A real pisser…

Posted on August 18, 2015 by jdtharp

Six or so years ago I found myself limping around the house, the office, the grocery store, basically everywhere. It wasn’t quite agony, but it wasn’t pleasant. A trip to my primary care doctor and a referral to a orthopedic specialist later, the diagnosis was plantar fasciitis. It’s a problem of the ligaments of the foot, which tends to cause intense pain after sleeping and long periods of sitting, both of which are activities I participate in on a daily basis. The basic fix was some over the counter anti-inflammatory, some icing, staying off the thing as much as possible, and a fancy set of orthotic inserts for my shoes. It’s all part of my look as the world’s youngest 70 year old man.

Mostly the inserts and an occasional handful of ibuprofen do the trick to stave off any further issues. About once a year though I unwittingly do something to aggravate the hell out of the little bundle of ligaments… at which point I’m right back to limping around from place to place and generally trying to keep off the damned thing as much as possible. It seems that this week is that magical time of year.

So if you see me gimping across the parking lot or I don’t stand up to greet you, a) I’m ok and b) don’t take it personally. I once heard it said that getting old ain’t for sissies. The older I get – and the more wear and tear I inflict on myself – the more I’ve come to appreciate that statement. For good or bad we’re all living in bodies that were designed by biology to last 35 or 40 years, seed the next generation, and then make way for them. We’ve pushed that frontier back through the audacity of our science… but the bits and pieces that wear out and break down along the way are a real pisser.

Precognition…

Posted on December 3, 2014 by jdtharp

So far today I’ve have the opportunity to enjoy all of my usual warning signs that some kind of head cold / sinus thing is in the offing. Itchy eyes? Check. Sore, scratchy throat? Check. Difficulty focusing on any activity lasting more than ten minutes? Check. Constant state of cold/shivers? Check. General feeling of “not quite right.” Check.

Usually my body is kind enough to give me these symptoms as a kind of 48 hour warning that I should wrap up anything important I’m doing and plan on spending a few days on the couch. Since my throat started tickling a little after lunchtime yesterday, I’m willing to bet that my noon-ish tomorrow, maybe as late as close of business, I’m going to feel like warm death. It’s not always a sure thing, but the signs are pretty consistent over time – consistent enough that I’ll be utterly shocked if I don’t end this week feeling like crap.

Thought I’ve often wished for the power to predict the future, I generally only want precognition for important activities like tonight’s winning Powerball numbers or the correct finishing order for a trifecta at Preakness. Going through life knowing with certainly when you’re about to get a cold feels like an awfully lame bit of foresight into the misty uncertainty of tomorrow.

A matter of opinion…

Posted on October 21, 2014 by jdtharp

Yesterday I saw several social media posts decrying the administration of the current president as the “most out of control and corrupt government in history.” Now it’s fair to say I don’t agree with many of the administration’s policies, but I also know that “in history” covers a lot of ground and a lot of really, really bad governments.

Take for example the Soviet Union under Stalin, who purged somewhere between 1 and ten million of his own people. That’s pretty bad governance. Hitler, that other bookend of 20th century dictatorial madness had a large hand in starting a war that killed 60 million people – or a little more than 2% of the world’s population at the time. Like Stalin, that’s not a great track record. Fast forward a few years and you have Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the killing fields of another 1.5 million. The drug wars raged across Columbia in the 80s and 90s, with politicians being bought or killed by the cartels. Not the recipe you’d want for successful democratic government. The Afghani Taliban made it their mission in life to suppress dissent, create a permanent underclass based on gender, and wipe out two thousand years years of cultural history. And those are just examples from the last hundred years.

Step back to the French Revolution, the Roman Empire, the Mongols, the unification of China and you’re going to see government that behaved in ways our sensitive souls can’t really fathom. Bad as the Obama administration might seem, I think laying the mantle of “most out of control and corrupt” in the vast sweep of history might just be a touch hyperbolic. Sure, it makes a good enough sound bite, but it really discounts the fact that history goes back a long, long way.

We’re all welcomed to our own opinions, but I do wish people would limit their appeals to the blessing of history until they inform themselves on what they’re actually talking about… Otherwise you just end up sounding like an idiot to those happy few of us who didn’t fall asleep in Into to World History.

