Where did I go...

OK, it's been four months and I've been silent. What could have happened?

Well, on October 1, 2009, I fell and broke and dislocated both my elbows. The breakage wasn't the usual sort of thing, a break across the bone or a greenstick fracture. Rather, it was a breaching of the cup-wall where each ulna fit into its humerus, where the front-side was knocked off. That meant that it was hard to reduce the dislocations (in fact, the ER physician reset the right one three times, and it just redislocated again in the cast!) Finally, the Orthopedic Surgeon stuck me in an operating theatre and, using x-rays and the modern update of the fluoroscope, set both arms and got successful casts on them.

From there, a week saw me in articulated braces which prevented me from straightening my arms. With the threat of "hearing pop-pop and being dislocated again," I was in no danger of trying to straighten them anyway! Now, after 3 months, my bones are certified as healed, I'm out of braces, and there's nothing left but the soft-tissue recovery. This is tendons and integuments which were stressed pretty badly. I'm told that I can expect them to be problematic for about a year, and painful for not-a-year. At the moment, I make a fine barometer who cannot turn doorknobs.

The best therapy turned out to be playing musical instruments, though, so my wife and I have been playing through all the bass-clef and bass/tenor-clef music in our library, she on cello and I on bass viol. I've done a few gigs on the six-string electric bass (which must be great exercise, 'cause it hurts for days after!), and I've actually practiced recorder a few times. So recovery proceeds apace.

My son and I finished our first semester, in my case with one withdrawal, one very bad grade (C- for advanced Visual Basic...is it really necessary to keep the available parameters of controls such a closely guarded secret?) and an A in Java. Now we're in our second semester, and have three classes together: Intermediate C++, Info Security and Comms and Networking.

And, with work, I'll carve part of my time out to post here on a more regular basis.