sunday night check-in

i apologize for not "checking in" before now -- and hope to post something worth a read tomorrow or tuesday.  my legs are giving me fits, and the pain/fevers/chills from the infected shoulder make me a very uninteresting person, indeed.

saw the surgeon thursday, and remembered why he and his staff will always be heros to me.  what they are attempting to do for me is technically and medically difficult, something my go-to-guy doctor and i both tend to forget.  so it mattered to take a few minutes thursday to recognize that fact.

the down side of such emoting was the ensuing hug fest -- which rapidly degenerated into friendly shoulder pats that nearly made me scream.

there was one little bit of unexpected news.

dr. shoulderman was trying to walk me through the process and i was only half-listening, as this is not exactly new territory.  he'd gone over the ins-and-outs of the first surgery, talked about the need for a new infectious disease specialist, the PICC line, and 6 weeks or so or intravenous antibiotics.  (he briefly cradled his head in what might have been exasperation at the news that i was still taking oral doxicycline when surgery was 10 days away.  so shoot me... no one told me to stop and it just did not occur to me that it would screw up the culture sampling.  i stopped taking it thursday and pray that was soon enough for it to exit my tissues.)

he paused, and i entertained notions of actually going home and curling up under a few inches of soft flannel, as i just could not get warm.  i have even resorted to covering my feet, something that causes severe burning pain, as even my feet feel cold these days -- and this, after a decade of sleeping with them uncovered.  i also thought about trying to line up the roto-rooter treatment for my port, which, at the moment, will allow stuff to be administered but will not, in turn, surrender any blood for testing.  and, to be honest, there were some thoughts of stopping somewhere for lunch.  i was thinking taco bell when dr. shoulderman's voice took on a new tone...

"after 3-6 months, if all goes well, we will want to go in and remove the spacer, of course.  if it appears successful and we find no obvious evidence of infection, there are then two choices."

i think i probably smiled.  i didn't know i had choices!  this was great news!  i thought there was just the one option, the option we had bandied about for over a year -- the old reverse total shoulder replacement.  a woman with choice, a woman with options, now that's a happening woman.  i put taco bell and roto-rooting plans away, and tried to pay attention.

"we can put in a new prosthesis..." he said this in the most desultory way, as if it were something too awful to contemplate.  odd, i thought, since that is, of course, the best outcome -- a clean shoulder, a new bit of bionic wonder.

"i thought of you last week as we finished surgery on a gentleman in much the same situation. i put in a new prosthesis, the frozen sections looked good, it seems like he had beat the infection.  then eight days later, i get a call saying that something has grown in his cultures -- p. acnes.(this is the major suspect in my case, as well) -- and now he is back on the merry-go-round."

why, dr. shoulderman, that sounds suspiciously like a cautionary tale!

more sober talking, more somber scenarios in which it looks like i have beat the pathogens all to pieces when, behold!  the suckers were just lurking in the hope of reasserting themselves on some new implant.  there were dire descriptions of the state of my bones (no news there), and at the opportune moment, shoulderman shifted gears...

"and so it may very well be that at the time of the second surgery, i will have to assess the situation and consider leaving you with a flail shoulder."

the smile stayed on my face because i had not the least notion of what a flail shoulder was.  i knew the term flail chest from some EMT courses way back when -- and knew it to be a horrible trauma that basically unhinged the rib cage in folks who slam into the steering wheel in a car wreck.  inane smile still plastered on my face, i interrupted to make my inquiry into our brave new lexicon.

turns out that flail shoulder is the polite surgical term for no-freaking-shoulder-at-all.


in truth, this result had been mentioned before, but only in passing, and only, i thought, as a conversational oddity, a bit of ripley's believe it or not.  i remember, most specifically, my go-to-guy doctor whispering, several years back, "this is not going to end well."

dr. shoulderman, kind and handsome, talked on.  some people were able to train themselves to use scar tissue as a kind of new muscle, thereby allowing for some arm movement. i was particularly thrilled to hear that "some people can learn to bring their hand to the mouth."

unfortunately, even the most scintillating of conversations have to end (this one, as that one!).  but i've carried on the talk inside my head, a few minutes at a time, more if the fever spikes a good bit and my frustrations pop out.  i keep imagining what ifs that don't help one bit but are nonetheless all too probable.  how will i do x now, how will i do y?

within two days, fred was already able to think productive, forward-inclining thoughts.  yesterday, he even inquired about the possibility of an external bit of hardware with which i might regain control of my left arm, once it's been rendered flail.  i was dismissive, as it seems like dr. shoulderman would have brought that up right away in his extemporaneous powerpoint presentation.  fred, as usual, is a great point man, and a quick googling of "flail arm" turns up many examples of braces, hooks, and goth-inspired hardware that can be strapped on, and, if nothing else, used to make me look fierce, tough, and borderline biker.

