the_rck | (no subject)

I’m up at 3:30 in the morning because, when the hydrocodone wore off, the pain was bad enough to keep me awake. When I stood up— Ow. I’d put it close to labor levels of pain. I’ve taken more hydrocodone, and I’ve got washcloths soaked in the Domeboro solution all over my breast. Well, over most of my breast. I’ve only got two washcloths, and I really need three.

I ought to wash washcloths before I go back to bed as I’ve only got one clean one left. I think, though, that I can reuse one of the two I’m using now when I get up at 8:00. I really can’t face laundry right now. In the morning, I might be able to get Cordelia to do it.

I really don’t think I’m going to Thanksgiving with Scott’s family. He’s still really focused on all of us going, however. I think he’s hoping for magic or something.

Scott will have to work 3:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving. His employer considers everything before 7:00 a.m. to be part of the preceding day because the shift starts at 11:00 p.m. This leads to occasional confusion on my part because sometimes Scott will use that convention when talking about when he has to be at work.

Monday night, Scott had to make a special trip out to get his hearing checked as part of his employer’s OSHA compliance. They did testing in the plant during the week he was on vacation in October. Fortunately, there was a clinic here in town that would do it and that stays open until 10:00 p.m.

I have to have Scott get more Domeboro on his way home from work. We also need some sort of liquid or chewable painkiller for Cordelia. She had a headache last night, and we had nothing for her. I don’t think the headache was too awful; mainly, she was tired. It’s hard to tell, though, because I don’t have a good feel for her pain scale. I think she doesn’t have much sense of what’s possible in terms of pain. She had back pain a couple of months ago that she rated a seven but didn’t think merited even thinking about a trip to the doctor. (It also didn’t affect how she moved.) A seven would send me to the ER— For me, labor was a six. I figure a ten would actually kill you.

I wish I was better at reading poetry. I’m starting to get poetry from the library because I would like to be more literate that way, but I’m not having great luck finding stuff that my eyes don’t simply skid off of. I’m going to try reading some of the current volume (Cristina Rossetti) out loud to see if that helps. I used to read poetry from anthologies in middle school and high school, but I got out of the habit. I like Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Lee Masters, Emily Dickinson, Edna St Vincent Millay, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Robert Frost. Barring the Kipling and the Millay which I read in college, those are all poets I liked in high school. I don’t think GoodReads is giving me useful recommendations in this category as it seems to be focusing heavily on 20th century poets and on stuff pre-Shakespeare (based, I think, on me liking Beowulf and The Elder Edda and several Icelandic sagas and on my having read a good bit of Shakespeare and some Greek tragedies).

Okay time to go back to bed. I’ve been up an hour, and Scott’s alarm will go off soon.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

heliopausa

Tennyson? The Lotus Eaters is great for reading aloud.

From:

the_rck

I'll try him. Thanks!

From:

kalloway

Scott's plant seems to be the opposite of mine - I just got home at 7am from Wednesday's shift and tonight would be Thursday. I confuse people fairly often by being a day ahead. ^^;;

From:

the_rck

::nods:: Both ways are frustrating and confusing for people who aren't used to them.

From:

lemon_badgeress

Based solely on the fact that I like Dickinson, Millay, and some Frost, I will recommend Billy Collins and William Merwin, because I like them also. I wouldn't say there's much similarity but what do I know. Mary Oliver is supposed to be wonderful but she's hit or miss for me.

From:

the_rck

Thanks for the recommendations! The library has Collins and Oliver, so I've put them on my list. I'll put Merwin on my list of things to try to get through ILL once the system is back up.

From:

kyrielle

I like Mary Oliver, but she's still hit or miss, because she does so much. I also really like Li-Young Lee, but I'm not sure if you would or not.

But - MARVIN BELL. Seriously, Marvin Bell. (NOT the Dead Man poems, which are entirely different and IMO tedious.) Actually, very much Marvin Bell. You can see a few of his poems here:

http://www.poemhunter.com/marvin-bell/

To Dorothy and The Self and the Mulberry, especially, I think you might like among those here.

