Another Update on the Arm

(Darren writing, this doesn't happen very often) :)

For those of you who have been following along with the arm fun, I thought it may be helpful to give some background to what is going on so more of this makes sense. Many of my friends have known I have had bursitis for quite a few years now. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bursitis - Feel free to read if you want to know what that is.) The bursitis is something completely different than what we have found out lately, but it is right around the same area as the tumor. I went to an Orthopedic Surgeon a few years ago about the bursitis and they told me I couldn't really do anything about it besides taking Ibuprofin and being careful. (There were a few other options, but nothing that would perm. fix it.)

About a year ago, Marni and I were 4x4ing up at her parents old cabin and I went over a rock and in the process I hit Marni's lovely knee quite hard with my left elbow. It was swollen quite a bit but I didn't ever see a doctor about it because the swelling went down some and with bursitis I had always learned to just deal with the pain. Finally we got our heads on straight and decided to go see another Orthopedic Sur. because my Ulna (Forearm bone) was swollen and seemed to had been for quite a while since I hit her knee. When we went to the doctor, I was telling him I wanted to check on my Bursitis. He looked at my arm and told me that wasn't Bursitis. He had an x-ray done there and when we look at the x-ray, my radius and humerous bone were fine, but my ulna bone was quite fuzzy. He said I needed to get a MRI to determine if I had a tumor or a disease called Paget's disease. (Feel free to look that up if you desire.)

It took me 3 different tries to finally get the MRI done. I tried twice here in Ogden, once with no pain meds and once with some. Neither time worked because it caused me quite a bit of pain to have my arm strapped down for a long time and I really didn't like being in a small tube. I finally made some phone calls to SLC and found out the U of U does conscious sedation. I took them up on it and got it done nice and easy. In the meantime between the 2nd and 3rd MRI try, that is when I bumped my arm at Young Men's as Marni had posted earlier. The bump from Young Men's had aggrevated my Bursitis worse then I have ever seen it before. We don't think the bump has anything to do with the tumor.

So where we are at now with this...tomorrow we head done to SLC, at the Hunstman Cancer Institute, to see a Tumor Specialist who will most likely do some tests on my arm to determine if the tumor is benign or malignant. We have also learned from the visit to the ER that it is possible to have a bursectomy and have the bursa removed. We are hoping that we may be able to have the tumor and the bursa removed at the same time if possible.

Considering the circumstances, Marni and I are doing quite well because of the peace our Father in Heaven has blessed us with. We know things will be OK regardless of the outcome. We will continue to update the blog as results come. At this time, we don't know exactly how soon or not we will know anything else. Thank you for all of your kind thoughts and prayers on our behalf.

(Sorry for the long post, I have had a few friends ask that haven't known much about this and it is much easier to put it up here for them to read.)