Author: cdwan

To continue on the shoulder saga:

On Friday, I talked to a nice Orthopedic Surgeon. By “nice,” I mean “totally competent and told me what I needed to know.”

For one thing, he actually examined me. I know that this is at least half psychological, but the man kept putting hands on my shoulders, eyeballing the difference between the un-injured and injured one, walking around, gently aligning my arm, and so on. He may or may not have needed to do this for his diagnosis to be accurate, but it gave me a strong confidence that he knew what we was doing and was paying attention to me rather than just dealing with some anonymous report of a busted shoulder. That did a lot for my fear that I was being brushed off.

Then he took a shoulder model (plastic bones, ligaments, and muscles), and explained what I had done. He pointed out the three ligaments that are torn. Basically, I’ve torn all the ligaments that connect the arm-end of my clavicle to my shoulder. That’s a textbook “third degree” separation. He could tell this from the x-rays, and also from the physical exam. The bump on my shoulder is the end of my clavicle poking up.

The difference between a third degree, and the next three (fourth, fifth, and sixth) is the extent to which the soft tissue in my shoulder is holding things in place. When all that other stuff comes apart, you generally get surgery immediately. You tell that because the clavicle point is “up by your ear” rather than an inch or so out of position.

I start physical therapy in two weeks. I go back to the doc in six weeks. If I pass muster at the six week point, I’m allowed to return to exercise, “letting pain be my guide.”

Surgery might be necessary or it might not be. Apparently there’s no difference in the surgery whether we do it now or in a year. The indicator will be if the bone heals in the wrong place and I get a constant “click” and “pop” as it grates around in there. In that case, they’ll cut me open, re-sever a bunch of crap, and generally antagonize the joint. The fact that the soft tissue is holding things kinda in place now gives hope that it’ll settle back correctly on its own.

Word is that these usually heal completely. I’ll always have a bump on my shoulder, but I should be okay to return to whatever violent and dangerous activity I’m into by that point … hopefully before the summer is out!

jwz pointed out some fun translations of the sessions at the O’Reilly web two point 0 meeting this year. I shall shamelessly steal his funny:

“Strategic Domain Name Selection for Increasing Traffic and Conversion Rates.”
I think they mean “typo-squatting”.

“How to take your search engine optimization skillset to the next level, even if you’re already a savvy search marketer.”
I’m 99.9% certain this is code for “how to MAKE.MONEY.FAST with a fake spam-blog.”

And add my own:

“This workshop will cover the fundamentals of search engine optimization (SEO) and social media optimization (SMO). The workshop will focus on how to acquire unpaid (aka “organic”) web site visitors from search engines like Google & Yahoo, as well as from social networking & social media sites like Digg, MySpace, Facebook, & YouTube. Read more.”
Does this include the buxom friend requests that I get on MySpace all the time?

wolftone should appreciate the heavy use of business lingo.

redmeds mom came to town for a few days to help out the invalids! The plan had been for her to chauffeur redmed around while I was in Maryland. Instead, she finds herself with both of us. Setting aside my pride in my self-sufficiency, I’m really glad she’s here.

We all went out to dinner last night, and someone asked “were you in an accident?” It was awesome.

Now I’m gonna channel simianpower‘s frustration with the medical establishment:

Venting

A good night’s sleep of holding as still as humanly possible has done some good. After achieving a near magical configuration of pillows that took most of the pressure off the shoulder, it was all quite comfy, except when the cat stepped on me. Of course, sitting up completely un-drugged wasn’t much fun, but redmed had left drugs and water right next to the bed. Bless her.

Today, to the doc at 1pm to decide whether I’m on the “you’ve got some ligament left, we need to let it heal,” track, or the “let’s go in there and give you your first bionic joint” track. I’m torn between my gut wrenching fear of surgery, and my desire for superhuman strength and speed.

Here’s a decent picture of what I injured:

The acromioclavicular ligament either stretched way out or tore.

“Officer of recently formed Atheist club keeps injuring himself. Has no idea what’s up with that.”

First off, Oxycodone RULES.

Secondly, I’m beginning to think that I need a slightly less injury prone sport. At the very least, and I need to work out some sort of a schedule so that one of us is un-narced and available to drive the other’s sorry ass around.

Anyway, got thrown at Judo today: Landed on my shoulder and face. The note from the ER says that I have an “Acromio Clavicular Joint Dislocation”, third degree, in my left shoulder. Basically, the connective tissues that usually holds one piece of my shoulder *in* has gotten damaged, and now that piece of my shoulder is sorta popping *up*.

As usual, Wikipedia has good writeup. Sounds like I’m f-ed for 6 to 12 weeks, and I may have a party-trick bump on my shoulder for life.