Stanmore orthosis with hook:
Add a clutch and silvertone choker studded with Swarovski crystals for an easy day-to-evening look.

i don't know whether it is the stress of it all, suddenly, or what, but my left leg is now the fugly spitting image of the right one, and both are spasming to the beat of a whacked-out drummer.  i refuse to repeat the die hard description that one crps-er after another has ripped off and reiterated: "imagine being doused in gasoline, lit on fire, and then kept that way 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and knowing it was never going to be put out..." it's... depressing.

dr. shoulderman is wonderfully cognizant of my crps, and though we rarely discuss it, he is well-informed, as every orthopedic surgeon should be.  he has been distressed by the obvious crps spread, and the condition of my arms, as surgery anywhere is never wise with crps on board, and repeated surgeries in an area of lots of rsd activity is what polite society calls a "no-no."  so he decided to order repeat regional blocks in an effort to prevent further spread.  it was comforting, reassuring -- he cited a recent study, and did so in depth, an impressive feat for a man whose brain must be chock full o'important stuff.

tomorrow will be a long and uncomfortable day.  it's off to the hospital we go, for testing, testing, testing, and -- i predict -- some arguing with the billing office.  they say i owe over $3000 from a few years back -- they didn't file with my insurance company until 18 months passed from the date-of-service, and by then, i had switched to a new insurance, and -- of course -- the former company refused to pay.  if they make this admission contingent on paying that bill?  i will be in a tough spot.

ah, and tomorrow they'll culture skin and nares for mrsa... i have cultured positive several times before, therefore spending my time in isolation, with a very frustrated fred having to wear those awful yellow paper gowns, and be gloved up.

maybe i can have them give me the roto-rooter port clean-up tomorrow.  if we have to spend the day, may as well check off as many chores as possible.

so that's what has me away from the blog... although my heart is always at the manor, safe in marlinspike hall.

Headless, and yet weeping

seeing red by halo

These are the available choices:    

Either my head is going to explode or I am going to cry.

I am thinking that both will happen, as I've no control over one and the other will probably help me feel better.  If a burst head has any propensity for spawning hot fires -- you know, maybe in the corners of the room, where a stray bit of flaming cranium might land on our ancient brittle-dry silk tapestries -- then it could be that the wetness of my flailing tears might extinguish that dangerous spark.

Hmm?  Oh, well.  The doctor's office just called.  You know, the doctor and his team that I jovially designate as my MDVIP Go-To-Guy et al?  Remember the culture we arranged last Thursday from the fistula that developed near my left shoulder surgery sites, the same left shoulder now "suspected" of being reinfected, such that removal of the shoulder prosthesis looks probable before year's end?

The source of the constant pounding in my head, my daily fevers, the stabbing pain, once confined to deep within the ersatz joint, now traveling down the shaft of the humerus?

Yes, the fistula that delivered unto the nurse's culture swab a respectful quantity of yellowish pus... that in the days since has assumed the quality, in my mind, of thick molten gold, source of epidemiological enlightenment and an informed antibiotic choice.  I even thought, somewhat dramatically, that this opportunity might save my life.

I expected to hear a lot of things but not this as a conversational opening:

"It's all my fault."

The lab refused to run the cultures.  She sent the two swabs in for analysis using expired tubes.  She said she begged them to run it, but that they responded with some lame excuse.

Oh, what was it?  Oh, yeah:  "We could lose our accreditation as a lab..."

Fred informed me that the next time I called him "paranoid," he would remind me of today.

I think I was supposed to feel sympathy for the nurse.  Excuse me if I fail that expectation.  I would entertain the idea of seeing red were not the pressure inside my skull mounting at an alarming rate.

Is there some plot afoot in the universe that wants this infection to rage on, unabated?  That wants me to be left infected, headless -- and yet weeping?

