Blue-Footed Musings

My shoulder diagnosis is in. I have a torn labrum. It’s not the “Tom Brady” kind, but rather the “Old Lady” kind. That is to say, it’s a degenerative tear. In a way, that’s a good thing, because it means I didn’t bring this upon myself through a specific activity. In another way, it’s a horrible thing, because it means my body is just plain wearing out and at any moment I might become incapacitated due to nothing more than age. But, at least in this case there is some good news: a torn labrum can be fixed surgically.

Now I have to decide if I want the surgery. I think I can use my experience with my knee as my guide. I injured my knee when I was in middle school. After the swelling went down and the pain stopped, it seemed to be okay, but over time it proved to be unstable. I stopped doing things that required knee stability. It affected how I lived my life. Over time it got worse, eventually requiring surgery. Since the surgery, it is much better than it was, but it often hurts when I walk. All of this might have been avoided if I’d had surgery immediately after the injury. But, I didn’t know I had a torn meniscus or how it would affect my knee over time. Even if I had, surgery probably wouldn’t have been an option back then.

That’s how this shoulder problem is different. I know exactly what’s wrong, and I know how bad it can get. Though my shoulder has felt better lately, simply demonstrating my range of motion to the doctor yesterday made it hurt for hours afterward, a reminder that the pain can start again at any moment. And, through my experience with my knee, I know how that’s likely to affect my life. I will limit the use of my arm and avoid certain activities. And because the shoulder has already caused me so much more suffering than the knee, I won’t merely be wary of using it. I’ll live in constant fear of a flare-up.

I don’t want to live like that, and I don’t have to. The surgeon who fixed my knee also does shoulder surgeries. I’ll call him next week.

It’s a common coping mechanism to look for things to like in a situation that you hate. That is, we all need our silver linings. So naturally I was searching for something good to be said about the changes happening at work, and I thought to myself, “Well, at least I won’t have to write those stupid blurbs anymore.”

Not long after finding that tiny sliver of silver, I got an e-mail from my boss telling me that some of those blurbs might end up being done as new material after all. Seriously? The Universe just keeps laughing at me.

• One evening we decided to go to my favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner, but it was closed when we got there. As in permanently closed. Apparently the owner hadn’t bothered to pay his taxes and the government seized the property. Wow. Fortunately Google was able to point us to another Mexican restaurant in the area. The food there was fantastic. The restaurant itself was far too busy and loud for my tastes, so I doubt we’ll ever eat there again, but I would totally get take-out. In the same general area there were some other restaurants that looked interesting. We may have give those a try someday, too.
• At work the new schedule finally came out. My part of the schedule was little changed except that I’d lost some time previously allotted to documentation. The final project assigned to me was still slated to end in September. Meanwhile, several other people’s schedules had been extended into 2027. I wasn’t sure if I could read anything into that, but for a moment I got a little teary-eyed thinking that it might really be the end. I sent an e-mail to my boss asking if I ought to be concerned, and I later found out that one of my coworkers had done exactly the same thing at the same time (her schedule ended in November). We were both told that our schedules would be extended soon. Whew.
• It doesn’t take much to make me smile or laugh these days. It could be anything from the sight of violets in yard to a video of Obama and Mamdami singing to children. Still, if I’m honest, there don’t seem to be enough smiles to make up for all the awful crap going on in the world.

Livia and her friend were supposed to get together last week to bake a cake, but their plans fell through. I invited Livia to bake with me instead, and she said yes. We decided to try Vóvó’s recipe for biscoitos. Vóvó had given the recipe to me over the phone some time ago. She just called me up one day out of the blue and told me to grab a pen. She said she knew that she wouldn’t be around forever, and she wanted to make sure we had her recipe.

I was never certain I’d gotten the quantities right, so I didn’t know how well the recipe would work. At first we followed the recipe exactly, but we started tweaking it along the way. We found that the oven temperature was too high, the cooking time too long, and the dough a little too dry. We adjusted the temperature and timing, and for the last batch we added more milk.

The end result was a perfect biscoito, just the way Vóvó used to make them. And in tweaking the recipe we’d adhered to Vóvó’s own philosophy. She told me repeatedly that adjustments might be needed. As she put it, “We have to learn these things for ourselves.” She had the best attitude about cooking.

Vóvó doesn’t bake anymore. She is very old now, and her mind wanders. She is not the person that she used to be, and that makes me sad, but it helps to know that her recipe, her cooking philosophy, and her love will always be with us. I just wish she could know that we’d tried her recipe, because I think it would make her happy.

I’ve had several MRIs in the past, including one of my head, so I knew it was confining, but my recent shoulder MRI was the worst. They bundled up my arm to immobilize it, then they added padding on my other side to immobilize me. I am not claustrophobic, but being wedged in there like that was almost enough to make me so. They’d asked what music I wanted to listen to through the headphones. I said, “Classic rock or pop.” What I got was a bad collection of 80s metal. Fortunately I could barely hear it over the MRI’s racket.

