I would weep for the stupid if I cared that much about them. But I don’t, so I don’t.
Here is hoping everyone has a wonderful weekend.
Nothing to talk about except my upcoming knee repair
It is no shocking news. But it is also news that does not cause one, especially me, to jump for joy.
I speak of knee surgery. I expected that my knee would need surgical repair given the kind of pain I’ve experienced along with the “popping” sound and often swelling seen. The time and date has yet to be determined yet my surgeon said that it needs to be done right away.
My problems aren’t a full-blown “blown knee” as you hear of in reference to some athletes. I do have both medial and lateral tears to the meniscus cartilage, the menisci being two crescent-shaped pads of tissue that disperse friction between the femur and tibia (a.k.a. leg bone and shin bone.) These type of cartilage can also be found in other areas of the body including the acromioclavicular joint or AC Joint, in the shoulder. My MRI likewise showed that a bone bruise is present in the medial tibial plateau. Although that plateau seems like it might be located somewhere in the highlands of Nevada, the medial tibial plateau is the area at the top of the shin bone, where that bone intersects with the femur. The bruise, the doctor explained, happens due to the wear and tear — no pun intended — of the menisci.
The MRI also showed a grade 1 strain of the medial collateral ligament, or MCL, the inner ligament in the knee that you hear so much about when used in relation to a hurt football or basketball player. Fortunately, a grade 1 strain is the mildest of three injury grades of the ligament.
There are a number of different arthroscopic techniques that orthopedic surgeons may use to make such repairs to the knee. It is usually a fairly short-in-duration surgery, relatively speaking, and is done in an outpatient setting. I will be under general anesthetic during the surgery and in recovery for a couple of hours. The first week afterwards will hopefully be spent laying in bed and not crying out in pain too much. I will be doing phone work during weeks 2 to 4. And, hopefully, I will be back up on my feet for more than just two hours in late March. I plan to keep writing so do not fear, EFD will (I hope) will be here.
Waiting for my diagnosis. What a perfect time for rampant hypochondria!
Unless you are some kind of Sadomasochist nut case you probably don’t enjoy reading about others’ aches and pains. Well, that is, unless you are looking for some kind of medical condition that you have. Believe me when I say I’ve been down that road before.
If one is prone to hypochondria, heaven help you, the Internet has the material for you. It seems that the access to this material could bump up your worries on health to a whole ‘nother level, something to near what is actually a real syndrome called “Medical Students’ Disease.” From the Wikipedia, a very worthwhile place to make everything a bit worse, is an explanation of the disease:
“Baars (2001) writes:
- Suggestible states are very commonplace. Medical students who study frightening diseases for the first time routinely develop vivid delusions of having the “disease of the week”—whatever they are currently studying. This temporary kind of hypochondria is so common that it has acquired a name, “medical student syndrome.”
When I began studying for my EMT license, I found myself with such a phobia. Every time I would get a random gas pain I would think I was having pancreatitis or appendicitis or some type of -itis. Eventually, as I met other EMTs and nurses and other medical professionals, I would get them to admit to temporarily experiencing this hypochondria. Of course, I had a doctor who was a hypochondriac. Well, maybe he wasn’t filled so much with hypochondria than a medically-induced gasconading. The doctor was always one up on you in his back and cervical spine problems. I had a laminectomy, he went temporarily paraplegic. And so forth and so on.
I have noted here that I have been having knee problems of late, that I believed to emanate from a fall on all fours onto the pavement. After more than a month of walking around on a right knee with light to extreme pain, I finally went to a knee specialist who believed I might have a torn cartilage. The pain has intensified for the last few days and I lost a bit of sleep for at least two nights. Yesterday I finally had an MRI in which the technician put some kind of cap on top of the knee and I hurt like a sonofabitch the entire time. Good I said only that “I hurt like hell” in reply to the tech asking if I was okay. When I went into the next room to get the pocket items that had been locked up, this little bespectacled little girls in pigtails was sitting on a chair and said with a smile: “I hope you feel better.” Awww man! I don’t know whether she was about to get a MRI as well, but I was actually kind of shocked, disarmed, as some would say.
Today, rather remarkably, my doctor’s office — this was a worker’s comp injury so I didn’t go to the VA — called and said my results were back and the doctor could see me in the morning to go over them. Well, I started hitting the internets, looking at and imagining what it is that is my problem that has caused so me so much distress. I just can’t wait for the doctor. Got to know, now! Figure out what I can do if it’s this or that. Will it require surgery? How long will I be laid up? Is it even worse than I imagine?
