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. 

Ethereal

You know the brain is a weird thing? (See above) One minute it's fully comprehending something, and the next that something is completely out of reach and inaccessible. That's how it's felt with this upcoming surgery. I've known about it for a couple months, hell I half-begged the doctor to do it, but it hasn't felt real to me in all that time since then. Ethereal, that's a good word for it. It's like some vague threat that nobody really takes seriously, yet is still very real. Tomorrow that threat is realized, because that's when I'm going in to get my left shoulder replaced. I did have a very short period of realization during my hospital pre-op last week, which resulted in a half-second panic attack, a single smothered sob, and then total composure and the connection to the surgery flitted back off into the ether.

This is kinda what it looks like...
only worse

The surgery is taking place at 7:15...in the morning. Which means I need to be at the hospital at 5:30 am, which means I have to be awake at approximately 4 am. I'm debating not even bothering to go to sleep, because that's about when I go to bed anyway. The surgery itself will be a total shoulder replacement, sawing off the ball joint and replacing it with an artificial head and fixing a plastic cup to the socket area so the fake head has a snug place to sit. The x-rays showed that the shoulder configuration essentially reversed itself, with the head collapsing around the socket...it looked weird. The x-ray tech complimented me on my train wreck of a shoulder. Someday I'll talk about how much I enjoy x-ray techs and their odd, somewhat morbid sense of humor that totally jives with me. But that's a post for another time, space, space-time, and quantum. Maybe some strings and branes for added effect. Look, I had to throw in science somewhere...

The reason you haven't heard from me in the last two weeks is because of all the work I've been doing trying to get ready for the surgery. There are a lot of loose ends to tie up (no I don't work for the Mafia...usually) and things to get put in place so I don't have to worry about anything other than my recovery for the next few weeks. School, paperwork, government stuff, medical things, life, friends, stress, all that needs to be taken care of prior to a surgery. Even if these surgery is completely ethereal to me, the full ramifications just out of reach to my conscious mind, I'm still under an inordinate amount of stress. I've been increasingly anxious without having a concrete reason (even knowing full well a lot of it comes from an unconscious worry about the surgery, I can't connect it on a logical or conscious level), so it's lowered my ability to focus and be able to do things, which requires me to prioritize what needs to be done and neglect certain others. Most of that has come at the cost of my social life and writing, two things that took a major hit in the last month when I semi-dropped off the face of the Earth. I figured that's something that I can pick back up after I'm doing better, whereas making sure my grades remain unaffected and finishing up paperwork on time seemed to be a more pressing issue.

This is the voice in my head for those who remember

I have taken some solace in knowing that this shoulder isn't as bad as the right one (which was replaced in June) and that I'm familiar with the workings of this one. The second joint always seems to be easier than the first one I've found (as evidenced by having both hips and knees replaced separately), so that does alleviate a little of the stress. It's still there, it always is. As blasé as I've been about the surgery and reassuring to everyone that it will be fine, there's always that little voice going "Yea but what if it isn't?" It's a hard voice to ignore. It convinced me I was going to die last year when I had my left knee replaced, although clearly it was wrong. That doesn't mean I can shut it off, but I have been slowly turning down the volume to its rambling statements of doom and hellfire.

I suppose it will be another couple weeks before any meaningful posts come out of this blog again. There might be a quick "I'm fine" post when I feel up to typing, or maybe something written by someone else with a quick explanation of how everything went. Otherwise, I'll be laid up and unable to use one arm and on enough painkillers to make a whale very, very happy. I'll try to get something out at a reasonable time.

Until then,
Andrew Bundy

My 7th Birthday

Hi blog,

Apologies for the gap. I've been trying to get a handle on everything and it's been frustrating and draining to say the least. The closer the surgery gets the more things seem to pop up to deal with. I'm definitely going to be looking forward to a nice, relaxing, pain-filled break after I get my shoulder replaced in exactly two weeks, let me tell you.

I was going to put a picture of a knee with AVN, but then I
decided this was a much better option. Don't you think?

Well, I suppose you're waiting to hear about the knee. I am too, I only just had the MRI on Saturday so I won't be learning anything from that for another few days probably. However, two days before that I went in to see my knee specialist (the first guy I saw was my general practitioner, who also does sports medicine) and the x-rays looked about normal, same as before. But then he pulled up a knee MRI I had done back in May (I didn't even remember having it) and he showed me the inside of my knee. It wasn't pretty. The majority of the interior was made up of necrosed (dead) bone. To be fair, this isn't exactly news to me. I've known that there was a lot of necrosis for a while, because of my Avascular necrosis (a degenerative bone disease caused by steroids. See here for details), but as long as the dead stuff stays inside the bone and doesn't penetrate to the surface, it's not going to cause any pain. Well, there was a tiny tentacle of necrotic (just using all sorts of variations of the word today aren't I?) bone snaking down through a big patch of it and had just barely breached the surface. There was only a tiny spot exposed, and my specialist thinks that might be what's causing the knee pain.
Theory: Because the pain only really shows up when I bend my knee at certain angles, that small dead spot is rubbing against something at that certain angle and causing the pain. When I get this newest MRI back I'll learn two things. A) Whether or not the little spot has grown any, 2) What can be done about it, assuming something needs to be done about it. Obviously there's a lot of speculation here, and that in itself is driving me up the wall. As accepting as I am about the shoulder surgery, the possibility that I might need another replacement (if the necrosis is spreading in the knee and the pain continues to get worse, my specialist might recommend surgery again) after that has done nothing to improve my mood. Frankly, I'm pissed. Murphy, always Murphy.

