the_rck

Two things I forgot earlier--

I've figured out that plus size thigh high socks are good covers for my neck pillows. I have trouble putting them on and taking them off, and there are issues with them pulling the pillows out of shape, but the washability aspect is important. Cotton stockings are also much better able to handle the velcro and other scratchy bits from my thumb splints. I don't like the itchiness against the skin of my neck, but I don't think I'm going to find a better solution.

I experimented with an old pair that I bought on sale to see if I liked them (I didn't). When those worked, I bought two pairs that I hoped would be easier to put on and take off. The two new pairs are easier that way but still not easy enough for me to be able to do it without help (or without doing it over the course of a day or three).

I can get around the pulling the pillow out of shape by tweaking the fabric on the inner side of the pillow. If I shorten that by making folds, the shape of the pillow is better. I just have to keep redoing the folds. Not ideal, but possible. Alternatively, I can tie or pin the ends of the stocking together to force the pillow to pull close. I don't like that because I prefer the pillow looser, more reminder to keep things properly in line than support.

I talked to my mother for a while yesterday, too. She and my stepfather are in Michigan. They made the drive up from Baton Rouge shortly after the quarantine started because they didn't see the trip becoming easier later. They spent the night in a rental cabin on their way up. They've stayed there multiple times before and trust the owner on the cleaning front; they also knew that she was having trouble finding people to rent the space.

They don't currently have reliable internet, just random bits of service that last a few minutes at a time. They're having a hard time filling hours because of it. They don't have paper books in that house, and the libraries are closed.

Mom says that my brother is still working. He's just being very careful about it and isn't transporting clients in his vehicle (which is a normal part of the job since he's supposed to make sure they get to appointments). His boss very adamantly wants them back to business as usual by the middle of this month because he sincerely believes that the danger is exaggerated.

I'd have more sympathy if his argument was that their clients are all at risk for serious issues without their services. That is true enough that my brother is still doing some home visits and a lot of tele-visits. (He's a social worker. His agency provides support for people with some combination of developmental disabilities, mental health issues, and substance abuse issues. The normal work involves making sure that prescriptions get filled, tracking appointments (both scheduling and attending), checking to make sure that clients have groceries and are taking care of themselves physically, helping with transportation, general life management stuff. Most of the clients can manage all of that on their own most of the time; it's just that someone has to pay attention so that, when things go bad, the client can get more support/help and be safe.)

I ran the dishwasher and baked the banana bread. I might end up needing to do another load of dishes tomorrow because of the banana bread. I got the trash and recycling to the curb. I think I managed not to contaminate myself during the process of gathering up Scott's used tissues. I washed my hands several times during the process and didn't touch my face at all.

I need to put off part of the laundry until after Scott gets home. Scott only has one pair of trousers that fit, and there's some challenge to catching him at a point when he can do without them long enough for me to wash and dry them. I prefer doing laundry when it's just me at home, but I can't as long as he only has the one pair. He doesn't want to buy more. I think he keeps hoping that he'll start losing weight and be able to put those other pairs on again.

I managed to start my Wayback Exchange story this morning. 253 words. I think I know where I'm going with it, so I'm hoping it will flow naturally from here.

I'm thinking that I need to talk to my doctor about possibly trying surgery for my hands. They told me, way back, that that was an option but that it would weaken my grip. At this point, I have no reliable ability to grip if my thumb's involved. Some days, I can remove and replace my c-pap reservoir; some days, I can't because my hands won't grip at all. They also mentioned steroidal shots as a one time thing they could try, but I can't imagine those actually helping since the problem has more to do with a bone that's no longer properly connected than it does with inflammation.

At least I can type without aggravating anything.

Scott wants me to watch The Dragon Prince, so we sat down and watched the first season together. I enjoyed it, but it really, really underlined that I need glasses that will accommodate five minutes of looking at the TV then two minutes of looking at my laptop with glances at the TV.

