Still in stitches

The surgeon gave me the OK to have my stitches removed today, but so far I’ve resisted every urge to do it myself. It can’t be that hard, but there are three sets and I can only reach two, so I am trying to hold out to let the nurses at work do it. Removing two of the three really does me no good overall.

I still have a couple hours til bedtime, and it’s really, really tempting, but I’m trying.

Tomorrow I need to make an appointment with the health unit for them to do it. Too bad Wendy’s not here.

Yesterday, I successfully pitched the Singapore sling while using the elliptical, although I am not putting that hand on the moving handlebar thing just yet. I also picked up the 1-kilo weights. I really don’t want to have to go to a physical therapist again and pay $200 a visit for someone to hurt me and watch me lift weights, so I’m trying to push it myself.

Today, I added swimming, but not the regular stroke, more like a dog paddle. I have such a nice pool here and I hate to not use it. I was on the elliptical for an hour plus and the pool was empty the whole time. I finished, did some weights, went up, changed clothes and when I came down it was still empty. I wasn’t in there for more than 20 minutes, but it was all mine and so peaceful.

I'm trying to expand my range of motion. I still can't do some movements and I have no idea how long it takes for them to come back, or how much I have to push. I still wake up cursing (as opposed to screaming) in pain. For some reason, when it hurts like hell, it feels better when I sit up straight.

This has been a blissfully boring weekend. I went outside once, which is good because it’s been drizzling all weekend. That’s a vast improvement over last week, which warmed up after the first snow since 1929 but was wet as all get-out.

I did have plans today to meet some Australians, but I guess I got forgotten and relied on the fallback, which was visiting with some colleagues in the building. Other than that, the most productivity I’ve had is being patient enough to finish streaming “Still Alice” with less-than speedy internet. I’ve also watched Lethal Weapons 1-3. I started “Lonesome Dove” again but then realized I still haven’t watched “Band of Brothers,” which someone gave me in August. It’s been sitting on my coffee table since.

It’s been a fabulous weekend.

Next weekend is Chinese New Year, which, considering my last few weeks, almost completely slipped my mind. I have a flight to Miri, Malaysia (my fifth trip to the country) and then will take a bus the next afternoon to Brunei, which is the only country that’s not a tiny island country and lies in south, east, or SE Asia that I haven’t visited. (I toured the DMZ, so I count that as North Korea.) I have no idea what to do there. There’s supposed to be good shipwreck diving, but I am not cleared to do that. Honestly, that’s not enough to stop me, but I don’t think I could pull on the scuba suit so I won’t even try.

I counted. Brunei will be country No. 47 for me. So far, I have no plans for Presidents’ Day, but I do plan one more getaway while I am here – the other side of Australia. I’m planning on spending my birthday in Perth.

And it’s looking like that’s going to be the only relaxing time I will have in March. A lot of people mail it in during their last few months, but that’s not going to happen to me.

So far, I have two big days for which I am a key planner, plus at least two outreach events. No, wait, I forgot one. At least three. I also am in line to hold one training, attend two more and on Friday I *finally* got access to a warehouse I thought was a rumor. It’s full of a bunch of useable stuff, plus a lot of outdated, partial and broken stuff, and by mid-March I’m supposed to sort through it all, inventory it, plus two other areas I didn’t know about, and develop some comprehensive tracking system.

All this, of course, is in addition to the normal workload, which is already extraordinary, plus the added spring workload, which is a bear. There’s also the “this is your last month” stuff you have to do, like packing up your apartment and all that.

I really hope that’s it.

Singapore sling

So happy to be home! I got back on Friday and am thrilled to be here. I told people I feel like Sigourney Weaver at the end of “Working Girl,” though my drugs aren’t as strong.

After realizing I’d put on eight pounds in the 10 days I’ve been gone, I got back to the elliptical. I’m allowed to do that if I keep the one arm in the sling. I was supposed to lay off for the weekend, but I’ve been bored out of my mind so I did it anyway. Probably not the smartest move, but I just had to get back in the action a little bit.

Nothing right now makes me want to even go outside, so if it wasn’t for that, I have no idea what I’d do. It’s been an actual winter weekend in Guangzhou – the coldest on record in 60 years.

As the U.S. East Coast is covered in snow right, Guangzhou – in its “Miami-like” condition – had flakes today! I could not believe it. I was looking out the bathroom window and saw some white stuff. I thought, man, in another world, that could be snow. And I realized it was. The people on the ground were pointing up to it. It only lasted maybe three minutes, but it was real – and completely unreal.

