the return of the non-musical

Hey all! Back to the grind of posting short, fairly meaningless updates. The music project was quite fun, but that was a giant load of work, and it's nice to get back to enjoying music, rather than strictly analyzing. Note to people who might want to pay me to do that: I'd love to - it was a blast - as long as I don't have to cover 20, 30, 40, 50 bands a day (I'm looking at you, "s*" and "b*" days). In fact, pay me and I'll blog about whatever you want.

Anyway, updates? I haven't said anything worthwhile since February...

As far as therapy is concerned, I will hopefully get back to Detroit by the first week of May. I'm cramming in all the various appointments I've been putting off - stupid bad vision, stupid cavities - so I don't think I can get back until the fourth or fifth at the earliest. Restarting therapy on 5/5, Cinco de Mayo, would be quite coincidental, as that was the day I started last year. Then the goal is for my return to Detroit to be a permanent departure. No offense to the wonderful small town of cville, but rehabilitation and recovery are far too important for me to keep burning up days here. With the help of the magicali, I think it could happen. First, though, I need to get my eyes and teeth checked!

Manual wheelchair update: in the molasses-in-January process of pushing equipment requests through the insurance process, I've made some baby steps regarding the jl-sized, power-assisted custom manuchair. Insurance semi-officially went line-by-line through my chair parts request, approving or quasi-denying each detail. They approved (again, unofficially) most of what I asked for, but there are several parts that they will either pay for a lower-quality part, or not cover at all ("convenience" items, though they have a rather skewed idea of what items are essential and what are luxuries). For these denied and halfway-approved items, I can choose whether I want to pay out-of-pocket to include or upgrade, or to do without. Without diving any further into those details, I had the opportunity to chat with the chair dude and pass judgement on these items; so, theoretically I am at the point where we're letting insurance know my decisions, they're sending their part of the check to the wheelchair people and the rest of the bill to me, and the chair guys will then put together my portable throne (ha ha, bad word choice). Thus, we've taken a leap forward, but who knows how long it will be before insurance finally finishes their part of the process; then the chair guy's expectation is at least five weeks after approval to get all the parts together and hand over the finished product. Ergo, I still have weeks, maybe months to wait - no doubt I'll be back in Detroit before the chair finally appears. After waiting months and months already, all I can say is... ugh.

Actually, there is something else I can say - a huge thanks to everyone who has donated over the past few years. If it weren't for your contributions, I likely couldn't have my own manual chair at all. For that matter, I probably couldn't do therapy either. You're enabling my dramatic physical progress, and I am eternally grateful.

On that note, let's hang it up for this round. There's more to cover - concerts and such - but I'll save that for a more desolate week. Until next time, go read some of jarmstro's recent math posts. Rocket!