Corn In Egypt!!!!!

I went to see the doctor this morning to get the results of my MRI. He said it showed nothing torn or separated. He did say the rotator cuff looked like it had been "scuffed" but not torn anywhere. He took me into the back room to view the MRI and it was very interesting. The pictures were every clear and intricate. He told me they put the dye into the lining of the socket and it flows out to cover the whole socket. Then if the dye moves up through the rotator cuff "tendon" then he knows there is a tear or separation in it. The dye stayed right in the socket where they put it. He said the lining was in excellent shape but there was some wear in the bursa area which is the beginning of bursitis. The problem is that the bursa has been damaged or traumatized and it is swollen. In the pictures it is the blue thing that looks like a squished water balloon. Because it is swollen there is not enough room between my shoulder ball/socket and my clavicle bone that goes out over my shoulder. There are also two small bone spurs that are sticking down into the bursa and irritating it. When I try to lift my shoulder it pinches the bursa causing pain and won't let me lift my arm any higher. The trick is to reduce the swelling in the bursa to give me room to lift my arm. He gave me three options:

• Go in orthoscopically and remove the bone spurs and clean things up. Be in a sling for about a month.


• Get a cortisone shot and see if it clears up. If not get another shot.


• Get a bottle of Aleve, take two tablets morning and two at night and get a bag of frozen peas and ice my shoulder every day. Leave in on until it goes numb (about 10 minutes). Go through a regimen of stretching exercises to loosen things up each morning.

I bet you can't guess which one I agreed to do. I just took the first two Aleve and will start icing in a few minutes. I was greatly relieved when he told me all this. He said he had suspected the rotator cuff was torn and was surprised when it wasn't. I do all the exercises for 6 weeks and if it doesn't help he may want to try the cortisone shot. We'll see.

Pictures: See the swollen bursa in the left picture? The one in the right picture lays flatter and gives the bones more room to raise and lower. The little bone right above the bursa is the one with the bone spurs on it.

Hope you enjoy the anatomy lesson. I am greatly relieved and looking forward to a pain free summer.

Dad

We Made It!

Kimbre and I made it to our one year anniversary on Saturday. With my wacky schedule we decided to do something on the only days off that we had in common. On Monday the 19th, we packed up the Bronco and headed to Sandpoint, ID. I did a little pre-planning and snooping around online and found a little hole in the wall bed and breakfast place. We stayed overnight in Sandpoint, ate out a lot, and watched movies. Yesterday we celebrated out real anniversary with a Pizza Pipeline Pizza and Tricky Stix, before I left for work.

Our neighborhood internet connection that we poach for free has been down all week, so I missed out on all the blogs and updates. It's good to see what everyone is up to.

I'm done (for now) with graveyards and am one step closer to being a real cop out on my own. I just have one more phase of the training program to go. We had a bet last Thur. at work to see who could get the first arrest. One hour into it I arrested some kid who had 5 or so suspensions on is DL. I won a free Pita at the Pita Pit (are you jealous Kelly??).

That's the news up north. It snowed 4-6 inches last night, but it's a meltin' right now.

I didn't know how crazy my scedule was until I saw my post time below.