BBL.
*** Update ***
Many of you asked so, a quick update. Finally got some good sleep last night after I took a benadryl (percs were also making me itch a little, so the doc suggested killing two birds with one stone). Slept so well that I missed two doses and all my ice melted, so I was pretty miserable when I woke up. On the upside, I was allowed to shower this am and take off the ant-clotting stockings, and I just iced for an hour and feel pretty ok right now. Lot of localized pain, but my mood is a lot better.
Now heading to rehab and getting my sutures inspected and bandages changed.
And pain meds just suck. I hate how they make me feel. Why have we not had more success developing non-narcotic pain medication?
Mario Piperni
Fun time with Sarah Palin. Teabaggers Upset With Palin
nepat
Fired up and ready to go. The 2010 Republican Smackdown begins now.
rootless_e
To the tune of okie from muskogee (sorry Merle)
We don’t eat shit sandwiches in FireBagville
We don’t compromise to get 60
We don’t support that, ni, ni, uh, black guy in the White House;
We like livin’ right, and bein’ free.
I’m proud to be progressive from Firebagville,
A place where scatology can never pall
We still bathe with Grover in his bathtub,
And losing is still the biggest thrill of all
We don’t make a party out of winnin’;
We like weeping hard and pitchin’ poo;
We don’t let facts get in the way of knowin’,
Like the sheeple down at Balloon Juice do
Napoleon
BBL??? Is that the drugs talking?
Libby
Hey JC. Cruising through to check up on your progress. Hope the painful part is improving rapidly. Sending good thoughts daily…
schrodinger's cat
John Cole @ top
Is your shoulder any better? How is your appetite with all the pain meds. Get better soon.
General Winfield Stuck
BBL? Shit, before it’s over we will all be speaking everything in acronyms and will have to create a whole new language and dictionaries. Hope you aren’t in too much miserable pain senor Cole, but a little bit is OK by me.
arguingwithsignposts
hey, this lexicon ain’t going to write itself. where are our trolls? taking friday off I see.
the … helicopters … aren’t … joking.
GReynoldsCT00
@Napoleon:
No, probably like one hand typing… the one that works right now
General Winfield Stuck
@arguingwithsignposts:
Dumpster dipping, looking for their little Plastic Unicorns.
Carrie
Good luck @ PT. and listen to the therapists.
PurpleGirl
JC: Hope you’re feeling better today.
Brick Oven Bill
One of the unfortunate things about employment is that you cannot watch the Glenn Beck TV show when you are working. But I got to watch it yesterday, and also last week on Thursday. That was the day when Glenn equated national expenses to numbers of nuclear powered aircraft carriers.
Which was kind of wierd.
Yesterday, the subject of Glenn Beck’s opening dialogue was Logic and Mathematics, which was also kind of weird.
Readers of Balloon Juice will recognize that ‘Mathematics’ is not a Liberal Art, but instead ‘Arithmetic’ and ‘Geometry’ consist the Fourth and Fifth Liberal Arts. Taken together, they could be called mathematics, but this would exclude things like linear algebra.
The term ‘Mathematics’ comes to us from the Greeks, specifically referring to Plato’s Four Understandings.
Rachel, Glenn gets way better ratings than you. This can all be yours.
Comrade Mary
Rehab starts today, John? I heard you had an awful pain day earlier this week, which sucks, so I hope rehab gets you on the road to feeling better soon.
sstarr
You know, if I were to pull down my pants and silently mouth two or three words during the state of the union that would probably ALSO outweigh Obama’s words, as far as the networks were concerned. Perhaps we’ll start a new tradition – trying to rudely shout down the president during the State of the Union or other presidential addresses. Perhaps for the next address the Republicans will come in hot pink T-shirts and start yelling and screaming right away! Maybe there will even be puppets and pies.
Punchy
Cole: post TLDR
In other news, the dissolution of cystine and tyrosine at neutral pH is absymal.
arguingwithsignposts
@General Winfield Stuck: As if on cue, BoB chimes in about pie.
Michael D.
@Napoleon:
Maybe with his shoulder, John can’t handle two pets.
Buh
Bye
Lily
General Winfield Stuck
Everything has been so serious lately, we in the BJ Superficial Department have been a little short on contributions. As director, I apologize for this and offer some juicy tidbits of nonsense.
We’ve been expecting this.
Yes, you heard right. OBL is concerned, very concerned about infidel emissions. Fucking wingnut satans.
And from our Weird Shit File
As things return to normal around here, stay tuned.
Comrade Mary
I think we need a slightly different version of crazy in this thread after the pie eruption above.
