Where Personal and Professional Life Collide...

 False health day - which is to say, I feel so much better I could do All The Things.... which maturity reminds me is how I ended up with pneumonia that one time.

Yeah, never want to do that again.

So I'll be taking another quiet workday on the sofa with laptop and tea, rather than giving in to the impulse to run all the errands, etc.

All the chore-things (and fun-things) that need doing will still need doing on Wednesday, and be none the worse for the wait.  And enforced focus on work (aka the sofa-tether) means I'm going to hit ahead of deadline on the current project.  So yay?


 

I seem to have done myself a very odd injury. Or ailment, I'm not sure which.  All at once, without warning or actual impact.

My right hand, at the base of my right ring finger, to about midway straight down into my palm, aches. And when I say aches, I mean as though fire ants had gnawed on the tendons and bone.

But there is no tenderness when the area is pressed (in fact, it feels better), no swelling or redness at the site, and I am able to flex and use my fingers without anything other than that aching in one finger.  My wrist is fine, my arm is fine.

Have you ever tried to type without using your ring finger. Weirdly, I don't think it can be done. Not by me, anyway.

Going to wrap it in a heating pad, elevate it, and drink wine.  May not sure anything, but it certainly won't harm it...

Placing this here for anyone who needs to use it an an argument going forward, and as a reference for anyone who foolishly wants to start the argument here..

Article 25 of the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, to which the United States is a signatory:

Article 25

1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

(http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx?LangID=eng)


Health Care:  a right, not a privilege. 

So...

Although he's on track to losing weight, his numbers still aren't where the vet wants 'em. So we're back up to 3 units of insulin (he'd been down to 2.5), and we'll see what happens. He'll be going in for a sugar curve in a few weeks (an all-day test tracking what his blood sugar's doing), and hopefully that will tell us some more.

None of the numbers are in a danger zone - it's just fiddling to figure out the just-right temperature, so to speak.

Meanwhile, the various and sundry numbers for his kidneys are not where they should be, either. It doesn't indicate anything wrong-right-now, but suggests potential trouble down the line. So we're in a spot where medication won't be helpful, but there's not much else we can do except what we're already doing.

The moment I adopted CatofSize, I knew he'd have medical issues as he got older. He was neutered late, and even lean he was a big damn cat, and the intake vet warned me about all this. But up until now he's been so damned healthy, I figured it would kick in when he was 12 or 13, not 10...

Entering Day 2 of this low-level but annoying headache, despite painkillers, sleep, fresh (cold) air, and enough caffeine/food. The biosuit is displeasing me this week.

(then again, compared to the migraines I used to suffer in my 20's and early 30's, this is a cakewalk. So not complaining so much as muttering under my breath as I head into the mines for the day).

It's a funny thing, physical pain. I mean, funny-hah-hah and funny-weird.  Not only does everyone have a different scale of "what hurts," but it changes based on what we've experienced. It's almost like it's...trying to teach us something?

Australian norovirus: I try it out so you don't have to. Trust me, you don't want this.

(particularly if you already have a compromised digestive system.)

On the plus side, and without TMI, it swoops through pretty fast - 12 hours from onset until end. Now I'm dealing with the aftermath. Keith picked me up some Gatoraid and ginger ale this morning, but I forgot to request crackers. Or jello. I wonder if, in all of NYC's delivery excess, there's a place that delivers jello?

EtA: jello shots, yes. Plain jello, no. Oh my city...


Meanwhile, the cats don't care that I am behaving like a rag doll. In fact, they seem to be enjoying it. ElderCat - her vet appointment for the ear postponed until tomorrow - is sleeping on my feet, while CatOfSize is doing the guy thing and coming over periodically to check on me, give me a headbutt, and then retreat to the other sofa to watch me, carefully...

If he had thumbs, he'd totally be making me jello.

The really annoying thing about all of this is that ragdolls don't have the brainpower to think, or the strength to sit up and type for any length of time. I'm supposed to be WORKING, damn it....

And daytime tv is STILL boring.

Tell the invalid a story?

EtA 2: I am daring actual food for the first time in 30 hours. And by 'actual food' I refer to overcooked, unsauced, un-cheesed pasta. I'm not sure if my distaste has more to do with my digestive system still being upset, or my foodie sensibilities being offended...

I am having many thinky thoughts, and absolutely no ability to put them together in a coherent fashion. Moo.

This rhinovirus can move the hell on, any day now. Bored bored bored bored.

On the plus side, I now have new glasses, and i got in cuddle-time with the Muppet-puppy last night (and got to see my folks), and once this cold does move through my sinuses, I will be revved up to write my fingers off, and I will have TIME to do that in...

at least until the 31st, when the Great Road Trip #4 takes off for the wilds of Toronto!

And then it will be November, and I won't even have time to breathe. I guess it's good I'm being forced to rest, now.

So, after my last massage therapist left town in late 2011, I sulked, and avoided, and waited until I was totally tied up in knots before I finally broke down and tried someone new. And I am pleased to say that my new massage therapist is no Trini, Mistress of Pain*, but she's the closest second I've found in years.

This is a good thing, yes. Also, she scolded me for delaying so long to come to her, and rightfully so. I really need to go every quarter, minimum. I let myself forget that, the past year. Which explains why, for the past week or so, my right arm has been giving me so much pain, to the point where I couldn't work for more than an hour at a time. Ow, and other words of annoyance.

so Yay! for being beat back into shape.

I know many otherwise right-thinking people hear "massage" and they think "oh, naked, and a stranger touching you...that has to be awkward. Or sexual. Or awkwardly sexual." I blame bad 1970's porno films for much of this. But a proper massage, especially a therapeutic or deep tissue massage, is no such thing. It's like a gym workout more than anything else - when you're done you will be dehydrated, and sore, and your muscles will bitch at you like nobody's business. And you might even feel worse the next morning, if you were really knotted up.

(and oh dear god i was knotted. All my stress and tension, lodged under the right scapula. As usual.)

And then the day after that, if your therapist did the right things, suddenly your body will remember how it's supposed to move. And pains you were so familiar with you didn't even notice any more will magically disappear....

Right now, after a 50 minute deep tissue workout, yeah, everything hurts, particularly my right shoulder and arm, where most of the trouble lay deep underneath the surface. BioFreeze and a lot of water, and early to bed will put me mostly to rights. And then I am under strict orders to come back next week for another 40 minutes, and then she'll re-evaluate where we are. Like a coach? Exactly like a coach, yeah.

So if you're achey, or your body's not moving right - especially if you have a job that requires a lot of, oh, typing, or drawing, or other repeating motions? You might want to try a massage therapist. Don't let your preconceptions keep you from feeling better!


And me? I have a cheeseburger, and a glass of red wine, and everything's just dandy....


*the therapist I saw when I lived in New Haven. She was Jamaican-born, about 4'1", with arms like steel and fingers that could dig every last knot out of your body, and a voice that could terrify Marines, and she had me running like a fine-tuned machine for two years.