A lick and a promise…

Posted on October 15, 2014 by jdtharp

We were told ebola wouldn’t come to the United States, but it did. We were told its spread was easy to prevent, but as it turns out trained medical personnel are the ones who seem to end up getting it. The whole issue is a grand demonstration of one of the major problems with politicians. In their pursuit of 50.00001% of the votes, they speak in generalities too often tailored to what the best research tells them people want to hear. Even where people want a world of black and while, I find the shades of gray are far closer to the universal constant.

So far in America we have two cases of Ebola being transmitted, It’s hardly a national epidemic. It’s frightening mostly because until a few weeks ago Ebola was far away nightmare that happened “over there.” Now it’s a real thing. It’s in at least one of our cities and apparently on our planes.

This isn’t a call to ban international travel or to mandate we all take our temperature before leaving the house for the day. It is, however, a statement of opinion that the country needs more than a press conference and repeated assurance that our standards of care and facilities can handle anything. That the two most recent victims are healthcare workers themselves gives lie to the notion that we are in any way prepared for something even a town or two over from “the worst.”

Far more people died in America today driving themselves to work than contracted Ebola, so I want to keep that in perspective. Even knowing that’s a fact, it would be nice to see more than a lick and a promise from the smart people who are in charge of keeping this shit from happening.

The paranoia of a idle mind…

Posted on September 8, 2014 by jdtharp

First the good news: The doc seems to think that with continued exercises and stretching, my shoulder should remain serviceable into the foreseeable future. Unless something changes, I’ve managed to escape the need for an MRI and potential surgery. It’s hard not to like that kind of report.

The next bit of his spiel was less ideal – apparently there were some “anomalous” results from my last round of blood work. The minute a sawbones breaks out the phrase “it’s probably nothing to be concerned about”, I start getting twitchy. Having blood drawn for a retest of the ol’ liver was not part of today’s original agenda… but given the last decade of being kept alive by chemistry, I don’t I shouldn’t be awfully surprised when it throws a few anomalies here and there.

While he was finalizing my chart for the day, the last thing he offered was to “throw in an HIV test” if I wanted one. Apparently that’s something they’re offering to everyone this month thanks to a new CDC recommendation. I’m assuming he didn’t offer based on my looking like an IV drug user or some kind of “deviated prevert.” Nonetheless, I figured while they have a needle stuck in my arm, why not offer up the second vial.

Up until now I’ve never so much as pondered the possibility of HIV. Let’s be honest here, I’m a middle age, overweight, wanna-be hermit who spends his free time reading, writing, and making sure the lawn is cut “just so.” I’m not sure how much sex the good doctor thinks I’m having, but apparently he thinks it’s a lot and that I’m probably doing it unprotected with complete strangers. I’m not sure if I should be proud or offended. At any rate, even though the results are a foregone conclusion, the damned test has been drifting around the back of my mind all day even though it would do as much good to sit here and worry about a satellite falling out of orbit and landing on me.

This is one of those times when living inside my head is an awfully troublesome place to be.

Getting physical…

Posted on August 10, 2014 by jdtharp

I had my first meeting with the physical therapist this past Friday. While it wasn’t as god awful as I expected, it didn’t exactly tickle. Plus, strange people touching me. *Shudder* I think the fact that I didn’t either take a swing at the guy or find an excuse to run away should be acknowledged as a major accomplishment for me.

The last thing they handed me before turning me loose into the world was a schedule for future appointments. That’s fine. Although it would have been nice, I in no way anticipated this being a one-and-done kind of endeavor. I didn’t expect, though, that this was going to be a 3-day a week kind of effort. While that’s bad enough, the very best part is that my scheduled start time on most of those days is the same time I’d usually be leaving the office. I’m sure blowing out the door early three times a week for the next four weeks is one of those things that will further endear me to the bosses.

If there’s any bright spot to the next few weeks, it’s that at least for the moment the joys of physical therapy won’t be sucking every minute of free time out of my evening schedule. If that costs me a couple of days worth of sick leave over the course of the month, that’s probably time off well spent. At least it is to me. Like I said, the powers that be are sure to be less than thrilled with this turn of events. This is one of those times when they’re just going to have to learn to live with disappointment, because when it comes to sacrificing my time or theirs, well, it’s not really a contest. We’ll just have to see how well that theory holds up on Monday when a sheaf of leave requests land on someone’s desk.

