No luck

I don’t think it has been my lucky week.  Don’t get me wrong, I am pretty darn lucky overall.  I have much to be thankful for.  For one, I am lucky to have two great dogs whom I adore, and who adore me and also each other (most of the time).  It is comical to watch Rocky, the younger of the two, emulate his big sissy, Willow.  If Willow is eating grass, Rocky eats grass.  If Willow is chewing on a stick, Rocky chews on a stick (two activities he rarely does otherwise).  When we walk, they take turns showing each other interesting things to chase and explore, and for the most part, that seems like a perfect relationship!  But sometimes, together is not such a good thing.  Take for example Monday morning, when “together” involved chasing down a skunk, after which I had not one, but two skunk sprayed dogs to scrub down with peroxide, Dawn and baking soda.  And let me assure you, although it helps, they still stink afterward!  In retrospect, with a Monday morning like that, maybe I should have just gone back to bed and stayed there for the week.

Once I had scrubbed two dogs and gotten all the other animals settled, I headed out to try to check some items off my to-do list.  Since I had been nursing a sore right shoulder for a few weeks, I was taking a couple of days off beehive work, which requires lots of lifting.  However, the grass was getting tall around the hives, so mowing around them seemed a perfect, lift free way to attend to something the bees needed.  The bees don’t love me mowing, and I always get buzzed, but I don’t usually get stung.  Monday was the exception. I had just started mowing when I got stung on the leg.  One can’t be a beekeeper without getting stung, and usually I just shake off a sting and keep going, but this one caught me by surprise, and I reflexively took a swing at the bee. I was rewarded with immediate, intense pain in that sore shoulder, followed by severe pain when I tried to move my right arm.  Just a “stinger” I told myself (like when you roll your ankle but then can walk off the pain). I propped my right arm up on the riding mower’s steering wheel where, when I didn’t have to lift it, I was able to provide a bit of assistance to my left arm with the steering.  I proceeded with my mowing, assuming that after a couple of minutes it would begin to feel better. No such luck!  Finally, I put the mower away and went into the house to ask Gary if he would drive me to Prompt Care for an evaluation.

But, because I had a previous insurance that would not cover a Prompt Care visit if my PCP did not refer me there, before we went, I called my PCP’s office to see if they could see me or if I could use Prompt Care.  Instead, the triage nurse asked me to go to the ER.  I tried to assure her that I was stable and just needed an evaluation and possibly a referral to an orthopedist if indicated.  I pointed out that there was a visit open in prompt care within the next half hour and ER visits always ended up being hours long.  She responded that the only radiology Prompt Care had to offer was an X-ray and I probably needed an MRI, and that could be done in the ER, AND she could make me an appointment in the ER, so I wouldn’t have to wait unless someone with a life-threatening emergency needed to be seen before me.  It seemed like getting an MRI in the ER for shoulder pain without any concern re need for emergency surgery was a long shot, and as it turns out I should have been skeptical about that appointment thing as well, but I gave up arguing and Gary drove me to the ER.  Four hours later I had had a shoulder X-ray, a 30 second visit with a provider, and an orthopedic referral.   I.E, I should have just gone to Prompt Care! At least I had almost finished reading my book!

And it did turn out that there is one advantage to an ER visit. The orthopedist sees you sooner if you are an ER follow up.  So, Wednesday morning I was in the orthopedics office, where the orthopedist confirmed the triage nurse’s assessment that I needed an MRI (to assess for a rotator cuff tear vs a sprain).  A tear is a big deal from the standpoint of beekeeping and managing other farm chores, as surgery would be recommended and recovery involves 4 weeks of complete rest of the shoulder and then significant restrictions on lifting anything heavy for months.  Since the ER visit, I had already improved significantly, so being an optimist, I am hoping for just a sprain.  Couple more days of improvement and I could get back to beekeeping, right?  But, if you want to hang on to hope, don’t take your husband with you to see the orthopedist, because he asks obnoxious things like “Can you tell her what the recommendations for recovery from a sprain would be?”  Answer: “Four to six weeks of rest with no lifting”.  NOOOOOO!  I might be able to modify lots of what I do on the farm to be done with my left hand, but there is NO way to work the bees without two working arms and LOTS of lifting. I have friends who have offered to help, and I will make use of those offers this week to look in some hives and for a honey harvest this weekend, but it is too much to ask friends to provide support for everything that needs to be done over many weeks.  So, I had to admit that it was time to start figuring out where to hire help.   Thankfully, with the help of my contact with Ann Arbor Public School Environmental Education department, I may have identified a handful of older teens who can chip in to be my lifters.  If that works out, clearly, my luck is improving!  Right?

Well, I guess the dogs forgot to read that memo, because this morning, guess what they decided to chase (again!)  Maybe Rocky is the smarter of the two, because he gave up and came back to me.  Could be he remembered what happened that last time he went after one of those black and white things.  Unfortunately, Willow apparently is not a great learner, because she went right in and got skunked again.  And just to think, when I sent Gary to the pharmacy to pick up 2 bottles of hydrogen peroxide on Monday and he came home with 4, I thought he was being silly.  Shows what I know. Guess maybe in this case the boys in the family are just smarter all around.