bandit king of lunch and string

you know, back when i was a wee punk, if you'd told me that someday i'd love hip-hop and country, "especially combined," i would've -- well, honestly, i grew up on science fiction, so i probably would've come to the correct conclusion, which is that the future is fuckin weird.

 

seebs's bedframe had issues so it went away, and the big bed is now just mattresses on the floor.

me: it's easier for me to get at you this way.
seebs: uh-oh.
me: you're vulnerable to my depredations!
seebs: hey! not so tickle!
me: but... depredations.
seebs: *glare*

nobody lets me depredate. :(

 

borrowing from kit because it's a Smile

 

also i did FIVE WHOLE MINUTES of weeding lol

 

after all these years, i finally realized why the grateful dead wrote a song about st stephen.

it's because he was stoned.

 

notes for myself about spine things

search terms

long article about recovery

stuff i want to know:

• is this happening at the local hospital? if not, is there ANY way to make so it is?
  
• apparently i'll be staying 3-5 days in the hospital, can i bring my own jimjams? what about my own sheets? sensory processing disorder aaaaaaa
• i am bringing my own pillow no matter what and if they say no i'm hitting someone with it
• seriously god make it happen at the northfield hospital cuz if i have to be alone with my medical phobia for 22 out of 24 hours for most of a week i will go winter soldier on the entire ward i swear to fuck
• there is a 'minimally invasive' type of method mentioned, is that possible?
• will i have to lie on my stomach for a week? will i be able to read? will they make sure i'm not placed somewhere with a television in the room, or bad noises of any kind? the sensory fuckery of this is going to be UNPRECEDENTED.
• sites talk about wanting you to gradually resume 'normal' activity level, is that normal for people in general, or normal for what you could manage before the surgery, or what?
• i need to talk to whoever's going to be doing it, and see if they are at all accomodating of autism needs, and if they give me any ableist vibes i am OUTTA there, i'll find someone else to do it.
• problems with nsaids post surgery?
• sleep on side ok? cuz i'm gonna do it anyway. it just happens. so probs better to fall asleep on my side in the first place so i can make sure i'm not twisting wrong.
  
• wheelchair travel is ok at what point?
• i'm assuming that this won't fix the thing where i can't walk much bc osteoarthritis, even if it totally fixes the leg explody, but i should ask how they interact
• at what point can i do aquatherapy? being weightless sounds v helpful but the pool ladder is maybe scary

see if stacy has any openings, cuz my head's not in the best place for this.

must make sure i can synch scrivener between laptop and tablet, since i won't be able to laptop until like a month after surgery or something. hooboy do i not want to spend another month in bed.

 

the more i think about it, the more i REALLY do not want to do the surgery. but it seems like the alternative is that i just gradually get worse and worse. but maybe if i lost a bunch of weight, or if my core muscles got a lot stronger, it'd help enough that i wouldn't need the surgery? god, i don't even know. i just lost spring from the nerve pain, and now i'm gonna lose fall to surgery recovery? i don't know, y'all. i just do not know. it's really scary and a lot of work and it might not even do the job.

 

maybe i should time it so the two months i’m basically a shuffle zombie are january and february. i’ll be glad to hibernate then.

 

wait, your mom has spine barnacles and she dances now?? that... makes me have intense emotions.

i have been pining for the great outdoors for so long. but the last time i hiked a non paved trail, a few years back, i spent the next day lying on the floor of the hotel bathroom and throwing up from pain. seebs and i have not gone up north since, though we used to go there several times a year. it was our romantic getaway. off season rooms in a nice resort are as cheap as a best western, did you know? lake superior raging outside, a cozy fire inside, and when the weather breaks we hit the trail...

i am an outdoor bear, under house arrest and fussy about it. i’m not truly decided on this surgery bc the nerve lightning in my leg is episodic. but they’d also be removing grody bone from the grinding zone. and what if i could get in a canoe again. what if i could walk five miles. what if i could be in the woods and think about the woods instead of my pain.

 

i'm having a good spine day! i was able to garden for about 15 mins, make a healthy lunch, and do a few tiny chores like watering plants and taking my breakfast dishes downstairs.

the eternal dilemma is: do i carpe the diem, and do some other stuff i've been wanting to do? or do i not push it in case i give myself a flare?

 

yeah, i make sure to tell anyone i'm talking to my pain about that i hate opiates and will get off them as fast as i can, and they know i'm on indomethacin, so if there's a problem with that they can talk to me about it. for the leg explody they put me on gabapentin, which worked real good, but idek what that is, it's not opioid, it's not an nsaid, it's a mystery pill! it didn't give me nightmares or constipation tho, so i'm fine with it.

 

i don't really know what that means in terms of what receptors it acts on and so forth, but yeah, that is how it do! it does a great job of making the L5 nerve settle the fuck down and quit making every muscle from ass to toes cramp solid, turning my sciatica experience from "the bones in my leg are being slowly pulled out with giant pliers" to "leg went to sleep and is waking up, except it keeps happening" -- which is unfun, but perfectly tolerable.

i'm not taking it now, bc the pain subsided and i've only got the tingles as an ongoing thing. so i'm only on nsaids for the mo. i can tell the tingles are not going away anytime soon, though, and what i saw on the MRI was very clear and obvious: between barnacles and fluid, those nerves are clamped down but good, and there's no way it's going to fix itself. i'm really going to have to have the surgery. :/