Warning: Kvetching Ahead
I am a naturally upbeat person; my emotional default is toward happiness and engagement...usually. That hasn't been true recently, not since I was discharged from Pennsylvania Hospital on 3 January. The most obvious reason is the splint on my right hand:
The ring finger and little finger are broken, but they are buddy-wrapped with the middle finger. This didn't seem like a big deal to me at the time, but only because I didn't realize how much you need that dang middle finger. I underestimated how a important part it plays in grasping and in cutting. I went out to dinner before a play last Wednesday and had to ask one of my dinner companions to cut up my excellent salad for me. Grrr.
The splint makes many of my favorite activities unfun...handwriting anything, sorting pieces of paper, eating anything but soup...and a few down right dangerous: picking up heavy or sharp objects that I need to manipulate in ways my left hand can't manage. Those objects are likely to slip from my grasp and go floorwards toward my feet. Uh-oh. Could be bad.
"Well, much of your life is lived on the computer, right?" you say. "That shouldn't be affected much."
Oh yeah? Let me show you another view of the splint:
See how the splinted fingers bend forward? When I type some letters on the right hand side of the keyboard, the splint may hit the top row and insert a number or punctuation mark mid-word, like so: fr0m or up-p-er. Having to go back and fix this slows me down and takes a lot of the fu0n out of writing.
Those are mechanical reasons I have been dragging my wagon, spending hours on the couch, staring at mindless TV, or playing stupid games on my iPhone. This week, however, I finally recognized that my inertia was worsening almost daily. Why? What had changed? I realized that as the dates approached when I will get answer=s to a number of unknowns, it has become more diffi-cu0lt to suppress my worrying feelings. Some of the answers may be welcome, others may not.
I should get my first set of answers this coming Tuesday, 30 January, when I see an urologist specializing in kidneys. According to the Kidney Foundation, a normal GFR (globular filtration rate) for someone over 70 should be 75. Mine is 60, but I'm 80, so 60 might be closer to normal for my age. The 'self treatment' is to cut back o=n proteins. I can do that! Samantha already thinks I eat too little protein. So I'm hopeful but keeping my fingers crossed.
A week from tomorrow, February 5th, I am scheduled to have the cataract in my left eye removed. (The right eye was done in '08 or'09,right before the University of Pennsylvania lost the medi0cal records for those years in a bungled IT conversion.) My ophthamologist has been tracki0ng that cataract for years, holding off operating because I also have cornea guttata in that eye. The cornea guttata is dormant at present, and the fear is that removing the cataract will stir it into action. So we shall see what we shall see there, literally.
Finally, on Thursday, 8 February, I go back to my orthopedist where I hope I get fitted for a less restrictive splint. Frankly I'm not at all optimistic here. Perhaps she'll give me a more vigorous set of exercises to do twice a day, but I think the Purple People Popper will be with me through March.
I shall strive for a better attitude. FanSee
My dining room table:
center
The ring finger and little finger are broken, but they are buddy-wrapped with the middle finger. This didn't seem like a big deal to me at the time, but only because I didn't realize how much you need that dang middle finger. I underestimated how a important part it plays in grasping and in cutting. I went out to dinner before a play last Wednesday and had to ask one of my dinner companions to cut up my excellent salad for me. Grrr.
The splint makes many of my favorite activities unfun...handwriting anything, sorting pieces of paper, eating anything but soup...and a few down right dangerous: picking up heavy or sharp objects that I need to manipulate in ways my left hand can't manage. Those objects are likely to slip from my grasp and go floorwards toward my feet. Uh-oh. Could be bad.
"Well, much of your life is lived on the computer, right?" you say. "That shouldn't be affected much."
Oh yeah? Let me show you another view of the splint:
See how the splinted fingers bend forward? When I type some letters on the right hand side of the keyboard, the splint may hit the top row and insert a number or punctuation mark mid-word, like so: fr0m or up-p-er. Having to go back and fix this slows me down and takes a lot of the fu0n out of writing.
Those are mechanical reasons I have been dragging my wagon, spending hours on the couch, staring at mindless TV, or playing stupid games on my iPhone. This week, however, I finally recognized that my inertia was worsening almost daily. Why? What had changed? I realized that as the dates approached when I will get answer=s to a number of unknowns, it has become more diffi-cu0lt to suppress my worrying feelings. Some of the answers may be welcome, others may not.
I should get my first set of answers this coming Tuesday, 30 January, when I see an urologist specializing in kidneys. According to the Kidney Foundation, a normal GFR (globular filtration rate) for someone over 70 should be 75. Mine is 60, but I'm 80, so 60 might be closer to normal for my age. The 'self treatment' is to cut back o=n proteins. I can do that! Samantha already thinks I eat too little protein. So I'm hopeful but keeping my fingers crossed.
A week from tomorrow, February 5th, I am scheduled to have the cataract in my left eye removed. (The right eye was done in '08 or'09,right before the University of Pennsylvania lost the medi0cal records for those years in a bungled IT conversion.) My ophthamologist has been tracki0ng that cataract for years, holding off operating because I also have cornea guttata in that eye. The cornea guttata is dormant at present, and the fear is that removing the cataract will stir it into action. So we shall see what we shall see there, literally.
Finally, on Thursday, 8 February, I go back to my orthopedist where I hope I get fitted for a less restrictive splint. Frankly I'm not at all optimistic here. Perhaps she'll give me a more vigorous set of exercises to do twice a day, but I think the Purple People Popper will be with me through March.
I shall strive for a better attitude. FanSee
My dining room table:
center