I can't always read captioning without my distance glasses. How much of a problem that is varies from show to show, but I also lose details of acting and sets and such without glasses. I don't like to watch streaming things on my laptop because doing that means I can't do the other things I would like to do with the laptop. Watching on my phone isn't ever going to work because the screen is too damned small (which is also why I don't read long things on my phone).

I tried today bra-free, and it was less uncomfortable than wearing a bra was yesterday or any time in the past week. I'm going to see if it's okay going forward. Mainly, I think that, if I do it, I'll need to do the lymphatic massage on the post-surgery breast several times a day. Wearing a bra decreases that need, and lying down in order to do it is a PITA, but I'd much rather do that than deal with the constant discomfort.

There's no school tomorrow, so Cordelia and I get another day to sleep in. I'm not sure how we'll adjust to consecutive school days being a thing that happens this week. At least, I assume it will happen.

I tried the propranolol again today because I knew we'd be having lunch out. As far as I can tell, it made no difference in terms of my tremor. At least, if this was a decrease, I'd hate to see how bad it would be without the medication, but it was at about the level I'd expect it to be unmedicated.

I did finally connect wanting to plant my elbow firmly on the table with that support decreasing the tremor because it limits the tremor to my hand and wrist. Leaning forward to minimize the distance between my mouth and my bowl/plate helps, too.

It was 11F yesterday when I went out for my appointment. I discovered that I don't have gloves that will fit over my thumb splints. Fortunately, my coat pockets are warm enough to protect my hands. It just makes carrying my purse harder because it ends up hanging off my wrist. I have no idea why down coats don't have some sort of shoulder patch that will provide some sort of friction to hold a strap.

I played some Ingress in spite of the cold. That took me from gold Trekker to platinum. I'll likely get onyx eventually, but that's another 1500 kilometers, so it won't happen soon. I still need two more gold badges, and I expect I'll be months about that. Even if I was able to go out every day for as long as I did yesterday, it would take months.

I need to figure out better insulation for my boots. They're basically waterproof hiking boots. I bought them for the traction and the ankle support because I was afraid of falling while walking Cordelia to and from school. They're still excellent at that, but my feet get pretty cold in them.

I wore two pairs of socks yesterday, but I don't own any heavy socks because I haven't been able to find anything without animal fiber that doesn't require more hand strength than I have. I used to have cotton rag socks, but they killed my hands, even 15 years ago. I can't tolerate animal fibers or bamboo.

Animal fibers, every kind I've tried, make me itch and itch and scratch until I bleed. Bamboo, oddly, makes me sneeze. I love the feel of bamboo, but when I tried crocheting with it, I had a full on respiratory allergy response, including runny nose and watering eyes.

I slept better last night. I threw everything I could think of at the headache and turned out the light as early as I could. It wasn't as early as I wanted-- Scott and Cordelia watch Legends of Tomorrow at 9 p.m. on Mondays, and Cordelia wants me awake after that.

I took Tylenol, Amerge at about 9:00 and Sudafed and naproxen about 7:00. I was aiming the naproxen at my headache, but it actually helped with the sinus itching a bit. Possibly the anti-inflammatory part helped? I used my electric heating pad on my shoulders and neck, and that helped some, too.

I think about all I managed to do yesterday was my PT. I tried to nap but couldn't quite get there. I turned off the ringer on my cell phone because I get frequent spam calls, but having it off stressed me because it meant not knowing if Cordelia was trying to reach me.

I just checked the status of my absentee ballot online. It's marked as received, so I can stop worrying about that. I've also found out that the USPS will deliver absentee ballots even with no/insufficient postage. Voters are expected to pay postage, but if they fail to, the USPS will charge the postage shortfall to a fund that the municipality has to have available for that purpose.

I finally added up my writing numbers for the month to date. I'm at 14365 words for October. That's above my lowest monthly word count this year but still not what I hoped for. For most of the prompts, I wrote about 150 words, just barely starting much longer stories. I'm interested in finishing all of those but not sure what will happen.

