the_rck

We've gotten me a walker with a seat. I only found one model that could handle my weight, and it has a lot of drawbacks that we're still figuring out how to work around. I suspect that we aren't going to find anything with fewer issues, different ones, maybe but not fewer.

I'm not using it as a walker. I can't because I can't put weight through the palms of my hands or my wrists/elbows/shoulders. I'll never be able to use a walker or a cane or crutches of any sort.

The wheels move well enough that I can keep it going with my index fingers. The difficulty is that, no matter how I push the walker, the vibration of the wheels on concrete and asphalt hurts every joint in my hands and wrists. I have one set of splints that helps, but they hurt differently and are both bright pink and difficult to wash.

We've added padding to the handles in hopes of mitigating the problem, but I can only walk for a few minutes before I have to stop and rest my hands. I can limit the vibrational pain by placing my fists on top of the handles and holding my wrists rigid directly over them, but my elbows and shoulders don't like the resulting awkwardness in how I stand. I can't tolerate that contortion for any longer than I can tolerate the vibration. I suppose that combining them extends my pushing time.

I'm pretty sure that rubber wheels would help at least a little. The current wheels are hard plastic. I'm not sure replacing them is feasible, though. I'll ask Scott to look into it because he'd have to do the work.

The walker doesn't have any sort of brake that can be set before sitting. There are hand brakes that are for-- Well, I have no idea what. Do people actually use walkers in a way that would make hand brakes (which are not reachable when one is seated) a desirable feature?

Pulling the walker along after me by hooking fingers on the crossbar involves a lot less vibration (but not none) but decreases my ability to steer and to otherwise control the walker. It ends up banging into my heels a lot.

I've taken the walker out four times since we got it, and I really would like to use it more. Having the ability to sit whenever I need to would help vastly because sitting for a while and then walking again is the best way to tell the difference between my muscles being wobbly but more or less fine and my muscles being wobbly because I'm on the verge of longer term damage. I won't be able to use it on grass (which I hesitate to walk on anyway because I turn my ankles way too often) or on any of the walking trails around here (those are too narrow). Part of the reason for the ramp out back is for me to be able to get the walker to the driveway without having to pick it up.

(I probably could if I didn't use my hands, but it's heavier than I hoped for when I started looking.)

I don't think that me taking walks again will do anything about my blood sugar; it never did before. It's just that it would be amazing to have the option to walk without worrying about getting stuck three blocks from home because I had to sit on the ground and now am not sure I can get up and walk home.

The walker also won't be useful if there's any ice/snow as I won't be able to rely on clear pavement for it unless I'm in the street (and even then...). The lack of brakes will mean that parking it for sitting can only happen where the pavement is completely clear.

I ordered some rubber doorstop wedges to put under the wheels for when I stop and am not sure of the incline (one of the necessary Amazon purchases last week). Friction is of limited help if the incline is more than a few degrees. There's a storage bag under the seat, and I'm thinking I could carry the wedges there. They're not that expensive, not for proof of concept. If necessary, I can get something better once I know that wedging the wheels is feasible.

My feet don't reach the ground when I sit on the walker seat. They do land nicely at the right height to rest on top of the wheels on that side, and I'm hoping that that will also provide some braking.

Using the handles and pushing the walker in front of me, even if it's with one hand or with a single finger on each hand, helps my balance a bit. Usually, for that, I rely on the weight of my purse or a bag hanging from my elbow, forearm, or hand. Three plus pounds on one side or the other or on both keeps my mid-back from wobbling in ways that make each step considerably harder and increase the odds of negative post-walk effects.

I haven't worked out the best way to carry my purse with the walker. I can tell that it will be a challenge, so I haven't tried it yet. I expect to need to tomorrow.

( Cordelia, tests, college applications )

Scott and I took our ballots to city hall as soon as he got home on Monday. We'd had them ready since the preceding Thursday, but Monday was the first good opportunity for us to go into town. We saw other people walking toward city hall with their ballots in hand, too.

The drop box was just inside the front doors and padlocked shut and in place. To be honest, the box appeared to be paper covered cardboard, so the security precautions seemed inadequate as anything more than delays. I suppose that delay was really all that was needed.