Cat Lady
@nepat:
Durbin’s right, but it sounds like whinging. Which Dems are going to stand there and make sure this is heard loud and over and over? Franken would be great, but he’s too easily dismissed as a “comedian” which equals “clown”. Bloodthirstier Dems please! Now!
BBL? I can’t even guess. Hang in there buddy. Get better soon.
Tractarian
Turns out “BBL” can mean a lot of different things.
I’ve narrowed John’s intended meaning down to two possibilities:
1) Be Back Later
2) Belly Button Lint
flukebucket
@Michael D.:
I checked the lexicon. It ain’t in there. I am just going to go with the standard “Be Back Later”
Comrade Mary
If he meant Belly Button Lint, there’d be a picture.
robertdsc
Yeah, the Warrah on Terrah is over as of today. What a joke.
Crust
Idea for calling campaign: Call your Senator about ending the anti-trust exemption for health care companies. Pelosi is talking about a stand-alone bill for this in the House. This would require 60 votes for cloture in the Senate. In principle, conservatives should support it as a way of encouraging more efficient markets.
WaterGirl
PT starts today, right? So sorry!
Time to talk about cookies, then..
Can you give us the recipe for the butterscotch raisin cookies you like?
AkaDad
The Bush tax cuts are finally working.
arguingwithsignposts
I’m all for throwing kittehs at the problem. Works most of the time.
Thadeus Horne
@Brick Oven Bill: Oh,Bill, you little bumpkin. You’ve simply have to quit watching that crap. For a while you were sounding rational (OK, maybe not rational, but, at least not as irrational as usual). What happened? The new med set quit working? Or did you just quit taking them? If you quit taking them,you are in a heap of trouble when your Mom finds out.
RedKitten
New SamKitten pics at my url, by the way. He’s just discovered his feet, and is quite smitten with them.
Gravenstone
@Punchy: I make the NCA for the latter. Shit won’t dissolve in a damned thing before then.
Corner Stone
I think it has to be said. Baltic the ice dog survived a 75 mile journey on an *ice floe*.
Baltic
Chat Noir
@arguingwithsignposts: Kittehs can only help. They are magic!
Morbo
@WaterGirl: Man, I hated PT. They never believed me when I said my cast was restricting my range of motion. I gave them a good “I told you so” when it got taken off for a smaller one and I pretty much had a full bend. Fun times.
GregB
Is today the official date of Bin Laden’s shark jumping?
-G
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
Since this is an open thread, if you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
General Winfield Stuck
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine:
J.D. is smiling down from his compound on high.
“If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye,”
Mario Piperni
Great piece in Political Animal on Dems screaming bloody murder over Republican obstructionism and yet doing nothing about it. Summarized here.
Maude
@General Winfield Stuck: They used to make those unicorns out of wood.
scav
Balloon Boy Levitating?
BoB Boy Losingit?
Bibbity Bobbity Loo!
General Winfield Stuck
@Maude: Hard times
PurpleGirl
Redkitten: The new Samkitten pics are sweet. Sam has such a happy face. I like watching small ones when they discover and play with their hands/fingers and feet/toes. It’s such a moment of their world becoming larger.
bystander
Good luck with the PT, John. One bit of advice. Do not say mean things about PT, or to PT person. They can hurt you in ways you can only imagine. Also, it’s good to keep a grimace in place throughout. They expect a certain amount of pain. If you smile at ’em they figure they ain’t workin’ you hard enough. Hope it goes well for you in this first session.
debbie
Jon Stewart was funny on the Democrats a couple of days ago: the Democrats have changed their symbol from a donkey to a dead possum, and their new tagline was “committed to capitulation.”
General Winfield Stuck
Don’t you hate it when that happens?
And if percs were making you itch no wonder they make you feel bad, prolly some allergy to them.
SteveinSC
@Brick Oven Bill:
Judging from the incoherence of the post, BoB must be drunk.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@General Winfield Stuck: My younger son’s name is Holden, which is a family name on his mother’s side, but we get asked occasionally if we named him after Holden Caulfield.
Paul in KY
Crust, this comment had me in stiches ‘In principle, conservatives should support it as a way of encouraging more efficient markets.’
Ha, ha. Were you being ironic?
Fax Paladin
So is it just me or is the judge in the Roeder trial trying to get a jury nullification?
Paul in KY
Redkitten, Sam is a beautiful baby. Looks healthy as a horse. Thank’s for the cute pictures.