But that's neither here or there now so I'm trying not to think about it too much (and not doing a very good job). The book editing has been coming along, not great or fast, but it is progressing at least. Unfortunately there are more pressing things to do than editing my memoir. I'm not happy about it, because this memoir is literally the most important thing to me, but what can you do?

Let's talk about something pleasant. I feel this whole post has had a somewhat sour tinge to it. But now for something uplifting and cheerful! (Kinda) Two days ago I had my 7-year rebirthday (and I think I'm having a regular one in a few days too). In some ways, I am seven years old. This me, right now, is only seven years old. It's when I got my bone marrow transplant from marrow harvested from my brother Chad's hip bone (the needles look like something out of the Spanish Inquisition).  October 12, 2007 is when I got my new life, a new chance.

Excerpt from Life Has No Title:

When you receive an infusion of bone marrow, the staff up at City of Hope calls it your “birthday,” the day where you’re given new life and, in a sense, reborn. October 12, 2007 is my oncological birthday. The doctor for the day, Dr. Pawlowska (spelled right the very first time!), came in with a nurse carrying a bag of what I at first believed was blood. I had known that my mom was organizing people to donate blood for after I had my bone marrow transplant, and thought that before I could receive it I would need to bolster my cell counts, but I was mistaken. Instead, the ruddy-colored viscous liquid was the bone marrow! This piqued my interest a great deal, insofar as someone who is hopped up on a staggering amount of dilaudid can do anything to a great deal. I had been paying as much attention as possible, learning what I could about this and that, gaining as much knowledge as a second-year med school student in the process. If I had the energy to focus, I would listen in on conversations and pick up some odd terminology or medical explanation for whatever god-forsaken side effect I had picked up that day.

“How are you today good sir?” Dr. Pawlowska asked in her thick-accented way. It was the same question every time she saw me in the morning. “How are you today good sir?”

Most days I would respond with, “Okay I guess.” Or “Not too great.” I was a master of understatement. But today, I gathered up a smile and told her, “Excited. That’s the bone marrow?”

“It is. We’ll just hook this up and you’ll be good to go.”

“Wait…how does it get into my bones then?” I asked suspiciously. As far as I could tell, there were no nanobots lurking in the substance ready to transport the bone marrow from my bloodstream into the centers of my bones, where they would thrive and drive out the remnants of my treasonous cells.

Dr. Pawlowska offered up a tentative smile. “To be honest, we’re not entirely sure. I could tell you all about the different theories and everything, but nothing has been proven definitively. They sort of magically find their way into the bones.”

Magic. One of the last words you want to hear when a doctor is explaining such an important medical procedure to you. “Magic,” I repeated slowly, not entirely sure if I had misheard her in my drug-induced haze.

“Magic,” she reaffirmed.

We looked at each other for a long moment, then I shrugged and lay back in my bed, too exhausted to argue and knowing that the good doctor knew what she was doing, even if she wasn’t sure about the exact nature of the procedure. “Good enough for me. Let’s get started.”

So there you go. Chad saved my life. I wouldn't be here if he hadn't donated his marrow. The poor kid got stabbed by a thousand saw-toothed needles, woke up so groggy he couldn't figure out how to properly use a straw and had a sore hip for several days. I have him to thank for this second chance and the ability to continue to live and enjoy life, all the things I love: writing, space, science, friends, family, space. I'll never be able to repay that, but at least I can pester him with interesting space facts the next time I see him.

PS: Comet Siding Spring will be flying past Mars on October 19 at a distance of 89,000 miles (much closer than the moon is to Earth). It'll be awesome.

Your 7-year-old Master,
Andrew Bundy

Hectic

Hi blog,

Apologies for the late post, my computer recently attempted some bizarre form of self-destruction and I put it in the time out corner...forever. In its place is a new computer that seems to function normally as of writing this, so I shall stick with this one because I like functional technology. But the technology has not been the only hectic thing going on lately, it's been a veritable madhouse of events and non-events.

