How is your recovery going Nightcrawler?

[ultpaladin]

I just tore a ligament in my finger playing softball and they are considering put some kind of pin in it.  It made me remember your situation.  How has the recovery been going?  Have your doctors been able to mitigate the problems?  Hope your condition is improving.

[Nightcrawler]

I'm sorry to hear that. It sucks these things heal so poorly naturally.

My recovery is still not going well. I'm looking at having a second surgery sometime this winter. I'm trying to work it out all out scheduling wise with work so I don't loose my job. I will be in a splint for 2 weeks and be on a 3 month recovery road. Even that surgery has an 80% effective rate, so there's still a chance it won't work, but I don't really have any other options at this point.

In the meantime, I just suffer. Daily pain, inability to use my arm for many tasks. It's at least better than it has been at some periods this year when I was completely one handed. I can at least use my other arm for some light duty. I can type with two hands now, but only for short time frames.

I'm hoping to have surgery around the holidays in December. I should know more over the next few weeks.

[ultpaladin]

That must be frustrating, hopefully the next surgery will finally result in significant improvements to your arm.  Right now my finger is in a splint and according to the doctor there is a 50 percent chance it will either heal normally or remain torn with the part of the finger just hanging there (which looks really weird).  If that happens then I have an option for putting that pin in but it would make that finger pretty unflexible and stiff.  

[I.S.T.]

I hope both of you two get better.

[Nightcrawler]

I will indeed be having surgery in Dec. I've also been having problems with my other arm now. I'm in bad shape. It's going to be a long road ahead yet.

I'll have one more site update with recent progress in the next few weeks and then I"ll probably be out of action for awhile again. We'll see how it goes. It makes progress so slow. I'm normally slow when I'm 100%, but this is getting ridiculous!  

[I.S.T.]

I'm surprised you've been doing any hacking at all!

And I'm not surprised your other arm is acting up. It's being overworked.

[Nightcrawler]

Yeah. Prolonged overcompensation is what we're hoping after quick diagnosis on the other arm. It has a chance of healing up by itself. However, I may have also injured it. It's acting a bit differently. I'll need additional doctor visits to know, however I can't get any more time of work. I'm already working long days making up time ahead of time for the time I will be out for my surgery so I don't loose my job. I work for a small company where no family medical leave acts apply and prolonged absence of someone is a problem.

Anyway. For now everything is OK as is. I just can't really give my left arm the needed attention for now. I am trying to rest and ice it as much as possible and abuse my bad arm since they're removing damaged tissue anyway.

Somehow I'll make it through I hope! I need a 3rd arm to take up the slack!

Maybe I'll go for bionics?

[nonme345]

I do wish you will recover from all this "arm" business, or I'll lament the further delay of Transcorp.

[ultpaladin]

I was surprised to hear you are still working on your game projects especially if you have to do so much at work.  Its certainly ok to just put that stuff to the side and focus on your recovery, thats whats really important.

[Nightcrawler]

I had periods of time where my left arm was fine and my right arm was not going to get any better without surgery. That's when most of that work was done. No lost recovery.

ROM hacking is also less aggravating than most things I can do in my free time at least in certain phases like reading through trace logs or debugging some stuff. Minimal arm usage there. I wrote the core of the VWF awhile back, so it's also been minimal typing for the actual code hacking I've done. Mostly short bursts of hooking into the game, forcing in some initializations, and adding some support code.

I'm hoping my left arm calms down over the next few weeks so I at least can use one arm during the few weeks I'll be at home after surgery. Normally, I'd kill for time off, but free time is not that great if you're not capable of doing anything during it.

At the very least, I plan to catch up on some more 80's and 90's cartoons. Watching them again as an adult allows you to pick up on so much more in many cases.  

[ultpaladin]

You should stop by a Best Buy and see what seasons they have of various cartoons and other shows they have.  I remember when I was stuck in the hospital for several days that I watched the Futurama seasons.

[I.S.T.]

Good cartoon to watch for catching shit they got past the censors: Animaniacs, Ren & Stimpy, Batman: TAS(that was a grim as hell cartoon at times... not most of the time, but occasionally), Captain Planet(I don't recommend this one. it's a piece of shit, but there's stuff in there that makes you wonder why it was allowed to exist), Sam & Max: Freelance Police, Rocko's Modern Life... Others exist, surely.

Ones that stayed good even after growing up that aren't mentioned in the above list: Eek! The Cat(Though, I dunno if it ever got DVD releases), The Tick, Beast Wars and Beast Machines(Especially the second one. The second is sort of what happens when you try to make a philosophical show, but have it kid friendly. Not aimed at kids, kid friendly.), Earthworm Jim(IF YOU CAN FUCKING FIND IT).

I like me some cartoons, you see.

[Hamlet]

Dear Nightcrawler, I am so sorry to hear about Your health problems. I had no idea...
You must be a really extraordinarily dedicated and devoted person. Even though You have all these "struggles" (bad word, but I can only think of German expressions right now, I really have to expand my English vocabulary...) You still manage to work Your real life job, continue Your hacking projects and be ready at RHDN whenever someone has a question or needs help. Truly outstanding. I wish I could do something that would help... And, as was already stated in this thread, if You ever fell the need of taking a "break" (no matter for how long) You have every right to do so and no one who has even just traces of intelligence left will reproach You for that. You are so much more important than any of this.
As they say in Poland: I wish You a "fast return to health"!
Please take good care of Yourself.

As for cartoons, few things are more nostalgic than the original "He-Man". Another one would be "Galaxy Rangers" and it is impressive how enjoyable this show was for me as an adult. As a child I never realised how complex and "tied-together" the episodes were. For newer shows I'd definitely recommend "One Piece", the most life-celebrating piece of fiction I have ever encountered. It managed to give me a real positive feeling when I felt bad in the past.

[Nightcrawler]

Thanks Hamlet. It is difficult to keep involved in all that I do, not to mention time consuming. I'm always happy to know people recognize and appreciate that.

As for the cartoons, I've already went through He-Man, Thundercats, and Super Mario Brothers 3 and World. Thundercats was better than ever, at least in Season 1. Season 2 was not as good. He-Man was hit or miss. They went for quantity rather than quality. The whole series was a toy advertisement after all.

I've got Batman: TAS waiting for me. That was a deep show for a cartoon. I have Silverhawks, GI Joe, Real Ghostbusters, Transformers, Voltron, Dungeons and Dragons, Captain N and several others to choose from that I have still to get to at some point.

It's hard to pick what to get into next. It is a commitment. It takes quite some time to go through up to 100 or more episodes of something. I'll probably end up going with the show that my wife would least likely enjoy watching with me. She has watched most of them so far with me. She watched He-Man with me! I think she'll probably draw the line at GI Joe though.

[I.S.T.]

I... have trouble recommending the first Transformers cartoon. It's probably one of the cheesier '80s cartoons, and eventually gets so bad i had ot force myself through season 3.

The three episode Season 4 was nice, though. it was so ridiculous i laughed my way through it.

This is coming from a huge TF fan, mind you...

So, I suggest approaching with caution. It's not for everyone. If you can enjoy the cheese factor, you'll like it.