Silicon Valley Redneck

Another reason to beware of wild rodents

This morning, near the beginning of walkies, I spotted a fuzzy tan object in a parking turnout.

Stepping over the low fence, I got close enough to confirm that it was, indeed, a dead (and uneaten) woodrat.  One of the docents stopped at the same time, and spoke of tossing it in the freezer, on general principles.

Stepping back over the fence to the trail, I clonked my little toe on the top rail.  Five-Fingerses provide little protection against toe-clonkage.  Now I've got a purple toe.

Well, at least it doesn't seem to be broken this time.  Didn't get notably worse as I continued for another 3½ miles or thereabouts, and it's not terribly sensitive.  Just kinda sore, and very purple indeed.

I keep thinking I should install a set of steel toe caps on the old pair of foot gloves.  One cap per toe, of course.  Maybe with claws, like those things Die Fledermaus wears.  (Yeah, probably a bad idea: with the extra leverage, that fence likely would have broken my toe.)

Eye. Mote. Blunt instrument with rough edges.

Assembly not recommended.

At least this one didn't (yet...) end up with Yet Another Trip To The Emergency Room, though it sure felt like it for a while there.

I woke up a bit past midnight with considerable pain in my left eye, as if there were something in it.  After splashing water on it, I still couldn't see properly, though the pain was fading quickly.  That eye just wouldn't focus.

An hour later, my vision was nearly back to normal - whew!

Since, when I woke up, I had the vague sense that I'd been rubbing my eye with the back of my hand, my best guess is that I'd been rubbing it with the cast... maybe to remove a bit of dust or a stray eyelash, or maybe the hand and eye had just ended up in the same location.  Funny how a wrist injury can lead to eye damage....

Anyway, to prevent further eyeball scratchery, I've just carved up an old sock to make a nighttime cast cover.  No more exposed rough edges!

still mostly one-handed

yes, my left hand will be mostly out of commission for some time yet... though i've been regaining use of the fingers.  using the hand for typing is problematic, for various reasons - can't position the hand properly, can't see past the cast, etc.

here's the x-ray from last sunday:

...funny, now my arm glows in the dark.  well, the outer layer of the cast does, anyway.  guess it's supposed to warn me if there are orcs about, or maybe russian spies.  is a luminous overcast some sort of omen?

anyway, i'm feeling somewhat better, and it must be time to play pimp my cast!  christmas lights are the obvious thing to add... parts on order, and i'll need a bit more use of my fingers.  meanwhile...

hmmm...

where's a roll of double-sticky tape and that ipod?

it's the svr podcast!

data sharing

it turns out
that the emergency department in roseville
doesn't communicate with the orthopedics department
in santa clara
so i need a referral
from my pcp
in milpitas
now i sit here awaiting a call
to let me know
that he's retrieved the records
of my emergency room visit
and set up the referral
so i can get my wrist set properly

pardon my archytyping

i learned an important lesson in three parts yesterday.

1. roller skates aren't the same as ice skates.  roller skates are sneaky buggers.
2. i'm not a little kid anymore.
3. a broken wrist is no fun at all.

so, i ended up spending the evening in the kaiser emergency department in roseville having my wrist x-rayed and splinted.  my knee also got a bit tweaked, so that got x-rayed and prodded too, but there was nothing diagnosably wrong with it, and - as i'd kinda figured - it's mostly better this morning.

the drive home from roseville was not fun - dark, damp, one-handed, and, as mustapha says, in a great deal of pain.  the doctor had offered vicodin, but that would have meant looking for the pharmacy building in the darkness and drizzle, and i wouldn't have wanted to take one until i got home anyway - imagine tossing narcotics into the driving conditions - and, fortunately, i had several pills left in the vicodin bottle from my previous mishap, so i could dope myself at bedtime.

this morning, i need to call the local orthopedics department to see about getting this fixed properly.  so much for my previous plans for the day....

meanwhile, i'm typing like archy.

Slowly healing...

Grumble, grumble....

Let's take inventory, here:

The finger that was dislocated is still stiff, swollen, and a bit sore, but not really being a problem (I don't use that finger much in typing anyhow, as it turns out).

The broken toe isn't being bothersome, except sometimes when provoked.

However....

I've still got some lingering trouble with the rest of the injured hand... sometimes including pain... sometimes all the way up to the elbow.

The entire front of the injured foot is still somewhat swollen, so spending a lot of time on my feet is out (though I went for a little quarter-mile walk this morning, and was OK).

And....

The absolute worst problem the past several days has been the neck-and-shoulder problem, apparently related to having slept in a bad position while trying to protect the finger.  That's gradually getting better, but still distractingly uncomfortable, and sitting in the car makes it worse in a hurry.

I spent part of this afternoon rearranging the computers, so now I have foot space under my desk, and I won't be slouching left as much.  This ought to help.  It's only a preliminary rearrangement, though; the Great Datacenter Move will involve some carpentry, which my finger isn't up to.

Oh, well... I have at least been managing to accomplish some little stuff.  Added a feature to a client's firmware to discourage the sort of hardware failure they had in their lab yesterday; also, made some progress in figuring out how to use Scheme.  (I learned a rather obscure dialect of LISP way back when, and haven't exactly kept in practice, so I'm using the defun-ish form of define, and constantly having to look up the names of common predicates (which are not the same in Scheme as in traditional LISP), and otherwise acting like I'm not totally in the swing of things, but at least I've figured out how and where to drop in anonymous lambda expressions.)