General Winfield Stuck
Back in the late 90’s when I was having all sorts of trouble with kidney stones and other painful ailments, they put out a synthetic narcotic pain med on the market (don’t remember name), that didn’t affect the CNS. They worked great and no euphoria, which I don’t support BTW, and worked like a charm at killing the world class pain of KS’s. Then one day my doc office called and said to stop taking them pronto, as a recall went into effect because they had killed a number of folks with Liver failure. Our FDA in action/snark
Woodbuster
“Why have we not had more success developing non-narcotic pain medication?”
What? Isn’t that what Jack Daniels is for?!?
Scuffletuffle
Very pleased to hear that you are getting back to your usual feisty self, but please keep it in check at PT. As has already been said, those people can hurt you… Best wishes for a continuing speedy recovery and no itchies…
Paul in KY
Fax Paladin, I think the judge concluded that it couldn’t possibly be 2nd degree murder, after the scum who did it talked about all his pre-murder prep, etc.
I would have to agree with his decision.
dr. bloor
@General Winfield Stuck:
It wasn’t Ernie Anastos, was it?
General Winfield Stuck
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: I was reading that apparently that opening line of CITR, completely bumfuzzled the literary world when first published and created some kind of new period in fiction writing. They must have been highly bored, I figure.
BR
Too bad John that you don’t live in California (or Rhode Island or Colorado or Washington or New Mexico), since all of them have cannabis dispensaries – a decent and less addictive alternative to narcotic painkillers.
G(NO)P
You know, at this point I think they’d vote against canonizing St. Ronnie if Dems were in favor of it. Bipartisanship at it’s finest:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/28/senate-gop-paygo/
General Winfield Stuck
@General Winfield Stuck: could be. I’ll get one of our superficial reporters right on it.
R-Jud
@RedKitten:
Awww. Thanks for those.
His future wife has figured out that she can pull the knobs off the stereo. We don’t know what she’s done with them.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Can they give you hydrocodone (Vicodin) instead? I’ve never known anybody who had bad side effects with that one.
Joel
Pharmacologically, narcotics are a massive success. Opiods are the body’s way of regulating pain. Narcotics basically nail the receptors designed for that purpose with almost uncanny efficiency. Not many drugs can say that. The problem is that they also regulate other stuff which explains the euphoria, dysphoria, everything else.
You can target the source of pain with NSAIDs like ibuprofen (weak) or steroids like cortisone (very dangerous). Basically narcotics are your best bet.
Violet
John Cole, glad you are doing okay and able to take a shower. That’s a big step. Good luck with the rehab work.
RedKitten
@R-Jud: Good times. They’re not small enough for you to worry about someday finding them in her diaper, are they?
And yes John, pain meds do suck. You sound EXACTLY like my husband after he had his knee surgery. He hated the prescription pain meds and only took them when he couldn’t bear the pain anymore. After awhile he just switched to Advil LiquiGels (which we keep in bulk, as they’re the only thing that works for my migraines), and while they didn’t take the pain away altogether, they dulled it down quite a bit and didn’t make him feel all fucked up like the prescription painkillers did.
mainsailset
Careful John, Benadryl recall http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/news/20100115/tylenol-motrin-benedryl-rolaids-aspirin-recall
Pangloss
Imagine trying to do a right wing talk show every weekday on 20-30 of those pills.
General Winfield Stuck
@Violet: My gawd woman, his fucking ice melted. Teh Horror!!:-)
Maude
There is non opiate pain med. Don’t know why the doc didn’t prescribe any. I think that they usually go with the percs or Rush’s.
Alex S.
Seeing how the economy is growing again, I wonder if the Dems should pass health-care or not. If they do, they can say they’ve done it all, economy, health-care, DADT and other social stuff, but they will give the GOP a campaign theme. If they don’ t pass it and simply run on the economy, there would be no real weakness, except from a failure of delivery.
On the other hand, maybe it’s better to wait a few months before you pass health-care. With a growing economy and a successful financial regulation effort, health-care would get new momentum…. or they simply pass the damn bill….
geg6
@Tractarian:
Well, he did say today was the first since his surgery that he’s gotten a shower. There was undoubtably an unsightly and unhygenic amount of lint in there.
Maude
@Pangloss: at 67
Correction: 200 to 300 per day. He’s a big boy.
R-Jud
@RedKitten:
No, thankfully. I think the cats may have helped her dispose of them. Knobs skittering across a hardwood floor– instant Kitteh FunTime!
Svensker
@RedKitten:
I LOVE it when they find their feet. Your Sam is just a doll — what lovely plump little baby parts, simply scrunchable. I still adore the picture of him seriously disturbed.
Alex S.