I bet we don't even have any ice cream.

Lazy Daze

So I played my "tease" earlier this afternoon, by mentioning that Fred and I had taken Ruby the Honda CR-V on a jaunt to the orthopedic surgeon's office.

That's right, we zigged north, then zagged a bit back to the south on a different parallel, turned left (which I like to call "west") and followed the edge of the Airport Lagoon (very near the government offices for the theocratic divisions of the Lost Alp canton) until we reached ShoulderMan's hip-and-happening, totally digital office suites.  We have been there so often since the summer of 2008 that Fred is considering adding it to the underground tunnels issuing from the Haddock's ancestral home, Marlinspike Hall.  But since we are really just Lower Caste Caretakers of The Manor, he feels like he needs Captain Haddock's permission before digging.

You will note that I did take the time to copy-and-paste an entry earlier, as I felt like blogging but also wanted to pout and drink a fifth of whiskey.  It was a long appointment and we got lost on the way home.  My fault completely, because for some reason I said "straight ahead" when I meant "northeast."

I just spent a fair amount of time filtering the day through my sieve of a brain as I composed an email to a dear friend, Ms. Diana-With-An-H.  And since another dear friend or five will be dropping by the blog tonight, I figured I'd post my second cut-and-pasted email of the day.  You'll probably learn more details about ShoulderMan's digs and doings that way than if I just sat down and started some sort of fantastical preamble...

So "Howdy High" to my several Carols, the Brother-Units, Tully, and the incomparable Pig Man -- plus to all my favorite Spammer Blog Bots and especially to whomever it is back in Berkeley who still visits every 17.2 hours, as well as The Weirdo from Ames, my most faithful reader.

And how is this for a promise?  The next post, which may come tonight, actually, will be the long awaited Feline Video Update you've been CLAMORING for.  "Clamoring,"  I say, "CLAMORING!"  Yes, we are in need of some not-so-serious amusement around here.

Here is the missive just delivered to one of the Interwebs Best Buddies, Diana-With-An-H.  Oh, so that I may be even *more* lazy, here's what you need to know about her, beyond her general wonderfulness: she was cooking up something awesome for her husband (a very lucky man, in ways I cannot begin to explain) and she has been helping nurse a friend who just had a mastectomy.  "Lazy Son" is, specifically, Nanette's son... and the three of them went out to lunch yesterday.

Krapola!  I probably should peck out a bunch of footnotes to further erode your reading pleasure!

But I won't!

hey.

good for you -- now come cook us something!  nah -- yesterday i whipped up some soup for fred and the lesbians (+ miss kitty, grrrr) for the famous wednesday night "church" supper.  i was so out of it, it took me about 4 hours, which was ridiculous.  but it was good!  cream of potato with charred red pepper, black beans, and caramelized veggies.  he brought home the leftovers and it fed us today, which was nice.

we are doing a lot better today, for some reason.  or ... NEWS FLASH:  when i don't say a word about how i am feeling, he perks up and chatters away, the sweet boy.

i bet brenda did feel awful today... she sounded a little too energetic the other day.  and the radiation can be very debilitating but she knows that. she sounds like one tough cookie.  i hope she gets some rest... bless her heart. (and yours)

hey, is lazy son any sharper when annette is around?  and how are you and annette doing these days?

okay... so.  the visit was not good.  there were, however, two hysterical moments.  

1.  remember, i practically LIVED in the man's office from august 2008 thru the fall of 2010, and even popped in after losing my insurance.  he has an intellectually-challenged guy who works as his nursing aide, named Rex.  Rex is sweet as heck and knows me very well.  when he called my name to go back to the exam room, i was filling out paperwork and promptly dropped the clipboard, sending the forms flying, then knocked over a sign on the table when i reached to retrieve them.  well, while i was picking all that up... a woman got up, said "here i am," and went back to the back with him!  so that left me in front of the closed lock door yelling "rex!  rex!  i am locked out!"  finally a receptionist went and opened the door for me.  and there was rex, giving me the evil eye.  i didn't know rex had an evil eye in him!  i said "hi" and flashed him a toothy grin.  he said, suspiciously, "who are you? and who is the woman i just put in your room?"  turns out this long, lithe, lovely lady was pissed at having had to wait, and that, according to her, she should gone before me, having arrived earlier.  i mean, who gives a shit about stuff like "appointment time"?!  rex thought he had lost his mind, or that there were two profderiens (an *absurd* proposition) or that i had experienced a miracle, been cured, and was out of the wheelchair, looking like a fox.  they didn't even make her go back to the waiting room, but he did at least get my chart out of the box on her exam room!  rex is really wonderful, usually -- the time i kept landing in icu hitched up to a respirator?  when i went for the first postop appt, rex gave me a bear hug (can you say OUCH?) and burst into tears. "i was so worried about you!" 

