fun. The weather’s going to suck (by October southern California standards anyway. You won’t notice.) If your travels bring you further south, PM me.

ps. Hope you’re not driving. If you are, reconsider. The Grapevine has been closed for a while due to mudslides.

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Say “hi” to Cory for us!

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I’m leaving caught up. It’s up to you lot to make the pool on when I get caught up again.

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