sundried and variolas

Foxination!

I am healing but slowly and I have another six weeks in the sling.  I am not allowed to do anything with my right arm, which is impossible, but I certainly got a lecture about how it will screw up my tendons and ligaments and rotator cuff if I don’t keep it in the sling.  The discharge instructions should have included  :How to wash your oxters: and didn’t, but I now know how.

Just found out that a friend is being assaulted on a regular basis by one of her children.  Well, that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.

I am having a lot of trouble with motivation, and I have one memorial service behind me and another in front of me, so at least I’ve keeping busy.  And the one thing about being dead is that your amount of motivation doesn’t really matter.  I’d prefer to be lacklustre than dead, fer sure.

 

I watched the video of me falling.  It was unpleasant, but at least I know now that despite the incredible pain I was in, I didn’t go far wrong in guessing how long it was before the ambulance came.  And while I was waiting, and sweating like a horse, and crying, and cursing, and yelling, and moaning, I thought about the post apocalypse, which would have involved me walking until I found help.

Yes, I’m sure lucky.

 

 

 

 

sore

I am obviously healing, but this is gonna be slow and unpleasant, I can tell.  No point going to physio until I have heard from the doc.

I am probably going to lose weight… I feel not at all like eating most of the time.

Keith visited last night.

Paul is going to take me for a walk later.

Bareld’s memorial service is tomorrow.

I wish I could rewind the tape sometimes.

the winding down

Jeff is going to edit the security camera footage into a short movie called Allegra’s Epic Trip. I am lucky I’m not more seriously injured – if I’d gone temple first into the pizza oven I’d be dead or in a coma.  There’s a pleasant thought.  I am very grateful, and rather humbled.

Anyway, today I am going to make a list of what I have to do to back my way out of the shop, because this is obviously not going to work if I can’t even raise my arm enough to put a tray in the oven.

People are being so kind. Jeff is being wonderful. Tom brought supper last night.

 

sh#tshow

after the morning, which was emotionally exhausting and frankly a new recent low point, I went into the shop to bake and wash dishes, and within minutes I was lying on the floor wondering what the fuck just happened.

I skidded on a piece of plastic on the floor, collided with the pizza oven, and then the sweet sweet floor rose up to meet me.  I never hit my head or lost consciousness, so I was able to immediately diagnose that I’d dislocated my right shoulder.  I got up from the floor walking like a zombie and shot through with pain, called Jeff, and he couldn’t come get me because he was having mobility issues of his own.  I called 911 and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I was coping with levels of pain and disorientation that are right up there with giving birth unattended.  I couldn’t control my breathing and I was sweating so hard I couldn’t see.

The boys from #2 firehouse came and attempted to administer oxygen, and tried to put my arm in a sling but I was screaming and crying a little too enthusiastically for that. The firemen were very kind.  I did a lot of moaning and crying waiting for the ambulance.   After a very very long wait for the ambulance (yesterday was a record day for the Emerg because of a lot of MVA’s roof falls tree falls and other crush injuries (the announcements for cleanup help in emerg got squawkier and squawkier while I was in MTU)) I finally dipped my beak in some blessed, blessed nitrous, which doesn’t kill pain as much as it prevents you from screaming about it.

After the eternity of a twenty minute ambo ride I was shoved against the wall in triage and Dr. Lim came within 5 minutes and said, “I don’t think it’s dislocated.” And I said, then why does it hurt like a mofo and I’m walking like a zombie??? He checked again and faster than it takes to describe it, the ball went back in the socket.

Then many hours of waiting for xrays and results, and then I was released with a referral to a bone doc, 6 T3s, movement instructions and a sling, since it turns out the shoulder is broken as well as formerly dislocated.  Right shoulder OF COURSE.

I slept about as well as could be expected and am now attempting to come to terms with what is going to be a longish and interesting recovery. The shop will have to be sold, I can’t do nothing for 6 weeks or however long this takes.  I’ll know more on the 26th when I see the bone doc. I did advise that I have extensive numbness down that arm and that my two outside fingers are very tingly and weak; whether this presages really bad news for that nerve or is just my response to swelling who knows; Jeff advised me to be optimistic but not to lighten up about knowing what’s going on which I think is fine advice.

