the_rck

I have an unexpected free afternoon today. I was supposed to have my first appointment for vestibular PT today, but they called me to say that the therapist, after looking at my file, thinks they don't have the right equipment for my issues. So I'm being referred to still another clinic. I'll have to wait and see when that clinic can fit me in.

I wish they'd given me more notice, but I suppose I should be glad they let me know before I got to the hospital. Once I was there, I'd have been waiting for an ARide pickup almost three hours later.

At least it's at the same location. Technically, the Med Inn Bldg is separate from the main hospital, but logistically speaking, I get off the bus at the same place, go in the same door, do my Covid screening in the same place, and don't go outside again. I just have to go to a specific elevator that only serves the Med Inn Bldg. It's like how Taubman and the main hospital are technically different even though they're just two different directions from the main desk with no doors or separation. If you're in one or the other, you turn the corner and are suddenly officially in a different building.

I have purchased a pair of knee high compression socks and am wearing one on my left leg. They're toeless, so I don't think they'll give me athlete's foot (I can't wear anything but cotton around my toes if I want to avoid that; I also can't go without socks, even with slippers or sandals). Today is my second time wearing one, and the difference for my ankle and shin is immense. I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with things closer to the knee. The upper cuff for the sock lands awkwardly high (in terms of length, they had regular and tall but no petite) and presses on some parts of my leg that have been excruciatingly tender for years. At the moment, I've got some folded wash clothes in there to try to cushion things. One is definitely working; the other is not as helpful but is still better than without.

My first day wearing the sock was Saturday, and my ankle hasn't felt better at any point since the original injury last May. That carried over to yesterday, even without wearing the sock. I needed to ice parts of my knee yesterday and again this morning because they'd gotten very angry about where the cuff fell. I'm going to experiment this week to see what I can make work. I don't expect to be going out for any appointments until the 27th, so I might experiment with walking up and down the driveway just to see how it goes.

Because of my hand issues, the sock is difficult to get on and off. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to experiment a lot with cycling it on and off. Ace bandages are easier to put on and take off (while still not being easy), but much less comfortable to walk in and harder to place correctly.

Part of my reasoning for trying a compression sock is that the radiologist who read my x-ray (taken about 10 days after my fall) commented on the lymphedema. Since he only saw the x-ray, I take that as a sign that it was particularly noticeable.

My primary care doctor wants to try to get some PT set up in my home. The problem is that I'm in that horrible gap of being able to manage some trips out of the house but not enough trips to keep up with what I ought to be doing, appointment-wise. The Michigan Visiting Nurses don't work with people who can still physically go out for appointments.

Cordelia was home most of last week. Scott drove her back to campus today. Her morning class today was canceled, but she had rescheduled her dinner with my aunt and uncle for this evening (it was supposed to be last Thursday), and the last I knew, she still hadn't heard what was going on with tomorrow's classes. It's now at the point of being up to individual instructors with them having the option to go online or partly online. The university is also setting up to let students request medical withdrawals for the rest of the semester if they need them.

We had a friend over on Saturday. She and Scott watched a couple of episodes of TV while I sat off to one side and did my own thing. I listened and looked up occasionally, but I didn't want to risk actually watching because no show is worth a migraine.

Scott's birthday is this Friday. He floated the idea of me going with him to pick up Cordelia. Michigan State has a dairy store (it started as a primarily agricultural college and still has a lot of programs aimed that way) that apparently has amazing ice cream. Scott and Cordelia have been there, but I haven't had the opportunity. I don't think this is about it being The Best Ever as much as simply something that we wouldn't ordinarily do (since I don't drive up there with him, usually) but could without a lot of extra effort.

Scott and I have received our absentee ballots. I had been a little worried. The election isn't until the first week of August, but I want time to research. For most local offices, the primary is the deciding election, and I want to make an informed choice. I also want time to take long breaks between each bit of marking I have to do. Holding a pen well enough to control it hurts like hell, and it gets worse the longer I keep going. Fourteen sections will take a while.

