Mushrooms under the floorboards and other updates …

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Carla Kienast, home repair, rheumatoid arthritis, Shoulder Surgery, water damage

Let me update you on progress from my last couple of posts and a couple of other items.

First the remediation/restoration guys came out Friday to do an assessment. Based on what we’d told them, they were expecting 50% humidity under the house and 15% water penetration in wood. It was 80% humidity and 18% penetration — much worse than we expected. They took measurements and pictures. I have pictures of mushrooms growing on my subfloor (not the dirt — the actual wood!). We also have pictures of mold growing. It’s not the black dangerous mold, but it still has to be hand treated, sprayed with a microbial and then sealed. Once it’s sealed, they’ll put blowers under the house to make sure everything is dry. I think this is going to start happening this week.

Since our air conditioner compressor died, my husband and I spent last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in a hotel room. However, the temperatures in Dallas dropped over the weekend from highs in the 100′s to highs in the 80′s with overnight lows in the 60′s so we decided to stay at home yesterday. It was good to be in my own bed, surrounded by my own “stuff” again.

The cable got fixed yesterday. (I know, I didn’t mention this earlier. In the grand scheme of things, non-working cable seemed like a moot point.)

The new air conditioner compressor will be installed today. Hopefully that will solve that problem.

The insurance adjuster is going to come out on Friday to do an assessment of the damage. We’ll know more about the total impact of this “event” once we meet with him. Based on where we’ve found floors that have buckled (or in the case of the kitchen, where the ceramic tile is cracked), I’m estimating that 1/2 to 2/3 of our floors and subfloors will need to be replaced. As we’re going to move both us and our furniture out of the house while this is going on, we’re trying to figure out how this fits into my surgery/recovery schedule. I could be “out” for six to eight weeks if they do the shoulder replacement.

Speaking of doctors, I was supposed to have seen my rheumatologist last Friday, but since I had been away from the office all day Wednesday and part of Thursday with plumbers and A/C guys, I bumped it to this Wednesday. Just when I think I’m starting to get some relief from restarting the drugs, I’ll need to get off them for surgery in three weeks. With all of this stress in my life, I’m surprised I’m not home in bed with a flare …. (perhaps I shouldn’t tempt fate!).

So rheumatologist this week. Pre-op check up next week and shoulder surgery three weeks from today.

That’s all I know for now. This will be an interesting week as we get more visibility into the home situation. I’ll keep you posted. Until then, thanks for checking in.

And the hits just keep on coming …

In my previous post I brought you up to speed with my recent trials and tribulations caused by a leaking water pipe.

Last night, after the plumbers left, leak having finally been fixed after two days of work, I was relaxing watching television. I noticed the room seemed warm. The thermostat was set to 75, but the house was at 84 degrees and rising.

The air conditioner had died. The fan would still blow, but the air was not cold.

Slept under the fan last night. House was still 84 degrees when I got up. Called the air conditioning company. Figured we just needed a new blast of freon or something.

Wrong.

The compressor is fried.

The good news is that we purchased the extended warranty so this will cost us little, if anything at all. The bad news is that we purchased the extended warranty, so they have to go through the manufacturer to get authorization, parts, etc. and I will probably be without air conditioning until early next week. It’s going to be 106 degrees in Dallas tomorrow.

At least the hot temperatures should help dry out the lake that’s under my house.

Thanks for checking in.

It started with the water hose …

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water leaks

One morning a week or so ago, I went out to pick up the paper and I noticed that the water hose on the front of the house was on. The hose had a nozzle on the end, which was closed, so I wasn’t losing water that way, but it was definitely “spewing” around where the hose was attached to the faucet. I knew my yard crew, which comes on Monday, used the hose, and as this was Saturday, I had no doubt been leaking water for at least a week. I was not happy. I don’t mind the guys using the hose, but they needed to turn off the water. To solve the problem, we removed the nozzle which would remind them to turn off the water when they were finished.