I am very glad I don’t live alone.  I am super grateful to my church family, who have been souls of kindness. I am grateful I sleep on the bottom of a bunkbed as I can use the slats above to haul myself into and out of bed.  I am grateful I was sent home with painkillers.  I can get by without because oddly enough it doesn’t hurt unless I move it.  I can type; I can’t drive, lift with both hands, play an instrument, wash dishes, pick up a phone, raise my hand higher than my breastbone or extend it outwards, and I almost wish somebody had filmed me getting into and out of my clothing today because it was undoubtedly quite comical.  I did force myself to bathe and brush my teeth this morning as I do not want to get into the moldy and uncared for stage of recovery, it’s not like I’m helpless, just as slow as a tortoise and about as graceful.

I am very proud I got up after that fall and dealt with it.  I didn’t maintain my dignity or composure but I took care of myself and I didn’t try to fix it myself and let the experts do their thing.  Above all I’m grateful to be living somewhere where sirens mean that one of my fellow citizens has asked for help, and it’s coming,  because there are a lot of places on this earth where I would have been lucky to get any care at all, let alone some painkillers.  Today is a day to practice gratitude… even if yesterday WAS a sh#tshow.

Departures

After ten years of ignoring my blog (except using it to track back shit an ex did to her for a court case), Katie this morning declared that everything I’ve ever said about her on the blog is unacceptable, a gross violation of her privacy and that my blog is the reason she never wants to talk to me again. Katie is very angry with me.  She also says she’s never going to do anything in food service again, as she is done with that too.

Katie packed a satchel, handed me back the house keys, and left for parts unknown.  So endeth my happy delusions, and so commenceth my unimpeded impact with reality.

Katie has friends and relatives who would gladly take her in, so although I am very sad about this I know she’ll be okay.  She’s a survivor.

And this is my response…. After today I won’t be mentioning her.  If she ever tells me what it is I’m supposed to remove, I’ll gladly do it, but I’m at a loss.  It’s the worst thing I ever did to her and she doesn’t care if I change it.  How to process that?

 

 

2020 says lol

 

 

disgust!!! ew!!!

Today the lung specialist/sleep specialist ran a fibreoptic scope up me schnozz to determine my diagnosis re apnea.  (TLDR got a scrip for a CPAP machine).  Yes, he zapped me with lidocaine first, and a truly disgusting taste is now mine free gratis.

OH YUCK.  See Allegra’s nares up close and OH MY GOD there is a FOREST of hairy trees in her nose.  Honestly, stomach flopped a bit. Then the sort of grayish pink of my nasal cavities (right side was too small to admit the scope, so OH GREAT I GET TO SEE THE FOREST ON THE OTHER SIDE OF MT SEPTUM).  Then on to the moist and furrowed canyon of my gullet including my weenie lil tonsils, my damned big uvula and my grossly normal vocal chords, which is not otherwise a soubriquet one applies to my pipes.

And I have mild apnea, a CPAP should take care of it, and he refused to give me a copy of the film, the rat. Cause I SO would have posted it, yo.

Oh well

It takes an adult to admit a mistake, and okay, I made one.  I said something without thinking to a customer that wasn’t the customer’s business, and Katie let me know how angry she is.  And still is.  Katie and I after much discussion are going to sell the cafe.  Wish us luck in selling it!

I am obviously quite miserable.  I’ve spent so much time and money getting the place up to snuff, and one would think that it’s foolish to bail without giving it a chance, but Katie has indicated that she’s no longer interested and I know in my heart I cannot work six days a week for the next six months until I can give myself a break at Christmas.  Maybe Chipper can work that hard for a season, but I know I can’t.

Miserable or not, I have to face facts, and they are plain and unequivocal.  I’ll be meeting a potential buyer this afternoon. I googled the buyer and they already ran a bakery on the Sunshine Coast, so they won’t be starting from scratch like we did.

I had a lot of hope.  Now I just have a lot of paperwork and a very heavy heart. When it’s done, and all wound up, I’ll start phase II of the ‘reinventing myself’ plan.

 

Katie is awesome

She really really is! She proved her worth repeatedly during the shop (and its aftermath) this morning.  A good partner.  She’s showering and gearing up for a day spent with friends right now.

I am going to have a lazy Sunday, and plan tomorrow… a day when my oldest child turns 27.  Anything I say on the subject is going to draw a hollow horse laugh from the cherished progenitors, so I shall turn the subject to something else.

