Murphy's Law Comes on Our Road Trip 2011

Happy Holidays to everyone and I wish you all a happy healthy 2014!

It's about time that I got back on track. I had to go back and read the blog post "2011 is Going to be Quite a Year" just to see where I even left off. I didn't realize it has been nearly 6 months since I wrote it. I guess time flies when you're having fun. So, to catch you up to speed, I was diagnosed with Quadrilateral Space Syndrome by a doctor in California in January 2011. Nerve decompression surgery would be done later in the year to get that addressed. In March of 2011 I had right scapular muscle reattachment surgery and a shoulder stabilization procedure by Dr. B in Lexington, KY.  The surgery needed to be done again because I needed to have a newer procedure done where muscles are transferred to stabilize my shoulder blade. The shoulder joint needed to be tightened because I was subluxating out the front. Here's what happened next...

After the surgery, recovery was going relatively smooth for about 2.5 weeks. Then one night my dad got a phone call that my sister had slipped backwards rollerskating and broke both of her wrists. A long story short, this led to subsequent surgeries the rest of the year and her out of commission for a while since both wrists were effected. Between my sister and I, there were 10 surgeries that year. She had 5 and I had 5. When my sister got hurt, recovery became harder for me because I had school and had to help take care of my 2 nieces who were in preschool and 2nd grade at that time. My mom and dad had to work. A typical day for me was to get up and get my nieces ready for school. After that my dad would drive me to school and pick me up. After I got picked up from school, I would do my homework, try to relax for a bit , and then watch my nieces when they came home. It was a hard time few months for everybody.

By the time May rolled around my mom and I were getting ready to go back to Kentucky for a post-op appointment with Dr. B and to figure out what was going on with the back of my right shoulder joint. We decided to bring my nieces with us. It was a girls road trip. Looking back at it now, I don't know how we survived that road trip. It was as though we had packed Murphy's Law with us (anything that can go wrong, will).

When we arrived in Lexington on May 25, 2011 we all had a very nice evening. We went out to dinner and after that, my mom and I took my nieces to the swimming pool. By the time we got back to our hotel room, we were all very tired. My nieces and I were dozing in the room watching TV when my mom went to the parking lot to get the last piece of luggage from out of the car. I remember being in the hotel room and hearing a big boom. It sounded like someone pushed one of the cleaning service carts into the wall. I didn't think it was anything...wrong. In reality it was actually my mom who caught her shoe on the lip of the elevator floor and falling into the wall and onto the floor. My mom is a very stubborn woman and didn't want to alarm anyone because she was the only driver.

I remember getting aggravated at her that night because she wouldn't turn the light off in the room and kept running in and out of the room all night. The next morning when I woke up I looked at my mom and everything made sense. The first thing I said was, "What's wrong? What did you do?!?" With a sheepish grin on her face she said she fell into the elevator and proceeded to show me her arm, shoulder, and clavicle. Not good. So, we went to the doctor's office to see Dr. B since I had an appointment. My mom saw him too. I told Dr. B my right scapula was doing well but I was having a lot of pressure building up in the back of the right shoulder joint. We thought it might be scar tissue building up but I wasn't completely convinced. As far as my mom goes, she had a lot of bruising and swelling and was told she needed to follow up with Dr. K in Illinois.

Fun in the swimming pool after dinner

May 27, 2011 was going to be a fun day because we had two little girls with us who wanted to see the Kentucky horses at the horse park. We woke up and went downstairs to have breakfast in the hotel. As I reached for my glass of milk, the pressure that I had in the back of my shoulder joint gave way and went POP! Oh boy, that wasn't good. So there we were. My mom and I were beat up. We finished getting ready, put on a happy face, and went to the Kentucky Horse Park for the day. It wasn't crowded at all so we were able to get up close to the horses and take our sweet time. Minus the injuries, it was a great day.

A horse's head looks very big when you are little

My mom and nieces feeding the horse

My nieces and I

On May 28, 2011 my mom and I wanted to show my nieces Natural Bridge State Park and let them ride the ski lift up to the top of the hill. We took them on a walking trail and they got to see things they had never seen before. It was fun to watch them experience something new. When we were done at the park, my mom and I thought it would be a good idea to get sub sandwiches and picnic in the forest. This turned into a train wreck. Somewhere along the way in this very large national forest we made a wrong turn and I guess you could say we kind of got lost. After a couple hours we found two bikers on motorcycles who led us to the correct road. Three hours later we left the forest. It wasn't funny at the time, but writing about it is pathetically amusing now.

The view of Kentucky from the top of the natural bridge

As we headed home the next day we knew it was going to be a rough ride. My mom was killing and there was nothing I could do to help since I  can't drive. All we could hope for was good weather; however we seemed to have packed Murphy's Law with us so that wasn't going to be the case. The ride started off fine until we hit the state of Indiana. Then there was heavy downpours of rain and very scary looking clouds. As my mom drove packed in ice, I was on tornado watch. Fortunately, there were no tornadoes and we made it home safe. Our driveway never looked so welcoming before.

The storm clouds we drove through in Indiana

More storm clouds

All in all we had a good time if you take out my mom falling in the elevator on day 1, my anchor popping on day 3, getting lost in the forest on day 4, and driving home through what looked to be the tornado gates of hell on day 5. The important thing is, we still made the best out of the circumstances we had and my nieces had a great mini-vacation. We are all able to look back on this trip and laugh about it.

Now that we were back in Illinois, let the doctor appointments begin again...