M-R-Ai-yi-yiiii

I got my MRI a couple Friday nights ago. You read that right. It was not a typo. The MRI was at night. It was at 9:30 to be exact. I outsmarted myself once again. I asked that the MRI be done in La Jolla, so it would be close to my office. The reason, I explained, was so I could use my appointment as my lunch break. I could just zip over and zip back to work. Glad they were listening...

The first problem was in scheduling the darn thing. I was hoping to get it done before going on my mini-vacation. I got the approval three or four days before we were supposed to leave. However, having the approval and getting an appointment are two different things. I was entered into the computer system. When I called, they verified that I was approved. But I couldn't schedule. Why not? My paper work had not been sent over yet. That's right. The authorization was there in the system from the managed care office and the insurance. But they didn't have the signed piece of paper in their hands that proved their system was not, in fact, wrong from two different sources. So, I had to wait for them to call me to tell me to call them and make an appointment. They weren't calling me to schedule. They were calling me to tell me to call them to schedule. Fine. Great. Love a bureaucracy.

The second problem was the aforementioned hour. My office is about 30 miles from my house. It's a 40 minute drive with no traffic and an hour plus with. There was no way I was going home after work and then coming back at 9:30. The solution? Go in late and work until the MRI. Fine. Great. I can find ways to waste a morning.

After that, there weren't really problems so much as annoyances. The hospital where the MRI center is located is built into a hill side. The main lobby is on the third floor, which is ground level from the front. The MRI is in the basement and on the far end from the parking lot they sent me to. I'm not exaggerating by saying that it was a ten minute walk and elevator ride from my car to the check-in desk. And bear in mind that my leg was still hurting at this point. And what was worse? The MRI center was a stand alone, one story unit. That's right! The basement is ground level in the back. And what can you have at ground level? Parking! Grrrrr.

The MRI itself was long and uncomfortable. Fortunately, I was able to go in feet first, so my head was not in the chamber of claustrophobia. But, it took an hour for them to get all the angles of my leg that they wanted. I had to lie as still as I could for an hour. In the same position. I think my leg was more sore after the MRI than when I went in. By the time I got home, it was almost midnight.

The next step was to see the ortho to interpret the MRI. But I couldn't do that until the MRI center called me and told me that it had been read and annotated by the radiologist. That was going to take another week. I decided to make the appointment anyway and just tell them when the MRI was supposed to be ready. I managed to get the appointment for the next Friday, but even that wasn't easy. Care to guess how many people I had to talk to in order to get the appointment? Six. It went something like this.

"Hello? Scripps Ortho, Carmel Mountain" Yes. I'm trying to get an appointment with Dr. Ortho in the La Jolla office. "Oh. Let me transfer you." Thanks! "Hello. Scripps La Jolla. How may I direct your call?" I'm trying to make an appointment with Dr. Ortho. "Thank you. I'll transfer you." Thanks. "Hello? Chemotherapy and Oncology department." What?!? "Chemotherapy and Oncology." I was trying to make an appointment with Dr. Ortho. "Oh. I'll transfer you." Great. "Hello. Scripps Orthopedics." Really? "Yes. How can I help you?" I need to schedule an ortho consult to read my MRI. "Ok. Is this for your torso, head, or arms?" Ummmmm...none of those. It's a calf injury. "Oh. You want lower extremities. Hang on, I'll transfer you." (I'm not kidding. There is a department called lower extremities.) "Hello. Lower extremities. How can I help you?" *exasperated sigh* I don't know. I just want to schedule an appointment to have my MRI read. It's a torn calf muscle. "Ok, great. I just need to ask a few questions." Well of course you do. "When did the injury occur?" February 19th. "And when was the MRI?" Last Friday. "And how did the inujury occur. " I tore the muscle while playing basketball. "Oh! You wants sports medicine. I'll transfer you." Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

Fortunately, sports medicine was able to help me. And schedule me for Friday. Woot. I talked to Dr. Ortho and she was very nice. She was knowledgeable, patient, and informative. After hearing my story, the first thing she said was, "You don't need an MRI. You need physical therapy." Now you tell me. "Unless it is a complete tear, you don't need one." Well. I already got it because they said to do that before I saw you. "Well, we may as well take a look, then. But you should have just come to see me." Note to self: next time I get a sports injury, demand a referral to a sports medicine doctor immediately.