( Medical tests )

I finished the blood draw part of Wednesday at about 2:30 and decided to walk to a nearby park so that I could eat the food I'd brought and drink from my water bottle without worrying about taking off my mask in a closed space. I had hand sanitizer with me and used it before I ate (which made the dried pineapple taste nasty even with several minutes wait before eating).

After that, I decided to walk a bit farther. I stopped once or twice to rest. I should have stopped completely and much sooner because, when Scott called me, around 4:00. I wasn't in a location where I could easily sit and wait for him. I also wasn't up to walking the rest of the way home.

Part of the difficulty was a lack of sidewalk in a spot where I'd expected there to be some (also a lack of walkable grass beside the street) and part was much heavier traffic on the street than I'd expected to encounter. I think it was due to two different construction detours, one of which I'd known about but hadn't connected and other I hadn't.

I suggested that Scott meet me at the cemetery nearby because I knew there were benches. I had to walk another four blocks to get there, and then Scott couldn't locate it and circled the area for quite a long time. Part of that was that he trusted Life360 to lead him to me, and it has an error radius of about two blocks. Part of that was him not trying to locate the cemetery because he 'didn't know how many there were.'

I forgot that he doesn't know those neighborhoods at all because he doesn't walk them.

I'm still sore from that walk. The soreness surprised me because I'm used to being sore the day of and having it ease over night. Admittedly, it's been many months since I walked anything like that long.

On the plus side, while I was tired during the walk, I didn't have any trouble breathing, even with the mask on. I was concerned about that because I have been having breathing trouble at home, off and on, for months and because I had breathing trouble when Scott and I went to drop off our ballots. Given that that walk involved only four blocks, I had been concerned. (My suspicion is that I walk faster with him than I would on my own. He's a foot taller than I am, and that matters.)

Last night, we went to Kensington Metropark so that Cordelia could get some driving time (and some night time driving time!) and so that Scott and I could walk a bit. There were a few people exiting the trail when we were in the parking lot, so we loitered until they passed.

There were a number of unclaimed Ingress portals nearby. We probably didn't spend even 20 minutes walking, and a lot of that was us standing and placing resonators. Scott also recorded the sounds from one of the ponds we passed. I'm assuming those were frogs.

That was about as long as Cordelia was willing to wait, and it was true dark by then. Cordelia took the long way out of the park (the road's a loop).

I wish that I had a way to get to some of these places on my own. I'd like walking new trails, both for the novelty and for the Ingress portals.

Right at the moment, Niantic, the company that runs Ingress, has changed the rules so that it's easier to play without going outside. They're counting recharging resonators, which can be done from a distance, toward the Sojourner badge in place of hacking portals which requires getting within a certain distance of the portal. They've decreased the length of time between hacks of a single portal (usually 5 minutes) to 90 seconds and raised the number of hacks a person can make on a portal before it burns out to 16.

( Food frustration and allergies )

It's been a long month. I've written a few posts and then not gotten around to posting them. At this point, I'd have to edit so extensively that it doesn't seem worth my time to make an effort to get those to the point of being postable.

( The disability review/appeal stuff )

Earlier this month, evalerie came over and provided help and moral support while Scott and I got everything out of the bathroom cupboards and I decided what to keep and what went where. I think we got rid of more than half of what was in there, possibly as much as 75% of it.

I now know where everything is in there, and our cleaning lady is no longer putting things I need in places I can't reach.

( The eye related stuff )

( Experimenting with workarounds for physical issues )

( Scott's )

I'm a little frustrated because I have a very small window of time when I'm alone in the house and can work on things I find physically difficult or can easily watch DVDs or listen to CDs or audiobooks. (No, headphones, earbuds, etc. are not an option.) The watching and listening thing is not helped by the fact that the CD/DVD drive on my laptop has decided to die. Judging by how it sounds and what happens, I suspect a mechanical failure.

( Computer stuff )

The bloodwork before my doctor's appointment last week shows that my A1c is up, so I'm going to have to work on that. Being able to go outside would help considerably. At this point, I can handle the bright light, but ice underfoot is still potentially an issue. I usually fall due to ice at least once each winter, and I would really rather avoid it if I can.

I have one exchange assignment still to complete. Chocolate Box 2020 is due on the 7th of February, and I've barely started writing. I have an unrevealed story in the Past Imperfect collection. I've also got a list of a dozen one shot WIP that I think I might be able to finish if I just give them a hard push for a few days. My current plan is to work on those rather than signing up for any other exchanges. I may take pinch hits or write treats, but I'd very much like to get these things done and posted.

