Cause for concern . . .

. . . I woke up this morning with the front of my left foot and the big toe swollen and painful, and gummy stuff oozing from around the pin.  I hope this is just my foot swelling for no known reason (as it periodically does), oozing lymph around the pin because of internal pressure, and not an indication that I've developed an infection in the toe.

The pin's scheduled to come out Wednesday.  If it's still swollen tomorrow, I'll call Dr. Ciccinelli's office and let them know what's going on.  In the meantime, I've put an Ace bandage around my foot and I'm keeping it elevated, both to try to get the swelling down.

Update from this afternoon

So, we went off to Urgent Care this afternoon, spent most of two hours waiting, then they passed the buck back to Dr. Ciccinelli.  It appears I have indeed picked up a minor pin tract infection, which isn't uncommon.

Upshot of the whole thing, so far:  the last external pin is out three days early,and I have a prescription for antibiotics which we couldn't get filled because, at 6pm on a Sunday, the pharmacy was (not unexpectedly) closed.  We'll get it filled tomorrow morning.  I'm supposed to go back and see Dr. Ciccinelli anyway on Wednesday, when the pin was supposed to come out, and in the meantime I'm under orders to stay off it, keep it elevated, and keep it dry.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate crutches?

Microsoft ready to take a fall?

technoshaman found this article in the UK's Enquirer (not to be confused with the US-supermarket National Enquirer tabloid) which says that Microsoft is in deep financial trouble.  They've shot themselves in the foot with their new lease-as-you-go licensing scheme and their 100% price increases trying to support their loss-leader products like MSN and XBox and ... well, everything except Office and WinXP, actually.  A third of their customer base has deserted them, and they don't have enough revenues to cook the books and pad their numbers, and no reserves left to cash in to show an on-paper profit.  The US press has sat on the story, but it leaked out anyway.

If you have money in Microsoft stock, this might be a good time to quietly move it elsewhere.  The giant appears to have tripped, and if it falls, it's gonna fall hard.

It's going to be interesting, in the Chinese sense, to see how this shakes out...