2.  where was fred during all of that?  well, last night, at the "church" supper, he was washing a dish, put his hand in the dish drainer and got stabbed in the finger by a knife that someone had left point-up.  in the doctor's waiting rm, it opened up and started bleeding again.  so he got up to ask for a bandaid... and the woman handed him a "medical history" form, saying "you'll have to fill this out, first."  
the whole room cracked up...

okay, now for the serious stuff.  there is a 2 mm "black-ish" space surrounding the shaft portion of the implant, extending around its end for at least 3-4 inches.  that's the major change... and it usually means you-know-what.  it is very likely an infection as the only other option is air and he didn't 
agree with me that maybe i hiccuped and the air went down the shaft of my prosthesis into 
the humerus itself.  

he's a spoil sport.

the other changes were not "new,"  they were just "worse."  my rotator cuff is *still* missing!  it ran away and just left me with a bunch of painful calcium deposits, and they aren't even in the bone (since there isn't anything but titanium in that area now) but are sitting in the soft tissue.  ouch.  okay, so i thought it might reappear after it first ran away back in february 
-- i have always been fond of my rotator cuff tendons.

come home to moi, my tendons!

shoulder humor.  sad.  

anyway, there's been a widening of the space between the "ball" and the "shaft" parts of the shoulder prosthesis as a result.  it was also just very... i dunno... irregular looking.

he did not even push the range of motion of the arm -- first, he sees what you can do, unassisted (which was almost nothing), then he asks you to relax it while he moves it.  he almost never STOPS when you say/yell "stop," but today he barely even tried to move it.  second, he asks you to put your palms together and then he tries to hold them together while you attempt to move them apart. we did some weird imaginary form of that part of the exam. then everyone stood around and made noises-of-sadness-and-pity over the progression of the CRPS in my arms and legs.  {rolling eyes toward heaven}  shoulderman won many points by asking "why did you shake my hand?" now *that*, my friend, is CRPS/RSD*awareness*.

there *may* be more fractures up above as well as perhaps in the shaft.  i don't really care about that but he does, because of the fact that the next prosthesis -- IF there will be a new one -- has to be a REVERSE prosthesis.  to understand how different that is, here is a normal prosthesis: 

and this... is a "reverse" prosthesis. The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Spanish Inquisition is credited with its design:

anyway, for today, he gave me a shot of [what else?!] steroids and some local anesthetics.  he asked me to have go-to-guy try to get some sort of results from the CT scan they did while i was in the hospital last week.  in other words, like me, he doesn't believe that they "didn't scan the left shoulder."  i hate to be the queen of conspiracy theorists but hell, i was *there* and i *know* they scanned it.  the a-holes just didn't want to be suspected "liable" for even more damage to this rock star of a body than they already have been.  grumble, grumble, curse, curse.  they should know that if i haven't sued them by now, they are not gonna get sued... i've never sued anyone in my life. 

i should have taken every available penny from the bastards back in 2002. 

the plan is that i am going back in about 6 weeks -- if i can wait that long.  i get to go in early if i reach what we are calling "desperation."  i wanted to respond to that escape clause with something really snarky, but then realized i'd probably burst into wimp gimp tears.  he wants me to hang in there until after i finish the antibiotics i started last week, then get back on the other antibiotic that go-to-guy is experimenting with... after he chats with go-to-guy and orders maybe another aspiration of the joint (i am against that... we have done EIGHT aspirations and NOTHING grows in the damn lab... why do we keep doing them?), after more imaging studies... and then he will likely remove the current prosthesis and insert one of those spacers laced with antibiotics.  

why? because he can't put in any sort of prosthesis if there is infection.  the spacers can stay in for months, tho the last two he implanted on that side had to be taken out because they were causing fractures and blahblahblah. in other words, i may end up with a series of spacers.  i also have a pretty good chance of ending up without a shoulder at all.  but we won't go there now.