I have not finished my DC mini bang story. That was supposed to be posted yesterday. It's currently about 9K and not near done. There are a couple of amnesty posting days; I'll have to look them up and see if I can manage by then. I need to put it on a back burner, though, because I will be running my UCon games on the 9th and 10th of November. I have to actually have everything prepared and printed and organized by the evening of the 8th.

Right now, I'm thinking that I may go with Cowboy Bebop for setting details. Rewatching that and taking notes won't be a huge burden. I can tweak as needed and steal things from Firefly and from The Expanse. I just don't much want to (re)watch either of those.

I may crowdsource some of the character creation work. I know the roles I need the characters to fill. I'm just kind of blanking on appropriate skills. Also, real people should have a couple of things they're knowledgeable about or moderately good at that have nothing to do with their jobs or that only relate tangentially. Since I want the players to buy in, maybe I should just offer them those skill slots as fill in the blank things with numbers already assigned?

Part of me thinks that we should cancel our hotel room and just drive back and forth, but me running games so early in the mornings and Scott running well into the night makes that less feasible. I'm mainly looking at the expense of the hotel room. We have about four necessary to pay bills that would be better uses for the money. Scott put the quarterly car insurance payment last month on his credit card and put off paying a medical bill (which has now doubled because it's an ongoing thing, roughly the same cost every damned month. I'm not sure why he was surprised by that).

I'm not sure where Christmas gift money will come from this year. I think I've already spent what we might reasonably budget for me. Scott didn't tell me how tight things were, and I ended up buying some things from sock dreams, all on sale, because I needed to buy more sock glue. Wearing pretty socks is a psychological boost for me, and I don't regret having them. I just wouldn't have spent the money if I'd realized.

I need to buy some new trousers. The ones I currently have are still wearable but only marginally. Some have small holes (they're cotton blend knit fabric. Small round holes are the usual failure mode for that fabric) while others have elastic so weak that I don't dare carry my cell phone in my pocket when I go outside. I'll put them on my Christmas wishlist, but Scott's parents won't buy them because they can't get them on Amazon, and Scott won't buy them because they're no fun and because I already spent that money.

Cordelia pretty certainly needs glasses. She passed the eye exam for getting her learner's permit, but she's noticing that she has trouble seeing certain things on the board in math and science. We won't have vision coverage until January, so I'm hoping she can manage somehow. I pulled out my distance glasses, and she says they help but give her a headache if she wears them for too long. I suggested that she take them to school and just wear them when she really, really needs them. She's already getting headaches from straining to make out what's on the board.

After UCon, I'll start looking into getting her an appointment for her eyes. Ideally, an appointment in early January. I need to get my eyes checked around then and then bite the bullet to get progressives. I'm concerned that I'll have problems using progressives because I shift position and, thus, reading angle/distance about every ten minutes. Not doing that isn't an option for the rest of my body. Last year, the ophthalmologist told me that there's no way to get progressives that will work with that, and that's a big reason I haven't bothered.

I'm also very hesitant to mail order progressives based on the measurements Scott and I figured out for me when I bought reading glasses. The pupil distance being a millimeter or two off for glasses I use a couple of times a week doesn't matter so much. Also $20 glasses. Progressives cost more, and I'd be wearing them most of the time.

( Writing to do list )

When Cordelia leaves, I'll move into the living room and put some Cowboy Bebop in and start taking notes.

( Non-writing to do list )

I've spent most of today reading. I had a migraine last night, and I got hit with another headache about 4 p.m. today. I don't think it's a migraine, but it's so hard to tell. Taking Amerge helped yesterday's headache, taking it down several notches, so I think there was a migraine component.

I slept about 8.5 hours last night because I took the maximum prescribed dose of the Halcion (usually, I take half the dose). I was worried that, with the remnants of the migraine, I wouldn't sleep at all. Headaches tend to keep me awake.

