ProfessorTomoe

Trying out the Gallery with yesterday's Trail Camera Image of the Day: Cat food isn't just for cats anymore, it would seem. BTW, there is a 100-image-per-user limit on the gallery, but apparently no size limit.

I figured out how to "clean out" some of what you've used from the picture post limit. Go to the top of the forum page and find your forum name in the upper right corner. Click on it to get the pull-down menu, then click on "My Attachments." From there you'll be able to delete old image posts. I found one that took up nearly half my limit on its own! As for future posts, I agree - the image gallery is probably the way to go. The only problem is that it makes the images cross-forum public (as if that's a big deal, given the forum sizes).

Is the human body even capable of containing that much compressed mass? My applied geometry sucks ...

Not to bypass your kind words, tOH (which are very much appreciated), but we received more cat toys today, presumably via the Amazon Wish List. Mrs. Prof wanted me to say a big "Thank You!," and tell you all that our cat says, "Meow!"

She's enjoying them as we speak, thank you. The memory card seems to hold endless pictures. The camera can even capture birds in flight! Me, on the other hand ... I'm fighting a case of "oh [redacted]" now. We got a notice in the mail today from Blue Cross of a claim submitted by a non-plan provider. We've almost certainly tracked it back to Spine Team Texas and their drug testing company, from when my spine doctor initially put me on hydrocodone. There were no notices that I can remember that the testing would be performed by either an out-of-network or by a non-preferred provider. The charges they've advised us of total over $1,000.00. Since then, Spine Team Texas has performed another round of testing, when I went from 3x hydrocodone a day to 4x a day. I'm willing to bet they used the same out-of-network/non-preferred provider. Mrs. Prof was with me then, as she was the first time. She doesn't remember seeing any warnings either. We're potentially staring at more than $2,000.00 in medical bills just for me going to the bathroom in a cup twice. Dear Lord, what did we do to deserve this? It's like the place loves playing "Gotcha!" with their services. How the hell can they do this to someone and sleep soundly at night? I can't [redacted] believe this. Mrs. Prof is the only one of us who fully understands the ins and outs of our insurance, so she's probably going to spend a lot of time raising her voice at people Monday. This is literally making me sick to my stomach, even if the outcome isn't fully determined yet. They don't make an anti-anxiety pill big enough to deal with this.

Another interesting photo from Mrs. Prof's trail cam, this time in the daylight. Note that I'm having to scale these down from the unit's lowest resolution of 2048x1536 to a much smaller size so I can post them here (the forum is getting snitty with me—I seem to be hitting a limit or something). This one shows two of the community cats about to do the tango with each other. The grey one is definitely an alpha, despite being neutered. What makes that weird is that he's the one that could possibly be brought inside if someone wanted to attempt housing him in a single-cat home.

Nice! I remember growing up with the original cartoon, back in the 60s. I had to watch it on the sly, at my great-grandmother's house. My mother wouldn't let me watch it because she was undergoing her transition to her religious oddness phase which marred me for my entire elementary school life and then some [name of religion withheld to prevent arguments contrary to forum rules].

7:39 a.m. CDT 20170517. Got some sleep with mild foot elevation last night. Still having a bit of pain in the big toe, plus the other toes of my left foot (I never did mention those, did I? I sprained and bruised the hell out of all but the small toe—very purple all across). Bit of throbbing as I sit here typing up an update, along with a lingering sore throat. Waiting for my 10 am pain pill. Great thanks to whomever sent the Russian Concert Band Music CD! Some very rare tracks on that disc. Much obliged!

Not to my knowledge, thank goodness. Just a 6-month follow-up that had to be postponed due to all of the other crap that's been going on. EDIT: And it's still going to be postponed. Mrs. Prof pleaded mercy, since she hasn't been able to work a complete work week in ages due to my appointments. I advised her it's still going to be at least around six weeks minimum before I can drive, if my back clears up at all. She reminded me of her coffee intake and lack thereof and warned me to back the [redacted] off.