this is what a spacer looks like (modigliani design):

 he gave me one like that once, but he also made one on the spot in the operating room by shaping it himself out of surgical cement.  that, i would have liked to witness!

well... this is way too long, sorry.  my brain is on overdrive, my temp is 101, and i feel like my legs are aflame!  woo hoo!  it's party central in the manor tonight.

i hope you are in your jammies, warm, cozy, and chilling out.  tell brenda i send her good wishes and hope she kicks cancer's big fat ugly butt.

oh -- when we got home?  we found rampant destruction... since dobby and marmy fluffy butt both came for the butt whacks they love so much, it was easy enough to infer that the guilty party was one buddy the kitten, whom we found hiding in the dirty clothes hamper.  more on that in tomorrow's tome!

smooches galore and fruited loops,

moi 

What a mess...

It's a crazy time.  Given the extent of the wackiness around here, and the opportunity for more, I'll not be blogging for a few days.

Today I see the orthopedic surgeon, my old friend.  (I slept last night with my mp3 player set to repeat and repeat a Michelle Shocked album... "my old friend" is running around my brain to the tune of Anchorage... anchored down in Anchorage....

I took the time to write to my old friend

I walked across the burning bridge

I mailed my letter off to Dallas, but

Her reply came from Anchorage, Alaska

She said Hey girl it's about time you wrote

It's been over two years now my old friend

Take me back to the days of the foreign telegrams

And the all night rock 'n rollin' hey Chel

We was wild then

Yeah, well. So I'll be humming and buzzing along with the x-rays today.

Then we are rushing about Tête de Hergé like freaking maniacs, getting groceries (I am on a goodly dose of antibiotic and we are out of plain, lowfat yogurt.  Also vanilla extract, bread, and milk.  Not to mention caffeine-laced diet colas...) and a few other items of a more esoteric nature.

Then we are flying home to finish disassembling our wing of The Manor, Marlinspike Hall.

Why?  Are we being thrown out onto the streets?  If so, wouldn't The Brotherhood down the road take us in?  Yeah, couldn't we just crash at The Monastery?

No, we're not imminently homeless, we are just having some 16th century reclaimed beams and timbers -- heart of pine planks, specifically -- put in as "new" flooring here in our tiny section of the world. 

And don't knock The Cistercians, even in jest, because they're doing the installation...

What I really wanna know is:  Who bought all these damn books?

I have so much to do and such little space and time to do it in.  Also, I tend to injure myself.  Immediately.  Within five minutes of packing and piling and sorting and moving...  Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with tears rolling down my red, red face,  while putting my arcane collection of Objectivist Poetry into flimsy bags and boxes. 

When I was done, I heard this from My Darling Cohort:  Sweetie Pie?  Are you okay?  Do you need any help?

Wrong!  Well, only partially wrong.  Wrong in the sense that I implied that My Darling Cohort was not assisting.  Because he did.  A lot.  As in, a whole lot. 

Okay, I lied.  His offer to help preceded my headstrong and tearful attempts at packing up my tiny office. 

He's a good boy, is Fred!

The Felines are freaked and part of today's plan entails finding three carriers that we can safely stash them in, as the monks, who love them to pieces, tend to try and sneak them over the orchard wall, tucked in their voluminous robes.  When we retrieve them they reek of incense and garlic.

I have beaucoup medical stuff on tap for Monday and Wednesday of next week, too.  ["Too"?]  The thoughts and worries about the subanesthetic ketamine treatment never really leave my mind.  I am pinning a shitload of hope on this procedure.

So. Be good out there.  Stay warm, stay well, be happy.

The next time I talk at you, I will be able to zip around the place without the wheelchair meeting so much impedence in the form of medieval tapestries and persian rugs.  I'm gonna redefine the speed of light.

***  *************************************************************************  ***

Okay, so... here I am blogging again, less than a day after swearing off the activity.  I've said it before, and look!  I am saying it again -- I need one of those pensieve thingies, like Albus Dumbledore had stashed in his office.  The basin with swirling, shimmering vapors.  Thoughts as strings to be pulled out of the head, twirled on the end of one's wand.  Though I suppose a chopstick will do, in a pinch.

The Pensieve has multiple functions.


