The Week (so far) in Brief
Nov. 24th, 2015 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogIt's been simply wonderful having Danae here. As we spend time together, talking, eating, studying, walking, it feels as though we were never apart. We've had many conversations, both light and deep. I'm sure I'll write about some sooner or later. I increasingly hope that, once I'm done at Syracuse, we will live together for the long term. Her being here makes me even more conscious of how happy I am when she is, and how much I miss her when she's not.
---
I just got back from my early morning appointment with the orthopedic surgeon, who examined my CT scan images. It looks like the screw may be in the joint space and should probably come out. He talked about the surgical procedure as he felt my wrist and moved my hand around again. While he worked, I moved my wrist in the particular way that makes it go c-r-r-r-r-ack. He looked pained. 'I suspect it's not supposed to do that," I commented. He agreed and had me do it again while he felt the joint. Then he told me I shouldn't do that if I can avoid it; it might be causing arthritis.
I have an appointment for arthroscopy and removal of the screw on the 20th of January, after I get back from winter break. I'll be going under general anesthetic, which makes me a little nervous. I've been under before a couple times and I know it's pretty safe, but I recognize that there is a trivial, but non-zero, chance of serious complications or death. Trivial enough for the risk to be worth it, like flying. But real enough to make me anxious, like flying.
Yesterday, I saw a dermatologist who removed a couple of skin tags that have been annoying me for a while. The dermatologist was, I think, a somewhat butch lesbian with a vaguely punk haircut. She's a serious bicyclist too, and we talked about bikes and riding in Syracuse while she worked. She reminded me of the archivist at Parkside. I felt immediately comfortable with her and hoped that she saw the HRC sticker on my bike helmet. The removal was simple; she injected an anesthetic and just shaved them off. It's nice to have that done; it wasn't really a high priority, but the one on my arm, particularly, got caught on things from time to time and looked kind of ugly peeking out from under the edge of my shirt sleeve. But the strongest motivation to get rid of it was that Danae feels more comfortable really digging her fingernails in to me if she's not worried about tearing it. What can I say? Sex sells.
Sells is the appropriate word, since buying health care here in the US is pricey even with good insurance. With four office visits this month, I've maxed out a signed 8-bit integer denominated in dollars in health care costs this week. The copay for my outpatient surgery should be another $200, if I'm reading my benefits info correctly, and I'll have a urology referral coming up which will be another $40 office visit. This is difficult on a grad student budget, but I'll manage. I'm glad to be getting all this stuff taken care of, finally.
I'm out another $50 right now, at least for the moment, on a cell phone. I bought a Republic Wireless phone on Ebay last week that I thought had a Wednesday delivery date. I looked at the tracking yesterday and saw that it was delivered on Saturday. The person I called at the post office said he'd check with the carrier and call back. Not having heard, I called again today. The guy there assured me that the carrier had put it in my mailbox. I assured him that it never showed up. I looked all around my apartment yesterday in case I was wrong, but no luck. The carrier will check the other mailboxes in the apartment today, but if it's not there, I'm going to have to follow up with the seller and have them process the insurance claim. This is extra frustrating because my current cell phone provider is ridiculously crappy and I've been putting off replacing my phone and service for months because I didn't want to spend the money on it. I was really looking forward to improving that situation. I guess it'll be a little while longer.
I got the studded tires I bought onto my bike yesterday. They behaved pretty well on my ride to the doctor today. They're heavier and slower, but I was expecting that. It should be more than worth it once Syracuse's many hills are covered in ice and snow. I also got the brakes adjusted nicely and recalibrated the gear shift; it's riding quite well, which pleases me. Getting the tires installed took much longer than I expected, as these things always do. The rear wheel is complicated, with it's roller brake and internally-geared hub. It also had a Schraeder-valve inner tube that I wanted to switch to Presta. (Schrader valves are the kind you typically see on car tires. They are bigger around and require bigger holes in the rim. Presta are much easier to work with, but using them on Schraeder-drilled rims requires a spacing adapter.) That was easy, with the adapter I'd bought some time back for that purpose. The front tube, though, gave me issue. It already had an adapter from before, but it was hopelessly corroded to the valve. I went at it hammer and tongs (actually makeshift hammer and lineman's pliers) and ended up breaking it entirely. I instead had to take the front wheel of my other bike and scavenge the adapter from it. Said wheel is now sitting on the floor next to that bike, waiting for me to buy another adapter. I think, though, that I might just put a Shcraeder tube back in it, since I have a good one still, and keep using that until it fails. It gets me two working bikes now, and saves a little money too.
