I was stuck for a while, trying to figure out what to write about next. I couldn't figure out quite where to go with the blog. I kind of covered all I set out to cover, but didn't want to just let it die.
What I've decided to to instead is to cover living my life now.
There is, of course, more to me than just a brain injury. Not one person with a disability is just their disability. They are actual people with actual lives, likes and dislikes, aspirations and fears. So, here I am. Also, I have so many more injuries!
With that in mind, I figure I'll write about more of my strange medical nonsense today.
I found out last week that I'm hypermobile. The conversation with the rheumatologist was interesting. She checked a few of my joints for flexibility, then asked if I'd ever dislocated anything. The answer was yes. I've dislocated both shoulders, but only for a second or so.
Apparently that doesn't happen to everyone.
When my spouse told me that I had to be super flexible while we were doing yoga one day, he was right, it seems. However, I always thought that to be hypermobile you had to be able to put your ankle behind your head or something. Nope. I guess being able to fall off of Dansko clogs is also a hyperflexible trait.
This being the case, I know where I got it from. My mom has ankles that wouldn't hold her up when she really needed them to for years. She's sprained her ankles more times than I can count.
I went to the doctor once for something, can't remember what. She was an osteopath. She checked me over a bit, then said "Did you know one of your ribs is a little out of place?"
The answer, of course, was no. If I had, I likely would have mentioned it before. She tried to kind of push it back to where it was supposed to go, with no luck. I went home unexpectedly angry. Not about the her, not about the rib, but about the process, for some reason. I got over it, but it was a very weird feeling.
Now, it's not severe. I don't have it to the point where I just dislocate random joints all the time. I can walk well, always could even before I had to relearn. Haven't had to be in a wheelchair since the couple of months after the stroke. It could 100% be far worse than it is.
However, I've been told I shouldn't stretch as vigorously, as I could damage my joints, and I should work on my core strength. Good news is, I'm already doing that. So kind of just continue on with it.
It is weird, though, finding out you don't move like a regular person when you're 50. It does explain the ridiculous number of issues I have with my hands; tendons and nerves becoming trapped, two tendon sheaths being too close and irritating each other, requiring surgery to correct, and suddenly developing a nerve entrapment which required the nerve to be moved to a new channel specifically created by the surgeon.
So, yeah. It explains a lot. Just another weird diagnosis in my life, nbd. Situation Normal, All Fucked Up, as my mom would say. She has a lot of good sayings.
