Coffee 4-9-16

Good to hear from you, Greg. Hope you get to feelig better real soon.

Ouch ! well as long as you don't over do it Greg the worst should be behind you, just take it easy and get yourself better .

LS, I've posted elsewhere that shoulders are one of the most painful joints to get operated on. I had both knees done at the same time & then my shoulder a few years after & I would much rather have the knees done again. For myself it may sound odd but I could only get decent sleep on our couch with my shoulder up against the back. As always ice becomes your friend to keep swelling down & in turn take internal pressure off the nerves. You got to find what works for you but don't push a shoulder, I from now on will always use a narrow grip on bench presses & not go real heavy. IMO the pain your having isn't totally unusual but you were correct in calling, the rehab will be slow & careful but it will get better just don't try & push things along.

My dad had surgery on a rotator cuff about 15 years ago. Afterwards he said if he had known how bad it would hurt, he never would have gotten the surgery. I think he slept sitting up in the recliner for almost a week.

Neighbor across the way had similar surgery a week ago. Pain has subsided quite a bit unless he gets stupid. Still in sling, still in recliner. Started PT Fri past. His feedback---"fck, that hurt!" Slow & steady old timer!!!

Decided to make the trip across the lake for a "maple breakfast" this morning. My boys have never been to a sugar house, and they don't need to twist my arm to talk me into a pile of pancakes, sausage, eggs, and whatever else.

This is where we are headed:

In the same down I hope to move to.

Wilder.... I hope your Mom feels better each day.

Greg.... I hope your pain lessons with each day. It's no fun! But, you'll enjoy the results.....eventually. Pain.... it's easier to KEEP it down than it is to GET it down. Do Ibuprofen and Tylenol both agree with you? Each one can be taken every four hours. A trick the nurses do is: Take your dose of Ibuprofen, , then two hours later take your dose of Tylenol, then two hours later it's been four hours since the Ibu & you can take it again. Along with that you can use the prescription as needed. (as long as the scrip has no Tylenol in it). Please do be careful about not taking too much Ibu or Tylenol per 24 hours. The maximum dose of Tylenol is 4,000 mg per day, the max Ibu is 2,400 MG per day.

Busy weekend! I am going to try & see the last 15 minutes of the Masters.

Hey cap I have my handy dandy Snap On flaring kit and tube bender in the tool box. The copper alloy tubing is easy to work with, I have used it before. I have noticed some light green corrosion on it after a few years; don’t tell me the ice melting chemicals destroy this stuff in time also.

Hang in there Greg, pain is personal so one man’s pain is another man’s pleasure. Maybe not pleasure but we all feel things a bit differently. I once had two abscessed teeth at the same time; I thought my head was on fire. It was the worst pain I have ever experienced an regular Tylenol all but made it go away, who would have thought?

My dentist has prescribed Vicodin in the past for extractions but I can’t drive for 48 hours after taking it so my go to pain concoction is 1 acetaminophen and one ibuprofen taken together, essentially a half dose of each. They work synergistically and acetaminophen is cleared through the liver while ibuprofen is cleared through the kidneys. This is similar to Freddy’s strategy.

Never take more than maximum recommended per 24 hours and don’t take ibuprofen if you are on blood thinners or have kidney disease.

Get well Greg and remember what some idiot somewhere once said; “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”

An alternate method for pain management.

Hi everyone,

Greg, sorry to hear about your shoulder. I hope it heals up fast for you. Wilder - I'm glad to hear your mom has stabilized. I hope the improvements continue for her. My mom is much improved; she is up and has resumed most of her activities following the procedure she had on her back. Her short term memory is still messed up but we hope that will improve now that she is off the prescription pain pills.

Yesterday, I spent an interesting day at the NRA Basic Pistol course. It's the 3rd time I've taken the class over the last 20 years. This one as the best. The instructor had about 20 different guns available for us to handle and spent a lot of time with each individual. There were only 8 of us in the class. I was the star on the range but that's easily explained if you know that the targets were set up at about 15 ft. If I couldn't hit center mass at the distance I should be ashamed of myself given my experience.

I'll tell you what though it was some kind of cold! The temperature was 42* but the wind chill made it closer to 32*. For once I was ready to leave the range when I had shot all my ammo.

