All day today, it was anniversary of the day Christopher Latham Sholes (father of QWERTY) made the crazy idea work.
So of course I worked a looong day, starting with trip to the knee Doc. The Distal Condyle, also known as the upper bearing surface of the outside half of my right knee? "Like a gravel road," the man said, in an X-ray show-and-tell otherwise featuring words like "posterior and anterior cruciate ligaments," "meniscus" and "tibia," to name but a few that stuck. One heck of a fancy MRI, complete with the looming ghosts of the four bolts that remain in my thighbone and voids in cartilage (what's left on that side, not much) and other happy images. Upshot? "We'll start with a cortisone injection in your knee today. You'll know within a week if it works; call us with your results and we'll go from there." Fun, but hey...! "It won't hurt too much today, tomorrow you may want to ice it. Are you on your feet much?"
I was all day today, tomorrow promises to be more of the same and I am fair outta ice.
The rest of the day? Yeech. Started late. Struggled all morning and into the afternoon to get what we needed to do the job at hand, with very little help from the manufacturer; then once we did get the critical software found, downloaded, installed, set up and happy, and took a five-minute break spending time online on some work-related-but-not-to-this-job stuff before commencing the physical part of the task, much later in the day than planned or expected, in walks one of the big bosses. Very nearly zero physical evidence that anything has been acomplished at that point, give or take some hand-hacked network cables and a different rev number hidden in the software.
He's not too happy with me or my helper and based on what he saw, can you blame him? After he'd lit us up and left, we got it done -- on time, too -- but I'm bettin' that won't count any in my favor.
Some days you just can't win; there is a thermodynamics of our lives, too. And that's why no typeblogging on this day of all days.
Tomorrow's better, right? Gonna effin' make it better.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
8 comments:
Just did the cortisone shots in both knees sunday. (gotta love a dr that makes house calls to fix your knees!) and I spect it will have to happen again before winter. At least I can do some walking now.
I buy those boxes of icees- you know, the colored flavored water sealed in tubes of visqueen you freeze and eat? THey make GREAT knee wraps, and if you get bored you can always peel one off and eat it.
So it's Take Your Cane To Work Day? I'm almost there.That elastic knee bungee works pretty well though.
A while back, the production manager and I had a nice chat during a review, during which I expounded on my views on the nature of perception vs. actuality, executive edition. A little while later he decided to retire and do something else. And I didn't even need to sharpen my knife in his office.
He's not too happy with me or my helper and based on what he saw, can you blame him?
Is he your immediate superior, or some suit?
With the economy as it is, probably bite-your-tongue time. But it would be tempting to come out with something like, "If you don't like paying me to spend all morning on the phone trying to get tech support out of x, maybe we shouldn't be buying their stuff."
But then I work for myself, so the boss is always aware of things like that... ;-P
-----
TW: rescam
What's about to happen when you've had bad experience with a vendor, and the suits decide to buy more stuff from 'em anyway.
Try everything the Doc suggests, but Doc Giles told me that eventually it would become painful enough and I would have the knee replaced. It took twelve years, 'cause all my names don't mean stubborn for nothing.
I thought I only needed one new knee - but when the one that bothered me started feeling decent I realized how much the other one hurt. Another three days in the horsepistol, and a month's light duty.
If anybody's curious I was in bed for three days, walking with a walker and then a cane for a week each, did office work after two weeks, started driving in four, and walked into the surgeons office in four weeks and two days.
For meds, super antibiotics for a week, Loritabs for about ten days, aspirin after that. No problems and I'm having so much fun I got myself a brand new hunting license. First time I have felt up to taking to the woods since the 1970's.
When a bad knee gets bad enough to slow you down, get it fixed. It's not nearly as painful as you might think.
Stranger
What they're telling me is that the damage is not so bad as to merit replacement -- exercise and anti-inflammatories should be able to make it manageable.
At my age, the surgeon wants to put off knee replacement as long a possible; those things do not last forever and there is a limit on the number of times they can screw in new hardware.
Old Grouch: one mustn't say too much. And even though it was a little transgression rather than a big one, we were, in fact, clearly in the wrong: should'a been on the main task. Yeah, it stung like hell; so it goes.
When I had the arthroscopy a few years back, the surgeon told me, "You might want to start thinking about replacement, once you turn 60 or so."
Putting it off for awhile, I conclude, is a fairly common surgical option.
I tried six or seven NSAIDs before settling on one I liked, which mercifully was about to come off patent and now can be had for cheap.
**snicker**
She said "effin'"!
Post a Comment