Thursday, August 03, 2006

post -- dinner

Well I just had an interesting conversation with my daughter.

She had been in a bit of a snit during dinner -- we're not exactly sure why, but we were letting her be, and after a bit she started talking to me about a book she was reading. She's a little bit into art, and one of the main characters in the book is an artist. So I asked her some questions from the book -- how she felt as an artist about some things it said . And we just kind of went along that way. When we were done, she said she'd enjoyed the conversation. And I had, too.

I'm in a fairly good mood at the moment. I did a little bit more stretching exercises, and that felt good. I know that I'm weeks away before any kind of functionality at all, other than the most basic gripping and holding that I can do with my hand (without putting any strain at all on my arm). But that doesn't really matter -- because I feel like I'm starting to make progress, and progress is very important to me.

Although this past week hasn't been a vacation, in a way it has -- I haven't done anything with work. So I signed on to e-mail and looked. My oh my oh my -- about 110 e-mails sitting there waiting to be read, about a third of which actually meant something to me. My company likes to send e-mails. To be honest, about half of those that don't mean a thing to me, should mean something to me -- it's just that I really, really don't care about that stuff. So once again, I'm thinking -- maybe I should just quit. Someday I will. Not yet though. For one thing, these guys are paying for my therapy, and I kind of doubt they wouldif I quit. Not to mention I'm going to have to navigate the sea of bills back and forth between the hospital and the insurance company, and I think that being still employed is going to help that process, too. I can't wait to see what the basic charge for the surgeons time is. When my mother had had surgery a few years ago, one of the things I learned was to never, never pay the bill when it first shows up. For example, the very first bill for one of her surgeries was something on the order of $19,000, we can take a check. After it bounced back and forth between the hospital and the insurance company for while, it became something like $150.

Ah, the wonders of the American medical system.

2 comments:

genderist said...

Keep your spirits up! Your attitude will be your biggest asset in your recovery process.

Cerulean Bill said...

When I was talking to the physical therapist yesterday, I offered to drop into a push-up to see how my shoulder was working. It took him and moment to realize that I was kidding. Very serious guy.