Finger Saga

Dec 6, 2008

I was in a freak accident last month that left my finger broken and lacerated. I still have pin holding the bone together. It really hurts, and it hurts all of the time. But, good has come from this. It not fun ending up in emergency surgery, and it's not fun hurting, but I've met some wonderful people through this and I've learned a lot of interesting things. One of the things I learned is that people genuinely care. Another thing I'm learning is how strong I am. I choose to take the good.


Jan 3, 2009

I wrote that a few days before the pin was removed. Since then I have been through 4 PT sessions. I really like my therapists, Julianne. She is persistent and encouraging, and another one of the good things. My finger has made some wonderful progress during those 4 session and lots of work on my part between those sessions. However, there is still one part of my finger that will not move by itself. Julianne told me the other day that if it doesn't start responding to the therapy soon, I may have to have more surgery to remove the scar tissue that's wrapped around the ligaments. Today I've been more vigorous in doing my exercises in an effort to get that scar tissue to break up. Pray for complete healing of my finger and for wisdom as we move through the process.


Jan 13, 2009

I met with my therapist today. She gave me a couple of new tools to use to get full use of my finger back. I really like my therapist. Her name is Juli and really talented in hand therapy. She said she was doubtful I could fully recover without surgery, but that she doesn't normally have clients with as much determination as me which meant she was hopeful. I found that encouraging. Pray I can get full recovery without surgery, but if it needs to happen, that we will navigate that road with wisdom. I cannot tell you how much good has come from this accident. I don't like having to go through this, but I've met the most amazing people, found an awesome home for my dog, discovered that rest really does heal (novel idea for a marathon walker), and found how many truly caring people there are in this world. Praise God!

End of the world. Enjoy!

I was watching a show on the History channel the other night and sent my son a note about it.


My note to Daniel:

"Have you seen anything about the end of the world happening on 12/21/12 as predicted by the Mayan calendar? I'm watching it on the history channel. It talks about how Merlin's predictions, other oracle's prediction, Mayan calendar and something called software "bots" have all predicted that the earth will end on the same day. . . . It's interesting stuff. The way the earth is supposed to end is when the sun, Earth and a black hole align. The black hole was predicted in the Mayan calendar and just recently discovered in the middle of the Milky Way. It's fascinating if you listen to it as just a historical program, but kind of gives you the heebie jeebies if you start internalizing it all.


Daniel's awesome response to me:


I guess we'll find out in a few years.


The supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy is called Sagittarius A* (pronounced "a star"). It is about 25,900 lightyears from Earth. It has a mass of about 3.7 million suns. The acceleration due to gravity of an object is:


g = -mG/r^2
where g = the acceleration due to gravity
m = the mass of the object
G = the gravitational constant
r = the distance to the object


Plug in the numbers for Sag A* into that equation, and you get an acceleration due to gravity of -8.179e-15 m/s/s.


Jupiter, on the other hand, is much smaller, but much closer. It has a mass of 1.8986e27 kg and it is located 4.204 AU from Earth. Plugging in those numbers, and we get -3.202e-7 m/s/s. That means that the average pull on Earth by Jupiter is 8 orders of magnitude stronger than Sag A*.


I would be far more worried about the gravitational effects of Jupiter than any black hole at the center of the galaxy. But we align between Jupiter and the Sun at least once a year, yet the Earth hasn't exploded.


By far the densest object Earth encounters every year is Congress. Now that might be something to
worry about.


Daniel.