I've gotten a couple of 'it's so sad this will never be finished' comments on Rheotaxis this month. It's made me look at it and wonder if I ever will go back to it. I know how it ends (I have a draft of a final chapter so I know where I'm aiming). I know what happens after. It's just been years since I worked on it. My style has changed a good bit, and I still don't know how to make that next chapter work.

I spent yesterday rereading an rp that hopeofdawn and I did years and years ago. It was a post-Rheotaxis thing, and I think it was a good story. We never finished it because the things we were interested in playing out diverged too much (I like writing claustrophobic discussion scenes, and she likes writing action scenes).

I'm a little tempted to see if I could pummel those chapters into something postable on AO3 or if Hope would be interested in working on it with me. I'm not sure it would work well because rp relies on the head hopping being okay. The scenes would lose a lot from being put into a single limited 3rd person POV, and I'm not good at putting that sort of thing into an omniscient 3rd. There are also gaps in the story that we left because they would have involved one person writing solo due to which characters each of us wrote.

I don't know if anyone would want to read that even if I did write it up. I don't know if I could come up with an ending that was even remotely satisfying.

I feel like there are a lot of interesting stories out there that don't end up archived because they're written as an rp narrative.

Today was two appointments and a lot of walking. I feel like I got very little done. I still haven’t finished the paperwork, and at least one thing that’s due this week is still only in bus pass condition.

For Ingress, I’m getting closer to the badges I need. I need one to make 12th level. Then, all I need for 13th is a single additional gold badge. I have the necessary points already.

As far as PT, I really wish that I could see this woman once every month or every three or six months. It would help with management and mitigation. These aren’t fixable problems. It’s just that me on my own means I don’t have a way to tell when things slowly change for the worse. It’s the boiling frog thing. It’s also hard to tell which gradual changes are just normal aging. I realized today that the hand issue is more about that bone not being anchored at the bottom than about joint pain. When I’m not careful, the bone tries to go away from whatever presses on that part of my hand. This doesn’t affect movements that only need the knuckle joints of the thumb. I’m pretty sure that surgery is going to be my only hope for improvement.

Yesterday I made myself cry by removing pillowcases for washing. I had to ask Cordelia to put the clean ones on.

Scott’s father arrived around 10:00 this morning. He mostly worked on pruning. I’d hoped to get him to focus on the raised beds in front of the house, but he didn’t touch them. He’s of the opinion that we’re organizing our garage Wrong.

He drove me to my appointment this afternoon. We discovered on the way that there’s construction on State St. It didn’t affect our route getting there, but it complicated my trip home because it meant that the bus I wanted was seriously detoured.

This appointment was a referral for biofeedback and meditation to make my muscles relax. After getting a bunch of readings on my trapezius muscles and my neck, she said she couldn’t do anything for me. My muscles are tight but not tense. She seemed to find that very weird. She’s going to talk to my physical therapist to see if the PT has suggestions for things she might usefully do for me. If not, we’ll cancel.

I hope that I can point to this in the future to avoid doctors telling me that my pain will improve if I relax. This tightness may not be something I can do much about because my joints will give out before my muscles stretch. This is also not a problem of my muscles being too weak.

I decided that I didn’t want to cross Eisenhower after the appointment, so I walked along it toward S. Industrial. That was where the detoured bus was going. I wandered further and ended up catching the inbound Packard bus instead of either of the S. Industrial buses. I walked between four and five kilometers.

I’d probably have walked farther if it had been earlier in the day.

Yesterday, I did a lot of Ingress because I had four hours between appointments. I managed enough missions to get my gold badge for Spec Ops. I had meant only to get closer to done than I'd started. I knew there were six missions in the cemetery between the hospital (where I had PT) and central campus. There were also a lot of portals back there that I'd never hacked or captured.

I spent about two hours wandering the roads there. I think there was only one portal that needed stepping onto the grass (I was avoiding doing that mostly because the ground was seriously soggy. I really didn't want to fall), and I probably could have found an approach to it that wouldn't have needed that, but it would have been a lot of extra walking.

I'd intended to catch the bus to downtown from in front of the cemetery, but I just missed it. Instead of standing for 15-20 minutes to wait for the next one, I walk a couple of blocks to the main campus bus stop that has lots of benches (about a dozen different routes intersect there, some city buses and others university buses).

