Musing on current events… I’m a little miffed at Tom Tancredo for his off-handed remark about bombing Mecca as retaliation should islamist terrorists detonate nuclear devices on American soil. After all, regardless of how important it is that islamofascism be excised, it does no good to the cause of freedom to be seen stooping to the levels of our enemies, even hypothetically. It discredits us all.

Then I think how much worse I could have it. I could be a moderate muslim, reading the rantings of Mohammed Atta’s father, who praises the recent attacks in London, and says that moderate muslims who condemn violence are traitors and non-muslims.

It would be nice if the worst any of us had to worry about was being made to look bad by people who claim to share our faith.

More news today — some good, some bad:

We’ll start with the good news. I got five rows pencilled today. I was pretty achey when I was done, and it was time for my first visit to the physical therapist, so off I went. Aches aside, I was actually feeling pretty good.

More Good News: Of all the medical attention I’ve recieved since getting injured, the winner of the “I felt decidedly better all the way around after you finished with me” award goes to the physical therapist. Not even the drugs made me feel as good as a heat treatment, massage, and some electrostimulation. My shoulder felt BETTER. This wasn’t endorphin-powered euphoria, either. This was “hey, the pain is gone for the first time in DAYS.”

The Physical Therapist was also impressed by my level of knowledge surrounding my injury. He said “you’ve sprained your AC ligament” and I said “Oh. Type 1 Shoulder separation, then.”

Him: “You’ve had shoulder troubles before?”

Me: “No. Google is my friend. I researched shoulder separations based on what the Family Doctor said, and determined that my symptoms were either a Type 1 or Type 2. Either way, no surgery.”

Him: “Good work. You may want to research “impingement” as well. It looks like you’ve got a little bit of that, and that’s part of what we’ll be treating.”

Needless to say, it’s a pleasure to work with a Doctor who trusts me and who won’t treat me like I’m incapable of understanding big words. And as I mentioned above, it was also a pleasure to be feeling so much better.

To celebrate, I drove to a movie. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was very, very nice. It was like a cross between “Batman” and “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.” Never having read the book, I can’t judge the film by its true-ness to Roald Dahl’s writings. I will say, however, that I missed the “Oompa-Loompa” song. The Elfman-arranged, Dahl-lyriced, Elfman-sung songs were excellent, but I wanted “Ooompa, Loompa, doompedy-doo.” Oh well.

After the movie I bought some groceries and headed home.

Now for the bad news.

At home I found out that my insurance provider won’t cover physical therapy unless I’ve had surgery. Great… the best medical attention I’ve had since this affair started is the only attention that isn’t covered. I started tensing up immediately, and the pain was back. Grrrr… It hurts just writing about it.

So I took some of my new painkiller, Ultram. Twenty minutes later I had this distinct feeling of “this isn’t doing anything,” followed by “but it’s been a long day, and I wouldn’t mind a nap.” In short, it made me drowsy, and tricked me into thinking it was a NATURAL drowsy.

Then the scary bit: as I lay in bed thinking “maybe the drug is making me drowsy” I noticed that my breathing had slowed down. WAAAY down. I wasn’t doing nearly enough of it. I vaguely remembered reading something about “difficulty breathing” under the list of “rare side-effects,” and decided to call out to Sandra for a little help. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up an hour later I still wasn’t breathing well, but I was pleased and just a tad surprised to still be breathing at all. I staggered downstairs, and announced to Sandra that Ultram was now on my short list (along with Demerol). I won’t be taking any more of it.

So… as I’m writing this my breathing is still shallow, but not nearly as labored as it was three hours ago. I’ll have to settle for some Ibuprofen for pain this evening, since hydrocodone is on the “contraindicated” list for Ultram, and the Ultram won’t be out of my system for another couple of hours at least. The BOTTLE of Ultram, however, will be out of the house in very short order.

Now for the worst news of all: Reading back over this post, I sound like a whiney hypochondriac. GRRRRR.

(crap. I tensed up the shoulder again.)

–Howard

I can see the attraction of Lortab now. I’m hella mellower on it than off it, at least with the pain in my shoulder, neck, back, and upper arm.

Yeah, I got a little drawing done this afternoon, but I was grumpier than two sequels worth of Walter Matthau, and really, really didn’t like the way I was acting. I popped a Lortab 20 minutes ago, and as the gauzy curtain of “brain haze” dropped, I found it was increasingly difficult to hang on to my crotch. Ety. Crotchety. Crotchetyness? Whatever, I couldn’t hang on to it.

I probably couldn’t hang on to my crotch, either, as I’m having a hard enough time finding my ass with both hands, and they’re both in that “nether regions” neighborhood we’ve all heard so much about.

*sigh*

The plan for tomorrow:
1) wake up at about 6:00am in pain
2) take 800mg of ibuprofen with breakfast
3) pencil a week of Schlock Mercenary
4) go to the Physical Therapist
5) take something stronger for the pain for the rest of the day.

For now, though, I’m stumbling off to watch a CSI DVD.

–Howard

Good news, everyone!

(Note: I can’t say that without hearing the voice of Professor Farnsworth from Futurama in my head.)

I can draw.

This discovery was not without initial setbacks.

Shortly after my last post I tried drawing, and about two minutes in I lost most of my right-hand strength and couldn’t continue. It seemed very uncharacteristic of the injury, so I figured it was the muscle relaxant finding tension in some muscle groups and shutting it down. I took a nap, slept the rest of that crap off, and woke up crankier than a Model T on a cold morning.

In that mood — tense, irritated, and in significant pain — I sat down to try again. It worked just fine — no nervous wiggles, no dropping the pen, and the lines went pretty much just where I planned for them to. Whether or not that’s where the lines BELONG is an artistic issue rather than a medical one.

Verdict: I’ll be medicating with ibuprofen and caffeine, drawing until it hurts, and then using the muscle relaxants when I’m ready to take a break for a few hours.

Sandra scheduled me for 11:30am tomorrow with the Physical Therapist, which is four days sooner than I’m supposed to go, but I’m all for taking this “waiting” thing and screwing it to the wall sideways. The physical therapist will get an accurate assessment of the state of my injury tomorrow morning, and will determine how soon I’m ready for whatever phase of therapy is supposed to come next. I am NOT going to sit around convalescing for four more days on the instructions of the doctor who offered to “write me a note” so my boss would give me some time off of work.

Pain? I don’t have time for pain.

–Howard