@General Winfield Stuck:
Hehe, “Bush the son”…. George bin George… sorry, go on…
geg6
@RedKitten:
I’m just like your hubby and Mr. Cole. Nothing worse than pain meds. Not even the pain itself. Hate, hate, hate them. I just stock up on Motrin. Works just fine for almost any pain I can have. If it worked on the broken jaw, it will work on anything, IMHO.
Oh, and edited to say I just peeked at SamKitten. Damn, that is one hellava cute kid. Seriously.
General Winfield Stuck
I’m puzzling how we gonna get that ice refroze. How big is your freezer Mr. Cole?
geg6
Since this is an open thread and I’m bored stiff today at work, I am mulling over lunch.
So…chicken cheese steak or barbeque tenderloin sammich?
jeffreyw
@geg6: Gotta vote for the BBQ
cmorenc
I wish medical people would take a page off dental people on the pain front, and let folks suck on Nitrous Oxide for an hour at a stretch 3 or 4x per day when the pain is worst. Gives you a pleasant high that goes well with good music, and has the paradoxical effect on pain that while you still sense that pain is there, you simply don’t give a shit. Along the lines of: oh, that’s pain I’m feeling? How interesting. Now back to the music and my private fantasies about one of the nurses.
Ella in NM
A. Because, actually, the human body uses opiate receptors in the process of blocking pain, and opiates–whatever their derivatives– work the best.
B. Because America hugely politicizes the whole medical area of Pain Management, and while we DO have effective ways to deal with pain, your doctor may err on the side of “less is better” merely because they are afraid of being accused of being a drug dealer.
There are a lot of really conscientious and smart doctors out there who know how to combine medications to increase their overall effectiveness. But I see doc’s in our ICU prescribe crappy, inadequate pain relievers with more side effects over “good stuff” everyday because they don’t have good training and backgrounds in this category of drugs, and they rationalize their ignorance by knowing that for someone like you, that pain is a temporary state anyway. But what these guys forget is that pain decreases the body’s healing response, literally by increasing the stress hormones that block tissue regeneration. Too many people suffer unnecessarily. It ends up being the nurses who guide your doctors towards what you need, usually.
We need a new discussion in this country about better, safer and more effective pain management being taught to all doctors, not just the specialists. In the meantime, don’t tolerate pain of 4-5 on a scale of 10, John, it’s just not necessary and it might actually be interfering with your recovery. Tell them it hurts!
P.S. Itching and other annoyances like constipation are not signs of an allergy, they’re just very common minor side effects you manage just like you did by taking Benadryl or something similar.
jenniebee
@RedKitten – I love me some of that baybeh. He’s got such wonderful color in his cheeks.
@JohnCole – keep feeling better and sorry to hear about the meds.
Corner Stone
@R-Jud:
You have a stereo…with knobs?
Zach
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jokeefe/2010/01/29/statement-from-james-okeefe/
James O’Keefe has a statement out now. The comments at Big Hollywood are classic:
Hob
Why have we not had more success developing non-narcotic pain medication
Boring answer: because pain is as old a feature as nervous systems, so it’s really hard to go after it selectively, except via the off switches that are already built into the system. Narcotics work because the body already has opioid receptors for that purpose, but those receptors are still not entirely pain-specific and aren’t meant to be cranked up to 11 all the time, so it may not be possible to have a narcotic without the usual side effects. (BTW, the “way they make me feel” part varies a LOT between individuals – a little morphine will mellow person A out instantly, make person B just feel yucky and barfy, and turn person C into a hyper-agitated loon. That last case is what happened to one elderly patient of mine who kept me busy for hours as he stormed around the room having WW2 flashbacks and telling me how we had to call the President because the hospital had been taken over by Nazis. He was pretty embarrassed when it wore off.)
NSAIDs like ibuprofen are less simple – they have an anti-inflammatory action that’s well understood, and then they have a central analgesic action within the brain that’s still a little mysterious. I guess it’s theoretically possible that someone could come up with something similar that only acts centrally and avoids the side effects… except then it might not work that well, because the anti-inflammatory action is part of the reason NSAIDs sometimes provide the best relief for certain flavors of pain.
Not to say there can’t be some loophole we haven’t found yet, but it’s not surprising that progress in this area seems to have peaked early, because we already had a million years to discover the basic mechanisms for pain relief by chewing on plants. Cavemen may not understand whether something is good for their heart, but they understand owies.
Barrick Arnold
Hey John:
They’ve made GREAT progress on non-narcotic pain meds out here in California.
