Wednesday, August 02, 2023

Let's Call This a Hiccup - ROW80 Check-In

 

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

This week is full of hiccups.  Or maybe hiccup is just another word for life.

The only two goals I held onto a full YES for are daily morning pages and daily physical activity.  I pulled a zero on all the rest.  I wasn't even able to go into my project on the NaNo site to update my progress to reflect what I had managed to accomplish before midnight Monday so it sits untouched since the day I created it so it looks like a complete failure. 

But I know better.  I hadn't been keeping it updated because the work I was doing was with my existing paper files--notebooks and printed manuscripts and loose papers.  So I hadn't been logging onto my new Dell which is still exclusively my writing computer where the NaNo site was one of the few tabs open on my browser.  I expected to spend the same hours on Monday evening as I had been on Sundays and Wednesday's on the check-in to make the update at NaNo but I woke in pain again Monday morning and it kept ramping up. 

Then immediately after morning pages I found an email from my care provider agency stating that my caregiver had called out on a family emergency.  I was immediately in a panic because I had a doctor appointment that afternoon set two weeks earlier about the issues from the fall last month.  A few back and forths established that my caregiver would call from her phone to reschedule my appointment and eventually I learned it was now for Tuesday afternoon. 

After that I had to deal with getting through a third day in a row as a shut-in who can't safely shower while alone in the unit or use knives or the stove or oven.  I have a toaster oven, microwave and electric tea kettle that can get me far if the items going in have been prepped for me.  But I'd made a significant dent in the fresh prepped food so I was going to have to get creative with canned or frozen.

What I missed the most after two days was the shower.  It was especially hard since one of my goto for pain relief is a hot shower.  But being in pain in itself made getting in and out of the tub an unsafe task while home alone.  And forget about maneuvering around a slippery tub reaching for this and that and getting soap and water in my eyes etc.  I almost never need any help but the risk is too high to take as the moment something did happen and nobody was there within earshot I'd really be in a fix.  And Monday, one of the things that exacerbated the pain was lifting my right arm above my lower ribs.  So forget about a shampoo.

The pain had been just above moderate all day Sunday and is always above moderate when I first wake so I wasn't too surprised Monday morning to have stiffness and cricks in my neck again.  I set about my morning pages as usual and towards the end of the exercise (which was double the typical time because I kept zoning out) I raised up from the hunched position over the page where I'd been resting my elbows on the edge of the table just like when I was eight and I reached for my thermos and there was the first twinge between my shoulder blades. 

I noticed that my grip on the thermos felt odd almost illusory.  And then I lift it to my face and tilted my head back and I gasped and almost dropped it. I missed my mouth.  It slopped a bit of scalding hot coffee on my chin.  Not much but I flinched and that set reverberations thru my ribcage.  

It was so unexpected.  I'd been watching the symptoms from the fall slowly recede for ten days.  Most of what had been the worst from the first day--the bruised and skinned knee, the golf ball sized lump in my belly just below my left rib from landing on my cane handle, the wrenched wrist from having said handle ripped from my grip, the bruise on the muscle below my right elbow--all of these had dissipated to almost nothing in the last week.  The only thing that remained was the pesky neck pain which was mostly mild by afternoon but continued to create a challenge to a good night's sleep as it seemed no position conducive to sleep for me was good for a limber, pain free neck.  It was when I started noticing tingling in the fingers of my left hand that I finally agreed to make the doctor appointment.  But even that had not made a conscious appearance in nearly a week.  So this incident Monday morning took me by surprise.

The pain escalated quickly from that first attempt at raising the thermos.  My next move was to put the thermos back down and I noticed the pain had moved from my neck to a spot between my shoulder blades.  Not that it left my neck but something about motions of my head triggered the pain between my shoulder blades.  And that pain was much worse then the neck pain.  And continuous whereas the pain in my neck was only when it was in motion or in the wrong position on the pillow.  Also triggering it was a deep inhale as was sitting up straight.  And as I was about to learn, so did attempting to stand up since that entailed putting both hands on the arms of my wheeled office chair and pushing down to lift my butt out of the seat.

