Readin', Writin', and Surgery

This has been quite the day.

The big event was going to the orthopod's office. The primary reason was for them to set up going for outpatient therapy, and also to take out the surgical staples. Both took much longer than anticipated. I have said that if you want to feel young, go to a physical therapy class in a hospital -- all of the patients are in their seventies and eighties, and they refer to you as a young man. That was true at the orthoplace, too -- many, many people, all moving slowly, a fair number with canes, crutches, and walkers. I can't say that I'll keep to this resolution, but one message that I'm getting from all of this is that you can handle it a lot better if you're strong. Not ripping-muscles and six-pack-abs strong, but just strong. Even indignities like having to use a toilet chair with arms that you push off of to stand are easier if your arm strength is adequate. Fortunately, mine is, most of the time, unless I'm feeling tired.

They took an additional set of xrays, and the tech looked puzzled at one point, asking me if I had any pain in my knee. "That's an awfully long rod in there", she said. Well, that was something I didn't need to hear -- it fed right into my general level of paranoia about medicine. Was there something else wrong? Am I going to need another round of surgery to fix some kind of problem in the knee? It hasn't hurt, but then again, the ankle twinges on occasion -- is that a problem? After that, almost anything could set me off -- when the assistant was popping out the staples (which I felt, this time; when it was done for my shoulder, it was as if it was being done to someone else), she apologised at one point for hurting me. I told her that I actually hadn't felt anything -- but a moment later, as she continued, I did. It was a nit, but I was hyper at that point.

But the surgeon said the xrays looked good, and he said that I could go ahead with the planned oral surgery so long as they gave me antibiotics. He also gave me another prescription for Percocet, the pain medicine. I don't like taking them. Its almost a feeling of failure -- gee, I never needed these things before past the day after surgery, why do I need them now. I know (or believe, intellectually) that taking one a day for a mild ache that Tylenol doesn't seem able to handle is okay, and I'm certainly not going to get addicted to them. I just don't like doing it. As I say, its almost a feeling of failure. On the other hand, I'm going to take one tonight before I go to bed. I was going to say 'go to sleep', but my sleeping track record has been very poor, last few days. Each night I've slept for about an hour, woken up for about two to three hours, and then off-and-on for the remainder of the night. Its wearing me out. I told my wife that I have a rod in my left arm, and I never think about it -- but every time I get a twinge in my hip or thigh, I think about the rod thats in there now. I know this will get better, but I'm ready now for at least the damn twinges to stop. They make me feel fragile, and I don't like that. Not to mention, I get much more metal in my body, I'm going to have to watch out for people with mis-wired garage door openers.

In other news, my daughter brought home the booklet that the school district uses to select and assign courses in high school -- and its a real booklet. Until you look at the detail, it'd be easy to confuse this with a college's selection material. She has to take four assigned subjects, and one elective; in the four assigned ones, she gets to pick the intensity of the course. Except for one course, she picked the easier option for each. She told my wife that she really didn't want to talk with me about it, because I'd 'get all intense about it'. We did talk about it, and I tried not to be TOO intense, basically telling her that it was important to push herself, even though it'd be difficult. She agreed to bump up one of the courses. I suggested she talk to her current teachers for that and other courses, if she trusted their opinion, to get a different view on the level she ought to try for. Me, I'm thinking she ought to go for AP in everything, but I do know that a) thats unrealistic, b) it would kill her, and c) its my ego talking. Look how smart my daughter is! But I really do want her able to go to the golden schools, if she wanted to.

I'm looking forward to being about to bake again. I could probably do it now, but the back and forth of putting ingredients out/ mixing/ putting them back is a minor pain when I can carry three or four at once. Having to do it with one hand, thats more grief than I want. Making I'll drag the kitchen table forward, use it as a bit of a staging area. It will also be good to be able to start cooking again. There, too, this whole thing is making me think 'you know, bill, maybe you ought to look into changing your diet a little'. I don't think mine is unhealthy, its just not particularly great. I will never be particularly great... but maybe branching out would be a good idea. Even though I'd bet a thousand dollars that there are medical people who'd say 'oh, yeah, good idea, but it would have been much better had you started years ago'. They seem to like to do that.

I found out that there's a site called YouPorn which is billed as being the sex-oriented equivilent of YouTube. What it actually appears to be is 'professionally' made short porno snippets. A little bit of it is stimulating, but more than that gets dull pretty fast. Its like the receptors get driven to overload very quickly. Not to mention, you find yourself wondering how can they do that? Why do they do that? I think I've seen one porno movie to completion in my life -- that was Debbie Does Dallas, which, actually, I liked. Good, um, production values. Oh, and Deep Throat -- so many people talked about it, I felt I had to see it. I actually thought it was kind of funny, which I guess wasn't exactly what they were looking for. I recall reading, years ago, that if you evaluated pornography, you'd quickly come to the conclusion that all men were instantly capable studly sex machines, and all women wanted sex all the time -- those who denied it were in fact more eager than the others. When I was younger, I knew that I, personally, wasn't a studly sex machine, but it didn't make me question the other part -- I just assumed that there was something wrong with me. Fortunately, I grew out of it. There's still something wrong with me, but now I like it. (g)

We need to find a decent headset to use with the wireless phone at home. Preferably a dual headphone one with mute, amplifier, and boom-mike. They're all surprisingly expensive -- sometimes approaching the cost of the phone itself!

When I heard that Clinton had actually won New Hampshire, I was delighted. I mean, delighted. I wanted her to win, but apparently I wanted it more than I thought. I will say that I suspect Hilary's semi-tears moment was scripted -- but I can forgive almost anything for the candidate I want to see win. And I love that some people are saying 'well, now that Obama clearly isn't a steam roller, perhaps its time for supporters to dial back their expectations'.... Geez, give the guy a chance, will you?

Enough for now, I think.