Big Blue single-stream recycling 95-gal bin (on wheels) arrived today. No more separating paper from glass/plastic/metal. And since it has a lid, no more saving recycling indoors for pick up every 2 weeks. I can take it out more regularly and not let it pile up around the house. It is now full. Thank goodness recycling is Wednesday. (I got lazy when I couldn't leave stuff outside, so some was on the back porch and some was from the boxes I emptied from the attic)
Downloaded Open Office 3.1. I was using 2.0 and I was having trouble opening files needed for upcoming Novice Schola. They are in Access, but my version of Access is 2000, so no luck there either. Still can't open them in Open Office. Not sure what my next thing to try would be.
Left home at 3:30pm for West Springfield - Concentus sang for a 20th vow renewal for one of our members at Christ Church Cathedral in Springfield. We carpooled to the church. It was lovely. The acoustics in the cathedral are incredible. Food at their house afterward. I got home at 9:45pm.
Bad night, Saturday night. No pain pill at bed time, woke up at 1:15am with all my muscles in that twitchy state where I have to get up and move around. I couldn't get them to calm down, so I took 4mg more of the tizanadine that I use for the fibromyalgia (I take 4mg at bedtime). I took a pain pill as well. Then I slept from sometime after 2:30 until 9:30. Not sure what was the cause, but I would like to be off the pain pills soon. I (and my MD) believe that the inadequate pain management of the rotator cuff surgery I had 12 years ago was the trigger event for my fibromyalgia. So, if I don't take a pain pill at night, does that trigger fibro symptoms? I didn't have pain when I went to bed, but I sure did when I woke up.
Project for Sunday - Entering track data and ripping CDs I bought at Boston Harbor Scottish Fiddle School several years ago. These are tutorial CDs where a tune is played at speed for 1 track, then slowly for the next track. These are not in the usual database of track info that I would use to rip a CD. Usually the track info is transferred automatically - instead, I am tediously entering data for 155 tracks on 2 CDs. Since there are 2 tracks with the same name for every tune, I am using cut and paste quite liberally. Once I rip it, I convert it to MP3 format and load several CDs worth of tunes onto a CD to play in the car. Then if the car copy of the CD gets wrecked (which they all eventually do) I haven't lost my original.
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necr03 would like these all ripped into FLAK format first, then saved in that format first, but that takes up enormous amount of space on the computer. He's worried about how long CDs will last and wants to archive the info on hard disks that can be backed up. Already, some of my data CDs that are the old gold colored writable ones may not be readable, according to N.Watched the geological history of Hawaii while I worked.
necr03 came over and mowed the perennial gardens in the front and side of the house with the riding mower, exposing the perennial grass that I can now kill with my organic clove oil weed killer. Grass is hard to kill, but it is even harder to get rid of during the growing season when the other plants are above ground. The nosey neighbor came by while he was working on the front garden, and was impressed.He also put away my rain barrels, put the small composter on the back porch for the winter, put the cover back on the computer, and put several items in the attic. He also backed the mower into the garage in such a way that I should be able to park there (with care). At least I don't still have the minivan - not enough clearance. With the van I had 1 inch clearance on each side to get it through the door and it took up an enormous amount of room in the garage. The CRV is much easier to park in there.
Had a typically
Thought I would have the rest of this week to myself after Tuesday's jaunts with the parents (luckily just a quick visit and bloodwork), but as it turns out, more appointments are happening on Friday with both. Last week I took them to appointments on 3 of the 5 days. I don't know what they will do when I go back to work. I had to remind mother that she had to schedule her 3-month follow-up late on the Tuesday so my b-i-l could take her, because this doctor doesn't work on Mondays. If I hadn't said something, she would have taken anything, and not worried about how she would get there. Actually, I do know. She would have to have my father take her - and he should not be driving either - he has diabetic neuropathy in his feet and can't feel the gas pedal well enough to keep a constant speed.
PT is going well, and I am now doing pulleys qid (four times a day), in addition to my stretches, including the raising of my arm (while lying down) without help. When I walk, I swing my arms to really stretch out the muscles on a regular basis.