Then I got my water bill. It was $200 more than it had been the previous two months. It seemed inconceivable that the leaking water hose had used up that much water — even if it had been on all month. I fumed as I paid the bill. I talked to my husband about it. We did the calculations. That represented about 39,000 gallons of water. We had a leak.

That evening as I was walking across the living room, I noticed the floor was uneven. The floor was buckling. We found more damage in the dining room, the hallway, the front bedroom, and the kitchen. The next day we called the plumber. Couldn’t come on that day, Friday. It’s the Labor Day weekend. Got them scheduled for Tuesday after Labor Day.

The plumber found the leak but couldn’t get everything done on Tuesday. Husband had to leave town for business Wednesday morning. I took off work and met the plumber. More than $1,000 later, the leak is fixed.

The floors and subfloors in the front of the house are warped due to the water. Large portions, if not all, will need to be ripped out and replaced. This means we have to move out all the furniture, store it, fix the floors, then move everything back in. And I’m scheduled for shoulder surgery in three weeks, so guess how much help I’m going to be with all of this?

We’re also concerned about mold. We’re on a pier-and-beam foundation, so our subfloors sit on piers above the ground. There was a small lake under our house, so all the ground as well as the foundations and subfloors were wet, ranging from standing water to damp. The possibility of mold is pretty significant.

Sigh.

Husband won’t be home until the weekend, and since he’s an architect and knows about these things, I want him to meet with the insurance adjuster, so that won’t happen until next week sometime.

What a mess.

I hope that no leaks spring in your day. Thanks for checking in.

Turning Back Time

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heart health, weight loss

So, I’ve lost 10 lbs. Still a long way to ago, but it’s a good start.

It’s funny that when you lose weight, you tend to think about when it was you last weighed “X”. After the first week on the diet I was back to before I went on my major vacation earlier in the spring. Now I’m back to where I was in 2004.

But losing pounds can actually help your body, and specifically your heart, be younger. Texas Health Presbyterian (and some other medical organizations) have an online resource that lets you calculate your heart’s age vs. your chronological age here. It’s a bit disconcerting to know that my heart is old enough to draw Social Security while the rest of me has a few more years to wait.

Of course, RA and OA patients all know the benefits to our joints of a healthy weight, so I won’t say more on that subject, except that losing weight can also help turn back the clock on our knees and hips.

I was excited enough about my weight loss that this weekend I went to one of my favorite shops in the hopes that I could get back into the next size smaller pants. (I had given up and bought “fat” pants last fall.) The waist fit well, but the pants were just a bit snug in the hips. Another five pounds, THEN I can go shopping.

I hope that the time you spend today is enjoyable and filled with those you love.

Thanks for checking in.

RA as a murder defense?

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Carla Kienast, Lois Goodman, medicine, murder, rheumatoid arthritis, sports, tennis, tennis referee

If you have tuned into the news the last few weeks, you can hardly have missed the story of Lois Goodman, the tennis referee who is accused of bludgeoning her 80-year old husband to death with a coffee cup, then trying to disguise the crime as a fall down the stairs.

As a defense, her attorneys claim that it is not physically possible that the 70-year old woman could have committed the crime. Apparently she has had two knee replacements and a shoulder replacement, and also suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, hearing loss and constant spinal pain that’s controlled by an electronic device implanted in her spine and is awaiting another shoulder replacement.

I’m not sure what wearing hearing aids have to do with her ability (or lack thereof) to murder her husband. (My husband quipped that it probably made it easier as she didn’t have to hear him scream …) My physical condition is not that much different from hers as I’ve had a hip replaced, a shoulder replaced, and am probably going to have my other shoulder replaced in a couple of weeks — as well as having been diagnosed with RA. I will tell you that she’s probably more capable of doing the deed after having replacement surgery than if she hadn’t. And she was arrested in New York after traveling from her home in California to serve as a line judge in the U.S. Open. Really? She can travel across the country and be prepared to work a major tennis tournament, but she is too frail to raise a coffee cup and hit her husband?

Don’t get me wrong, there are many (too many) people who, as a result of RA, are unable to do simple, everyday activities. (Not that bludgeoning your husband to death with a coffee cup qualifies as an everyday activity.) But Lois Goodman has apparently been living an active, productive life. I resent her using RA as a murder defense.