Scott and Cordelia went to Target so that Cordelia could pick out some jeans. She hasn't previously cared enough about what she wears to be willing to go shopping. While they were out, Scott took some things to the Salvation Army. The stuff they wouldn't take, he pitched because, of the options for donating, they're the most willing to take anything. Right now, the PTO Thrift Shop has a long list of things they won't take more of.

Our SIL from Seattle will be coming into town the first weekend in October for a medical school reunion. I have to test the air mattress to see if it's developed any leaks in the years since we needed it last. I pretty much expect that we'll have to replace it because we pretty much have to each time we have an overnight guest (once every 2-5 years).

Actually, I'm not even sure where the dratted thing is. The basement is full of things that we need periodically that are too expensive to replace and of things with sentimental value and of things that we put aside to deal with later. There's a lot of stuff down there that we want to donate but can't until we find some missing part (for example, a kid targeted karaoke machine that we gave Cordelia for Christmas when she was six or seven that's complete except for the power cord).

I haven't written anything all week. I'm not sure what happened. I have a sort of nebulous urge to make a story but nothing that goes anywhere.

The headache doesn't help because I can't get a writing rhythm going when I want to close my eyes every minute or two. I touch type, so I could in theory write without opening my eyes, but... For some reason, I like being able to look at what I'm writing.

I slept late this morning. I just couldn't get out of bed. I was exhausted, and I had (and still have) bad cramps. I didn't think I'd be able to deal with today's appointments if I didn't get some sleep. I slept pretty solidly until Scott and Cordelia were ready to leave and then off and on for about an hour after that. I wanted more sleep at that point, but I also knew how much I needed to get done before 11:45.

evalerie is giving me a ride to the cancer center for my annual mammogram. I didn't see a point in her staying because they won't let anyone but patients into the waiting room if it's full, and it always is at 12:30. I've packed a flannel bathrobe because I'm not using the robes they've got. I no longer have the extra sensitivity from the cellulitis, but that new fabric felt terrible on the rest of my skin, too. I checked to make sure the flannel robe still fits, and it does.

I need to pack something that will do for lunch. I have a second appointment (radiation oncology follow up) that starts two hours after my mammogram does, and I'll need some sort of food for taking my lunch time medications.

What I really want to do is to go back to bed.

I've started a couple of treats for exchanges in the last couple of days, but I'm not confident they're going anywhere. I think that, with the Sky High AU, I got used to the words just mostly spilling out without me having to start and stop so much. Right now, I'm thinking that I'll start several different things and see which of them take fire. I haven't signed up for any exchanges, so it's all extras with no loss if they don't work or don't work by deadline.

I got a lot of stuff out of my closet yesterday. We had just enough bins in the basement for me to sort the stuff that had been hanging there into four categories. Well, the stuff I want/need to keep anyway. I have two trash bags of stuff to donate, one of things I think other people can wear and one of things that have large pieces of good cloth but are too worn at the hems, cuffs, collar, etc. to look nice. I have a small bin of my t-shirts and a small bin of the dress clothes that still fit. Then there are two bins for storing. The smaller has short sleeved dresses, things with sentimental value, and all of the shirts I'm not likely to wear again soon. The larger is entirely long sleeved dresses.

I'm not currently comfortable wearing long sleeved shirts or dresses because of my body temperature weirdness. I stopped wearing them when I had to have the lumpectomy and radiation. Getting the dresses on and off would have been too potentially damaging. I expect I'll go back to them eventually, and 90% of these are bespoke. I can't possibly afford to replace them.

I've also got a rather large number of wire hangers. I put those in one of our laundry baskets. I'll want them when I have a rod in my closet again. The old wooden one actually had snapped rather than coming loose. I think I'll leave the dresses in the bins at that point, though, because the closet is pretty small. I just had it packed both horizontally and vertically.

I found some dresses that no longer fit me but that do fit Cordelia. All three are fancy things that she considers pretty. I told her to hang them in her closet, but they're in a pile on the floor of her room. One of them is a bridesmaid's dress that I wore about 26 years ago. I hadn't even realized that I still had it.

