I'm now at week 6+ post surgery and I'm finally feeling generally pain-free in day to day life. Been back to TaiChi over the past few weeks and have at last had a lesson where I wasn't outpaced by the (spry) 80 year old.

I knew it'd take a long time to recover, and that even though microsurgery is a great advance in terms of patient recovery time/minimising scarring/etc.... but I make a very poor patient and get frustrated that I'm not better instantly.

A friend once suggested the reason I got so frustrated was because 'modern' medicine wasn't as good as what you see in Star Trek: one hypo spray and voila! cured!. I have to say, that out of the possible advances science can make, an accessible instant cure-all would have amazing impact on our day-to-day lives. (Of course, there's the whole cultural, ethical and sociological problems that would then result due to a lack of natural population restraint, etc). But just from a day-to-day perspective, it'd be grand. To never have to just suffer through flu, or a bad back, or poor eyesight, or a headache, or a sprained ankle, ...

Too, this sort of experience gives you an eye into how primitive even our modern medicines are. That still mostly it comes down to hacking you open and cutting bits out, then sewing you up again. We've gotten better at diagnosis (so the wrong bit isn't hacked open or removed), we've gotten better at precision (so only the correct thing is removed) and we've gotten better at procedures (it's keyhole surgery, rather than a full slice across half your body). But at its roots, it's still chopping and sewing. Preventative medicine is the way to go.

No, this entry had no actual point to it. I'm not that organised. :)