pointless update

Hmmm, time for an update.

Nothing really new here though. School is good. I feel like I have a little too much free time right now. It's weird because I feel really guilty sitting around and watching TV right now, like I should be doing homework or something, but I don't have anything to do. It's taking me some time to get used to the grad course work and the pace of quarter system. I figured that, because of the level of the work and the short amount of time in which to do it all, I'd be overwhelmed. So far though, that isn't the case. I guess it depends on the week though. Sometimes I'm super crazy busy, but most of the time I wonder why I don't have more to do (but that will all change next week when midterm projects start, and then I'll hate Stravinsky and Schenker). I think I'm just weirded out because when I was an undergrad, I was working two or three part-time jobs every semester and doing school full-time. Now it's just school. I think next quarter I might take on one more class, so I'll be at 14 credits (10 is the minimum for full time). Or hopefully by then I'll have a job. Or maybe I'll do both (take another class and get a job). I'm really excited about some of the course offerings for next quarter.

Life outside of school has been good too. I really like it here - I like the school, and I like the city (a lot), so this is pretty much an ideal place for me to be right now. I miss everyone back home, but I have a few good friends here now too.

Let's see, what else is going on... I think my doctor probably got the results of my bone scan & CT scan by now, but I haven't heard anything from him. I have an appointment with him a week from tomorrow, so I might not hear from him before then. I'm not expecting any surprises - he already seemed to have a good idea of what was going on from the MRI, and these tests were just to get a better picture. My ankle has been hurting a lot lately. Yesterday I stood for about an hour and a half while I practiced percussion, then I worked out (elliptical machine) for 30 mins, and then I ended up walking a mile or so (met up with a friend and we got off at the wrong bus stop, whoops). I was really sore after all that, and I'm still having trouble walking. That pisses me off because that's the kind of stuff I need to be able to do on a daily basis. I feel like my ankle is getting worse in general - probably because I'm more active, and now the weather is getting colder. I'm hoping that when I see my ankle doc next, he'll start me on cortisone shots or something.

My neighbor is playing loud music. It's 11:30 my time. Lame. Also, the lock on my door stopped working tonight. I can now push my apartment door open while it's "locked". I don't live in the ghetto, but that's a pretty ghetto problem to have. Good thing I don't have anything going on tomorrow morning, so I can let the maintenance guys know. Don't worry though, because my deadbolt still works, so nobody will be coming in while I'm home. I don't think anyone would try to come in anyway - my neighbors are all crazy (but harmless).

Okay I guess that's all...

weekend in review

My parents were in town this past weekend, so we did all sorts of fun Seattle-type things.

Thursday night I picked them up at the airport and we had dinner. That was pretty much all we did, since it was kind of late.

On Friday I met with my ankle specialist (more on that later). After that, I went to class, and they took my car and drove around. Then we went to the Elysian brewpub for dinner.

We went to an Italian grocery store & bakery on Saturday and bought stuff to make sandwiches. We went back to my apartment to hang out and eat our sammiches. Then we went downtown to the Pike Place Market. After that we met up with some of my friends in the U-District for pizza. My parents took off after a while, and the rest of us went to a hip-hop show and did some barhopping.

On Sunday we went to Snoqualmie, which is probably like 30 miles from here. It was a really pretty drive due to the fall colors. We went to Snoqualmie Falls, which was flowing a lot stronger than the last time I'd gone. After that we spent some time bumming around town, and found a good Mexican restaurant. We also went to a railroad museum, which was pretty neat. Here are some pics (thanks to the point & shoot camera I got for my birthday):









After we got back from Snoqualmie, we went back downtown to the market to buy stuff for dinner. My mom had bought me a Pike's Place seafood cookbook, and we brought it with us so we could decide what recipe to make. While we were standing in front of one of the seafood places, I was paging through the book, and one of the workers came over and started talking to me. After I'd picked out a recipe (halibut with a honey sauce), the worker started paging through the cookbook and showed me where there were pictures of himself and his coworkers. So that was kind of cool. My parents and I came back to my apartment to cook the halibut (along with green beans and an acorn squash) and it was awesome. Oh, and my parents bought me flowers from the market. Here's a picture, but it doesn't really do them justice:



My parents left this morning, and now I'm back to classes and stuff. Oh well. It's really nice to be in an area where I can feel like I'm on vacation without going anywhere.


