One of the players on the game server built that awesome house, and I was invited to see since I crafted and sold all that red netherbrick.
I know, right? My colors.
I could live there in real life.
Weekend was super busy. While my jetsetters came and went, I deep cleaned all the bathrooms including floors and rugs, laundry, dishes, cooking, and hanging out in game practically all weekend. If I ever learn and test on the plugins I'll really be crushing it.
Basically, energy level didn't bomb out on me too badly, hand and knee kept up really well, and my brain worked the whole time. THAT is a really big deal for me.
I'm already thinking Christmas. I'm going to set up @bonenado's Vikings tree in our bay window off the kitchen. The kids can have the livingroom for their tree.
Srsly, I try not to die a little inside every time I miss TWD and Flash live tweets now.
Ok, so I wasn't really done with my thought organizing in the last post, due to time constraints, but let's jump back into that, shall we?
I have finally titled a piece I'm working on about *entire brain stifles fingers and mouth*
Still 6 pounds down from August. I'm hungry. Oh, yeah, I haven't had nachos in a week. I know everyone in the Force just felt my starvation pain. Thank you. I felt you feel that.
Cut my coffee in half again this week. Officially down to exactly one measured cup. My big mugs look half empty now. The withdrawal headache is easing up a bit.
The size 7-8 slippers I finally caved to picking up from Walmart this week feel like size 6. The disappointment is real. The saddest part is me having the smallest feet, so I can't gift them to anyone.
Now that I've managed to establish a somewhat firm fuzzy boundary around my bedroom (extremely fuzzy), my entire brain of cells is chanting TAKEBACKTHEHOUSE TAKEBACKTHEHOUSE TAKEBACKTHEHOUSE and I'm doing my best to plug my ears and go lalalalala.
I met a woman in therapy today who has nearly 20 years on me. She was there after reconstruction on thumb because arthritis ate up a bone in her wrist. Even with the usual 'growing old' rhetoric, which I heartily agree with, the context was still so lopsided that I was glad when she had to leave so our convo could be over. I'm still having difficulty empathizing with people way older than me who have less difficulty than I do and think something is so hard when clearly they've been enjoying more capability far longer than I ever dreamed, although yes, a thumb reconstruction sounds horrid. (She was literally able to do way more than I was with the exercise putty, and I'm 7 weeks out from carpal tunnel release, so clearly something is still wrong with my hand.) It's not so much feeling self pity as ok, I already dealt with that, is there anything more interesting to talk about kind of thing. I mean, so many other drops and mentions about a real life, I wouldn't have minded hearing about what she assumed was boring, right. When I'm with a therapist, I generally try to talk about something we both find interesting since they must hear pain junk every single day and they're probably sick of it, I know I am, and I'm not there to find new friends to whine about the cold snap with. She suddenly blurted all the interesting stuff as she was walking out and I felt so gypped. Really? You just leave me dangling full of questions now...
I looked up scleroderma, since my therapist thinks I have it. I have follow up with primary the day before my birthday. I'll likely get a flu shot and now possibly donate blood to see how much worse my life might have been all this time behind my back. Meh. It could certainly explain a few things, but I'm already beyond my personal life expectancy, so it's not really bothering me, aside from it also explaining a lot of how my mom went down. One of my sisters has sjogrens, the other has I think 3 kinds of arthritis all over her body, and other things abound as well, so I'm just not terribly surprised. What did you get for your birthday? Scleroderma. Oh, sounds nice. I am really appreciating the wicked sense of humor a friend of mine on my street had before she moved away, and I'm missing it lately. It didn't matter how badly something sucked, she lived her life the way she wanted and always presented as having it all together, and that humor was a sort of mockery I didn't understand back then. Totally getting it now.
I'm the sort that pulls back into a corner making sure other people are doing ok first. That's a tough challenge, especially since I'm not at all mousy about how I feel. I shut up because I love them. Well, poor @bonenado hears it, and I do regret that more often than not, but I have so many memories of what I thought of people around me as a kid, and I know how ugly grown ups can be even when they think they are being kind. I'd like to think I'm living up to this life challenge, being a natural narcissist and definitely being territorial in a matriarchal way, meaning that my challenge is about learning to be sweet. It's hard. I wasn't born sweet.
But yeah, I'm all swimming around in a head full of where are we now kind of month because here comes my birthday, and *bam*, Google pulls the G+ rug out from under me, and inside a very dark room I don't generally share even with my psychologist, the swears I can hear inside are making even me cringe.
Our world revolves around the whims of the uber wealthy, you know that right. I should have gotten slippers from my local sheepskin guy. I should have stayed my course instead of following people on wayward ventures over the many years, and there have been several. I should have branded by now. I should be merchandising already. *quietly rests head on table because banging my head on a wall would only make it worse...*
Yeah, that flex up there is exactly what I was NOT supposed to do so soon after surgery, and why it's been swelled back up real hard ever since. I assess into occupational therapy on Wednesday specifically for that. My surgeon was very glad I called up to discuss it.
So this was me on the game server today, dealing behind the scenes while I dealt with a problematic duo.
click pic for a good write up about writer problems
I took half an opioid left over from my knee surgery just to be able to log back into internet. I cannot do anything but type with this hand. I'm back to square one.
Cool videos I've been watching to help pass the time while I ice my hand.
