The Road to Recovery

 Just a speedy update to mention that I began physical therapy a couple of weeks ago. The latest X-rays show that the fracture line is less visible, indicating healing is progressing, but it IS still visible, indicating that the bone is not yet fully healed.

We've graduated from the air cast/walking boot to an ankle brace that can be worn with a regular shoe over it. This resulted in my having to go buy some compatible shoes, as none of the shoes I owned at the time would fit over the brace. I had to go to PT in (somewhat shoe-like) bedroom slippers on the day after I got the brace, because I was waiting for the shoes I'd ordered to arrive.

Now, I do have a pair of shoes I can put on over the brace, so that's progress!

Also, the hits just keep coming. DH just notified me that the older brother of  Frank P, our friend who passed in 2018 from heart trouble, has also passed. We weren't friends with Joe P, but we were at their house regularly so we saw a lot of him. He was older than Frank, but not so much older that we should have expected to hear this kind of news about him. I wonder what happened? I will try to find out.

This year has definitely been a rough ride, on multiple levels. Not everyone who has passed has been a person I've known well, but even among the acquaintances who have passed, I know enough to say that they're gone before their time. Or, in the cases of the ones who did live to an advanced age, I know enough to say that the world's become a lesser place due to their departure.

But we're all still here, so our job on this planet must not be completed yet. Time to keep forging ahead!

Pushing through pain

I'm still home, still recuperating from surgery, and was getting ready to reach out to my surgeon and my boss about resuming working from home.

And then the computer in my studio, the one from which I'd have been working, up and died. It wouldn't even turn on, as I discovered on Sunday morning when I came in here.

So we got yet another surprise expense: I am grateful that we were able to quickly order another machine. It arrived  yesterday, and I have been setting it up ever since. 

My previous one was about 8 years old. I'd gotten it new in 2020, but the model itself was from about 2017 (as I discovered when I had to have its fan repaired a couple of summers ago). This one's model year is 2025, so I am hoping for some good longevity with this machine. \ 

In other news, I have seen a few surprise phoenixes come up while I'm online doing Other Things. I will take those as a sign that JFM has safely arrived on the other side. He didn't announce that he'd send a sign that way, unlike his cousin Linda who'd promised (prior to her own passing in 2020) to reach out to folks by sending butterflies. However, phoenixes aren't exactly a common sight in our culture, so you have to really go on a treasure hunt to find one. Otherwise, they're not going to be something you randomly encounter with any frequency in the wild or online. 

In the meantime, it's a bit of a battle to push through emotional fog to get things done. I wouldn't quite label this as depression, but everything just seems to take a toll emotionally, mentally, and physically. It's not my pain control, because I've long since finished the post-op meds and am back on my normal pain regimen (the one I've used for years for the osteoarthritis). It's got to be the impact of injuiry, cabin fever (not a minor thing, after a month of dealing with this), and bereavement.

I'm doing what I do best: pushing through it as much as possible. I have spent no small percentage of my life doing just that. I certainly did it before I reached a point where meds became a necessity, and even afterward, frankly, meds can't keep ALL the pain at bay (be it of the emotional or physical variety). Sometimes, the best result you're going to get is "the pain is now at a level where I can push through it and get things done". That's me, right now. 

Life's like that. 

Oh, and as of noon today, we reached the exact midpoint of 2025. Well, I have a lot of opinions of how the first half of this year has gone, and let's just say I'd be giving heavy-duty "needs improvement" feedback if there was a place to submit it.

Let me put it this way: the second half of the year has a lot of reparation to make. A whole freaking LOT of reparation. The amount of mental, emotional, and physical injury that this year has managed to dole out in its first half is immeasurable. Even if the second half was the next best thing to paradise, this would still go down as one of the most challenging years I've ever experienced. And I don't think "next best thing to paradise" is an option on the 2025 menu.

Brace yourselves. We're all gonna have to keep pushing through.

The things we don't get over

 I am still reeling from the loss of JFM on Wednesday. He was as close to being Auntie Mame as most of us are ever going to encounter in this lifetime. When he lived, by God, he LIVED and threw 100% into it. How can he be gone? It should be impossible, a literal physical impossibility for someone like that to be gone. 

The world is so much less flamboyant and colorful, it's hard to recognize it. 

