Yet another trip to the doctor--

By the way, not to turn this into a blue collar kings of comedy routine or anything, but I think one of the aure signs that you're getting older is that you start to accumulate medical specialists in your sphere of influencers. I can now say, "Yeah, I went to see my osteopath today."--

and this time there's some real improvement. The mechanical problems of my Trigger Finger are gone, meaning that there's no little hitch or catch in my joints. I still have some soreness (truthfully, the soreness never really went away after the last visit, though it did improve), so the doctor gave me some anti-inflamation medication to take for the next couple months. I joked the other night that I should just start taking the same medication our dog Maxie takes for her arthritis. Turns out I was basically right.

Another visit to the bone doctor, another painful cortisone injection. Good times.

While my Trigger Finger^TM has improved, it was still bad enough that the doc could immediately determine the need for a second shot. After downplaying it on the previous visit, he also brought up surgery as an option. He's hopeful that the second shot will finish the job of fixing my finger, but he was pretty hopeful that one shot would suffice. Another appointment is scheduled for six weeks from today. That's when I'll have a more definitive idea about what it going to take to fix this, I suppose.

Since surgery's potentially up for consideration again, I decided to do a little InterWeb research. See what I'm store for. First of all, typing "bones" into Google brings up a lot of different stuff. (editor's note: all the links in the previous sentence are safe for those who opt for secrecy when studying.)

Eventually I found a site that cleared it all up for me.

( It's actually pretty cool... )

I can't believe that 48 hours from now I'll be somewhere in Minneapolis. One of the big downsides of being in crazy-busy, one-day-at-a-time mode is that stuff like long weekends of traveling completely sneak up on me.

We're going up for a wedding, but that'll probably wind up being a fairly small part of the weekend. We're plotting plenty of extra-curricular activities. Since it's us we're talking about here, it'll likely involve some time partaking of the city's stellar art-house cinemas, either to see a movie the seems perfectly designed to scare the shit out of us or catch one of the likely Best Actor contenders as a kickoff to Oscar season.

And then there's the not-so-small matter of that other film opening this weekend.

If I could just regain my proper footing with everything else before the plane lifts off, that would be great.

And my hand has been hurting again. Luckily my follow-up appointment is tomorrow. Not so luckily, that means another handshake with the big, scary needle.

The doctor confirmed that I have Trigger Finger^TM. While this condition might conjure up images of folks with a slightly different fashion sense than mine, it seems to be fairly common.

He gave me a big ol' shot and a helpful pamphlet with a lovely artistic rendering of handyman in grueling pain as he unpacks his toolbox, a drill dropped onto the workbench in front of him, clearly discarded when the agony became too much. The cortisone shot should bring down the swelling that causes the ailment, and any lingering soreness could very well be gone by the weekend. Contrary to the alarmist medical advice offered by some Web sites (and my direst imagination, fueled by too many episodes of "House") the doctor said that he uses surgery to correct this issue only about 10% of the time. Since it doesn't really impact my day-to-day work, it's far less likely that I'll need to subject my paw to the "appendages only" O.R. table. It might be a different matter if I worked construction or batted seventh for the Cleveland Indians.

Luckily, he didn't say a word about any other issues to look out for, as opposed to my general practitioner, who kicked off his diagnosis by talking about early onset arthritis. I may experience semi-regular reoccurances of Trigger Finger in my right pinky, or even in other fingers. Getting it once is a good sign that you're prone to it, so there may be more fun and excitement on the way.

I go back for a follow-up in six weeks. We'll see what he says then.

It's been ages since I've gone this long without foisting some sort of nonsense on you fine, patient perusers. But it's the first week of classes here in higher education land, and that will cause some weariness. Plus, there's the small matter of some cautiously planned mania on the way.

While it has limited my tendency to discovery electronic treasures through indiscriminate clicking, that questionable pursuit remains a significant drain on my time. See...



There's more where that came from, but the others aren't nearly as inspired.

In other news, tomorrow morning I endure a long-awaited doctor appointment to determine what precisely is wrong with my wounded right paw. I've got a guess (don't click, studiesinsecret!) but we'll see what Dr. Expert says.