So yesterday I had a follow-up appointment with the doctor for the sciatica. We also (all 3 of us) went in for a flu shot — rather, 3 flu shots — but that was just for convenience.

The doctor is a locum replacement for our family doctor, Dr. Izen. Dr. Izen’s on maternity leave right now (it’s a boy!). Anyway, the results of my x-ray were in. Mostly it revealed what I expected it to. Some deterioration in my spine (L4 and L5) and hips. Apparently there’s a bone spur on L5 too. None of this seemed to surprise or concern the doctor. Also revealed in the x-ray was “healed juvenile osteochondrosis”. The doctor said she didn’t know too much about what that was, and that she would have to look it up.
Frankly, she’s the doctor — I don’t know why she didn’t look it up before I came. Seems like that’s her job.

She expressed “surprise” since that wasn’t in the history that I gave her. I didn’t quite like the implication, but I told her it was news to me too. Anyway, *I* looked it up. It’s pretty generic term that covers a wide range of deterioration in the hips and spine as well as other areas. There are a number of “named” diseases that refer to specific types of juvenile osteochondrosis.

So, knowing nothing about this, I asked my mother about it. It turns out that I was diagnosed with Legg-Calvé-Perthes syndrome when I was 2 or 3. Apparently I was in for regular x-rays to monitor the problem. A short time later, however, I broke my leg. A lot of people have heard *that* story but I’ll save it until later for the blog. (On a side note, “blog” is not recognized by Firefox’s built-in dictionary. Weird.) Anyway, at the hospital, they told my parents that I didn’t have LCP syndrome, and apparently it was never thought of again, until today. LCP is a degenerative disease that causes damage to the femoral heads. Treatment seems to be leg braces and the avoidance of physical activity. Sounds pretty unpleasant.

At the age of 15 or 16 I began experiencing pain in my hips after periods of activity. It got reasonably bad at times … I recall getting into the Little Red Car while at university and having to lift my leg onto the clutch because of the pain. But at 15 or 16 this was pretty new, and pretty, um, irritating. My family doctor at the time didn’t have any idea what was going on, and I was sent to various specialists. I don’t recall the names, or the number of specialists. Eventually, I ended up at the Nova Scotia Rehab Centre in Halifax. I vaguely remember the situation … there was an older doctor and someone who I recognize now as probably a resident. Anyway, it was there that they told me that the problem was “antiverted femural heads”, a reasonably easy diagnosis in the mind of the doctor. I should mention that the “bedside manner” of this doctor was awful. I was alone at the time and the diagnosis was given pretty coldly. I was told that I would experience gradual but progressive degeneration of my hips, which would lead to problems with my back and knees. I was told that, at the time, I had the back of someone in their 30s. The only solution was surgery and, I was told, that was worse than the problem at that moment.

And that was it. There was no more. No suggestions on what to do to make life more comfortable, nothing about what to do about it, nothing at all in terms of offering support. Or hope for that matter.

Anyway, that explained the problem. I didn’t change my behaviour at the time, and in fact, I became more active. At university (I was 17 when I started at Dal) my activity level increased considerably. I started playing racquetball regularly, I was curling quite a bit in the winter, and generally involved in other physical activities. It wasn’t like I was playing football or anything, but still, it was more active than I had been at any other time in my life.

Now, some 15 years later, I can’t play racquetball or any other racket sports. It’s quite hard on my hips and knees.

But, I digress. The revelation that I had been diagnosed with this LCP syndrome as a young child, the hip problems I started experiencing as a teenager, and the back problems I’ve been experiencing recently suddenly clicked together. It seems obvious that it’s all inter-related. And, equally obvious, this has lead to seems to be osteoarthritis in the hips.
One of the questions I have though, is why has it taken *me* at the age of 32 to put this together? What happened when I was young? Was the hospital irresponsible at “undiagnosing” the original LCP determination? Why didn’t any of the doctors who looked at me when I was a teenager consider this option? How can an x-ray tech in BC make a reasonable diagnosis without the benefit of any of the history that others were privy to? Why didn’t the locum know what the x-ray tech was talking about, and put it together with what I thought were antiverted femural heads? Things seem pretty clear to me now, but what do I know, I’m not a doctor.

The locum recommended getting a CT scan as the next step. I’m not really sure what a CT scan will tell her (or Dr. Izen) other than confirming the extent of the degeneration. Given that the wait for a CT scan is on the order of months, I certainly hope that the sciatica will be resolved by then. Otherwise, I guess it’ll make a good picture for any pending surgery.

Meanwhile, I’ve been going to physio. I’ve been taught a small assortment of exercises, somewhat different than those I learned 5 years ago. I’ve been put on the rack three times now, and I bet there will be a fourth tomorrow. The rack, for those unfamiliar with such things, consists of a bed with two large leather straps. One strap goes around your chest, and is fastened to the head of the bed. The other strap goes around your hips, and is fastened to a machine. This machine pulls the lower strap in a controlled fashion, applying a certain amount of force for some period of time. My last session was 65 lbs, 40 seconds on, 10 seconds off (20 lbs) for 20 minutes. It’s uncomfortable but not painful. For everything I’ve read about sciatica, this is the typical treatment regime. Studies are inconclusive if it’s an effective treatment.