This isn't the kind of loss that hits you just once. No, I already know it's going to hit over and over again, from every angle, from angles I can't even imagine. Every time I hear a song he did in one of his concerts. Every time I see a link to something with a Phoenix in it and want to send it to him. Every time the Misfit Toys gather. Every time I encounter cuccidati (Italian cookies he proudly made every Christmas). Everybody got one. I ate mine last December, and said "to heck with my blood sugar" for just that one day. Sometimes, you have to LIVE.

He did just as he said he would, though. He fought that cancer until it became impossible to fight anymore. I'm so glad that he spent the majority of the past two years (since diagnosis) in remission. He got to squeeze in a few more trips and events during the timespan when he was well enough to enjoy them. 

When you've known someone for over 50 years, there are so many memories to think about. They're all rushing back at once now. It seems unreal that the person who's front and center of all those memories isn't here anymore. It's so unlike him to be not-here. 

Some losses, you don't get over. You learn to live within the parameters of the new normal, but that's not the same as getting over the loss. The new normal can go kick rocks, frankly. It's going to take a lifetime of getting used to it.

The Dreaded News Has Come

 JFM had been in hospice for the past several weeks. We knew the time was approaching when he had to transfer to inpatient hospice instead of in-home hospice.

Yesterday morning at 4:30 AM, his Phoenix rose to meet eternity.

The Misfit Toys grieve. I can't verbalize more than that. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it. But I couldn't overlook this blog, in which he has been mentioned so many times, in acknowledging all of our loss.

Self-Medicating With a Keyboard

 I have gone al-in with journaling in recent weeks. Well, I started journaling in earnest sometime last year -- offline, not anywhere that the general public can access it. However, it's been in recent weeks that our dear friend who has received a serious health diagnosis has started having major issues because of said diagnosis. They were asymptomatic for a long time (relatively long, given the nature of the diagnosis). However, that has changed within the past month or so. I have no idea if the docs have a set of remedies that could bring back the asymptomatic state. I can hope, but I'm not a doctor. Or, if symptoms have arrived and will be here for the duration, I don't know what treatments exist that could get the symptoms to be as minimized as possible.

All I can say is that symptoms are here, and with them, tremendous emotional pain for that loved one and for everyone who loves them.

In the past, deep distress has sent me right to the refrigerator to stress-eat. Well, thanks to Type 2 diabetes, stress eating is most emphatically NOT on my list of options anymore.

Fortunately, I have rediscovered that journaling (and, at this point, trauma dumping in print) is effective as a form of therapy. That's a place where we can just open the floodgates without judgment, and mentally process things that we might not feel at ease discussing with anyone else aloud (especially when everyone else in the immediate vicinity has been hit hard emotionally, as well). It's not that I don't want to talk to anyone aloud, but I am cognizant that I don't want to vent all over someone who is dealing with pain of their own. 

I think our entire friends group should track down the nearest rage room. Maybe we can get a group discount to go there and start whaling on punching bags and other assorted things. But with this amount of rage we're all carrying, I would be afraid that the place wouldn't be left with one brick standing on another once we were through.

Bleep bad diagnoses. Bleep progressive diseases. Bleep the specific diagnosis and disease that we're witnessing right now. Bleep them all the way to the bottom of the infinite Pit.

Mourning

As a form of self-care, today is not going to be a day where I spend much time on social media. I will spend my day off reading and listening to music.

 

Might I recommend the Woody Guthrie station on Pandora? Because that's my music of choice today.

 

Yes, I'm wearing black. Yes, I have the mourning armband on. Yes, my Dexcom shield and overpatch match my clothing and the armband. No, I'm not OK. Yes, I"m determined to outlast the upcoming 4-year maelstrom.

And if, perchance, I depart this planet before the maelstrom is over, the maelstrom will have to figure out how to withstand ME, because I will use the new, improved vantage point to fight the maelstrom on behalf of whoever is still living under it. Bank on that!

Observations

In 2016, it was possible to have some benefit-of-the-doubt to grant, and presume that a lot of well-meaning folks were hoodwinked.

But in 2024, after the long and very public track record has been established, there’s no doubt remaining from which to benefit. I can only perceive anyone who still supports him now as doing so because they approve of the bullying, the misogyny, the prejudice, the dishonesty. They can’t possibly not know what he is anymore. If they choose him now, aligning with evil is a feature, not a bug.

In short, my country is infested with monsters, and that’s disappointing, at best.