When I got downtown, I bought a late lunch before my appointment. I considered not getting anything, but I was hungry. The things I'd brought with me were simply what I could pull together without opening the fridge or cooking anything. I got a sandwich at Which Wich.

My psychiatrist wants me to keep experimenting with the CBD lotion. She said that I may find something more systemic more useful but that most of the common delivery methods carry risks for me because of my food/additive sensitivities and asthma. She thinks it worth trying, though. She just wants me to bear in mind that the label information may not accurately reflect what's in the product. Sometimes, things will say that there's no THC but still contain enough of that to make someone high.

The appointment finished at 4:15, and the bus I wanted was leaving at 4:18 with the next one at 4:48. It probably would have been sensible to go to the bus station and sit to wait, but I did two more Ingress missions instead. I still caught the next bus; I just caught it several stops away from the station.

I still need one more gold badge to get to 12th level in Ingress. I have the points for 13th. That will require earning an additional gold badge, but I'm very close to a couple of those, both of which just need me to go to downtown or central campus or some place similarly portal dense, over and over and over.

By the time I got home yesterday, I was very stiff, and my joints were wanting to set like concrete whenever I stopped moving. I showered not long after I got home (the timing was bad for doing it immediately). That helped a little bit but only while I was under the hot water.

I ended up not doing my lying on the floor PT exercise because I was completely certain that I wouldn't be able to get back up again. I haven't decided about it for this morning yet. I'm better, but I'm not sure I'm that much better.

We've lost power twice in the last couple of days. It was out when we got back from lunch at Palm Palace on Sunday, and it went out yesterday morning while I was trying to take care of some things before heading out to my appointment. I had a good hour and a half before I needed to leave, but most of the food preparation I'd wanted to do fell by the wayside. I packed some food, anyway, but it wasn't what I'd hoped for.

The DTE website showed the same map for the outage yesterday as it had for the one on Sunday, so I'm assuming that it was the same problem. It was kind of a flat triangle that, on its longest side, went a block or two west of us and a block or two east. It's possible that the reports were skewed because it went in the direction of the school and a church, neither of which necessarily had people inside to notice.

Today's mammogram day. I'm about to take an Ativan and get dressed. I've got an hour and a half before I need to leave, but I also need to find my bathrobe. The robes they have there scratch horribly enough that I'd really rather just sit in the waiting room topless. Once I've done that, I'll decide whether or not I have time to cook the chicken burgers (I meant to do it before PT yesterday). It would be nice to take a lunch with me since I'll be there for at least three hours (two appointments).

I'm still having trouble walking today. I didn't expect that because, usually, even when I do that much walking, the pain doesn't last this long. My feet are aching when I put weight on them, and my calf muscles are still cramping.

I had to make a trip to Kroger today (I needed eggs, and we only had one), and I wanted to do more walking around. I even planned it so as to have manageable bits, even with the aches and cramps, but the bus was detoured. There was a train broken down and blocking the only connecting road, so the bus just skipped a big chunk of its route.

I had intended to get off by the Traverwood library, return some things, and then walk the rest of the way to Kroger. The detour meant that I was carrying the full library bag through my entire shopping expedition. By the time I was done shopping, they'd cleared the train, so I walked to the library and emptied that bag, but it wasn't a happy trip because I had a bag of groceries, a bag of library stuff, my purse, my water bottle, and still another bag with just the carton of eggs.

Fortunately, I only had to wait about five minutes for the bus home from the library. I just wished that my holds were at Traverwood. I still have to go downtown for those at some point this week. I have PT on Thursday, but I wouldn't normally go downtown after that. Whether or not I do will likely depend on how I feel after the appointment. I want to carry the equipment that I use for my daily exercises with me to the appointment, and I don't much want to add library things for the return trip.

Scott and Cordelia tried to do most of the birthday stuff for me on Saturday, the day before my birthday, because we were scheduled to spend Sunday with Scott's parents and his sister and her family (minus the kid at college). We had lunch with everyone on Sunday at Scott's parents place, and then most of the group watched the Indy 500 while Cordelia and I read our books.

