Monthly Archives: January 2010

DF Pirate Radio – “Heartbreaking & Baby Making”

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Title: Vol. 6 Episode 4 (Click link to play) Rel: 1/30/10
Description: “Heartbreaking & Baby Making” – This episode may have arrived a few days late, but the theme is a few weeks early so it all balances out in the end (at least that’s what we tell ourselves so we can sleep better at night). Yes, it’s that time of the year again where we queue up some slow tunes about all things love from heartbreak to getting it on– we’ve got you covered in this Valentine’s Day mix that sure to set the mood. So dim the lights, pour some bubbly, and cuddle up close to your significant other (or pillow– if that’s how you roll). DJ digitalflood will be your tour guide as he takes you on a trip through his favorite acoustic love songs, R&B smooth grooves, crooner romance standards, power ballads, and smooth soul. There’s even a Rick Roll in the end that will warm your heart and get your libido going because God knows nothing turns on a woman like Rick Astley. At just over an hour this non-stop mix session is full of surprises. So if you’re ready for the soundtrack of love then click on the link and let the magic happen!
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Shoulder Surgery – 13 weeks in

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Don't be fooled... healthcare is far from a non-profit industry!

Don't be fooled... healthcare is far from a non-profit industry!

Last post I talked about how my recovery from Open Bankart Surgery on my right shoulder had begun to focus on pure strength training and continued development of my outward flexibility. This routine was exactly the same for week thirteen except that my physical therapist (PT) increased my weight by one pound on each exercise. This made it overall much harder to do, but I got through it. I also cut back to two visits for the week. The pure intensity of the work outs require at least a day to recover and I find with the long weekend in between the sessions I recover more fully so as not impede forward progress. When I went to return for my second two visits to head into week fourteen I was told that my insurance company said my progress was adequate for the treatment and that I no longer needed PT. As such, they would pay for no more PT sessions.

With that I’m waiting to talk with my orthopedic surgery (hopefully tomorrow) to discuss this further. I’m not so sure this is the case. While I have regained about 75% of my capabilities I’m nowhere near being able to perform high impact sports or able to lift over thirty pounds. I also managed to get to an external rotation of 72 degrees. This is still short of 90% of the full 90 degrees that we wanted and thus there is no way I don’t need further treatment.

We’ll see how the appeal process goes, but with cost consolidation being the way of modern corporate America courtesy of the never ending recession none of this surprises me. Of course, it is disheartening to see one’s health care now comes under such scrutiny where close enough is considered fully recovered– not good news. Glad I didn’t get open heart surgery… I can only imagine how that would have been. It’s beating so that’s close enough for us!

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Making Sense of Things

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Emperor Penguin

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be lots of random pics of Emperor Penguins on the Net. We can change that one blog post at time! (© Samuel Blanc - http://www.sblanc.com)

I spent some time over the last twenty four hours building out better menu sorting for the digitalflood Pirate Radio episodes that I think you’ll find quite the time saver. If you hover over the “Music” menu at the top of this page and then hover over “DF Pirate Radio Webcasts” you’ll see a new sub-menu shoot out that breaks down all of the episodes season by season. I know this is long overdue, but better late than never (as they say).

I’m still mulling over what I want to do for “digitalflood Pirate Radio Vol. 6 Episode 4”. I don’t have any guests setup for the show and MC Mary @ The Disco! is back on college hiatus (as she continues pursuing her degree in nursing) so it looks like another solo session. If any one is interested in being on let me know. You probably won’t be able to make this episode, but at least I can maybe get another show going at a later date with actual people on it. In the meantime, I’ve been dying to trying out some new tricks I learned online from some tutorial videos. I picked up a new technique for using the cross channel frequency mixer to blend songs together and maybe that’s what I’ll record either Sunday or Monday night. Release date is still to be decided, but I’m aiming for either this Tuesday (1/26/10) or Wednesday (1/27/10). More on that as things begin to gel and actual recording takes place.

I have to tell you, my search page referrer hits for shoulder surgery have taken off as of late. I’m getting tons of visitors coming across this site just from my weekly recovery logs and it has been a pleasant surprise. I apparently rank pretty high across the various search engines (Yahoo, Google, etc…) when it comes to shoulder surgery searches. My hope was when I began all of this recovery logging that it would both allow me to track my recovery, as well as, help others as they go through the struggle of recovering themselves. Judging from the hits and feedback that seems to be the case. So now we can say digitalflood.com is more than pure fluff– there’s some science and biology in there as well. Who would have thought that?

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Shoulder Surgery – 13 weeks in

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Arm Bike Physical Therapy

Arm Bike Physical Therapy helps overall strength - Courtesy of: Physiotherapy-treatment.com

Catching up since my last post, my recovery from Open Bankart Surgery on my right shoulder is progressing rather well. Our main focus for my physical therapy has been strength training. This means all exercises have added 3 lb. weights to their motion and my PT has introduced an outward/upward arm lift while lying on my stomach. Other than that there has been little to no change. The PT also introduced the hand bike on it’s lightest setting. I do two minutes and thirty seconds of forward rotation. Then I do another two minutes and thirty seconds of reverse rotation.

Overall this portion of therapy has been physically challenging because I’m going from doing nothing but motions to actually stressing my arm with extra weight. The hand walk while on the exercise ball continues to be my absolute least favorite exercises. The other exercises challenge my strength and range of motion, but that exercise in particular truly tests my arm (keep in mind though I have lost 10 lbs. since starting PT, I’m still a solid 235 lbs. at this point– that’s a lot of me to keep lifted in the air).

I now have 180 degrees of inward motion (full range of motion) with little to no pain. I also have 72 degrees of outward motion with serious discomfort. This outward range is above normal and the last area to return as far as muscle conditioning is concerned, but it is returning slowly and surely.

Finally, my left shoulder continues to exhibit minor discomfort. It is obviously has some residual damage from all the stress put on it, but it’s not a complete loss. I will clearly need minor PT on it to clear up issues, but I think long-term it should be okay.  There has been no dislocations in the left shoulder for a month now, but there is noticeable limitations in range of motion/ease of use and extra pain during full extensions at the limits of motion. Still– my orthopedic surgeon wants me to wait on rehabbing it until the right side is “normal” again.

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