The magnetic donut

Still no word on my knee. In fact, I still haven't even had the MRI. I should have included in last week's post about the fun MRI waiting games "Hey MRI, when are you going to get scheduled so I can actually learn something?" But I have a date with a giant magnetic donut machine on October 10th, so at least that's good. Although if it takes two weeks to get figured out, I'll be cutting it really close to my surgery date on the 28th of the same month. Down to the wire!

It is now official: I have begun (in earnest) on the second draft of my memoir. Please, please, hold the applause. Oh, there is none...right, well keep holding it then. After Nick got back from insane death race in which he kicked proverbial ass (because kicking a real ass usually pisses off its owner, or worse, it'll kick you back), we shortly resumed work on our books. Nick has been screaming through his (I'm not sure if that's literal, you'd have to ask him) and cranking through his edits at a blistering pace. Meanwhile, I am trudging through the quagmire of my childhood and questioning the legitimacy of keeping any of it for the final product of the book. It's an agonizingly slow, painful, annoying process to go through nearly 40 pages of probably unnecessary junk to sift out what is important, especially when you know the real content hasn't gotten done and you feel like all you're doing is wasting time when really you'll have to rewrite that whole section almost completely. And the feeling that I have to rewrite that entire childhood-high school section is reinforced by reading Lance Armstrong's 2000 memoir and seeing how much more compelling the telling of his story is than the telling of my story (at least through the pre-cancer parts). It's driving me crazy, knowing that what I've done is supremely subpar work and having very little idea how to fix it save for scrapping it all and starting over is just...GAH!

Anyways...I'm at least making progress through it and am now on the edge of getting to the real meat of my story. Progress has been slowed somewhat by a resurgence in physical issues (discussed shortly), but I'm doing my best to push through them and get the work done anyways.

(Told you it was shortly)

Well if I ever had a nickel for a dime, I'd tell you that the first part of this sentence makes no sense. However, I'd also tell you that my migraines have crept back in when I wasn't looking. Over the last week I've been dealing with borderline crippling headaches, and over the last two days the headaches haven't been borderline at all, they've been full-force Andrew-stopping nightmares. I'm not sure where this sudden surge of headpain comes from, but I suspect it's stress-related. The other option is that my preventative migraine medication is no longer functional. This happened last year with a different medication, which I'd been taking for a year. Now that I think about it, I've been taking this new medication for about a year too. That's probably just a weird coincidence that I don't particularly like at the moment.

But let's focus on something else: my shoulders! The right shoulder continues to improve and is now functioning just as well, if not BETTER than the left shoulder! Then again, this might not be as impressive as it sounds, because my left shoulder is slowly deteriorating at an increasingly not-so-slow pace. In fact I can hear the grinding crackling crunches when I rotate my left shoulder in certain ways, which, although they don't hurt, elicit a kind of anticipatory wince for the pain that doesn't come. But I'm not worried about the left shoulder, because I'm getting a better one soon anyways. What's more important is my right shoulder and how it's been holding up. The range of motion is improved, the pain is nonexistent at the best of times, and not as bad as it used to be at the worst of times. I'm continuing to stretch and work on both shoulders, both in physical therapy and at home (although probably not as much as I should be at home, but that's something I'm working on), and I think I can expect a very good recovery for the right shoulder, and the left one once that's been dealt with.

All right, time for me to fly off and do something. Ciao blog and readers!
Your aeronautic overlord, Andrew

In Kneed

Hey blog,

Well I owe you a quick update.

Knee

It's still attached, which is a good start I think. I saw the doctor a couple days ago (the first one who isn't a knee specialist) and after inspecting my x-rays, with much apprehension on my part, he says there isn't any new bone damage that would be the cause of the pain. There are some bone spurs, but comparing the new x-rays to old ones taken before I had my knee surgeries, they haven't changed and there aren't any new ones. So bone damage is ruled out. That's good, it means I probably won't have to replace my knee and it confirms that the bone allografts are holding up well. Dat ist goot. The doctor believes that the pain is brought about by some issue with the cartilage. Either the cartilage in the painful spot is rough in some manner and grates against the knee or it pulls back when I bend the knee and allows the bone to grind against bone. The only way to find out is through MRI scans, so now comes the fun waiting game of "MRI when are you going to call me to get done and then afterwards will I have to wait two weeks to actually learn the results?" Perhaps we can shorten the title to "MRI how long will this take?" Or even shorter: "MRI be on time." I like that.

(Note: The last couple times I've had MRIs it took over two weeks to hear back about the results, which left me stressed out and anxious because waiting is the single worst thing people have to do on a regular basis.)
(Second note: The picture above is substantially less gruesome than the other one I thought briefly about showing. There's an interesting story about that shoved into my book somewhere though. Basically: don't open computer files from your doctor unless you are absolutely sure what they contain, unless you like being surprised by blood and body parts.)

