Needles, Needles, and More Needles

My hands are finally feeling better.  After going back to the doctor and them telling me there was nothing more traditional medicine could do for me, I finally tried out acupuncture.  It’s slow progress, but it’s still progress.  Last night I spent 3 hours recording music.  Sure, my hands hurt a bit today, but not like they would have normally if I had even been able to pull that off.  And yes, unlike what most people say, acupuncture hurts every time they stick a needle in, sometimes more than others, and sometimes after they pull the needles out they still hurt for a while.  But ever since the nerve conduction study it seems like nothing they can do can hurt that bad.

The other day I wrote the first song I’ve written with words in an awful long time, 3 years perhaps?  No, I haven’t had time to record it yet, and I don’t think it’ll be all that exciting when I do, but with the kickstarter right around the corner, it seems writing music for the frog is more important than ever.  All for now.

The dreaded nerve conduction study.

So, apparently it’s Bark Fest 2012 at my house today, so excuse me if I sound a bit annoyed.

A few months back, I went back to the doctor’s office, this time seeing a different doctor to figure out if there’s anything we could do for my hands, which have not improved.  My previous doctor had left, and the one they had assigned me seemed to be quite annoying.  From the vibe I was getting from her, it seemed like she thought Fibromyalgia was a made up disease, and clearly my pain was a lie I told to get attention.  It’s not uncommon, unfortunately, still to find this attitude, but you’d think with all the Lyrica commercials out there, people would start to get that it actually exists.  Anyway, I knew that I had one more test I could take, and I figured I couldn’t get out of it this time: The dreaded Nerve Conduction Study. 

My first real job, I worked as a medical transcriber.  I hadn’t taken any courses, but my piano playing gave me speedy typing and I was blessed with great spelling, so I made it work.  Now it hurt, I’ve had wrist pain since I was 8, but I was able to make it work.  I only worked on week-ends, summer breaks, and winter breaks while I was in school.  Nowadays I can’t even dream of doing such a thing.  My hands would take about 10 minutes and then give up.  It was incredibly boring, but work was work.  It wasn’t like anyone was paying me to compose music for Korean kids to learn English with… yet.  In any case, there was a Neurologist, he said he didn’t even give Nerve Condition Studies because it hurt people too much, and he wasn’t up for that.  Since then, the Nerve Conduction Study has been my greatest feared test… that and spinal taps… just cause they sound weird/painful/could make it so you never walk again.

It was time though, I told my doctor I was ready for answers, and if that was going to give it to me, I’d take the test.  If the test lead to surgery, so be it.  Still, I imagined the test would feel like Luke did, getting force lightninged by Palpatine.  So, I was able to schedule the test… two months out.  Yay.  It was a long time to wait for answers and a test I dreaded for years, but if that was the only way to answers, so be it.

My appointment finally came.  And I guess, it wasn’t quite as bad as force lightning, but everyone said it wouldn’t be that bad, or it couldn’t be all that bad… well… not entirely.  Here’s what happened, my internal dialogue will be in italics.

Doctor:  “Your nerve is really sensitive.”

Are oranges orange?

Doctor: “Does your neck hurt?”

Me: “Yes.”

Doctor: “How often?”

Try 24/7.  You are familiar with Fibromyalgia correct?

He then hooked me up to electrodes and shocked me many many times.  Most of these were tolerable, but really lame to have to deal with.  I tried not to flinch, as for some reason, I get excited when they write down that I tolerated tests well and didn’t make an idiot of myself.  Then he put the needles in.

Doctor: Some people actually find the needles less painful.

Okay, I hope that’s the case, ’cause that hurt a lot, but at least I didn’t scream.

The first two hurt, yes, but tolerable.  Then he put the one in my thumb.  I didn’t know one single needle could hurt SO BAD!

Expletive, Expletive, Expletive, and AAAAAAHHHHH KELLY CLARKSON!

And at the end of it all, he said,

“Well, my part’s done, I did the test.  There’s no nerve damage and no nerve compression.”