OH.  BOY.  BIG MISTAKE. 

I almost stumbled and shoved the chair out from under me.  I don't know how I managed to land my butt back in the seat as it rolled backwards until it rested against the couch.  I had no choice but to try again to get stood up.  My bladder rules the roost in the mornings after the input of all that coffee and water.  I knew better than to use my right arm to push up so I tried instead to use a little bit of push with my left arm.  That still hurt my back and neck but not nearly to the degree the use of the right arm did.  With the chair up against the couch it didn't roll again and I was able to lean my head out past my knees and push off gently with my left arm.  A tricky move since I could have ended up diving headfirst into the hard floor.  But it worked.

For the first time in over a week I was glad I had a doctor appointment.  Tho I was wondering how I was going to get ready for it if this was the new reality.  It wouldn't have been my first choice to return to that chair but I had not been able to check my email before I left and so I did.  And that's when I learned I was on my own for another full 24 hours.

It was a a challenge but I made it.  With the help of nsaids--naproxin for the daytime and ibuprophen for the night.  Ibuprophin always makes me sleepy unless I'm caffeinated.  Thus missing the close of NaNo Monday night.

I'd also developed another odd symptom before noon Monday that did not resolve until while I was asleep Monday night.  That was episodes of intense burping.  The burps themselves were painful but when I resisted them the pressure in my ribcage just became excruciating.  I even began to wonder if I was having a heart attack.  And I wondered if the fresh fruit I'd added to my morning yogurt cup had turned over the weekend.  But that mystery was solved by the doctor the next day.  Apparently when we are in pain we swallow the air bubbles that accumulate under our tongue.

I came out of the doctor visit with a prescription for prednisone.  But he suggested I wait until morning as it was likely to keep me awake.  And he suggested I use ice and heat and menthol gel along with nsaids until then.  An hour after I took the ibuprophen Tuesday evening I was falling asleep so I went with it.  I woke at 4am pain free and taking deep breaths again.  But I knew that after the previous two days, six hours of sleep was not enough so I lay there waiting to either fall asleep again or see light in the window. 

I slept again until almost 9 this morning.  But something startled me awake.  I don't know if I was already in pain again or if it was the startle reaction that had me pushing my whole body weight up off the bed with my right arm that triggered a new cycle.  But this morning was almost a repeat of Monday morning.  But this time I did not wait all day to take the first nsaid.  I took naproxin an hour after taking the prednisone.  I even took ibuprophen with my second thermos of coffee four hours later.

My caregiver arrived at 12:45 with the news that she had a doctor appointment at 2:30 so we did not have until 5pm but rather had less than 90 minutes to get the most important stuff done.  I'm immediately in a panic again because tomorrow is my annual HUD housekeeping inspection which we'd been preparing for for three weeks but we had not been able to do much since Friday with all the crisis going on for both of us. The big thing remaining to do was clean the oven.  But that on top of the daily chores--washing dishes and putting them away, prepping my food for the evening. sweeping and mopping the floors,  and also a deep clean of the bathroom but not until after I got a shower and shampoo.

In the time it took me to shower and shampoo and rest after with an icepack under my spine between my shoulder blades until it got warm and then get up and dress--in other words in approximately an hour and fifteen minutes she had cleaned the oven, did the dishes, wiped the counters, left the sink sparkling, swept and mopped all the floors, cleaned up the bathroom, and made a chicken salad from scratch including taking the meat off the rotisserie chicken I had her pick up for me at Safeway when she picked up the prescription the night before as there wasn't going to be time for food prep after that.

