Three Weeks of Updates (Left Shoulder Surgery Recovery)

Hi blog,

Finally time for the update! Since I'm still having a bit of a hard time typing, I'm going to give you updates as I've been giving them to friends of mine since the surgery.

10/28
The surgery went really well. It took half as long as the right shoulder did last time. I had a nerve block so I'm not in any pain and hopefully I'll be able to go home in the morning! Typing is a bit of an annoyance cause I've only got one arm, the left arm is immobilized by my uber sling and I can't really feel anything in that arm anyways. I don't need painkillers that much because the nerve block means I don't feel anything. All in all, things are looking great and I'm guessing recovery is going to come along nicely!

11/1
I got home yesterday, I had to stay in the hospital a couple extra days because the pain got really bad and I couldn't leave until it was better controlled. The nurses and doctors didn't really help much with the pain because they didn't listen when I told them I have a very high tolerance for pain medication, so I kept getting doses for normal people, which did very little to actually control my pain. I got through it though and got out of the hospital. It's manageable now so I'm resting at home and able to do a little bit already. The doctor says everything looks really promising so far. It might even heal better and faster than the right shoulder, so it's all going well so far. 

11/4
I've started doing at home PT which is going well. The range of motion is decent and it actually doesn't hurt too much to do the exercises as long as I keep it calmish. The therapist I'm seeing says that it's definitely better than the right one was at this stage and was impressed at how much better it was. I'm seeing the therapist again tomorrow so we'll see how it goes. Other than that I've just been taking it easy to ensure I don't push myself too much and worsen my recovery. I'm trying not to let the boredom of being safe with my health annoy me too much. I'd been having some fevers and shaking on and off at night, but it's gone down and hasn't happened in a couple days.

11/5

I saw the doctor for my one week post-op appointment and they took the bandage off my surgery site before I saw him. It's looking very clean and hardly at all swollen. There's a thin scar but it doesn't look red or angry, which was a nice surprise. The bandage was left off so now it's completely uncovered, which burns a little to the touch but is otherwise fine. I had some x-rays done and the doctor says it's looking good so far. He also checked my range of motion and was pleased, even said that he fully expects the left one to heal up faster and better than the right one. All in all, the doctor thinks everything is coming along nicely and I'll be seeing him again in six weeks.

11/13
The nurse who comes to the house says the scar is looking really good, no infection or anything. PT is still going well, I started doing shoulder shrugs and my arm is getting better range of motion, although it's definitely painful. Part of that pain is coming from the lack of painkillers, the person who wrote the original prescription did it differently than I'd been taking it so I've been forced to ration my painkillers in order to have any at all, waiting to get more all week but tomorrow I'll get new ones. It's been difficult and has caused more pain, but I didn't really have an option. I tried calling the woman who prescribed them but she never called me back so I just rationed them and dealt with the extra pain. This sort of thing isn't too uncommon, problems with medication or hospitals or health stuff in general always seem to follow me around, you just deal with it best you can. An increase in my pain for a week I can deal with, I've held out this long, I can wait another day. Still, would have been nice if this hadn't happened at all. 

11/16
Got my painkillers so everything is good now. PT still going well, added in a couple more exercises. The pain has increased a little bit and I'm not sure why. I've had a couple nights in a row where I've woken up repeatedly with sharp pain assaulting my shoulder, I think it might be the way my arm is positioned so I'm going to try to change it a little and see if that helps (note: it did, although I only slept 3 hours last night I didn't wake up due to pain). I'm starting to get back into school and normal stuff instead of just sitting around and relaxing and making sure I don't overdo things. I'm still not back to my normal routine, that will take a while since I'm supposed to wear the sling for another three weeks at least, but I can at least start to catch up on stuff that I missed and work on keeping my grades intact as best I can. 

And that sums up the last three weeks of my recovery. I will do my best to keep regular updates from here on out, although I will be very busy with school because I have two classes to catch up on. I will do my upmost to keep you and all the readers apprised of my health and any updates as they come up. 

Top Ten Zen #7: Your Worst Enemy

Hey blog,

This post might seem a little depressing. In truth, it's kind of a mini-series within the series, so it ties into a much happier and uplifting post! Don't worry, everything works out...look, a meditating kitty! See? Told you.

Hopefully this makes up for the semi-depressing post  

Top Ten Zen

Andrew and Nick have compiled a list of Zen-like philosophies comprised firstly of a quote, an interpretation of said quote, and finally a story to drive their point home. This list can aid you in doing anything from completing a 100-mile race to surviving cancer, or obtaining any goal you set your mind to. 

Here are the previous posts for those who missed them:

1. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
2. Body follows mind
3. The faster you hurry, the slower you go
4. You are not bound by your past
5. Life is only available in the here and now
6. You are the author of every next moment

Nick on the verge of deciding he
wanted to quit life

"Your own worst enemy lies within."

The Survivor’s Take: Nothing hurts you more than your own negative thoughts.

The Runner’s Take:  The mind is the culprit of quitting.

Survivor’s Tales: After suffering through cancer and GVHD and just barely escaping from the hospital with my life by the thinnest edge, you would assume that I would be thrilled to be out in the world, that I gained a new appreciation of life. No. Instead, I looked at the scars and my bloated figure and felt an intense black hatred for myself bursting through to infest any hints of happiness and gratitude that dared poke its head up. As a result of this self-loathing, I began to heavily abuse my medications in an attempt to blot out conscious thought and all the pain that came with it. I could have chosen to be happy about surviving, but instead I wallowed in agonizing self-pity and righteous self-hatred. I chose that of my own volition, angry and hurt by everything that happened to me, disgusted by my appearance. I chose that path. But as we’ll see in this next post, although you can make yourself quite miserable with just the flick of a thought, you can also instill a great deal of satisfaction in the same manner.

