In honor of Captain Capslock’s second federal indictment (bringing the current number of felony charges to 44, plus the 34 felonies he faces in Manhattan), I think today’s earworm has to be Sam Cooke’s immortal “Chain Gang”.
I’m not loopy enough to think that the most criminal president this country has ever known is likely to do anything like hard labor (for the first time in his privileged life), even if convicted. But a girl can dream.
Okay, I’ve got more pix of the neighbor's outlier hosta. Because the flowers are beautiful and I thought I’d try out the “pro” mode of my mobile phone camera.
I don't know what it does, but I like the photos.
I had to buy this grip strengthener device for my hand exercises.
I can't get over how much it makes me think it's something the Grand Inquisitor would use when questioning suspected heretics.
Well, whaddaya know—the hibiscus shrubs with the gigantic blooms have cousins. Crimson ones that seem to flower later.
Week 10 and my gratitude is that in the past few days I’ve been able to go up and down stairs mostly without thinking about it. That means: I’m not hesitating every time I raise my left leg to check that it’s not going to scream at me.
Also, last
Thursday I was at a town hall held by the People’s Republic’s rep on the
Fairfax County board of supervisors and I realized I’d crossed my left leg over
my right and it wasn’t painful.
It’s taken me
weeks longer to achieve the stairs (evidently my right IT band is not as evil
as my left), but I don’t think I was able to cross my legs at the knee for well
over two months last time. So I guess it works out.
Anyway—still cause
for celebration.
We lost a tremendous talent and a force of nature this week when Sinéad O’Connor died at 56. Couse of death was not immediately known.
O’Connor’s four-decade
career was marked by controversy, as often happens when a woman choses to speak
her mind. In a 1992 guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, she sang an
acapella version of Bob Marley’s “War” and then ripped up a photo of Pope John
Paul II to protest rampant sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. The furor
was incandescent, as this was about 10 years before media pulled the scab off
that global festering wound.
But furor didn’t
bother her, as she explained:
The woman had a
brass pair, she did.
Recent times
were emotionally difficult for her and she was shattered by the death by
suicide 18 months ago of her youngest son, Shane. But she was working on a new
album to be released next year.
Here she is singing “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. Sink into that voice and those eyes.
Saw an occupational therapist yesterday for my hand. This is because the orthopod finally suggested that physical therapy might be the next step (the fractures have healed).
This is a good
thing because—three months out—I still can’t make a fist and I have to shift to
my right hand to open anything that unscrews.
The OT kept
asking me why I didn’t seek immediate treatment after the geese-induced fall. I
kept telling her that it didn’t hurt all that much.
Then she asked
why I didn’t get OT earlier in the process. Because the surgeon didn’t suggest
it until last week. (He said the bones had healed, but the soft tissues need
help.)
The upshot apparently is that I may not now recover all range of motion, because tendons
require help within a couple/three months. But I can increase strength.
And maybe
unscrew some wine bottle caps.
There was this story last week in WaPo about a new invasive species in the Northern Virginia environs: hammerhead worms.
These are
toxin-excreting flatworms that can grow up to 20 inches or so and if your try
to kill them by hitting them with a shovel, their little segments will all spawn
new worms. Evidently the only way to extinguish life is to stun them with salt,
seal them in a plastic bag and freeze them.
I may never
leave my house again.
Following up on yesterday’s post about cautious recovery optimism, I saw the surgeon for my two-month checkup. He concurs with my physical therapist that the IT band is the culprit. Evidently, when they replace your knee, they may or may not also realign things that were out of whack because your leg components weren’t working properly as your cartilage disappeared. So IT band revenge is a thing.
I’m to keep up
with the exercises, add anti-inflammatories to the acetaminophen I’m taking and check in
with him again in a couple of months.
Yay?
After nearly a week of what I considered a setback in my recovery, I’m grateful today that I appear to be back on the rails, knee-wise. The worst thing for me was that I could not go up more than three steps in a staircase without the knee pain telling me, “Cut that out!”
On Wednesday, my
physical therapist diagnosed the problem as probably my IT band, compounded by
glutes not doing their job. (I hate my IT band & it hates me.) She did a
lot of work on the point where it connects to the knee and gave me some
exercises to make the glutes step up to the plate.
By Friday, I
could go up the stairs fairly fluidly (although I’m still tentative, anticipating
protest) and I was able to have a yoga lesson that did a lot of work on the
glutes. (I know that was successful, because I was feeling the muscles on
Saturday.)
So I’m
cautiously optimistic that—as I turn the corner on the eight-week milestone—I’m
going to be okay. For a while, I wasn’t sure.
