Medical Mystery

That’s me!

Friday night – we had Andy, Chris and the Little One over for dinner with my mom and had a fabulous time. We grilled out – even though there was a terrible thunderstorm, right before everyone got there, made s’mores, talked, laughed and watched the Princess Diaries 2 together. Everyone left around 10pm and later, Brian and I found ourselves alone on the couch, surfing the Internet and bad TV.

So I have the laptop and am surfing away and look down at my right hand and what the fuck??? It is all puffy and red in the fleshy part of my hand right below my thumb! I showed it to Brian and he was shocked – “How did it happen?, he asked. I literally had no idea.

We watched it over the next few hours and it continued to swell but didn’t hurt at all and I tried to forget about it and just went to bed. The next morning I got up – totally gone. I went about my business on Saturday – went to the movies with my mom and aunt (Iron Man – AWESOME!) and took my mom to the airport to send her back to Florida, then Brian and I went out later that night to the annual Greek Festival for some fabulous food.

Once again, later that night, back at our house – I am surfing on the computer once again and look down at my hand – BOOM! It is puffy and discolored again but this time bright red and purple! It looks like a giant bruise but I swear to you – I didn’t hit it on anything, didn’t slam it in a door, didn’t burn it and it didn’t hurt at all. It was just stiff and if I pushed on the puffiest part, it would hurt a little. But I could move it, bend it, anything.

This time, it didn’t go away overnight and I got up Sunday morning with it looking the same way. I was still able to go about my day – did 8 loads of laundry, did a couple of hours of paperwork on the computer for bills and our unreimbursed medical, worked out on the treadmill with no pain at all. Just some stiffness in that hand and arm yet the horrible color remained.

We both agreed I should go to the doctor for him to check it out – I wondered if it had anything to do with my stiff neck and headaches since my Mystic tanning fiasco the week before. My neck has been bothering off and on ever since a week ago last Thursday – just a shooting pain up both sides of my neck, up in the back of my head and sometimes into my ears. It comes and goes – I take Advil to get rid of it but that only lasts for 3-4 hours, usually.

I Googled my symptoms wondering if it was a pinched nerve and came up with all kinds of horrible possibilities – KIDNEY DISEASE! LUPUS! – and promptly stepped away from the machine and quit looking.

24 hours later, I am in the doctor’s office and 15 minutes later, feeling like a dumb ass. Absolutely NOTHING is wrong with my hand and the doctor swears I had to hit it on something, however slight in just the right way to break some blood vessels and cause the blood to pool in that spot in my hand. It isn’t broken, it isn’t being caused by anything else wrong with me and he admitted that NOONE had ever come into his office with such an injury, with no pain. GO FIGURE!

He gave me some kick ass muscle relaxers for my neck and said to just take it easy when it hurts, Advil and alternate heat and ice when it is stiff and hopefully over time, it will heal itself. So once again, I go to the doctor and nothing is wrong with me. Is my body just getting old and breaking down or what?

My hand feels better today – it looks about the same but thank GOD it doesn’t hurt and I am able to work on my computer all day long at work and not have it bother me. I had all kinds of horrible things flashing in my head before I went to the doctor – would he tell me I shouldn’t work? If so, for how long? How much of my vacation time would it drain? But nope – once again, weird things just happen to me and I am perfectly fine.

I think we are at the beginning of the end for Lynne and I . . .or at least for a period of time anyway. She is still ticked off about us not coming to the kids birthday parties – I can tell by the tone of her voice every time I talk to her. She just doesn’t sound like herself at all. Then, they went on this giant renovation project to finish their entire basement in a couple of weeks time – of course, in time for her daughter’s giant 2 year birthday party. They had the electric and plumbing run and the drywallers just got done last week so they spent all weekend painting and then had the carpet laid yesterday.

I could tell she was pissed we didn’t offer to help – even though she never told me about this big project ahead of time nor really asked for our help. My mom was in town anyway until late on Saturday so we wouldn’t have been able to anyway. But why should you be pissed at me because you took on a project you had no possibly way of finishing that quickly without killing yourselves to do it? That is MY fault somehow? And what ticks me off even more, she takes advantage of her poor parents so much – her father is 72 and her mother 64 and she had them in that basement painting for 14 hours straight on Saturday after her mother had just spent the past two months working 10 hours days to get ready for the Parade of Homes we are having in our area this week. She owns her own drapery business and does custom window treatments for all of the giant homes in the Parade.

Then, we talk on the phone today – she says she is “just calling me back”, doesn’t ask me one thing about what is going on with me, how am I or Brian in the whole conversation ad then when I try and set up a date to get together for her daughter’s birthday OTHER than the actual party date, she informs me they are going to be too busy getting the basement finished before that date to just “sit around and chat” and won’t have time. Hey – I tried! Obviously she doesn’t understand what I am trying to do with all of the kids – create a special one on one time with each child for their birthday rather than being one in a crowd just sitting and watching them play with their friends. Every other mother I have talked to about our idea said they totally understand and think it is very sweet we want to do that for them – “above and beyond the call of friendship”, one even put it and Lynne won’t even consider the idea.

So – that is it. I am not going to ask anymore. We will be there for her parent’s 4th of July party and I will just plan to give Lynne her birthday gift (July 6th) and her daughter’s (June 26th) and leave it at that. I don’t feel like I can do anymore than what I am doing and frankly am hurt and insulted that this one thing is going to be a deal breaker of our friendship after all of the things we have done for them. I was there for the birth of her TWO children, Brian and I took time off work to be there with them for her husband’s open heart surgery, helped plan their wedding – BOTH of her weddings for marriage #1 and #2, countless moves she has made, helping with parties and birthdays over all the years we have known each other . . .and all she cares about is this one thing.

*sigh* I know – I just need to get over it and move on. Tough to do though – I miss what we used to have but need to accept it just isn’t there anymore and be happy with the friends and family I do have that care about me and want to spend time with me.