follow up

My left leg gets clonus. For those of you unfamiliar with the word ‘clonus’, it’s when my left leg gets worked harder or longer than usual (such as whenever my mother gleefully FORCES  me to plod on the bloody treadmill for twenty minutes), when I finally get to plonk my weary butt onto a seat, the muscles spasm and my leg starts bouncing all over the place. Only, that’s not me! That’s just the muscle spasmming in protest of being overworked. I like to call it my parkinsons. “hey, mum, look!” I sometimes call. “I’ve got parkinsons again.” XD
There’s no cure for that, but the spasms can be stopped for about six to nine months with a shot of botox. Yes, the same botox that celebrities fork out lotsa money for to get rid of the wrinkles covering their faces. Meaning sometimes I stick out my leg to mother and say, “mum, look @ my celebrity leg!” XD
I last got one shot of botox into my left calf November last year. The physio said I would come back for a one month follow-up, but I wasn’t really surprised when my one month follow up turned out to be a two month one. Thought they were just super-busy around the Christmas period, or something.
At the one month follow up, I asked micky (the physio) would I get anymore follow ups after that. She said, “yeah, we’ll see you again in four months time.”
Now, I’m not sure if by four months she meant ‘four months after your initial botox injection (meaning in march)’, or ‘four months after your one month follow up (meaning in may), but by july, we still hadn’t been given another follow up date yet! Mother tried ringing the princess Alexandra hospital to push them for a follow up appointment, but to no avail. “ah, the UQ physio can follow up on her,” was all my mother got from whoever it was that she rang from the hospital. Only thing was, the UQ physios were very concerned with my ever-stiffening left calf, and were saying that I required more botox like, NOW.
My saviour was karen, one of the teachers @ the NAB clinic. “oh, I know micky!” she says. “lemme write a letter to her.”
And that got me my follow up. 
After a quick breakfast of one slice of toast and one warm mug of yummy horlicks, mother tootled us off to the P.A. I admit, I was rather pissed when she refused to park closer to the entrance, preferring the outer car park @ the entrance, but hey.
After one quick toilet trip, we settled down in the waiting room. Again, zero thanks to mother who refused to pass me a gossip mag to browse, but luckily, the day hospital has a large flatscreen television plastered to the wall, and I watched the end of sunrise and the beginning of the morning show happily until micky came, and instructed me to wait for her @ the outpatient physio.
But walking to the outpatient physio gym, we bumped into Janelle! :D Janelle gesch was my main physio when I was hospitalised in BIRU back in 2007 and 2008. I gave her a great big hug, coz I missed her – haven’t seen her for years! Then I asked her, “umm … aren’t you supposed to be on long service leave now? Last time we were in e-mail contact, you said you were due for long service leave around mid-year.”
Janelle laughed. “yeah, I reached ten years,” she replied, “but I’m putting that holiday on hold for awhile.” Wow. Hard-working woman!
Anyways, I plonked my butt onto the end plinth that micky directed me to. Kathy came along, too! She’s this OT I met in the beginning of this year, when I had my first follow up. I sheepishly asked her, “sorry, I forgot. Was your surname ‘vipers’?” Kathy roared with laughter. “close!” she said, laughing away. “it’s ‘kaipers’ with a silent ‘a’.”
Micky arrived, ordered me to shuck elf’s footwear off, then … actually, wait. Before I did that, I did the 10m walk timed test. This new physio called ‘emily’, too, walked behind me for that.
After that, I lay down on my back, while micky and Emily measured my foot. “I can assure you I haven’t grown for like one decade!” I laughed @ them. XD but Emily told me that they were actually measuring certain angles that elf made when they were moving her.
When the measurements were done, micky bade me stand. I did, once I checked with her that she would act as elf’s AFO. See, my stupid left ankle rolls out whenever I stand/walk without wearing my AFO (ankle-foot orthosis), and that HURTS! ><
For some reason, while I was standing, they said I stood funny coz I didn’t weight bear at all on elf? Lol, that prolly stands to reason, I get told so often to weight shift to the left, I prolly don’t weight bear at all on my right foot! XD
But they said something about putting my left foot into a cast. I’ve had that done twice before, back when I was still hospitalised in BIRU. The cool thing about that will be that I can ask everyone to sign my cast. XD
Anyways, micky and Emily decided that yes, I will definitely need some more botox in my left calf. Micky said she’d organise that with dr. hazelton, but that it could take a few months, coz dr. hazelton was on holidays currently.
Well, I figure I’ll give her until the end of august to organise something.
Oh! I’d better also use this post to explain the names I’ve given my body parts. XD see, this all started when I was still in BIRU and the nurses would gimme a shower. I’d say “please help my dumb left arm get into the sleeve.” Yup, she was my ‘dumb left arm’. Only one day, a nurse tells me, “oh, em, don’t call your poor left arm the ‘dumb’ arm. She’s just the sick arm.” So after that, my left arm became my ‘dumb sick’ arm. That was until another nurse at the hospital told me, “em, I work at a nursing home, and at the nursing home, we don’t call the affected side ‘dumb’ or ‘sick’. We call it the ‘CRAZY’. Nice; my left arm was now called my ‘dumb sick crazy’ left arm. Quite a mouthful! XD
That name endured until one of my carers/life coaches/support workers/whatever they’re called nows :P said to me, “em, that’s too complicated and long for me to remember. You need an easier name … I know! Call her ela.”
“ella?” I asked confused.
“no, ela. ‘e’ for emily’s, ‘l’ for left, and ‘a’ for arm.
Nice! After that, I named all my body parts like that. Now I’ve got:
Ela – emily’s left arm (hand and fingers included)
Era – emily’s right arm (BTW, it’s pronounced ‘eera’, not ‘error’, coz she doesn’t wanna be known as a mistake! XD)
Erf – emily’s right foot
Elf – emily’s left foot
Erl – emily’s right leg
Ell – emily’s left leg
Eeh – emily’s empty head
Eft – emily’s fat tummy (obviously, I like this name lots! XD
Anyways, next post here … should come toms, if I find the time, coz today, mother and I had lunch at fasta pasta with my Australian godmother and grand godmother! :D righteo, until then!
Cheers,
Em. ^^