Foot status report

The neuroma pain is gone. Yay!

I still have quite a bit of sensation in my toes. Yay!

I still have enough inflammation in each foot that every step I take hurts. Boooo! (This is not a lot of pain -- it's like walking on a bruise. But I'm aware of it any time I'm standing.)

It's been two solid months since the last tumor-killing injection. I saw the podiatrist a week or two ago for a progress report. He was pleased to hear that I can't generate neuroma-style pain even by rolling my foot around on the floor. He was definitely disappointed about the inflammation. He's sure it's still from the injections. He recommended ibuprofen. I wonder if he has any idea how much anti-inflammatory, and specifically how much ibuprofen, I have eaten in my lifetime. (Enough that ibuprofen no longer has any discernible effect on my other pain.) I have not yet started taking the ibuprofen.

Would my feet get better if I were bedridden for a couple of weeks? Maybe. Would they actually get better faster if I used them more? Maybe. They weren't as sore during my trip to Japan as I would have expected. Maybe they just need to be used a big whole bunch.

To run or not to run?

It's difficult for me to explain how much better I feel when I run for exercise. It goes well beyond the physical sense of fitness, the strength, the energy, and the slight decrease in need for sleep. It is more than the enjoyment of the wind in my face and the confident emotional feeling of doing something to take good care of my body. It's as if running is meditation and it keeps me sane.

To run or not to run?

It's been thirteen months now. I'm tired of waiting. Waiting isn't working. The Health Fairy is not gonna show up. But if I do try it and it turns out that's the wrong decision, I could be in a serious world of hurt.

*sigh*.

I wish I could trust that my doctor were capable of giving me a good answer to this question. Heck, I wish I believed that SOMEwhere in the world there were ONE doctor, ANYWHERE, who would be capable of offering good advice on this. Even if I knew I would never find him or her it would be comforting to believe that such a person existed. I no longer have that trust. I don't think there are doctors who are that knowledgeable or skilled.

I suspect I'm gonna run.

LJ Brain Trust: Embedded programming books?

I'm on a Quest. I suppose I need some shining armor and a mystical blade, except that I'm also the Damsel in Distress, which messes up the iconography quite a bit.

1. I want to understand how Ethernet MACs work. I want to know enough about it that I could easily program one -- write an Ethernet driver, that is. This also implies some knowledge of PHYs and what they do. I do NOT need to know anything about TCP, UDP, IP, cabling, security, routers, hubs, name service, subnets, or how to program a web server using Java. Some of that I'm familiar with already and I don't need any of it right now anyway. We are talking link layer only here. (Well, ok, a bit of physical.)

2. I want to get better at embedded software development in general. Principles. Concepts. Gotchas. Debuggggiiiiiiiiiing. So far, I have learned by doing. This has benefits and drawbacks. I'm looking to spackle the holes.

I am on a quest for books on these two subjects. I want good books -- I'm lazy, and if a technical book doesn't make me learn its subject any faster it's not worth reading. I want books that are worth the money -- I'm not rich enough that I want to spring for a $60 book because it has one chapter that touches on what I need. Ideally, I want books that come personally recommended by people who have benefited from the material themselves. (This means I can search amazon.com as well as the next geek, thanks.)

Yes, I'm aware that there's a strong possibility that what I am looking for is not out there. I honestly don't know how many people a) write Ethernet drivers for a living, b) don't already know how to do it, c) read English, and d) like to learn from books. If I were a publisher I admit I wouldn't print it. On the other hand, maybe it does exist. Yesterday I saw a book titled "Blogging for Teens" and I wouldn't have printed that one either.

Lemme know, embedded gurus.