It’ll be interesting, at any rate, to see what the physiotherapist says. Other than Tammy, she’s the only medical professional that has expressed a genuine interest in my difficulties. It seems to me that I will probably have to be much more dedicated in building up my core muscles and will have to stick to a specific exercise regime to strengthen the right muscles to reduce the rate of deterioration. Weight loss too, probably, but I’ve been pretty constant at my current weight and shedding more (I’ve dropped about 20 lbs from my worst while finishing up my thesis) won’t be easy.

Anyway, if you’re still reading this, wow!

Wow, it was almost a month ago! I need to cast my mind back to remember what happened. Hmmmm. For the most part, the amount of visiting went down. We visited with Gwen’s grandparents and her Uncle Steve who was up from Boston. They have a nice place on Lake Pepeswick, and we snapped some photos:

We visited with Gwen’s Aunt Trish, whom we last saw at Steve and Megan’s wedding last year. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures of Trish. We went out to her place in Eastern Passage one evening and the next day, she and Gwen went out to lunch. While Gwen was out, my parents, Aidan, and I visited my grandmother who was not too into the visit. Aidan enjoyed the attention from all the nurses and the other residents, though. And, all the space to run and explore! Ah yes, I also remember the rain. Torrential rain, blustery wind, far exceeding anything we see in Vancouver. And, it was just another Atlantic fall storm.

Let me see … Gwen and Mary went to a spa one of those days, and by all accounts it was nice and relaxing.

We also took a short trip to the Cole Harbour Dikes. Gwen and I were a bit sleep addled, and didn’t bring a change of clothes for The Boy, or a swim diaper for that matter. And, of course, he wanted to go running through the water. Recalling the exploding diaper incident, we tried to keep him from getting too wet. He was quite tired that day, so the trip to the beach was cut a bit short. It was there, however, that he decided he liked “walking” Nana Lorraine’s dog, Comet.

Other than that, it was reasonably low-key. We were starting to run out of steam. The grandparents got a little extra Aidan-time.

We left on the Friday, the results of which are recounted here. We left at 5pm Atlantic Time, which seemed like a good idea since we would have the whole day to spend with people, but in reality, we packed and then sat around waiting. It’s not that we couldn’t wait to leave, but by the time we packed, we really didn’t have any time to do anything before we had to leave for the airport.

And, after arriving at the airport, we had another of “those” experiences. First, trying to check-in, my ticket was recognized by the self check-in kiosk, but Gwen’s wasn’t. That meant we had to go to the “too dumb to work the kiosk” line. After getting through that line, the fine ticket agent found Gwen’s reservation and issued her the boarding passes. We checked the car seat — and were told that they didn’t have any bags to go around it! We would have saved the bag from the trip to Halifax as we were told (yeah, right) if the AC baggage handlers hadn’t destroyed it anyway. Plus, had we known, we would have brought a garbage bag — or something — to protect it. With some trepidation, secured all the straps as much as I could and kissed it goodbye. The other bad sign was that our boarding passes had “SBY” on them. I assume that meant standby which was pretty shocking since we had confirmed seats. Further, we didn’t have any seats assigned at all. Anyway, we went through security (again, the fast lane!) with no problems.

When we arrived at the departure gate, things looked pretty bleak. Apparently there had been a earlier flight to Ottawa that had been cancelled, and all its passengers were trying to get on our flight. I took our boarding passes to the gate agent and asked that he seat me, my wife, and Aidan all together, please. He looked pretty harassed (likely from the perturbed passengers from the cancelled flight) when he took the passes. We got our “new” boarding passes just as they announced preboarding. They put us in the very last row on the plane, in the crew seats. Wow, those seats have even less room than the normal chattel class seats. The plane was full, and a patient woman who did Soduku puzzles for the whole flight was seated beside us. The flight to Ottawa was pretty uneventful — it’s a short flight. Apparently Stockwell Day (sometime jetski rider, former Canadian Alliance leader, currently the Minister for Public Safety) was on the flight. Woop-dee-do.

In Ottawa, we exchanged some passengers. Our row-mate was placed closer to her husband, but someone else was put in her place. Fortunately the flight to Calgary was not full, and once airborne, that person was moved. This gave us the whole row to ourselves, but it was still very uncomfortable. Aidan was great on the flight from Halifax, and on this long leg he was … well, ok. He was fine until about midway into the flight when he started getting tired and grumpy. After some placating and some nursing, he stretched out on the middle seat and slept for a little bit. He woke up before we descended into Calgary still grumpy. Mind you, by this time, it was about 9pm Calgary time, or about midnight Atlantic time. Well beyond his bed time.