Today was much warmer so I went ahead and split that square hive. It was boiling over with bees and has a lot of capped brood ready to hatch. That kind of overcrowding is a clear sign that swarming is imminent. I moved about a 1/3 of the bees to my winter deadout hive and moved the old queen with them. The bees in the square hive will raise a new queen. I also opened up space in the square box hive by moving some of the capped brood frames to the deadout hive. Filling that open space with comb should give the bees something to think about besides swarming. That gives me a new hive for a total of 3 hives. Hopefully, doing this will be enough to stop the colonies urge to swarm.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Take care, Lisa

I feel for you Greg.

Had my right shoulder done several years ago. Surgeon told me that I had completely torn 2 of the 4 tendons. They sent me home with the nerve blocker, copious amounts of pain meds and the 6 pack cooler cold water pump. I was told to take 2 of the Tylenol 4 tablets every 4 hours to stay ahead of the pain. I was a zombie for 3 days. Had my surgery on a Wednesday and was incoherent until Friday night into Saturday morning. The real bitch was having to carry the cooler with me to the bathroom. Not that I didn't used to do that in my early days !!!!

Come Saturday I started weaning myself down to 1 pill at a time. By Sunday afternoon, I decided to see if I could drive so I could go to work on Monday. At least I would be able to answer the phone and putter around the garage. After a week I tried to paint a little race car. All was fine until I had to put the paint suit on for the clear coat. I figured I could subconsciously hold my right arm close to my body holding the air hose without the sling. WRONG !!!!! Went home early that day to get some pain meds. I learned my lesson after that.

PT wasn't too bad but you definitely have to take it slow. And that will be hard for someone like you. But slow and steady will win the race. I still have some issues with weather fronts moving through and giving me that dull shoulder ache. But it passes with the fronts.

Take care.

Rick

Wow ... BAM! There goes another weekend ....

Glad to see your moms are doing better, Wilder & Lisa. Great news!

Sorry to hear of all the pain Greg. I'm a very impatient healer - I hate laying around with so much stuff I need to get done ... but gotta let it heal - no way around it.

The first day after my double-hernia surgery, I was feeling great, so stopped the pain meds. BAD idea. Holy crap did that hurt. My attitude improves tremendously while under the influence of narcotics, so I wasn't against starting up again. The wife was happy. Not 4 days later I was out in the barn carrying a 50 gallon spray tank that mounts on a trailer. Another bad idea. Thought for sure I blew the hernia out again. After a week or so of taking it easy I was happy to discover it was just pain from over-doing it. Hernias have been fine ever since.

Waiting for a decent stretch of weather so I can get going on my porch roof. Sections of it come down after every wind event. Leaks like a sieve now. I finally bought all the materials, but I have to wait unit I rip the roof off to see what I'll need at the hardware store. Need 1/2" insulation for the base regardless, but there's a big possibility of rotten decking, since the roof has been in rough shape since the day we moved in 13 years ago. Need to see how many sections, if any , I'll need to replace. Two trips to the hardware store is NOT an option. Want to get this thing done in one day if at all possible. I don't have any decent tarps big enough to cover it. It's only 1.2 square, if I remember right. Should be a full days work at a minimum.

GAW - far from being a bad idea to keep old iron running. What's crazy is making perpetual payments on over-priced, failure-prone, rolling tupperware! If you have to make payments, you shouldn't be buying new. I learned this the hard way. New is nice ... until the warranty runs out.

Yep - nothing better than copper nickel brake line. If you're keeping the vehicle for the foreseeable future, I'd only install that and nothing else! It turns green, instead of puking brake fluid when you need the brakes the most ...

I've got one of the best flaring tools ever. Takes literally 15 seconds to make a perfect, factory quality double-flare. Pricey, but if you do alot of brake lines, this thing is worth it's weight in gold, and will pay for itself in no time: http://store.fedhillusa.com/flaringtools.aspx

I just picked up another flaring tool that I can use on the vehicle. The above tool is vice mount only. The new tool also flares lines for GM push-lock nylon fuel line. Going to save me alot of headaches!

Lazy day today. Haven't even got out in the barn yet. It's the wifey's day off, so figured I'd hang out with her for a change.

Take care folks.

Greg,You haven't been posting,so You mustn't be locked up in the house by all of this. That's encouraging.

Anywhoo,it's time to reopen the Bay ! I'll be having late Sunday Coffee's and a bite with All of You ! Thank God for the start of another Season out there....

Take Care,and against standard thought convention : "The big stuff's easy to handle,it's the little,trivial crap coming in a constant parade that will try to drive You nuts if You let it ! "

HUH????????????????? Yep, been there done that!! Where ya at Greg???????????

Thanks everyone. I'll post on the 4/16 Coffee House. Pain is still there but a vast improvement over a week ago.

Greg L