Watching qualifying for the Paris ePrix. FiA Formula-E car racing through the streets of Paris. They'll be having the race later today. Good day for racing today. IndyCar qualifying Pole Day is later today.

It is very annoying to receive a doctor's appointment reminder with no doctor's name attached. Seems like that would be a very efficient phishing method. In this case, it turned out to be a known doctor, but I was very careful with the data I entered to "recover my password." It was for my cardiologist, BTW. I've got an appointment with him at 2pm on the day before my follow-up with the podiatrist. Mrs. Prof is going to love that.

Luxury.

Mrs. Prof is doing a midday check of her trail camera, I guess to get a better idea of who is eating the cat food other than possums and raccoons. I've been asleep mostly since the last update, and it looks like I'm headed back that way after this update.That is all.

11:07 a.m. CDT 20170519. I'm home. The surgery went semi-well. Turns out my bone was too brittle to handle the screw, so the podiatrist had to use a pair of pins instead. General anesthesia, with no apparent chronic coughing issues. As far as I know, they didn't lay me flat out on my back. They did intubate me, which left me with a sore throat that hurt worse than anything else. A 5 mg dose of hydrocodone seems to have taken care of that. They also gave me a scopolamine patch pre-op to help with possible nausea. Worked like a charm. The most irritating part of the day has been dealing with Malwarebytes. For some reason, it decided to deactivate some of the real-time protection on both my system and Mrs. Prof's prior to us leaving for the hospital. I fixed it upon returning by downloading an upgrade to v3.1.2, but that's a hell of a time to have to do that, especially when I'm supposed to have my foot elevated. Not a happy camper, I. Anyway, I have to schedule a follow-up with the podiatrist for next week. That's not set yet, and won't be until Monday at the earliest. I'm going to cut this update short so that I can get some food inside me and get my foot elevated. Thanks for all of the kind thoughts prior to the operation—they seemed to have worked!

12:01 a.m. CDT 20170519. I got in a shower, then took my "drug cocktail" at around 10:45 p.m., including hydrocodone, and drank my last fluids for the next foreseeable few hours just before midnight. I'm about to crash out until around 4:30 a.m., when I've got to get up, brush my teeth, and watch Mrs. Prof drink coffee while I groggily wish I could have a cup. My epidural steroid shot hasn't kicked in yet, so I'm going to be relying on hope that my spine nerve doesn't flare like it did Tuesday. You know what'd be cool? If the doctor would allow me to bring Mrs. Prof's field camera into the O.R. and film the operation tomorrow. I'd like to see what the podiatrist is going to do. Thank you for every last bit of your support. Wish me luck. I'll try and post an update later today.

I've passed along your thanks, tOH, and I've got some pics to share. Let me post what she put on Facebook first: And, with that, here are two of the 176 pictures she captured within the first 3 hours of operation:

Mrs. Prof received the memory card today for use with the field camera. She's already put it out and brought it back in a couple of hours after feral colony feeding time (and past sunset). She is giddy with delight over the results. Seriously, she's been going through the still shots (hasn't used the video mode yet) and has been laughing at some of what she's got. She's also identified a couple of new ferals who haven't been through T-N-R yet. Looks like she's got some more trapping to do. Thank you for making this possible!

Can you picture me hobbling around with a pink bamboo umbrella sticking out of my big toe?

