Ow

Turns out my shoulder pain is resultant of a poorly administered Maxolon injection during the Last Bad Migraine episode. The locum doctor who gave me the shot went too high in the muscle with too long a needle (i.e. using the right needle length for a 24 year old female, but not a 24 year old female with 11% upper arm body fat [my right arm is 14% which makes even less sense]) and went straight through the deltoid and into the bursa. Apparently 1 in 3 recover fine, another 1 in 3 need surgery, and the last third just live in pain forever which isn't very reassuring. My left hand is very weak and crummy and a huge liability at the moment. Typing this is hard because my fingers only hit 1 in every 5 keys (I'm not counting). Writing this took all evening which is kind of sad. I have to wait 2 weeks to get a blood test which will determine whether the muscle is wasting. Anyway I am still alive and here's a photo

No good take away

Adding to the terrible events of the last week (summary: broken retainer and a broken-into car) I have managed to dislocate my shoulder so many times in my sleep that I now cannot move or do anything with my left arm. It was mildly annoying when I woke up but now it is a genuine hinderance. Sad feelings aside, this bodes well for my rheumatologist appointment (as in, gives me something of significance to talk about) and provides some rationale for an MRI, which is good, I guess

At the very least I still own the World's Funniest Kitten, which has to count for something

Chewing on my thumb because I scolded her for trying to destroy another iPhone charger/cable doover thing

Migraine world

It's nice to know that despite cats being relatively selfish animals (compared to dogs at least) they still have some sense of empathy. I had a really horrible migraine start yesterday which was tolerable at first but completely unbearable by this morning so I stayed in bed and managed to sleep for about 15 hours until now. At some point the wind blew the balcony door open and amazingly the kitten stayed in bed with me rather than running outside to chase a leaf, which is nice because I don't think she has theory of mind. I guess she's just ensuring her food-giver is alive and well enough to open canned food

10 hours later I return to posting this with the good news that I have slept for a total of 28 hours since yesterday morning, with a 2 hour break where the home doctor visited (what a modern service) and gave me a shot of maxolon because my brain refused to keep down any water or food, which made me even sleepier, but at least I could drink water. All humans should sleep this much at least once in their lives

Grass 2 ways and a broken cat

No photos of neat hospital architecture this time because Sunshine Hospital is actually kind of boring (well, there's one nice building but I didn't have time to stop and take a photo). I was also too tired to care - I got there ten minutes before my 8:30 am appointment, ended up seeing the specialist at 11:15 am, and left at 12:45 pm. After 2 hours of waiting I went to ask the receptionist how much longer I'd have to wait, and she assumed I was at the clinic with a grandparent or something, which was funny but also kind of sad (apart from me, the next youngest person there was in their 60s). 

The visit wasn't as productive as I hoped it would be because both specialists (including the head of endocrinology) admitted they were out of their depth (re: ICR jaw problem) and that the referral should've actually gone to the rheumatology department instead. Oh well. The good news is that now a grand total of 6 specialists now think I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome as an underlying cause of this condyle thing (but 6 "this definitely appears to be Ehlers-Danlos" isn't at all equivalent to an actual diagnosis) . 

I got a DEXA scan done too and the woman operating the machine thought I was lying on an angle until she realised, after 3 scans, that my spine is crooked - not me. Which is good, in that my ability to lie down in a straight 'line' is yet to be compromised.

I'm editing this to specify that none of the above is really that bad (to me at least) and the thing which bugged me most today was seeing someone walking and eating a salad at the same time. This kind of behaviour shouldn't be condoned, and must be considered alongside similar food-related faux pas which I can't think of right now but would definitely be irritated by if I happened to witness such a thing

In the waiting room: a weird homage to the basalt plains grassland on which the hospital stands

Camouflaged footpath

This is what red eye removal does to an angry kitten

Ho-hum

Today I waited 2 hours to see my neurologist only to have them skirt the issue of why I was there (another brain and spine MRI referral because I've had too many brain/spine/sinus CT and DEXA scans in the past 24 months, and for some reason my GP can't refer me to an MRI that won't leave me a few hundred dollars out of pocket), and prescribe me a medication that is contraindicated for the other medication I take. It was a very pointless way to spend an afternoon.

The only positive outcome was that I got to see this neat hospital building - for some reason I walk past it quite often but I never stop to take a photo. I wonder how imposing the building would've looked when all the surrounding trees were just saplings. I have to attend another specialist appointment (this time about my weird jaw disease) at Sunshine Hospital next week so stay tuned for more photos of bizarre hospital architecture, I guess. 

Also, a weird observation: after my appointment, I walked past a bus stop outside VU and the vice-chancellor was just standing there (surrounded by a number of students who were totally oblivious to his presence). I thought he was the ABPL Dean at first. I wonder if he was actually catching the bus or just enjoying the youthful vibrancy of the crowd