WTF-Beta

When are they coming out with a way to regrow tendons?

@Mik said:

But she made it upstairs the first night and was the poster girl for active rehab. She exceeded their milestones at every turn.

That's great!

hopefully all the weightlifting and cardio I've been doing for a few years will help me if it comes to that

I am sure it will! I have been diagnosed with osteoarthritis in both knees, and I did get a shot in one knee last June. But the big thing that has helped me is all the PT and strength building I've been doing. It's been quite slow, but I've noticed a real change, esp. recently.

That's why I'm holding out hope that I can avoid this foot surgery!

@Mik And I bet any surgeon, if asked about prehabbing, would say "oh absolutely, do that."

So, it should be something they tell you about....

I understand hip replacements are quite difficult, was she working at the time?

@Mik said:

I still have a little nerve pain at the incision site from time to time.... the odd thing is ever since then I've had a slight limp

I'm sorry you're still dealing with it, although thankfully it was benign and sounds like the removal went well.

Here's another thing I wanted to vent about..... sorry!

So, I asked both foot surgeons if there was anything I should be doing in preparation for the surgery. Both said no.

Well, reading that FB support group, a lot of people talk about how hard it is to be non-weight-bearing on one leg and having to rely completely on the other leg. One lady was talking about how she has a very hard time getting up and down to go to the toilet.

And another person pointed out that this should have been mentioned as part of "prehab" -- that anything you can do in advance to strengthen the non-surgical leg will be incredibly helpful.

In most cases, this surgery is elective -- which is not to say that it's not medically necessary, but just that there's some flexibility in the timing and most people have the surgery after months (or years) of trying other treatments which didn't work.

Given that, having patients do prehab exercises as part of their pre-op preparation seems like a no brainer. But no one has mentioned it to me.

As it happens, I can't do a single leg sit-stand without using one of my arms. But I'm trying to build up my muscles to get there.

I would be a lot less cranky if an actual doctor discussed this with me, rather than me having to hear about it on Facebook!

/vent

But I should add that I feel like I'm getting a lot better and I'm wondering if I can stick with my "wait and see" approach. The problem with that is, I can't really do the surgery any time except in the summer, so not doing it this summer means I won't do it until next summer....

@Mik said:

did the surgeon say whether or not he'd have to detach the achilles tendon? Apparently, that will determine whether you will have the very long recovery or a much shorter one.

Yes, the surgery that has been proposed (same by two different doctors) is to detach the achilles, remove the haglund's deformity that's at the top (ish) of the heel and also remove the enthesophyte (bone spur) that has formed right where the achilles attaches to the heel.

Which is why I'm suspicious of their recovery estimates and directives about length of time totally NWB -- IOW, I think they're underestimating it. And I'm worried about the cascading health ramifications of prolonged NWB, and I think they are underestimating that as well, and it's super frustrating.

@Mik said:

some are not above selling it.

Well that, and also, the further out a patient gets post-op, the less the doc sees them, and I suspect that influences even the most conscientious of surgeons (i.e., those who don't push surgery when not necessary just because they'll make a buck). Also the definition of a "successful surgery" is not necessarily the same for doctors and patients, and maybe to some extent that's inevitable.... but it's still frustrating on the patient side.

"You may experience some discomfort" is a euphemism for "It will be a sneak preview of the fires of Hell.".

Ugh! That reminds me of when covid first started and the reporting about "mild" cases would mention that a doc might describe it as mild (e.g., because the patient isn't in ICU), but the patient would not (e.g., because they are so sick they can't function)

@wtg wow that’s distressing.

In addition to AI training as the “bridge job” for them, I noticed the connection with health concerns that they had (the woman whose employment gap was partly caused by breast cancer, the man whose wife cares full time for their disabled son, the woman whose long covid forced her to quit her initial job).

Also, there but for the grace….

@CHAS said:

Hope surgery is not needed. Also hope you recover soon.

thank you!

I have a follow up with the foot surgeon at the beginning of May, so we'll see...

OMG are you ok?

I haven’t read the article yet, but this thread title made me laugh!

Very nice!

@Daniel thank you!

The thing that’s hard is that I feel like I don’t have enough information — like, how likely is the surgery to be successful, as defied by “pain free” or full return to movement etc. Another thing that’s frustrating is that I feel like the doctors are minimizing the post-op recovery.

So it’s very hard to evaluate and make decisions…

So, I made the mistake of joining a FB group for people with the foot problem I have (haglund's deformity plus achilles tendonopathy).

So ... yeah.... I shouldn't have done that.

I already didn't want to have this surgery, but now I really don't want to!

I've read that the recovery is long, and I feel like both foot surgeons I see minimize that. Well, reading on this FB group... just convinced me that the recovery is loooonng and very uncertain.

In other news, I'm holding steady or maybe even getting better. I don't think I "need" the surgery right now. I have an appt in the beginning of May so we'll see what the doc says....

Sigh.

@wtg said:

Zoom in: Each defection, taken alone, could be dismissed. Together, they could represent an existential threat to MAGA.

Good!

@Bernard Nice!!

BTW from yesterday's NYT:

How Accurate Are Google’s A.I. Overviews?
The company’s A.I.-generated answers look authoritative, but they draw on an array of sources, from trustworthy sites to Facebook posts.

Regular link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/technology/google-ai-overviews-accuracy.html

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/technology/google-ai-overviews-accuracy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZVA.gVON.lCi51gwbSqxm&smid=url-share

@jon-nyc said:

As an academic you should be aware that those tens of thousands of publications in 2025 were written ~2023.

Good point, I wasn't really thinking about that. (ling is mostly the same, not any faster turn around time than other social sciences).

But with this:

the hallucination problem doesn’t seem much changed.

I wasn't thinking about the academic article issue, more so just the hallucination problem.

I think AI has gotten better, in many ways. And I say that not just based on claims made by the companies producing the products, but from my own usage (for both research and teaching purposes).

So AI itself is improving. But IMO the hallucination problem has not decreased/improved, even if the percentages are improving, the problem persists. And what I wrote above (two years ago!) continues to be a problem. Namely, that the tasks people use AI for predispose them to be vulnerable to hallucinations because they're using AI for something they don't know, or can't do (or can't do fast enough) on their own.

Oh, but here's something that has changed (improved) in the last two years, which is tools like Notebook LM , which use the RAG model. This "retrieval model" has significantly fewer hallucinations (though not zero) because of how it works.

But ChatGPT continues to be the most widely used product, and it's the worst in terms of hallucinations because of how functions (e.g., not saying when it doesn't know, etc.)

So @jon-nyc do you use AI for any professional purposes? Which product(s), and for what kinds of tasks?

Oh wow, this thread was stated two years ago!! And the hallucination problem doesn’t seem much changed. I don’t know that it’s necessarily worse, but the scale of AI use means that even 20%, or 10% hallucinations is a huge number.

We have a dogwood tree in our yard. Somehow, neither of us remembered that! We are actually wondering if it didn’t bloom last year, if that’s possible? Anyway, it’s pink, which is lovely. I’ll try to grab a pic later.

The cherry blossoms in the neighborhood were not very impressive this year, the weather did them in I think. They were still pretty but not as spectacular as last spring. But they are all done.

Now the crabapples are blooming, really gorgeous. (They seem more robust than the cherry trees). The red bud trees are blooming too. And lots of cheery daffodils.