holiday brain in 3, 2...

~started yesterday~

Finally. Got assessed into hand therapy today. Came home with a light splint, a  squeezy gel egg, and a couple of instructions. My right hand is officially only half as strong as my left hand right now. Today was the first time anyone said it's ok to use heat for the pain, which was bliss. I'm five weeks out from the surgery and everyone else is still saying use ice. Now that I'm back home in slight shock at the amount of pain increase over such a tiny amount of focused therapy baselines, I'm running into a spike in wrist pain, and now I'm seeing there is a wrist tendonitis dynamic with carpal tunnel and a whole page about the art of icing... 😕

~this is today~

My resolve to cut coffee down is happening, just in time for National Coffee Day, lol. I'm down to one cup a day now, and *bing* suddenly much more awake. Not a clue if that means I'm finally past the surgery exhaustion or it's really my system breaking a little more free from chemicals, since I'm also finally off the daily opioids now. Or it could be the cold front that moved in and is messing with me, who knows. Whatever is going on, I dropped another pound, so huzzah.

all my pix click out 🎃

Today is my last follow up with knee surgeon, possibly, unless there is a 3-month or something down the road. I have 3 more physical therapy appointments for knee and a sparkly new grueling occupational hand schedule that goes up through November 1st, which is also my last follow up with the hand surgeon. Somewhere in the middle of October I have primary care checkup and likely a flu shot. All the driving so far has flared impinged shoulder nerve on 'good' side, which lately is spiking up my neck into headaches (driving is bad, mkay), because it's been hurting to drive with my surgery hand, so you can imagine I will be thrilled when all this driving into town slows down in November.


Got my bank and calendar super synced this week. I'm already missing sending a couple of birthday cards (not cool when your dad makes it to 89!), so it's crucial I get all my ducks in a row before my brain collapses into an alt dimensional state of mush during the holiday slide. I usually have all my stuff lined out as far ahead of Thanksgiving as possible because by the time that gets here, I'm just done the rest of the year while Christmas blurs by and I stumble back out of my daze later in the winter.

Stuff I need to work on (super facepalm fail this month, I'm soooo sorry, guys) are getting back with Mike and Myke and Emily on stuffs we're working on, wrapping my brain around plugins so my tech-moderator tag is more than just a pretty badge, and writing. I have so many things I want / need to write / get written. There is always too much going on, and when there's not, there's depression, so swimming in syrup is just a lifestyle. That reminds me, I also had a great talk with psychiatrist about my super low dose xanax being a psychological crutch, and goal over the next six months is get it shaved down to half of what I'm taking now (very laughable in the medical world, not funny at all in the addict world), and from there get ready to leap off again. The gabapentin is my fallback for that safety net feeling, thank goodness it's good on anxiety along with the nerve pain.

click to get lost in pinterest

I know I get too blabby repeating some of this stuff, but sometimes I look back a few years at how hard it used to be just rounding up my brain to type a few sentences out, and I can see how easy this has become, and that it really has helped me stay on track and not slide into the decay of weight gain, self incrimination, hiding, justifying, and more depression. Eat your salads, kids.