One of the things that I love most about my job is that it presents significant challenges, and so far, I've been pretty good at overcoming them. With software, if you know enough everything is black and white, true or false, right or wrong. So called "gray areas" only exist when the user is uncertain why the software is behaving the way it is.
As a software developer, the challenges I face are usually along the lines of either "Can you make it do this?" or "It's supposed to do this, but instead it's doing this. Fix it!" Any task can be put into one of two categories: Things I can control, and Things I can't. Finishing tasks that fall into the former category simply takes time, effort, and knowledge; while finishing tasks that fall into the latter category usually requires passing the task on to someone else who can control the associated code (an external product, for example). But given enough time to learn what I need to learn to resolve the issue, and to put effort into its resolution, I can resolve it. That gives me a lot of job satisfaction.
It also causes me a lot of stress, because time is never unlimited. The customer always wants issues resolved immediately, and with less cost to them than is possible – that's just business.
Today I started thinking about my doctors as people whose job it is to help me, instead of just good Samaritans. There are problems that they can deal with: broken bones, the common cold, and other common ailments; as well as problems that are totally beyond their control — diseases like Crohn's, with no known cures. They can provide options that make dealing with it less of a burden, but the root cause persists. There are things that are black and white: the bone is broken or it isn't; but not everything is so cut and dry. In my case: Do I have Crohn's Disease or not?
I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of cases that are equally or more challenging than mine, and while I am certainly glad that I'm finding some relief, I wonder how the doctors feel knowing that they can't solve my problem. Probably not too bad… Who can think about depressing patients with the sunroof of your Mercedes open and windows down, sunshine and wind rushing in, blowing your hair back, and your music turned up?
Meg's going out with the girls tonight and I don't know what to do… I have 2 new video games I could immerse myself in, and a coding project that I've been neglecting for weeks. How do you stop time, again?
I'm sure you're all dying to know.
This morning I woke up with little to no pain. I wouldn't say I'm back to 100%, and I'm not doing backflips down the halls, but I do feel pretty darn good. Yesterday afternoon I felt kind of hazy and scatterbrained, and I had a mild headache that was easily treated with Tylenol; but today none of that continues.
It still feels odd to not be in pain. I'll get up from my chair and feel awkward because I'm putting more weight on my right leg out of habit, even though neither hip hurts.
We went to the Phillies game last night (hooray for a win!), and thanks to some lovely traffic, we made it from our seats to our car in about a half hour (foot traffic), the parking lot to the highway (about 4-6 blocks) in about an hour, out of Philly (20 miles? 30?) in about an hour, and then the rest of the way home in about 45 minutes. Needless to say, we were up way past our normal bed time, and more or less just crashed when we got home. I slept through the night and even spent some time on my stomach this morning – a position that's been uncomfortable for me for a while now – and though there was some discomfort, it wasn't that bad.
Hopefully this trend will continue.