We reviewed the MRI and it was pretty cool, even if I had no clue what I was really seeing. But she walked me through it and showed me where there were still intra-muscular pockets of blood. She was not surprised that there was still swelling and told me I'd messed myself up good. She expected the blood to take at least three more months to be reabsorbed fully. In the meantime, I should get to PT and work it back to where it is supposed to be. To that end, she sent in her assistant to help with the details.

He asked me which insurance I had and, presumably, used this information to produce a list of PT centers. I didn't recognize any of the names or locations and he couldn't tell me, beyond the address, where any of them were. So, I chose one that had "sports therapy" in its name and that had a street address that sounded like it was near the bagel shop I sometimes visit. Then I was given the familiar refrain. "We need to submit this to our managed care office. They will get it approved by the insurance and forward the approval on to the PT office. The PT will call you to schedule an appointment."

One week. No call. I'm not waiting. I call them back. They tell me it has been approved and give me the name of the PT office. I call them. It's a different name than what I asked for. And it is a 20 minute drive from my office. In the opposite direction from my normal commute. WTF? Call the doctor's office to ask where the switch happened. "Oh. The one you chose wasn't covered by your insurance. So, we chose this one. We thought it might be near your office." Did you LOOK at a map? And why did you offer me the first one in the first place. *sigh* Can we change it to something closer? A friend told me there was a PT center located in the clinic building. What about that? "Oh. You mean Shiley? We can do that." It turns out Shiley is right NEXT TO the doctor's office. Literally. They couldn't propose that when I asked for something close by last time?!? Well. At least they can do that. "We just have to submit the paperwork to change the location."

That was almost 2 WEEKS ago. The paper was filed, but nobody reviewed it. I don't know why changing PT locations is so complicated. But it is. I am calling them back after lunch today to find out what is going on. Stay tuned for more developments.

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Mistake or Subliminal?

Take a look at the proposed new logo for the UK Office of Government Commerce.

Notice anything odd about it? I'll let people comment on it before I say why it made me laugh.

Hat tip to Rich for this link. I can't find a link to your blog, so I'll link to your company instead. :)

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De-Toothified

I survived my three-dentists-in-three-days event in Escondido. Doesn't that sound like a masochist's vacation package? Sadly, it was no vacation. The first dentist told me something was wrong. The second dentist gave me the specifics of what was wrong. The third dentist solved the problem. He had to pull the tooth, which proved more difficult than anticipated.

In spite of the struggle in getting the evil tooth out, the office was very warm and inviting. I was helped by at least five different people and each one told me who they were and what their role was. I was also told what to expect next and assured that the next person was excellent and would take good care of me. It kept me from stressing out too badly, except when the actual pulling was occurring.

The tooth pulling was not stressful because it was painful. It was stressful because the tooth wouldn't come out. The oral surgeon was a tall, fit, muscular man. And he was struggling to get it to come out. It ended up coming out in about five pieces. It was quite obstinate.

After the extraction, I had to bite down on a piece of gauze for an hour. Then I had to change the gauze every 45 minutes until the bleeding stopped. That took about 4 hours. I didn't really eat all that much that night, as I am sure you can imagine. What surprised me was that I wasn't allowed to rinse vigorously or use a straw. Either of these could dislodge the clot.

My recovery followed the after care instructions almost exactly. I lost a day and a half to the Vicodin and have been coping a little better each day. The pain is mild now, but still present. And the socket is still noticeable to me. My voice sounds weird to me, but nobody else seems to notice.

I now have to wait three months for this to heal. After that, they will put a screw into my jaw and put a cap on that. Then that will heal for three months. Then my regular dentist will put a screw on the cap and a fake tooth on the post. The good news is that my dental insurance looks like it is going to partially cover the implant. Woot!

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When Is It Time To See The Dentist

That's right. My life has become a bad joke:

Q: When is it time to see the dentist?
A: At 2:30. (Tooth-hurty)

That's really what time my appointment is, too.

Warning: The rest of this post talks about pain and teeth.