Scott is considering a home equity line of credit to pay off our car loan. He says that we can get something with a much lower monthly payment if we go through the UM Credit Union. Paying $100 a month on the loan instead of $500 a month would cover 2/3 of Cordelia's monthly medical expenses.

We got the sheets changed today. I have laundry to sort and put away.

I'm wearing new shoes today which is really nice. I can actually tell the difference. Cordelia looked at them and was dubious that they'd fit because they look tighter than the old ones. She just doesn't remember the last time I got new loafers. They'll stretch. They always look like this at first.

These are a generous gift from a friend (I don't know if they wish to be named here. Let me know).

Cordelia has spent the afternoon with her middle school friends. Scott's gone to bring her home and to take her to the library. I had intended to go, but I got the timing wrong and kind of need to use the heating pad now.

I've got the heating pad across my shoulders and the ceiling fan going overhead. I've been kind of overheated today which is frustrating.

I used the c-PAP last night and the night before. I didn't wake with a headache either morning, but I am really exhausted today in spite of nine hours in bed last night.

I counted up my words of fiction for January, and I'm at about 41K. I'm beyond boggling on that because it's a new high mark. I suspect, though, that the count will come down as I start getting back the ability to do other things and want to spend time on those, too.

( Venting about health related stuff, including periods )

Something I ate yesterday hit me this evening. At least, I assume it was something from last night because breakfast was normal and lunch didn't actually happen. 24 hours is rather a long time for such a thing, but I wouldn't expect not eating to cause IBS-D/gas. It never has before.

I was having hand pain yesterday, so I wore my thumb splints off and on. I noticed that they were a little stinky, so I tried washing them today, cold water and Woolite. I wasn't sure they'd survive because I wasn't sure what the rigid bits were made from, but if I didn't try washing them, I'd need to buy replacements anyway. The firm bits still seem fine. I'll see what happens when they've had time to dry. They do seem to smell better, though.

Scott's mother wanted all cell phones put on a table in the other room during dinner. Many of the adults (including me) didn't, but we also didn't pull them out while seated for the meal. I don't know that forbidding the teenagers to use electronics during family gatherings makes them suddenly enthusiastic about being with grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. The three kids have never been interested in the same things or particularly close.

I fulfilled my unofficial role as the person for Scott's sister's MIL to jabber at. She doesn't stop talking. On and on and on. She's a nice woman, but no one else is willing to listen to her (the pregnancy and labor horror stories don't help at all, I'm sure), but listening isn't actually necessary as long as I act like I'm paying attention. I can't do anything else during it, though, now that I can't crochet. She's 80-ish, and being able to talk to someone who seems to be paying attention seems to make her happy. Why not? Scott thinks I'm sacrificing myself, but his mother won't bother me while I'm doing it the way she would if I were on my phone or if I had a book open (crocheting was acceptable, though).

I was exhausted by 7 p.m., but we didn't head home until after 8 p.m., and somehow I didn't turn out my light until midnight. At least I did some writing at that point.

I also tried to uninstall Ingress so I could try reinstalling to see if that would help my issues with it. I'm quite sure I remember downloading the app, but apparently it was built in for my model of phone, so I must not have done that. That meant that I couldn't uninstall it entirely. I deleted the data and uninstalled all the updates. After I reinstalled them, I had a slight improvement, but it will still just go inert and taken ten minutes or more to process things I try to do without wifi.

This makes using bursters better than trying to do anything else because I can stack them. Deploying resonators, hacking portals, making links, etc. are harder because I can only have one hack and one deploy in process at one time. Linking sometimes can't be done when other things are still pending and also tends not to complete with the huge lag. The problem with stacking bursters is that I have no idea how much of my stored energy I will lose with each one (enemy portals often drain energy from the attacker). Recharging from power cubes also takes forever to process. That can be stacked with bursters, but if I time it wrong, I lose some power or some burster effects (misfires eat my time for no reward).