This next took me nearly an hour to watch because pausing to read all the things, but perfectly answers all the same things I was feeling about season 4. Essentially, I don't think Sherlock ever got off the plane.
I'm still working on this one because it's so long, but I keep coming back to it to continue because it's so cool.
I really do like this anon vid. Spot on.
I'm not on any particular side (the anons don't take sides, we are all humanity and should all be given the same considerations, dignities, and opportunities), but I do quite enjoy watching and listening to Julian Assange. This popped up in my suggestions so I watched it. He's a very pretty man.
Because I watch such a wide variety of things on youtube, I get all kinds of suggestions, and I filter through thousands just to watch a handful. I very quickly stop and move on if the first minute doesn't hold me. There are some really good things to see, and I'm so thankful I live in a time where I can see so much with so little effort and cost while I am stuck not being able to use my hand very well. #transparency I was once stood up by a guy who couldn't tell me he was an alcoholic. He had already come out as gay years before to me in a very bad area to be gay, but he chose to get shitface wasted and get picked up by another guy and then couldn't face calling me up to cancel, which I'd have been ok with. What he didn't know was that I am an alcoholic, too, and I'm pretty sure I've been much worse places than he's ever dreamed. You know what? Let it go. Just be you, guys. Own your guilt, your pain, your fails, and be human with the rest of us. We love you anyway.
I'm a big baby today so I got myself some ice cream. I last mentioned ice cream on this blog on June 2nd. That's right, I managed not to cave to ice cream for 109 days.
I brought up a few specifics I'm having trouble with regarding a couple things around my house while I was in physical therapy on my knee (4 weeks out from surgery, doing pretty good but still a long way to go), and UFFDA there we went into strength training on top of the tissue work. My two biggest challenges, between the arthritis in my lower back and this knee being weak and swollen from surgery, are a particular hamstring stretch (easy to solve with a different approach, thank goodess) and rising in a bathroom without special maneuvering on a fixture or a sink counter (because of my hand also still healing from surgery), which turns out to be the top number one challenge everyone in the world has anyway.
Seriously, the number one physical therapy work across the board is rising from a toilet, bar none. Doesn't matter the injury, the procedure, the arthritic condition, the age- we all get stuck on the pot. Suddenly makes sense that the top injuries in one's home, besides stairs, occur in bathrooms.
So now I'm doing extra work adding my other knee in, and of course it's been weak the entire time (my good knee, haha) because in the 7 years I've been in physical therapy, this knee arthroscopy recovery work is the first time we've done anything below lower core strength, basically waistline or hipline. Around 2015 everything shifted from core and balance to saving my arms, and now I'm finally being asked about my feet.
I first mentioned my feet in 2013 on my grandfortuna blog, but that post got pulled into private for a reason and this last year I missed my annual fee because paying off something else, so I can't go grab a quote from that or link it.
*live blogging* Just got a call from a number on Casady Dr. in Republic- Marcus, I can pull up your street on Zillow. Stop calling me.
Ok, where was I? Oh, hey, you wanna see that call / text messaging history from the 'publisher' I tweeted about today? Hang on while I get that.
Ok, there we go. Ridiculous for this day and age.
Anyway, I was talking about my feet. Back in 2013 I had posted pix of a nustep I was using because my feet were so bad I could barely walk, and physical therapy was working on getting me into a regular workout routine. I didn't know back then why my feet hurt so bad, just chalked it up to having blackened both my ankles with various nasty sprains through my life, right. Even broke a bone in my foot once. Turns out it's a combination of spinal stenosis (arthritis that narrows the area the nerve trunk runs through, compressing the nerves that go down to the feet), and real stuff that a podiatrist later discovered. I have too much bone in my feet. He called my heel spurs "spectacular" (thank you, 8 years of retail, hospital housekeeping, and hotel desk), and then added that the reason I get pain when I walk is because a bone is overgrown and compressing a nerve in a toe joint, and that is unrelated to anything in particular. It's been that way all my life. I just thought it was from running and jumping so much as a kid. As I've gotten older, the area has become arthritic, and no wonder it hurts to walk. Eventually that nerve is going to be crushed enough to just die off, and then I won't be able to walk at all. Add diabetes to all that, so faster nerve death if I carb out.
And I just ate ice cream for the first time in 109 days, so I'm not helping that.
Anyway, going back to the original original story, I happen to already have so much pain from preexisting conditions in my feet, my spine, and fibromyalgia in general that to throw a knee surgery on top of that is evidently considered pretty acute for self care therapy, so today I got slung over into leg strength training on top of the surgery recovery.
~~~~later~~~~
35 days till my birthday. I texted @bonenado a link to this purse, which I've had my eye on for a long time. I get a new purse about once in five or six years, if that often. I know I got my last purse before Batman and Bunny were both born, so that's over 5 years at the very least, and I'm kind of betting maybe 7. Anyway, what do you think? That clicks out so you can see it better.
The purse I have now came from the same place and has lasted forever, and it's very unique and got lots of compliments. I'm not seeing that style for sale any more, sorry, can't link it. Anyway, I grew up around out there, really love native southwestern fashion.
Don't worry, I've barely eaten about 3/4 cup of ice cream. Got a big salad coming for supper. Really getting tired of this being crippled s#*t. I refuse to go down like a whiny blob.
