September 14, 2001

My Wrist Is Not Broken

8:34 pm: A busy day, but one that was pretty good. The hard part was that Jet was up half a dozen times last night when he'd been up only once the last four nights. It was just unexpected, and therefore a bit harder to deal with. Jet had a lot of gas, so it wasn't surprising that he was having a really unhappy time of it. There was something going on with his digestive system, and we don't know if it was something specific that he ate or if it was just that he had something going on with his gut.

Anyway, he found comfort nursing off me three times, including a last time at 6. We'd thought about going to the coffee shop in Erie, but I was so completely sleep deprived I couldn't get up when Jet did. I just went right back to sleep and even after another hour of sleep I was still exhausted. It really did help that John bought donuts for me while I was asleep. Jet and he had gone to the Conoco and bought me an apple fritter and a chocolate chocolate donut. I made myself some decaf Sumantran coffee from Starbucks (which I'm okay with but don't really like as much as I thought I should. It's just not nearly as good as Victor's dark Colombian and the Starbuck's Sumantran is so much more expensive) and took it and my donuts upstairs and started to work.

I didn't really have to work today. It's one of the plant shutdown days, and I was supposed to be taking it off, but I had stuff I could do and time to do it in. With the airports opening up, it's likely that Joan will be flying out Sunday and she will definitely be gone for the next three weeks with her family. She's had this planned for months, and we knew about it. John's parents are arriving Wednesday evening and will be able to help our for two weeks, so there's just three days in there that I have to deal with Jet and work and one of those will be one where John will be here, too. So it's just two and on Wednesday I might be able to bring Jet in for my early meeting or I might just call in for it. That would be more likely.

Anyway, I did some things. I also had my 11 o'clock appointment with Dr. Benson, so I had to leave sometime anyway. Jet was also low on all his fruits, so I decided to drop by the Safeway to pick up a few jars before my appointment. We had a bunch of coupons and then Safeway was having a Club sale on the organic stuff, so I got the sale stuff and used the coupon on four jars of the Gerber stuff. I think that between the Club sales, the coupons from Safeway and the coupons I can find online we really don't have to pay full price on nearly any of Jet's food.

I saw an episode of Martha Steward about making ones own baby food, and it was very interesting. I would have to buy a food mill for the starchy and vegetable things, though, and the pediatrics and Sears book warned me away from several vegetables that are some of Jet's favorites. Besides the storage of homemade baby food is such a bother and the jars are nigh indestructible and stack so well in the pantry. I really doubt that I'll go to the trouble. Once he starts eating larger volumes and can handle mild chunkies, I could see processing some of our dinner to give to him; but when he still has to eat strained foods, it's a whole lot easier to buy it.

So I bought a bag full of jars, and was careful to lift it with my left hand and took it to the car and the tooled on over to the Longmont Clinic and went to my appointment.

Dr. Benson was very candid. He felt that it could have been the splint that had caused the new problem. While it had immobilized the original problem area and caused it to heal, it did leave the lowest joint of the thumb vulnerable to hyperextension, might have put pressure on the tendon that now aches, and could even have made it easier to break the big bone under that tendon. When he tested the new problem, the symptoms would, normally, have pointed to me falling down and catching myself with my hand in the fall. The bone that he suspected ached with exactly the pressure that would indicate a break there.

So he sent me to x-ray my wrist. When I went back out into the waiting room I saw Paul, one of my co-workers who has four daughters. He and his two youngest daughters were there as moral support for his wife. She had hurt a couple of fingers and they were checking her out to make sure they weren't broken, either. That was pretty interesting coincidence. We talked a bit, and he wondered if I was back to work and I had told him that I was back part time and mostly at home. He was very interested in the fact that John was home on Mondays and Fridays. He liked that. That, of course, was when they called my name.

There was a very gruff Germanic gentleman with very broken English and, clearly, a perfectionist's soul. He had three other X-rays he was taking or had taken and was developing them. He had me hold my hand in four different positions and took a shot of each of them, and then developed that as well. He handed the three others their films and in a simple sequence, handed me mine as soon as the others were done. So that was very quick.

Dr. Benson went over it with me and we didn't see anything that indicated a break. So it might just be bruised, the tendon might have been compressed badly, or something else might have happened. So he advised me to not wear the splint anymore and to try using the anti-inflammatories alone. It might just bring all the swelling down and might help the tendon heal or the bruising to go down or even away. Also the particular pills he gave me wouldn't numb anything to the point where I couldn't feel if I damaged anything, so it didn't really need support plus the painkiller. That reassured me.

So we seem to have a culprit, the splint seems to be what has caused this new problem. The solution is more problematic. In order to actually immobilize this particular joint and tendon combination we'd have to immobilize my arm all the way up to the shoulder. This particular point is connected to muscles that move when the elbow rotates and that gets affected by the shoulder motions as well. So making it be still is nearly impossible.