I have a dentist appointment today. It's my third in three business days. The first one was with my regular dentist. He determined that there was likely and absess or infection and sent me to the endodontist to determine the specifics. The endodontist has determined that a root canal I had done 22 years ago was not done well. He made a crack in the tooth that ran deep into its root. Well, at some point recently, an infection managed to creep under the crown. It may have happened when I had the crown replaced 6 months ago. Who can say for certain. At any rate, the infection is causing swelling inside the dead tooth. The pain that woke me up last Thursday night is from the swelling trying to push through both the inner and outer walls of my jaw. Yuck.

The endo told me that the tooth really had to come out. I'm risking bone loss in healthy teeth and in my jaw if I leave it in. I could save the tooth if I wanted to have the crown removed, the posts taken out, the infection treated, the root canal redone, and the crown replaced. My mouth aches just thinking about it. Well, that, and from the infection.

So, today, I am going to my third different dentist. I'll be seeing an oral surgeon today. He'll yank the tooth under local anesthetic and tell me exactly how much it is going to cost me to get an implant. The other option is a bridge, but that is less appealing even though it is less expensive. To put a bridge in, they would have to cut down the two healthy adjacent teeth so that the bridge has someplace to attach.

In the immortal words of Clubber Lang: "Prediction? Pain."

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Now THIS is cool

I need to find out how to hook up with Improv Everywhere and get involved.

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Qualcomm's April Fool's Prank

They have a whole website that talks about features.

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But I Don't Drink Coffee

Created by OnePlusYou

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Back From Vacation

We had a mini-vacation to replace the canceled one. I thought I'd be able to blog about it while I was there and it was fresh, but there was no internet or cell phone access. So, I am back and trying to reconnect to the world. If you tried to reach me, I have not been ignoring you. Unless I've been ignoring you. Then, I've been ignoring you.

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Why MRI?

A few of you have asked why I am having an MRI. Just because something isn't healing quickly is no reason to jump in the scanner and spend all that time, right? Ordinarily, I would agree with you. But there are a couple factors in this case that are pushing me the other way...

The main one comes from a physical therapist friend. He said something that is now stuck in my head and can only be proved or disproved with an MRI. And when I shared the theory with the doctor, he agreed that MRI was the best call. Or just caved easily so as to not deal with a difficult patient. I'm not sure which, but I wasn;t all that difficult. Just explaining why I wanted the MRI. Apparently, the gastrocnemius is connected to the bone in five places. Sometimes, when you hear a popping sound during the tear, it is become this has become detached from the bone. If that happened, it is not likely to reattach itself to the leg no matter how long you wait. My friend said that typically, people rehab it for a year, then they give up and get surgery.

Reinforcing this theory psychologically is the sensation when I try to stretch the calf by planting my foot and slowly bending my knee. The muscle goes to a certain point and then gets tight and painful. It feels like if it goes further it will pop again. And the thought was planted that the topmost connection could have let go and that sensation is the next one down getting ready to pop.

Now, if the doctor dismissed this as quackery and offered me some proof otherwise, I might be inclined to push it and try to stretch. But I have no desire to recreate that bruising, swelling, or pain.

So, the doctor recommended an MRI and a consult with a sports medicine ortho. If everything looks to be healing normally in there, we will do physical therapy. If not, we will explore other options.

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Losing Streak

I know. I'm supposed to focus on the positives. And there are positives. I have plenty to be thankful for. Especially with the way the economy is going. But I also have plenty I am not thankful for. I feel like I am on a bit of a losing streak right now. And sometimes you just have to get it out there so it can move on. Or you can move on. Maybe you and it move on, just in different directions. I'd sure hate to let it out and have it follow me...

It's hard to say what started the losing streak ,but it was definitely early in 2008. I guess we can blame the leg injury for lack of a better starting point. I gimped the leg in mid-February. And that was painful and annoying. She-who-normally-thinks-I-am-not-as-sick-as-I-am was incredibly supportive, helpful, and sympathetic. Which should serve to tell you how hosed I was.

I went to the urgent care for my doctor's medical group. It's like an ER, but staffed and funded by the office, so that it is still "in network". I don't feel like I got great care. I got poked and examined and then told "You have a gastrocnemius tear." I wasn't even given a follow-up appointment. I should have pushed it, but I didn't. I set my own follow up a week or so later and my primary doctor said, "The reason you are still having trouble is that this is a worse tear than they originally thought." Still no recommendation for anything other than what I was doing. Well, he wanted me to work on stretching it some. But I could only stretch it to a point. He assured me that I would be fine for my trip to Mexico.