The compromise: He will see me 12/21 and determine if I have made enough progress to return to work. He wants light duty (which the only thing he objected to was pelvic exams and colpos, and if I show enough progress, maybe he will take that off the table). I am going to schedule an appointment with Health Service for later in the day on 12/21 for my back to work PE. I intend to return to work 12/22 doing full exams (I think I can protect my shoulder by locking my elbow against my torso). I should be OK to start doing colpo 1st week in January to protect the shoulder from prolonged reaching & lifting motions. I will continue my PT twice a week which will happen on Mondays (my day off) and late pm (5 or 5:30 - whatever I can get) on Thursdays, which should not impact my schedule.
So, unless something drastic happens between now and then, I feel confident that I can resume a normal patient schedule (except colpo) starting 12/22, and resuming colpo the 1st week in January.
necr03 did a wipe and reinstall of my operating system, and the old gal couldn't handle it when I started reinstalling applications. We then had to go back to a snapshot of the previous operating environment for now, and think about upgrading the hardware. She's about five years old at this point has gotten new memory recently but that's about it. So, it's about time to think about some upgrading of the components. I usually have quite a bit open at a time (memory hog) and the processor is throwing his hands up in the air and threatening to quit. I sit here at the computer looking at a cardboard box that is ready to be broken down for recycling and have to laugh. It is the box for the Apple StyleWriter II printer that I had years ago. I think the antique books were in that.One of the things I have been doing on the computer is cataloging all my books (while listening to music on the computer). I am putting about 2 tubs full in the attic for later, and moving things around so that I can find them better. To my surprise, my total number of books, including sheet music books, art books, craft books, fiction, and nonfiction came to a staggering 845 books. I did NOT catalogue the antique books! I have been very fatigued and achy in the evenings (even with taking daily naps) after this because the moving of the books around has tired my arm out terribly. But I feel really good that I got a project finished and it was something that I couldn't have done just in a weekend. It took me all week to do this job.
Another job that I worked done is to take all of the DeLong and maternal Tudgay genealogy records, research materials, etc. that I worked on for so many years and put them in the attic, since these are not my ancestors. They are the ancestors of my children on their paternal side. I really don't want to work on them anymore, but the boys aren't really at a point in their life where they can start working on them yet. I now have three very heavy tubs of materials to go up into the attic. These will wait until Thanksgiving when number one son
bkdelong and number two son necr03 are together. I really want them both work together on this because they are very heavy and I don't want either one of them to get a strain.What I plan to do is take over some of my father's genealogy paperwork and start becoming more familiar with my side. I know about some of of my fairly recent ancestors and some of my New England ancestors back to the late 1600s but really don't know much about the answers ancestors prior to the United States, most of which are English, French-Canadian, and Welsh.
Not too much pain last evening, so tried going to bed without pain pill. Silly me, what was I thinking? Lying on the shoulder is worse than when I am up and about. At midnight I caved and took a pain pill. I have been extremely tired today, and not even a 2 hour nap has helped all that much. The added problem is that now I have to sandwich my naps in between my parents' appointments, since neither of them should be driving.
My personal project this week is to catalog all of my books, so that I know what I have. It also enabled me to pack away some books that I want to keep but don't want to read right now. Also, I was able to get rid of books that were on my shelves that I have no intention of ever reading again, and I also gave away some magazines to the nursing home where my sister works.
It's been fun looking at all of the books that I haven't seen for a while and looking at books that I had purchased to read that somehow got lost in the system. I am moving things around putting like things together, and making much more sense out of my book collection. I hope this would make me more efficient when I'm looking for a book, especially an instructional book, so that I am not running around wondering where I saw it last.
I have filled an entire plastic tub of the fantasy books from the 1980s. I read series after series of fantasy novels as my recreational reading when the boys were little. I don't have the urge to read them right now, however I know there's a few that I would like to revisit in the future so I'm putting them up in the attic for now. The rest of the books are getting rearranged and and sent to places where I can keep like items together as best as I can. I'm soaking labels off of plastic magazine holders, so they can be re-purposed to hold small pamphlets and loose papers in, and use my a label maker to put labels on to make them look pretty.
- Mood:
tired
It looks like driving my parents to their appointments is going to be a labor-intensive situation. This month while I am on my own leave of absence for my shoulder surgery I am driving them to appointments anywhere from 2 to 3 a week. Starting in December when I have Mondays off I will have my physical therapy and then drive them to two or three appointments later in the day. Today, I had MY dentist appt, then had to drive Mother to a Holyoke appt. I got home at 3 pm. Tomorrow, Mother has blood testing and my father has an appt - not at the same place, so getting the timing right should be fun.
