Sometimes I forget. At other times, I forget. It doesn’t bother me because I’ve forgotten that I forget. Such was my life at the end of last week and the beginning of this new one, which led to a host of problems and an excruciating three days of pain.

 

I have yet to forget the pain, which

does not seem fair.

I damaged my shoulders a few months ago. Could be torn rotator cuffs. Could be tendonitis. Could be aliens. Depends on the diagnostician.

I had x-rays. Then, I had ultra

sound-guided cortisone injections in both shoulders. Sounds worse than it was (or maybe I’ve just forgotten). Next came six weeks of physical therapy. Then I was pronounced well, or as well as I was going to be with their help.

Smile. Go on with your happy self. LIVE.

I did just that. I went to a concert with 50,000 other people. I got sick – but the shoulders didn’t hurt. And then they did. The people at P.T. had told me they would hold my file open so I could return without a doctor’s permission slip. I couldn’t go because I was sick with Florida’s version of the creeping crud. Which is one line short of Covid on the two-line test. No Paxlovid to help. Go on your way and get well. And happy.

I did. Six weeks, two cortisone injections, one Medrol dose pack, five visits to the doctors, and forty-seven boxes of tissues later, I felt better, but my shoulders still hurt. I was tired of being sick. I was tired of doctors. So I let the shoulders hurt and was able to ignore them until “fuck” became the most-used word in my vocabulary.

I returned to the shoulder doctor.

I woke the following day unable to move my upper-left quadrant. This wouldn’t be an issue if you’ve been blissfully unaware that you have upper quadrants, but for me

, it caused two problems: immobility and fucking, excruciating, shoot-me-now-pain. I was able to get to the couch where I lay, made demands, and screamed until midnight when I returned to my bed.

Day two of the fight with my upper-left quadrant was a duplication of the previous day, with a few more “fucks” thrown in for good measure.

I thought about painkillers. I don’t take painkillers. I thought about alcohol. Alcohol was not within immediate reach. I thought about the giant painkillers my neighbor had offered me, which I had declined by saying, I never hurt that badly.

Wrong.

I decided the pain must be the shoulder problem showing me who was boss. You win. I thought about how I might get relief in two days when I was going to see the shoulder doctor with his tests and large needs full of cortisone.

I was excited.

Not even an hour after my one happy thought in the past three days, I received a call from the shoulder doctor’s office asking me to reschedule. Are you fucking kidding me? I’m dying. Oh. He has Covid. WeIl, crap! I mean, I hope he gets better real soon.

That’s when the brain kicked in and kicked my ass for being stupid. My brain said to me that this pain from hell could not possibly be from the original shoulder issue for several reasons.

1. I had originally injured both shoulders, and now only one was trying to kill me.
2. My breast hurt, so did things such as breathing and hair growing in my armpit (yes, only one arm’s pit.)
3. I am a smart woman, but I have been here before. This was not unfamiliar territory.

I pondered, touching my painful areas. I dredged a memory up like a body from the swamp of long ago, or at least this past spring, when I’d had vaguely similar pain, though not as excruciating. I remembered some of the things I learned when I was diagnosed with lupus. And I remembered my blue book, where I write such things down.

I spent the next three hours searching for the book, then another two hours searching in the book. On page 293, complete with my rendition of my upper-right quadrant trying to kill me, and in huge letters, was the word COSTOCONDRITIS.

He pronounced me uncured and scheduled more tests and either less pain due to more injections with physical therapy, or more pain and more physical therapy due to surgery. Very confusing. I scheduled an appointment to get more thoroughly diagnosed (this would require a test), then went home to ponder it all.

 

How could I have forgotten that pain?

I had been here before.

I knew what to do.

I am a smart woman. Thus, I can name this pain with 15 letters: costochondritis. Inflammation of the connective tissues of the rib cage and breast bone. (Don’t ask why the breast hurts. It just does.)

But I had forgotten. Because, being smart, that’s what I do. Sort of like childbirth.

All I had to do was make an appointment with my physician. Get a cortisone shot. Go on with my happy self.

Why do I bother telling you this painful story?

1. Well, we all forget, even when we’ve been here before.
2. If you’ve had lupus, I’m 99 percent certain you have had costochondritis, even if you didn’t know what it was at the time.
3. Costochondritis should not go untreated. You must see a medical professional.
4. You may be a forgeter like me.
5. So, perhaps most importantly – keep notes. Write everything down and remember where you wrote it. (I write everything in my blue book, and my family knows I go insane if I can’t find the blue book. Which, as I have lupus, has a lot of pages with a lot of words, clues to what might be my latest dilemma and proof of my fading brilliance.)

 

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All Rights Reserved – Wanda M. Argersinger