My conscience is clear. I voted for the good person who will not disgrace America before the world. I’m disgusted that it was ever a challenge in the first place to see the torch passed to her, given the debased nature of her competition. We should be better than this. Much better.

I have no grace left to grant for people who support him. He’s made it clear, on a daily basis, as to who he is and what he stands for. Whoever can remain un-repulsed by the sight and sound of it is a disappointment to the Founders’ efforts to establish this country based on justice and freedom. If their conscience is clear, it shouldn’t be, for they have knowingly aligned themselves with evil.

A Heartbreaking Week

 Our friends group lost one of our own last Sunday. John R., who has had legions of serious medical issues for a long time, had gone back to the hospital with sepsis (and numerous symptoms connected to that) in the wee hours of Valentine's Day morning. The hospital managed to get his 103.8F fever down, and get his too-low blood sugar and blood pressure back up into the low end of the normal range.

The infection was coming from a bone in his foot, which has had a longstanding wound on it (due to diabetes and poor circulation in the extremities). Things had reached a point where amputation was being seriously considered. He didn't want this, and none of us wanted it for him, but it had to be discussed and he was at least listening and considering the option. 

But then came Sunday morning, and his BP was dropping again. All the alarm bells in my head started going off when JFM posted that to our text group. If they can't keep a person's vital signs stable, that's a serious problem and it could be the fast track to a very unhappy outcome. They were giving him fluid to try and get the BP back up, but when a person's already on dialysis, that treatment brings with it a set of risks, too.

JFM reached out to a priest friend, who drove down to give John an anointing and communion in the early afternoon.

Three hours after that, JFM got a call because John had coded and they were trying to bring him back. He hurried to the hospital to be with John, and arrived just as they called an end to the CPR.

We attended the funeral yesterday morning. We are all devastated, for obvious reasons, and none more athan JFM. John was a person who, despite having a body that rebelled continually and caused suffering every inch of the way, remained a good and kind person throughout it all. It's a gift from God to be able to maintain goodness in the face of all the things he went through over the years. And it's a gift from God to the rest of us, for having known such a person. 

We will all miss him immensely.

Many fabulous things!

 Since my most recent post, many fabulous things have happened.

Primary among these is the fact that Mark and I closed on a condo in our VitaminSEA neighborhood. Mark's brother's house, where we have stayed since 2014, is right across the street. It will be a combination investment property, rented out to other vacationers, and a shore place for us when the place is available and we have some time for a brief getaway.  

We also have had some horrid news, in the form of a dear friend getting a terrible diagnosis. But the bright side of that is that the problem was caught before it caused any symptoms and, even more importantly, before it had time to spread or inflict major damage. Chemo and radiation are going on for the next few weeks, but as a preventative measure to knock out any microscopic issues that the surgery could have missed. The surgeon thinks they got everything when the surgery was done, but there is no room for error with this particular disease. Knocking out even the *possibility* that there's a microscopic remnant is crucial. But the prognosis is good, so KNOCK WOOD everything stands a good chance of proceeding well. Let us pray!

A New World Record!

 Before today, the largest document I’d ever had to scan was 492 pages long.

This morning, I received one that had been shipped to us in a cardboard box. It’s the Mother of all Documents: 1754 pages long.

😳😵‍💫😵 Yeowza! That obliterates my previous record!

I reached out to the company that sent us the document, asking if it would be possible to send it to us in a digital format.

I can only get a finite number of sheets of paper to physically go through the scanner during a given workday. Scanning 492 sheets took an entire morning, years ago, because dealing with paper jams and proofreading every page of the results has to be factored into the scanning process. I hesitate to calculate how long scanning 1754 pages would require. I have a newer scanner now, which is faster than its predecessor, but even then, it’d take a good chunk of time for a project of this scope.

I hope the medical records company can send a digital document; otherwise, I’ll have to craft a battle plan to divide and conquer this document. I’m mulling over the process I’d have to use to handle the situation, regardless. Better to have a plan and not need it, than to need a plan and not have it. The document was separated into five reams by the sender, so maybe I could handle it one ream at a time.

We’ll see if they can honor my request. Fingers crossed! 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

And God be with all the folks whose medical history looks like an unabridged dictionary. 🙏🏻 Scanning all that info is a piece of cake, compared to LIVING all that info.

Happy Blogday to Me!

 I never thought, 20 years ago today, that I still would be updating a blog here and there. I might be here less frequently now, given the rise of social media, but I do enjoy keeping a blog that has been running this long.

