R e – P e t e

Day 27: Das Boot

Today I had my splint removed and got fitted with a boot! Woot! I can’t put any weight on it just yet but at least I won’t have to bathe with a bag around my leg anymore.

Survival post-surgery has been a challenge. I was on Vicodin for a couple days but disliked the side effects. I spend a few days after that living from the couch. My parents stayed with me for a few days and I was pampered.

A few days after surgery I was hopping on my good foot and fell onto my desk putting some weight on my bad foot. It felt like worse than torture. I tumbled to the couch and wept myself to sleep, in the darkness, to the sound of the blues.

Another day I was going out and I nearly tumbled down my front steps. Joy.

Today brings positive news though. The doctor has given me a sheet that has the schedule of recovery. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

My doctor is a pretty funny guy. Turns out he took a picture of my achilles during surgery and asked me if I wanted to see it. I was pretty excited to see it and I made sure he emailed it to me. Check it out people!

Before:

Today during cleaning:

Day 15: Health”care”

Yes, it says “right KNEE achilles…” even though my knee was absolutely fine. They verified later that they weren’t working on my knee.

When I was a kid, I had to go to the hospital a couple times for surgery. I remember each time that the nurses were very nice and I felt like they took care of me pretty well. Maybe it was because I was a kid, but health care these days feels more like car maintenance.

It started when my doctor’s office rescheduled my surgery appointment without telling me. I wonder how they would’ve done surgery without the patient. It was only moved a few hours ahead of time but it took my asking them (the day before mind you) to find out.

I show up to Pacific Heights Surgery Clinic which feels a bit like a dentist’s office. I’m used to actually being in hospitals. Everything feels a little cozy. Aside from a separate room for surgery, prep and recovery areas and pretty much just separated by curtains. It’s an assembly line!

They bring me into the chilly surgery room and I’m chatting with the anesthesiologist. Boom I’m out. Boom I’m up again and feeling punch drunk waking up from my surgery. I can barely open my eyes and I ask the kind nurse for water (which she’s giving to me because I’m not sure my arms will respond). A scant 10 minutes later she asks if I’m ready to go home. Umm I can barely keep my eyes open.

I ask for another 10 minutes. She goes off to lunch and leaves her coworker to take care of me. 10 minutes on the dot, new nurse says it’s time to dress me. I’m not even sure my muscles will respond. I’m surprised when they do. So now I’m dressed but definitely won’t be able to leave on crutches. They bring a wheelchair and I’m off! I swear I get more personal attention from my mechanic.

All in all, I thought things went well and the doctor and nurses I worked with were very nice. Yes, it seems like the operation was routine as well but I do wonder if this is the result of having such a business driven private health care system.

Day 9: Splint0r3d

And so the journey begins. I went to the doctor today and he confirmed that I did rupture my Achilles’ Heel. Based on what I’ve read, it’s going to be a long journey from surgery to casting to rehab. So I’ve decided to chronicle the whole (mis)adventure.

There goes volleyball, the whole snowboarding season and getting super fit. Talk about a major bummer! Instead I will be consuming massive amounts of delivered food, TV, internet and sleep. You think one could be content with that but not if there’s no choice in the matter.

There is an amazing amount of information available on the web. In particular, much of it is centralized at http://achillesblog.com/.

When I injured it, I wasn’t sure if it was more than a sprain. I thought I would give it a couple days and see how it felt. Did that and was out of town for a few days. I read more about the injury and the telltale sign was that I compared the Achilles on my healthy foot vs injured foot and there was a clear depression on the injured foot. So I decided to see an orthopedic surgeon / sports medicine doctor.

He said I really should’ve come in earlier. Drats! I should’ve listened to Emily. Anyway, we talked options surgery vs just immobilization. Given how active I am and my age he recommended surgery. I’ve read so much online I felt pretty good about making this decision.

Day 0: Injury

It had been a busy day. I woke up, did a light work out and went to a job interview. Typically I don’t work out on days where I’m playing volleyball but I thought it would help psyche me up for my interview.

I got home after a day of walking through torrential rain, interviewed for several hours and then taking a semi-miserable MUNI ride home. Cold, tired, grumpy. I was looking for to some serious vegging in front of the TV but remembered I had volleyball. I wasn’t looking forward to the drive but I love volleyball.