Other than eat, I’ve barely done anything this weekend, but it’s been so nice to be home. I did the elliptical for an hour both mornings – about half what I normally do – and then I went to breakfast with one colleague, dinner with another, brunch with another and then had another over to my house for a movie and popcorn, and candies that Dana sent. (THANK YOU!)

Tonight, I intend to soak in the bathtub, which is kind of a challenge with the arm. The dressing, which I have for another week, is waterproof, but I’m a little motion-challenged.

I did one physical therapy appointment and am trying to follow the regimen the lady gave me. She clearly hated me – she made me cry. Sadist. It hurt SO bad. Some motion I got back quickly. I’m good at the pendulum circles and crosses. But anything in the back hurts so very, very badly, and after I do the motions with no real issues, it will start hurting.

After awhile on the elliptical, it started hurting, too, even though it was just sitting there in the blue plastic “Made in China” sling.

Saturday morning, I managed to put on a sports bra before working out. And afterwards, after struggling five minutes to take off the sweaty T-shirt, I decided to just shower with the bra on. And I left it on all night for Sunday’s workout, then left it on all day after my shower. I even (painfully) washed my hair, necessitating getting shampoo out of the bra.

I seriously thought about just leaving it on for the next six weeks or so, but when the colleague came over to watch the movie, I decided to try to take it off, reasoning that if I got stuck, she could help. Fortunately, I was able to get it off. (My method, like for stripping down, involves bending over, as I can’t lift my arms over my head for too long.)

So right now, this isn’t an improvement. It’s actually worse, because I absolutely cannot put on a bra that fastens in the back. I’ve bought two that snap in the front and boy, those are fun enough.

But I’m working on it.

Really, other than having to wear my little Singapore sling while commuting, I am clear to try to work it as usual. I can’t lift anything heavy or use the rubber bands, but they encouraged me to keep moving it as I normally would.

Since it’s cold outside (really cold, not Guangzhou cold, which is around 60 degrees F), I have been just throwing the coat over the sling, wearing that side cape-like. It’s really complicated to put the darn thing on.

The instructions on the PT say to do motions “just outside of the comfort zone” but not “into pain.” That is a very fine line. I can do it, but it hurts; I’m just not sure how much hurt there’s supposed to be.

But it’s progressing. Last night, for part of the night anyway – when the drugs were fresh – I managed to sleep on my stomach. (Me on my back = REALLY weird dreams.)

However, I tried that this morning and it hurt like a sonofabitch. I couldn’t take it and rolled over onto my back, then up, pretty much screaming lots of colorful words.

Living in SIN

Greetings from Singapore, where I’ve now been for the last five days and will be until at least Tuesday and likely beyond.

And honestly, it’s not that much fun, not that it was supposed to be. But, even though it’s one of the most expensive cities on the planet, it’s not costing me a whole lot of money. Not that I wanted it that way.

On Monday, I reported the shoulder specialist’s findings to the nurses at work, who reported it up the food chain. After noon sometime, it came back down saying, “You’re cleared to go to Singapore.”

This was not an option I was expecting, since I’d been told earlier that I was no longer able to do so. But it was a welcome, because the fact is, although my shoulder doesn’t hurt all the time, the times when it does hurt, it’s excruciating. Like screaming from pain excruciating.

We have security cameras in the halls of the hotel, and one day I was running late and pulled the door shut behind me. If they were monitoring those cameras, the likely think I am some kind of alien, the gestures I made. It HURTS. And it impedes my daily life. I have a hard time getting dressed, and brushing my hair is painfully uncomfortable.

Still, based on the earlier conversation, the one where I was not cleared for a medevac, I didn’t expect to be cleared for a medevac, but somehow it happened. And quite suddenly.

I talked to the nursing staff and got the 411 and, when asked my preferred date to depart, I said Wednesday. I’ve been told this whole time that Singapore works fast and I’d likely get in one night, see the doctor the next day and then have surgery later that day. I figured I’d be back to work on Friday.

Well, that was stupidly optimistic. First, I got the email around 5:03 on Monday that my doctor’s appointment was 10:15 on Wednesday, meaning I had to leave the next day. I didn’t even have a ticket, which takes lots of authorization.

Much ado later, by 1:30 p.m. I still didn’t have a ticket for the 6:20 p.m. flight, but it came through. After a late and bumpy flight, I got to the hotel, crashed, woke up, ate breakfast, checked out under the assumption that I’d be in surgery that evening and then went to the doctor. He confirmed I needed surgery, then said he had zero time that week.

I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I knew I needed surgery and even if that specialist had decided no, I felt like it should have been conveyed to him that I likely needed it, so he could have said there wouldn’t be any time to do it.

