Comfortably Numbed

Let's see, Monday I finally got to the store and bought Scotty new pants.  He really needed them.  Then because the pants store just happened to be right next to Smash Burger I decided to try & remedy my bad burger vibe from Saturday.  I had a beehive burger & a PB&J shake with smash fries.  All were infinitely delish.

Tuesday was not a good day for me.  I had my 2nd appointment with the pain specialist.  It shouldn't have been bad, but I have some seriously powerful negative memories of pain clinics and injections, all of which ended in me being blamed for them not being able to successfully treat the pain.  I had a full on anxiety attack, but only after the injection portion of the appointment was over.  Turns out I can take pain a lot better than I can overcome my own fears.  But then it was over & Scotty took me to Joe's.  The world is a much happier place when there's fried crawfish and plum sauce.

Today I got to go to work with Scotty so I could work on setting up a couple computers we got from surplus for Mom & Leisa.  The internet at the college is much faster than at our house.  Thank goodness I have Scotty as a resource to make miracles happen.  When we get done with this project we should all be upgraded to Win7 and have decent machines customized just how we want them....I hope.


Tomorrow we have a lunch date with Christopher Dominguez...otherwise fondly known as The Brat.  I'm really looking forward to seeing him again and getting to visit.  It has been such a long time, too long.

Tonight I'm trying out a new pain treatment for muscle spasms (my back didn't appreciate sitting at a desk to mess with the pc's).  It's a lidocain patch applied topically.  Scotty & I had a bit of a learning curve figuring out how to apply them.  I'm hoping they work cuz I now have A LOT of them.

I'm off to think happy thoughts and a liberal application of kitty snugs.

LL&P
~m

Treats & Trek

As predicted, after 2 days at the flower shop my back was indeed beyond sore.  Surprisingly it wasn't the parts of my back that have hurt the most recently.  While tired and a bit grumpy my uper back and neck are not my primary complaint.  My lower back and sciatica are killin' me.  Yesterday we had to run house errands, between Scotty's injured foot & my nerve twinges we looked like delegates from the ministry of funny walks.

Yesterday I had a fun phone visit with Tracy Covel one of my chosen family from the summers I spent in Ogden canyon as a campground host.  He's getting things lined up to head back to South Fork Campground for the summer.  With any luck I should get to spend some time up there & float my river a few times.

Since we had to go out yesterday Scotty & I decided to treat ourselves with a good hamburger.  Unfortunately Culvers left me quite disappointed. Despite the cashier asking & writing down what I did and didn't want on my burger it came standard with tomatoes and mustard (I am not a fan of either).  The burger itself was dry & either they put on extra onions or they were really strong cuz they completely overwhelmed any seasoning or flavor the rest of the ingredients might have had.  Their chili cheese fries were made with mediocre chili, greasy undercooked fries, and cheese that was very disappointing for a chain that prides themselves for their "wisconsin cheddar".  The cheese curds were good.  I was somewhat excited to try their "lemon ice" & really enjoyed it up until I discovered that the bottom half of my serving was contaminated with strong peanut butter flavor.....lemon raspberry & peanut butter are not a great combo.  All in all the entire adventure was a major disappointment.  Really shoulda gone to Smash Burger like we first talked about.

Today I am being as kitty as I can.  spent much of my morning reading in bed, then moved to the couch to discover a Star Trek movie marathon was happening.  It's not every day that a dose of Shatner seems wonderful, but today it does.

Live long & prosper my darlings!
~m

Perhaps a bitr too much.

So today and yesterday I got to spend some time at the Tulip Tree.  It's great fun to be back there and see how fabulously busy they are now.  Today Adda did her usual awesome job of supervising one and all & still made one of her fantastic fruit baskets and a killer rose planter.  I brought in a pizza lunch for us all, it was fun to have lunch buddies again, I've missed that social moment.  I got to make 3 fun corsages for Jenni & Paul's twins and one of their friends.  Unfortunately right about then things got extra crazy at the shop & I did not get pics :(  so just imagine 3 totally awesome wrist corsages with plenty of flair & bling.

