Category: Health

Friends and relatives

I AM SO LUCKY.  Won’t go into teedails, but I am fortunate to have kindly and discerning friends and relatives.

The hat I loaned to Sue won’t be required.  The writer.director of her fringe show bailed at the last moment.  That must be awful.  I told her to keep the hat until she had taken a headshot, as it is marvellous and looks so wonderful on her.

Shoulder wasn’t bad yesterday after physio but today it HURTS LIKE HELL.  Also I am feeling fluish, so I think I am bailing on church today.

Chipper asked me to drive across Canada with her… I am considering it.

what is the meaning of this candy corn on the cob?

We are already halfway through the second season of Hell on Wheels.  It’s filling up the big empty Deadwood part of my heart.  It is not as good as Deadwood, but, ah, she ain’t Rose, if you know what I mean. And Anson Mount has the most superb range of vocalizations I have ever heard out of an actor.  He can convey more with a single grunt…. or stifled laugh… or sigh of regret… it’s quite entertaining.

Today, Mt. Washmore.

 

The damnedest things

Physio was AWESOME.  No needles, this time, just manipulation and exercises.  I don’t see the bone doc until NEXT Friday, so my next physio is the Monday after that.  I am driving again; I am playing mandolin again, but only short hops for driving and only 15 minutes  for practicing.  Physio says I can add a song a day as I get stronger.  I am making 100 percent progress for some kinds of mobility, and less than is good for others… so pretty much a standard recovery for a fat middle aged woman.

I have learned to my startlement and wonder that the US’s only TDCS clinic is 20 MILES from the GAFilk hotel.  I am going to try to book an appointment, as it is one of the few treatments for mental thrumps and emotional hollow heels.  Okay, Read This Article and see why I like the idea.

I have finished Thomas King’s the Inconvenient Indian.  I have a much clearer idea of what a settlers have gotta do if they want to be allies to REAL INDIANS as opposed to Dead or Legal ones (he makes a distinction, a very interesting one, in his book). I am going to follow his lead.  Native people are Indians if you’re using the “what nation/tribe/linguistic grouping/band they are hardly matters, they all got shafted by the settlers and this is now the uneasy general term white and First Nations people use” line of reasoning.  But they are Thomas King (Cherokee) and Buffy Saint Marie (Cree) and Elijah Harper (Red Sucker Lake First Nation) and Tantoo Cardinal (Métis) if you are referring to individuals; for they belong to a lifestream that is rooted in a way of life on this land, their land, that goes back ten millennia, even if the middens and the weirs only go back five millennia.  I am a settler.  Well, I’ve hated ‘white’ as a term for light coloured people for 20 years at least now.  I want to call us the pink people, cause we are.  White is such a bullshit term.  But settler, that I can deal with.  I am three generations removed from it.  It’s part of who I am.  Even so, there’s a picture from my family history that always makes me smile when I think about it. Back in the day, there would be rodeos, and Indians would be invited, because cowboys without Indians are not very exciting. (I know, right?)  There’s a pic of my mother’s father squatting, in a line, with a bunch of other white ranchers.  Behind them, arrayed in panoply, are Indians on horseback.  Makes for a nice change, in terms of optics.  I know it made no difference in daily life.  But it happened.

 

Listing

Today I have been to the physio, replaced the batteries in the label maker, worked some more on both Midnite and Tarot, confirmed my next doc’s appointment, vacuumed and washed the kitchen floor, and beaten out and washed and dried the kitchen rugs.  This represents a rather larger commitment to physical labour than has been the case lately, so I’m preening.

Physio was awesome.  It hurts like hell but I ALWAYS have more mobility when I come out of there, so I am pleased.

I think I’ll get myself another cup of tea and do some paperwork now.

New show!  We started watching Hell on Wheels, which is starting a third season; I’m quite liking Anson Mount as the lead, and the commentaries on racism, capitalism and the role of women are very interesting.  The only thing that pisses me off are the consistent anachronistic items that pop up in dialog.  I’m having to watch that in George’s dialog – he learned English in the 70’s and so his speech should reflect that. I do like Christopher Heyerdahl as a villain though, he’s damned good at it, (he was Hollin and Todd in SGA) and it’s filmed in Alberta, which is nice, and all the people playing Indians are actually native people.

Showing of the shop yesterday will likely come to nothing, but the gent in question was a stunningly tall and gorgeous Russian man in his late twenties, with a very pleasant accent and lovely manners.  So I was not unhappy to show it.

 

 

Physio and other matters

I am enjoying physio, in that I enjoy greater range of motion with less pain when Luc is done with me, but I am hating being told I still can’t play a musical instrument.  Double Grr.

I am absolutely loathing and despising the cpap machine.  I did sleep with it for a couple of hours, so yay for some progress.

Spoke to Tammy this morning.  She is doing reasonably well.

Patricia was over the other day!  We had a lovely time chatting about TERFs vs Transwomen (and other stuff of course) and she helped me get my feet under me as far as where things are in the political geography of contemporary feminism and forwarded me some reading.  I fed her rosemary chicken chunks over salad with a side of sweet corn. Nommers.  Very glad to hear that there has been some progress in one of those troubling areas of life we don’t talk about to be respectful to people we love, that married life is still suiting her, and that her job hunt is going well.