Concurrent with all of this, news of the state budget crisis started coming out. Somehow, California is going to be short fifteen BILLION dollars next fiscal year. I'm sure that the housing crisis is part of it. Foreclosed properties don't generate much in the way of tax revenues. There are other things that were pushed for during Arnold's tenure that contributed, though. We're taking a page from the President's book and cutting taxes even though we need the money. In order to make up for it, because states generally don't run trillion dollar deficits, the Governator has decided to enact a 10% across the board cut in all departments on the state budget.

The upshot of this is that schools are sending out layoff notices to teachers. She-who-really-loves-her-job is not yet tenured. Even if she was, it wouldn't help as some tenured teachers are losing their jobs. So, we are going to have 10% fewer teachers and the same number of students. Apparently, being 49th in per student expenditures is not good enough for us. We are going for dead last! All the teachers with temporary contracts (of which she is one) were told that they won't be back next year, though they can sub if they want. Teachers will likely be hired back in order of seniority unless they have a special skill that is in demand. That means we have to wait for the California revenues to increase WITHOUT increasing taxes before she has a shot at getting her own classroom, a steady income, and teaching benefits. And since the problem is affecting all of California, she can't just move to another district. The explanation of the education hiring process is too complicated to cover as part of this post, but trust me. It's a ridiculous series of hoop jumping.

But really, do two complaints constitute a losing streak? Probably not. But I'm not stopping at 2. Let's add turmoil at Brian's work. The turmoil is not internal. I'm getting along with everyone. We have cool products and are hitting deadlines. The company is reasonably healthy. The problem is that we made an unpopular decision recently and took some PR hits for it. Then some insiders and former insiders with axes to grind started a smear campaign. The chairman of the board resigned in a huff which triggered some payout clauses. Then we missed expectations from "the street". End result. We are still profitable and growing. We are only going to grow 10-15% this year instead of 30-40%. We have a boatload of cash in the bank and are focusing on infrastructure and development. But the stock has tanked. And when I say the stock has tanked, I mean tanked. We went from $15 in February to $6 in March. Nobody's options are worth anything. This has created fears of layoffs, hostile takeovers, and the like. Morale is low and uncertainty is high.

Complaint 4: our house is now worth 30k less than we paid for it. That means leaving CA is likely not a solution to our economic woes. We're fine financially and we have our safety net, but the uncertainties have added stress to our lives. And I'd rather be fine and moving forward than holding my own and treading water.

Does that constitute a losing streak yet? How about the cherry on the cake? I had one more follow up appointment after shedding my crutches had caused me so much discomfort on Saturday. I wanted to make sure things were still on track and that I hadn't screwed anything up. I was also concerned with long flights and blood clots. My doctor wasn't available, so I got the on-call doctor. He examined the leg, told me that a gastroc tear was pretty painful and that I wasn't being a wimp. Cool. That's all good. What about the blood clots? No worries there. He said that even though there was still a decent amount of fluid, the chance of blood clot was pretty remote. Well. That was a relief. "So, I can still go to Mexico?" I asked. "Oh, goodness, no. You still need to cancel."

Apparently, the fluid in the leg will swell up on the long flight and I will spend my time on the plane in agony. That will make it difficult to do anything we had planned to do like the Maya ruins or the eco-park. So, instead of the special family trip for my birthday, I am spending my time trying to get the trip insurance to pay us back and get an MRI scheduled to find out why this is still behind schedule healing. Apparently, according to the on-call doctor, this tear is worse than the doctor who thought it was worse than they thought, thought it was.

Is that enough to qualify for a losing streak yet?

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The Less Amazing Three Legged Man

Well. Going crutchless was a bad call.I had a really hard time walking on Saturday and was in a lot of pain. It was more than just fatigue from lack of use, too. When I tried to stretch it, it felt like it was going to snap again. So, I stopped. I'm going to see the doctor again and push for an MRI so we can find out what is really going on in there. In the meantime, I have procured a cane. It's not rhinestone studded and it doesn't have a laser. It's made of wood and has a curved handle. If not for the painted, carved parrot head at the end of the curve, it would look like an old man cane. Let's all take a moment and be thankful for the parrot.

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The Amazing Two Legged Man!