Both of them have multiple medical issues and thus multiple medical providers caring for them. It's a pretty sure bet that I will not be able to do anything for myself on my days off unless I'm very, very lucky and have a day off where they have no appointments. But those days looks like they're going to be few and far between.
My sister and brother-in-law who are living at their house have it even a little bit more intense, so I should not complain. But I still looked forward to my Mondays where I kick back and relax if I want to. Also my Mondays were my days where I could sew or work on crafts or a multitude of other things that now I probably won't be able to do.
My sister woke me up this morning at eight to tell me that my mother wasn't feeling well and had gotten sick in the early hours of the morning. Then I said I would check up on her later in the morning and when when I came over to pick up my father for his appointment at 3. Carolyn checked the calendar and said that the appointment was for 11. After some scrambling around on my part, including forgetting my purse, I leaped in the car to pick up my father, check on my mother, and get to the appointment. We went out to lunch afterward, which was very tasty. Then we went back home again so I could review all of the calendars and make sure that my calendar matched theirs. I got a little bit of crochet done (until the shoulder started hurting) but I did not get home until 4:30 this afternoon.
So I feel so virtuous. I completed all of my self testing modules for my job today. It's usually just on things like back health, influenza training, safety, and security etc. I had nine tests I had to take and they're all done so I'm very happy.
Got my eyes checked today and ordered new glasses. My sunglasses are way out of prescription so as soon as the new Eye-Med plan begins in January I need to get new sunglasses as well. My eyes stayed dilated for about three hours and it was really cool looking at the sparkling lights of the police car on the side of the road. I could barely see the road for all the blue sparkles - it was fun.
I worked off & on all afternoon and evening to get my 'library express' program to work so that I can enter in all of my sci-fi fantasy books that I plan to put up in the attic to make more room for my current reading material. It took me a while, but I finally got it working and started the laborious entry process. I could never work as a data entry person. I like too many interruptions.
I changed the cat's towel on the his favorite chair in the sunroom today because you couldn't tell it was an orange towel because of all the black hair on it. I got him another orange towel, and put the icky one in the laundry.
Had a contractor come and look at my kitchen ceiling leak to see if it's related to the work that they had done putting on the back porch. He's thinking it's more related to the metal peak vent system (of course - because he can charge me to repair that!) He said that all of the insulation inside the attic was dry and he didn't find any damp wood, so that's encouraging.
I also drafted a pattern from a cap that I borrowed from mizpagan because I really liked how it looks on her. I can't actually sew yet, but I'll be ready with the pattern when I can, by golly! Plus, I need to get her cap back to her before I lose it.
Pain pill at 9:30 and I'm giving it an hour before I go to bed. Hate laying there waiting for the damn thing to start working. I hope the Doc doesn't think I should be off them yet - I really need them at night. It hurts to lay down. If I could sit up, not leaning back against the chair, I would be fine, but I doubt I can sleep that way. I'd probably fall over sideways, and my luck, I would land on the bad shoulder.
Having a fairly blah day to day and ended up taking a nap after lunch, because I was just feeling all wrung out. I have not taken a Percocet since Monday night but I did take the Valium at bedtime last night and still had trouble sleeping. It wasn't really pain, however. I think the muscles are still just too tight and ache, and because I cannot change position when I sleep, I don't sleep well. It's hard to lay in the same position all night.
I started on a baby afghan for number two son and the instructions were not making any sense. I ripped out rows four through seven three times before I finally figured out what I was supposed to be doing. Grrr!
I have started taking my parents to their appointments during the month of November, so I need to start getting some transportable projects into my project carrying case. A couple I have in mind is a pouch that I can attach my needlepoint to, and finishing up some white work that I started at Pennsic. So far I haven't needed to change any of my physical therapy appointments, but I need to be really careful that I don't have any overlap between their appointments and my appointments.
Back from physical therapy and my new range of motion is 150 degrees for the arm raises and for the external rotation I am up to 60 degrees. My therapist thinks this is excellent, so I am very pleased as well.
Jon fixed up my depiction of the 'arms' that I applied for at Pennsic. Isn't it pretty? I hope it gets approved.
Over the weekend the boys found a few boxes that I still hadn't gone through, so I found more antique books that I put away and another box of papers that I went through today. Found my genealogy papers in progress - the last time I worked on it which was maybe 2003. So I put that into a container of genealogy for the boys if they ever want to do it - it's their father's ancestry, not mine.
