As some of you may know, I’ve spent the past year, at least, battling a debilitating physical condition. For the last few months, this expressed itself as near-disabling reflected pain in my arms and shoulders that made working at a keyboard – or focusing on any task more complicated than rereading genre fiction – virtually impossible.
Although the condition was finally diagnosed mid-November, complications (a two-month pause to reschedule surgery with an in-network physician amenable to my insurance provider; the scorched-earth arrival of Covid-19) pushed my surgery back to April 10. (Fortunately [?], the delay meant my situation had deteriorated to the point the procedure was no longer considered elective; otherwise, you’d be reading this in October.)
Today, a week out of the hospital and with another month of recovery ahead of me, I already feel better than I have in a couple of years. A whole raft of symptoms my doctors said might be alleviated by the surgery have completely disappeared. I still need to tweak my workstation a bit, but I’ve already spent more time at the computer pain-free today than in the previous five months, combined.
I am also woefully backlogged, with literally hundreds of messages waiting for me here and dozens of pertinent emails sprinkled among the 15,000 or so sitting unread in my inbox. Accordingly, I’m going to do a soft reset and just pretend the past half-year never happened. If you tried to contact me, and no one else stepped up to answer your question, try again: I’ll be scanning my messages primarily for bug reports against bases published here or on Airtable Universe and ignoring the rest; the same goes for emails. Messages arriving today and going forward I’ll do my best to respond. (I’ll also again be offering consulting services beginning the week of the 27th, so PM or email me if you’re interested in reserving a slot.)
This week I’ll be playing catch-up, running through a few five-finger exercises to practice my Airtable chops, reviewing What’s New since I was last here, and retraining my body to function while vertical.
And, yes, it is great to be back!