Here's to a few more decades! 😀

Fixed!

 Late last night, I received a message that Blogger had rescinded the warning label on my post. Hurry, go to my 06/30/03 post and read it, before someone changes their mind!😆

Bizarre!

 Well, THAT was bizarre! I just got an email from Blogger, alerting me that one of my posts was put behind a warning screen for having sensitive content.

Then I tracked the post down. It was from June 30, 2003. Say what? The post has been sitting there, minding its own business and troubling no one, for almost 20 years. NOW they decide to put a warning label on it?

For the record, it was a post about a couple of blogs that were created with respect to the US i.n.v.a.s.i.o.n of I.r.a.q. Those blogs were written by people who were in the country at the time: one Iraqi and one US soldier.

Why the post got flagged as sensitive, two months shy of its 20th birthday, is beyond my understanding. But so be it.

I requested a review of their decision. I'm sure they have bots running through all the blog content looking for keywords. I would like a human being to review the post and realize that there is nothing in it that needs a warning label.

Madame Secretary

 I was the recording secretary of the Philadelphia Phantoms Phan Club for at least the final 6 years of the team's tenure in Philly. So when Mark and I recently joined the Philadelphia Flyers Fan Club, I found it novel to be sitting in on a meeting and NOT taking minutes.

Well, that lasted all of three meetings, lol. Last month, at our second meeting, they were nominating new officers. The existing recording secretary had to be coaxed to accept the nomination, because no one was offering to take over the position. The actual elections were this month, however.

In order to run for office, a member has to have attended three meetings. They said that if the April meeting is someone's third meeting, they technically could offer to run and be elected in the same day. So I reached out on FB to the President of the club, explained who I am and my experience level, and said that April's meeting would be my third one. Therefore, if the current recording secretary didn't want to continue, I offered to take the position.

Long story short, that worked out well. So I will be the recording secretary for the PFFC, starting next season. We have a summer break from meetings, though there are social events happening, and then in the fall, I will start as recording secretary. So feel free to address me as Madame Secretary, lol. 😄

Meanwhile, the DynaWrite brownies are on hold. The device has decided to have some issues with powering on, and as long as that continues, I can't access any of the files on the device. I will keep trying.

DynaWrite Brownies

 I have a collection of various and sundry distraction-free devices on which I like to write. Basically they are non-internet-connected word processors, and there is quite a variety of these things to choose from.

I picked up a DynaWrite last week from eBay. When it arrived, I saw that it still has some old files on it. The first one I saw is a recipe for brownies. 

I got some USB sticks, and I am going to migrate the files onto a thumb drive so I can clear out the device and start fresh.

But even though I'm not a baker, I might just try making the brownies, for the heck of it. 😄 I think I'll call them DynaWrite Brownies.

The Week from Purgatory

 Welcome to my week from purgatory.

Last Saturday, another unauthorized withdrawal was made from our bank. The NEW account, that we created because the OLD ones were compromised, was hit.

We now have multiple kinds of flag on our bank accounts, including the ones that were not affected, so that (among other things) the teller must ask for a password before allowing a withdrawal. (All three of our account compromises involved teller withdrawals, done in Alabama where neither Mark nor I have ever set foot. If it happens again, the next meeting we have at the bank branch will involve pulling our money out of the bank entirely.

I have had to deal with a crapped-out SIM card, so my phone was not working for most of Wednesday. Fortunately, a new SIM card resolved the issue.

I have had various and sundry forms of digestive distress all week, and this is WITH the truckload of prescriptions and OTC remedies I take religiously. Pain and multiple types of incessant organ recitals are involved, and I am getting tired of feeling like this. I was at the doctor a few days ago, and we think it was a norovirus that's going around. Sadly there aren't norovirus-specific remedies out there, other than just medicating the symptoms and waiting it out.

And some of my prescription refills were held up by Prior Auth issues, because medical insurance in this country is a royal pain in various unmentionable parts of the anatomy. It won't be fully straightened out until Monday at the earliest, so here I am dealing with symptoms because I am out of a couple of meds. (This is separate from the digestive distress mentioned above.)

I'm about ready to spit fire. Calgon, take me away.

Two Decades of Blogging

 I am thinking about the fact that in May, I will have had this blog for 20 years. 

I will have to celebrate on that day. I'm not sure how, but I am going to do it!

I also am this-close to my 3,000th post. Maybe I should schedule my posts such that I hit 3,000 on the same day as the anniversary.

