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!