Health update and back to remodeling!

Well, I went back to my orthopedic doctor to get the results of my MRI on my shoulder. Turns out I DON'T have a torn rotator cuff! I have severe tendonitis and bursitis caused by an impingement. The only treatment (other than surgery to shave off bone to enlarge the impinged area) is steroid injections. The last one didn't really help much. The doctor thought that the medication might not have reached the area where it was needed, so this time he went deeper. He was reluctant to do that last time, because it is supposed to be pretty painful. However, it wasn't. I could feel it at one point, but it was pretty mild. So we are hoping that I will get some relief this time. If it does help, I can have them every 3 months, if needed. I still have to "baby" my left arm, since exercise only worsens the problem. Hopefully, I will be able to go about my normal activities with little pain with the shots though. The impingement is caused by a genetic defect in my shoulder in which the bone angles downward rather than being "parallel". There seems to be some spurs involved, too, which I seem to have more than my share of. So, it was better news than expected. It can't be "cured", but we might be able to keep the pain under control. If it does get to the point where it needs surgery, it won't be nearly as severe as it would be if the tendons were torn.

We spent most of Monday and Tuesday tearing up the guest room. We've gotten about 2/3 of the tile removed from the floor. It is pretty slow going! We took yesterday off to rest up. James and Debbie (and Renee) came over for a short visit to meet Nam. He took to James right off, which I knew he would. He started acting like he felt bad toward the end of their visit. He'd been having trouble with allergies for a couple of days. His left eye has been red and swollen and gunky. After our company left, I washed his eyes out with artificial tears and gave him a snack, and he perked right up! He really needs a regular routine of snacks to keep going.

He has done much better with the remodel than I expected. He loves to "help"! He actually is a pretty good help when it comes to sweeping up the debris from the tile and picking up the larger pieces and discarding them. When he gets tired of helping, he will go to his little bench in the dining room and play for a while. I think it is helping him sleep better at night, too.

Tuesday, we were watering the grass, and Nam wanted to play in the sprinkler. So I told him to take off his socks and shoes and have at it. He had a blast. We had two sprinklers going, so he would make them "fight" each other. Ha! He played for about a half hour and was totally drenched! I told Sheila he wouldn't need a bath that night!

Ricky went to Arkansas last weekend for his 30th birthday. He and a few friends got a cabin on Mt. Magazine and relaxed and enjoyed their time together. He got back Sunday night and had to immediately repack and get ready to go out of town for work Monday morning. So we haven't seen much of him for the past week!

I'm not sure how long it will take to finish the guest room job. We are going to replace all of the walls and strip the popcorn ceiling after finishing tearing up the tile. We plan to rework the closet, too. We have already bought the new flooring:  a laminate that looks a lot like the tile that we put in the kitchen/dining area. We have the new 36" door, but we won't hang it until after we get the new flooring laid. I'm sure we'll be working in there at least another couple of weeks. After finishing in there, Dennis wants to move onto the hall bathroom. We need to widen the door to it to a 36" one, also. To do that, we'll have to tear out the linen closet and reconfigure it, take out the cabinets and countertop (which we plan to replace with a ready-made one), and replace the tub with a walk-in shower unit. We'll also replace the tile with what we have in the kitchen area, too. It is really good to get back to working on the house. We've pretty much had it put on hold since I left for Vietnam last fall. We weren't sure how we'd be able to take care of Nam and remodel at the same time. I believe he is going to do just fine with it now.