tip-toeing around regret or something

*weeks rip past me at the speed of Barry Allen*

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...*

My birthday number is fascinating me this year. I mentioned becoming this age in my #Pinkyblog post pink is the new dark, or, my life without any meth whatsoever.

Kinda got lost in this. Cue the video!

we love you anyway

meme clicks to source where I made it
original source is from Sports Injury Clinic (full of good advice)
discovered thru 837 pins about carpal tunnel on pinterest

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.

baby blob

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.

tomorrow is 4 weeks out

Ug. Wrist.

So I got tired of the usual things I was running into and broadened my search on healing after carpal release.
Recovery Milestones for Carpal Tunnel Release Surgery
How to Exercise after Carpal Tunnel Surgery

Like a sports injury kind of approach, right?

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.

Also, carpal tunnel problems are apparently genetic.
Carpal Tunnel? Blame Genes Not Overuse
Study Shows Stronger Link to Genetics Than Excessive Typing or Hand Use

Whee.

In other fun news, I'm about to block a number from contacting me. I have never been chased so hard in my life.

getting so much experience right now

click for a Shannara write up

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.

Doi, here's a whole discussion about it.
Movie and TV characters always slice their palm open when they have to give blood

And another.
The Dramatic Palm-Slice: A Fantasy Trope I've Never Understood

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.

Where's my distraction?!!!!!

dang it, I hate it when I hit publish instead of save

click for pinterest

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.

Crap, I missed National Lazy Moms Day.

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.