It was absolutely humid and disgusting today. Horrible. Tomorrow will be worse. I cannot wait.

But today was a good day overall. I drove into work, enjoying a mix CD I threw together this morning which contains everything from Nick Drake to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Blondie to Bebel Gilberto and Gorillaz. I sang along. I checked my email and then met with my boss from 11 to 11:45 to review our budget for this year… then we left the office to do STORE CHECKS! Yay!

However, since it was during lunchtime, we had to build in lunch and stopped at my favorite New Jersey diner, Tick-Tock Diner on Route 3 in Clifton. That went over well since it really is like a new world for Manhattanites, I gather.

Then we visited several local stores to see how they were displaying our stuff. As usual, I am keeping the where and who private since, uh, that’s just how I roll. Unlike many bloggers in the world - and myself up until October of 2005 - I really really like my job and wouldn’t write anything negative about it. But I also want to keep some details hidden, y’know?

I drove my boss back to the offices and turned right back around to head to the New Orthopedist’s office. I forgot his address, so I called my friend LJ at work and he looked it up so I’d know where to go. Since I still had a few minutes before my appointment, I stopped at Starbuck’s and got myself a light caramel Frappuccino and got him a Mocha Frappuccino - which I then delivered to his office since it was right down the street. I talked to him for about 4 minutes (he told me about an upcoming concert featuring the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn - I’d like to go, but with this new loan payment thing hanging over my head, it might be rough to find an extra $50 to see a show. We’ll see… though I haven’t been to a show in ages and would really enjoy it… it’s near Polak central, Brooklyn) and then had to leave to get to the doctor and fill out the new patient paperwork.

I have a good feeling about this one; the first thing he asked me to do was tell him my symptoms and NOT tell him the diagnoses from the other two doctors I’ve seen. I talked, he listened, did some palpating of both wrists to compare, THEN he looked at my MRIs. THEN he had some x-rays done in the office and THEN he reviewed those with me and we talked some more. All told, I was in there for about an hour, 30 minutes of which were spent TALKING with New Doctor. Always a good thing.

Basically, the conversation ended thus: yes, I need surgery. Yes, it appears to be Kienboch’s, but he used the nice long-ass way to say it - “Avascular Necrosis.” I felt all special-like.

Before we start discussing the nitty-gritty of what kind of procedure to do, New Doctor wants to try out the last possible non-invasive treatment - that being a prescription non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) called Mobic. It’s for arthritis, which is what I already have in this wrist as a result of the pressure on the bones. I’m taking this drug for eight days to see if it makes things more bearable. I have another appointment in exactly two weeks. I’ve got to continue what I’ve been doing - wearing the wrist brace, icing the wrist and now taking the NSAID. If the pain doesn’t lessen, then under the knife I go. And there are options - the old idea of the radial shortening, the scary concept of fusing the wrist bones, and the strangely less scary word, “prosthesis in your wrist.”

In the meantime, I called the radiology center where they did my MRI and requested that they fax the radiologist’s MRI notes to New Doctor’s office since he wanted to see those. I thought I might need to request my original x-rays from the first doctor, but after seeing the ones he took today (comparing both my left and my right), New Doctor was pretty clear on what is up and what needs to be done. No further comparison is necessary.

Just as a visual - though in words - they took an oblique (read: sideview) x-ray of my wrist. The lunate bone in a normal wrist, from the side, should look like a crescent. The lunate in my right (healthy) wrist is more or less crescent-shaped. The lunate in my LEFT wrist, however, is shaped sort of like a comma with a tumor/growth on one end, or one of the turd-like Cheetos (as opposed to the puffy curved ones.) It was kind of gross to see the difference.

So… after the doctor, I met up with my friend B. and we went to get some food and drinks at a nearby tex-mex restaurant. My chimichanga filled me up so thoroughly, I didn’t get to finish my enchilada or rice or beans. So I wrapped it up and brought it home. We just spent the whole time talking and joking, which is always nice. She’s still stuck working in the hell dimension where I used to work and it’s really eating away at her - draining her energy and happiness and spirit and, for lack of better term, her life force. It’s just awful. So I tried to provide some inspiration by letting her know that there are good places out there, like the place where I work… where YES, it’s a corporation and an office environment, but there are people with crazy dyed fuchsia hair and with shaved heads and all manner of piercings, etc. And no one looks at them strangely… it seems to me (at least) that people are appreciated for their skills and abilities and also their individuality. I know that for B, it’s hard right now to see anything beyond what she’s gotten used to… working where she works is seriously like being in an abusive relationship. You begin to doubt your own self-worth and think that you MUST have done something to deserve this treatment, and that it’s all your fault that you can’t do better. It’s the scariest thing in the world to think about leaving; you fear retribution, revenge, abusive language or behavior (and yes, there are workplaces where this is still a fear) and the huge, looming “what next?” is really rough to deal with since any confidence or hope for the future you might have had is G-O-N-E. You don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.

I just really wish I had some connection or amazing inside scoop on a great job opportunity for her. Right now, my advice to her is to find something - anything - just to pay the bills. Even if it’s something she’s not interested in, that’s better for her mentally than the day-to-day demoralization she faces where she is. Once that burden is lifted from her shoulders, everything else will shift into focus. At least it did for me… I was an angry angry deeply unhappy person while there… I’m not a ball of sunshine now, but I’m sure as hell happier, by at least 75% (which is a lot for me!).

OK. It’s after 10. I need to get to sleep. I have a LONG day tomorrow, and still need to make a bank run in the morning, etc. I wanted to borrow my brother’s Garmin nav system to bring with me since I’m driving into NYC tomorrow, but I don’t think he’s home yet and I’m not going to wake him up early tomorrow just to ask for that. He’d be most displeased. I don’t want to do that - it’s not something I need, just something that would be cool.

I have my clothes for tomorrow at the ready, and I am going to watch “Funny Face” as I go to sleep.

Today’s cultural note: I just found a photographer’s website that contains some of the most gorgeous pictures I’ve seen in a long time. The photographer’s name is Ahmet Ertug, and here be his site. The picture on the homepage sucked me in. Now I have to see if a print of that photo is available!

Update: The book *”Spiritual Journeys: Sacred Art from the Musée Guimet”) containing these photos is only available in the UK. Boo, hiss America. Why can’t I get this book at my local bookstore???

Today’s complaint: it’s going to be 102 degrees tomorrow and will FEEL like about 110. Ewwww. Nasty. That’s just wrong. Ugh.