But I need the surgery, and if I left for Guangzhou, the medevac was over. The only choice was to just hang out here until the next possible surgery time, which turned out to be at 5 p.m. on Monday.

As a result, I’ve set up camp at the Regent and tried to make myself at home, but I really don’t want to be here. I want the surgery and then to go home to my comfy Ascott pillows.

Singapore is nice, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a shopping destination and I am not a shopper, though I’ve had to be this trip.

On the “stupidly optimistic” topic, I only brought one change of clothes, a mostly empty tube of toothpaste and microscopic amounts of toiletries. Yesterday and today, I had to hit the overpriced stores trying to replenish, plus do some emergency shopping for thing that might make my life a tad more bearable after surgery, like purchasing bras that close in the front. That was harder than it should have been. There is no Walmarty store that I’ve found. Lots of H&Ms and UniQlos, though.

And Asian sizes. Oh, my. I wanted one more pair of pants before the reinforcements came in. (That was in the form of a colleague, who was visiting here this long weekend. She swung by my apartment and brought me a small duffel worth of clothes.) Pants. How hard, right? Well, I tried on six pairs the first day in sizes 6-12 and nothing came close to fitting. And by that I mean one pair out of six made it past my knees.

Finally, the second day, I found one store with some Australian brand and I got some shorts. I really wanted a nice pair of pants I could wear to work, but that just ain’t happening here.

At one store, I gave up all pretenses of being able to wear women’s shirts and picked up a men’s XL. It was too small. I wish I was kidding.

But now I have enough, I hope. My surgery is tomorrow, and I already feel like I have been here forever. It’s just crazy, really. I had suggested as my No. 2 choice of days was next Thursday, and was told if I could wait that long, it wasn’t an emergency.

So I’ve been sitting here in Singapore, being almost totally non-productive. I did manage to work in the office here maybe five hours over two days, but that’s about it. I’ve walked a lot and sweat a lot. It’s massively humid.

I saw “Snoopy” and “Star Wars,” the latter for a second time. You pick up more the section time, like Rey’s response when BB8 told her where he was from was classified. It was something like “Yeah, mine, too.”

But I’d prefer to be at work.

Today, I went to Santoso Island, and thought I’d go to the Universal Studios but backed off. Instead, I just took the cable car over, walked down to the beach through teeming throngs of humanity and then came back.

Tomorrow I eat a late breakfast because I can’t eat or drink after 11 a.m. I check into the hospital at 12:30 and the hour-long procedure is scheduled for 5 p.m.

Prayers welcome.

Success, of sorts, in Hong Kong

Back from January trip 2 of 3 in Hong Kong, the second day trip in a row. It’s been an exhausting weekend because I followed up Hong Kong with a trip to the glasses market but I did get stuff done. Long overdue stuff, plus a good burger. And the good burger accompanied a root beer, something I haven’t been able to find in Guangzhou for many months. You don’t realize how much you like something until it goes away.

My two coups in Hong Kong were finally seeing the replica Noah’s Ark that’s there and getting a diagnosis of my shoulder.

The ark is something Leila told me was there; I never would have come across it. It’s on one of the other islands, a 25-minute ferry ride away. You can take a taxi, too, and the ark is right under the bridge to the island that you’d cross in the taxi.

It’s life-size, which is what is cool about it. It’s kind of in a little park, but is only becoming a tourist attraction now. (The ark doubles as a hotel.) I finally made it over there and enjoyed it, but didn’t stay long.

 

There’s a nice little garden, but I couldn’t figure out where to stand to get the whole thing in the picture.  Inside, it’s done up as an exhibit (complete with some live animals, mostly reptiles, and some models of animals in stables like you figure would have been on the ark. There are also exhibits with fossils and prehistoric wood. There’s also some sort of a film but I missed it.

Since it’s new to the tourist world, they didn’t have T-shirts, postcards, magnets or anything like that. I mean, they had stuff for sale, but it didn’t say “Noah’s Ark” on it or anything like that. They just had stuff like tea cups with animals on them.

But I was glad I made it there, just as I was glad to FINALLY get to a real shoulder doctor. And it was so simple, I almost cried – he had me do a few motions and said, yep, this is what it is, then he went to the MRI film and verified it.

Basically, my tendon has popped off where it’s supposed to be, and although I can do most things all right, those things that I can’t – like putting on a bra – bring me to tears.

 

The bad thing is, I don’t know where to go from here. The surgery is a one-hour surgery but I have to pay up front and file later. The price in Hong Kong is outrageous -- $21k, and that is for the “ward room,” not the private. It’s double the price I was given for possible hip surgery.