I won’t know what the MRI revealed until my follow-up with the doctor, which is scheduled for this coming Friday. In the meantime I’ve been thinking about how I might respond to whatever she tells me. Months ago, I felt I’d probably get surgery if it were an option. Now I’m less sure, because my shoulder has been feeling better. I think that’s due to weeks of propping my arm on a pillow while sleeping and being careful about how I move it while awake. I don’t baby the shoulder per se, but I don’t go out of my way to exercise it, and I try to avoid movements that I know will aggravate it. Every once in a while I’ll walk my hand up the wall, just to make sure I still can, and I don’t shy away from tasks that involve lifting and carrying, because those typically don’t cause any pain. Now my shoulder doesn’t hurt nearly as much. I’ve also regained some range of motion. Hooray!

That said, it’s certainly not fixed. I vacuumed the living room yesterday and that did hurt. So the biggest question is, can I live with the way my arm is now? Another major question is, can I find a way to exercise it that won’t cause another flare-up? I’ll need to build up my arm muscles if I don’t want to face more trouble down the road, so that’s an important consideration.

Marshall is home! He spent his April vacation in Spain and Portugal. I am proud of him for going, but I am even more relieved that he’s back.

At work there has been no official news, but I heard indirectly that our jobs are probably safe for a few months. The schedule is tight, which means my department will likely be needed at full capacity for a while. But, given how quickly recycled material can be put together, I’d say we’ve got six months tops.

During the previous round of layoffs, I worried about losing my job, but I never really thought they’d let me go. This time I’m less sure. From a long-term standpoint, they’d be stupid to let me go, but given how they’re doing things now, I don’t think the long term is a big consideration. I’m putting my odds at 50/50.

In a way, the previous layoffs did me some good. They changed my expectations. I used to think I’d keep working as long as I wanted and/or needed to. Once I knew my employment wasn’t guaranteed, I started to think differently. I started hoping simply to get another five years out of it. When I spoke to my brother in January, I told him I’d feel lucky to get another two. I’ve already lowered my expectations so much that if the axe falls on me now I might just say, “Whatever.” And if working with the recycled material is as bad as I anticipate, I might even be relieved to say good-bye.

But I am crushed. This is the end of an era for me. Much of my identity is tied up in my job, and I genuinely enjoy what I do. Now, just like that, it’s all changed.

However, I will not worry. I refuse to. I’ll do whatever tasks are put before me, same as always. I’ll collect my paychecks for as long as they last or until I decide I can’t stomach my radically-changed job anymore. And that’s all I’m going to do. No fretting. No contingency planning. Just going with the flow and hoping the flow goes well.

I got some awful news in a work email today. It was phrased so casually, but it was absolutely shocking. All work projects will now be made primarily of recycled material. We’ve already done a few projects that way, and it was found that they reduce editorial time by close to 75%. At best, this means that my job will be radically changed. I’ll work on only a subset of my former tasks, leaving most of my expertise wasted. At worst, I’ll lose my job. Certainly some people will be laid off, because there won’t be enough work to go around. I estimate 1 lateral move and 2 exits. With our department so reduced, they might decide they don’t need my boss anymore either.

This is it. This is the beginning of the end. 🙁

• Yesterday I went looking in the yard for violets, and I found about a dozen open flowers. That means I missed the first of the year (oops!), but it couldn’t have popped too long ago. Today, only one day later, there are already at least three dozen open flowers. The thing about violets is, once they get going, it’s like bam! VIOLETS EVERYWHERE.
• If I were to make a list of all the things I’ve forgotten, screwed up, or failed to understand lately, it would be rather lengthy and perhaps a bit alarming. I haven’t been entirely with it. Yeah, I haven’t been sleeping well, and I’ve been stressed. That must account for some of the problem, but all of it? I wonder. There’s not much I can do but keep going and hope for the best, though.

• This morning I had been dreading writing a blurb and dealing with an unrelated issue that required immediate attention. But then both problems were solved for me without my needing to lift a finger. That’s two totally unexpected gifts from the Universe on the same day. Love, love, love that!
• I checked on my 401(k) today, and it was doing fine. That’s good. But I don’t like the way the economy’s looking. While no expert on anything to do with investing, I can read, and all I seem to read about these days is trouble: layoffs, businesses closing, the U.S.’s unsustainable debt, rising oil prices, rising interest rates, farmers facing massive losses, shakiness in the private credit industry, and so forth. I figure that, should it all go south, my 401(k) will recover before I retire, so maybe I don’t need to worry about that right now (and it’s not like I have a ton of money in there anyway, TBH). But what about the shorter term? Are there things I should be worrying about? Things I ought to do to prepare? Something to consider.