Well, all I got to say is “stay tuned’ because if I don’t know, I doubt any reader is going to know unless it’s a guess. Or else they are hacking my computer and looking to see what’s wrong with me before I know. And I got this other pain in my right side and my hair on the top of my head is gone and … Oh well, I shaved my head, didn’t I? But then there is this numbness …
Mickey Ds new idea that came and went and will probably come back again
One must wonder if the Golden Arches are succumbing to that old age droop? For instance, a very curious story appeared this morning — I don’t subscribe to the source so I will just have to encapsulate it — that says McDonald’s is considering extending its breakfast hours past 10:30 a.m. It makes one ask: Is the company going back to the future or what?
A McD’s franchisee named Herb Peterson co-opted the idea of an eggs Benedict-like sandwich from Jack-in-the-Box in late 1971, according to a historical timeline on the Mickey D Website. Thus was born the Egg McMuffin. Funny little name. Say it: Egg McMuffin.
McDonald’s had several breakfast items by the end of the 1970s such as the Big Breakfast. The fact that McDonald’s would not sell anything but hamburgers and fries after 10:30 a.m. became an article of faith for McDonald’s and was pretty much a punchline until people stopped thinking it was funny and just said “To hell with it. I’ll go to Jack-in-the-Box.”
I understand McDonald’s has been making the late-night drunk crowd happy in some places where it has sold breakfast items late at night. So, now the Mickey D folks have thought about expanding breakfast like, how many, fast food places already do.
One must admit though, as far as fast food places are concerned, McD’s has a pretty fair breakfast food product. They even now feature an egg white Egg McMuffin for all you health nuts out there. I’m not saying McDonald’s or any of the other fast food places make that great a breakfast meal. I actually like the Sausage Cheese and Egg Biscuit although it is definitely not good for me. But it is possible to drive down the freeway, while eating one’s Egg McMuffin, Hash Browns, drinking a cup of coffee, reading the morning news paper, talking on the cell phone while also taking selfies of you and the mannequin you brought along to pass for a fellow traveler riding through the HOV lanes.
McDonald’s probably will make millions off the more Egg McMuffins they sell after 10:30, enough so that some manager will slap himself in the head like the person in the V8 commercial upon being informed by a bean counter that the company made another $100 billion. But really all those mornings in which we were screwed over by some young kid who says, with a sneer, “we ain’t servin’ no breakfast no more to-day” do they count for anything? Well, I suppose not.
And when all else fails, talk turns to Texas
Seems Texas is in the political news today. Nothing new. It shouldn’t be. I mean why should it, given this is the second largest state in population and the second largest in area? It’s two (smack) two (smack) two number two states in one.
Sr. Comadreja, a.k.a Sen. Ted Cruz, the Canadian-Cuban who represents the two-for-two state in the upper house was visiting here in Beaumont yesterday at the Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum. The symbolism is not lost because the museum is only a short-short away from the gusher that started the modern petroleum industry. So, Cruz represents the “new” Tea Party face of the Republican party, but doesn’t want to shy away from that good ol’ awl money. Dana Bash of CNN was interviewing Cruz at the Boomtown, asking him about all kinds of insignificant matters. Such as Ted Nugent campaigning for Greg Abbott, Texas attorney general and candidate for the Republican nomination for governor.
Nugent said some things which are really not very meaningful when it comes to anything. Unless, perhaps you interpret ol patriotic, draft-dodging Teddy’s words as racist. But the media, mostly the cable news networks, have to pounce on these things. He called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel” and some other things which weren’t nice. When Abbott was questioned about the aging rock singer’s remarks, the GOP goober-natorial candidate for governor ran away from the media with both hands over his ears, screaming: “Nonononononon!!” All of that is pretty difficult since Abbott’s weird encounter, some years back, when a tree fell on him as he was jogging. I mean that is what insurance companies mean when they say: ” … act of God … ” That didn’t stop lawyer Abbott for suing the pants and just about everything else off the people “responsible.” Yes indeed, what a good Republican-stop-lawsuit-abuse fellow. As a matter of fact, Abbott continued to sue folks upon taking oath as Texas AG, especially suing the U.S. of A.
Perhaps for good measure, or Good Hair, Wolf Blitzer had old Good Hair himself on his program this afternoon. Gov. Rick Perry was hemmin’ and hawin’ about, whom else? Ted Nugent.
“He shouldn’t have said that about the president, said Perry. “But we should be focused on what’s really important here.”
Whatever that might be.
“Ted has said some pretty outrageous things … ” I do have a problem with somebody calling the president a mongrel.”
“That was a ‘subhuman mongrel!’ ” Wolf reiterated.
Yeah, well. A few free minutes of watching the “news” after an exhausting day all shot to hell by the “subhuman” elite of Texas politics.