You just need a script =)
joshers
Thanks a lot Usama. Predictable “guess whose side bin laden is on?” wingnut posts in 3… 2….
trollhattan
re. Bin Greenpeacin’ Somebody had better check the audio to see whether it’s not an impersonation by Sen. Inhofe (R–Hot Tub). This will doubtless become one of the wingers’ “See, we told you it’s a scam!” moments.
re. John Cole. OxyContyn time? Here’s somebody who might be able to help. (I don’t know whether this is actually James O’Keefe, but it would be irresponsible not to speculate.)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/theblotter/2010921261_crimes_stoppers_of_puget_sound.html
beltane
@cmorenc: Cannabis has the same effect. While it does not eliminate or mask the pain, it somehow localizes it so that pain does not dominate the consciousness as it otherwise would. It also helps reduce the side effects (mostly digestive) of frequent NSAID use. I say this as someone who has struggled over the past year with some nasty arthritis pain in my back. Anything that can distract the mind from focusing on pain is better in the long term than the use of drugs such as Vicodin (which I started to hate after a couple of days).
Michael
That comment section at Breitbart is pretty fun. Wonder how long they’re going to leave mine up?
Waynski
@Corner Stone — Did you mean Balto the sled dog? Linky:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~aknome/balto.html
beltane
@Hob: ibuprofin is a miracle drug as far as I am concerned.
Elie
John:
So glad you are feeling better…its all uphill from here — your pain medicine requirements will start to go down so buck up.
Doctor Hob gives some good explanations. Dunno if your Doc would ok moving to some more non morphine like meds during the day, like NSAIDS (advil, motrin, Ibuprofen), leaving the narcotics for bedtime more. Check it out with him/her. Many times pain management is a creative process using a mixture of sleep aides, anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants and things like ice — or even a little alternating warmth and ice as your rehab folks may suggest at one point. All will move you along another day of healing and regaining your strength and flexibility.
Don’t forget that laughter too…
Hob
@cmorenc: I think one reason they don’t use nitrous like that is that it doesn’t stay in your body — you exhale it right back out and if there isn’t an extra strong ventilation system, doing this on a regular basis would make your whole hospital room rather special.
maye
Because we’re all junkies at heart.
Napoleon
Well TPM is reporting Roeder convicted on all counts.
Dork
Pain meds are for sallys. Sack up and act like a man.
Are you carrying those Percs in a purse or your blouse pocket?
Elie
@RedKitten:
You are so blessed…Samuel is a beauty…he makes me smile and helps my day along.
Thanks
Napoleon
@Waynski:
Balto is stuffed and here in Cleveland if anyone is looking for him.
Da Bomb
@RedKitten: He’s just getting cuter and cuter by the minute.
Xenos
@Napoleon I can see the scene in the jury room: “hmmm, deliberate for a couple weeks and set up a deadlock/jury nullification, or convict this jerk and get of here in time for lunch? Decisions… decisions…”
Elie
@beltane:
Only caution on them is they “thin” your blood (effect time it takes for blood to clot), so may not be ideal in some situations like immediately post op. Like asparin, if overdone can be toxic to your kidneys, but otherwise, I generally agree and use them with confidence. Tylenol, not so much and Tylenol is toxic to your liver at relatively low doses..
Corner Stone
@Waynski: Can’t tell if this is snark or not. I linked to the story I referenced.
I’m not familiar with breeds but it looks like a type with a normal amount of hair, not a husky type.
Here’s a video
Michael D.
If you’re not watching, Obama is really taking down Republicans.
“Here’s every single way we’ve worked to incorporate your ideas into Health Care Reform.”
“When you say I ought to listen to and incorporate Republican ideas into HCR, I HAVE!”
Hob
@Elie: Ixnay on the Octorday – you’ll get me in trouble with the state RN Board.
Unfortunately, depending on John’s doctor, he may not have so many options for changing up the pain regimen – a lot of docs think (or thought a few years ago when I was last working in acute care; I don’t know if the evidence has gotten any clearer since then) that NSAIDs are bad for healing of fractures.
Scuffletuffle
By the by, any other Philip Glenister fans on today? I just saw Episode 2 of Life on Mars last night. Am loving it but… Episode opens with them running after some perp, they are all in freaky bathing suits and PG is running like a queer spaz…what’s up with that. Are they trying to harsh my mellow or what? Altho I have to admit I laughed like a drain…
Svensker
@Michael D.:
Watching what?
Never mind.
jayackroyd
Because the pain is real. As a doc I know once said, pain meds don’t remove the pain. They just make you look at it differently.
Comrade Darkness
Medicine is still figuring out how pain works, actually.