I guess if anything good comes out of this, it will be that over the course of the trial, a great deal of light will be shed on the realities and disabilities of the disease. Maybe some people will come away more educated and with greater understanding of RA and what we, who have it, deal with on a regular basis.

Of course, if I were the prosecutor, I’d just point to all the RA medication ads that show people frolicking and playing golf and riding horses to prove that RA isn’t a “real” disease and that it’s easily controlled with medication.

Heaven help us all.

Thanks for checking in.

Shoulder Surgery – Details to Follow

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Carla Kienast, rheumatoid arthritis, shoulder replacement, Shoulder Surgery

So I met with my shoulder surgeon this afternoon. I recently had an arthrogram and an MRI on my right shoulder. The imaging didn’t show the amount of arthritis you’d expect for the level of symptoms I have, so the doctor wanted to talk through some options.

Option 1 was injecting the shoulder again, but via the radiologists where they can look to see that the steroid is actually going into the joint. The last two injections didn’t really help, so I wasn’t real keen on wasting time and money trying it again.

The second option of jumping directly to shoulder replacement seemed a bit extreme given the lack of a clear indication to do so on the imaging.

So we’re going with the third option. He’s going in with an arthroscope and take a look. If things look good, he’ll clean out the joint, perhaps reduce the AC joint a bit more. If the joint doesn’t look healthy (which it might not due to inflammation which doesn’t show up well on an MRI), then he’ll replace it.

The problem with going with option 3 is that I won’t have a clue what’s been done until I wake up out of surgery. I agree with the approach, but for a micro-managing control freak like yours truly, not know whether I’m going to be off work for a few days or a few weeks is not a comfortable feeling. At this point, I’m not sure how I’m even going to explain the situation at work so they can prepare.

I guess the first step is getting the surgery scheduled which will happen in the next few days. I will discuss the logistics with the scheduling nurse at that time. Once I get the schedule — which will probably be mid- to late-September, then I can have a more concrete discussion with my office.

And when I can update them, I’ll also update the blog. Thanks for checking in.

When you hurt all over, and over again

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Carla Kienast, rheumatoid arthritis, shoulder replacement

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the headline. It’s a ripoff from an old Exile song which is still one of my favorite makeout songs of all times (I Wanna Kiss You All Over and Over Again).  (I know, TMI, right?)

But the fact of the matter is, for the second time in as many weeks, I’ve been hit by a flare. This time I stayed home in bed instead of getting up and feeling miserable all day. (A bit of tramadol helped as well.)

I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve had more of the “really bad” flares in the last two weeks than I had all of last year put together.

I put the first one down to a confluence of factors: I had finally gotten off the tapering dose of prednisone; I had started back on the “hard” RA drugs after a vacation, but hadn’t been on them enough for full effect; I had overdone both physically and in the food/drink department the weekend before; a cold front bringing rain and thunderstorms blew through the area, etc.

The second flare was similar in many ways.

While I can’t control the weather, maybe I should take it easy until I start feeling like the Orencia and Arava have kicked in. Overdoing things in the stress, physical activity, and diet departments may not be causing the flares, but I can guarantee they aren’t helping.

Of course, the drugs will kick in just about in time for my next shoulder surgery when I’ll have to get back off of them. I really haven’t posted about that because nothing is definite yet. However, I did have the arthrogram/MRI a couple of weeks ago and I see the surgeon in two days to discuss options. He’s already left me a pretty detailed voice mail with his opinion, but like a good doctor, he wants to discuss this with me personally. I suspect I’m in for a second shoulder replacement, but I’ll know more in a couple of days.

In the meantime, I need to see if I can do anything to derail this weekly cycle of flares.

Hoping your day is filled with kisses of your favorite flavor. Thanks for checking in.

Rheumatoid Arthritis Makes Headlines

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arthritis, Carla Kienast, rheumatoid arthritis

Okay, it was on the front page of the Life section in today’s Dallas Morning News. And it was about gardening tools designed for people with various kinds of arthritis — not about RA itself.