Monday, my lower back spasmed. I needed help with standing up and with getting out of bed. I couldn't stand for very long, either. I remembered the stretches I needed, but they only help incrementally. The first time I did them, I couldn't get up off the floor without Scott to help me. I weigh enough that I don't think Cordelia could have.

Tuesday, the spasmed had decreased enough that I could do things if I was careful, so I took care of some chores. Yesterday, I was still hurting enough that I took a cab to my appointment instead of taking the bus the way I'd meant to. I ended up walking around a bit after that because walking didn't hurt and then took a bus to central campus. I walked to the South University post office and finally mailed my hair to the charity that does wigs for kids in Michigan.

I got bubble tea for myself and for Cordelia, and I played some Ingress. I misread the details of one mission enough that I ended up going a couple of blocks out of my way as I headed for the bus home. I also ended up detouring to the library when I realized that my water bottle was empty and that it was time to take my thyroid medicine. The bus I wanted was pulling up to the station at about the time I went inside the library. I don't think I could have made it even if I'd skipped both the Ingress mission and the medication.

At least the timing worked out so that I could drink my bubble tea as soon as I got home.

We had a session of Scott's Firefly game last night. It had been a while, so we all had to remind each other of details from the last couple of sessions. It'll be at least a month before we can play again because two of the players will be at Origins next time. The rest of us will keep going with the Betrayal Legacy game.

I was awake and functional during the game session which kind of surprised me given all of the walking earlier in the day. My back was semi-okay until I lay down on the floor to do PT after our guests had gone home. I'm not sure if that's just when my muscles decided to announce that four-ish hours of walking is not what's good for a spasming back or if it was entirely me trying to do the stretch for my neck which involves tennis balls under my head for a minute or three, but it spasmed again as I sat up.

I managed to stand up on my own anyway (I wanted to be able to test that before trying it while at home alone this morning). This morning, I made Scott and Cordelia manage without me so that I could get a little extra sleep. I needed it pretty badly. My lower back is still twinging, off and on, but it's not as bad as Monday or even last night.

I'm hoping that I can make Scott clean out the dryer vent today in spite of the rain. He washed his two winter coats on Monday and didn't manage to clean out all of the pockets. Those coats have a lot of pockets, so that part doesn't worry me. The part I'm cranky about is that he found bits of tissues all over the coats and the inside of the washer and still put the coats into the dryer.

There were a lot of paper scraps when I opened up the dryer on Tuesday. I'm not running the damned thing until Scott cleans that duct. We're due for it anyway, and there was so much of it that there has to have been a good bit that got past the lint screen. We have four loads of laundry stacked up and waiting. Because I'm short, I can't get at the dratted thing, even if my hands would do the work, and Cordelia's no taller than I am. I don't like the idea of her standing on the dryer to try to get at things.

My state i.d. arrived in the mail, and my goodness my shortened hair is floofy. When it's not wet, the ends spread a pretty long way out from my head. Measuring with my hands at ear level, it goes a bit wider than the length of my middle finger. It's still flat above the ears, probably due to the weight of the hair.

I got my hair cut today. I have a big ziploc full of what was cut off because I'm probably going to donate it. The lady who cut my hair did five or six chunks, each with a small rubberband at the top. She suggested a Michigan specific charity that does wigs for kids. I had started looking online a couple of days ago, but I'd backed away when I realized that I was still dithering about getting it cut to begin with. Deciding what to do with it after seemed premature.

I think I may need to get it cut shorter than where it is now. It's too short to put back, and, really, I can't manage putting anything back any more, anyway, so growing it out won't help. At the current length, just below my ears, it's still long enough to blow across my eyes in a way that makes it very hard for me to see. I can't use barrettes because every type I've ever tried just slides right out.

What do those of you with hair this length do when your hands are full and you need to cross a street?

I walked part of the way to the mall where I got my hair cut. I ended up making a couple of side trips that I didn't plan on and that left me more tired than I'd hoped to be. It's a bad thing to realize that one's on the edge of overdoing when in the middle of a large park that's a very long way from the nearest bus stop (I had to walk another 20 minutes to reach a road that had bus service). I think I kept diverting onto trails I'd never tried because I didn't really want to get to the mall to begin with.

I'm not sure Scott and Cordelia believed that I would do it, but it's done. It needed doing. I just feel weird and not really myself now. I'll get used to it, but long hair has been part of how I view myself for as long as I can remember, and I've always loved my hair, so it's... complicated.