Decisions, decisions. 😊

Freakin' Rona

 Well, this is going to be a relaxing vacation week, possibly a tad quieter than we had anticipated. We are isolating for 5 days. Mark took a side trip to Urgent Care this morning, where they confirmed that his at-home COVID tests were accurate. Blah. Paxlovid is in the house.

I have no symptoms and have not tested. But I will isolate anyway, to make sure that I am not handing out copies of any germs to anybody. I will definitely test prior to returning to work next week, unless I have symptoms that inspire me to test sooner than that. If I test positive at any point prior to next week, I will ask my manager about working from home for however long I need to isolate. Unless I get deathly sick, I see no reason to not work from home. I am sure a ton of electronic documents will be coming in all week. By January 3, I expect that there will be no shortage of emails for me to process, and I can do that remotely.

For what it's worth, Mark didn't test positive, either, until about two days after symptom onset. He tested negative on Christmas Eve, which was when the coughing started. So even if I ran and did a test right now, it might not show anything anyway.

Fug this virus. Seriously. Nobody needs it at any time, but we really could have done without it right now. We had some holiday-week things that we were looking forward to, that are now off the table for safety reasons.

Fortunately, we are both up-to-date with boosters, so I hope that will help keep the symptoms mild. And we do have lots of chicken soup in the house. :) My former boss (who is Jewish himself) used to call chicken soup "Jewish penicillin", lol. We will help keep Campbell's and Progresso in business for the next few days, along with various food delivery services.☺

Kitty Tunnel Follies

I have two black cats. Merlin is petite at 9.5 lbs. Houdini is huge at 15.7 lbs. We have three cloth kitty tunnels, cloth tubes with a wire framework that allows them to stay open all the time, because Houdini is OBSESSED with them. If you wonder where he is, wander around to the kitty tunnels and chances are, there will be a black kitty hiney protruding from the end of one. He goes halfway in, and considers himself hidden. lol. I won't tell him that his stealth leaves something to be desired, if you won't. One of the tunnels lives near the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor, and if I head in that direction, Houdini will come speeding over to hide in it, so he can get his share of tickles and skritches as I walk past.

I was about to walk past a kitty tunnel en route to going upstairs. A black kitty hiney was protruding from the tunnel. Plot twist: Houdini came running to take his place in the tunnel, so it was actually Merlin whose rump was protruding from the tunnel this time!

Houdini, clearly flummoxed that his brother was in his spot, emphatically sniffed Merlin’s rump. Merlin refused to budge. Houdini tried entering the other end of the tunnel. Merlin refused to budge.

Houdini took his massive, chonktastic self and pounced on the half of the tunnel where Merlin was. Merlin came charging out the other end of the tunnel like a furry cannonball.

Houdini promptly installed himself halfway into the tunnel, in the spot Merlin had vacated, with his hiney protruding.As far as he was concerned, all was right with the world.

I have spoiled cats!

That was unexpected!

 To make a very long story short, I wound up subscribing to a background check site for 3 days of unlimited usage. I had to find a person whose name was on a piece of mail that my mom got at her address, and I thought this was the most expedient way to figure out where the mail should go. The person actually lives across the street from my mom, as the person addressing the envelope messed up while writing the house number. So that mystery was solved quickly.

However, here I am with three days of a subscription to this search site.

And I thought about what might have happened to the person who I broke up with in college, whose behavior in the aftermath would qualify as stalking if someone did those things today. Sadly, anti-stalking laws didn't get passed until 3 or 4 years after my graduation, so he wasn't doing anything illegal at the time.  

For obvious reasons, I have made a point of NOT having contact with this guy in the decades since graduation. I have also made a point of trying to minimize identifying info that might crop up in search engines, specifically so it would be less easy for this specific person to drop my name in a search and decide to start his antics again. I was hoping that he was happily married and moved far, far away, where he would not have an reason to start any further trouble here.

But what I found is that he died last year. THAT wasn't what I expected to see. I found the obituary, which contained the memories that his sister wrote, and I saw his birthdate. I am 100% positive that this is the person I knew back then.

I am a bit shocked, as he was only a few years older than I am. I don't know what info I expected to find, but this wasn't it. 

At least I never again have to be concerned about whether something will trigger him to start making trouble again. That has always been in the back of my mind for the past 38 years, more than half my life. When the shock wears off, I suppose I will feel relief.