It dawned on me I had been turned absolutely loose without anything beyond follow up to remove stitches and a generalized run-through of nerve glides I'd already learned. I wasn't given a time table, what to do over time, wasn't even told how long to ice and elevate. Because of this, I wasn't aware that I could do further injury, and my wrist swelled back up so hard that I was waking up with my hand numb and getting shooting pains up my fingers through the day.
I literally need to be told DO NOT DO THIS LIST FOR THIS LONG. After going over those articles it hit me I had started getting back to 'normal' way too quickly, and even though I did follow the generalized advice, I was already one to three weeks ahead of the healing process on a few things.
Skip healing and go directly to making it worse. *ouch*
So I brought it up with the physical therapist who's been working with me on my knee recovery, and she said it looked good but commanded me to get back on making the time to get my wrist elevated while icing and call my surgeon for therapy on wrist. And then she extended the therapy on my knee for three more visits. So as much as I hate dragging out and having to do this, looks like I'll be in occupational therapy possibly up through Halloween, and in the meantime the rest of my body is going Hey, what about us? Because I was doing nerve impingement last spring and we stopped in the middle of that, and the ongoing maintenance on everything else pretty much just stopped completely.
Wanna say to all the younger people out there who think you're tired and achy and whatever problems with little kids- wait till you're doing all that with the added benefit of being twice as old. It's fun.
Random thought- I see "antimicrobial" as a sell point on things like plastic covered dish drainers, but I never see that word used on toys designed for water (pool, bathtub) play, especially when water can sit inside a toy and mold. Just a thought. Really grosses me out to see kids pretend toys are things to get a drink out of.
My. Hand. HURTS. That is all.
That is not all. I keep remembering all these scenes in TV shows where a character slices the palm of their hand for some reason, to prove they they are human, to make a pact, whatever. Now that I know what a cut that deep feels like and how long it takes to heal and how easily it gets infected, I'm imagining characters down the road with withered hands from nerve damage, missing hands because gangrene, and fumbly klutzy hands for weeks while they heal kind of thing. You don't just slice a hand and then go wield a sword. Or put a saddle on a horse. I can still barely lift my coffee cup.
Anyway, I can tell you everything that can go excruciatingly wrong with that palm slice now.
And I'll tell you exactly what I was thinking having a carpal release and knee arthroscopy on the same day, get it all done on only one plop of anesthesia, right. WRONG. Quick surgeries even back to back require extended medications in two different areas and I have had a horrible time coming off all that. It took a few days just for the anesthesia and local numbing agents to wear off, and I got so mean. I was eating people over nothing. The pain med barely covered both areas once that set up regular residence in my body, and then I got so sick and nauseated I had to get off it for a couple days, and then the pain was so brutal I had to get back on it, and I've been clocking out smaller doses so I can balance between the pain med and the actual pain without feeling sick.
I am 22 days out from surgery. I am still in this much pain.
They were not kidding when they said it would take awhile on both wrist and knee. I know I've had some tough issues in my life, but all this getting complicated, even with really fast and smooth healing, has been almost nightmarish to get through. I have a really high pain tolerance, and yowza.
I think the biggest challenge is needing to move around. The rest of my body is so tired of sitting with my leg elevated, my hand is overworked because I'm so bored, my neck is getting spiky pain and yelling at me to get up and go do stuff, and every time I do stuff I swell my knee up again, and this is just a no win situation. There is no comfort, no real rest without scrambling my brain up on meds that screw my baditude, and I cannot wait for this part to be over. Everything I'm reading says 4 to 6 weeks on both knee and wrist for some kind of 'normal' to come back.
I could go into more detail but the enraged dragon in me wants to set my laptop on fire right now, so I'd better just go.
Getting back to meandering. That is the one consistency in my life. No matter what else is going on, I can meander.
Random memory from last week. I went in the medical supply shop to buy some little mask filters that medicare doesn't pay for, and two other older people were being helped. (It's weird saying that since I really can't tell any more if another woman might be my age or even younger.) One guy was being told he was due for all the things, like tubing, cushions, filters, water chamber, which he didn't understand because older people in the Ozarks are dense (it's true), and an unrelated woman on a different ticket chimed in about how she was still using the same tubing and water chamber from two years ago and never had a problem, and the poor assistant was just standing there in jaw drop.
A) You people thinking Medicare is sucking up your tax money, chill, half the world is refusing to even take advantage of completely 'free' stuff.
B) I felt physically ill at the thought of 2 year old tubing because it can grow mold in it, and I can imagine the assistant was dumbfounded how to explain respiratory hygiene to two stubborn older people who couldn't imagine anything microbial being a problem.
I am still almost freakishly obsessed with CPAP hygiene nearly 2 years in, so since these people are obviously getting along ok, maybe I can relax a little about that. I always make sure my tube is blown dry before I disconnect, though.
click for cpap memes on pinterest
In other randomness, since September has now been declared National Preparedness Month, I boiled some eggs, got brats out to cook up and refreeze, and got butter out to soften for oatmeal cookies to go back into the freezer. If power goes out anytime soon, I'll have food handy besides tuna and chips.
So I'm 19 days out from surgery, and last night was the worst for pain. It's kind of been building back up, and I haven't been sleeping that well, but last night was pure suck, and I got up 3 different times for more pain med. This morning was better, thank goodness. I know there is a lot of stuff going on in my knee, like it can take up to 6 weeks to get the joint fluid properly built back up, and random swelling can cause pain here and there, but the ache was so strong in the entire leg that even my foot was aching. Could have been the cold front settling in, who knows.
