Daily Success December 30 – Okay. My exercise level was solid but marred by a lot of pain. My left knee was bad enough to force an ibuprofen before bed. Sciatica managed several very painful stabs. Piriformis was mostly quiet, but stepped up when I got on the treadmill for a test walk. The plan had been 12 to 14 minutes. I managed 8.

Yesterday

Yesterday was mostly minor chores (a lot of them), too much web surfing (way too much), fully justifying watching Notre Dame football by spending the entire time in the gym, and generally getting back toward normal after all the Holiday activities here.

Today

Today will be lots of cleanup of the various papers in my office in preparation for 2024. That’s more of a problem than might be expected because I’m terrible about keeping up with things.

I’m in the process of volunteering to serve American Pilgrims, and thus peregrinos hiking the Camino, at Ribadiso. The application is far more difficult to fill out than I expected as it asks questions about my relationship with the Camino that I have been unable to answer for years, despite a lot of working at it.

Sam’s work should get some attention as well. Specific tasks for SurveyorBot (e.g., mass estimates) and SAGEbot (project plan).

The Future

We have an appointment with Larry on the third. I hope he can help me find a path forward that seems workable. At the moment, all is a dark grey mist. A very painful dismissal of my attempt to participate in the latest puzzle with “have a nice day” last evening left me feeling that it’s time to get serious thinking about what comes next. This hurts too much.

Beyond that growing feeling of hopelessness, there is the issue of health. Things there are far from good with the three forms of pain in my left side appearing intractable. The piriformis is responding slowly, according to Monika. I can’t really argue with that, but the rate of improvement should include “very” or “extremely.” The sciatica injection next week will be just about 4 months from the last one, which does not seem to bode well. My left knee does not appear to be responding to Dr. Higgins’ injections. Without what looks increasingly like unlikely progress there, 2024 will be the year of the titanium knee.