This is what I look like when I'm surprised, although with more of a beard probably

So that's the knee. Besides that there isn't a whole lot to report. I just spent the last week doing essay after essay and knocking back some reading and doing a couple tests and all that jazz and funk and blues and other musical genres that relate to that. Nothing interesting on that front. Nothing new with writing, nothing new with anything else. Too busy for new things. Maybe that's not so bad though? I did write a poem. It's kinda weird. Okay it's a lot weird. That's good though, it's one of the few poems I've written (and one of the only ones I've liked). That's it on writing.

OH!

Nick, who was in Italy training for this insane race called the Tour of Giants (Tor des Géants), did his race and placed second (making him the first America to ever finish on the podium in this race)! He hasn't put out a race report yet because he just got back to the states yesterday, but here's a post he did about the list of things he learned while training for this brutal race of doom: Thing he did before the race. Tor des Geants is probably one of the more insane things he's ever done. Before you go "Oh it's probably not super crazy. Like a couple marathons maybe?" No. No. Try 205 miles (330 kilometers) over several days of running up and down mountains. His time? 76:29:38. Yea, just over three days of running. In case you hadn't figured it out yet, Nick is insane. 

That's all I have for you today. Check back later when more things will be added.

Your knee'dy ruler,
Andrew

Sometimes It Crashes Around You

Hi blog,

Apologies for the abnormally long pause in post, I'd been meaning to do post more frequently and instead the exact opposite happened. It's something to work on.

Part of the reason for not posting when I normally do is because there really isn't all that much going on. It's been relatively low-key over the last couple weeks and finding anything interesting is a bit of a challenge. That applies to positive things though, there's been a slew of neutral and negative things piling up, which accounts for the other reason I didn't post at the normal time: I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Looking at nudibranchs...great stress reliever

My version of overwhelmed seemed oddly calm compared to some people's, but it's less about the workload and more about the mental taxation it puts on me in terms of anxiety and stress. I've been scrambling to get a number of school-related issues cleared up and have been running into nonsense after nonsense that pushes me back two steps for every one I put forward. Coming across all this bureaucratic BS that has been making it difficult to get anything done, I've become more and more stressed as these tasks are added to even more things I need to do, creating a backlog of different chores and assignments that doesn't ever seem to get any smaller. Mixed in with the schoolwork that I'm not quite used to just yet and it leads to me feeling anxious. I've managed to whittle away at some of these projects but then something else will come up that needs to get done and the neverending march does its own whittling on my heavy mind.

But why is my mind heavy? Surely it may be frustrating to deal with all these assignments, but it's not impossible to deal with them given the time and the mental stamina. Within the latter lies my other major problem. I'm worn out mentally and emotionally exhausted. You might think the upcoming surgery is weighing heavily on my mind, but really it isn't. In my last post I discussed how it actually was somewhat of a relief to get it out of the way. Instead, my taxing problem is with my knee. For almost nine months now I've been experiencing some new form of new pain within my right knee. I had that one replaced with an allograft almost two years ago to deal with the same degeneration that has plagued the rest of my body. This new pain started off minor, so I didn't think much of it, just some pain because I was doing a lot more walking after a semester of on campus classes for the first time. However, it recently kicked up to a much sharper level last month and my mind invariably goes to the worst-case scenario of severe damage, either due to further degeneration or a failure of the allograft. I didn't do anything about it for a few weeks, in part because I was almost overwhelmed from all the other work, but mostly because I didn't want to find out what it was and learn I might need to have yet another surgery. "But Andrew, don't you like surgery? You just said-" Bugger what I just said. This is different, this wasn't expected. It's forced to light a problem and possibility I've been trying to ignore for a while now: that the rest of my life could be spent fixing one problem or another, that the surgeries will end up being continuous as one problem emerges. I hoped to avoid further surgeries and have all my replacements hold up for at least ten years, and now I'm facing (what I think) is a real possibility that something very bad is wrong with my knee. Of course, I could be wrong, but this kind of deep, sharp pain is eerily reminiscent of my pre-surgery knee pain. I had x-rays done of it a couple days ago, but couldn't get in to see my knee specialist until October 9th since he's out of the office for almost all of September. Instead I'll be going to my general practitioner, who luckily is a sports doctor so at least he knows damaged bones when he sees them. I can get a preliminary idea of what's wrong from him I hope and then see the knee specialist to be absolutely sure.

All in all, I'm tired. I haven't been sleeping because if I bend my knee to a certain angle the pain kicks in (and because I'm a rabid insomniac to start with). Actually it only hurts within a certain angle and otherwise is fine. It could be because there's something grinding against something else or a spur of some kind. Now I have to wait for over a month wondering what's wrong with my knee and try to live as normal a life I can, getting things done and continuing to rehab my shoulder. Maybe I'm just blowing this all wildly out of proportion, but my mind already has had the idea and now, in its tenacious desire to freak me out, it won't let me abandon it. It feels like everything is happening all at once, raging and howling at me like some vindictive hellstorm that whips up a frenzied tsunami as I stand helplessly in the middle of my 10' by 10' walled fortress plopped squarely in a vast ocean of problems. I'm just waiting for the waves and the wind to sweep me away as I watch the churning water crash around me, slowly but surely eroding the not-so-very solid rock beneath my feet and knocking bricks from my flimsy walls. All I can do is watch and occasionally stick a brick back in place, feeling like an exercise in futility.

