One of My Favourite Concerts of The Year, Every Year.

I'm sad that I won't catch it this year.

Tuesday Dec 29 @ 6-10pm
Hilton San Diego: Fight for Life Benefit Concert
1 Park Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92101
A benefit to raise awareness for Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Issues.
Molly Jenson Gregory Page, Get Back Loretta, The Watkins Family (Sean & Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek), and honestly, you never know who else is going to show up!
ALL AGES
$15 @ the door
$12 in advance at www.yellowribbonsd.org

Sometimes I still miss you, Todd.

The Pictures are Here!

This X-ray is from November 3, four days after the crash. It's a front view of my left shoulder. You can clearly see the broken clavical. It shattered into two large pieces, left and right, and a large, floating piece in the middle. There were also a few other splinters of bone in there as well. Click on the image to see the full size. It's quite impressive, as you can clearly see the need for surgery.


This X-ray is from December 3, twenty-four days after the surgery. In this X-ray, you can see where they installed a zipper for easy access to the inside of my chest cavity, should there be any further complications. The plate, as I said before looks more like something from an Erector Set. I can't quite decide if the screws have Phillips heads or Torx six point star heads. They are, however, clearly self-tapping screws. I'm surprised that the ones sticking out through the bottom of the bone don't get caught on other soft tissue inside my chest cavity as I move around. Maybe there is just cartilage or something under there. If you click on the image to view the full size, you can see the now healing crack where the middle fragment was screwed to the Left and Right pieces. I still can't get over the fact that that thing is inside my body! It's weird to see a picture of it, so clearly, too! I've got other pictures of my hand and wrist, and a few other views of my shoulder. These were the best two pictures. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I think they are going to be my new desk top background on my work computer.

I started Physical Therapy on Wednesday. I negotiated down to only 1 visit each week instead of two, as it's so stinkin far to drive! They gave me a whole regiment of excercises that I have to do for about an hour twice a day. I understand now why so many people don't do all their PT homework. I feel like my mobility is already at about 90%. Though, my left shoulder is way, way higher than my right. They've been off since high school to varying degrees, depending on the day, but now they are really bad. My PT is confident that we will be able to correct most of that. He says it's caused by the muscles of my back being in a sort of permanent cramp on the left side. We'll see.
Meanwhile, I'm supposed to be using my arm like normal, as much as possible, just as long as it doesn't cause any sharp, bone-on-bone kind of pain. Muscle and tendon pain is fine, even good, but the other kind isn't. He said that I should be sore every day as I continue to stretch and work the muscles for the next four weeks. But, I should stop and avoid activity that causes the other kind of pain. I think my left arm and shoulder are going to be way stronger and more flexible than my right by the end of all this. Thanks for watching and thanks for caring.

I'm out of the sling

I saw the Orthopedic on Thursday, I had more Xrays taken and I was so excited to post them here.
They made a CD for me of all the images that they have so far created of me with their Xray machine. I brought the disc home, put it in my laptop, and got asked by windows if I wanted to burn items onto the blank CD that I had just inserted. I was thoroughly disappointed. I called them; they apologized and are mailing me another disc.

So, instead of seeing it, I'll describe it for you.


The screws are pretty impressive, and they look like... screws.
In the picture they look like #8, ¾" philips head Sheet Metal screws from Home Depot. (Probably the stainless steel variety that come in the green bags.)
The plate looks more like a chain, or a series of OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOs all strung together, twisting slightly as it wraps around the contour of my collar bone. Actually, now that I think about it, it resembles a piece from an Erector Set that I had when I was a kid.
The main break is a visible crack with a screw horizontally through the bones, not the plate. (Imagine if you were to join two boards end to end by "toe nailing" them with a screw.)
The rest of the screws are at all different angles, looking like half of a double helix DNA strand.
I totally forgot to count them! But, in my memory there were seven.

The surgeon said that everything looks great, it is healing very well, and that I can start physical therapy now. Two times a week for four weeks! That's a little disruptive when you live an hour and forty-five minutes from town. Hopefully I can figure out a way to get instructions and do some of that up here on my own.

I'm out of the sling and feel like like I'm back to normal. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not back to normal, that I can't lift stuff, and that I still have to avoid hugs and slaps on the back and back packs, and pulling the blanket of my bed up with my left hand, and sleeping on my left side... those things hurt.