Broken Arm Update
We went back to the hospital yesterday for a 1 PM appointment and got out of there 3 hours later. We were lucky in one respect that the ortho doctor had a young student in tow and the doctor explained everything to the student in detail. He reviewed all the X-rays from the beginning and since they are all on computer he could call up each one in turn including the last one taken 10 minutes before and explain every angle and he could even take measurements of bone angles on the screen. The break was just where the radius bone meets the wrist and in the initial X-ray we could see the bone had snapped right off. Looking good so far - they removed cast and applied a third one and off to Xray again. Most of the people in the X-ray waiting room were older women with arm and wrist fractures as well as a few broken legs. I was told that about 80% of women who break their arm will break their hip within 2 years. Comforting thought eh? Also noted among these older ladies was a middle aged man who moaned and cried and was a real pain to everyone.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
OOOUCH - Broke my left arm at the wrist last Sunday and banged up elbow and shoulder - fell on the ice on patio, STUPID STUPID STUPID - bad break and spent most of the day at the emergency. Set my arm twice and got it plastered twice - looked at an operation and will see how it is healing next week. A lot of pain, thank goodness for medication. An expert typist and here I am pecking away with one finger!!! I am presently making a list of 1001 things you cannot do with one hand, unbelievable. Must commend hospital staff who were very pleasant and helpful under trying circumstances.Thursday, March 01, 2007
Read an article by a columist for the Ottawa Sun who is also a Caper and was raised just up the street from me in Glace Bay (not that that particular fact would make either one of us any wiser). Anyway, he and I think alike about David Suzuki (aka Captain Ecology) along with Elizabeth May who he quotes are "environmental terrorists who are making a good living playing Chicken Little". Suzuki arrived in London recently in a very large bus to pocket a bunch of loot doing book signings and scrounging a free meal - someone in the audience stood up and asked the Great One why he of all people left his great big bus running outside the conference centre. His people were immediately ordered to get out and shut the bloody motor off!! Then there is Elizabeth May who in her infinite wisdom decided to encase 700,000 tons of coke-oven waste in cement at a cost of $400 million. This solution is basically a cosmetic treatment of the problem which may come back to haunt the folks from the area at some point in time. I grew up about 9 miles from the Sydney Steel Plant and can remember the awful smell eminating from there - we left Glace Bay occasionally to get away from the smell of the fish plant near our home (most likely the reason I do not have sinus problems). At night the steel plant dumped slag which lit up the sky - it was like Sydney's very own aurora borealis. The only sane approach to the tar pond problem is to incinerate it except that our government decided to ban incineration which apparently has been given a bad rap based on outdated technology while other countries are having a good deal of success with this method and as a result we are left to deal with monsters like the tar ponds and indeed the Carp garbage mountain. Seven years to encase the tar ponds versus two years by incineration and the production of hydro along the way - sounds like a winner!! Is global warming a cyclical phenomenon and are these environmentalists (Al Gore among them) just out for the big bucks while scaring the bejesus out of us all???? I must admit we have made a real mess of the environment over the years and we definitely need to clean up our act for our own welfare and that of future generations.