I'm seriously considering asking either Scott or Cordelia to help me with the marking of my ballot, but that will involve extra paperwork in terms of documenting who they are, how they're related to me, and that they really and truly did exactly what I told them to do.

I had three face to face medical appointments in June. One was my mammogram, and the other two involved tests that also couldn't be done remotely (allergy and urology). The mammogram follow up with the cancer center clinician was done remotely. I understand why, but I'm unhappy about it because, five years ago, the lump didn't show on mammogram or ultrasound but could be found manually.

I need to schedule another allergy thing later in the year, but it's going to be difficult because I need two appointments, about 48 hours apart, and have no good way to get to the office. The nearest in-service bus stop is two miles away, and most of the distance doesn't have sidewalks (and is otherwise pedestrian unfriendly). I don't know when those buses will start running again.

The allergist said that three days between the appointments was too long as I might have serious adverse reaction to one or more of the patches. The testing that we were able to do at the appointment was the scratch test stuff which I didn't much feel that I needed but that my current doctors felt I did. My last test results were from the late 80s and are too difficult to retrieve even though I'm still in the same medical system. These results were exactly what I told them they'd be-- cats, trees, ragweed, mold, dust mites. In practice, I'm allergic to other mammals in addition to cats, but I don't react as quickly or as badly to dogs or mice or whatever.

The allergist mentioned the possibility that my occasional breathing difficulties in response to things like rosemary might be mild (mild in as much as I never cease being able to breathe; I just have difficulty) laryngospasms rather than an unexpected resurgence of my asthma or any sort of anaphylaxis. Since I have GERD, laryngospasms wouldn't be unexpected. What would be unexpected is them lasting for hours which these issues do. There's also apparently damn all that I can do about them beyond what I normally do for GERD.

The urology appointment ended with a referral for pelvic floor PT that is on hold until the after the current crisis. Part of that is transportation, and part of that is that the problem is something I've lived with for years. I would like to resolve it, but I won't be harmed by waiting. If I was going to go out for PT or OT, it would be for my hands, and I'm not going out for them, so.

( Cut for urology details )

The buses are running reduced routes and only one bus per route per hour. They cap the riders at 15 people because they can't seat more than that with social distancing. If someone's at a stop and there are already 15 riders, that person will have to wait an hour for another bus that might have space. I took the bus home after my urology appointment, and I got the next to last seat.

I used the ARide for my mammogram, but that meant being prepared for pickup more than an hour and a half before I had to be at my appointment. ARide service is limited, too, right now, but is a better option than the bus since at least one knows whether or not a particular trip is even possible. I try not to use the ARide, generally, as it's meant for people who are unable to use the fixed route buses due to disability. Most of the time I can take the regular bus and do.

I last used the ARide regularly when I was recovering after radiation. At that point, I wasn't sure of my ability to walk to and from bus stops. For a while after that, I used regular cabs off and on, mostly for going to appointments from which I'd then take the bus home. Going somewhere is much harder than the trip home. Stepping out the door is often hardest because, once I'm out the door, I don't let myself think or feel much of anything.

I talked to our dentist's office yesterday. I had an appointment on the 20th but have put it off since I don't know if I'll have a good way to get there and home again. They're conveniently close to a bus line, but that doesn't help right now. Also, given that I'm not currently having trouble with my teeth, being in that space seems like an extraordinarily high risk undertaking.

The receptionist told me that they're quite busy due to many people trying to get in for cleanings that were due while the office was closed. I understand that the staff there are being careful and are really in need of getting paid, but... Routine dental care seems unwise right now.

I saw a doctor at UHS on Tuesday. I have referrals for PT for my wrist and my knee. This doctor actually put the words 'generalized joint hypermobility' under the diagnoses and promised to talk to my pcp about the ways in which that problem requires a different approach than what everyone's been taking so far. He did say that it's kind of too late to help me much because my joints have 50+ years of damage.

He recommended trying to find someone outside of the UM system who does more generalized physical therapy and who has experience with hypermobility. He said that I'm not going to find anyone in the UM system who isn't specialized in some small portion of the human body because most PT is aimed at limited issues rather than full body ones.