So we’ll see. Right now, I am just glad to have a name behind the pain. Specifically, the names are “torn rotator cuff” and “torn bicep.”

The Force finally awakens

What a week! We had a fire at the apartment building, a chaotic mess on NYE and yesterday I finally got to see “Star Wars."

Way too easy for Rey to be Luke’s daughter.

But first, the fire, though I’ve forgotten what day it was.

My apartment building has two towers with hallways between them. The sixth floor is where all the action is -- the gym, pool, golf course, movie theater, restaurant, conference rooms, etc.

Whatever morning it was, one of our employees noticed smoke coming out near the gym. He reported it, and the fit hit the shan.

I missed most of it because I head into work a little earlier than most. Coming down my elevator, I smelled smoke. I got to the lobby and one of the doormen/guards ran toward the other set of elevators. Others quickly joined him.

There was one guy at the front desk and I looked at him like, "what's going on?" but he wasn't one of the better English speakers, and I have zero Mandarin skills. So I just went into work. I reasoned that since the people were using the elevators, it couldn't be a fire, right? That's rule No. 1, I think.

But it was. Other people coming in to work after me said they started blocking off the elevators. A guy on the 7th floor said his apartment was filled with smoke. The smoke alarms did not go off in many people’s places. And we have two sets - one belonging to the apartment, and one belonging to the State Department.

There’s a day care in the building and firemen too the kids out, but the school opened later that morning. The building started knocking on doors one by one to evacuate people. The family members my colleagues wound up across the street at Starbuck's "in various stages of dress." Everyone else went into work.

The gym was closed for three days for deep cleaning. It’s open now, but the smoke smell lingers. The pool still isn’t open, and the women’s locker room won’t open until the sauna is rebuilt – apparently that’s where it started.

It seems that someone left it on all night, or something like that. The gym is 24/7, but I think the locker rooms are closed when the pool is, so I don’t think anyone could have gone in early in the morning, so my guess is it smoldered through the night.

But the apartment complex reacted quickly and is fixing things. I’m glad.

Now maybe I can see if I can get my AC back. It is still surprisingly hot but the heat is on. I mean, I don’t have it on in my apartment, but I don’t have the option to turn on the AC.

I might have to borrow a fan or something. It’s just so hot. And polluted. I have a few windows that I can open and it’s marginally cooler outside, but the air quality index is over 200 today – I can’t even see the Canton Tower through the pollution. So my options are to be a bit toasty or to let that air in my house. Decisions, decisions.

NY Eve was great. I went to a nice house party. It wasn't what I thought, it was more of a party for parents and kids, but not a kiddie party. The kids, and this amused me greatly, got into "Return of the Jedi," to the point that they were shushing the parents.

I left 11 p.m. with a friend for the 25-minute walk home and wound up getting back after midnight. The streets were blocked and it was PACKED with people. We got to the block we needed to turn down and it was barricaded. The cops wouldn't let us by. It was very weird and I was starting to get dizzy, sick and claustrophobic. Finally, after my friend pleaded with the guy for 15-20 minutes to no avail, a guy not 10 feet away let us into the underground parking structure so we went the two blocks that way. 2016 rang in as we were down there.

It's just so strange -- some people wanted to go home, but they were barricaded on the streets. (This is a high-end area with ritzy hotels and apartments as the only residences.) And it was just a stampede waiting to happen. I wanted to be home safe before everything unleashed. People weren't drunk or anything, but there were lots of people on rollerblades and bicycles, along with hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of people in the area. If you're not reveling, there's no smart reason to be out there.

And then 2016 sucked because of the FSU game. My Slingbox didn’t work, and in the end, that was probably a good thing. As it was, I dozed on and off and kept checking the score.

But on Jan. 2, I headed to Hong Kong to see Star Wars. Oh, man, that was totally worth it. It opens here next week, but I figure it would be awhile for the crowds to die down and I really did want to see it. I’m glad I went and might try to see it again when it does come out here.

But not next weekend. As it turns out, my Jan. 16 shoulder appointment was canceled because the doctor will be out of town and I rescheduled for next weekend. In a way, it’s good because it’s really hurting me but in another it’s bad. It’s really exhausting to go up and back in one day. I was up at 6 a.m. and completely on the go until 9:30 p.m. last night.

And it’s expensive. For the second time since I’ve been here, they raised the train ticket. It’s also crowded as heck, but I’m going to deal with it.

I’m still going over MLK weekend, because we’d planned on doing Disney then, so basically I am going to HK three weeks in a row.