But the important things to keep in mind are that (1) they used a picture of a real person with RA (not a model) (although the picture on the website is different that the “whole person” picture in the printed version); (2) they talked about how she was unable to do the gardening activities she enjoyed because of the pain and swelling; and (3) it’s great to read a story about companies who pay attention and want to produce good products for people who have difficulty using “every day” devices.

I know that Rheumatoid Arthritis Warrior has real issues with the media sugar-coating the realities of the disease. Even though this news story isn’t directly RA, for once I think they’ve gotten it right.

Hope whatever headlines you make today are good ones. Thanks for checking in.

When Everything Hurts

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Carla Kienast, pain, rheumatoid arthritis

It actually started Sunday. I thought I’d overdone on Saturday, shopping, cooking, and cleaning to get ready for dinner guests Saturday night, so Sunday I had this vague, all-over ache. You know, kind of like a headache that hides behind the eyes that you can sort of feel like it’s there, but not exactly, but occasionally it comes out and stabs you when you least expect it.

I felt a bit better on Monday so, again, I decided I’d just overdone over the weekend.

However, this morning it was much, much worse. It hurt just to turn over in bed. When I had to get out of bed, it hurt to stand and it hurt even more to try to walk. Even my eyelids are swollen and sore. When I got in the shower, it hurt to raise my arms to wash my hair. When I got out of the shower, it hurt to put on body lotion. It hurt to get dressed and to get into the car. It hurt my hands, arms, and shoulders to drive to work. And it hurts to sit in my ever-so-ergonomic office chair.

Unfortunately, it’s one of those days where it’s not practical to stay at home. I have deadlines at the office and my cleaning lady will be at the house most of the middle of the day. It’s hard to rest with a vacuum roaring in the hallway. We also have theater tickets this evening and it’s now too late to exchange them.

I’m going to try Tylenol today at the office and see if I can get the pain level down to a bearable level. If things aren’t better by tomorrow, I’ll start a prednisone taper.

Hopefully this will get me through until I see my rheumatologist in three weeks. If not, I may call and see if I can bump up the appointment a bit. I can’t make it too early. I see my shoulder surgeon next week and I want to see what he says about needing/scheduling surgery so I can talk to my rheumatologist about when I need to be off the drugs.

I sincerely hope you’re having a good day (because I’m sure not and someone needs to!). Thanks for checking in.

A is for Arthrogram

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arthrogram, Carla Kienast, rheumatoid arthritis, Shoulder Surgery

Today I get an arthrogram in my right shoulder. (If you want to see how it’s done, click here for more information than you probably ever wanted.) I’ve been having issues with my right shoulder for some time and the doctor said that if the steroids didn’t help, our only alternative would be shoulder replacement. I bit the bullet the other day and went in to see his PA to discuss surgery. The X-rays aren’t showing the amount of arthritis you’d expect for the amount of pain and the deteriorating range of motion that I’ve been having, so she’s ordered an arthrogram and MRI so they have a good idea of what’s going on and whether the shoulder replacement is really necessary (good doctors tend to take those precautions).

I originally thought it was just an MRI and knew that it wasn’t going to be any big deal — just lay still in a tube for a while and you’re done. However, since I figured out they were going to inject contrast material down deep into my shoulder using a fluoroscope, I’ve got to admit I’m a bit freaked. This is essentially the same procedure they use for deep steroid injections and it takes a needle about 3.5 inches long (I’m not kidding…). I mean my shoulder already hurts, right? And they want to stick something sharp in it??????? The patient instructions even suggest that you’ll want pain killers and ice packs and you shouldn’t be exerting your shoulder for a couple of days. This does not look like fun.

The only way through these kinds of things is through them, but jeez …

I guess the good news is that on August 23, which is only a couple of weeks away, I’ll get to meet with the surgeon and we’ll finally make a plan that will hopefully solve the shoulder issues. That will be a good thing.

I hope that whatever your day holds it doesn’t include sharp objects. Thanks for checking in.