So how's the rest of me doing?

Last week I posted on getting a new set of teeth, but it occurred to me as I saw the new picture with my dazzling smile, that the rest of me looked, well, awkward. I noticed the same thing on a video I posted for my Indigogo Project. Essentially the right side of my body is malformed.

It's because of the shoulder being dislocated and never having fully healed. There is nerve damage, and frankly, it's a bit grotesque. I look like Quasimodo in those pictures, though I don't feel a whole lot of pain.

Here's what I mean:

The left side is the normal side (right side of this picture), while the right side makes me look unbalanced.

The video highlights the differences even more. I talked about this in a previous video, but the right side looks squashed in. Would you hire someone that looked that deformed? Apparently people don't feel very comfortable around me for that reason.

I'm afraid there's little that can be done for it. I could get surgery, if I could afford it, but that won't repair the nerve damage. Only time will do that, and it's been almost 2 years now. So I have to live with it.

As far as the knee goes, it's the same it has been for about a year. Most of the time I feel no pain, but I do feel a mild discomfort. When I step down, I feel the discomfort even more, plus the knee feels unstable as I set my right foot down, say from the step off a bus.

So why don't I use a cane? Well beyond the matter of cost, I would have to use the cane in my right hand for it to be effective. My right arm is weak, to the point that if I had to rely on the cane to prop me up, my right arm would never hold me up.

So a lot of people may overlook the shoulder, but when they see me walking, seemingly normal, they think I'm faking the whole 'disabled' thing, and I'm some kind of scammer.

So this is one reason why I'm trying to go into business for myself. I am not disabled, but there are a hell of a lot of jobs I can't do. And with the ones I can do, I'm facing incredible competition from younger, healthier, better-looking people. So if no one else will hire me, I will.

And if the business takes time to develop, and a tremendous amount of work (GASP!) to accomplish, well I don't mind putting it in. Only, if you see me asking for donations to get this thing off the ground, don't laugh at me and call me silly because of the nature of the business, then have the nerve to tell me to find a real job. If you can't help, then don't say anything at all, which, unfortunately, too many people are doing.

Well enough for this rant. I have work to do, even if I don't get paid.

Prisons and Shoulders and Knees, Oh My!

I shared this on Facebook earlier today, but I decided to make it into a blog because it's a rather important topic.

Last night a man came roaring into the dining hall, yelling that someone had stolen the Tupperware bowl he had under his bed. He then went on to complain that he had just gotten out of prison only to be treated like this, his language laced with swears and threats. 

Unfortunately this serves to highlight one of the bigger problems not just with homeless shelters but also with prisons. Ex-cons are not prepared before they leave prison to come back into the system, so they wind up at the shelter. I have no idea what the percentage of former inmates is, but I know that I'm one of the few without a prison record.

The problem is both with prisons and with shelters. Too many think that prisoners should be punished and leave it at that. I'm not soft on crime, but I do believe if you serve your time, you deserve something more than to be let out with no resources to get your life back on track. 

Instead, they are dumped back into the streets. What choice do most of them have but to return to the life of crime and drugs? Even if they work while in prison they are paid so little that they have no cash to fall back on. Employers don't generally hire felons (otherwise why ask?) and especially at the good jobs that pay well enough and are consistent enough to pay a living wage.

I'm not saying hire that sex offender for child care, or hire the man charged with assault with a deadly weapon as the greeter at Wal*Mart (don't get me started on them, please). But I am saying let's get these prisoners trained on a useful skill before they leave prison, and also let's get them jobs as they leave prison. Why continue to put the burden on the county and state to support them after they get out?

[Steps off soapbox, breaks arm in the process...]

Speaking of arms, I've been seeing my physical therapist for a few weeks now. I'm making progress, but I still need to build strength in the shoulder and arm. There are a number of tender spots on the shoulder, and we're working on getting them 'awoken' except for one spot, which my therapist tells me is bone. I see my doctor in a week and a half and I hope to get some X-Rays taken of the arm to make sure there are no additional problems with the bone that was broken in the accident.

I'm worried, though, because it's been 9 months since the accident and if it were going to heal, it should have happened before now. I'm worried that I will need surgery and no one will be willing to pay for it, because I sure as hell can't. I also can't feel that I'm fully healed until that pain in the shoulder stops. If there is a problem and I can't get it fixed, I will be applying for a disability. I've tried to avoid it before, because I felt the shoulder was a temporary disability. I may be wrong about that, though.

My knee has good moments and not-so-good moments. Sometimes I walk normally, a slight limp, and sometimes I have to stop and sit. There have been a number of times when I've felt the knee and it seemed like the bottom part of the leg, the drumstick if you will, is protruding slightly from where it meets the knee, especially compared to the other knee. That worries the hell out of me, but I know that without surgery, it will never fully heal. That, at least, I can overcome, as long as I don't have to walk very far and as long as I don't have to stand for long periods of time, so I don't really consider that a disability for the kind of work I want to do.

Yet, I am not entirely able to the kind of work everyone wants me to do, which is "Anything." I'll have to talk to my doctor to see if I can get something in writing to that effect.

That is all, as always thanks for reading!

Taking a Beating - er, Physical Therapy

I had my first encounter yesterday with Physical Therapy.

The first thing the therapist says is that there's nothing more he can do with the knee without surgery. I'm tempted to take that to Social Security to see if I can get a disability claim for it.

The next thing he does is examines the shoulder. It appears the shoulder is 'frozen' or locked into place. He made some measurements of how far he can move the arm, and then began probing around the arm and shoulder. He found a spot behind the shoulder that is extremely sore and he worked that hard.

He tells me that the 'capsule' of the shoulder might be torn or damaged and that might affect the mobility of the shoulder. The only way to tell is with an MRI, or surgery, neither of which I can afford - still no insurance. But he says he can work around that so that in the next 4 weeks I should get some mobility back, especially when reaching behind. He did mention that my deltoid muscle might be partially torn, and that might also affect movement.

He gave me several exercises to try, and a day after taking my first beating, I thought maybe there was some increased mobility, but it quickly froze again.

So the bottom line is that I have to see this guy twice a week for the next 4 weeks and we'll see where it goes from there.

On the good news side, I have started putting more effort into my 'Shy Boy' story, and have posted the first part of the story on my hub pages account.

I still have not heard from Vocational Rehab, and I'm still hopeful that I will. They have 60 days to respond.

I have been posting for jobs, and still have not received a call back on any of them. Not sure what's going on. But I am trying.

All in all, not a bad week so far, and I will continue to work on my writing during my spare time. Let's face it, I have more spare time than I want. But sometimes the muse doesn't visit me and my mind draws a blank. *it happens!

As always, thanks for reading!