After she left, I was antsy.  I felt the anxiety about the inspection rising.  I couldn't sit still.  I kept looking around at all the clutter.  None of it the responsibility of my caregiver and none of it probably decisive in the inspection.  Just embarrassing.  I began a methodical walk around the unit starting at the back door in the kitchen.  Not much to do in there as that is more my caregiver's domain on the days she is here.  It just needed a few tweeks.  One of them was to tape up out of the way the extra length of cord on the super bright LED lamp clipped to the toaster oven shelf where it can shine on the counter below or the sink to the left.  The cord had come loose awhile back and I keep snagging items in it.  That was something I should have done weeks ago.  It felt good to see it done and know I wouldn't keep snagging my thermos, carafes and utensils on it any more.

From there I wandered around the living area where my bed/couch and office area is bounded also by the craft table which was now covered in clutter related to eating, drinking, pain management and three purses I'd been shuffling things between for weeks as every outing seemed to entail a different outfit and purses need to match right? 

My eyes fell on the back of the door which my caregiver had suggested might be frowned upon by the inspectors for being too loaded with bags and jackets on the series of hooks. Enough so it won't open all the way.   I started there.  Five minutes later three winter coats were stashed in the hall closet and a travel bag for hanging clothes that I'd brought over from Mom's and emptied months ago was rolled up and stashed under the decorative pillows along the wall on my bed.

The next area I tackled was my desk.  I described the state it was in in a previous check-in. The key was to take one item at a time and walk it to it's home and put it away.  The rule was no sitting down nor standing in one place for more than two minutes. That's because getting up out of that chair was still a pain trigger as was standing in place.  Another rule: Pick up one item at a time and identify it and whether it has a designated home or not.  If yes then put it or take it there.  If not then designate a temp home to get it out of sight.  In that way one by one, every paper, pen, pencil. fidget toy, notebook, ripped envelope, junk mail, protein bar wrapper, ear bud, dead battery that covered a 20 inch by 5 foot surface was dealt with in less than an hour.

I just hope I can remember where the temp homes are and what is in them before I need the items stashed like that.

I went next to the craft table.  Which is a table that is tall and needs bar stools to sit at but I keep the two chairs on the porch as I never use this table for sit down tasks.  It is sometimes a standing desk and sometimes a craft table but usually it too is an archeology dig of my previous several weeks.  I used the same principles and cleared off all but the items meant to live on that table.  I even sorted out all three purses and settled on the one that 'goes' with the most of my outfits for going out--the blue suede one--and I loaded it down with the usual suspects and emptied the other two and hung all three where they belonged on the back of the front door which now had room for them.

All of this I did while still in pain tho I made sure I was not exacerbating it.  It seemed even that I was noticing it less by staying engaged in this task.  Or maybe by staying in motion I was remaining more limber.  I don't know.  But the thing I noticed the most was that my anxiety had more than halved.  And I know that anxiety can create and exacerbate a pain cycle.

So did my anxiety lessen because I was doing something to address the dreaded inspection?  Or did it lessen simply because I was doing something?

I will be so glad when the inspection is over.  The notice says to expect them between 8am and 4pm.  Well if they come before 9 they will be pulling me out of bed and they will have non-verbal Joy.  And if they come after noon there will probably be a dish or three in the dishpan.  Unless I hide them in the fridge. 

I will be on my own for this too as my caregiver's doctor has ordered her off her leg for at least a day.  A bee sting Monday evening had caused swelling and pain that was increasing.  I hope she is back on Friday as we did not get this week's grocery shopping done and that has to precede the meal prep to see me through Monday afternoon.

I'm hoping for that too because I often go sit with my 90 year old mom while my caregiver is shopping for me and I haven't seen mom for two weeks now.  I put my care service on notice that I will need a sub if my regular is still not available on Friday but if it is a sub I will have to go with them as I won't send my card with someone I've known less than a month.  Which means no visit with Mom.

