Had a brief appointment at the orthopedics specialist — he reiterated what my doctor said, no lifting for the time being, keeping the sling on for a few more days to keep myself from inadvertently reaching out too fast (and also as a visual cue for other people to be careful, which I thought was smart). He also said I have good range of motion considering, so he isn’t too worried about recovery.

There’s a portion of my outside shoulder that has been numb, but he expects that was a nerve that got damaged and will eventually heal. He told me to stay off my bike until I don’t have what is called “rest pain” — where it hurts when you’re just hanging out. So it’s four wheels or no wheels until then. :)

Tomorrow morning is my appointment with the physical therapist. I have been crazily looking forward to that so I can get this process going. I should know in about 2 months whether that’s going to do it for me or if I’ll require surgery.

Well, I managed to get in at the doctor’s this morning, which is awesome. Here’s the latest:

Things are going well enough to get a referral to a physical therapist (yay!), the same sports therapist that helped me when I threw out my back a couple of years ago. He’s a cyclist too (with great stories about how his achilles tendon snapped going up hill one time) and a nice guy, so he’ll be perfect.

However, due to the sensation of the arm feeling “loose” in the socket, as if it might fall out, my doc wants me to go ahead and get in to see that orthopedic specialist as well — if the therapy doesn’t fix everything in the next 1-3 months, the ortho will already be in the loop, thus expediting potential procedures later (like surgery).

She said I can get back to work later this week part time, then full time next week if all is well. She also said I could dump the sling if I wanted to, but that it would be useful to keep me from accidentally screwing up my shoulder by involuntarily putting my arm out if I stumble, or grabbing a falling object, or lifting stuff. That would be bad, so I’ll keep it on for now.

Also, it was in the back of ribs 10 and 11 on the right-hand side that I fractured — there’s not much to do with those except let them heel. Sucks to sneeze or cough, I can tell you. :)

Oh, and my blood pressure is 113/73, so I’ve got that going for me. ;)

More news as it happens!

On Boing Boing today:

It’s too bad that all those musicians can’t release their music in a listener-friendly license. Oh wait — they can.

It’s too bad you can’t convert Apple’s DRM’d files to a different format. Oh wait — you can.

This is a good example of what I call “snorting the Whuffie”, where the pundit loses all sense of proportion and scale, mistaking these electrons and photons moving around the globe as being on the same level of importance as, say, air.

As much as I like the “wonderful things” the Boing Boing crew uncover in the intarwebtubes, occasionally I have to shake my head in bewilderment at the hyper-hyperbole.

Don’t like Apple’s music-killing DRM scheme? Don’t buy music from them.

But I guess that would be too easy, too reasonable, and not seeking publicity enough.

Naomi over at Will Tell Stories For Food posted earlier today on a curious culinary coincidence, “Ethnic Food”, prompted by the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day

The story starts out with the odd corned beef tradition on the holiday, which apparently started in the States, a dish which the Irish didn’t have back in Ireland. A cuisine that does have corned beef (or brined brisket at least) is Jewish.

Not that American Jewish cuisine doesn’t include plenty of things they didn’t eat in the Old Country. Let’s take lox, for example. Lox is smoked salmon, sliced thin, eaten cold, preferably on top of bagels with lots of cream cheese. Do you suppose they had ready access to salmon in the shtetls of Eastern Europe? Not likely. And yet in the U.S. it is quintessentially Jewish, much the way corned beef is quintessentially Irish.

The plot thickens, too. Guess who likes lox.

Who ate lox — smoked salmon — back in the Old Country? The Irish, as it turns out. At least, the modern Irish do — when we were there in 1998 it was readily available as pub food. […]

This has always puzzled me. Did someone host a multi-ethnic recipe-swap night in New York City decades ago, or was this pure coincidence?

One of those cool cross-cultural stories with a lot of history attached, plus the extraordinary origins of seemingly ordinary traditions.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that I was approaching Node #1414 for this site (nodes being Drupal parlance for page or story IDs), which wouldn’t really be a milestone for anybody except this site. ;) I pondered some possibilities to mark the occasion but hadn’t reached any conclusions.

Then, three weeks ago tomorrow, I got, ah, interrupted. ;)

So here I’ve been, stuck at the house for three weeks straight, apart from a few errands starting this week. I’ve been pushing my impatient self probably quicker than I should be doing things, but there’s only so much daytime television I can take. (Thank God for the FOX Soccer Channel.) Coincidentally, a couple of folks way more famous than I am have had shoulder injuries — Laker Vladimir Radmanovic and Miami Heat superstar Dwyane Wade.

No outdoors make Robert a grouchy patient.

At the moment, I am feeling better — I’m able to type more with both hands now, which is a relief, though I do have to take breaks. Except first thing in the morning or late in the day, the shoulder feels much better, as do the ribs. In fact, my shoulder seems “normal” when I don’t move it around. When I bend forward, though, it shifts as if my arm is falling off my body. Shudder!

I am now engaged in the usual crap with the medical field. My doctor is awesome, love her like crazy, but most of her office staff is just awful when it comes to paperwork, communication, and other bureaucrap. I was allegedly supposed to see her this week, but then got a referral to an orthopedic doctor and when I called my doctor’s office, I couldn’t get an appointment till next week. Gah! Anyhow, I’m hoping to get in on Monday if at all possible.

Anyhow, despite that and despite the cabin fever, I’m doing more or less okay. About ready to be talking to a physical therapist. I’m going to try a mile or so walk later.

More news after the weekend.