More Fun in the Cape

This past weekend was very nice. My parents and I headed to the cape and invited friends to join. I was especially flattered that Naomi and her (new) husband Jeff drove all the way up from NJ just for the weekend.
We played played games and whatnot but mostly just lounged around. I'm kind of surprised at how good I have come at doing that. Lounging, I mean. I feel like when I am at home, in front of the computer, I am constantly moving and learning. Looking into pricing, mucus usage, tax info, etc online. When I'm in the cape though, I get better about walking away from it.

My shoulder is getting better and better every day. I asked my PT how different our sessions would be if I didn't have frozen shoulder. "Completely different," he told me, explaining that we would have made a lot more progress by mow and that 90% of the time is spent working on the frozen shoulder. I found that discouraging and told him that coming to him was like a full hour of playing "Uncle".

While in the cape, Bootsie cut herself in her romping and exploring. I sat her on the bench next to me to investigate. She flinched so dramatically that I flinched, throwing my bad arm out to the side and pulling back my shoulder. Imagine someone taking your arm and twisting it up behind your back. Then, imagine them jerking it up even harder. Then holding there. That's the kind of pain I felt when my reflexes made me jerk back away from the dog. It hurt so much I didn't know what to do with myself. I grabbed my arm and hugged it to me and started to walk around, kind of like when you stub your toe and can't sit still. Only with the shoulder, it takes a good thirty seconds before the massive pain subsides. I burst into tears, telling my friends, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm totally fine. Because I'm sure it would have freaked me out a bit.
It sucked, that's all I'm saying.

Breakfast chat.

Naomi! We met when we were working at our first job, The Citizen, in Auburn. Eight years ago?!

Mom's strategically placed bluberries.

Michael Jackson

When I was eight years old, I could moonwalk like Michael Jackson. Or at least I thought I could moonwalk like Michael Jackson. I had a poster of him on my wall from the Thriller tour. I had a baseball t-shirt with yellow sleeves and Jackson on the front. When I went down the street to play with my best friend Andy, I always begged him to let me watch "The Making of Thriller" video just one more time. I was devastated when I wasn't allowed to stay up late to watch him perform at the Grammys the year he introduced the moonwalk.

When my dad told me today that Michael Jackson had died, I was in shock at first. On the forefront of my brain was the more recent things; the fact that he never left the house without a mask on and he made his children do the same, the fact that in the middle of his trial he got up on the top of an SUV and did a little dance move for his fans. The fact that he clearly had a plastic surgery obsession. I thought of the strange things he's done.

Mostly though, I felt sorry for him. For this man who worked his whole life and never really had a childhood then proceeded to be a complete weirdo by attempting to never have an adulthood. I wonder where it went wrong. Where was it that someone could have said (but didn't), "Y'know Michael, having a pet chimp and carrying Webster around on your hip could snowball into more unusual things and before you know it, you'll be grabbing your crotch as part of a dance move, have a collapsed nose from too much surgery, hire people to give birth to your children, and you'll have to move to Bahrain and sell your amusement park home in America".

As a child, he was pushed by his father to lead the famous Jackson 5. He went on to "invent" the moonwalk, amaze us with a sidewalk which would light up when he walked on it in "Billy Jean", produce the longest music video ever in "Thriller" and it's fourteen minutes of creepy zombie dancers with killer choreography, and introduce a new special effect in which one face would morph into another and so on in the video "Black or White". And I'm not even talking about the massive musical contribution.

How does a man like that, a man who, let's be honest, is part of American history, morph into what we knew him as in the last decade of his life? I don't know. I do know that I even when I would go "clubbing" just a few years ago in Florida, I always hoped to get a reprieve from the Usher and NIN songs with a little "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough". I will always be listening for that song to be played. That's the stuff I prefer to remember, the ABCs and the 123s.

Physical Therapy

I watched "Love Actually" this morning and it made me cry. It always makes me cry!

I went to a physical therapy session and got a case of the giggles. While my PT, Andy, was torturing me.