As soon as I fell, I heard the *pop*, said fuck, and went to sit. I got my jacket off, and both Jen and Jay looked at my shoulder with the universal “that don’t look right” look on their faces. I felt along the top and found the aforementioned bone as a lump about 3/4 of the way towards my shoulder from my neck.

One of the guys taking class was also taking an EMT course, and he ran to his bag to get the anatomy book. I let him tie my belt on as a sling. Very nice guy, but I could see the enthusiasm in his eyes – and I knew we had to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

Jen took me to the ER (we flipped a coin for who would drive). They shunted me to urgent care, who sent me for X-Rays. Then I got a note saying basically “take two of these and call an orthopedist in the morning.” I was a little pissed at first that there was no “pop it back in place, and it’ll hurt like hell but you’ll be good to go” solution. Then the drugs kicked in. I think capital_l described it as “the whole world taking a step back, and your ability to give a damn getting turned way down.” That’s about it. Still hurts, I just don’t really care right now.

And, with that, as might say:

NURGGKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK …..

I’m finally ready to reveal the fdmts financial bailout plan for our current national emergency.

It’s predicated on the following:
* I think that the people who are in mortgages that they could never afford should get out of those mortgages as rapidly as possible. That way they can begin to live within their means. The longer you pay on an unsustainable debt, the worse off you are.

* I think that the banks who assumed those debts, and the tower of cards of “derivatives” that they built afterwards should be left holding the bag. The reason this continues to suck is that they’re still playing musical chairs. There is about half a trillion dollars worth of “chair” still missing from the economy, and I want to simply stop the music and make the banks sit down. Evidence shows that the fed will bail them out of this anyway, I just want it done.

So, here’s my proposal:
For the next six months, anyone who wants to default on their mortgage does so absolutely without penalty, fee, or credit rating hit whatsoever. The vicious moralists among you should love this: They lose the property (give it to the bank). Yes! They couldn’t afford it, so they lost. Morons! Suckers! Go ahead and gloat, Republicans, because these chumps are out of those houses they could never afford.

However, I want to show a bit of mercy here because those folks never should have been able to qualify for that loan in the first place. So: They lose the property, have to leave, move into an apartment they can afford. We don’t allow the banks and foreclosure mills to profit from this. That’s the part that the government should be covering.

This is radically different than the current set of plans, in which we give these folks a couple of hundred bucks, and they keep giving it (unsustainably) to the banks. The sooner these loser mortgages are on the books as “lost,” the sooner we’ll be able to re-value our economy. The banks will own a whole bunch of property and will suddenly have a vested interest in pushing property values back up.

I was in Minnesota when Ventura was governor there, and I’ll give him this: He forced compromise and honest debate between the parties, and he pissed them both off. The state actually did quite well while he was running things.

Plus, he’s great to watch in a press conference:

I went through and filed a bunch of old letters and stuff over the weekend. Stuff that I could never bear to throw away, nor take the time to organize.

First came the folder labelled “funerals,” when I realized that it’s hard to just toss out that last scrap of paper about someone you cared for.

Then came “weddings,” when I wanted to remember the good times too.

Next I added “people’s kids,” since … really … I’m too much of a softy to throw out a picture of anyone’s child.

Finally I added “graduations,” because I got the announcements and I already had a whole category of stuff that seemed to fit there.

So there you go.

My crown is installed. In the height of flattery, the x-ray tech asked me which one it was because she couldn’t tell. That ruled

Also, the week-long headache from the concussion has finally gone away! Welcome to my first Advil-free day in a week!

Also, it’s pretty warm and nice out!

I don’t say it often enough, but I am truly filled with gratitude for the wonderful people who surround me. I receive support, credit, and love far beyond what I could ever deserve. That inspires me to be more like you imagine I might be, and less like I might be otherwise. I know some of the most kind, loving, smart, compassionate, strong people in the world … and I’m amazed that you let me into your company.

Today, I woke up. I’m whole and I’m healthy. I have, relative to most people in the world, a life of leisure and relaxation. I’ve had opportunities without measure, and I really can’t take personal credit for much of that success except the most recent and superficial decisions.

Life sometimes seems like a game of “draw” poker where you are dealt 7 cards and you can trade in perhaps one or two of them through the whole game. Sure, you want to pick wisely with the choices that you have … but those choices are a small piece of the overall picture painted by chance, karma, or fate.

Life is short … and also long. You never know whether this one day, this meal, this moment of sitting quietly with a loved one will be the last of its kind. Facing that uncertainty honestly, neither with moping despondence nor desperate attachment … finding a way to simply be grateful for another day of waking up and getting to see how cool the world is: That’s where it’s at.

Inspirational reading for the day, should you be interested