When I jumped this blog over, I started a new tagging system. I don't like it. I should have just tagged whatever I wanted because now I can see it makes no sense. I might go through and retag. Trying to keep it too generalized bogs down the search.
click to buy art prints
More random. If you are kind of interested in what in the world is behind closed doors in 'child breaking', the fastest way to learn is by looking into the mind of the broken. I really like Saccstry. Once you see the emotional survival behind the symbolism, you can never unsee the possibilities of savagery upon the tiny human mind. Minds were made to be broken, remolded, controlled, according to some, and I've read that the best age to start is around 4, although that is up for debate. Child trafficking is the saddest weirdest art prompt you'll ever find on the webs, and if that doesn't scar your soul and get you off the 'faith in humanity restored' rescuing kittens memes, nothing will.
Click this for some actually cool memes
Ug, I just hit publish instead of save. I'm not done yet.
Anyway, that's basically how my life is going at the moment, and all my big cool ideas keep getting sideswiped by pain and medication and dragging my butt into therapy over and over. I'm very tired.
Ah, here it comes, the after surgery fibro flare. I was wondering when it would really hit. I thought yesterday was just overdoing, but I guess I'm done for a few days. The only thing I would add to those personal descriptions in that link is my entire nervous system feeling raw, exposed, possibly even a little sizzled on a grill or something. If you've ever had Fifth Disease or Hand-Foot-Mouth, the nerve part is like that only all over and worse.
I'm actually in really good shape at 16 days out from knee arthroscopy and carpal release surgeries. As the flare hit, though, actual capability was overcome by intense throbbiness around the still healing areas, and even though that doesn't mean my healing has slowed down at all, it does mean what I could easily do a couple of days ago is being drowned out in overall perception problems my brain is suddenly backlogged in, like pain sludge.
My mood is good and I'm actually sleeping a lot and eating normally, so I'm not worried. Just need to let my brain sort it all out I guess. I've heard that the backlash after all the drugs during surgery can be a nightmare, so I feel blessed that I'm basically sleeping this one off. Sorry so long getting back in touch with some of you I'm working with on stuff. I'll get there. ❤
When I drag in from a long day out in the heat including physical therapy and physically running into 5 other buildings doing errands, get home and peel off in the AC into some awesome soft loungewear, get all the stuff untangled and put away, get ready to settle in for some real rest, and remember something I stowed something in the glove box that will probably reach a high enough temp to melt if I don't go get it. +_+
Last week was worse limping through the hours long deluge with a cane until I came home soaked up to my shoulders even with an umbrella, but the funniest part was just before I could pull out of my driveway to even leave, Jehovah Witness whipped their van in to stop me and frantically tried to do a literature touchbase before they'd let me leave, but not before they asked TWICE whether I'd like them to come back later. Clearly sitting in my car with a cane in the deluge saying I had an appointment to go to. Their dedication is both disturbing and amusing, and I'm pretty sure now that they live up the street from me and that's apparently how they've managed to keep such a sharp eye on my house all these months. The lengths I've gone to avoiding them catching me in my driveway has been movie level intense, and I guess since the last time they caught me was around Mother's Day, that little screech and whip into my drive as they were zooming by and caught sight of me in my car about to leave wasn't deterred by a little deluge. (This has gone on 8 months now, *click here for the fun*.)
That's it. My brain is gone now. Now that I've had a snack and a pain pill I'm going to go lay in bed with my leg up and listen to David talk. I've shared a bunch of bootleg stuff here and there because it's cool fun stuff to think about (and I feel important in many respects), but this one is legal, lol.
My best advice to anyone going into carpal release and/or arthroscopic surgeries is to clip your toenails before it all goes down, because that's going to be a regret for awhile if you don't. I'm 13 days out and still cannot simultaneously grasp, squeeze, and hang onto a clipper with my dominant hand, and even if I could, I can barely keep my knee bent enough to reach it long enough to conquer that without spiking some interesting pain.
On the positive note, though, the stitches are out of my hand now and I was able to get into a Walmart for big packs of paper plates and paper towels while I was out, since I forgot about that when bonenado drove us in over the weekend. I went slow but my knee is still a bit throbby, and my hand is definitely feeling the drive today. Was told it'll still be at least a month (or longer) on both hand and knee before I'm really capable of faking some kind of normal again, and to be patient and keep doing my commanded stretching, flexing, and resting. I'm still dropping things, but ahead of the game on most of the other healing. Overdoing will obviously be counterintuitive.
Things this month-
Switch out the Kaspersky before the 12th. Yes, still using it... But that's my last day and I need to be on it before auto renew.
Prepare for MS Office and Geek Squad protection renewal. This is my big money month.
Actually contact (nicely) the publishers back and don't let another 5 years slide by.
Check up on the Lexx stuff lightly piling up, but involves work.
Start leveling up my commands and responsibilities on the game server.
Review my money plan for the rest of the year before the holiday slide goes out of control.
Organize the material I already have into a format and fill in the holes.
Today I am airing out my house while the weather is finally nice again. Starting to sound a little like autumn out there. Thinking about trying a fried cheese sticks recipe tonight. Accidentally wound up with mozzarella sticks this summer. Catch up some chores around the house in between rest breaks. Need to keep using paper plates, plasticware, and plastic cups for another week or I won't be able to keep up, but I have started cooking a little again.