As I mentioned earlier, my dad and I went to see my ankle doc on Friday. He showed us the x-rays and MRI and talked through everything in detail. Apparently there are a few different problems going on in my ankle. I have some cartilage between my ankle & shin bone that's kind of roughed up, I have a slight divot or something on the bottom of my shin bone, there's some arthritis between the bottom of my ankle joint & my heel, and there's a pocket of fluid in one of my ankle bones.

The fluid inside the bone could be either a cyst or a pocket of blood. If it's blood, that basically means that bone never healed from the original injury, and is still bleeding. If I understood the doc correctly, it might not be healing because something keeps injuring it - probably some of that rough cartilage. It's kind of weird now because the top of that bone isn't solid, so instead of pressure being spread across that bone when I step on it, it just goes to the solid parts, creating more stress.

My doc ordered a couple of tests so he can get better views of that fluid and the cartilage/shinbone. Later this week I'm going to have a bone scan and a CT scan, and after that, the doc will have a better idea of what's going on.

It sounds like there's a strong possibility that I'll need another surgery soon. Luckily I think we can put it off for a little while, and there are some other things my doc is going to try first. He wants to inject some anesthesia into the joint with arthritis and the one with the rough cartilage. If my ankle is still bothering me, then it'll be obvious that the pocket of fluid in the bone is one of the major contributors to my ankle pain (since everything else will be numb). If the doc does surgery, he'll go in and smooth out the cartilage, and then drain that fluid and probably pack a bone graft in that pocket so the bone is strong again.

In addition to this procedure, my doc thinks I'll need another ankle surgery when I'm a little older. Eventually I'll need an ankle fusion (which sounds like no fun) or, if the technology is good enough by that point, an ankle replacement.

It's pretty depressing to find out about all these problems with my ankle. Until the latest MRI, doctors had been telling me that my ankle would keep getting better. They told me it most likely wouldn't be at 100% again, but there was the potential of it still healing up pretty well. Now I know that there are all sorts of problems with my ankle. I kind of had the feeling something was wrong with it (which was why I kept bugging people to check it out), but I had no idea how bad it was. If I have the surgery, it'll probably fix some things for now, but there's really nothing the doc can do about the arthritis. He said he can treat it symptomatically, meaning he can probably inject it with cortisone every now and then, but I don't think that's not going to stop it from getting worse. I knew arthritis was inevitable, but I didn't know it would set in so soon.

Anyway, I'll stop before this turns into a downer post. This is a long one, did anyone even make it this far? ;)

survey says

Okay, my MRI results are in. My doctor said that, from what the MRI showed, my knee looks okay. He said there's new scar tissue (like I needed more of that), but physical therapy should continue to help with that.

Unfortunately, my ankle has some "extensive damage" that has gone unnoticed until now. My doc said there's cartilage damage, bone bruising, and a cyst. There might also be some loose cartilage floating around, but apparently it was hard to tell from the MRI. He didn't go into a lot of detail, because he's more of a knee/shoulder guy, and we just talked briefly over the phone. He gave me the name of one of the ankle docs in his group, so I have an appointment scheduled with him late next week. I asked the knee doc if he could take a guess what the ankle doc might want to do about it, and he said there's a good chance I'll need surgery. I guess now I just have to wait and see what the ankle doc says.

I'm glad I finally know why my ankle hurts so much. I feel like I've been telling everyone for the past two years how much it's hurt, and it seemed like people (doctors, therapists, etc.) didn't believe me and didn't specifically address the ankle problems. But apparently none of this showed up on the first MRI I had done on my ankle (early in 2006 I think) because the metal was in the way.

Anyway, while it's good to know what's going on and I'm glad the issues can now be properly addressed, I can't help but feel so frustrated. Here I am, two years after the accident, and I might need another surgery. I just want to move on from this. When am I going to have time to recover from surgery?

quickupdate

After studying for five hours, I should probably just go to bed, but I figured I'd post a quick update first.