So that's my week so far. I'm going to get back to trying to work on a paper.
---
I just got back from my early morning appointment with the orthopedic surgeon, who examined my CT scan images. It looks like the screw may be in the joint space and should probably come out. He talked about the surgical procedure as he felt my wrist and moved my hand around again. While he worked, I moved my wrist in the particular way that makes it go c-r-r-r-r-ack. He looked pained. 'I suspect it's not supposed to do that," I commented. He agreed and had me do it again while he felt the joint. Then he told me I shouldn't do that if I can avoid it; it might be causing arthritis.
I have an appointment for arthroscopy and removal of the screw on the 20th of January, after I get back from winter break. I'll be going under general anesthetic, which makes me a little nervous. I've been under before a couple times and I know it's pretty safe, but I recognize that there is a trivial, but non-zero, chance of serious complications or death. Trivial enough for the risk to be worth it, like flying. But real enough to make me anxious, like flying.
Yesterday, I saw a dermatologist who removed a couple of skin tags that have been annoying me for a while. The dermatologist was, I think, a somewhat butch lesbian with a vaguely punk haircut. She's a serious bicyclist too, and we talked about bikes and riding in Syracuse while she worked. She reminded me of the archivist at Parkside. I felt immediately comfortable with her and hoped that she saw the HRC sticker on my bike helmet. The removal was simple; she injected an anesthetic and just shaved them off. It's nice to have that done; it wasn't really a high priority, but the one on my arm, particularly, got caught on things from time to time and looked kind of ugly peeking out from under the edge of my shirt sleeve. But the strongest motivation to get rid of it was that Danae feels more comfortable really digging her fingernails in to me if she's not worried about tearing it. What can I say? Sex sells.
Sells is the appropriate word, since buying health care here in the US is pricey even with good insurance. With four office visits this month, I've maxed out a signed 8-bit integer denominated in dollars in health care costs this week. The copay for my outpatient surgery should be another $200, if I'm reading my benefits info correctly, and I'll have a urology referral coming up which will be another $40 office visit. This is difficult on a grad student budget, but I'll manage. I'm glad to be getting all this stuff taken care of, finally.
I'm out another $50 right now, at least for the moment, on a cell phone. I bought a Republic Wireless phone on Ebay last week that I thought had a Wednesday delivery date. I looked at the tracking yesterday and saw that it was delivered on Saturday. The person I called at the post office said he'd check with the carrier and call back. Not having heard, I called again today. The guy there assured me that the carrier had put it in my mailbox. I assured him that it never showed up. I looked all around my apartment yesterday in case I was wrong, but no luck. The carrier will check the other mailboxes in the apartment today, but if it's not there, I'm going to have to follow up with the seller and have them process the insurance claim. This is extra frustrating because my current cell phone provider is ridiculously crappy and I've been putting off replacing my phone and service for months because I didn't want to spend the money on it. I was really looking forward to improving that situation. I guess it'll be a little while longer.
I got the studded tires I bought onto my bike yesterday. They behaved pretty well on my ride to the doctor today. They're heavier and slower, but I was expecting that. It should be more than worth it once Syracuse's many hills are covered in ice and snow. I also got the brakes adjusted nicely and recalibrated the gear shift; it's riding quite well, which pleases me. Getting the tires installed took much longer than I expected, as these things always do. The rear wheel is complicated, with it's roller brake and internally-geared hub. It also had a Schraeder-valve inner tube that I wanted to switch to Presta. (Schrader valves are the kind you typically see on car tires. They are bigger around and require bigger holes in the rim. Presta are much easier to work with, but using them on Schraeder-drilled rims requires a spacing adapter.) That was easy, with the adapter I'd bought some time back for that purpose. The front tube, though, gave me issue. It already had an adapter from before, but it was hopelessly corroded to the valve. I went at it hammer and tongs (actually makeshift hammer and lineman's pliers) and ended up breaking it entirely. I instead had to take the front wheel of my other bike and scavenge the adapter from it. Said wheel is now sitting on the floor next to that bike, waiting for me to buy another adapter. I think, though, that I might just put a Shcraeder tube back in it, since I have a good one still, and keep using that until it fails. It gets me two working bikes now, and saves a little money too.
So that's my week so far. I'm going to get back to trying to work on a paper.
