Summer Day Trip and Broken Bones

Michigan has had some great days weather-wise this week---sunny, but not so humid that people were complaining about the temperatures in the 80s. Wednesday I spent some quality time with one of my Gathering Girls friends in a small town thirty-five minutes away. The town was founded on the Flat River in the early 1800s as a trading post but it’s only grown to a population of around 4,000 people. Their downtown area is a collection of quaint old buildings covering a six block area that is over shadowed by a massive 228 year old mill that today “produces 1,300,000 pounds of flour and 500,000 pounds of whole wheat products each day.” 

But the town’s most famous claim to fame is a riverboat named The Robert E. Lee that they use as a showboat. When the White Supremacists had their rally in Charlottesville, VA, last summer it set off shockwaves that were felt all the way up here in Michigan. A hot debate and a petition drive to change the name of that showboat became the area’s obsession and it ended with one of the city’s leaders resigning and the others making plans to change the showboat’s name. "A few coats of paint and a steady hand is all we need to take the right symbolic steps to denounce racism." 

Back on topic: The outside of the buildings on Main Street might be turn-of-century quaint but the two art places we explored first were anything but quaint inside. Except for the original hardwood floors, they’d been gutted and were sleek and modern---high black ceilings, white walls, with great lighting that showcased a large assortment of work by artists working in various medium. The one place was an artists’ co-op, the other was an impressive art gallery and the theme of the show we saw was places in Michigan. My God, I could not believe the prices on the paintings---mid hundreds to low thousands! Made me wish I was still an obsessed wanna-be artist. Also makes me glad I still have all my framing and mat cutting tools, should I ever decide to become the next Grandma Moses. 

We also found some nice antique shops after lunch. The place where we ate, though, had great food but it was tacky with a capital T. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten in a place so in need of a good purging and a makeover. But it’s good to be reminded from time to time that while I might come home to messy house once in a while it’s never truly dirty or neglected for lack of money to keep it up. That sad little place with its friendly waitress and cook sporting prison tattoos was well pass its heydays. A set of sliders at the back hinted at its former glory. They once opened to a long-gone deck that would have given outdoor diners a good view of the showboat parked across the river. But one thing struck my funny bone---a sign on the front door about wiping your feet before coming inside. The inside was so at odds with what that sign suggested we’d find---I expected prissy pristine---and that still cracks me up.

Speaking of bones, I saw my orthopedic doctor the next day to get the results of my yearly bone density test. Great news! There was so much improvement from the Reclast infusions that my risk factor for a major osteoporotic fracture (hips and back) had gone significantly down. Now for the bad news. I had surgery at my elbow back in 1999---broken bones in three places---and it’s been hurting again, so I asked the doctor to x-ray it. When he looked at my images he said, “Wow! What we’re looking at here is a massive surgical failure.” One of the screws that once held the top of the ulna bone to the bottom was floating around free-willy in my flesh. Another screw that looked to be around 1 ½ or 2 inches long had backed half way out and was no longer anchoring the ulna bone to the radius bone like it was supposed to do, and a stress fracture was showing a few inches below the screw. 

The bottom line: Every time I lean on a table, for example, or put any kind of pressure on the back of my lower arm---I get a sharp pain. And I get a duller pain in my forearm every time I rotate my wrist. He said to fix the mess would be “a major ordeal involving a very long surgery, weeks in a cast and  months of physical therapy” then he added a few more 'wows' like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The good news is I’m not getting a pinched nerve---yet---but that may happen down the road, he said, as the ulna bone floats around unconnected at the top and with the screw migrating around. I can never again lift anything above my waist. Bench pressing is out, too, which I was actually doing last year at the YMCA.

I have to go back to the doctor in two weeks after taking a round of Prednisone to reduce inflammation and we’ll go from there. He did not do the original surgery but he replaced both my knees, fixed a broken radius and wrist in my other arm and repaired my shoulder not long ago but he's not known for shoving patients into surgery without trying other things first. Laser energy waves therapy for pain management was mentioned along with a few other tricks he has up his sleeve. And here I was wishing I was just being a wuss and the old surgical point was starting to act like a weather barometer. ©

P.S. In case anyone is wondering, this elbow is not the same one that I had the Popeye’s Elbow in earlier this year.