5:18 p.m. CDT 20170518. An interesting confluence of date and time. It looks like what little sleep I may get tonight may be interrupted by severe storms. I hope they stay away (or stay mild enough) long enough for me to get in a shower tonight and to get to the hospital tomorrow morning at 5:30 a.m. CDT. I think I'm going to delay my last hydrocodone dose from 10pm to 11pm tonight. As I've said, the last thing I want is a repeat of the spinal nerve pain from Tuesday. I'm hoping I can avoid that by delaying the hydrocodone, but not so late that it interferes with my anesthesia. This will also mean I'll delay the rest of my "drug cocktail" until 11pm. I can handle a one-hour delay on the forward side better than a long delay on the back end of the procedure. Mrs. Prof had some less-than-kind opinions about the podiatrist earlier today. Granted, he did keep us waiting almost two hours in the exam room, but once he did show up, we had his undivided attention. His nurse has missed a couple of call-back requests, but today when I called to find out about the hospital show-up time and ask about the bones the doctor would be operating on, she transferred me to him and immediately called the hospital while he explained the procedure. Additionally, before he let me go, he waited for her to get the arrival time from the hospital and then gave it to me once she got it. Her opinion wavered a bit after taking all of this into account. I agree with her current perception of him—I'm not 100% sure what to make of him and his nurse (who, if I'm correct, is also his wife). Right now, Mrs. Prof is out picking up a T-N-R cat and transporting it somewhere. I don't remember her exact itinerary. She's handling things calmly for now, although I think there's an underlying dread in her of me going into another nerve pain flare before and/or after the operation. For her sake, I hope it doesn't happen. (Hell, for my sake as well.) I'm on my anti-anxiety and antidepressant meds this time, but I still might post again later tonight if something sets my brain running into overdrive. Please forgive me if I do, and thank you for putting up with it.

I am so grateful. Let me know if there is anything I can do in the future to return the favor from you and anyone else who jumps in. Thank you, all.

As always, I thank you all. And, for once, I'm going to go back and change my mind on something. I do have a few long-standing cheap items on my Amazon wish list that, if anyone would be so kind, would provide tremendous relief beyond what medicines can offer. I feel embarrassed to even ask, but with two surgeries in one week, I am getting a little desperate. So, if no one would mind: ljfnord@yahoo.com Let me know if my visibility settings are correct. Thank you to anyone who even considers this.

9:12 a.m. CDT 20170518. Got to talk to both the nurse and the doctor over the phone. The doctor is still doing an ORIF on one of the joints of my big toe and apparently putting in a screw, but that's going to be about it from the sound of things. The fractured sesamoid bone can't be operated on—only immobilized until it heals on its own. That means I'm going to be wearing the moon boot for several weeks after the surgery. I asked the doctor for a post-op report. He agreed with no reservations. I also got a firm time to show up at the hospital: 5:30 a.m., with surgery scheduled for 7am. That means getting up around 4:30 a.m. to brush my teeth. I'm going to be wishing I had coffee in addition to hydrocodone tomorrow morning.

8:44 a.m. CDT 20170518. Less than 24 hours until the operation on my broken foot. I know they're doing an ORIF (Open Reduction - Internal Fixation) with screw(s) and wire(s), but since I haven't seen the report on the CT scan, I don't know exactly what bones they'll be fixing. I hope they'll be doing something to one of my sesamoid bones in the ball of my foot, since it looked particularly nasty on the CT disc and hurt a lot when the doctor put pressure on it. I don't have a firm time as to when I'm supposed to be at the hospital—still. I was supposed to get that info yesterday from the nurse, but I think you know how that went. I'm getting that info today, come hell or high water. Their office opens up at 9am, so I'm going to hit the phones ASAP. The one thing that really, REALLY scares me is that my steroid shot won't have kicked in yet and my spinal nerve will flare again. I can't stand to go through that kind of pain again, and Mrs. Prof said she can't stand to watch me go through it again. My time without hydrocodone will be significantly less, though—from 10pm to 7am, instead of 10pm until 3pm. A secondary concern is whether or not they will lay me flat on my back. I've still got my coughing problem, but only when I'm horizontal on my back. What'll happen if they put me under and put me down flat? I fear choking on my sinus drainage or reflux or whatever the hell it is that's causing the problem. A long talk with the anesthesiologist is going to be necessary.

OH DEAR GOD THEY'RE ON TO ME HIDE THE FILES FORGET THAT VAPORIZE THE FILES AND FIRE UP THE JX-63 POD NOW!!!