Andrew stared unseeingly at his computer screen for a couple minutes, the imagery all too real in his head as yet more concerns about his knee taunted him. Then he blinked and took in a deep breath, which escaped in a slow, steady sigh ending with more finger movement across the keyboard.

...annnnyyyyways...

I'm supposed to be working on my memoir but that got kicked aside as soon as school started abruptly. Maybe since I'm not sleeping I can work on the outline I keep promising Nick I'll do. I really need to get that done. My writing has not totally suffered though! Positive note time, because I hate ending on less than positive news. I've been working on a revamped version of a short story I wrote four years ago and finally finished the rough draft and posted it online a few days ago on a few different websites. Officially, it's a Harry Potter "fanfic," but if you've read this blog even just a couple times you should know better than to expect something normal. In fact, you should be downright suspicious because I'm not the kind of person to write nice, fluffy pieces (as evidenced by the brutality of The Eagle and the Milk or the pure oddity of Fruity Pebble Tea), although I have been known to indulge in them from time to time. Most of my short stories are more along the lines of the two examples given above though, so if you do read the Harry Potter "fanfic" (there's a reason for the quotation marks) just be aware of what you're getting yourself into. Links to the various sites for the story will be posted below. PS: I wrote a poem as well, you probably guess it is weird and odd and quirkly. You're right.


Message for Mr. Potter - FanFiction
Message for Mr. Potter - Archive of Our Own
Message for Mr. Potter - Wattpad
Message for Mr. Potter - Goodreads

I think that's about enough for today. I might update on Monday if I have anything worth mentioning. Feel free to share the Harry Potter "fanfic" if you want, or don't, that's fine too.

Blog, you might have to deal with more erratic posting habits for a bit while I work to get my life under some semblance of control, but I shall not forget you! (Probably)

Your tired tyrant,
Andrew

On the (New) Horizon(s)

Hi blog,

I don't have a ton to add, but I'll see what I can do so this post isn't just two sentences.

School started up last week, much to my surprise. I thought it was starting this week but apparently I have no idea what's going on with that so...school. I was taking three classes: critical thinking, history, and biology. I'm very excited about the first two, they both seems like interesting classes taught by interesting people (I researched the teachers first to make sure I got ones that wouldn't kill me with boredom). All three were at least partially online and the biology course had an on-campus lab that lasted three hours. Now, for those not in the know, I'd attempted to take an on-campus class complete with lab for the spring semester of this year and it went catastrophically. I was away from home for seven hours with only one break to rest and the toll it took on my body put me in so much pain I was forced to drop the class or see my health severely impacted. That was my big concern with taking a lab (when I went on Friday it was about studying snails. This is actually interesting, I swear) this semester, but since it was only three hours, I wasn't as negatively affected. It still hurt, my arm is still tender from the lab three days ago, but it wasn't debilitating. Maybe it would get worse as the labs got more complex and maybe it wouldn't have, but it's a moot point. At the moment it seems like I'll be dropping the class regardless of what it does to my right arm. Why? Because of my left arm, which I shall now explain. 

October 28th, 2014. That's my explanation. Not ten minutes after I left the biology lab I got a call from my doctor's office from his surgery scheduler. Yes, that's when I'm having my left shoulder replaced, in just over two months. If I stayed in the lab I'd be missing out on the last few weeks of class, and after talking to the person teaching him, he said it would be extremely difficult to pass the class if I stopped showing up. Plus I'm going to be wonked out of my mind on drugs, and two classes will be hard enough. Every sensible fiber points to dropping the class, and my disabled student service counselor agrees. The more important focus here is in the surgery and getting better, both so I can move forward in school and in life with as few problems as possible.

Polar bear cubs are the personification of warm fuzzy feelings

Why is that? Because, and I dread saying this because it got me in trouble last time (I said that after the knees and then the shoulders got bad), this will probably be my last surgery for a while. I'm out of joints, this is #8/9 (because the left hip was done twice the numbers are a bit finicky), the only things left after this are redos when the artificial/allograft joints wear out and need to be replaced. I'm actually excited. I don't know many people who are excited to have someone cut them open and tear this joint out only to replace it with something else, but I am one of them. I'm more comfortable with surgeries than I am with most things in my life, I guess that says something. It's their familiarity that really comforts me. The monotony of surgery is part of the appeal. The surgeries may be different on the surface but underneath they're essentially the same. The only uncertainty is with the surgery itself. But once you go under and come back up it's all about the same. The pain is in different places but it's still there. The methods of recovery are a little different but you still go through it. It's one of the few constants I can count on to understand in a maelstrom of uncertainty I'm currently facing. So I cling to it with joyful relief and get spared the looming specter of a cloudy future for a few more months. It's a smidge macabre, but you find the warm fuzzy feeling of familiarity wherever you can (especially in polar bear cubs; see above).