It seemed like a typical day except I didn’t do my typical stretch routine. I stretched my back and shoulders, typical problem areas for me. Usually I do a calf stretch but not this time. That would be my fatal mistake.

The first game went normally. Ref-ed the next one. And then we were up again. While warming up, I put my right foot back so I could push forward. It’s a step I’ve been trying to time my approach but, on hindsight, probably puts a lot of stress on the Achilles. I don’t know if I slipped or not but it felt like someone kicked my in the heel with all their might.

I looked around to see who I should curse out but no one was near me. My heel was in massive pain. I didn’t twist my ankle. So I had to sit out the next game. When I was walking I noticed that my foot hung loosely (as if the Achilles had been cut). I didn’t realize what this meant until much later on as I wasn’t familiar with the injury.

I drove home (which was a bit painful) but had it wrapped and iced thanks to Maria, my teammate. It was in some serious pain so I took some Advil. Showered like a pink flamingo and then hit the sack.

I figured I would give it a few days to see how it felt and would see the doctor if there wasn’t significant recovery. I read some stuff online and thought that I had just sprained my Achilles’ instead of tearing it.

Korean War – HD-SN-99-03144

Korean War – HD-SN-99-03144

Originally uploaded by US Army Korea – IMCOM

“With her brother on her back a war weary Korean girl tiredly trudges by a stalled M-26 tank, at Haengju, Korea. June 9, 1951. Maj. R.V. Spencer, UAF. (Navy)”

Party like it’s 1996

Most of you probably know by now that I’ve been following this election like peanut butter on top of a kids mouth. I can’t help it. There are just so many compelling events going on. Rarely does one recognize that they are watching history unravel before their eyes.

To use a tired cliche, this election is definitely like no other. However, to amuse myself, I do look to recent history as a gauge of the outcome of this presidential election will look like.

I’ve been a big fan of pollster.com which takes all the polls out there and comes up with some sort of aggregated poll of its own (I’m guessing it simply just takes the average). Pollster currently shows 311 electoral votes either solid or leaning Democrat with 142 electoral votes solid or leaning Republican. It shows 85 electoral votes belonging to toss-up states.

A presidential nominee only need 270 electoral votes to win.

Should we celebrate already? Probably not. There are too many unknowns. But I’d like to take a stab at how I think the electoral votes will play out based purely on wild guesses and the result of the ‘96 election.

I chose the ‘96 election (Clinton 1st term vs Bush) because the map is looking very similar to what it was back then. Here are the results of the ‘96 election:

And here’s the current standings for the ‘08 election:

It’s worth taking a look at the overlapping swing states in that election and this election.

My guess is that Obama will not win Louisiana or Arkansas. Clinton had an edge there considering that he was from Arkansas and Louisiana is a bordering state. Missouri has only become a toss-up state recently so I’ll give that to McCain.

Clinton lost Virginia by about 4 points but Obama holds a striking lead of 8%. North Carolina will come down to the wire. In ‘96, it went red by 0.8% and Obama holds a 3% lead here which is basically within statistical error. I’ll give that to Obama because I think his grass-roots early-voting efforts will pay off. But, even if he does win it, we’re talking very slim margins.

Georgia seems very murky. It went blue in ‘96 and the race is very close now. Obama or Biden haven’t been campaigning heavily here. I’ll give Georgia to McCain because it’s part of the South. Florida has a good chance at going blue (it went red in ‘96) but Florida is.. well it’s Florida. Even though Florida is in the South, it’s seems to act differently. I’ll give it to Obama but, again, razor-thin margins.

Indiana looks like it may go red. But the good news for Obama is that Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and even Montana look like they will go blue like in ‘96.

So what’s that come out to? Obama 356 to McCain’s 182. Clinton won 370 to Bush’s 168.

There are several things to note. While this outcome would look like a landslide win for Obama, the electoral votes belie how close this election will be. Obama could lose Florida and North Carolina and even Ohio. McCain’s also been campaigning heavily in Penn. If he took those 4 states, he would have 265 votes, which still wouldn’t be enough but means that he would just need 1 of the smaller southwestern states to go his way to win.

All in all, the two races aren’t the same but the political map does look similar. Let’s hope that the Dems can take back the White House.