Well this is me, telling a story.  I set out to tell this one not sure how much detail I would go into but consciously choosing to tell it as honestly as I could after deciding that it was appropriate for a check-in because this is my life--an example of a life ROW80 claims to have been created to accommodate.

This is also the life that I need to accommodate my goals to.  And to do that I need to see it clear and learn to develop reasonable expectations as well as notice when I could be making different choices in spite of my challenges and thus can reasonably raise my expectations.

The success I am pointing to isn't in the measurable goals this time but I've decided that is OK.  At least to the extent that I am not allowed to shame myself for not measuring up.  But there is a success and it is significant.  Perseverance.

And a big plus was getting that desk uncluttered.  Now it is ready for the storyworld bible project to be spread across it.  Probably not until Friday night or Saturday tho.  I've already said how busy the next two days are but there is also the fact that the pain cycle Monday seemed to be triggered by being hunched over that desk for an hour.  I am hoping that the prednisone has kicked in by Friday or at least Saturday. 

Meanwhile I will give myself grace on the goals.  Unless there is significant improvement on the pain front I do not expect much improvement on the goals by Sunday night.  But I am open for surprises.


 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

  • Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES In fact I just passed a milestone by filling the first spiral notebook.  70 pages both sides.  Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me.
  • Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 minutes per day Not since Sunday  (Until about ten days ago, lots of storydreaming. No notebook.  I'd misplaced the one I used to use for this and was reluctant to start a new one but I think I need to be less fussy.  The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.  I found the notebook. So.  No excuses left. Return of the pain is a legit excuse maybe?)
  • Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. NOT since Sunday (with pain level back to normal background hum and the Reverse Thon in the rearview I will make this and storydreaming the high priority for the rest of Camp NaNo.  They are the core after all.  The rest are support.  Well Camp NaNo is over in 24 hrs and i'm not going to hit the milestones I pictured nor fulfill the 11K word count I established in my Camp NaNo project specs but I'm still pleased with the start I've made and the storyword bible will continue as my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round.  Oh I just realized that the 2x I reported last Wednesday plus the 3x I just reported add up to 5 which is actually a fulfillment of the stated goal of at least 5x a week. Return of the pain put a hiccup in this again.)
  • Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins. NOPE (not unless you count a doctor appointment and I sure don't)
  • A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.  even wit the pain returning I was able to maintain this easy level and I think it helped moderate the pain tho when you get in the range of excruciating I'm not sure what 'moderate' might mean)
  • I want to reengage with my blog so: Two blog posts per week besides the two check-ins. One about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews.  The other about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  NOPE  (I've continued to choose reading over blogging.  I've been finishing 2 to 3 books a week so there is plenty of fodder for reviews. I think the main hurdle is my personal issue with transitions (part of my high functioning autism) it is hard to change the channels in my head which translates to: hard to switch from awake to asleep and back again.  hard to switch from dry to wet and back (think swimming and showers). Forgetting to eat and then forgetting to stop eating.  Really it is any activity including topics on my mind. Except for reading NF books.  For some reason I'd rather read one chapter each in ten books in one sitting then read ten chapters in one book.  Odd that.  I wonder why switching channels is preferable in that one instance.  Is it just the fact that it is all reading and uses all the same neuropaths and I don't have to get up and move to another location but even if I happen to I can still switch to a different book without a glitch?  These are not idle questions.  This is an example of the self-reflection I've talked about in earlier posts.  Questions like these often lead to insights I can plug back into my life in another context and increase my success.  (even reading has diminished this week.  That is partly because when I manage to get into a story far enough to lose awareness of the pain I'm suddenly too sleepy to keep reading.)

1 tell me a story:

Eden "Kymele" Mabee 8/03/2023 8:33 AM  

Your caregiver is excellent (though, no doubt busy herself). Glad you got that shower you needed, and the cleaning done too. And... don't feel bad about not checking off the "Winner" box for CampNaNo. YOU know you made progress. That's good enough.. Some things are just not meant for digital analysis

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