Day 1823

I was very impressed with my physical therapist today. She was thorough, informative, and was able to map out a comprehensive two month treatment program that should lead me toward greater mobility. It turns out that there is a lot more wrong with me than I thought. My shoulder problems were obvious, but there were also still problems with my neck and left hand. The therapist said that I didn't exhibit any of the classic symptoms associated with carpal tunnel syndrome and suspected that I have damaged or injured some of the small bones in my hand instead. She said that my right shoulder wasn't dislocated, but that the shoulder muscles on that side of my body were extremely tight and were preventing the shoulder joint from operating properly. The remedy is lots of supervised stretching exercises.

Some of you may remember the horrible problems I had with my neck during a trip to Las Vegas a few years ago. The physical therapy I had after that painful incident worked amazingly well, but it wasn't pleasant. They gradually stretched my spine, so that the soft tissue that had become encapsulated or pinched between the vertebrae were freed and my neck could move again. At one point they put me on a machine that seemed very similar to a medieval rack and literally stretched my entire neck. Yikes! I hated those sessions, but they worked. I've never really had a problem with my neck again. I think I've got a lot of uncomfortable stretching in my immediate future.

My cold seems to get worse every day. I guess it isn't really getting worse. It just continues moving to the next phase. My initial fever seems to have ended. My sore throat isn't as bad either. Unfortunately, these symptoms have been replaced by a terrible runny nose and a persistent headache. When I get a bad cold, it almost always lasts at least a full week. I've still got several days to go before the worst is over. I was really hoping that I'd start feeling better before this weekend's back-to-back Santa Paws photo shoots, but that's not going to happen. I need to remember to throw a big roll of paper towels and a large sack of cough drops in my lighting bag tonight. At this rate, I could probably be part of the photos, as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

I haven't felt like cooking all week, so I picked up a barbequed pulled pork sandwich at Central Market's new little in-store restaurant on the way home from my physical therapy appointment. The sandwich and accompanying fresh sweet potato fries looked delicious, but I don't think I appreciated my dinner as much as I should have. A bad cold destroys your sense of taste. I could have been eating cardboard. What I should have done was skipped dinner entirely and just gone to bed early.

I saw on the Internet today that NASA is going to provide full press credentials to a select group of bloggers, so they can write about an upcoming satellite launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base. I think I'm going to apply for this press pass. If NASA accepts your application, you will get to interview space scientists, take a special tour of the Vandenberg launch facilities, and watch the launch itself from an up close VIP location. I've always been a huge fan of the space program and all NASA wants is a chance to expand their social media presence in new and different ways.  Hey, I'd be more than happy to write about a satellite launch on the blog. This isn't a contest or a prize. It is just chance to get official NASA press credentials. The only downside is you have to pay for the trip to California for the launch yourself. This is a media event, so I guess that Some Assembly Required would have to pick up the tab. It would certainly be exciting to be accepted though. I hope I do better on this than I did on the Amtrack Writers in Residence grant. That didn't go too well. Too bad I didn't get accepted for that one. Then I could have taken the train to California.

Savannah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day