I just hope this works. The answer was less satisfying than last time, but it really did make sense. That was good in and of itself.

I went home. John made lunch, just reheated enchilada casserole.

Jet was having a rough day to match the rough night. He was crying whenever we left him on the floor with his toys. When we put him in his saucer, he would end up crying fairly soon. It wasn't just from being left alone. He was arching his body as if his stomach hurt, and when he did eat he would also burp up fairly large amounts. Not so much that I'd call it vomiting, but lots and lots of gas formation. So it's looking like something gastronomic is going on in his gut.

John was pretty careful, today, to feed Jet only stuff that he's had before and had no problems with. So it's looking like Jet either has some kind of digestive virus or he's, once again, having some kind of teething problem. I'd heard that kids get mysterious somethings with a fever that then burns out or something at this stage of life that isn't dangerous, it just seems to be part of this period of life. It might be Jet's version of all that. But he was having a really hard time of it today, and I ended up just wearing him in the sling for far amounts of the early afternoon.

One really good thing is that my new Visor has shown up. It showed up while I was at the doctors and John signed for it. It's so new! So shiny and solid and the buttons are so much firmer than my old one. I don't know if that's just because mine was used so much or if it's something that's actually new with the newer machines. It's quite different. The instructions for shipping back the old machine were somewhat lacking. Like they said that there was a sticker for the return number inside the box, but they didn't say where to put it when one finished putting the box together again.

The instructions also said to stick the sticker on the box, but they didn't say how to put it on and that the second layer of the whole bill was supposed to stay with the sticker as well. It did say to take the top one for one records, but not how. Airborne express was the shipping company to send it back, and one had to bring the box to one of their drop-off boxes. They did have a web site where one could get a good idea as to where the boxes were, and that was very useful.

At 3 John asked if I wanted to go on an adventure to Greeley with him. He'd just gotten notice that the permit for his garage was done and he could go and get it. The office closed at 4, so we had to leave pretty much immediately. The site had all the boxes in Greeley clearly marked, so we took the map with us and figured we'd find them once we got up there.

Both Jet and I slept on the trip up. It was nearly an hour's drive up there, so the two of us napped quite handily. I'm sure Jet was much less stiff and sore at the end of it than I was, but we both got some sleep. John didn't get any extra. Both jet and I woke up for a few high speed turns, but went back to sleep pretty easily. I woke up when we pulled up and stopped at the building permit place, and that was mostly because John came to a screeching halt and leaped out of the car with his stuff and he ran for the building. Our car clock said that it was two minutes past the hour. Since he didn't come back immediately, I assumed he'd done okay.

He came back with all the permit stuff a few minutes later. Then we hunted down the Airborne Express box, and with the additional instructions there I got it all set up correctly and sent it back to Handspring. Whew. That was done.

We thought, for a bit, about eating in Greeley, but we got turned around a bit, so we headed towards home when we came across the 85. We headed south and ended up in Brighton and when we couldn't find a Chili's there, we found a local Mexican place called Val's. We also found a nice, shady spot and the three of us camped out there while I nursed Jet. He ate really well with a blanket over his head. When he was done with that, we went to Val's.

It was in the old part of town and they very proudly side that they'd been serving Brighton since 1970. The menu was pretty extensive, and had lots of Mexican food. They also had a 'Mexican steak' for a bit over six dollars, with beans and rice and tortillas. I decided to get that, smothered in green chile. It was really yummy. The breaded cutlet was crisp around the edges, the green chile was spicy and tasty but not too hot. The rice was extraordinary, it was tasty with chile and tomatoes and had been stirred to the point of breaking up most of the grains, so it had a smoother texture than I've ever seen in Mexican rice. It was also tastier. Most Spanish rice at Mexican restaurants is an afterthought, it comes out like rice cooked in ketchup. This stuff had texture and a really interesting flavor. I really liked it a lot. The tortillas were soft and fresh and perfect, and since they gave me four of them, that was the only thing I had leftover after I finished my meal, so I took them home with me.

John got one of their combinations and got plenty to eat. The pop came in huge plastic tumblers with plenty of ice and plenty of room for refills. It was really plentiful and really quite cheap. I liked that.

Jet had a great time playing in the high chair, greeting everyone that came by with a smile. He got compliments on his hair and eyelashes. He had the Whoozit to play with and I used the strap off my purse to keep it from hitting the floor there. I just attached it to the tray and Jet had as much fun with the strap as he did with the toy itself. That was pretty cool.

We headed home, took a good long walk and did our usual evening routine. I was expecting, with the long drive, that Jet would have a lousy night again. He did okay in the evening. We'll see.

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