 

Truck or bus?

I don’t know which one hit me. I did about three hours of light housekeeping yesterday and I am sore all over, not just my shoulder.  I think I need to take it easy and stay in the sling today.

Hey everybody, Chipper is blogging at least couple of times a week at the Red Deer site (link on the right).  It’s lovely to be reminded of all the awesome things going on in the wilds of Madawaska. Mushrooms!  Aurorae!

Orange is the New Black continues to be much fun.  We’ve started watching The Good Wife, which is a great show.  We are also caught up on Ray Donovan and the Newsroom.  Liev Schrieber is so yummy it drives me nuts.  LTGW called the other day (just to say hi! awwww) and I told him that in silhouette Liev is a dead ringer for him cause MAN that dude fills a doorway in the omnomminest way (LTGW knows I’ve been crushing on him since the day I met him, he just rolls his eyes).  Then we talked about what I’m going to do if the fork in the road ahead goes back to paid employment.  He had a lot of encouraging things to say about my network and how I’m not working it properly, and man, I needed to hear encouraging words from a cute guy (okay, my idea of cute).  And I’m still thinking about keeping the shop.  There’s just a lot of rearranging I need to do, financially and emotionally and otherwise, and right now I’m very busted up and blue – a long way from the take the world on attitude I had in March.  Ah, how life plays tricks on one!  But I’m also feeling somewhat more cheerful now that I know I am not likely to have surgery.  Which reminds me, I really have to book some physio.  And pick up a CPAP.  Sigh.  Not being able to drive FUCKING SUCKS.  There I said it.

Of course Jeff has been the soul of courtesy regarding taxiing me around but he’s got a life and he’s super busy with his own work these days (which makes me happy… he’s always learning things). And we still find time to bond over tv and movies.  We rewatched Jack the Giant Killer, it’s a lovely film, almost perfect for the genre.

Yesterday I realized I will have to do some math to figure out what the surface area of my alien’s hair would have to be to have him sail off into the sky like a spiderling.  It’s a hilarious image, I can see him calling OW OW OW into the wind as his semi-sentient hair freaks out and uncoils to full length, hauling him backwards down the beach and then UP UP AND AWAY like a particularly bizarre version of the Flying Nun. Leaving Kima alone with HOOMANS OH NOEZ what will happen?  Probably nothing, she’ll just crawl over to the water and jet.  BAD HAIR!  baaaaaad hair!

Yesterday I made chicken/rice/steamed veg for dinner and then carefully prepackaged the leftovers and labelled them with dates.  Today I MUST clean out the fridge, it’s a horror show.  I don’t want to, but I really otter.

Okay, time to set the timer to do 20 minutes of housework.  (then I take a break).  I learned that at the UFYH site, and it really works.

I quit drinking again.  Very strange.  There hasn’t been beer in the house for almost a month. I don’t think Jeff’s had a beer since the last time we ate dinner with Mike.

Jerome dropped by a couple of days ago!  He showed the most HIlarious video of Lucas dropping off to sleep in his high chair, and every time he drooped his elder brother Brayden would jostle him and he’d jerk awake again.

Margot is spending a lot of time in the cardboard box Jeff labelled Queen Margot I for her.  She’s about the same colour as the box so I keep thinking “What’s the rustling noise!?”

 

 

 

 

Diluted and deluded.

I am going to get help with my new current problem, which is that all the food in the walk in has spoiled thanks to the compressor quitting because I forgot to turn the fan back on when i showed the place.  It’s all my fault, and on my pocket be it.  In the meantime, it has to get cleaned out, and then I have to find a place to put the really disgusting garbage that will arise, and then wash the equally disgusting service dishes, for which I am also soliciting help.  Cannot seem to catch a break, apart from the fact that things are actually more or less okay, I just need to be thankful.

Pacific Rim was a really good giant monsters vs. robots movie.  The script almost went into eyeroll territory a couple of times but solid performances (not excellent, ok) and fight scenes where you could tell what was happening helped.  I loved Ron Perlman’s guest shot, HATED the stupid scientists, who both needed tasing, in my view, and I enjoyed the special effects greatly.  Plot didn’t bear close examination, but oh well.  There are now Kaiju filk songs, yay.

No surgery for me, yay.  Doc says I am healing properly.  I need to give the nerve damage many more months to heal, but I can go get physio now.

 

Back to writing.  George is a bag surrounding computational colloid.  Weird, hunh?

 

Nibbles and kibble

Got a couple of nibbles on the shop, we shall see.

My shoulder is not healing as well as the bone doc would like, the bit of the tuberosity that broke off isn’t staying lined up properly because I keep overdoing it.  This week my job is to keep that sucker immobilized and laze about.  This is not a hard sell and by next Friday I’ll know whether I’m good to start physio or not.  Otherwise, alas, it’s surgery, and a whole nother set of months recuperating.  I know, sucks to be me, but I can’t say I’m unhappy to be living where this kind of stuff gets looked after.

 

Anyway, positively no housework that can’t be done one handed, and I’m staying locked up in the sling.

 

My cloak works great in circumstances where I have a sling and it’s raining.

 

Damned grass is growing now and I can’t cut the lawn with one wing.

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.

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.