I haven't tried to schedule PT or to track down other options yet. I couldn't deal with that while I was trying to deal with the LTD paperwork. I still haven't gotten that to my psychiatrist. I've done my part, so it's a matter of getting downtown to her office to pass it along.

There's been a good portion of the last week when I simply couldn't deal with anything but reading fic. I've got two library books that are due tomorrow and that I'd very much like to return. I've got Overdrive books that will expire soon, and I've done nothing with them this week.

At any rate, I'm not reading here reliably. I'm not reading Discord reliably. I'm not planning to sign up for any exchanges for a while. I don't think I'll be able to cope with that sort of commitment until I know what's happening with this year's LTD review. If I have to spend the next ten months fighting again, I'd rather be able to put my energy into that. I want very much to write, but my brain isn't cooperating.

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 had PT today and walked home after. I stopped halfway and had a turkey reuben at the Northside Grill. I stopped being happy about walking when I was a bus stop and a half from where I’d have gotten off the bus anyway, so standing to wait for the bus felt silly. I could cover the ground in less than 10 minutes.

I will have more to say about PT and such tomorrow. Mainly, it’s good to talk to someone who understands the issues I have with the doctor’s suggestions and gets that fear of dropping a weight on my head isn’t— Well, she said, “Yeah, that might kill you. Don’t do that one.” She’s going to research glove weight options

Monday, I did laundry and ran the dishwasher. I roasted some chickpeas and baked some potatoes. I also scheduled some PT appointments with the therapist I saw last year. She doesn't have openings until June, so I'm on her waiting list in the meantime. After that, I lost the rest of the day to a migraine and to hangover from it.

Yesterday, I had lunch with Scott's parents. They were in town for Scott's mother to have a bone density check. We ended up at Applebee's which wasn't particularly exciting but did feed all three of us safely. I lost the afternoon to utter exhaustion as my body decided to reset my clock on menopause one more time.

Today, I was exhausted and had another migraine. I made Scott and Cordelia get up without me and actually managed a few hours more sleep. I took naproxen and Amerge, but I didn't get much relief from those until after I took a long shower.

I'm still working on my Wayback story. It's due in a couple of days, and I'm not 100% sure I'm going to find the ending in time because it keeps wanting to open up and become something that needs tens of thousands of words. I don't think I can finish more than another 3-4K words on it, not in the time before the deadline.

I woke up between 3:30 and 4:00 this morning and didn't manage to get back to sleep before our alarm at 5:30. When I woke, I had somehow ended up mostly sitting up against the pillow that's my backstop for sitting in bed with the laptop. I normally sleep with no pillow under my head, just something under my neck to support it.

I'm not sure if I fell asleep in that position and didn't move or if I somehow worked my way into it. The main things keeping me awake after that were my anxiety about today's appointment and my sinuses starting to complain in a way that might mean I'm getting a cold. I'm still sniffly and a tiny bit congested, so I'm leaning toward the idea of a cold

I've got a longish to-do list of things I want done by noon. None of them are likely to take very long, but keeping moving is hard. My first priority was my PT. I stepped back the hand weight exercise from 5 lbs to 3 lbs because three days of not doing it seemed like a thing that might require that. The fact that 3 lbs felt challenging makes me think I was right.

A couple of the exercises won't be doable tonight or tomorrow, so I want to get them in twice before my appointment. I've done once for all five.

My hands are doing better. Certain movements still hurt, some in different places than before, and I still need the thumb braces, but I'm not getting increasing resting pain over the course of the day and not having so much in the way of pain from jostling the hand. I'm tentatively calling it a win. The decision is still up in the air and depends on what happens as I do more and on how long it helps.

Yesterday, I had an appointment downtown. I returned a few things to the library, including everything I had that was due tomorrow. I've still got things to pick up and a couple of thing due Sunday, but I wanted to avoid us needing to go down there both days. It's graduation weekend, and downtown and campus are packed.