Interesting article in the sept 2009 scientific american (sorry, not free) about discoveries made trying to trace down the origins of persistent pain. (the kind that hangs around after everything’s healed) . If this research is state of the art, it’s no surprise our painkillers suck.
jenniebee
@nepat: Read Benen, and he’s right. I think it’s a little more tactical than that – what we really need to do is move swiftly to neutralize the SoCons by severing them once and for all from the remaining rational Republicans. There is no hatred like internecine hatred, and the way these two groups are ready to go at it make our little tiff with Ben Nelson look like a kumbayah.
This comment however, is enough to make me want to scream:
Thank you, Adlai Stevenson. Yes, what’s really been missing from this political clusterfuck is that Democrats haven’t been professorial enough. Maybe we should bring in Mike Dukakis to consult on how we should craft the message! We could get Al Gore to put together some powerpoint slides! Because if there’s anything we know that Americans can’t get enough of, it’s concise, well-reasoned lectures on the finer points of the budgeting process and Robert’s Rules of Order.
John, share the meds, I needs them.
JohnR
@SteveinSC:
“Judging from the incoherence of the post, BoB must be drunk.”
You might want to edit that – it implies that BOB only posts when drunk. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that..)
Oh, and sorry you’re still feeling rocky, John; I hope it’s not too much worse after PT. As for the opiates, don’t be bashing on them too much – the only negatives I found were the tendency towards bizarre psychoses after a week or so, and the very unpleasant (!) withdrawal. I’m amazed that some addicts can actually get off in the first place. I’d still take the narcotics over the pain.
Elie
@Hob:
Hey I hear you — which is why I said for him to talk to his doc…
schrodinger's cat
I know that many cancer treatment centers have doctors whose job it is help the patients manage their pain. I wonder if their expertise is available to other patients (not just the ones receiving cancer treatment) also
Xenos
As far as non-opiate painkillers, cannabis is not an opiate. It is also not much of a painkiller, I suppose, but one line of thinking is that it mimics the natural effect of certain hormones that help the body handle the stress of pain associated with childbirth. The post-partum mother remembers the pain, but is not so stressed out about it and heals faster as a result.
SteveinSC
Obama is in Baltimore taking it up the ass from the repukes right now and thinking he is going to get a kiss on the ear when they’re finished. How naive can he get?
Elie
@Hob:
Also heard that about em too.
During my shoulder recovery (Partial replacement) last year, they worked real well but as you say, it depends on a lot of other considerations. My doc also threw in a muscle relaxant for a couple of weeks at bedtime cause I kept getting spasms in my neck and upper back when I was of course, trying to sleep.
I also developed my own ” theater buddies” little latex gloves that I filled some with warm water and others with crushed ice made from freezing rubbing alchohol half and half with water – got tip from my physical therapist. I would rubber band them at the top and give each a go for 5 to 10 minutes and it helped.
Its all art. Shoulders are complex and more tricky in recovery — the rehab takes a while and you have to persist and its sometimes frustrating
Comrade Mary
@SteveinSC: I don’t see any hot anal action on my tv. Actually, it looks a lot like the Parliamentary Question Period. Isn’t it nice to have a president who can take tough, even unfair questions, and keep his feet while he’s at it?
Zifnab
POT!
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Scuffletuffle: LoM is great—the BBC version, that is. Went on for a series too long, though. (I know there were only two series, but still—it was the kind of story that could and should have been resolved in the first eight shows.) Ashes to Ashes is less great, but more watchable than anything I’ve seen on US TV.
Svensker
@SteveinSC:
I don’t see him “taking it up the ass.” He’s just answering questions and doing that in typical O calm fashion. He IS president of the entire US, not just Dems — he’s supposed to refuse to talk to them?
RedKitten
@Xenos:
Like hell. I remember that pain like it was yesterday. It was only last month that I could start using the bathroom without having to brace one hand against the wall and clench my teeth to muffle my cries of agony.
jon
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
House saw dead people.
But other than that, he seemed fine.
valdivia
@RedKitten:
Ultimate Cuteness, that Sam. Thanks for sharing that with us.
burnspbesq
@Crust:
“Principle” and “conservative” are words that no longer fit comfortably in the same sentence (if they ever did).
Michael D.
@Svensker: Agree entirely. And, in my opinion, he’s taking everything they say apart piece by piece.
Scuffletuffle
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I’m assuming this is the BBC version–I didn’t know there was another. At any rate, I am enjoying it immensely. I don’t find many shows these days that are laugh-out-loud funny, but this one is. Looking forward to Ashes to Ashes as well.
Mike E
@Brick Oven Bill:
Dude, I’m tellin’ you, she’s gay.
Jay C.
