Not A Blog™

Shortly after sending last week’s update email, the power went out. It stayed out for two days—from Sunday evening until Tuesday evening—before coming back on through Wednesday afternoon, when it went out again. It finally came back for good late Wednesday afternoon. It’s difficult living without power when there’s nothing wrong with you. Like so many other things, these problems are compounded when you’re disabled. (Fun exercise you can do at home: try hopping to the toilet on one leg in complete darkness. Then use it.)

I heard as many different rumors as to why this happened as there were people spreading rumors. It was either—pick one—the result of a construction accident, or due to residual damage from Hurricane Gustav, or possibly it was the result of a construction accident which was trying to repair damage done by Hurricane Gustav. Regardless of the specific cause, chalk it up to my growing list of schadenfreude.

Since my leg is now stable, NMPS has decided that I need to be gainfully employed while I’m down here. The snag? They have nothing for someone with a broken leg. I have no problem doing work provided it’s not merely busywork that exists for no other reason than to give someone something to do. But they don’t even have that for me, mostly because I can’t walk and need to keep my leg elevated at all times.

Despite this, NMPS Medical has decided that I still need to muster in person at the NMPS building which is about a mile from the barracks. Not only does this entail interacting with the ever delightful duty drivers on a daily basis, but it means I get to sit around and make myself scarce. They told me to find an empty conference room (no joke: they actually weren’t sure which ones were being used, so told me to go “find one”, like hobbling all over the building is a trivial task), and make myself comfortable. I’ve been camping out in the Marines’ conference room which has nice, non-plastic chairs in the back.

The biggest downside to doing this is trying to sit in a chair (no matter how comfortable) and keep my leg up. It starts to hurt more when it swells, which is any time I leave it pointing down for more than about a minute, so my goal is to keep it up as often as possible. Unfortunately, doing this while sitting in a chair, opposed to laying down, is killing my back. Sitting that way forces my leg to an unnaturally high angle compared to my back, and even if I recline a bit, it’s quite uncomfortable. Their solution to this problem is to allow me to go back to the room in the afternoon. This is better than nothing.

Don’t get me wrong, laying in bed all day sucks. But walking around, trying to sit with my leg up is just as bad. It’s nice to get out of the room every once in a while, but not at the expense of my back. Regardless, it’s not my decision, and I’m still required to show up, lest I appear to be doing nothing in my room all day. If I’m going to do nothing, I need to do it in a certain physical location.

One thing I did do was submit my medical board for review Monday afternoon. They said it would take three to five days to hear a response which, if you don’t count Monday, would have made Friday day four. We haven’t heard anything yet, so I have no new news about where I’m going or when. I’m really hoping to hear something Monday or Tuesday of next week. Of course if my current luck holds, it will not only take another week, but the response will be something ridiculous, like telling me to stay where I am.

Until next week,

-Ted