Daily Log
09:00
I got up at 7, though I had woken up at 6 with a shock of pain like a spark. I managed to sort of get back to sleep, but that made it quite difficult to get out of bed at 7.
My feet were quite tender again, but I ignored it and managed. I took a shower and got dressed, then came downstairs and got on the computer. Tickets for the summer campsite I wanted went on sale at 8, and I got the reservation without any trouble. Then I went about getting breakfast.
I had a double breakfast, because I was quite active yesterday and I will be again today. My knee seems stable (good for ladder work), my feet are behaving but achy, and there's something stuck between my shoulderblades which feels like someone hit it with a hammer. My pain level is higher than usual, not quite bad enough to need assistance. I'm a little foggy but otherwise okay.
I feel like I have enough energy to do pruning, let's hope that holds up.
17:00
I drove a half-hour to a client in Oakland, hauled the ladder and pruning tools out of the car, and set up in the backyard. It was an old plum tree, not too tall, but plum and cherry wood is quite tough and takes a lot of cutting to get through. It took me 2.5 hours to even it up and prune it down, about half of it on the ladder. I also spent some time kneeling and sitting, neatening up the base of it. The first forty minutes was spent with a hand-saw, which takes a lot of gripping. The last half hour or so was spent using the pole pruner, squinting up against the sun, then maneuvering the pole up so that I could pull the cord to chop the branch. I climbed a set of stairs to the second floor of the house when I was done, so that I could get my check, then descended again to load my equipment back into the car.
I drove home, and had a little trouble getting out of the car. I got some leftovers for lunch, and found that by the time I was done heating them and setting up, my legs had a slight tingly feeling all over, as if the circulation had been cut off. I was getting increasingly tired.
I sat for about forty minutes to eat; when I got up I almost couldn't put weight on my left heel at all. After I had tidied up I sat at the computer for a half hour. I find that I'm cold all through (though I wasn't cold at the job site at all) and I'm almost too exhausted to write. My pain hasn't increased a lot, though it's high enough to intrude on my awareness, like a constant high-pitched whine. Moving is difficult, like I'm working a mannequin. My coordination is shot.
I think I may go sleep for a bit.
21:15
I went to bed at 17:45 and slept until 20:15. When I woke up, I felt like I could sleep more, but I was hungry; I knew that I'd sleep better if I ate something. So I got up at 20:45 and came down for dinner.
My left foot is almost too painful to walk on, and my right isn't far behind -- the metatarsals are all stuck, meaning the ankle can't flex properly, which puts a lot of stress on the ligaments that end on the bottom of the heel. I will see whether I can fix both feet before I go back to bed.
I have various strained muscles in my shoulders and back, but nothing torn or swollen. My right collarbone isn't flexing as it should, but it hasn't been right for a while. On the whole I'm so sore and stiff it was difficult to pick my clothes up off the floor. I dressed in sweats, and the texture of my old sweatshirt feels like sandpaper on my upper body, especially on my lower back. I may need to ice that.
I'm very lethargic, moving slowly, and I have some brainfog: I can hold a train of thought all right, but it takes focus, and I can't multitask. I feel alternately chilled and hot. I got dinner and then realized I was in too much pain to eat, so I've taken another Tylenol to try to manage that. I've taken more pain meds (even OTC ones) in the last two weeks than I took in the last year; I chalk that up to a spectacularly turbulent spring, which has my inflammation flaring uncontrollably. I can't change the weather any more than I can avoid exposures to chemicals which trigger CFS crashes, or stress from unexpected catastrophe. With threats to my health from multiple directions, it sometimes feels like it's just one thing after another.
At least summer will come, eventually.
23:20
I've eaten, poked at the code I was working on (mostly doing management commands to commit changes), and done a little bit of intel work for Ingress (largely cut-and-paste and chatting with people). My pain level is holding steady at a dull roar; my body feel like it's on fire, but it's kind of a slow burn. I'm getting less coherent, and since my collaborator appears to have gone to bed, I think I'll do the same.
I have an account as Torquill on Dreamwidth, and that's where I posted this. You can sign in with OpenID to comment on the original post, or you can go ahead and comment here; either way works.