As small victories go, I have kept off 2 pounds from the start of last month to the start of this month, so I will continue my daily weight calendar logging and keep working on reigning in the calories. It was really challenging doing this with all the extra sitting around I've had to do, the extra meds and IV fluids, but I'm done with this ridiculous feeling stuck on this plateau thing and aiming to get at least 20 pounds off over the next year just by cutting out that one extra nibbly a day that I'd gotten used to doing since the kids moved in. It's really hard being surrounded by extra yummies that high energy people inhale without a problem, but at least I'm keeping it stable. I won't be able to get back on the regular routine I had a couple of years ago until my knee is ready, so no burning stuff off.
Since this month has been so challenging I splurged on some Halloween lounge pants for $10. This autumn is all about the lounge in my fashion wear. Comfort is key. Oh, almost forgot, my blood pressure is still fabulous after all that. Controlling that pain level is super key.
I've never had writer's block. I have life block. I envy people who have more than one hour a day (if that long) to sit and write without having to stop. Most of my blogging is done in bits and pieces, sentence here, paragraph there, and lots of stuff you don't see me doing in between. Today is the first wonderfully peaceful, quiet, and as close to pain-free as it gets after surgery day that I've had in a long time. I'm organizing my track.
Trying to get back on track with the basics, and boy howdy, just spent 30 minutes deleting at least a hundred emails from the last two weeks just from (power point)
2 publishers- actual did you get my email emails when I didn't respond immediately the first 3 or 4 times
go fund me- over 20 yousetupthisthingforyourfriend reminders
solar weather- apparently the sun nearly exploded or something and I missed so much stuff
microsoft- points deals supplies, did we mention sales?, ohbytheway your acct is coming due in two months and here's more points
tee shirt vendors- you bought this thing from us and it's important that you know YOU HAVE 10% COUPONS NOT BEING USED
photobucket- we changed everything and you didn't notice and we need to keep reminding you we changed everything and you didn't notice
diabetes management- hi, we know you have no idea who we are but we need to bury your inbox with life changing tips
google updates- ha, fooled you, we're a phishing scam and you can't get rid of us
That was a sample of H*U*N*D*R*E*D*S of emails burying a couple of really important things just over the last two weeks. It's not even 6 a.m. yet and even with coffee, my brain is mush.
The stitches come out of my hand at 8 a.m. today. I'm going to miss the bright blue fishing line. It's my favorite shade of blue.
This song popped into my head last night. I'm told I was conceived during a motorcycle vacation through California. I grew up on and around Hondas, and my dad owned a Honda shop. My little brother called them motorpickles. I heard this song a lot.
P.S. Dee Dee once commented on an older blog because I was talking about this Triumph motorcycle ad I still had in my house from when I was a kid.
I guess I can share what's going on. I must have lost a little more blood than I thought, just realized I bruised clear down to my ankle. That is probably why I'm so tired. Ive been commanded to keep ankle above head so the fluids can clear out faster. Once the swelling goes down, a lot of the pain should ease up.
My hand is looking really good. It was black the first day. Still a challenge using a pen for the briefest of notes or controlling a mouse for more than a few seconds. Stitches come out next Tuesday.
Different people are really good at different things. What one person is really good at, another person might not be, but they might be really good at something the first person is not, so it all kind of evens out.
Sometimes you wind up with two people in one house who are really good at things opposite of each other. For the most part, this works really well until it goes out of balance. Like when one of the people thinks they are better at the thing they suck at. Maybe like meal planning.
This is about a person who doesn't know how to plan ahead when it comes to meals. If that person isn't hungry at that moment, absolutely no thought is put into what if hunger shows up later.
That's where I come in, being really good at everything food. I've head cooked in a 450+ seater establishment. That takes unbelievable coordination and planning. That's only one of my food qualifications in a childhood of processing organically grown food and a lifetime of food prep in a dazzling array of circumstances.
For instance, while I'm recovering from a double surgery, I know I can get the nutrients I need for a week from a dozen eggs, a half gallon of milk, a block of cheese, a bag of potatoes, a head of broccoli, a cup of dry rice, you get the gist. I'm very good at simple, filling nutrition in a pinch. I easily turned some of that into a rice pilaf, a tossed potato salad with green beans, a protein shake, etc. I did this with minimal effort and easy clean up since it was for one person. It's the best way I know how to lighten the burden of caretaking on others since I'm allergic to so many things and cross contamination is a very scary thing in pre-prepared meals.
I told my family while I'm recovering during the first week, their job is to feed themselves. They are to use plasticware, paper plates, disposable cups, take out, whatever it takes to keep the kitchen clean. Keep it easy.
That sounds like a good plan, doesn't it? It's not hard to grab a Wendy's salad or a takeout pizza, right? How easy is it to buy a frozen dinner or bring home Chinese?
So I'm hobbling on a swollen knee with a high pain level, one of my hands completely useless, and one night- they cooked. ??? Um, hello? Pots and pans? Guess who washed those....
So tonight I fixed my own food and settled in, a person arrived home from work without any takeout, and said they didn't feel hungry yet, maybe open tuna later.
Context- I had offered a tuna melt once a week all summer and was turned down every single time. The one week I ask to keep it simple and easy, they want to drag out a tuna mess. This is a person who leaves dishes around and never, ever actually washes a dish.