Mountain Tales:  It was 3:30am, some 19 hours into the Ronda del Cims. Carles (3rd place) and I were deep into the race and had accumulated over 30,000 feet of gain. We were far from the finish and battling through the night together. Passing a stream Carles looked at me and said “Quince minutos llegamos.” Fifteen more minutes and the two of us would be at the mile 85 aid station, Illa. Thirty minutes later, Carles glanced over and said to me “Cinco minutos, seguro!” Five minutes clicked away with no aid station in sight. The two of us hurt, our pace was fading, our energy dwindling and our morale all but vanished. “Does Carles even know what he’s doing?” I could feel my body weaken as the poisonous thoughts continued to fester in my mind. I stopped. I had to change my mindset. I looked up at the full moon, pine trees blocking off the distant high peaks, and I felt alive and blessed to be wandering through the Pyrenees. I smiled and resolved that the damned aid station could have been hours away, it didn’t matter. I’d made peace with my own worst enemy.

Andrew's worst enemy lies within and a little to the right

Of course, just because we are sharing our own extreme examples does not mean that these philosophies are all strictly for extreme situations. We share these because they can be used by anyone in the proper situations and we invite you, dear reader, to take these helpful tips into the world to use as you see fit. Feel free to hoard them or share them with others. It is both of our hope that these do some good somewhere, and so we wish you luck in your journey of a thousand Zen-filled steps.

Nick Hollon

Andrew Bundy

The Sober Eagle vs. The Milk

Dear blog,

Well, today is March 5th. Four years ago today I had my first day of sobriety. Sobriety from what? I hear you ask. Well, no I don't, but I'm assuming you would ask, since you don't know anything about me blog. So I shall enlighten thee. After I just barely survived Graph vs. Host Disease (my body was rejected by the bone marrow transplant that had been used to get me in remission from the leukemia), my body was bloated, disfigured, and to me, disgusting. I hated how I looked, hated how I felt, always in pain, depressed, you name it. So to hide all of that crap away and not have to think about it, I began to heavily abuse my medications, of which there was a LOT. On a regular basis I was popping 15-20 pills in one go, and would spend several hours in a drugged stupor, feeling very relaxed for a bit. It was a way to escape all of what had happened to me, but it wound up doing a lot more damage than it did good. I lost friends, hurt people, nearly died a couple times, and by using the drugs like that, couldn't face the truth and start moving on with my life. After about a year of this, I went into an outpatient rehab program and started to get clean. Several times I relapsed, pressure and stress getting to me in my weakened state, but I persevered. A little less than a year after I started rehab, I abused my pills for the last time and that was in early 2010. March 5th to be precise. Ergo the post today explaining all of this. It's been nice being clean, I like having my own thoughts back and control of my actions, even if I make mistakes, they're MY mistakes and I can learn from them. I can remember things now, my mind is my own. For me, that's really the most important aspect of any of this, having control of myself again.

Now I know in my last post I talked about posting a story, but there is a bit you should know about it first before I put it here. Nick and I were working on our books a couple weeks ago and we decided to do a writing exercise. I picked one out that said something along the lines of: "Write a gruesome ending to a story. Just a random story and only write the ending to it." We modified it a bit and wrote a gruesome ending to a short premise, which went like this: A man is sent out to get milk for his kid by his wife, and now he is heading back home after getting the milk. Well we started writing, and 10 minutes later, this happened:
(Note: If you aren't a fan of overly gory things, you probably shouldn't read this)

"Jacob looked up at the sky and squinted. Something was hovering up above, following him. He cradled the milk like he did his young daughter and picked up the pace. Suddenly, a massive weight slammed into his back, sending him sprawling milk-first into the ground. The container exploded, spreading the white liquid every which way. Jacob groaned and looked around. Red was beginning to seep into the pool of milk, tainting it pink. Blood. His blood.

It felt like spears had impaled him. The thing above him shifted, and he craned his head to see a massive eagle glaring hungrily at him, the size of a bus. He opened his mouth to scream, and the eagle opened its beak with a triumphant cry before slamming down with one deft peck and stabbing Jacob through the head with the sharpened tip. 

Jacob's body gave a little twitch, spasmed, and went still. Blood gushed from the massive wound as the eagle spread its wings and began to haul the lifeless body up into the air, bits of brain leaving a trail so gruesome not even Hanzel and Gretel would follow it. The chicks would feast well tonight. The milk continued to spread, and in the distance, a baby began to cry."

And it's fine to read again if you skipped the story.

Look, I said it was gruesome. Was I lying blog? I don't know if you're squeamish or not, my guess is not, since you're just an extension of my brain first and foremost, and a digital entity that probably doesn't care much for humans second and aftmost (I don't think that's a thing). Either way, I hope you liked it.

 And in space news, scientists were able to measure the spin of a supermassive black hole 6 billion, yes BILLION lightyears away, with a lightyear being 6 trillion miles. 6 trillion times 6 billion equals...a lot of miles. That's far, really far. To top it off, the black hole was spinning at 50% the speed of light. That's fast (186,000 miles a second), really fast. It's pretty cool looking too. The purple things are the galaxy that the black hole is in, and actually the light comes from the massive energy coming out of the black hole (the object is called a quasar). The reason there appears to be more than one of them is because light is being twisted by a large galaxy in front of it (gravitational lensing), quadrupling up the image so you see it multiple times. Nifty, right? Maybe I'm the only one who thinks that. If you agree blog, here's a link to check it out: Cool Space Link to Click On

Well I think that about wraps up this edition of me talking to a blog by typing and not speaking the entire time. Yup. Fun stuff. Have a good night blog.

Sincerely, Your Sober Master, Andrew