Reflex vs. Reason

These periods of healing suck, partly because it takes so long, and partly because your body has a highly developed system of reflexes that a) works faster than your forebrain, b) thinks your forebrain is full of shit at least half the time.

My daughter, the real doctor in the house and a shoulder surgery veteran, said, " no matter what else you do, don't fall."

Talk about the power of subconscious suggestion. Since she said that, I've fallen--twice. Trifling little accidents that one would not even notice when well. As you're on the way down (or over), the reflexes elbow the forebrain out of the way and take charge. Both arms go out to fend off the fall. They do their job. However, the nervous system of the surgically invaded limb sends a message to the brain which, roughly translated, says "ohhhhhhhh, SHIT!!"

During the moment when you're taking inventory and making sure that everything is still attached and more or less works, it doesn't help to play host to the "told ya so" response of the forebrain and the chastened sulk of the reflexes. Can't we all get along?

After nearly two weeks, I'm left with one pain point (the AC joint, for those keeping score) that elicited a "hmm" during my exam yesterday. I have always felt that "aha...aha" was acceptably non-committal from a clinician. "Hmm" makes me want to grab the white lapels and shout, "just what the fuck do you mean by 'hmm'?" I refrained, thinking it would do no good and spoil my member-of-the-club creds. One more exam awaits in a month. If this is still happening then, there'll be a lot more than "hmm" out of me.