We have precisely one catering job for July and my task tomorrow (after I see the doc about apnea stuff) will be to devise a plan to git moar bizness.  I am going in in the morning before the doc appointment to make cheese scones ( a great way to dispose of leftover sliced cheese from the previous week).  Also, I learned from Nevada, the renter who hopefully will come in August, that if you proof the biscotti in loaf format you save a pile of time and effort; the biscotti made that way were so good that I started crying when I ate them, and declared “Best biscotti evar!” and so you can see why I was glad that Jeff and I got the leftovers for that batch but the rest of the batch went to the second best user desk staffer I ever met, former colleague from Schneider, Mike.  (Jeff comes first OF COURSE). He useta love it when I brought in biscotti, and me knowing that keeping the IT guys happy was a prerequisite for happy corporate serfdom, he always got his share.  Now he pays!  bwa ha ha!
Otherwise we had a slow day, but it certainly had other compensations.

 

Now to laundry and loafing…

Nonsense song

I can’t fly but I’ve learned to dance
I’ve got a mustelid in my pants
If I hold still maybe you can grab it
I think he’s in there after the rabbit
and if you ask how did a rabbit git
into the pants of my new outfit
I tell you I don’t make a habit
of being habitat for any passing rabbit.

There is fresh chocochunk cheesecake and I’ma make a batch of biscotti later.

Eddie you old codger

Eddie is the senior cat in the household.  He’s 15 or 16, and while his back end is starting to be saggy, he’s a very sleek and healthy cat who simply despises Miss Margot…. or pretends to.

Last night Jeff and I were watching the thrilling conclusion of the 1st season of Veronica Mars when Eddie started to howl.

Normally he howls when he’s caught something and brought it back into the house or he howls from existential angst.  This time it was low, sad howls, and he didn’t want to move away from the cat door.

I looked at my brother and said in a horrified whisper, “Where is Margot?” Normally when we watch tv she’s parked at the top of the stairs or on the floor close to the tv.

The two of us leaped up and searched the house.  Jeff popped the front door and Margot bolted into the house from her hiding place under my car, where she’d obviously been trapped by another cat.

Which is how we learned that he has a special call when Margot is in trouble, because that’s how he was the last time he rescued Margot (she got locked in the garage). He got many skritches for his assistance, and Margot of course is impervious to correction or comment.

No, I am not a misandrist

If I see another frakking opinion piece that starts out “Real Men Don’t…” I’m gonna lose it. If you have a preference about what the men in *your* life do or how they treat their lives or you, please don’t preface it with that ill thought out attention grabber. Otherwise it’s just you wishing that the men you deal with had been brought up better or alternatively cared about you at all. (Gosh, isn’t it amazing that all those opinion pieces about men’s behaviour bind them to what’s currently FASHIONABLE? GAH.) And by a cruel trick of rhetoric, that will lead directly to me writing an opinion piece that starts out “Real men wear dresses and put baby animals on their heads, BECAUSE I SAID SO.”

What I learned in June 2013

I learned that a car with no insurance, no driver, and the e-brake engaged can still hit your car if a garbage truck hits it and sends it into your car. I learned that just thinking about something sweet that the kids did for me when they were six years old can make me cry. I learned that raising children who voluntarily and out of their own pockets go visit their grandparents is one of the most poignant joys of parenthood because despite everything you did wrong you and your spouse did something ever so right. I learned that nothing sits in the guilty comforts zone like air conditioning. I learned that I have sleep apnea, and with no medical I’m in for a lovely and expensive treat. I learned that every time your children take on adult attitudes and roles you get hit three times; once HEY YOU’RE OLD MOM, twice HEY I LEARNED THIS EARLIER THAN YOU DID and HEY I AM A SEPARATE HUMAN FROM YOU. I learned that whenever your kids do something stupid you still blame yourself and that doesn’t seem to let up with time. I learned that I’d rather fix than replace anything. I learned that if I don’t cook with love it doesn’t turn out, and I shouldn’t cook if I’m not feeling the love. Which is how I learned that I’m still a dilettante when it comes to restaurant scale food production.

hot hot hot heat

Man, it’s ROASTING IN HERE. And Katie, because she is a fucking genius, came in yesterday when it was much cooler and did all the baking.  So instead of being ROASTING PLUS HELLISH it’s just roasting.

I can haz iced coffee!

Today we await the formal opening of the community centre and we’re doing a bit of rearranging in the shop.  Thanks to Jeff’s computer madskillz we have the menu on the shop tv!

Okay, enough of this beetling about on the internet, I have bags of lentils to move.