I got up at 7, though I had woken up at 6 with a shock of pain like a spark. I managed to sort of get back to sleep, but that made it quite difficult to get out of bed at 7.
My feet were quite tender again, but I ignored it and managed. I took a shower and got dressed, then came downstairs and got on the computer. Tickets for the summer campsite I wanted went on sale at 8, and I got the reservation without any trouble. Then I went about getting breakfast.
I had a double breakfast, because I was quite active yesterday and I will be again today. My knee seems stable (good for ladder work), my feet are behaving but achy, and there's something stuck between my shoulderblades which feels like someone hit it with a hammer. My pain level is higher than usual, not quite bad enough to need assistance. I'm a little foggy but otherwise okay.
I feel like I have enough energy to do pruning, let's hope that holds up.
17:00
I drove a half-hour to a client in Oakland, hauled the ladder and pruning tools out of the car, and set up in the backyard. It was an old plum tree, not too tall, but plum and cherry wood is quite tough and takes a lot of cutting to get through. It took me 2.5 hours to even it up and prune it down, about half of it on the ladder. I also spent some time kneeling and sitting, neatening up the base of it. The first forty minutes was spent with a hand-saw, which takes a lot of gripping. The last half hour or so was spent using the pole pruner, squinting up against the sun, then maneuvering the pole up so that I could pull the cord to chop the branch. I climbed a set of stairs to the second floor of the house when I was done, so that I could get my check, then descended again to load my equipment back into the car.
I drove home, and had a little trouble getting out of the car. I got some leftovers for lunch, and found that by the time I was done heating them and setting up, my legs had a slight tingly feeling all over, as if the circulation had been cut off. I was getting increasingly tired.
I sat for about forty minutes to eat; when I got up I almost couldn't put weight on my left heel at all. After I had tidied up I sat at the computer for a half hour. I find that I'm cold all through (though I wasn't cold at the job site at all) and I'm almost too exhausted to write. My pain hasn't increased a lot, though it's high enough to intrude on my awareness, like a constant high-pitched whine. Moving is difficult, like I'm working a mannequin. My coordination is shot.
I think I may go sleep for a bit.
21:15
I went to bed at 17:45 and slept until 20:15. When I woke up, I felt like I could sleep more, but I was hungry; I knew that I'd sleep better if I ate something. So I got up at 20:45 and came down for dinner.
My left foot is almost too painful to walk on, and my right isn't far behind -- the metatarsals are all stuck, meaning the ankle can't flex properly, which puts a lot of stress on the ligaments that end on the bottom of the heel. I will see whether I can fix both feet before I go back to bed.
I have various strained muscles in my shoulders and back, but nothing torn or swollen. My right collarbone isn't flexing as it should, but it hasn't been right for a while. On the whole I'm so sore and stiff it was difficult to pick my clothes up off the floor. I dressed in sweats, and the texture of my old sweatshirt feels like sandpaper on my upper body, especially on my lower back. I may need to ice that.
I'm very lethargic, moving slowly, and I have some brainfog: I can hold a train of thought all right, but it takes focus, and I can't multitask. I feel alternately chilled and hot. I got dinner and then realized I was in too much pain to eat, so I've taken another Tylenol to try to manage that. I've taken more pain meds (even OTC ones) in the last two weeks than I took in the last year; I chalk that up to a spectacularly turbulent spring, which has my inflammation flaring uncontrollably. I can't change the weather any more than I can avoid exposures to chemicals which trigger CFS crashes, or stress from unexpected catastrophe. With threats to my health from multiple directions, it sometimes feels like it's just one thing after another.
At least summer will come, eventually.
23:20
I've eaten, poked at the code I was working on (mostly doing management commands to commit changes), and done a little bit of intel work for Ingress (largely cut-and-paste and chatting with people). My pain level is holding steady at a dull roar; my body feel like it's on fire, but it's kind of a slow burn. I'm getting less coherent, and since my collaborator appears to have gone to bed, I think I'll do the same.
I have an account as Torquill on Dreamwidth, and that's where I posted this. You can sign in with OpenID to comment on the original post, or you can go ahead and comment here; either way works.