"Are you OK?" he asked me.
"Yes, I'm just envisioning myself screaming I DON'T LIKE YOU! I DON'T LIKE YOU!"
He laughs at me, "There is a sound-proof room in the back for patients like you."

He worked my shoulder hard and while it was very unpleasant, I can't help but feel good about getting my arm above my head, even if it is being forced by someone else.

He told me as I was leaving that he was going to change things up for my Thursday session.

"Like what?" I asked.

"If I told you, you wouldn't come on Thursday."

Homes

Every once in a while, I like to abuse myself by looking on craigslist for available homes and daydream about the day when I will be making a living enough that my living will include my own actual living space. Today, I want to move here, to this condo in Swamscott. The irony is that by the time I can get my own place, the market won't be any good any more. *sigh*

Holy Moth, batman!

He was on my bedspread when I came in tonight. Yikes!

Healing

I went to see my doctor on Monday. A two week check-up after my surgery. I'm kind of sorry I asked for a copy of the xray (see June Masthead), as I am now all to aware of the metal in my shoulder, accompanied by the massive screws.You'll see that the plate bends at the end, on the right. The bone on the tip was too small to attach normally to the plate, so the surgeon had to wrap the tip with the metal and then run that massive screw back through the small piece of bone.

When I saw my physical therapist today and we chatted before he started torturing me in an effort to help get rid of my frozen shoulder, we talked about the massive screws. How do they get those big screws into the little bone. They make a hole with a drill first. Yikes. Again, 'not sure I needed to know.

So, my PT was very unpleasant today as I spent much of it on my back with Andy, my PT, gently bending my arm back to create an excruciating pain like no other. I almost cried, I kid you not.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"No, it hurts." I answered.

"On a scale on one to ten, what is it? A fifteen?"

Well, at least he knows the pain I'm experiencing.

The interesting thing is that once I got home and the soreness of the session subsided, I felt a lot better than I have in weeks. My shoulder gave me the least amount of trouble today.

Last night, I watched the documentary called, "Young @ Heart" about a Massachusetts choir of older folks who sing rock songs. Pretty rad actually, but as you might guess, with older people, sad things come. Like dying. I was in need of a good cry I guess 'cause once I got going there was no stopping, it seemed. And the rendition of Coldplay's "Fix You" was no help.

That's the other thing. My mood. I'm finding myself wanting to be more reclusive and that makes me nervous. I took a nap this afternoon and when I woke I was so groggy, I didn't want to go anywhere. I mean, not that I could, the doctor told me I cannot drive for another month. I forced myself to walk into town to run and errand.

Although I have booked another wedding to cover in September and someone has come forward with interest in me photographing the birth of their son in the fall, I am feeling like time is simultaneously passing me by and not moving at all.

I will be grateful when this not being able to move and being uncomfortable at all time business is in the past.

Spoiled Dogs

Our Dogs Are Spoiled from C.M. Scott on Vimeo.

Festival By The Lake

Saturday was a nice day. I set-up a booth at the festival this year. It had rained all week long, so we were a bit nervous, but come Saturday, it was a beautiful day!

I had fun chatting with people and answering their questions about what I do. Because I didn't have any idea how functional I would be with my shoulder as it is, I asked for help. My friends were great and kept me company, too!

Donna signs-up for a purchase.

Meg

Lots of people liked the Happy Blowfish.

My neighbors and friends, Amy and Xander!

Adhesive Capsil-what?

Today was an eventful day. I left the house. And put on a bra. This is eventful. For me. Right now. These days. My shoulder continues to be painful, but then I did just have surgery ten days ago. I'm trying to be patient, but really, I'm just not.
I told my Dad the other day that I'm kind-of over it all and losing patience. He pointed out that it had only been, like, four days.
Well four days is a lifetime if you're a bee. Or is it a fly?