And now for a new segment that is really only taking place today because a bunch of stuff happened...

Today in space:

Yes, Neptune is STILL in space

• Two years ago we lost the great Neil Armstrong. There's a man who has left a mark (literally) on history that very few people will ever replicate. 
• Also today two years ago (although the date is a little more approximation than hard truth, but it's pretty close), the Voyager 1 spacecraft left our solar system, making it the first man-made object to leave our little neck of the galaxy. 
• Voyager 2 performed its flyby of Neptune in 1989 on this day as well, getting a good view of our (now) farthest planet and one of its strange moons, Triton. 
• Finally, the spacecraft New Horizons crossed Neptune's orbit (25 years to the day that Voyager 2 did) on its way to rendezvous with Pluto and then a couple objects in the region nearby. New Horizons should be reaching Pluto in a little under a year.

And just to round things off: I finished up a short story. It's actually a remake of a story I did a few years ago. I'm going to find a place to put it and then link it to this blog sometime in the future probably.  That's about it. 

Your cosmic-minded tyrant,

Andrew

Memoir-able (Recovery Part 4)

Howdy blog,

Well there's a couple exciting bits of news I wanted to share.

The first pertains to the recovery of my shoulder. I am now 10 weeks post-op. When I saw the doctor yesterday he continued to be impressed and amazed at how much range my shoulder has. He told me (again) how tight it used to be and that I have the range of motion that I do is just astonishing. It's actually better than the left shoulder now in some regards. There's increased pain in the right shoulder since I've started doing outpatient physical therapy, but that is normal for an operation and should subside soon as long as I make sure to rest it. I have to keep reminding myself of Zen #3: The faster you hurry, the slower you go. You'd think I would have that one deeply ingrained in my recovery process after so many surgeries, but I'm impatient and this surgery has been unlike the others in both its recovery and my abilities post-surgery. It'll be about a year before the right shoulder is fully healed if things continue on the way they have been, but progress will be semi-continuous throughout so it's a promising bit of news.

The other thing discussed during my doctor's visit was the left shoulder. As some of you may or may not know, the left shoulder was nearly identically damaged to the right one, and it was only through the arbitrary filter of how much each one hurt that the right shoulder was chosen as the first to be replaced. The left shoulder is now beginning to ache more, so after I see my doctor in two months, I will likely be having another surgery shortly afterwards. I'm more excited about this than I am any other emotion. With any luck, it will be my last surgery for a while (although I said that last year after my left knee replacement so...I'm cautiously optimistic) and then I can start focusing more on everything that comes after. It'll be nice not to have to think about when I'll be cutting out my bone and replacing it next, maybe I can better focus on writing and other life events after that's dealt with.

Speaking of writing, we move onto my second (I'm including the last two paragraphs as one big semi-related news item) bit of news. I've been working on a memoir detailing my life (briefly described at the end of The Cancer and the Cure) and specifically all the crap with cancer and dealing with the side effects of treatment after the fact. For 16 months I've been doing on and off work with Nick regarding our memoirs, and after all that time...I have finished the rough draft! It's a huge deal for me, because this isn't the first intonation of this book. I tried writing it half a dozen times before and each time wound up abusing drugs or having a mental breakdown from the stress of recalling all of the traumatic experiences in my life. It took an enormous amount of mental and emotional energy to get it out there, and it wore me out to the point of exhaustion, but I finally got through the rough draft and proudly did so in one piece! (Not including all the extra pieces put into me by surgeons) I've been on a short break as school starts, but then Nick and I are going to be going into the editing process and making the books even better.

To celebrate the finishing of the rough draft, here's a small section conscripted from my book Life Has No Title. Until next time readers and blog.

Normally I encountered runners along the path, but today it was just myself and the little white dog. I looked at him, he pointedly ignored me as he usually did, and got an idea. Maybe there could be a runner. Me. I thought back to Nick, who had returned early in the summer and had been spending some time with me. There was a runner, someone who pushed his limits to insane measures and even further than that. If he could run a hundred mile race, why couldn’t I go on a short jog? He once drew inspiration from me as he made his way 3,000 miles, and now I could draw inspiration from him as I ran…a lot less than that.

“Come on Tucker! Giddy-up!” I put one foot in front of the other, picking up speed slowly but surely. The dog started to trot alongside me as I increased my pace but suddenly stopped and nearly dragged me off my feet after just a few seconds. “Okay, fine. We’ll take it slow you little prick.” I started again, making sure to stick to a light jogging pace. Every slap of my foot against the uneven surface sent a strange jarring sensation up my leg. It felt…good. I kept it up, sometimes going a bit quicker, but would soon be dragged back by a resistant dog. After about ninety seconds I gave up trying to pull the little ass along with me and settled back down to a walking pace. “Well that was fun,” I said to myself. Tucker sniffed at a bush.