I am really good at being a servant in my house. I'm super good at spoiling someone on a regular basis because I'm a really good cook. I'm so good at handling all the work this involves that consideration for my one wish to keep my kitchen clean on a week that sucks for me was airily dismissed with Meh, i wasn't hungry while i was driving past easy, ill drag out a mess later that wasnt good enough the rest of the summer. Because, of course, I'm good at making it look easy.
I'm beginning to understand why older women seem angry all the time.
I'm really good at thinking ahead about other people's needs and discomfort in given situations. He's really good at keeping bills paid on time. I know it all evens out, but when its his turn to hobble on a week off, I'll bet he won't feel like eating tuna. Or more, making it himself.
I didn't ask anyone to feed me or clean up after me this week, just themselves.
I'm suddenly in the mood to make a tuna casserole on Thanksgiving.
That was my morning, standing around a chicken pen being available in chat. I should have stayed there. Later on I lost everything in my inventory when I fell out of the world because I am too strung out on a quarter chip of vicoden and too fumble fingered with these stitches in my hand to handle a moderator command switch. Oh, well.
And later I was empathizing with someone and this actually happened. It's real, and FB gifs knows it. Not a conspiracy. All I did was copy part of their own phrase into gifs and there you go.
I'm still very crabby and just staying away from as many people as possible. My crabbiness is PAIN and MEDICATION related. Nothing personal. And I will eat your head. 🐲
That's supposed to be a dragon. Not a cute dragon.
More like this. I dunno where it's from any more, it's been in my slideshow wallpapers forever.
#transparency Ok, some stuff is personal, but only on a need to know basis. Pretty sure much of my funk is being able to adequately communicate where and when I need it most. Maybe I need a bigger 'knock, please' sign on my door... The whole pulling back into my corner to stop the carnage thing is going over some heads.
I finally made it back to my email and waded through deleting several hundred over the last month. Stuff due, things changing, new info, and the world keeps turning.
I am doing exceptionally well in physical therapy so far because I'm already so familiar. I am already doing much of the core, nerve gloss, and muscle stretching/control, but as we are adding more that I still hadn't seen before in all these years, I obviously still have fine motor difficulties with the leg that wasn't even involved in the surgery. The challenge to match the 'fine' leg up with the operated leg was interesting enough to prompt a story share, and my therapist today got goosebumps hearing about my accident.
I shouldn't even be here.
Back to stuffs. Since I am here and swimming around in my email, changing a host renewal to manual so it can expire, rolling my eyes and unsubscribing from the Mayo Clinic Diet list *aggressive doesn't even come close*, mentally marking the protection changeover notice from Geek Squad with ohyeahbettergetonthat, wondering how I missed so many other people's blog updates, dismissing the medical opinion surveys and auto payment notices, back to my sentence- apparently I'm being contacted by more author sales than I had a clue, and I can even already apply for special book signing events.
>.< K, I just need to do this, please bear with me a sec.
WHAT THE BOINK IS EVEN GOING ON???
Ok, better.
And back to my moment. I'm worn out.
I've been listening to all kinds of wonderfully distracting stuff while I'm down, and I suggest to those who worry about my state of opinion/belief/mental health to just chillax and let this wash over like entertainment. 😁 I mean, we watch fiction spy and scifi, right? Why not suspend and float into alt timeline scenarios? Because if this is fiction, it's really good. And if it's real, omg. To be clear, I've watched Abraham Lincoln fighting zombies on TV, so what the hell, right? Why would this be any more objectionable?
Quick intro- This is someone very skillfully smashing #allthethings into a 90 minute lecture and someone else possibly bootlegging it. That alone was worth my time. If you like UFOs, espionage, American history, and general weird scifi, this is captivating and I really hope it becomes a series of movies.
David Wilcock lecture-"Revealing The Five Alliance Groups" Part 1- Contact In The Desert-6/03/2018 https://youtu.be/g_3hoKl7_Vc
David Wilcock lecture-"Revealing The Five Alliance Groups" Part 2- Contact In The Desert - 6/03/2018 https://youtu.be/6tXkgMDjRg0
David Wilcock lecture-"Revealing The Five Alliance Groups" Part 3- Contact In The Desert-6/03/2018 https://youtu.be/U1Rq9hGXdVE
David Wilcock lecture-"Revealing The Five Alliance Groups" Part 4 -Contact In The Desert-6/03/2018 https://youtu.be/cI3mMUvH5zk
David Wilcock lecture- "Revealing The Five Alliance Groups" Part 5 -Contact In The Desert-6/03/2018 https://youtu.be/4dZmGrw220s
~time passed~
Apologies if I'm hit and miss with anyone but I'm pretty fried out. I'll get my stuff sorted out, might be a few extra days.
Worst day ever. I hate everyone, I'm dropping everything I touch, everything sucks. At least I got a shower without incident, but it took full concentrated focus.
~~~~~~~~
Later.
Even tiny doses of opioids make me mean when they wear off. I did 3 half pills spread out yesterday, just enough to get thru the hard parts, and today I was everything evil until I finally took another half.
Now my world is soft and warm and everything looks like a magazine life, and I know now it was the drug and not me. I love again. I'm at peace again.
I clearly cannot do this to my family. Next dose will have to be a quarter. I've got to dose down as quickly as I possibly can and still keep just enough warm fuzzy to get thru the hardest parts.
One of the red flags is how wasted I feel on so little. I used to live on handfuls of pills around the clock for years before research finally caught up with experience and agreed that just doesn't work.