I went to my first physical therapy session today. That's why there was cause the wear the convertible bra which allows me to attach a strap on my right side and sling it back across my back to the back of my left side so that I have no contact with my effed-up shoulder and the gnarly stiches. By the way? I reached up the other night and touched my left shoulder, the one with the metal in it, and about barfed when I realized I was feeling metal through my skin. It was hard not to feel woozy. That and the fact that I couldn't get the reality TV show scene out of my head where the contestants were challenged to eat raw bull testicle. Seriously. It's a whole new dieting technique.

The most unfortunate though simultaneously informative news came from my PT, Andy, when he informed me that the lack range of motion in my shoulder, (when I hold my elbow against my hip, bend my elbow to 90 degrees and try to bring my hand out to the side, away from my body, turning from the elbow, it's excruciating) is not related to the surgery at all. That I in fact have Adhesive Capsulitis.

So, you can imagine my excitement to learn that this incredibly uncomfortable condition may take up to a year to get rid of.

I am stoked!

Spirit fingerrrrrrrs!

Surgery

So, I had surgery on my shoulder a week and a half ago. I have not blogged about it because I have been grumpy and not feeling up to typing. So, I'll write a bit now.

First of all, it was god-awful early in the morning. We left the house at 5:30. My particular surgery had to be very early in the morning because of my diabetes. The experience was very strange. They took me away on a gurney in my robe, and I swear I was brought to the bowels of the building. To a hallway with multiple ORs down it.

I had to pee and told the nurse aneshetist so. She got me a bed pan which was new for me. But she was pretty hilarious about it. Once I was done, she was all, "OK, I don't know what to do with it from here." She told me the story about how once when she was with another nurse and they removed the catheter of a man who was still under, he began to pee all over them, spraying this way and that like a yard sprinkler toy. "It was hilarious!" she told me.

As they wheeled me into the OR, I started to feel weird, "doooooooode" I said the the nurse, slowly, "Did you give me somethinnnnng?"
"Dooooode, Yeaaaaaaah." she answered back.

When I awoke, I was in a huge room with a zillion other patients just out of recovering. And I felt like complete hell. Once brought to my room, it was a bit frustrating because it appeared I would sort-of stop breathing, or my breathing would get very shallow, if I started to fall asleep. Quite annoying if all you want to do is nap! I guess it happens after anesthesia.

The break was at the end of my collar bone, by my shoulder, and the doctor was going in to attach a metal plate to bring together what wouldn't come together on it's own. Unfortunately, there was so little bone at the tip of my shoulder that he couldn't attach to it with screws. So, I guess he wrapped the metal around the tip of the bone? He tells me I will likely want to have that removed in a year or so. And I thought I was done. One good thing is that he didn't need to graft at all from my hip which us great. One bad thing is he had a Dr. McSteamy intern check on me, and I'm all drooling on myself. Not because if him, but because of the drugs. Although he was so good looking I could have been drooling over him.

I stayed overnight at the hospital which is good. I was in a lot of pain and very queasy from the surgery. They also wanted to keep an eye on my sugars. They were fine.

I was grateful to get home and now I'm just loafing around the house, being a bad patient, annoyed and bored and uncomfortable. We did go to the cape last week end which was of course very nice, but I did have a strange new thing start, severe pain in my shoulder blade if I ride in a care for more than a half hour. Wazzup with that?

Dog in Fog

Fun Fun

How most feel when they arrive at Scott's End...

Cape Arrival from C.M. Scott on Vimeo.

Tribute to Lloyd Dobler

Just listed this one on my etsy site. This one's for my boyfriend!

Congratulations?

My brother did something to my computer and printer when he was last here and now every time I turn my computer on, I get a request to set-up my HP printer system. Considering I did this already when I bought the thing a while back, I find this very annoying and simply click on "Set-up Later".

I thought it funny that the box changed to read this...

My computer's all "Well done, now NOTHING'S gonna work, idiot!"

Keira and her Family

I photographed this cutie and her family one day before the surgery to have my collar bone properly attached with the help of some metal and a skilled surgeon. As I am incapable of sitting still, I just finished editing and color-correcting the collection for this little one's parents.

June Masthead