Some holiday weekend this is

It looks like a fine sunny Labor Day weekend out there....

Alas, I'm not out enjoying it, nor yet blogging up a storm, nor even being productive on any of the several projects awaiting my attention.

While my injuries from a week ago are healing - the finger is mostly usable, and the toe really isn't bothering me - I'm having secondary and tertiary problems.

Secondary problems: the front part of the foot with the broken toe is swollen.  This makes walking not such a good idea, as the foot gets sore in a hurry.  The hand is likewise a bit swollen and sore, sometimes all the way up to the wrist, or, in extreme moments, the elbow.  Even more secondarily, my left shoulder hurts in a way that suggests that I slept in a wrong position while trying to avoid further injury to the finger, perhaps Wednesday night.

Tertiary problems: being cooped up instead of going for brisk walks has got my general health kinda down.  That and the lack of sleep caused by the sore shoulder and general stress, and I've been having a Really Bad Weekend.  To top it off, something seems to be setting my allergies off.  Phooey!

And now, back to vegetating.

Rite of passage

I guess everybody is supposed to break a bone as part of growing up... generally on a nice civilized playground close to home, right?  And at an early age, when such damage heals quickly?

Well, this past Sunday afternoon, I was out at Arroyo Seco, having a bit of a guided tour of the upper gorge (120 miles from home, maybe 4 miles from the road)....

Nice scenery, as we hiked in along the fire road.

(As usual, click fer bigger.)

OK, so now we're off the fire road, at the end of the trail along the creek, and about to get wet.

Nice creek.

Snake!  (But no mushroom, and definitely no badger badger badger.)

As you can see, it was a fine day for a hike/float/swim up the creek there.

Then, without warning, while strolling through ankle-deep rapids, I was attacked by a gang of rocks!

They had me outnumbered!  One yanked my feet out from under me, another hit me on the left ring finger, while a third hit me on the right little toe!

The afflicted finger seemed to be moving in directions it shouldn't... before it stiffened up and didn't want to move at all.  The toe seemed to be in likewise bad shape.

With considerable assistance, I made it downstream to the trail, where my companions came up with a splint for the finger, which by this time really seemed to need one.  Then a 3-mile hike back along the fire road to get back to the car....

Then, back to the Bay Area, and a long evening in the emergency department at Kaiser, being pushed to & from the X-ray department in a wheelchair (c'mon, three miles of fire road, and then they're worried about my ability to walk around the hospital?).  Diagnosis: a dislocated finger and a broken toe.  Home with a splint, and bandage, and a bottle of narcotic painkillers, most of which seem to be going unused (Monday morning, the pain was in the less-nuisance-than-narcotics category).

Today, off to the sports medicine department.  The doctor says I won't be doing any hiking for several weeks.  I get a less cumbersome splint for the finger, and nothing for the toe (I think a sandal with the toe-strap loosened will be at least as good as one of those clunky post-op shoes).  Maybe I'll try milling a slot in an old sandal, so the toe can dangle unbothered.

I now know that my bones aren't unbreakable.  Also that last year's sandals no longer have good tread, and that, for exploring Arroyo Seco, a lower-profile flotation device than an inner tube would be better.  Maybe a kickboard, or a smallish air mattress.

Typing is still slow & inaccurate, and that's enough of it for now.

Not much in-front-of-the-computer time the past week

The lack of posting lately is partly due to my recent inability to spend much time in front of the computer.

I did something evil to my lower back on Monday, not noticing it at the time, and my ability to sit in one place, or to stand around, has been quite limited.  This made, e.g., a Friday-morning dog & pony show at a client site highly uncomfortable, and I spent most of that afternoon horizontal and largely inert.

It seems to be getting better now - this follows the pattern of a similar problem in 2004, which motivated me to get a decent office chair in the belief that it was caused by poor posture while sitting in front of the computer.

I've been using Tiger Balm, despite the annoying radio ads, and it seems to help, though I keep having this urge to photoshop a martyr's belt onto Tigger - which is perhaps more appropriate than it sounds, given the role of the Tamil Tigers in pioneering the use of these devices.  Tiger Balm has the interesting side effect of repelling moths... just in case anyone actually needs a personal moth repellent.  (Does camphor also work on mosquitoes?  That would be more useful.)

Posting will likely continue to be light for the next couple of weeks, as I catch up on the work I should have been doing last week (both in front of the computer and at the workbench), and commence work on Operation Mothball Humball - about which, more later.

For now, my sitting-still time for this session is about used up.  Time to get moving....

Not too bad this morning.

Woke up with the graft site a little sore, but not a big deal.  Took an Amoxicillin (required) and a Toradol (probably a good idea), but no Darvocet... if memory serves, I may need those later, but not this morning.
Check the morning mail... among the spam that made it past my filter, there's this:

Best Narcotic Solutions

Gee, I think my best narcotic solution this morning is to leave 'em in the bottle.

I guess my liver must be in good shape.  Yesterday, I took 20mg of Valium at 12:45, another 10mg at 2:00, and a Darvocet at 3:45.  The doctor said I shouldn't drive for 12 hours (presumably relative to 2:00).  The fact sheet for Valium says it has a half-life of 6-8 hours.  I was certainly wobbly from 1:30 to around 5, and had my father drive me home a bit before 6 (retrieving my car is left as an exercise for later).  By 6:30, though, I had my balance back - not enough that I'd want to go rock-hopping, but I wasn't having to be careful about moving around - and was almost up to my normal level of alertness.

Time to figure out what's for breakfast....