At times, when one's head is so full of thoughts that one cannot hear oneself think, it is useful to be able to take some of those thoughts and literally set them aside. The practiced Wizard can extract a thought from his head and store it in a phial or in the Pensieve for another time. If it is in the Pensieve, it is possible to stir the thoughts stored there together and look for patterns. It appears that the wizard has the choice of extracting an entire memory, leaving no trace of it in his head, as Professor Snape does in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, or extracting a copy of a memory, retaining the original, as Professor Slughorn does in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It is also apparently possible to edit these extracted memories, though it is a difficult task and one which is often not done well.


If one places one's head within the Pensieve, one becomes immersed in a memory that is stored in the Pensieve, and is able to relive it as if one was living that time over again. Harry experienced Professor Dumbledore's memories of the Wizengamot trials of several Death Eaters this way in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Professor Snape's memories of Harry's father in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.


A thought or memory stored in the Pensieve can, with proper stimulus, appear to nearby viewers as if standing on the surface of the basin. Professor Dumbledore used this technique to show Harry the prophecy that had been made about him, in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and it is used in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when full immersion in memory was not needed.


It is also possible to take another person's memories, place them in the Pensieve, and then enter them to relive them as if one were the person whose memories you have just added to the Pensieve. Harry and Professor Dumbledore do this a number of times in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in order to determine the salient points of the early history of Tom Riddle, or as he later styled himself, Lord Voldemort.

This blog is my pensieve.

So... although we spoke of it briefly the last time I saw him, it sort of blew my mind -- and all its twirling little vapors -- when the surgeon offered up an inverted total shoulder arthroplasty as my sole option for my left shoulder.  He is fabulously talented, so to hear him call something "difficult" was scary.  It looks like this... and this looks WEIRD!

I guess I sorta didn't believe him in October when he first pitched this.  Or I developed amnesia.  The Good Doc says I've not much left to work with -- remember (someone has to), I have rampant avascular necrosis going on as well as osteomyelitis.  Oh, and I am now missing one rotator cuff.

No problem!

He's been such a savior to me, this guy, that I simply don't believe there is a technique or an obstacle that he cannot conquer or overcome.  I mean, he's done... let's see... 8 of my 9 shoulder surgeries. 

We were doing a pre-exam chat -- I was bemoaning the mess at the manor, the monks and the flooring... then the ketamine infusion therapy popped in my head, and consequently, out of my mouth.  But instead of giving him some background, or even notifying him that we were leaving the discursive region of home improvement and religious adherents for the vague regions of dissociative drug therapy, I just blurted:

"Guess what!  I'm gonna do ketamine!"

And his eyes bugged out.
And he opened, then closed his mouth.  Several times.
I could see the confusion and what may have been a burgeoning certainty of my extreme moral turpitude spread across his usually composed visage...

So I explained.

Which made it worse.

He thinks I am nuts for doing this.  Well, ptooey on you, Fabulous Orthopedic Surgeon!  Ptooey, I say, on you!  Then he went on and on about this upside-down, spikey prosthesis -- only an option, of course, if the joint space and long bones are free of infection.

Why am I always so confused?  (No, I am serious.  Why?)  Is there a cumulative but late arriving deficit that hits a person after so many surgeries, after so many foreign bodies are implanted, after nine years of insufficient sleep?  After all the pain, fevers, sweats?  How is it that I can block out such important information?  Denial?  I don't think I am in denial about anything, but then who does?  Do you know that last week, I managed to forget entirely that I have an "aortic root dilation" of growing dimensions -- now sitting right at 5 cm..  I got there because of a run of something or other, that ended in about an hour of trigeminy, and this thought:  "It would be so nice to have a heart rate under 112..." We are so wrapped up in stopping this infection that we haven't even scheduled an echo.  The last one was in ICU back in... July 2009.  Whoa.

Just what I need to indulge in:  more catastrophic thinking!  (Thar she blows!)

See?  I DO need a pensieve -- just to get rid of boring, scary, fruitless thoughts about stuff I cannot do crap about. 

Okay... I feel better.  The reverse shoulder option will only come to be when/if we rid my body of sneaky pathogens and the pain reaches the I-CAN'T-STAND-IT-ANYMORE stage.  With careful coaxing, I can stand a whole hell of a lot!

The title of this post stands unchallenged:  What a mess...