And with that, I started tearing up.  I had gone through all that pain an anticipation for nothing.  No answers, no treatment, no improvement.  Crap.  It’s been a couple of weeks since and I’ve basically gotten over feeling like it sucks to hear that there’s nothing happening with my nerves that they can pinpoint (ha ha!), but it still makes me annoyed.

Everyone’s going off how the next game’s soundtrack’s gonna be.  How cool it’s gonna be, expecting that I will get it done in a timely manner, that at some point my hands will be well enough to play again, or I should just work through the pain, and just take it.  Sleep is for wussies anyway.  I’m sure there’s no malice to it, they just know my hands always hurt and I somehow make it work, although some of the soundtracks have been a bit shorter for it.  Strangely, I had a dream recently with my grandfather in it.  Now, I have dreams now and then with my grandmother in it, the one that taught me piano, she’s mostly by herself, but this dream had both in it.  Both my grandparents have passed on, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss them.  Seeing them in my dreams is a great gift that makes me feel like they’re still watching us.  Now, some may think, they’re just dreams, they say what you want them to say.  Sure, that may be the case, but either way, it gives me hope and comfort.  So, they just showed up, mid-dream, I don’t even know what I was dreaming about, but this seems to happen when I see my grandparents or people that have passed on, they just sort of show up.  I hugged them both, and my grandfather said to me: “No one can force you to do something you can’t physically do, but just do what you can, and go from there.”  So… we’ll see what happens.

 

I’m a composer.

I finally broke down and had to do it.  It has been about a year since I touched the keyboard.  My hands were already hurting today, but not seething with pain so bad the only thing I can do is go into self-hypnosis mode to stop thinking about it, so I figured it was as good a time as ever.  I’ve been dreaming about playing music again, and waking up feeling like something is missing.  So after days and days of dreams like this, I played.  Something simple, something with a very light touch, something new I’d made up just to play on the spot.  I just played the one song, but after it I felt like I filled in something that’s been missing from me, something I need to do.  I took a deep breath, and I felt like me again.  My hands may never get better, but I’m now convinced I have to keep playing, even if it’s just one song, every once in a while, just so I can say, I’m Mary Beth.  I’m a composer.  I can play anything with strings or percussion.  It’s what I’m good at.

Thanks for all your continued thoughts and prayers.

Just wanted to say thanks…

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to say thanks for all your thoughts and prayers and kind words.  As for an update, my hands are sadly, not better.  But it really helps to know there are so many people who care about what’s going on with me.  I’m trying to do other things to distract me from the pain in my hands.  It doesn’t always work, but I’m getting a lot of dancing done with Dance Central.  The higher difficulty songs on hard are proving a fun challenge.

A strange bonus

My mysterious hand pain adventure continues, although it’s better than it was.  At the start of the month my hand was hurting 7 days a week 24 hours a day.  It’s still there, but doesn’t seem to wake me up as much as it used to.  I’ve been trying to bury myself in other things, hoping that when I’m through my hands will feel better enough to where I can play again.  No such luck there, but I did read the Hunger Games trilogy, which was really cool, and real page turners.  I really did enjoy the movie, and I’m totally addicted to the Safe & Sound song from Taylor Swift and the Civil Wars.  The harmonies are just wicked cool!

Everyone has started speculating on what Last Night on Earth: Timber Peak will have in it.  I was a little worried about Timber Peak not having a soundtrack.  If things had been better with my hands, I would have considered it, but there was just no way it could happen.  The FANG soundtrack was REALLY hard to complete with my hands deteriorating, which is also why the COPE soundtrack is so short.  But here’s the strange bonus: Any time a new game comes out the first thing to hate on is the soundtrack, hell before people even hear it, they already hate it and want to throw it out the window.  So, I found this on BGG this afternoon:

From Boogalou:

“Hearing music ripped straight from the Atari 2600 always puts me in the mood to kill zombies   Personally, I’d rather save $1 on the game and not have to throw the “music” cd straight into the trash this time.
For those of you fortunate enough to have not heard the original “music” cd, here is what you can expect should they release another…
“If you like to play zombie games with dance/techno music then this may be up your alley.” – Steven Robinson (TigerTailz)
“I found the cd that came with the game to be right up there with fingernails on chalkboards ( which sounds great for a horror game, but it’s not)” – Randolph Bookman(shieldwolf )
“Midi sounds which do not set the mood for any horror game, never mind a zombie one.” -Rob Robinson (zombiegod)
“Abysmally bad music presumably performed on a Casio keyboard. I had the misfortune of receiving this in my first edition game that I purchased at Gen Con.” – Jeff Pratt (vladdswrath) “Stupid techno music… Use the soundtrack from 28 Days Later instead, to set the right mood.” – T E (apeekaboo)

Drop the cd and save us a dollar or two.  I want to buy the game, not help someone’s girlfriend buy a new musical keyboard.” 

So good news!  They’ll have to find something else to hate on this time!  I’m sure they’ll find something.  It amazes me how people can claim to love something so much, and yet hate on it so bad.  

 

The next step?

I’ve been told my blog is too sad and I need to lighten it up a bit.  Unfortunately, this one isn’t going to get any better.  😦  I’m currently writing this as my iPod is getting restored to factory settings.  Why is it every time you update your iPod software it loses songs or screws something royally.  Yay.

Anyway, I finally got a letter from my Rheumatologist, (ie. the last stop of specialists I can see about my hands.).  It might as well have said, “Oh good, you don’t have Lupus, as for what’s causing your hand pain, I haven’t a clue, have a great day!”.  Unfortunately this isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened to me.  Perhaps at this point my only hope is wishing/praying it will go away.

On the upside, my holidays were great!  Baxter (my dog) got so many toys it’s ridiculous!  How about your holidays?

The Neurologist

Just a quick update on my hands.  I saw the neurologist today.  Quite a nice guy.  He believes my pain has nothing to do with nerves.  He talked about a nerve conduction study, which I am completely scared of, and I almost passed out.  He referred me to a rheumatologist instead, hoping that if he sends a personal note, they’ll actually see me.  The dreaded nerve conduction study may still happen though, if the rheumatologist seems to think it is necessary.

In other news, I’m totally loving Pentatonix on The Sing Off.

Less than…

I don’t know if this is something every girl experiences at some point in her life, but I have a feeling it’s quite common.  It’s the feeling of being less than your other female counterparts around you, whether it be friend or foe.  I don’t have a lot of girl-friends, living in a man’s world will do that.  Even in school, the two other girls in my major just didn’t talk to me, or anyone.  I’ve never had problems hanging out with guy friends doing seemingly manly things.  Although, I did find The Expendables movie waaaaayy too manly.  I mean, once you’ve shot them twice, do you really have to punch them out and then blow them up?  In any case, I went out last night with two of my girl-friends and had a great time.  We saw the new Twilight, and yes, you can start the jokes here, I’ve probably heard all of them from my manly co-workers.  Now normally, when I’m in a group of girls, I feel like part of me shouldn’t be there, like I’m not up to par, not worthy of hanging out with such people.  But there I was, in the center of two supermodel types, girl-talking away and having a great time.  Sure, to the outside viewer, this small mousy girl, wearing her blue coat that she’s had for ages with a hint of dog slobber on the sleeve hanging out with the high-fashion supermodel types must’ve seemed like I was less than, but for once I wasn’t feeling that that was so.  Realizing that I felt accepted and wanted had me feeling pretty good… until I got slightly chewed this morning by no fault of my own, but life isn’t perfect, and if it was, there would never be any songs or art at all.  Unfortunately, it’s the ups and downs that makes us feel, and makes us who we are.

Not sure I should be blogging.

My hands have been hurting me for quite some time, but most recently my right hand has gotten worse and worse.  I’ve been to several doctors and haven’t found much relief as of yet.  My latest endeavor having to deal with a rheumatologist who won’t see me because I have fibromyalgia.  I come to find out this isn’t just him, some doctors just won’t see you if you have fibromyalgia.  My next step is a neurologist, hopefully he doesn’t have the same attitude.

I find that I miss music so much, having not played since completing the Fortune and Glory soundtrack.  It’s not something I can turn off, it’s just there, all the time.  I noticed the other day I was holding my toothbrush like a violin bow.  Sad.