Category: Life

From War to Shaft

Somehow, we missed The West Wing when it was first broadcast, but now we have it on DVD (actually, it’s Jeff’s), and we’re slowly working our way through the best Democratic Administration never to really inhabit the White House; tonight, we watched The War at Home from the second season.

We almost watched the next episode, too, but I wanted something lighter, so we turned to our brand new TiVo Premiere for Ovation’s Orange Blossom Special special.

It was entertaining and full of music, but it didn’t have any full performances of the song, so I let my fingers do the walking on YouTube in hopes of making my ears happy. We found (and played) a few conventional versions, and then stumbled across The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain’s version, which was distinctive, to say the least.

That wasn’t quite enough ukelele for the night, so we kept looking and finished the evening with the Ukelele Orchestra’s memorable performance of Shaft.

Can you dig it?

The answer is “yes”

The question, for a frightening amount, is in the “Exercise” category: “Is it possible to overdo exercise during post-surgery recovery?”

I walked something over 8 miles yesterday; the last walk was fairly late and I felt a little achy towards the end, but it was nothing that acetaminophen couldn’t cure. Or so I thought.

I slept pretty well, too – until I woke up at 5:30 with a very sore back. No matter how I moved, I could’t make it feel better, so I finally got up along with Diane at 6am. A hot shower and breakfast helped a lot, too – enough so that I made a pie for the Oneg Shabbat tomorrow. I even remembered to take care of some reimbursement paperwork from IBM, too (we’ll see if they consider golf classes to be “retraining”).

But around 11:30, my back started hurting again. I had to go pick up lunch, but that was a short walk to Safeway (very slow, though). I took a Tramedol with lunch, and felt a little better. But it didn’t last, and the back pains were soon accompanied by an achy chest.

All of my doctors’ offices were closed for lunch, so I couldn’t call right away. When the cardiologist opened, they said it soundled like musculo-skeletal problems and to call my family doctor or visit the ER. I didn’t want to visit the ER, but I had no way to get to the family doctor, so I decided to wait.

But it kept hurting more and more. I had been planning to go out for a long walk with a doctor friend, so I called him – when I described my problem, he suggested calling 9-1-1!

In the meantime, Diane had come back to her office – she said she’d come home and take me where ever I thought would help. And by the time she got home, I was convinced that I needed a trip to the ER.

Off we went. As soon as I got to the triage window, I used those magic words: “chest pains”. Someone was helping me in a minute, and I was given a bed in ER right away.

They strapped me to an EKG – normal. They took X-rays – normal. They gave me pain killers (morphene for sure, possibly other things), which made a big difference – my pain level dropped from 6 (higher than it had been at Sequoia, even right after the operation) to 3. And they took a CT scan – also normal. By this time, I was dozing off, and my pain level was down to a 1 or so.

When all was said and done, the doctor decided that the problems were almost certainly from overdoing my exercise earlier this week. He increased my aspirin prescription to a 325mg pill (up from 81mg) for the next few days, and urged me to take Tramodol if I hurt. And if I don’t feel good on Monday, I need to visit my cardiologist.

This turns out to be a good weekend for doing less, anyway – we’ve got Shabbat services, a play, and the Superbowl. I see lots of sitting-down time – just what the doctor ordered!