We spent about an hour in the Calgary airport, stretching our legs and ourselves. Aidan woke right up and was determined to see as much of the terminal as he could. Which was a surprising amount! The Calgary airport actually has a number of “play stations” (no, not the video game system) consisting of beads on rails, things to push, pull, prod, move, etc. They were actually pretty cool. These kept Aidan quite occupied. Gwen turned her cell on while were in the airport, and to our surprise, it rang. G. was calling to tell us that she had just dropped our car in the parkade at YVR and where to find it.
The flight from Calgary to Vancouver was pretty uneventful. We had normal seats, and it was a new plane, so we were actually pretty comfortable. There was no one seated between us, so once again we had the whole row. Aidan was wide awake for the whole flight. We landed in Vancouver without incident. We trundled down to the baggage claim, and surprisingly enough, our bags came out pretty quickly, and among the first few on the conveyor. The car seat came through special baggage, and much to my surprise and relief, seemed to have suffered no insult on the flight. We wheeled our baggage to our car, paid the ransom to get the car out of the parkade and drove home.

Aidan stayed awake on the drive home too.

It was about 11pm Vancouver by the time we got home. That’s 3pm 3am Atlantic time. And Aidan was still going! Anyway, he didn’t mind too much being put to bed, and neither did we.

Hallowe’en! Trick-or-treating! Lavish costumes! Lots of candy.

Oh wait. Not in Vancouver. And what’s with the fireworks?
Well, at least some of the units in our place were done up. And Aidan went trick-or-treating. Two whole units opened their doors!

Both Aidan and Tristan were simians of some sort:

And Gwen had fun carving some pumpkins: a scary Tyrone (from The Backyardigans!) and an even scarier owl:

As usual, more pictures are on the Picture Barn.

On Friday, Paula and Jimmy came down from Fredericton. Oh, and their two cats. For those keeping count, that’s 5 cats, 1 dog, 2 permanent residents, 3 West Coast Visitors, and 2 currently-living-in-NB’ers. The people outnumbered the animals by 1.

Anyway, they came down on Friday, and it was our (the West Coasters) first time meeting Jimmy. He seemed nice! Paula seemed happy, so all was good. I didn’t get a lot of photos of either of them, but here’s one at dinner on Friday:

Saturday was the my cousin Suzanne’s (nee Zinn) wedding. The wedding was held at St. Pat’s. St. Pat’s is a beautiful Catholic Church, and one that the Zinns and Forwoods have been going to for quite some time. It was built between 1883 and 1885. You can find out more about it here.
The ceremony was nice, and the atmosphere was great. Unfortunately the church is pretty dim inside, so I didn’t get any good shots, but a few of the ones that we did get are below.

After the wedding was a reception held at the barracks of the Halifax Citadel. Not the hotel, silly, the fortress. I didn’t know that the National Historic Site was open for wedding receptions, but guess what! It is. Anyway, the reception was spread through the top floor, with several different rooms having different foods and mingling areas. We stayed pretty much in the main mingling area, since it was a little more baby safe. Unfortunately that meant we missed much of the food, but we made up for it by stopping at that Paragon of Fine Food (yes, Wendy’s). It was at the reception that I managed to get a few more pictures of my sister! There were a few toddlers there, and one much younger baby. Aidan’s newest cousin Petranella (Anthony’s cousin Andreana’s 3 month old) was there, as was Sawyer (the “oldest” offspring of the cousins) and a few other young kids. There was one just about Aidan’s age (name now forgotten) with whom he hit it off, following her around a bit, and during the dance, dancing up a storm!

Anyway, it was another one of these times where we’re reminded how much the boy takes from us. We actually left — the boy awake — around 9ish, well before my parents. The boy stayed awake for the ride back to my parents’ (via Wendy’s of course), and luckily, went to bed pretty normally.

Sunday was a bit of a blur. Oh wait, I remember. Thanksgiving dinner. Gwen got things going with the dinner while Dad and I took Paula’s laptop apart. It is a Toshiba, and it would overheat and shut itself down when it got too hot. Coincidentally, Mom’s laptop had the same problem. In fact, they were both Toshibas, and apparently it’s a known problem. So, with the help of some instuctions from the web, we took Paula’s laptop apart. The problem is that the air intake is on the bottom of the laptop, and it sucks up lots of cat/dog/person hair and dust. It then blows this gunk over some cooling fins, but the fins do not allow the gunk through, and it accumulates on the fins. This reduces the effectiveness of the cooler, and then the system overheats. Anyhow, to clean the cooling fins, you have to completely disassemble the laptop … right down to removing the system board from the case. So, with the instuctions from the web, that’s what we did. It took much longer than expected, something around three or four hours. But, when we put it back together, it all worked, and as far as I know, it has solved the problem. After we got done with Paula’s we tackled Mom’s. It took a little less time, but essentially by the time we were done with Mom’s (also a success) it was dinner time.

As usual, Thanksgiving dinner was great. Gwen’s mother, grand-mother, and sister were up to join us too. I don’t think we got any pictures of the event, though.

Next, week 2…