I wasn’t content with such a paltry result though. During that jog I felt as though I had untapped energy that I could have unleashed had I not had a leashed mutt at my side. I would have to try again.

That’s exactly what I did too. My mom and I were walking the dog this time, so I didn’t have to hold the leash. As we walked, I told her about my jogging experience a few days before and she seemed impressed. “I think I could do better though,” I said, channeling my inner Nick. “Watch this.”

If she protested, I didn’t hear her, because I was off without another word. Uncertain of how fast to go to start with, and not even sure if I remembered how to run properly after five years, I could hear Nick whispering in my ear. “Open it up Bundy!” I’m pretty sure he’s never said that to me in my life, but that’s what I did. I sped away at full-blast and nearly lost my footing in the surprise at how quickly I was going. For a few precarious steps, I was running to avoid faceplanting, but I caught up with myself and sprinted away. I could feel the years melting away as everything around me became irrelevant. None of the pain to remind me of surgery after surgery, none of the aches to remind me of the atrophied muscles and hospital stays. None of the mental anguish harassing me those last couple months as I further slipped into becoming an anxious wreck. It was just me and the path. Everything else was in another world.

The wind rushed by, my legs pounding into hard earth, and on and on I ran, laughing silently and grinning ear to ear by the time I came to a halt as my burning legs asked politely to quit. Besides, I was almost out of bridle path and I would have to make the trek back to my mom. I honestly felt as though I could keep going if I wanted to, the rush was exquisite! I felt, for the first time in years, like a normal human being. It was such an alien feeling I wasn’t sure what to do with it. At least now I knew that my body wasn’t totally trashed, and I knew Nick would be pretty pleased when I told him about this the next time I saw him.

Your one and a half armed overlord,
Andrew

The Right Angle (Recovery Part 3)

Hey blog,

Wasn't all that Top Ten Zen stuff pretty cool? It was a lot of work but I definitely would agree that it was very much worth it to be able to reach out to so many people and offer insight and guidance. It was also pretty cool to be able to look at each quote from a different angle by having Nick co-author those posts with me. Maybe we'll do something like that again in the future, I wouldn't mind another collaborative project with the ultrarunning Zen master.

Step 4 in happy dance shows off my range of motion

I do apologize though, because although I did assist in dropping Zen knowledge upon thy head, I haven't given an update into my recovery in over three weeks now and should probably remedy that. As you may remember from part 2 of the recovery posts, my doctor was pleasantly surprised at the progress I'd made in the range of motion of my shoulder, which had already surpassed his one-year prediction in less than a month. Now I am in my eighth week of recovery (haven't seen the doctor yet, that's next week) and have moved from being in a sling to being out of a sling with active assistance (being able to move my arm with assistance from my left hand) to finally being allowed unrestricted movement! (Insert happy dance here.) I've been out of the sling for two weeks now and it feels good to have a semi-normal shoulder again. In some respects, it's better than my left one (which also has damage and will require surgery soonish), although still a bit sore. After all, I've been using it more and more and as such will run into a bit more pain for a while before it calms down. However, the range of motion is quite a deal higher than it was before the surgery, and indeed better than it has been in several years. The forward flexion (holding my arm straight ahead and raising it up) is all the way up to a whopping 125 degrees! The abduction (holding my arm straight out to the side and raising it up) is up to 110 degrees! Now, I should note that both of these numbers are a product of active assist and not unrestricted movement, but it is reassuring to know that I have the potential to reach these numbers as I continue to build up strength without the help of my "better" arm.

The rest of my happy dance, as reenacted by bear cubs

I'm sure I'll have some more updates available after I see my doctor in a couple weeks, although I might have something sooner because I just started back up with outpatient physical therapy. I had an initial assessment a couple days ago and so far so good. The biggest issue at the moment seems to be the pain, but that's just pain, not anything major problem, so I can handle that.

Summer's coming to a close. It's felt long and short, with lots of ups and downs to accompany it. Overall things went well: I fixed my right shoulder, both my brothers were around for a while (Chad left yesterday), I didn't get much writing done but am starting back up, I completed a ten-part blog series and kept to the timeline the entire time, and I managed to write a short story. All in all, I think I'm pleased with how it all went. Now I need to prepare for school and make sure I stick to a productive output for my book as I march slowly toward the next, and hopefully last (for a while anyways), surgery on my left shoulder. That one will round out the set: eight major joints replaced. With any luck, I won't have to worry too much about major surgeries until the first replacements begin to wear off in a few years. By then, I hope to establish some kind of normalcy in my life. Then again...what is normal anyway?