The worst part of any pain syndrome is the addiction/withdrawal cycles. The hardest part of living spoonie is the crippling depression and self loathing that comes with watching myself be mean to people I love.
More incentive to get healthier.
And along the way I figured out how to solve my FB problem. You know how you can custom share? They suggest making custom share groups like for family, friends, close friends, etc. I tried making common interest groups for awhile. Nothing really works without some level of frustration. I decided today that's the wrong approach. If some of my people are topic, issue, or content sensitive, I can make custom share lists based on things like fun, thinky, mood, nerdy, etc. I think taking an extra step or two will make me easier to take for some. I mean, I handle people that way in real life, right?
What the internet randomly says I can expect after carpal tunnel release surgery-
It is sensible to wait until your wound has healed to prevent your stitches from loosening and your wound opening. This usually takes 10-14 days. Most people are able to begin gentle driving approximately two weeks after their carpal tunnel surgery. I have a full driving schedule for physical therapy on my knee all this coming week and I live 20 miles out of town. My carpal surgeon was aware of this. What the heck is 'gentle driving'?
Most patients experience a full recovery from numbness in a day or two following surgery. Nerve damage takes longer to resolve. 6 months to one year after surgery is typically when recovery is considered complete and nerve damage has improved as much as is expected. Someone keeps telling me that a coworker was fine in 4 days flat, soz... Kinda not believing that one.
Paresthesias and scar tenderness are common in the subacute recovery phase following carpal tunnel release. A flare or aggravation of symptoms is common in the period of two to six weeks after surgery. Well, it hurts like hell 3rd day out, so yeah, kind of expecting that, but pretty sure my family will be expecting me to carry full work load the split second the stitches come out.
Driving (a couple of days after surgery) Yeah, the other hand, I imagine, because this random answer came out of the blue.
Writing (after a week, but expect 4-6 weeks before it feels easier.) I can barely pick up and maneuver a pen for one word atm, but srsly, 4-6 weeks??
Pulling, gripping, and pinching (6-8 weeks out, but only lightly.) Totally believe this, barely even tugging on a sock felt like pain shocks from a cattle prod. I was very strongly commanded not to do ANY pulling or lifting until the stitches come out 2 weeks out from surgery. Guess they've seen a few rip open.
Expect 10-12 weeks before your full strength returns, or up to a year in more severe cases. Define 'full strength'. Wow, nearly 3 months? Just how bad off were you?
After surgery, you will be discharged home in a wrist splint and a bulky dressing. The dressing may be removed 3 to 4 days after surgery, but you should continue wearing the splint provided for approximately 6 weeks. K, where in the world are they getting this splint stuff, I never got a splint.
Carpal tunnel syndrome cannot be cured, but surgery to alleviate symptoms can be successful. The success rate of surgery to relieve symptoms depends on the definition of “success” and the metrics applied. For example, with respect to alleviation of symptoms, up to 90% success is reported. Was cautioned that I'm in the category for only 50% recovery because I've had nerve damage for so long. I keep hearing about the coworker that was apparently fine in 4 days. Must be nice. Tomorrow is my fourth day and I can still barely move a mouse.
K, enough of that. If this all works out well, I might do left knee and left wrist on the same day down the road if I'm having unresolvable problems in future. It's been really convenient getting it done all at once on the right side, and left will probably be less difficult since it's not my dominant side.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Next day.
Remember the old days when people would tell me what my public feed was allowed to have in it? Like beliefs and perceived intelligence level and so forth. I've plateaued again with a whole new even bigger mix of people and one subset is consistently baffled, so I've either got to leave that subset out of future shares or find a way to incorporate them without the culture shock of other people in the world being allowed to think differently. That's a lot of work.
Meanwhile, a player on game is determined to bend the laws of gamer physics around sheer will and I am patiently standing around while they figure something out and don't realize they left the game ages ago...
If I seem a little testy, I'm still in acute injury level of inflicted healing with med intolerance challenges and I am underwhelmed with the laughable cooperation understanding we barely have in my house. Too many agendas, too little personal space. I'm also coming to loathe rabbits in the house.
I'm clearly in a bad mood and there's not much I can currently do about it, so see ya.
"You DARE bribe Santa?! I'm gonna shove coal so far up your stocking, you'll be coughing up diamonds!"
―Robot Santa Claus pic clicks to Futurama's Robot Santa wiki
4 months till Christmas.
My hand hurts. My knee is fine. My hand is all like You know those TV shows where people slice the palm of their hand with a big knife to prove something, well that's all big lie now that I know exactly what that crap feels like. My knee is humming and looking at its watch and asking when we can go jogging.
So far the only thing I can do with my right hand is type. I cannot hold my cup of coffee, turn a doorknob, pull the fridge or oven open, work a remote, or the crucial wipe my own butt with my dominant hand. Lefty will hold a coffee cup and turn a doorknob and open the fridge, even work a remote, but it says ohHELLno to the crucial.
I'm feeling very cranky. Opioid kisses only make it worse. I think I'm going to hide out in my room today and listen to David talk. I just linked his official channel, but I'm actually catching the bootleg uploads on the fly. I'm still fussed that no one has made a bad lip reading or fan video homage to this guy, because even though I'm a solid fan, that would just be so cute.
