Posted June 8th, 2007 by Carol Logan Newbill
Ever since YouTube became a genuine phenomenon, more and more of the blogs I read are embedding videos into their posts. Now I happen to be a curmudgeonly Luddite: I have my browser set for no animations, no ads, and no Flash unless I deliberately click on it. This means that when I view a post with an embedded YouTube I see
Note: This is not a link or embed; it’s a screen capture. Don’t try to click it.
Now in this particular case I know who Steve is (a brilliant, insightful, well-liked political blogger who died this week at a tragically young age) so I can guess what the content might be.
In many cases, though, the posts consists of a title like “For your viewing pleasure,” which is uninformative and does not inspire me to click through and watch. It takes up screen room, it takes up bandwidth, and it strikes me as being supremely lazy. When I have nothing to say, I don’t post. It seems like such a waste of effort to embed a YouTube video without comment just to have something to list on the post calendar for that day.
Okay, now I’ve had my say for the day. It was perhaps a trifle lazy, but I got it out of my system.
Posted June 7th, 2007 by Carol Logan Newbill
This morning I was released from the cast on my right hand. I still must tape my middle and ring fingers together to prevent any chance of reinjury to the break, but this is much, much better.
This is the first time I’ve ever broken a bone and there have been some major surprises involved. The first is that the break itself didn’t hurt that much. I remember being in pain right after I fell, but after a couple of minutes I was convinced it was just a bad sprain. I didn’t go get it x-rayed for more than a day, until the swelling became truly alarming. Even after it was set and casted (“casted?” is that right?) there still wasn’t much pain and I never took anything stronger than Advil.
What did astound me was how quickly my muscle strength deteriorated and especially how painful the immobilized joints became. After three weeks I was convinced that I had really bad arthritis in my fingers; the joints swelled and it hurt to try to move. My fingers became essentially useless. After another week or so, they started hurting even when I didn’t move them. Advil became my constant friend, leading (naturally) to stomach inflammation and pain.
I have fibro. I live with pain. This should not have poleaxed me like it did.
The good news from this morning, however, is that all of this is normal and to be expected. As I exercise and stretch the ligaments, the flexibility should return and the pain should eventually go away. It will still, says the ortho guy, take months before everything is back to normal, so patience is called for.
The other good news? As a dual result of not being able to cook and not being able to eat, I’ve lost about five pounds in the last six weeks. On the whole, however, I do not recommend breaking your hand as a weight-loss mechanism.