I wound up manning the shop by myself for a couple hours this evening.  Though rusty I do remember how & it was even kinda fun, my back at the end of this day is rather adamantly reminding me why I had to give up on an everyday floral job.  Doesn't help that I can't soothe the grumpy muscles with a soak in my hot tub.  Perhaps my next BIG project will be draining the stale water (though mostly unused & kept clean it hasn't been changed since before Scotty lost his hand).

Last week I met with a new doctor.  She specializes in treating pain and the underlying causes of pain.  It was interesting to meet with her and talk about what options I have for treating my "just arthritis" and "residual nerve damage".  I love my neurosurgeon but there are a few places where his bedside manners are lacking.  Anyhow, I'm scheduled to go in next week for some sort of in office procedure that will hopefully numb the nerves causing me the most discomfort.  She thinks this may help to get me back where I can work with my hands more and sit for longer amounts of time.  Hopefully that gets me back to where I can strengthen up my lower back muscles and do more without hurting.  I both dread and look forward to this, my biggest worry  is that it won't work....we've already talked about other options, but it's not easy to stay optimistic.  Here's hoping.

Here's a puzzler for ya, what do you do when you sprain your only ankle and your foot swells up? You can't bear weight on that foot, so you can't use your prosthetic leg to ambulate.   Yep you guessed it the answer is: NOTHING.  Twice now since I got home this has happened.  Poor Scotty doesn't even know exactly what he's doing to pull the muscles.  So we treat the symptoms as much as he can stand the coddling and then he's stuck at home.  Either he has to commute in his power chair (it has a 16 mile range, according to google maps that means he can go a LOT of places) to get to work, stores, etc. or he's stuck at home.  Hopefully soon we get a chair lift installed on Jayne (my truck) and then he can take his power chair wherever he wants.  I'm looking forward to that cuz it means we can mount the same lift on Behemoth and GO CAMPING!!!!.  It's still a bit mystifying  to me that despite spending most of the last year living in Behemoth I still crave camping.  My time in the desert was powerfully energizing for my spirit.  In a later post I'll share my story from the "great rain storm".  I really wish I'd kept up this blog while down there, alas I was too caught up enjoying the moments.  It's hard to regret that.

So now I'm off to watch some TV, I really did miss my reality tv fix while I was in the desert...well I didn't miss it at the time (there were jack rabbits, and cactus and happy places to watch and amazing energy to absorb), but I sure am enjoying it now that I'm back.  Pretty much guaranteed my next 24-48 hours will be spent in the fetal or otherwise recumbent position.  That's okay, the time away from home was worth it, and hopefully this new doc can improve my quality of life.  If not, I will still find as many shiny things as I can, ain't worth being grumpy & I try to focus there.

Live Long & Prosper!
~m

Buisy being a kitty.

Kitty says you don't need to go anywhere, just stay right here, I'll hold you down.

Yahzi is very happy to have me home.  Also he likes the new rug I got.

Ducky LOVED the toys I brought home from the desert.

Spazzy missed me.

Yahzi's safe place.

So no updates, I haven't done anything much other than hang out with my fur people.  I've been trying to catch up on house chores and yard work.

This year I'm trying for a few containers of berries and lettuces.  Hopefully they thrive & we have nummy fresh home grown food this summer.  Perhaps I'll even put in a tomato for Scotty.

Yesterday Mom, Glenn, & I went to the US Foods open house out at the expo center.  3 hours of eating tasty things one bite at a time as we wandered the room.  It was fun, but exhausting.  We found a few new products for Phat Jack's.  Glenn's headed out in a few weeks to cater for a Time Life photography tour.  Chicago to LA along rout 66.  It will be very interesting to see how things go.  Mom, Jack-jack & I are sitting out on this adventure.  We're both in house purging mode & hoping to bring order to our universe.

Today I spent a few hours at Tulip Tree, it's so good to be back home.  Tomorrow I get to go in and finish the corsages I'm making.  I'll post pics.

Live Long & Prosper!
~m