The Back and That Man

Greetings.  Yesterday was a veeeery long day.  We had an appointment with the Tucson Orthopedic PA.  He really could not say anything without an MRI, which we had done after the appointment.  We got the results on the portal, basically Jim's spine is a hot mess of osteophytes and osteophyte complexes, stenosis, arthritis, and badness.  The PA called this morning.  The compression fracture at L1 is old.  Because it is old, and there is no edema, Medicare will not pay for any work done on this vertebra.  I'm very unhappy about this.  The PA wonders if L3 is the actual bad guy in terms of Jim's leg pain.  Here is a good portrayal of what nerve goes where.  So, yes, L3 could be the villain.  He's proposing an RF nerve ablation.  It will stop the nerve from transmitting pain to the brain for 6 to 18 months.  Then you can do it again.  It's a very short recovery time, and this is something Dr. Holt does a lot.  They first shoot anesthesia into the area and see if the pain stops.  If it does, they the nuke the nerve.  So, that's where we are at the moment.  We need to get some relief, Jim is still unable to walk for any distance so we're not getting weight bearing exercise.  For those of you 60 and up, I can not stress the importance of weight bearing.  We sort of blew it over the years because we were on bikes all the time, which is worthless for bone formation.  

The sages in the yard are putting out an anemic bloom.  Some of the plants in Tucson are just covered in purple.  It's ok, fewer petals to fall in the rocks.

The mountain lion has not been heard from again.  We did have a coyote in the back yard a few days ago.  There's a game trail in the upper back yard, I guess he likes to come through and smell things.  So far, no javelinas or deer have been seen, but there is a good sized pile of deer poop close to the house.

So, 47 did a whirl wind tour of Asia.  While there he did his little dance after deplaning in Malaysia.  He once again claimed he settled the dispute between Cambodia and Thailand.  On twitter, we see this: Xi bitch slapped Trump in front of the world correcting Trump that he did not broker peace between Thailand and Cambodia and that it was indeed China.  While 47 was there, China agreed to buy the same amount of soybeans that they always do. And in exchange, Trump gave them access to the most valuable technology humanity has ever created.  He's going to sell them Nvidia chips, which are crucial to AI.  We're doomed.  Here is a NYT gift article on how negotiations went.  Sources say foreign dignitaries are now referring to Donald Trump as president-shit-his-pants, a playful and endearing nickname for the US president’s repeated soiling of himself during official trips.  I can not be any more embarrassed to be a US citizen.

 

47 has replaced Rear Admiral Kurt J. Rothenhaus as chief of naval research with a DOGE person.  She knows nothing.  This is a slap to the admiral, the service, and all of us.  Read all about it.  47 has been going on about wanting aircraft carriers to go back to steam catapults.  The electromagnetic catapults had issues early on with launching and recovering air craft.  The problems are worked out, rate of launch and recovery is better, they can launch drones with the systems, and it's not as violent to the airplanes when they launch.  It works, it's in place.  The current class of  carriers under construction is built around the electromagnetic system, just as the A10 Warthogs were built around their cannons.  But no, he wants future boats to go back to steam.  But, he does know more about catapults than anyone.  Anyway, we wonder if putting the DOGE person in that position is in order to facilitate the going back to steam.

 

MS Word now has an AI grammar checker installed.  It does not know the correct use of less vs. fewer.  How much money is being spent on this crap?   

 

Later, this may or may not be true, it's from facebook.