I am now fully off the crutches. I'm not jogging around or anything, but I am walking under my own power. I've got a slight limp, but I'm not shuffling or dragging a dead leg behind me. Some friends have suggested a cane. They would prefer one with LEDs or rhinestones or maybe something concealed in the handle. I think they are just enjoying how silly I look. There is one oddity about the whole thing, other than the fact that, a month later, there is still bruising. When I walk, my left arm still keeps in synch with my left leg, instead of alternating. It is used to reaching out in support with a crutch when that leg steps. The overall effect is that I look like a white guy trying badly to be hip.

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Jump For Joy

Yesterday, Josh was working on his homework. He usually gets a multi-page packet on Monday that is due on Friday. This week, a few of his pages dealt with the concept of estimating. For example, one page asks him to circle the activity that will take longer. The picture on the left is of a girl drawing a flower. The picture on the right is of a girl drawing a full mural. You get the idea. The other class of problem gives an activity and asks the student to circle the correct estimate. Here's one for you:

How long you would jump rope:

1 minute?
1 hour?
1 week?

What do you suppose Josh answered? Therein lies the story...
Josh circled "1 hour". She-who-was-checking-the-homework told him that his answer was wrong. "Think about it, Josh. Would the amount of time you jumped rope be closer to a minute or closer to an hour?" Josh was firm in his beliefs. "An hour!" They went back and forth a few times with Josh stubbornly refusing to admit he was wrong and Mom trying to get him to fix his work. (His Mom and I are such reasonable people. Whereby did he acquire this stubbornness?) Then, inspiration struck! "All right, Josh. If you want to keep that answer, prove it. Show me that you can jump rope for an hour." I think she expected him to back down. Things do not always go as planned. "You watch. I'll prove you, Mom!"

There were some minor modifications made to the challenge. He's not coordinated enough to jump rope for a minute, let alone an hour. So, we decided that just jumping up and down would be close enough for the scale of the experiment. He immediately proceeded to jump up and down. We figured he'd last five minutes. At five minutes, he asked how long he'd been going. Maya told him that it had been five minutes. "I only have five minutes left?" Ummmmm. No. You have fifty-five. "But I have to pee." Excellent. An opening. "Just admit you were wrong and then you can stop and go to the bathroom," said Mom. "I'm not wrong!" Seeing he'd not be allowed a break, he dropped his pants to his ankles while continuing to jump and proceeded to water the lawn. Picture a hose that has been turned on while nobody is holding the end. When he was done, he pulled them back up, still jumping all the while. He made it to fifteen minutes and announce, "I'm hungry." Another opening. "If you give up, you can stop and have a snack." Do you think Josh gave up? Of course not. He hopped into the house and grabbed the box of Rice Krispies. He tried to eat handfuls of cereal while continuing on his task. He did the same with a drink of water. Still he jumped on.

Finally, the hour ended and Josh was triumphant. He was red-faced, hungry, and tired, but he was successful. And we had to write a note on his homework. We didn't want the teacher to say, "The answer is a minute. Not an hour. You don't jump rope for an hour..." We all know where that would lead...

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Who Wants to See Gross Foot Pics?

I have a few pictures of the bruising on my leg from the calf muscle tear. They look pretty nasty. These were taken 2 weeks after the injury. Any bets on how long it will take for the bruises to clear? Click on if you want to see.


This one is a wider shot to try to get the full effect.


Zoomed in here for increased blotchiness resolution


The foot bruise is pretty sizable


An uninjured leg, which doesn't look all that appealing either.

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Regime Turnover

Just a brief heads up that I am contributing to a new blog. It was started by James over at Aces Full. It's a time limited blog that will run up to the last day of Dubya's Presidency. All of the authors are left of the political spectrum and most of us seem to favor Obama. Hopefully, it will have interesting observations on the environment between now and next January. Or maybe it will just be a bunch of "crazy libruls" ranting. Check it out and see for yourself. It's called Regime Turnover. I personally think our logo should be Dubya wrapped in a flaky pastry and drizzled with a fruit sauce, but I'm not in charge.

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Diebold Lets the Cat Out of the Bag

Sometimes the timing is too perfect. Check out this news report on Diebold.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

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The San Diego Primaries

Well. I did my civic duty a few weeks back. It may even have counted. But with the electoral system out here in California, I have no great confidence. Time for a briwei rant on primary day in San Diego...

