puffy pinkie, bones with bling, & finger crossing for bonbons

I will get back to the babysitting nightmare story shortly.  It's a doozie.  Consider this your commercial break, except I am not selling anything.

How happy are you that I am done talking about Vancouver?  I feel I stretched the topic out incredibly far, too far?  I am the type that cannot rest if I have a story that goes untold or unfinished.  I have emailed people after a party to say:  'Hey, I just realized I got off on another tangent and I never finished telling you about  . . . '  I am that person.  

Let me know if you live in fear of our upcoming Yellowstone vacation in June?  Blogging minds want to know.

My two pinkie fingers have ached for about two years.  I have wondered if I did something to break my knuckles.  I just try not to use them much, but recently they have gotten worse.  Worse than broken, you ask.  Well, yes.  I guess.  

I threw the stroller in the trunk the other day.  I was racing the tots I sit for home from the park on a day that was not as weather permitting outside as I had originally thought.  I glanced down as I drove home because my damn pinkie was killing me.  It is typically the better of the two.  Yowza.  This is what I saw:

Relax, I am not flipping you
 off.  It is a pinkie, people!

Maybe this photo
shows by boo boo better.

I suppose it does not look THAT bad in the picture.  Trust me here.  My damn knuckle looked all gnarly and deformed.  I know Halloween is coming, but I don't intend to dive in that seriously.  

I saw an orthopedic hand specialist yesterday.  Do not ask me about the two hours of time spent at the doctor's office, because I think this post is full of enough bad news.  Just know that it made me grumpy to wait.  I brought Mini home from high school to watch the two babies I was sitting for, and I was SUPER grateful that she was willing to miss Latin (she has a strong A in the class, in case playing hookie makes anyone concerned), lunch, and gym class.  Had the day involved two hours with two babies in the doc office, I would have punched a wall and broken one of the good fingers.

Anyway, I have a cyst.  I need an MRI to see if the thing is best to be drained or surgically removed.  To be honest, I hear surgery and I picture me laying on the couch NOT babysitting and someone else sitting there feeding me bonbons because my hands are all bandaged (just one cyst but in my vision I have both hands bandaged and lots of other people are doing things I normally do.  It is my vision, damn it - so it can be messed up).  And to be honest, I am OK with that scenario.  

The doc said to drain it would mean that it might grow back.  I would like to bypass that option, because I do not want to see this thing again.  It freaking hurts.  

If you have never considered how much you use your pinkies, then I invite you to pay attention to that little guy.  Whether you intend to involve them in any functioning tasks at hand (get it, rocking the humor while in pain typing over here, right?), they sometimes just get called to duty faster than you can say, 'no pinkie, not you!'  Reading books, opening jars, making meatballs.  (I made meatballs last night and two minutes in I was like 'wait - whose idea was this?')  Don't get me started on diapers and strollers.    

My right hand.  Shit, do I look 80?
This is the pinkie with
 a swollen knuckle and to compound
 things a bent ring - from the front
you cannot tell about the bent ring.  

Not sure you can see how straight
 the back is now.  Even if I
 unbend the ring, I would never be able
 to get it past my beefed up knuckle.

Slow-to-show-up-in-a-room-where-I-grew-old doctor also took an x-ray of my hands.  The x-rays look like a skeleton with bling, because I cannot remove my rings.  Those damn rings were all over the pictures and I only have rings on 3 dispersed across my 10 digits.  One of the rings will need to be cut off.  I know this, but I have yet to address it.  It is my college ring.  The kids slid the car door shut on it over 10 years ago.  It bent across the back and I was unhurt, but now there is no removing it without a saw.  That ring is on my usually-more-painful pinkie, but currently cyst-free pinkie.  Follow?

The x-ray lady was moaning about my wedding ring diamond getting in the way and I told her this was the first time I felt really thrilled not to have a 3 carrot diamond.  She enjoyed that even though my rings made her redo my x-rays several times.    

The x-rays showed something kinda bad.  I have blackness in all of my joints - not just pinkies.  All of the joints in my hands.  The name of what I have is:  Periarticular osteopenia.   This is a weakening in my joints.  Coach looked it up and it is caused by the fact that I did not absorb my calcium or my vitamin D back when I was shoving cake in my pie hole unaware that gluten was destroying my insides.  I had celiac disease for most of my adult life and didn't get diagnosed until about 4.5 years ago.  I think what this x-ray showed is that I am going to end up with rheumatoid arthritis, but I am not sure.  

Rheumatoid arthritis and still no gluten (like sheet cake) to comfort-food my way through the pain?  That's just rotten.  

I told Coach he needs to come with me for my next appointment which will be with the rheumatologist  because I have no idea what these people are talking about.  

Still angling for couch time and bonbon eating and someone else slaving away at meals and laundry and housework.  Fingers crossed, well - carefully crossed anyway.