This cartoon is a fun reminder of the early stages of relationships, when one is still finding out about the other's haps and mishaps, mistakes and corrections. Click the image to be taken to a larger view on the "Foxes In Love" Web page.
Ah, memories . . . !
Peter
Since my last health update, there's been a lot of "hurry up and wait" and several frustrating disagreements among medical professionals who can't agree on what they want to do to me. I'm beginning to feel like a laboratory guinea-pig.
All the doctors agree that "Something Must Be Done!" - but they can't seem to agree what that Something should be. The main point of contention appears to be whether I need three more vertebrae to be fused, adding on to my present fusion site, or whether the existing fusion should be removed and a sort of reinforcing tube or grid built around all the vertebrae in my lumbar spine. The latter is agreed to be the strongest option, and the least likely to give further problems in future, but it's also the most invasive and potentially harmful if something goes wrong. (Doctors: "Nothing Will Go Wrong!" Their nurses, talking to me when the doctor has gone out for a moment: "Don't You Believe It!" I think some of the doctors want to do it purely so they can say they've had experience with the procedure, but I'd rather have a doctor who's done it before, as many times as possible, so he's not graded low on the learning curve.)
I've just about finished with the tests that were required to get this far. (Believe it or not, it's taken over six months to go through them all!) The file of test results is pretty thick by now, but it still hasn't provided enough evidence for the doctors to decide on the best approach. I'm going to give them until the end of February, then, if there's still no decision, I'm going to take the entire file and CD's of all the imaging and go to a completely different hospital network in the DFW area for a second opinion. That will delay proceedings, but I hope will provide greater clarity. Besides that, the doctors in the other network appear to be considerably more experienced than those in the local one, so I hope I'll be dealing with specialists who've faced this combination of issues before and treated it/them successfully.
Meanwhile, thanks to your generosity, dear readers, the bills are paid up to date, and so far (cross fingers, touch wood, etc.) things look manageable in terms of future planning. I remain very grateful to you all. I'd hate to have financial worries hanging over the physical ones! Thanks to you, I haven't got that added complication. Pain remains a daily problem, but I've added another medication targeting peripheral neuropathy issues, which has helped reduce the dosage of painkillers I've been popping. That makes me feel less zombie-fied, if you know what I mean, and is yet another reason for gratitude towards God, the doctors and all of you.
So far, so good. I'll provide another update in a couple of months.
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
Joe Satriani needs no introduction to electric guitar aficionados. He's had a long and extraordinarily talented career, and is one of the top performers in his field. Go read his bio at Wikipedia to get some idea of how creative he's been, and how many others he's taught and/or influenced along the way.
I couldn't possibly list all his hits and noteworthy performances; a blog post containing them would take days to write and probably break Blogger's download bandwidth. Instead, I'm going to take the simple approach and play just one: "The Forgotten (Part 2)" from his third studio album, 1989's "Flying In A Blue Dream".
There's an enormous number of his tracks recorded on his YouTube channel and elsewhere. Go enjoy them all!
Peter
Yesterday's rough and tumble will continue today, with all sorts of loose ends to be tied up and put out of the way. Nothing earth-shattering (at least, I hope not!) but enough to keep me from blogging as per usual.
Regular blogging will recommence with next Sunday's musical miscellany. Please amuse yourself with the bloggers in the sidebar until then. They write good, too!
Peter
I'm being bombarded with various bits and pieces of life, the universe and everything. I'm arguing with doctors, trying to sort out a tax question, cleaning up and throwing out a bunch of "stuff" in the garage, doing normal domestic chores, and trying to research a particular issue for inclusion in the book I'm currently working on (the second volume of a US Civil War naval trilogy).
Basically, I have to take a day off blogging to catch up with myself and some of these issues. I'll try to make time to put up a proper blog post tomorrow.
Have fun, y'all!
Peter