From:

the_rck

Thanks for the link! I'll take a look.

From:

retsuko

I enjoy the Everyman's Pocket Library series for poetry, especially the books grouped around themes instead of individual authors. If you can get ahold of those, they're really good reads.

I hope your pain gets less/more bearable. [[[hugs]]]

From:

the_rck

My library has about a dozen in that series, so I've put them on my list to try. Well, I left off the haiku book because I already know that I don't parse haiku very well. I'm not willing to do the work that would be required get a feel for haiku.

From:

laurajv

giving birth skewed my pain scales, I gotta say. last time I was asked for a pain measurement (a few weeks ago for a hand injury) I said "well, uh, i've given birth twice, so..."

From:

the_rck

I find having given birth useful in terms of nailing down what I mean by my pain ratings. Pretty much all the medical professionals I've dealt with, male and female, get that labor is painful, very painful. If I say that giving birth is a six and about the same as the sort of migraine where I want to throw up and can't move at all because of the pain and that I've never experienced anything worse, they realize that 7-10 are reserved for the sort of pain that doesn't happen along in normal life. That makes them take me more seriously when I say something is a four or a five.

The thing that skews the pain scale for me is fibromyalgia. For me, zero isn't no pain because no pain is a ridiculous, impossible concept. Zero is pain that isn't-- quite-- bad enough to make me wish that I had medication that helped.

From:

kyrielle

There's a pain scale based on function, and I seriously wish more professionals would use it. Unmedicated labor/birth is in the 7-8 range for me. I've experienced what I would call a 10 (I don't see the point in a scale whose values aren't used), but fortunately for my sanity it was a point pain both times, not an ongoing one. An ongoing pain of that level would be...I don't want to experience it.

From:

the_rck

That sounds useful. The normal scale has the problem for me that I can imagine a lot of pain. A lot. That means I end up leaving a lot of space at the higher end of the scale and getting highly compressed at the lower end.

From:

adrian-turtle.livejournal.com

I share your taste in poetry. (I like it. It's got a good beat and you can dance to it. [And my mother disapproves!]) Reading out loud definitely helps, and I first met some of my favorites when they were set to music. It's easy to find people singing Kipling. I also think you'd enjoy listening to Diane Taraz singing "Now," and "The Children's Hour."

More generally, you might want to try W.H. Auden. Or Adrienne Rich (but don't read "Yom Kippur 1984" when Scott and Cordelia go spend Cordelia with his family and you stay home. I think you should stay home...just don't read that poem on that afternoon.

And here's one that might amuse you, though it isn't good. (It's been called the worst poem in the language, but it has great rhythm. And isn't depressing, despite the body count.) It's by McGonagall, and it's about the railway bridge over the river Tey.

From:

the_rck

I'm almost certain that you were the one who first introduced me to Millay.

I'll look into Diane Taraz. Thank you for the recommendation.

I'll put Auden and Rich on my list on the library website (I love being able to make lists there. It's so very, very useful!).

I'm pretty definite that I'm not going. I just wish... Scott made it pretty clear last night that he really, really wants me to be able to go. He won't make me or try to make me feel guilty about it, but he'll be unhappy that I can't. ::sighs:: My next step, after lunch, is to call Scott's mother and tell her. Then, I probably better call Scott's sister and tell her that I may not be able to attend our niece's birthday gathering on Saturday. I don't think that our niece will actually miss me, fortunately.

From:

adrian-turtle.livejournal.com

I thought you introduced ME to Millay! In any case, she's great.

Here is the McGonagall poem I was thinking of.
http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/gems/the-tay-bridge-disaster

You might actually want to try Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. The original is a different kind of poetry, but Heaney does something you might like.

From:

the_rck

Huh. I'm really not sure on the Millay. I know that, during college, I bought some of her books. I suppose I might have done that based on encountering one or two of her poems elsewhere, earlier. I remember that one books, a collection of sonnets, was remaindered; the other two were used and kind of battered.

Maybe I bought those battered books in high school, at the Good Will store? I have a suspicion that they would have been too expensive for me at Dawn Treader (and, also, shelved in a part of the store I never went into).