Last time I voted, we had those Diebold machines. You know, the ones that tell you that you voted, but offer no evidence that the votes you cast are what was recorded? Well, those machines were decertified for a wide number of reasons. Apparently, when an independent team was allowed to attack the system, they were able to corrupt the election database without needing access to the voting machines at all. Oh, and Diebold changed the software weeks before the election without informing the Secretary of State. So, we were back to paper ballots, which was fine with me. I feel qualified to color in an oval fully. I didn't know how it was going to play out until I got to my polling place. There's the background and now the rant.

The first thing that is ridiculous out here is how our polling places work. A cynical man might think it was designed to suppress voter turnout. Oh, wait. I AM a cynical man. My polling place was in someone's garage. Not a mechanic type garage either. This was a single-family residence two-car garage cleaned up for the purpose of hosting voters. There is no easy way to know where your polling place is and it isn't always the same place. The signage pointing out my polling place was poor, especially at night, but I found it anyway.

I walked in and got my ballot. As a voter unenrolled in an party, I was given the choice of American Independent or Democratic primary ballots. I could also have skipped the primary altogether and just voted on the ballot questions, but that is a whole other rant. I took a Democratic ballot while commenting that the Republicans didn't want my vote in the primary. They only wanted it in the general election. So, they don't want my opinion. Only my vote. This rankled the poll worker. "The Republicans aren't the only primary you can't vote in. You can't vote in the Green, Libertarian, or Peace and Freedom either." Excellent. So, we are putting the Republicans on par with those? If only. "That may be true. But of those, only the Republican candidate has a shot at being President." She grumbled a bit, but left me alone while I filled in my ovals.

While I was doing that, someone else asked about the electronic voting machines. She gave them a form they could fill out to submit to the registrar of voters requesting they bring the machines back. There was no form to request they be kept out. I chimed in. "I'm glad they're gone. I'd rather have a more secure and accurate way to vote." I think I pushed another of her buttons. She proceeded to proclaim loudly how insecure our votes actually were currently and how much more accurate the Diebold system was. It was on.

"Accurate? How accurate is a system that had precincts with well over 100% turnout during the last election?"
"That's because of provisional votes. Those have to be counted somewhere. This way they are securely recorded."
"Ah, yes. Our votes would be much more secure in a hackable, proprietary voting machine."
"It's not hackable!"
"Sure it is. There are plenty of examples of people who were able to pop open the back and hack them."
"Ah, but you need ACCESS to do that."
"Psh. Access is easy..."
"People don't have access!"
"They do if they have the machine before the morning of the elections, which is standard practice around here."

At that point she decided she was not going to convince me and I might sway others, so she shut up. When last we had paper ballots, I remember feeding mine into a machine that scanned and counted it. The people present had no way of opening the box. That was not the case this time. She took my paper ballot. She could have looked at it if she had wanted. Then it was stuffed into a slot in a cardboard box. Diebold may have been more secure than THAT, but that is not how we did it previously. I wonder if the system was intentionally made insecure to make us want to go back to the corrupt machines.

By the way, I don't buy that whole 'provisional vote' crap. For that to be true, the precinct would have to have close to 100% turnout AND have a large number of provisional ballots turned in there. That is beyond statistically improbable. As to the access question, I think I covered that two years ago with an article about No Sleepovers. In short, she's a partisan hack trying to influence electoral policy from her post as a neutral poll worker.

But don't worry. That wasn't the only questionable thing we encountered on election day. She-who-got-pretty-darn-frustrated didn't know where our polling place was. She saw some signs not too far from our house pointing to a polling place, so she naturally assumed that this must be ours. It was the polling place that was the shortest drive from our house, but the neighbor's garage may have been closer as the crow flies. There were three problems with this place. The first was that it was not her polling place. The second was that nobody there could help her find her actual polling place. And the third was that it was a church! So much for separation of church and state, eh? WWJVF?

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I Accidentally Pooped on My Toe

Sometimes, it is good to be on crutches. Of course, it is even better not to be home. That was the case last night. I was at a theater meeting leaving she-who-says-I'm-no-help-on-crutches-anyway to get the kids through the tub and into bed. As such, this is a retelling of the tale I was told when I got home...