I had lunch at Totoro. They seated me at the bar because they didn't have empty tables, especially not just for one person. All of the staff who know me complimented me on my haircut.

I think I have a bus draft of one of my exchange fics. I'm letting it sit as an AO3 draft right now, but I'll probably post it before I go out today. I have time for editing. I wish I had a bus draft for my other exchange fic, but I don't think that will happen this morning. I have too many other things with more pressing deadlines.

I'm taking notes in preparation for two fics, first my assignment for the Wayback Exchange, second my promised fic for the Fandom Trumps Hate auction. The former has a hard deadline, so I'm hoping to finish it quickly. Right now, I just want to write something. I've managed small fragments of several different stories, but nothing's really caught fire since November.

I'm finding that Overdrive is a terrible way for me to listen to audiobooks. It doesn't fit my general approach because my tendency is to listen to an hour of this and an hour of that and then not go back to audiobooks for a week or three. Overdrive only gives me 14 days, and I mostly don't finish in time. It's not usually that I'm not interested, just that I can't handle that much all at once.

I'm still having days when I'm very light sensitive. Unfortunately, I often don't realize that that's the problem until my eyes ache. It feels like dry eyes but isn't.

Not that I don't have dry eyes-- At that appointment I had with an eye specialist a few weeks back, the doctor told me to apply heat to my eyes at least twice a day and then to massage my eyelids, top and bottom. Apparently I have problems with the oils that are supposed to keep my eyes from drying out. The heat is meant to melt those oils a bit and the massage to spread them to where they ought to be going naturally. He said that artificial tears won't help because it's not lack of fluid that's the underlying issue; it's that the oils are necessary in order for the water-based bits to do anything.

I can tell that the heat and massage are changing something, so I guess this will be part of my routine from here on out.

Tomorrow, we're getting together with Scott's family to celebrate our nephew's birthday. He's twenty this year. Scott's sister is still trying to find a restaurant that has food I can eat. Sadly, this one isn't looking promising. It's a sushi place. They don't seem to do anything else, and all of their rolls contain cucumber which makes me sick. I'm probably going to end up ordering the tofu appetizer and, maybe, the tempura appetizer. The fried elements are risky, but I'm hoping neither dish will have added seasoning.

I actually managed a nap Thursday morning. I was kind of amazed because I pretty much never manage that. Going back to bed meant not managing to do my errands, but it was such a great relief to catch up on sleep before the cleaning lady came.

I did a lot of walking yesterday. The Ingress app tracks kilometers traveled below a certain speed, but some bits of my bus trip might well have registered. My numbers for the Trekker badge went up by 7 km. I have to have walked at least half of that. I got two unique hacks and two unique captures. I used up a lot of keys to make some (by my standards) large fields.

My current inventory of Ingress stuff is pretty low. I'm not really sure how best to address that as I use things faster than I manage to accumulate them. A lot of players will drive to portal dense places that have been built up to yield higher level equipment, but I don't have that option.

I can't decide whether or not my Iddy Iddy Bang Bang story needs another chapter. I think it might, but I haven't found any good angle for one, so maybe I'm wrong?

I'm looking for a SPaG beta for the story, but this is nearly 22K words and dark and explicit and comes with all the warnings for trauma and abuse, so I'm not really expecting to find anyone. I just know that, if I don't ask, I'm definitely not going to find anyone.

I'm not sure what to do with next with one of my PT exercises. That one involves holding a weight while doing certain wrist movement. I started at 1 pound then went to 3 and now have gone to 5. Because of the arthritis in my hand, I can't use my thumb to help me grip the weight, and I can-- just barely-- manage holding the 5 pound weight without involving my thumb, but I'm absolutely sure I couldn't manage anything heavier without specialized equipment.

Basically, I can't let the weight press between my thumb and fingers because that pushes on the bone that's wobbly and creates agony. I also can't rely on my thumb to support the weight when it's resting on the thumb proper because that pulls things out of alignment and also creates agony.

I can still make the theraband exercise more challenging, though. My other exercises are stretches rather than strengthening, so I'm not concerned about increasing the difficulty.