Just writing those words make me wince. On Sunday afternoon’s game between the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins, forward Robert Lang took an innocent-looking hit but just after the fall, another player’s skate cut into Lang’s Achilles tendon, the tendon that connect the heel bone to the calf muscles.
It’s a painful injury and without the tendon to control your heel, you can’t walk. Lang has had surgery that’s been reported to be a success. Let’s  hope so, because if you’re a Habs fan, you know that Lang is desperately needed right now!
Here are some resources for you on the …read more

We know that back pain is one of the most common pains among humans. Just about all of us experience a sore back from one time or another, and some of us have it for longer periods for others, making it a chronic pain issue.
Now, I’m not one to second-guess treatments for various problems, but I am kind of scratching my head over this one. Outgoing vice-president Dick Cheney is now in a wheelchair because he hurt his back doing something that many of us have done: moving boxes.
I don’t know about you all, but when my back hurts, the …read more

Ok, pain doesn’t always have to be serious, but it sure can be problematic.
Take, for instance, Ken Griffey Jr. pinching a testicle with his own cup, Cardinals’ kicker Bill Gramatica tears his ACL celebrating a field goal, San Francisco Giants’ manager Roger Craig cuts his hand on a bra, professional disc golfer Ron Russell swung his hand into a tree during a throw at the 2000 PDGA tournament, and Manchester City’s (soccer player) David Seaman broke a bone reaching for the TV remote.
To read how these highly paid (and sometimes over-rated!) athletes sustained their injuries, pop on over to …read more

A collapsed lung is very painful. The acute pain comes on suddenly and had been described as having a knife stuck into your side. As a nurse, I’ve seen patients with collapsed lungs and I’ve seen how panicked they can be when they feel the pain and may find it difficult to breathe.
Having a collapsed lung is not only dangerous for the obvious reason (limited breathing), but depending on the cause of the collapse, there’s a danger that the other one can collapse as well.
News reports say that 44-year-old actress Mariska Hargitay was recently rushed to the hospital with a …read more

If you think hip surgeries are only for old people, think again. Twenty-six-year-old hockey player Marian Gaborik is going to have hip surgery today and will be out of service for at least 10 weeks, say news reports. Apparently, he had the same corrective surgery done already on his right hip.
The hip is a complicated joint. It’s a ball-and-socket joint that takes a tremendous amount of stress from body weight and movement. That’s why many people who have osteoarthritis, the so-called wear-and-tear arthritis, have it in their hip or hips.
I feel badly for Marian Gaborik. I know that he’s made …read more

Forty-seven year old political commentator Ann Coulter has had to have her jaw wired shut after breaking it in a fall. She’s a very controversial personality and while some people are actually pleased with this turn of events (so they can’t hear her), it’s really not something I’d wish on anyone.
Have you hit your jaw really hard ever? It hurts and it can hurt a lot. So imagine what a fracture jaw may feel like. According to statistics, jaw fractures are the second most common facial injury, after broken noses. The lower part of the jaw, that part that is …read more

Barbara Bush, wife of President Bush, the elder, was hospitalized for a perforated ulcer. The 83-year-old former First Lady had surgery for a 1-centimeter sized hole in her stomach. She’s expected to be in the hospital for about a week.
Ulcers can be very serious. They used to be portrayed as a nuisance. On television and in movies, you’d see executives in suits chugging milk and antacids because of their stress-induced ulcers. But research has moved on and it was found that milk doesn’t really help and it’s not mostly stress that causes ulcers, but a bacteria called Helicobacter pylori. …read more

Whether you are an Obama supporter or not, I think that this news has to be a bit sad for many. Barack Obama has been making  history and could be the first African-American president of the United States, but his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who broke her hip not too long ago, died of cancer today – one day before that historic election.
It’s known that a broken hip in seniors can speed up a disease process, like that of cancer. The pain and disability can cause the most independent of seniors to become weak and frail.
I can only hope that she …read more

The extremely peppy dancer from Dancing with the Stars, Julianne Hough, has discovered the source of her stomach pains. She has endometriosis.  I’ve discussed endometriosis here a few times. This link explains what it is and one of my Company’s calling features, Company’s calling – the road to a diagnosis for endometriosis, is about the topic. If you like to watch videos to help learn, the Mayo Clinic has a video that explains it as well.

Anyway, back to Julianne – she was complaining of stomach pains last week and was diagnosed with endometriosis. Julianne is only 20, so hopefully …read more

Scleroderma is a disease that not many people have ever heard of (What is scleroderma?), but it affects more than 14 million people across the globe. It’s estimated that about 300,000 people are affected in the United States (June is National Scleroderma Month).

We all know that when a celebrity becomes involved in spreading the word about an illness, things get done because people begin to recognize it as a problem. This is the case with Desperate Housewife actress Dana Delaney. While many celebrities become involved in a cause because they or someone they love is affected, Dana became involved …read more