Comet 67P from 177 miles away

Before I get into the rest of my personal update (and a very touching part of this post for me), I wanted to share a very cool piece of news. For those of you who know me, you know I like space. It honestly confounds me that not everyone is totally enamored with it, but that's just how it is. However...I would like to quickly share a HUGE accomplishment that took place earlier this week that deserves mention. If you don't already know about the Rosetta mission, then here is a quick summary. Ten years ago Rosetta was launched to rendezvous with a comet named 67P (for short, the full name is a bit wordy) and enter into orbit around this 2.5 mile wide body careening through space. No other craft has ever accomplished this feat before. As of yesterday, August 6th 2014, and after a nearly four BILLION mile journey, Rosetta successfully entered into orbit around comet 67P and has made history!! But merely entering into orbit wasn't enough, because in November of this year, Rosetta will drop down the Philae lander, which will be the first craft to ever land on a comet. The pictures will be...well, I'm excited, let's put it that way. It's a monumental accomplishment and I am very much looking forward to seeing what kind of discoveries about comets and about our early solar system drop out of this truly special mission.

Relay for Life Luminaria

Back to the update. Now that Top Ten Zen is finished, I can get back to my writing. I had to put it on a temporary hiatus while Nick and I wrote our ten-part series as well as editing and formatting for our posts too. But it is done and the writing can recommence. I've not done as much as I wanted (although so far today, after meeting with Nick, I have managed over 4000 words), but it is always difficult to reinsert myself into the frame of mind of writing my memoir, because of the painful and difficult nature of writing non-fiction about yourself. Plus, I never really fully got back into writing Life Has No Title (my memoir) after the surgery. I had only done about 5,000 words when Nick and I began the Top Ten Zen project. For me, I've always found getting back into writing non-fiction a lot harder to start back up than fiction, which I adore and can pick up at almost any time with relative ease. It doesn't help that there are a lot of memory gaps in the long road of my treatments that I need to fill in by reading over old CaringBridge posts. Re-reading those is like taking a punch to the face with every paragraph. Nothing about this book is easy for me, but the potential benefits of raising awareness for post-cancer treatment and the state of mind of a cancer survivor (click on my About Me: Cancer and the Cure page to learn more) coupled with the (hopefully) cathartic nature of jotting all this down make this project essential for me to complete. In essence, I've given all of the shit I went through a purpose by writing this book and sharing my story. Whether it manages to shift people's perceptions of life after cancer and change policy and treatment methods and touch hundreds, thousands, or millions of people...or if all it does is help one person get through their cancer treatment, I know that I've done something good. Even if it's just one person it saves or makes their treatment just that little bit easier, I'll know that I did something good and worthwhile.

Your definitely not normal creator,
Andrew

Top Ten Zen Compilation

Hey blog,

Remember how I said that Top Ten Zen #10 would be the last post? I wasn't entirely truthful.

Don't Australians meditate upside down?

Top Ten Zen Finale

Nick and I thought that it might be good if we had the entire list of Top Ten Zen for your viewing pleasure! Isn't that nifty? Similar to the format during the normal Top Ten Zen series, we will give you the quote and a shortened version of our interpretations into one big list! No stories though, but you can click the interpretations if you want to go grab the full story from each of our blogs.

And again, we are very honored to have been able to offer guidance to you and hope that you find good uses for the advice and stories we have laid out for you.

And now...the finale of the Top Ten Zen series.

"Every end is another beginning."

TOP TEN ZEN QUOTES	SURVIVOR’S INTERPRETATION	RUNNER’S INTERPRETATION
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”	It’s easier to break a problem up into smaller pieces and take them on one at a time.	Break the race into smaller segments instead of taking on the whole distance at once.
“Body follows mind”	Your body’s true limits are set by the brain.	Your brain controls how much you can endure.
“The faster you hurry, the slower you go”	Patience is a major key when it comes to recovery.	Staying relaxed and fueled leaves you in control of your race.
“You are not bound by  your past”	The past will only be able to affect you if you let it.	Don’t let past races decide the outcome of your present one.
“Life is only available in the here and now”	Focus on this moment to avoid the stresses of the past and future.	Ground yourself in the present. Be the best you can be in this moment.
“You are the author of every next moment”	You get to decide how to handle your future, no matter how glum or bleak it looks.	Events are just events, and how you react to them is entirely up to you.
“Your own worst enemy lies within”	Nobody hurts you as much as your own negative thoughts.	The mind is the culprit of quitting.
“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them”	Accept your limitations to get out of the darkest mental pits.	Embrace your limits and you will embody your best self.
“Find joy in every little thing”	When facing hard times, it pays to find things to make you laugh and smile.	Stomp the flowers to get a better grip on the climb, but don’t forget to smell them!
“True strength is found in the face of adversity”	It is in hardship that you get the best glimpse of your true strength.	See every difficulty as an opportunity to prove yourself.

And once more, for emphasis, thank you for reading.

Nick Hollon

Andrew Bundy