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May I have a moment to whine just a bit? I don't do it often. I find it a particularly unattractive trait, to whine all the time, and hope you'll indulge me just this once.

For some time, I've been saying that I wanted to get back to some sense of "normal," whatever that is, and to find a rhythm in my life, the kind of rhythm that most of us have in our daily lives.

Well, I seem to have found a rhythm. It's just not the one that I figured I'd be "groovin' " to at this point. That rhythm goes something like this: ba-dump-ba-dump-ba-dump-bb-dd-mm-pp. (Insert cymbal crash here.)

Seriously, the weekly grind of physical therapy and medical appointments post-surgery feels oddly like a hamster wheel. . . with no beginning and no end. I know it won't last forever (thank God!) and it really is helping me. I just want to get off the wheel for a bit and stretch my legs, so to speak.

Enough of that. I'm done whining. Thanks for indulging me.

☆

Today, I spent 4 hours at the ENT clinic at Parkland, the last 2 1/2 hours of which were spent waiting to be discharged. I'm not complaining (see above); it's just a fact of my life right now. Waiting.

The good news is that the CT scan I had last month, evidently, didn't show anything wrong. Or, so I am assuming, because I got virtually no details about it from the doctor I saw this morning, Amy Mettman, M.D.

She sprayed my nostrils with Lidocaine® and shoved a laryngoscope (actually, a nasopharyngoscope) up my nose and down my throat to see how well I've healed. "Looks good," she said, in her typical terse tone. (Very professional, she.)

I told her about the ongoing pain in my jaw, the difficulties I'm having with my shoulder, and showed her an order my primary care physician (PCP), Dr. Jessie Doyal, wrote for an MRI for both areas. This, of course, is in order to see what can be seen in the soft tissue that a CT scan misses. She honored the order — Doyal said they weren't obliged — and issued one of her own.

Voila! I'm having an MRI — next month — to look at the inner workings of my jaw and shoulder. In the meantime, I've got to contact the pain management clinic to follow up on that front. I need a medical secretary (sorry, administrative assistant) to keep up with all the appointments I've got. It's getting crazy.

Well, that's all I've got today. I need to go make lunch and get on the phone. (Consecutively, not concurrently.)

Hi-yo and awaaaaaaaay!