The whole Matrix movement isn't new. The en masse brain training has been going on for decades. Christmas is the perfect picture of how controlled we all are with consumerism and entertainment. Apathy and willful ignorance, guys. What is the agenda? What are we waking up from? "When there is no reaction, they take that as a mandate to pursue their particular agenda."
My biggest mistake is opening the fridge door with the surgery hand. +_+
click to get lost in pinterest
I tried a little singleplayer last night, it hurt. Not back on game yet.
click for surgeon skin in minecraft
Caught up on The 100 yesterday, 3 left for Killjoys, probably watch that today.
click for a Canadian TV blog
Got my Halloween wallpapers on a slideshow screensaver. This was on Google chrome search for 'Halloween bats wallpaper'. I tried several variations and got a few really good ones.
Decided to custom order Christmas cards this year because cheaper than the store. I think I'm done looking around for pix right now.
Bout fried my phone on this next one hiding the glow under the covers and falling asleep. The upload is viral. I wrote a tweet and a FB status about it earlier, and I pinned it. Is it coincidence it came out the day after the anniversary being talked about in the above video?
My hand hurts like hell, but my typing is already getting better. Also, my throat really hurts to swallow and I finally looked in there and found a small area that looks weird, wondering if I got a small sore or scratch when I swallowed the little airway hose under anesthesia.
So I got back up out of bed after sleeping an hour and a half and I'm eating Italian nachos so I can get vicoprofen down. For my hand, not my throat. The hand thing is an ongoing problem from the last Pinky blog, if you're new.
Proof that FB is uber intrustive. The other day I bounced on a post from a publisher and next thing you know they are calling my cell phone. I don't put my cell phone out for view, even for friends, and I didn't friend that publisher page. I checked my settings, and sure enough, my phone number was viewable by friends, so I had to reset that to only me. Check your privacy settings, guys. They had another big update rollout, so just check everything. Also, really creepy that a nonfriend was able to hack that and then leave a recording on my phone. Once is bad enough, but still another publisher calling and leaving a message out of the blue within that time frame, and both of these repeat calling really ticked me off. Real publishers don't solicit by phone. Don't worry, I didn't pick up.
So the blocking begins. Again. I wanted to report for harrassment, but FB doesn't allow me to describe what happened, so how would they even know it's going on outside of FB?
Bunny got a cast change on the same day in the same building at the same time as my carpal tunnel surgery. I thought that was cool. 😎
My knee still doesn't hurt. I had to rewrap the compression bandage, definitely swollen and apparently a bit bloody under all that cotton wrap, but I keep it up a lot and use a cane 90% of the time so I'm doing ok. I have felt it squish in there a couple of times, kinda slide a couple more, and click a few times, no pain at all with any of it, even though the pictures the surgeon gave me look pretty impressive.
The best part is the vicoprofen. I hadn't had hydrocodone in any form since 2014 until my gall bladder removal last fall, and that was overwhelming because I'm like a permanent protracted withdrawal person, clenched muscles and mild hallucinations when I have to take it nowadays because I was on low dose vicodin for nearly 30 years. Today has been lovely, though. I asked for a lower dose since I tolerate pain so well, and I'm feeling wrapped in beautiful fuzzy blanket kind of love. Going to suck stopping it again, so I'm already alternating breaking pills in half. So far I'm needing every 4 hours on the dot for the hand pain, but dang it, I keep forgetting and automatically doing stuff. Every little grasp and tug is horrible and barely functioning, or like using that hand for leverage getting into bed earlier, yowza that sucked.
I spent pre surgery eating plenty of vegetables, alternating salads with cabbage soup, pan roasted brussels sprouts, microwaved sweet potato, crockpot corn on the cob, and I'm focusing on more proteins and yogurt while I'm healing. They gave me precautionary ancef (cephalasporin antibiotic) in my IV during sugery. Also got decadron (corticosteroid, precautionary for inflammation, allergic reactions, and edema), fentanyl (narcotic), lactated ringers (aggressive fluid replacement during fluid and blood loss), lidocaine (numbing agent), midazolam (benzo that induces drowsiness and acts like a roofie so you don't remember), zophran (for nausea, I'm a documented puker during and after surgeries), phenylephrine (antihistamine, also raises blood pressure), and propofol (" a short-acting medication that results in a decreased level of consciousness and lack of memory for events").
And that was on top of a serious lack of coffee and calories, so the first 48 hours are my body cleaning all that out on top of serious healing from intrusion. I'm cautiously already following slow withdrawal guidelines on the vicoprofen. Part of the jolt for a lot of people recovering from surgery is not understanding the meds going on.
Sorry no click to merch, I think it was a short-lived flash sale. The back has the wizards rules.
Wo, stood up to do something and I'm so wasted I barely made it across the room. Funny how sensitive I am now to small dose anything after decades of handfuls of meds that I spent over 2 years cleaning off of. I felt like I had a little tiny bug crawling in my shirt nipping me, usually a protracted benzo symptom for me, but turned out to be petechaie. Every time I have something done I get new ones. I have a petechia for every spinal tap I've had, stuff like that. Some of them never go away.
I had some super cool dreams this afternoon dozing off and on. Going to try some stuff on Mo Creatures (minecraft server) when I can log back on. I'm generally not a very creative builder, even though I have huge claims with builds on them. The stuff in my dreams was like TIME TO REMODEL. I'm very excited but really can't do that till I start the therapies.
I've gotta get back to bed while the pain level is back down. See ya.
