My ouch

 For quite a while now I've had pain in my arms.  Makes sense since I am one of the main caregivers for Casey.  He requires lots of attention :)  A lot of the attention he needs is physically moving him.  We have a Hoyer type sling and lift to get him into his chair, but even that requires a lot of physically moving him to get the sling under him, etc.  When he is not in his chair, he is on a high/low table.  He needs to be 'flipped' from side to side about every two hours.  Casey isn't huge, but he is pretty solid and cannot move himself at all to help us.  So my arms get a lot of use.  I used to have pain and weakness in my forearms/wrists and although it is still there, it's not as bad as it once was (or am I just getting used to the pain?).  

Since at least December of 2022 I've had pain and swelling in my left arm.  Actually, for quite a long time it wasn't painful, but the swelling is pretty obvious, especially in my wrist area.  My chiropractor would do some work on my arm and it would feel better for awhile.  In January, he put in a request for me to get an xray to see if there was anything in there that needed attention.  But I never got it done.  I would occasionally take Naproxen but I didn't like to take it too much because I worry what that would do to my blood pressure.  But lately my arm has been really hurting/aching/throbbing so I finally decided to do something about it and called the doctor.  Believe it or not, they had an appointment for this morning!  

Went to appointment.  It was with a young resident.  She was very nice and attentive and took all the time she needed to hear me out and had me do all sorts of physical movement.  She narrowed it down to my upper shoulder.  Something about there's a compartment there and when it's inflamed it get smaller and is painful.  She called it Rotator Cuff impingement or degeneration.  Ugh.  I'm to take prescription strength Naproxen for 2 weeks around the clock, I can use the diclofenac gel as needed, ice on and off, and they will have me go to PT for a couple of sessions to get some exercises.  If it doesn't get better I can see their sports doc and see about injections.  

So there.  That's a lot about me!

We also had someone from UVM Home Health or whatever its called (our VNA nursing merged with our hospital) come for a bit.  She was from Human Resources.  She has to do with business and recruiting.  She wants to get to know the high tech nurses and what their jobs are really like.  She wasn't here very long before she had an emergency call and had to leave.  Oh well.  Maybe she'll schedule another time to come back.  It's good to know that someone is interested in what the high tech home care nurses do.  They seem to be forgotten a lot of the times.  

Also, Casey's trach stoma looked pretty red when we changed out his trach today.  Not sure if it's yeasty or a bacterial thing.  So, we are going to use Nystatin at night and Mupirocin during the morning care.  And see what happens.