Uhh, John: presumably this is a mistyping of “anti-clotting stockings”?? Or is your PT returning to a more, shall we say “naturopathic” way of dealing with things…. ?
me
“What we should be doing is throwing bad ideas out.” — Advice to the President from some republican congresswoman.
asiangrrlMN
Cole, glad to see you’re at least sentient. Good luck with the PT. How are Tunch and Lily? Post when you can, man, and be nice to yourself.
@arguingwithsignposts: Not to get all emo on you, but I NEED new Smudge pics!
@RedKitten: Your SamKitten is ridiculously cute. I mean just flat-out adorable!
canuckistani
@RedKitten:
I’m a bad man! Sam’s grumpy face makes me laugh! That’s one cute kid.
cdmarine
John, I am so with you on the painkiller thing. After a couple of surgeries, I have come to the conclusion that I am just not a narcotics person. I can’t stand the way they make me feel, and I’m floored that people actually do this stuff recreationally. When I went to the ER with a several gallstone attack they pumped me up with morphine, and I screamed at the nurse, “What the fuck was that!?” She told me it was morphine and I growled at her not to ever do that again.
BGK
Is it too late for kittehs?
This?
Also?
Because kittehs, that’s why?
Chat Noir
Sorry for all your pain, John Cole. I can’t even imagine what you’ve gone through the past couple weeks with your shoulder. I’m a complete wuss about pain. Hope Tunch and Lily help you feel better.
SteveinSC
@Svensker: Look, the bottom line, well expressed by Jim DeMented, is that the republicans only want Obama to fail. Simply put, the republican counter-revolution happened under Bush II. They lavished tax cuts on the wealthy, emasculated government regulators, unleashed the money churners on peoples’ savings, and if you haven’t noticed, the inheritance tax was abolished starting January 1, 2010. They have nearly everything they want and compromise to them is giving up in a game they have already won: compromise to them is failure. He gains nothing by talking to them.
And by the way
spare me this snide and puerile sanctimony.
Zifnab
@jenniebee:
Hey! Be fair. No one is better at powerpoint than the Goracle.
Republicans know how to play Jekyll and Hyde, acting like deranged idiots in front of the base while putting on a very serious and professional face for the moderates. You only need to see Mass’s Scott Brown or Iowa’s Grassley boomerang from frothing tea bagger to devote Brodering bipartisan.
It would be great if Democrats could perform similar transformations, getting serious with the base but playing nice with the general public. The problem is that Democrats seem to think their policy actually has to match their rhetoric. So you’ve got Obama talking about domestic spending freezes while Reid mumbles about moderating the HCR bill.
Democrats can craft some excellent policy, but they continue to fail in their salesmenship, thinking that if they slash another billion dollars on the budget that Republicans and their conservative ideologues will be “sold”. They won’t be sold.
Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, and Olympia Snowe don’t give two shits about the deficit. Never did. Neither do the rock ribbed conservatives – screaming about death panels and government takeovers. Democrats need to sell their agenda to the people, particularly the people in the swing states with the mushy Senators. If you want Snowe, blitz Maine with a media firestorm and convince them that deficit reduction begins with Democratic proposals. If you want Nelson, go down to Nebraska and sell those corn farmers on Health Care. If you want Florida, get in there and make immigration reform a big and powerful issue.
The DNC, the DSCC, and the DCCC are non-existent here. The agenda isn’t being pushed in a unified manner. I would love to see some concise, well-reasoned lectures. Why do you think “An Inconvenient Truth” or any given Micheal Moore movie always does so well? These are messages people WANT to hear. They sell well. They package well. They just aren’t being delivered nearly as aggressively as their conservative counterparts.
The Republicans have their own god damn news channel, for christ sake.
Lizzy L
Bruce at 62: Vicodin does not work for everyone. My brother and I both have lousy reactions to it, plus it doesn’t make the pain go away. John, ask for a different pain medication if Percocet or Percodan or whatever they gave you isn’t working. Glad you’re feeling better.
artem1s
LOL, I think there is a Geico commercial in there somewhere.
Comrade Mary
@SteveinSC: I think the whole meeting was worth it for his final, ringing smackdown of yet another loaded question about “tripling the deficit”. He showed respectful disagreement with another House member who tackled the same topic rather more constructively, but showed the last posturing fool for what he was.
I expect that final bit to be the media takeaway for the day.
PurpleGirl
@Xenos: Xenos: I was on a jury one time and we went to deliberation just before lunchtime. We came to a decision in about 5 minutes without even discussing it; we went directly to a vote once the door was closed. (The case was about a bar fight and involved damages/negligence.) We didn’t tell the court officer right away that we had a decision because we felt NYS owed us at least lunch for the 8 days of trial that we had sat through. Then over lunch we more fully discussed the case and the testimony/story.