I'm beat and I guess that shows how out of shape I am after four weeks of doing absolutely nothing. Today I went to the RV place to have a trailer hitch put on my car. I sat and crocheted while they did that.
Then I decided I needed to go down to the hospital to find out about my health insurance because I was supposed to be able to renew it online and it wasn't letting me in, and the deadline is the end of the month. So I go down there saw the gals at the clinic, then went upstairs try to find out why I couldn't get into my benefits account. They couldn't get into it either so I left rather unsatisfied. They will look into it.
Then I went over to health service because they were giving out the H1N1 shots. I figured I should get the shot before I come back to work- so I got that done too.
When I got home I decided to eat something and then lay down for a nap but as soon as I laid down, the tree people came and were cutting down the tree in my front yard. So it's really hard to take a nap with power saws and stump grinders going. Stump grinder that the tree service had was like a remote control car or remote-control robot on wheels that had the grinder on the end of it. I told him it looked like it was a big boy toy and he laughed. I am so tired.
What a whirlwind weekend! Jon and Jen arrived at around 11 AM on Saturday. They left their home in Maryland about four in the morning. I was not expecting them quite so soon so some cleanup that I had planned to do it didn't get done. Not to worry, because they helped me completely clean the kitchen, and then get a number of things straightened out around the house. Then on Saturday we popped out to Chili's for lunch, and have a nice enjoyable meal.
After that, we sat down to watch a movie at N's house.I came back to the house for my trick-or-treaters and Jon and Jen stayed over there, coming back later in the evening. Sunday started out with them going to the store for some some things to make some special breakfast. We had Western-style omelettes with sausage and orange juice and it was delicious. After that was finished we went to my parent's house where some of the furniture pickup was going to happen. The couch and the round table that they were picking up was lashed into the truck and we visited for a little while. Jon & Jen had bought supplies to make subs and brought them over and we have them over at my parents house.
When we got back here to my house we then loaded some more of the furniture that was in my garage into the truck and then lashed that down. And then proceeded to reorganize the remaining furniture in the garage so that I would be able to park in the garage even if it takes them a while to come back to get them. They were zipping around with my lawnmower picking up leaves putting them under bushes for the winter, taking out junk out of the garage and putting it in the trash. They folded cardboard boxes for recycling and swept out the garage. A lot got done and I'm really happy. There are a few things though, that had to come down to the basement for me to go through before we can decide where they need to go. So that's the next thing that is on my list.
Back from physical therapy session number two. I have made great strides in the two days since my first session. I am now up to 125 degrees from the horizontal with my arm. And I have started the rotational motions and have gotten to 20 degrees for external rotation. At home I now start cane exercises which, since I don't have a cane, are going to be done with the yard stick. These will help external and internal rotation so that next Monday I can show even more progress.
I have been a little nostalgic of late, so last night I watched the season ending movie for the series "Dead like me". And tonight I watched the series ending movie "Serenity", one of my favorites.
After that I felt a great need to make some music, and with the arm, that is not an easy task. I was however, able to pluck out the melody of 'Bonnie at morn' with my right hand, and with halfway decent fingering. Of course I couldn't do both hands because I practically had to hug the harp with my right shoulder in order for my hand to reach the strings. The left hand was not really within reach of the base where it is supposed to be. But that gives me hope that in the near future I'll be able to settle down and make some real 2-handed music.
Violin music, on the other hand is going to take a little longer. There is no way that I can use the bow in my current condition. As we worked on the external rotations today, I told the physical therapist that my goal was to get those as strong as they could be for my being able to play my violin.
Went all day Thursday without any pain medications. But it also meant that I really could not do anything else - no moving things around, no cleaning up, no cooking, no putting dishes in the dishwasher. I did absolutely nothing except for my exercises - which I might add are quite uncomfortable - but I was able to rest after the exercises. I'm taking the medication to go to bed tonight. I don't think that my body will settle down without it.
There is a piece of suture sticking out of the back part of my incision and it's bugging me. I can feel it - a 2-3 mm piece of plastic suture at the very bottom of the incision where I can just barely reach it. I don't have an appointment for two weeks when I can have someone cut the stupid thing off. Until then, it catches on my clothes and is a basic irritant.