I now have a knee doc out here. My therapist works with him a lot, so she recommended him. He happens to be one of the team docs for the Seahawks, so he must be pretty good. I saw him for the first time this morning. After talking about my pain management issues, he poked and prodded my knee and ankle. Pretty routine stuff, but he instantly found the spot where my knee hurts the most, which wasn't fun. After pushing on sore spots, he looked over my old x-rays and ordered new ones of my knee & ankle. He reviewed the new x-rays with me, and said he doesn't see an obvious reason why my ankle hurts. He said it's generally hard to see ankle stuff on x-rays though. He thinks there could be junk floating around in there, or else it just hurts because of soft tissue damage - which is probably typical from the type of injury I had.

My knee x-ray apparently looks a little different than the last ones I had done (this past spring, I think). The doc said the hole that was drilled for the ACL screw may have gotten a little bigger, which I guess happens sometimes, and it would explain some of the pain I'm feeling. Beyond that, he said it was obvious that I'd had a lot of cartilage removed (to fix the tear). Also, apparently the joint space is just slightly smaller in that knee, meaning my tibia & femur are a little closer together than on my good knee. All those factors could be contributing to the pain I'm having. My doc wanted to double-check on that ACL screw hole and wanted to make sure I didn't have another meniscus tear, so he told me to have an MRI done. After talking to one of the ankle docs that works at his clinic, they decided I should have an MRI on my ankle, too. Luckily they got me in right away, so right after my doctor's appointment, I went to their other office to have two MRI's done. Fun times. I'll get results within the next couple of days, so I'll update then.

On the bright side, my doc seemed to have some ideas for pain management (depending on the MRI results), and thinks that his ankle doc friend will be able to help me in that regard too. It's nice to hear something other than "yeah, you were in a bad accident, you're bound to still be in pain." In the meantime, I got more painkillers. I asked my doc if there were any drug options that didn't involve narcotics, but as it turns out, everything else makes me sick. Oh well.

Okay, I really need to sleep.

school, leaves, etc.

I was told I need to update. So, people do read this after all. ;)

Life is pretty good. Seattle is still awesome, though the rainy season has kind of started. According to the weatherguy, it's cooler than this time of year is normally. Evidently this summer was cooler than average, too. It's not bad though - right now it's pretty much like early October in WI. It's funny watching the people on the news complain about how "cold" it is. Apparently last weekend was December-like weather....? I was outside a lot, and it wasn't bad.

School is going well so far. I'm taking a class on Schenkerian analysis, which is basically just a different method of analyzing music. It tends to focus less on harmony (as opposed to the traditional Roman numeral method), and more on structure and pitch relationships. I have to take an extra credit of this class (along with the other theory student in the class) so I can get more practice, since this is something I'll have to use a lot in the future. My other theory class is a seminar on a piece by Janacek and a couple by Stravinsky. There's a good mix of people in that one - I think it'll be fun.

I'm also doing percussion lessons & percussion ensemble. I just had my first lesson today, and ensemble starts tomorrow. My prof kind of reminds me of Keezer - nice guy, jazz player, kind of old-school in his lit choices. We sight-read some duets on marimba, which was fun. He was impressed by my sight-reading skillz. He told me I'll be a good role model for the kids in percussion ensemble. I think that was a nice way of apologizing for not putting me in the graduate quartet (which doesn't bother me, since all the members are percussion majors). The only thing so far that kind of disappointed me is the fact that the school's five-octaves are Yamahas. I mean, I'm happy to play on any 5.0, and they are nice marimbas, but I was SO spoiled with UWEC's Marimba One.

Uh, speaking of UWEC and being spoiled, I love how they wait until the year AFTER I graduate to become an all-Steinway school. ;) Well, I guess it'll be a while before they replace all the pianos anyway.

Whoops, I just realized it's bedtime. First though, here are some pics I took this weekend at the Arboretum. I braved the game-day traffic in search of some fall colors.