Da Bomb
@Michael D.: They are also reporting this on Politico of all places too.
He’s showing some of his thug-izzle.
SteveinSC
@Comrade Mary: We shall see. The final exchange is where Obama should be and he should be backed up to the hilt by Democrats, progressives, etc. Oddly enough I heard on Scarface this morning Doris Kerns Goodwin and Eugene Robinson saying “make the (assholes–ed) filibuster.” Let the ignorant and easily distracted American public see once again the republicans for what they are: anti-mainstreet, obstructionist shits.
Joel
@Zifnab: speaking from experience, not an awesome analgesic. great anti-emetic though.
PaulW
Just a quick tip re: percocet itch. I had shoulder surgery of my own just about a month ago, and the percocet was driving me crazy. Benadryl definitely helps at night, but I was sick of being all groggy during the day. Vitamin C worked wonders. 500 mg with each percocet dose didn’t knock the itch out entirely, but made it tolerable.
Good luck with rehab and recovery.
BongCrosby
I could help ya out with some of that there non-narcotic pain medication, big guy.
I’ll even put a yellow sticky note on it with a big ol’ RX on it.
Although I suspect that in your condition, a Zig-Zag would have too many moving parts.
BongCrosby
Apropos of nothing, but I find that if one reads Brick Oven Bill’s posts in the voice of Inspector Luger from “Barney Miller,” it makes the experience much more enjoyable.
Svensker
@SteveinSC:
I like being snide and puerile. Makes me feel young again.
SteveinSC
@BongCrosby: LOL
MTiffany
Because we were busy decaffeinating coffee and putting men on the moon?
RedKitten
@canuckistani:
It makes me laugh too, and I see it live and in person. Poor little guy has hardly napped today at all. He conked out in his bouncy chair at 2pm, but then the phone rang a half-hour later and woke him up, so now he’s being curmudgeonly. I’m trying to see if I can get him to fall back asleep so that he’ll be in better cheer when Daddy gets home.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Scuffletuffle: ABC aired a version from in the 2008 Fall season. It was mostly crap.
Jeff
Glad to hear that the recovery is starting. Hope you’re up to full power soon.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Scuffletuffle: ABC aired a version in the 2008 Fall season. It was mostly crap.
FYWP
Comrade Scrutinizer
@SteveinSC: He isn’t the President of the entire US? Who’s being puerile?
Hob
@SteveinSC: Actually, “snide and puerile” is a pretty good description of someone who thinks the best way to describe a guy being not strong and manly enough is to say that he’s “taking it up the ass.” Maybe you could work a few jokes about limp wrists and prison showers into your routine too.
arguingwithsignposts
@asiangrrlMN:
An instant classic.
Dee Loralei
@Scuffletuffle: I love Phillip Glenister, man is he ever funny. I’m waiting somewhat impatiently for LoM disc 2 to arrive. Damned netflix sent me the first discs of 4 tv series, and after a two month wait, I finally got the 2nd disc of the MiddleMan. Why would they do that? The series weren’t even particularly near each other in my queue.
Anyway, back to PG. I watched Ashes to Ashes as it aired. Imagine PG’s DCI with his 70’s machismo and a modern day woman with our sensibilities on equality and policing etc. It’s fun stuff. He’s also in the new BBCA show called Demons. It’s also a fun show. He’s a big bad American demon-smiter. So you may want to add that to your queue as well, or dvr it on Sat nights. They’ve only shown 4, so you haven’t missed a fuck ton of them.
Dee
Sad_Dem
BOB, after watching Glenn Beck’s white-board geometry lesson?
asiangrrlMN
@arguingwithsignposts: Ohhhhh, lovely. She is growing up to be a heartbreaker!
JSD
I have to agree about meds. I hate that groggy feeling when I take more than one. Even one makes my groggy and half nauseous during and for hours after it wears off.
Morbo
Ugh… you know of course it’s actually useful to have genuine discussions of masturbation, but dammit if Sullivan discussing it is not more than my imagination can stand.
annie
That’s the beauty of medical marijuana for pain…
annie
that’s the beauty of medical marijuana for severe pain
Linda
Toredol
It’s a non-narcotic NSAID that can only be administered for 5 days and the first dose is IV.
I had surgery in November. My first Toradol dose was while I was under anesthesia. My remaining doses were pills I took every 6 hours.
No pain. Seriously. None. For 5 days. And clear headed.
I don’t know where this stuff’s been all my life.