Wait, Wait! It's 2008 Already?

Where have I been? Well, to begin with, work takes up the majority of my time, especially with the holiday crunch that meant extra hours. Then there has been my class at COD and the studying to memorize all those medical terms, then two nights each week I've had physical therapy for my back, and the daily 45 minutes or so of home exercise for the same (okay so I do admit to missing a few of those days), a day each weekend in Wisconsin to see Stacey & Biff, and my buddy Georgia once or twice and going to a few Bears games with my brothers, and then suddenly here it is a new year! Wait! I wasn't finished with the last one!
Work has been more challenging than I remember it being in years past. I suppose with school and health issues weighing on my mind, my focus at the store has been affected. And I also suppose that this year I have been taking on more responsibility for purchasing, and it can be a worrysome task. What is purchased, has to SELL! I don't like to take risks anymore than anyone along those lines, but I do know that it takes new merchandise to attract the the general interest of the buyer. Knowing the right new merchandise to attract our very conservative market is not an easy task. The store owner, who has the primary responsibility for all this, is extremely conservative in areas where I am more liberal and vice versa. We go head to head sometimes, but all in all I think we do well that way. I hope she feels the same. Sales for 2007 exceeded 2006, not by a huge margin, but a healthy one. Now it will be interesting to see how our purchasing matched up.

I finished my class with an A, are you surprised? Out of a total possible of 848 points, which included 9 of 10 quizzes (lowest quiz score was dropped - mine being 1 point shy of a perfect score), attendance, mid-term and final exam, I earned 836 - the highest point total of my class. I suppose I could have done a couple of extra credit papers to make it a perfect score for the class, but I figure why not just take some of those points off the quiz that was dropped?! Now that I have my feet wet in this college thing, I'm going to take two classes next semester - Psychology and Biomedical Ethics.

Ah, the shoulder & back issues.... You couldn't wait to hear about that stuff again could you. Well, since the only people who possibly read what I write down here, are Phil & Eric, and they have heard it all before, I'll just say this:
Shoulder - not healed. Reasons - could be me (some patients just don't heal well); could be the surgery wasn't all that it should have been. Shoulder guru doctor says we'll look again in Feb and see how the clavicle looks. His initial remark the last time he examined it was "A bone that is healed does not hurt." So as long as I have this pain, I know there is a problem. If it's not looking like there's progression in the healing, he'll recommend a CT scan to decide if a new surgery could fix the darn thing.
Back - well, since my right side is compromised by the injured clavicle, that puts a lot of additional strain on my already compromised left side. The MRI showed that I had severe arthrosis (arthritis) of the left L5-S1 facet joint (with a few other things going on in the area, mostly due to my scoliosis), which after 3 weeks of physical therapy and then a major pain flare-up in November, the Dr & I decided to inject. The procedure was changed to a nerve block once I was under the fluoroscope, since there was no space left in the joint to put the needle in. So the two nerves to the joint were blocked (medial branch block). This is done as much for the purpose of diagnosis as to relieve the pain. It's only temporary relief, but if effective, it proves that my pain is caused by that arthritis, and that I could be a good candidate for a more long term treatment called radiofrequency ablation. Basically speaking, those same two little nerves are burnt, so that no pain signal goes from that specific joint to my brain. They eventually can grow back, but the procedure is usually effective for 6 months to a year at time, and if the pain returns, the procedure can be repeated. I had my second block done yesterday, as the pain was back after four or five weeks, and now the Dr and I will talk again in two weeks about whether or not the RFA is in my future. Check out Spine-Health.com if you are interested in any of this. I've found it most informative.