Quick Update
My sincere apologies for now updating sooner than now. To be honest, I have not felt very motivated to do so. I felt that I did need to post something for the month of August, so here goes...
I got to participate in another chess tournament in August...I did so-so. I won games I should have lost and lost games I should have won. Yeah, figure that out! I am working on compiling the game scores to keep a record of them as I work to improve my game. The real problem is that I don't get to play in enough tournaments! The next one I have a chance to play in is the 2005 Boris Kogan Memorial tournament in Atlanta in October. Hopefully I will get to play in it.
On the chess theme...I still never got a response to two email inquiries to FM Paul Truong, business manager for GM Susan Polgar regarding the pics he took of me with Susan at the simul I participated in back in June. I figure I will try contacting him one more time about it and if nothing comes of it I will give up. He uses an AOL email address anyway, and I am not confident that he ever received my emails at all.
A couple of weeks ago, I had noticed a sore on the top of my left foot near the ankle...this started to look infected after a few days. I did some "home surgery" and cleaned out the pus and stuff and then kept it clean and bandaged, and it appeared to be healing nicely. Then last Monday, right after the chess tournament, I started having pain on the underside of my left foot, right where the arch was. By Wednesday, it was painful enough that I knew that something was clearly wrong, and I was hardly able to walk. My foot appeared to be swollen. I made an appointment to see the doctor the next day. I was going to tell the doctor about the earlier sore on my foot, in case it was somehow related to this problem. Once I got to the doctor's office, I only had to remove my sock to have the Doctor say to me "Gee, that sure is a nice spider bite you've got, there." It turns out that my "sore" from a couple of weeks earlier was in fact the result ofa bite from a Brown Recluse spider...likely one was inside of a shoe that I had put on and it bit me in self-defense as it was squished. Apparently you will hardly feel a bit from a spider that small, if at all. Anyway, the pain on the underside of my foot was actually the same infection, which had migrated down to the underside of the foot (gravity, I guess), and became a case of cellulitis. This is a potentially serious problem. In the days before antibiotics, I would have been hospitalized for something like this. As it was I got a big shot of antibiotics in my backside that day, and have been following up with an oral antibiotic since then. The location of the infection made this problem very painful, but that was a good thing because it made me seek medical attention that much faster. And not a moment too soon...the first night after the doctor visit my foot then hurt all the time, not just trying to walk on it, and I hardly slept that night due to the pain, but by the next night the antibiotics had kicked in and the pain had subsided considerably, as did the swelling. Last night, the infection (which is under the surface of the skin) began seeping out through the skin on the underside of my foot, forcing me to now have it bandaged to keep it from getting messy. All that gunk inside has to go somewhere, right? At least it is healing! As of today, I can almost walk on it with my full weight again, although I am not going to really try that for a bit longer. As far as the bite site from the Brown Recluse is concerned, I was also quite lucky to get bitten in a place where there is very little fatty tissue. The venom causes tissue necrosis, and in a fattier part of the body (buttocks, thighs, calves, belly) would have caused a large open wound that would have taken months to heal and left an ugly scar. I have a small blue-black spot about the size of a large pinhead, so that is about all I am going to lose, and I doubt any scar would be really visible that way.
On a lighter note, Rowen has said his first two-syllable word: "happy". It actually sounds more like HAAAAAAAAAP-PEE, but it's a start. He can also say "Boo!". He will have conversations with Bridget and myself in complete gibberish, but it appears that he has a lot to say! He is also starting to show signs of independence. If he doesn't want to do something, he will sit or lie down on the floor right where he is and make a fuss and pout! He is also really wanting to feed himself, even if he isn't always really able to do so properly as of yet. He is now able to move double-time through the house without falling on his face...not quite a dead run, but fast enough! Rowen will be seventeen months old in a couple of days.
I got to participate in another chess tournament in August...I did so-so. I won games I should have lost and lost games I should have won. Yeah, figure that out! I am working on compiling the game scores to keep a record of them as I work to improve my game. The real problem is that I don't get to play in enough tournaments! The next one I have a chance to play in is the 2005 Boris Kogan Memorial tournament in Atlanta in October. Hopefully I will get to play in it.
On the chess theme...I still never got a response to two email inquiries to FM Paul Truong, business manager for GM Susan Polgar regarding the pics he took of me with Susan at the simul I participated in back in June. I figure I will try contacting him one more time about it and if nothing comes of it I will give up. He uses an AOL email address anyway, and I am not confident that he ever received my emails at all.
A couple of weeks ago, I had noticed a sore on the top of my left foot near the ankle...this started to look infected after a few days. I did some "home surgery" and cleaned out the pus and stuff and then kept it clean and bandaged, and it appeared to be healing nicely. Then last Monday, right after the chess tournament, I started having pain on the underside of my left foot, right where the arch was. By Wednesday, it was painful enough that I knew that something was clearly wrong, and I was hardly able to walk. My foot appeared to be swollen. I made an appointment to see the doctor the next day. I was going to tell the doctor about the earlier sore on my foot, in case it was somehow related to this problem. Once I got to the doctor's office, I only had to remove my sock to have the Doctor say to me "Gee, that sure is a nice spider bite you've got, there." It turns out that my "sore" from a couple of weeks earlier was in fact the result ofa bite from a Brown Recluse spider...likely one was inside of a shoe that I had put on and it bit me in self-defense as it was squished. Apparently you will hardly feel a bit from a spider that small, if at all. Anyway, the pain on the underside of my foot was actually the same infection, which had migrated down to the underside of the foot (gravity, I guess), and became a case of cellulitis. This is a potentially serious problem. In the days before antibiotics, I would have been hospitalized for something like this. As it was I got a big shot of antibiotics in my backside that day, and have been following up with an oral antibiotic since then. The location of the infection made this problem very painful, but that was a good thing because it made me seek medical attention that much faster. And not a moment too soon...the first night after the doctor visit my foot then hurt all the time, not just trying to walk on it, and I hardly slept that night due to the pain, but by the next night the antibiotics had kicked in and the pain had subsided considerably, as did the swelling. Last night, the infection (which is under the surface of the skin) began seeping out through the skin on the underside of my foot, forcing me to now have it bandaged to keep it from getting messy. All that gunk inside has to go somewhere, right? At least it is healing! As of today, I can almost walk on it with my full weight again, although I am not going to really try that for a bit longer. As far as the bite site from the Brown Recluse is concerned, I was also quite lucky to get bitten in a place where there is very little fatty tissue. The venom causes tissue necrosis, and in a fattier part of the body (buttocks, thighs, calves, belly) would have caused a large open wound that would have taken months to heal and left an ugly scar. I have a small blue-black spot about the size of a large pinhead, so that is about all I am going to lose, and I doubt any scar would be really visible that way.
On a lighter note, Rowen has said his first two-syllable word: "happy". It actually sounds more like HAAAAAAAAAP-PEE, but it's a start. He can also say "Boo!". He will have conversations with Bridget and myself in complete gibberish, but it appears that he has a lot to say! He is also starting to show signs of independence. If he doesn't want to do something, he will sit or lie down on the floor right where he is and make a fuss and pout! He is also really wanting to feed himself, even if he isn't always really able to do so properly as of yet. He is now able to move double-time through the house without falling on his face...not quite a dead run, but fast enough! Rowen will be seventeen months old in a couple of days.
posted by Bill Kargel | 1:38 PM
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