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.

the track

pix link back to this original site

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.

Go watch this movie.