hoi hoi ball-volleyers---
damn it all if THIS wasn't a freakin beach weekend! frickin frackin sazzafrazzzin...grrrr...
right. pardon me. couldn't control that bit there...
i'm writing out atcha to get everyone on the same page about my vball-playing status this fall and winter...
bottom line -carnsarnit- i'm out.
bleah.
i've been waffling on sending something out about this to y'all, my volleyball roundup-ees. didn't see as how it would be all that helpful to pass along this information. y'know, unlike how my plugs for NAPOLEON DYNAMITE and THE CORPORATION and midnight 70s kung fu at the coolidge corner theater have no doubt enriched your lives.~ =) but, having initially told only a few people - captains and teammates of my fall rosters - i've had questions come back at me from other folks i'd usually catch up with between games or at anna's or white horse and such. so, i figured i'd let "everyone" know whatall's up.
i went and did Something Bad to my shoulder. it felt like i initally tweaked it sometime around the second week of august. it continued to bother me and got more painful, restricting more motion, thru the rest of the summer. and on labor day at the beach i found i couldn't fully extend my right arm without a lot of freakin pain. since labor day i've seen my primary care doc and then doctor zahner (orthopedic surgeon at st. e's in brighton) about it and they inform me that my mri reveals a rotator cuff tear. my visit with doc z was this past tuesday and he told me that if i want to be able to play volleyball again at the level i was playing before the injury, i would need surgery to re-attach my muscle (or is it tendon? frack, i should've taken notes) to bone in my shoulder.
i thought about that a while and then said - gosh, that's super, but isn't there anything they could do so that i could play at a HIGHER level?
heh. actually, he said he was surprised to see this kind of damage in a 32 year-old and wanted to review the mri with another radiologist for a second opinion. i think he was maybe skeptical of just how bad my volleyball problem is. =)
so, i'm supposed to consult w him again in two tuesdays. i'm quite certain that it is a tear - sounds dumb, but i feel like i can FEEL that it's torn, that there's a loose end of something lost and sandwiched and sliding between layers of other muscle - ick! - and once dr. zaius confirms it when i see him next, i'll be opting for surgery. he told me that post-surgery recovery time could run from eight to twelve months. so, at best, back in time for some summer ball, and at not-so-best, back for the fall.
THANKS! to bruno for polling the online vb community for personal experience info on rotator cuff surgery and recovery. if you've got something to share, good, or not-so-good, about shoulder injury, surgery, and recovery, i'd appreciate hearing it.
* today you read an email dealing with a shoulder injury that changed one boy's life. how might such an incident change yours? to find out more about the rotator cuff, surgery, and the human body in general, consult the books at your local community public library! remember, reading is fundamental!
i tried brushing my teeth today only lefty, to see what i'd have to deal with for a chunk of the recovery time while my right arm is useless, y'know?...anyhow, my technique needs a little work. they'll release me from surgery only to have me back at the hospital the next day to have a toothbrush removed from my sinus.
hrmm...thinking maybe i should get my hair cropped down to a quarter inch or so all around to not hafta deal w the washing and drying. whaddyathink?
keep on keepin on,
brian out
---------------------------------------------------------------
and speaking of ripping arms out of sockets...
go see SHAUN OF THE DEAD! you think it's a movie about zombies, but really, it's about everyday life and relationships. =) if "living dead" isn't typically your favorite genre, i have to recommend this as a great gateway film. and if you're a fan of the living dead, it's a really sweet and clever addition to the existing body of quality work out there.
crazy paik digest armchair thinking - i dunno what hollywood would say about it. the studios may just be unwitting conduits, believing they're just tapping into some odd spike in marketability, figuring out that, "hey, the kids today, they just LOVE zombies!" and a huge bonus for an action flick built around the undead - it opens up all the doors to portraying ridiculous violence on screen, cuz y'know, you can't REALLY hurt them - "they're dead. they're ALL messed up." and c'mon, EVERYONE wants to take a cricket bat to the bobbling heads of their neighbors, right?
y'know, years ago there was a PC video game called CARMAGEDDON that had the player driving all around town smashing other cars and mowing down pedestrians, all the while running from suped up cop-mobiles. wow, y'know, i forget which way the restriction went now. if the u.s. was harsher or if it was europe...? well, anyhow, let's say it was the u.s. while the game was approved for release in europe, in order for the game to get a teen-OK rating in the states, the creators had to turn all of the pedestrians into zombies. a teen could mow down all the pedestrians s/he wanted to so long as they were green and kind of raggedly dressed! a bold statement on the homeless and panhandling? isn't drawing lines fun! =)
anyhow, it's looking to me like the "living dead" is a genre that's making a bit of a legitimate comeback -in gaming for several years now, and now on the big screen, w remakes of the romero classics, and me being me- i wonder why. look for something in human nature...in these times of "see something? say something!" the need for an obvious evil threat, a true unambiguous enemy...? or the dilemmas that arise from painting someone as such? i mean, you love your grandparents, right? what happens when they come THRILLERing back to life hungry for your grey matter?
or perhaps they are a reflection of ourselves, a commentary on the effect of modern life on actual living - or at least, feeling like you're living, alive?
and now, here's a group of words that have never been put together in this order before...
much like monkeys, the undead really are an excellent device for turning the magnifying glass on ourselves.
*zap*
talk amongst yourselves. discuss.
