Inside the Little Plastic Castle

Yesterday I accompanied MyGuy to his colonoscopy. We entered a small room with a surgical bed, vitals station, the now-ubiquitous bedside computer, and a parking space for me. After he donned the hospital gown, nursing staff connected him to the vitals station, and started a saline drip. They wheeled him off to the procedure while I waited in the cubicle. I distracted myself with some Sherlock fanfic.

Suddenly the door was opening. An unfamiliar nurse was wheeling a complete stranger backwards into the space—I asked should I remove my husband’s clothing if someone else was using the room. She said, “Of course not, he will be putting them back on in a few minutes.” Seeing my puzzled face, she said, “Don’t you recognize him?” I was still stunned—who were these people? She swung the bed around so I could see his eyes. The estranged swirl of jamais vu vanished, and I saw his lovely face, his smile enhanced by recent doses of fentanyl and midazolam.

All went well, and 45 minutes later we were in the taxi back home. I’d read of the vu triplets—presque, déjà, jamais—in Catch-22 when I was a teenager, but this was my first experience of jamais vu.

Very disconcerting—have you experienced this?

MyGuy and I both showed negative on our COVID antigen tests at lunch. Forty-four hours and counting!

( so far a mild case, boring details inside )

ETA: I may be negative but my brain is still mushy and correcting for future self -- this all started on Monday, not Saturday

Instead of stressing over making a perfect essay, I’ve numbered this summary so it’s easier for you to ask for elaboration.

( five joys )

( four sorrows )

We've had a warm fall so far -- no frost yet! MyGuy and I live on the edge, so we didn't turn on our heat until last night (39°F/4°C). Which led me to wonder about your relationship to heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

( that's why we have polls! )

( our house is vaccinated )

...after the election I let all my news wall filters go down.

It felt great to be *f*r*e*e* but I encountered lots of toxic stuff that made me anxious as fuck. So I raised my walls a little bit, but still wasn't sleeping well, unable to focus on things I'd formerly liked to do.

Now I've found a balance which works for me.

I've set up my net filtering software -- Freedom.to -- to create cracks large enough to hunt down information, and scheduled to minimize plunging into driven doom-scrolling.

News sites are only available between 11:30 and 11:59 am.

Twitter is only available between 12:30 and 1pm.

I can't follow news links from Twitter -- have to wait a day. Mostly, that's fine. Happily MyGuy, who's connected to the original streaming service (radio) has promised to let me know of anything vital.

The good news is the surgery went well. Previous trigger finger release was traumatic. That's why I delayed this for around 18 months. Now I know it can be a well-orchestrated procedure with minimal terror and pain. Since this is the sixth time I've had trigger finger I'm sure there will be a next time for me not to put it off to.

The bad news is it's the middle and ring fingers on my dominant (right) hand and wow do I feel clumsy. To ensure that I don't reach for things by mistake, I've installed a very large fluffy mitten.

( photographic proof as well as some of my hats )

I'm switching between macOS/iOS forms of dictation, voice control, sticky keys, and bashing my head gently against a pillow—it's very weird to go from typing 80 words a minute to whatever I don't even want to count.

In summary: medical procedures don't have to be traumatic!

You really don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. Last week I was starved for content. Now I’ve got six posts I could draft if I could only type. Not to mention eight pieces of beadwork I would craft if I could only use my right hand.

MyGuy is being exquisitely helpful, and still my major mood is Whine.

MyGuy learned homemaking from a pro — his mother. She ended up running the home economics division at Blackhawk Technical College (now called Human Services and Education). Oh so fortunately for me, MyGuy was responsible for cooking dinner for all six of the family once a week, as well as doing laundry and mending and also helping his dad build their house.

MyGuy ensures we know which eggs are hardboiled by personalizing them.

( two pictures of two sides of two eggs )

Thank you so much for your kind thoughts!

Bella’s eating dinner

as well as the eighteen pills daily they sent her home with. Luckily, she loves almond butter and needs to regain weight lost over 7 days not eating. Plop a pill in a gob of almond butter and she simply thwips it down. The immunosuppressive Cyclosporin is sufficiently toxic that we have to don gloves to stuff it down her throat, and the pills themselves are huge. For these we have to pry open her jaws, jam the pill on the very back of her tongue, then stroke her throat until she swallows.

No physical damage from the crash

I was too ashamed to check in with my primary doc after the crash, even though my pain levels have stayed elevated. MyGuy finally convinced me, and I saw my doc today. He confirmed that my pain was consonant with a terrifying incident. We agreed that I got away lucky.

In convo with my therapist, I realized

• while the driver and witnesses did shit to be helpful
• I was capable of taking care of my own needs and therefore
• Prevented further damage
• Reached out for support to helpful people, like you

All good things. The final realization is one I’ve packed away in my lock box for further examination next session: the driver was in many ways acting just like my father.