Since I’m on a possible two month break from skateboarding while tendonitis heals I gotta find new ways to occupy my time. Last night I went for a long walk. I don’t really care for walking around neighborhoods at night. It’s just creepy. So I went to campus and roamed around looking for new spots, but mostly just saw spots I already knew about. Spots I’ve had fun at. I stared at pieces of concrete in ways that no one except skaters can relate to. That made me feel pretty good. But then the reality of why I was walking around campus instead of skating set it. I felt like an old man looking back at his youth. It was really depressing. I know I’m supposed to be 100% at some point, but I don’t know that. I really don’t. My arthritis has been pretty bad the last couple days. It’s supposed to go away, but it keeps returning. So even if I didn’t also have tendonitis I wouldn’t be able to skate right now. I’m trying to stay optimistic, but it’s not easy.

Sorry for the downer. Getting old sucks. I know that even if I can never skate again I still have a pretty great life ahead of me. It’s just tough to not be able to do something that has been a huge part of me for most of my life.

Went to an acupuncturist this week about the sharp pain above my left knee cap. It was happening before the arthritis and it’s back. She said it was tendonitis and to not skate/jump/squat for two months so it can heal. Arghghghg! After some research it looks like most people suggest a rest period of 4-6 weeks. So maybe it wont be two months, but wow, I’m bummed. Hopefully this will give me time to get rid of the arthritis at least and so when I can finally skate I am 100%. The acupuncturist thinks the arthritis is still around because I’ve been pushing it too hard. Interesting.

I ordered this little stationary bike awhile ago and just brought it into work today. It’s funny. I can’t use it too much yet because of the tendonitis, but it’s pretty fun to use it when I sit at work. And yes, for those keeping track I still have a stand up desk and I still stand quite a bit, just not as much as I did before the arthritis episode.

The final diagnosis is poststreptococcal reactive arthritis. Basically I had a strep infection and it caused my immune system to go haywire and start attacking my joints. Not cool. By itself, the Amoxicillin helped some of the symptoms, but it didn’t do much for my arthritis. I was feeling better over the weekend, but by no means good. I couldn’t walk very well, stairs were hard and Sunday was full of painkillers and wrist pain. The natural course of reactive arthritis is to get better over time. Some cases are weeks, most are several months, even a year. With how severe my case was I have no idea how much longer it would take under normal circumstances.

Last night I took a dose of the arthritis drug Humira which is supposed to get me feeling better quick. And wow it did. I would say overnight I went from about 30% to 40%. Everything that ached felt better. I feel encouraged to say the least. The million dollar question is of course, how long before I can skate again? The nurse estimated six weeks (which would be 3 doses of Humira since you take it every two weeks). I think it’ll be awhile, but not six weeks. I don’t think she understands how determined skateboarders can be. I’m gonna be patient and try not to rush it, but at least I can finally start leaving the house again.

Another 10 days of pain has gone by with no improvement. Yesterday was one of the worst yet. Ugh. After some advice from my aunt who has Rhuematoid Arthritis I went to my general practitioner. We took a new blood sample and the results showed yet again some potential for a strep infection. The initial synovial fluid sample on 10/26 showed a very high streptozyme count (386 when 200 is considered high). Liz and I mentioned this to the arthritis dr and he said it was nothing. That was a test of fluid from my knee. The new sample was blood which doesn’t show strep bacteria count, but instead shows strep antibodies called Antistreptolysin. This also gets flagged as high if the count is greater than 200. MINE WAS 10379.5!!! INSANE! So my GP prescribed me Amoxicillin. I started it yesterday evening. The above photo was taken before I went to sleep as both ankles had swollen up worse that they have yet. They weren’t super painful. Anyways I woke up this morning feeling better. I got out of bed before taking a painkiller for the first time in awhile. I’ve had a few ups and downs so it’s to early to say if the Amoxicillin is doing the trick, but I’m not complaining. At least it makes perfect sense to me to be taking it when the lab results show there is a good chance I have a strep infection.

Things aren’t going good.  On Thursday I was diagnosed with probable Rheumatoid Arthritis.  I was given a shot of steroids and a new prescription of steroids.  The theory was I should get much better.  Unfortunately I ended up getting worse.

Saturday was the worst.  I was unable to get out of bed and ended up back at urgent care.  My arthritis Dr called when he heard I was still getting worse.  He agreed I should stop taking the anti inflammatory steroids and get more blood work done. 

Its been three weeks of pain now and I don’t know what’s wrong yet.  All my muscle is gone.  Liz thinks it might be lyme disease.  Hopefully the lab results show something tomorrow.  This sucks.

Jack and I had this idea a couple years ago, but haven’t been able to make it work until now. We had fun. Well, at least I did jocking out and yelling that my kid was the best 16 year old skater in Colorado. The worst part is there were parents in attendance that think this behavior is acceptable. Check out lot’s of photos on Carleigh’s blog here.

Dean got lot’s of good photos here and here too.

Here’s a couple “Skate Dad” phone clips from the a flyout session.

Such a fun day even if I couldn’t skate at all and mostly had to just sit down. I guess the limp added to the Skate Dad character anyways. Check even more photos here on Jack’s blog.

I’m on a real bad run. Last week was the flu, this week it’s an unexplained arthritis flare up that the doctors can’t explain yet. This week has been pure hell. It started Sunday afternoon with aches and pains which continued into monday. Monday night my pinky toe on my left foot turned bright red and hurt so bad I could not sleep. Tuesday I went to urgent care and they said it was an infection. They pumped me full of antibiotics. Went back Wednesday and it was a tiny bit better, but they still pumped me full of antibiotics. They drew lines on me where the infection was and said if it goes beyond these lines to go to the emergency room immediately. I went to work. Got home and checked and what do you know the red was way beyond the lines and now in my left wrist and right ankle. Ugh. Went to ER where they put me on IV antibiotics as seen above. They still thought it was an infection and they made an appointment for me the next day to see an infection specialist.

That night my wrist starting hurting in ways I cannot describe. It might be the most intense pain I have ever felt. I was taking three different antibiotic prescriptions between urgent care and ER. I went to my appointment at the infection specialist. Within a few minutes of looking at me he says it’s not an infection and setup an appointment for me with and arthritis expert. He said to throw away the antibiotics I was taking. WTF! Ugh! I go to the arthritis guy and my hand hurts so bad it felt like somebody was constantly hitting it with a hammer. Or maybe even a sledgehammer. This guy says I’m finally in the right spot and says it is arthritis related. He doesn’t know what though. They take more blood, take fluid from my knee and collect a urine sample to try and figure it out. He prescribes me some anti-inflammatory steroids and Vicoden (yes!!!) and says he’ll get back to me with the lab results. I leave and while I’m waiting for the prescription the pain was so insane in my left hand I couldn’t believe it could get worse.

So here I am four days after going to urgent care and I still don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m waiting to here from the arthritis guy. The pain in my hand has gone down a little bit, but it’s still unbearable. My left foot, right ankle, left knee feel better. Thank god for vicoden.

Lots of great photos from last weekend. Go there now!

Dean and I had little photos in the about page of Nullozine. Here’s my photo. A crooked grind that went the distance. And by the distance I mean less then an inch. But at least there is concrete proof that I finally skated something taller then a curb. Ha. Thanks for the photo Dean.

If you know how OCD I am about gas mileage then you know I was freaking out when I saw 121.4 mpg. I had filled up in Leadville and this was the mileage as I coasted downhill out of town. 1.21 gigawatts!