I gave up on that hold and moved on to a couple more climbs but we had to go very soon. I went home, took a few ibuprofen, and hoped it would feel better in the morning. Today, it’s still swollen and aches all the time. I’m icing my wrist as I speak.

My second climbing related injury! I’m not even sure if I wrote about the first, but I tried to campus on a few holds and miscalculated a reach and punched a plastic hold very hard, fracturing a knuckle. That hurt for a long time but I was able to deal with the pain and keep climbing since there wasn’t anything to immobilize in order to heal. I’m not so sure this injury is going to be as simple.

It’s likely one of my pulleys. I have a doc appointment next Friday. Until then, it hurts to type, hurts to climb, hurts to do just about anything so I’ll probably be moping around wishing I had warmed up and stretched better for my short climbing session on Sunday.

They gave me a cortisone injection and sent me off to have a MRI performed. A followup appointment will be made in early February assuming nothing odd is found in the MRI.

I had a long struggle with tendinitis in my right elbow back in high school and don’t look forward to a similar struggle with the foot. I pretty much had to stop all activity that bothered it for years until it finally healed. This has been a real bummer for me; at least when it was my arm I could easily take it easy. The feet are a much harder thing to rest.

So it looks like the early part of this year will be spent continuing my one-footed, or at least mostly one-footed climbing. Once the tenderness of the cortisone shot goes down I’ll be able to spend some much needed time at the house finishing up the final projects in order to move in March 1st.

On the bright side, I’ve had some major problems with that big toe joint, perhaps what is called sesamoiditis. At least I’ll be giving that some time to rest and heal. I hope in the new year I can cure some more of these aches and pains I’ve been having. Being off my foot for six weeks is a good start.

The real bummer here is that I haven’t been able to climb or even dance very well for the past week since last Tuesday I somehow sprained/strained something in my left wrist climbing. At first, I was barely able to move my wrist and in a ton of pain but things have improved to the point where I can get by doing most things without really wincing in pain. It’s still a little hard to wash my hair or grab my car’s seatbelt behind me — and I surely can’t climb. But at least I can still dance as long as I’m careful not to twist my wrist. 

It sucks though, because I had a lot to do this weekend, including going to Elaina’s 30th birthday and seeing Dom and Jaimie’s new home. Adam called me earlier to let me know they were demo’ing a wall over at Dom and Jaimie’s. Too bad I couldn’t go over and help with the destruction of something that wasn’t mine!

Take Minute Clinic www.minuteclinic.com/ for example. Or even Patient First www.patientfirst.com. Totally accessable, quick, and specialized healthcare. Kind of like McDonald’s for the healthcare industry. But is comparing it to McDonald’s fair?

I’m not related to the field, but I have to wonder what kind of quality you can get out of the additional volume places like these get. There’s lots of regulation in healthcare, but does seeing a doctor at one give you the advantage over another?

My take: The number of people and doctors involved in a volumized healthcare practice probably increases the overall quality of an organization. I think there’s got to be some sort of check and balance system that goes on at one of these larger organizations that is not seen at a smaller practice. If a doctor sucks, not only will the 2 receptionists know it, but 12 other doctors and the nursing staff of 60 will too. That doctor will be out of there faster than you can say “bloody knuckles.”

Granted, you might not want to go to Patient First when you’ve cut off two of your fingers, but in the case where you think you might have a fracture of a finger it doesn’t hurt either party to make things a little more quick and convenient. I’m all for the specialists when it’s necessary, but I don’t need to wait an hour to see my PCP (Primary Care Provider) for that tetanus shot when any party will do.

In general though, I think I lack a lot of faith in a PCP. I’ve never seen a PCP and thought, “Wow, this person is really freaking smart.” Most of the time, I can diagnose myself better than any of them could. And all the PCP does is send me to someone else! Argh! How frustrating after all that waiting I find out you can’t xray me? I could have told you that finger might be broken. That’s why I came here.

I can’t eat anything that requires chewing for 6 weeks. I can however eat mushy things like beans and even some well-cooked pasta. Soda has been my friend. I used to not even like soda but I couldn’t survive on fruit juices alone. Well, soda and instant breakfasts.I intially lost 10lbs in just a few days. They kept coming off though and at my lowest a week after the surgery I weighed 135, down from 150 the day of surgery. This morning I was 138, so hopefully I’ll slowly gain everything back. It will be hard with the fact that I really dislike eating at the moment.

The bottom jaw surgery was a bit simpler, basically they cut down into my inside gum again, cut out my chin, and then brought it forward. This was strictly a cosmetic thing. I didn’t have to do this but when it came down to it I figured I’d just do everything that was suggested and get it all over with.I’m happy I did it so far. No real problems. Still hurts, but that’s to be expected. We’ll see how I am in another week.

Edit (1/24/08): Here are some before and after pictures and captions to give you an idea of the process:

Pre-surgery:

What I imagined things would look like after:

Immediately after surgery:

3 months after surgery (still a bit of swelling):

2 years after surgery (no swelling left):

I’m supposed to go biking today at BWI. It’s nice out, so let’s hope everything goes through!