5AM…

Posted on August 2, 2014 by jdtharp

Because I’m Mr. Glass Half Full, I can see the positive about my internal alarm being so well set that it likes to wake me up at 5AM even on Saturdays. Aside from the chance to see the sun come up – or in this morning’s case to see the sky go from dark gray to light gray – it’s given me the chance to catch up on some blog reading and commenting that I never seem to have time for. That’s basically how I spent the first 90 minutes of the day; reading blogs, dispensing comments, and swilling down coffee at the rate of about 8 cups and hour.

What all this “extra” time this morning didn’t do, of course, is lead me down to the basement to reacquaint me with the exercise equipment I’ve been ignoring since I jacked up my back this winter. Now that it’s feeling better, I’m assured that I can safely get back to that routine… but keeping up with other people’s writing is way, way more fun. I know at some point I’m going to have to get back to that. 5AM (4:30 on weekdays) feels like it’s probably going to be the only available time to make that happen. Sleep is basically the only thing I’m currently doing that I’m willing to cut out of my schedule in order to add something new. If I get up at 4:30, I’ll still manage to get five hours of sleep every day. How much of that do we really need anyway?

I’m sure this all seems like a better idea while I’m sitting here well caffeinated than it will when I’m struggling to understand the concept of an alarm clock at 4:30 on Monday morning. This plan probably won’t survive first contact with the enemy, but at least it looks good on paper… or at least it looks good on paper if you don’t have any expectation of every getting eight hours of sleep. I haven’t had that expectation in a very, very long time.

Shouldn’t have mentioned it…

Posted on August 1, 2014 by jdtharp

I shouldn’t have mentioned to the doc this morning that I busted up my shoulder a few weeks ago. There was no yelling during the fist up until that point. Usually before he’s even in the room he’s raising three kinds of hell about some kind of test result, my weight, my diet, or whatever he’s decided to focus on that morning. Today was going swimmingly by comparison.

We could have wrapped up that way except I opened my big mouth… and which point the yanking and cranking on my arm started. Then there was shouting, except I was the point of origin instead of him. For the record, I like it better when he’s the one doing the yelling.

After the yelling part of the visit, I found myself with a tentative diagnosis of “something rotator cuff related” and referred for physical therapy and a recheck in a month. I should have kept my big mouth shut, because now I’m stuck shoehorning one more thing I don’t want to do into a schedule that’s already too full of that kind of jackassery.

You can’t see it out there in the blogiverse, but I’m rolling my eyes.

Another lost weekend…

Posted on April 6, 2014 by jdtharp

After three days of sitting here relatively quietly and trying to give my back the time it needs to unkink, I can say with authority that I’m absolutely over the part of this process where I sit around and don’t do much. As much as I like reading or watching entire seasons of television in one sitting, the fact is if I don’t get out of this house tomorrow and go to work I might just go stir crazy. Strictly speaking that’s not violating doctor’s orders, since he told me to “take it easy”. It’s not like I’m in a warehouse tossing around boxes or working out in the oil shale fields somewhere. I know, I know, it’s a sad state of affairs that I’m ready to get back to work. Rest assured, it’s mostly a function of wanting to be somewhere other than in my own living room than having a burning desire to get back to PowerPointing and endless meetings. If I’m going to be groggy and uncomfortable, I can do it there just as easily as I can from here.

This has basically been a lost weekend – just another one added to the list that’s already gotten to be too long. With spring coming on and weeds popping up all over, it’s looking more and more likely like I’m just going to have to start playing hurt. And don’t get me started on the cleaning that’s getting put off because of bending problems. At some point in the not too distant future, this damned traitorous back is going to have to learn that it works for me. Either it can cripple me right and proper or it can get with the program and start cooperating. Either way, I’ve had it with just nursing it along. It’s reign of terror is coming to an end. If the pills and the chiro can’t get it right, I’ll default to my usual approach and trudge through it by virtue of sheer force of will.

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