Josh has been battling a cold all week, but looked to be on the upswing. He was having his bath when he realized that he needed to use the potty. He made his move for the seat of honor. Did he make it? Well, Josh made a very matter of fact pronouncement from the bathroom. "Mom? There's an emergency." She-who-was-trying-for-a-moment's-peace called back. "What kind of emergency?" After all, when you are 7, there are emergencies of different scales. For example, "I can't find my special face cloth" might constitute an emergency for him, but not for us. "I accidentally pooped on my toe," was what he actually responded with. I don't know what visual this conjures for you, but I imagine him making it to the throne and having a minor mishap while wiping or something equally minor. Still, this was enough to get Mom to come investigate.

If there was an award for understatement, Josh would win it in a landslide. It was true that he had, indeed, pooped on his toe. However, he neglected to mention that in order to do that he had hit everything between his butt and his toe. He also got the rug, the floor, and the tub. I, too, can understate things by saying that his stomach was a little upset.

It was all cleaned up by the time I got home, so I was spared most of the experience. The only part I got was the good part. The story.

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Oops, I Did It Again

This is NOT a post on Britney. This is a post on where you can find your gastrocnemius. It's also a post about my skills at basketball. Mostly, it's an opportunity for you all to mock me again...

I have a bad history with basketball. I seem to get hurt playing more often than I ought to. On one occasion, I broke my hand without any contact from anyone. I was running, stumbled, and fell. I tried to catch myself with my hand, but didn't place it well. I rolled forward over it and *snap!*.

She-who-is-not-to-be-trifled-with wouldn't let me go to the ER and get X-Rays until I had helped my sister with her resume. After all, I had invited her and she had driven and hour. In fairness, I think she was more angry about the fact that we were moving in less than a week and it meant she had to drive the U-Haul. And lift the boxes. And do the unpacking.

So, what does that have to do with today? Well, we are going to Playa Del Carmen in a month. And I played basketball on Tuesday. And the wait at the ER was 3.5 hours. The middle part? I missed a rebound and the action was heading the other way. I landed, turned, pushed off, and tried to run. I heard a popping sound and it felt like someone pelted the back of my calf with a tennis ball. Then it became really hard to put pressure on it.

My friends all weighed in with their opinions and it was decided that we had no clue what it was. Since I could move my toes, we ruled out broken bones. I could squeeze the Achilles with no pain, so we ruled that out. I iced it for 20 minutes and once of the guys drove my car back to the office. Why didn't I go get it looked at right away? HMO. Since I was capable of driving, I had to go to my after hours care facility. Thankfully, it was my left leg. So, I made the 40 minute drive to the disease factory. The lobby was full of flu victims.

I was told up front the wait would be long, but I got a pleasant surprise. She-who-is-full-of-surprises decided to meet me and help me through the process. I'm not sure how I would have done it without her. She got me things from the car. Questioned the staff on my behalf. She even took the sweaty sneaker and sock off my foot so the nurse could make sure my circulation was OK. Now THAT is love.

After my X-Ray, they were nice enough to let me wait in the hall outside radiology and away from all the flu cases. After that it was just waiting and icing and waiting and shifting position. I finally got to see the doctor and got my diagnosis. X-Rays were clear and there was no reason to believe I needed an MRI. The verdict? A partially torn gastrocnemius muscle. For those who don't know, that is the larger of the two calf muscles. My left calf looks like Popeye's forearm.

The big surprise was that my treatment was NOT to involve ibuprofen or other NSAIDs. Apparently, medial calf injuries are prone to bleeding and they don't want me to get a hematoma. I've been prescribed R.I.C.E. That's Rest Ice Compression and Elevation. I have to stay fully on crutches for one week. Then I gradually put pressure on it for another week. Then I slowly work up the activity level and am back in business by the Mexico trip. This is good news as it means my injury is not life-threatening. If it had impacted the vacation, my life would have been threatened. ;-)

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Dim Sum is People!!!

If you have never gone out for Dim Sum and are culinarily adventurous, I recommend it. I am not, but she-who-deserves-a-night-out is. So, I thought I'd see what I could find that was to the North of us. I know what is to the South and wanted something against the flow of traffic. Here is an unedited snap of a section of my search:


Note the first entry on the map search and tremble.

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