I had my first physical therapy appointment today. It's starting two weeks later than it normally would have started because of the complications of the surgery. I have a very nice physical therapist, and she started with stretching my arm over my head while I'm laying on my back. This is the first stretching that they do and it's measured in degrees from the horizontal. She got me up to 100 degrees today and it was considered very good. I am very sore.
I took some Percocet as I soon as I got home. Now I'm feeling somewhat better. I can't take it before the therapy because I have to drive to and from therapy, which is less than half a mile away, but I don't want to press my luck.
Five times a day I have to lay on my back, with my good arm, grasp the wrist of my bad arm, and lift it as high as I can. I have to hold it for 10 seconds and then lower it, and do this five times. I then have to do five sessions of these each day. I don't think I'm going to have fun.
The main thing to remember, is that the better I do with this, the closer I get to being back to normal. I really, really, really want to get back to normal.
I also made the guest bedroom bed which is a harder bed to make than my own and the only thing I couldn't do was to tuck in the sheets at the end of the bed. I have to get someone else to do that but everything else is done in there. Except for picking up a few things and putting a few of my out of season clothes away in the dresser, that room will be cleaned up for my company. I am a little achy right now, so I'm back in the sling and I took two Excedrin and need to rest for little bit.
Yesterday was a three Percocet day. I knew I was going to do a lot of things yesterday so I kept the pain pretty well controlled with the medication. What I didn't know (and should have) was that it would catch up with me by nightfall. I took one of the three Percocet right before bedtime. I went to bed and could not find a comfortable position all night. I may have dozed a bit, but I did not really sleep. It felt like my arm was being ripped out of the socket. I took another one at five this morning and slept a little bit, but I still feel pretty bad. Today I think I will just rest, nap, and read.
- Mood:
sore
It seems that I'm doing something that I have noticed my mother does in her medical condition (Myastheia Gravis). I have a fairly good day I putter around doing little things sorting, moving things from place to place in the house, and then the next day I pay for it. I feel like I haven't rested in a week and ache all over. However, last night wasn't too bad - the pain pill before bed and the cat and mouse shenanigans really only played out for about an hour or so. I think this mouse has a few smarts. Although cat is watching the stove today. I'm guessing that's where the mouse is.
I've taken off the sling today to dangle my arm. My elbow joint got a little achy during the night and it's starting to get a little stiff so I need to move the elbow more, and keep it mobile. I'm locking my shoulder when I do that so that I don't pull on the shoulder. As far as active shoulder motion I probably only have about five degrees from the vertical, maybe 10 degrees at most. My first day of physical therapy is on Wednesday. Most of the time, the first physical therapy appointment is an evaluation and developing the care plan. The true therapy doesn't start until the second appointment. I am getting really antsy waiting for the therapy to start. This is a full two weeks later than therapy normally starts for this sort of operation. I realize that the bone attachment for the ligaments was not especially healthy and the doctor wants to be cautious, but I want my arm back, dammit.
I ordered Chinese food last night and for me a new first, I had it delivered. I had to call Nathan to find out how to do that. I've never had food delivered before. He thought that was funny. I had to ask him how much to tip and what the procedures were.
Kind of a rainy blah day, so I am crocheting a little bit at a time on the leaf fringe of my sunflower Afghan. I WILL get this done this week.
I'm having a rather uncomfortable day-to-day. I think it's because of the interrupted sleep last night. I did not take a pain pill when I went to bed, but there were some cat and mouse shenanigans going on so that by midnight I needed to take a pain pill. This morning waking up I could not get comfortable at all, and although I waited until about noon to take a pain pill it has been a very uncomfortable morning. I am successfully limiting myself to pain pills twice a day and hopefully in the near future just at night time. I have not found the mouse, and the cat is not being very helpful as far as where it might be. I hate finding them after they started to stink.
The last of the three tree people is to come over this afternoon to look at my dying tree in the front and the Maple to the west side of the house has large limbs growing over the house. These need to be taken down before winter. Luckily nothing needs to be done to the pretty red maple tree near my driveway. The city came this summer and trimmed a few of those limbs that were near power lines, but that's it. So far of the two estimates one is half of the other. It seems that the tree companies that have large heavy-duty equipment such as cranes and cherry pickers have the need to charge higher prices to pay for that equipment whether the equipment is needed or not. The lower price guy does not have heavy equipment - he has what he calls 'climbers' (people that climb) that take care of the tops the trees.
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