So

On Wednesday, I graduated from aquatherapy (got the shirt to prove it). :)  Now I could go to the pool at Cardinal Hill for $5 a visit and work out there, but that would get pretty expensive pretty quickly if I want to do it two or three days a week, and I'd have to get there by 5:15 pm to get anything done, as the pool closes at 6 pm. I usually get off work at 5 pm--I had a special schedule where I got to come in early and leave early on Tuesdays and Thursdays temporarily, but as we progress into autumn and winter it will be less likely I can do that (I'm very light-sensitive in the morning as far as waking up, which is why I bought an alarm clock that lights up in the morning.)

It has different modes including cycling through colours, an evening mode where it shuts off after a certain time, one that changes colour to do with the humidity and temperature, and then a guided breathing one.  But most importantly, a little before the sound alarm goes off, the light gradually brightens to bright white when it's time to wake up.

Anyway, I talked it over with my therapist and I decided to join the YMCA last weekend.  I was able to get 10% off and no joining fee through work, with everything prorated for September.  I tried to go to the pool last Monday, actually, (only Beaumont YMCA has a warm water pool like the hospital), but the heater was out.  They got it fixed later in the week, though, so yesterday I went and spent some time doing my exercises.  It was during an open swim, so there were a couple of families with small children in it, but I did fine, at least until they were playing with a ball, but I still managed to get all my walking in, most of my leg exercises (I forgot a couple), but did forget to do my arm ones.  I'll do better next time.

On Monday [tomorrow], however, there is a class that I think I'll try to go to that's a basic workout in the pool.  Tuesday I have my first real session of cognitive-behavioural therapy for fibromyalgia.  Wednesday I'm going to try to go to the Y again for open swim and do my exercises, and then again on Saturday.  I hope to make that a standard thing.

Today I'd thought about going because we weren't playing the game, but I'm having a slight reaction to a shingles vaccine [my second dose], where my arm hurts a bit and my joints and muscles are aching a little.  So I didn't quite feel like getting into the pool today.

Anyway, that's what's going on these days with me.  I thought I'd actually sit down and blog for a bit.

It's been generally a good day, except

I found out that an old acquaintance (not close, but still, one I've known for decades) apparently died a couple of months ago of heart issues. He was my age. There was no memorial. This, on the heels of a former co-worker's death this week from cancer, has me thinking of my own mortality and that of those close to me.

But before we got this news, I took YKWIA out for a birthday Indian buffet at Masala, and it was wonderful.  They even had gulab jamun, which I adore, this time!  We also did some errands.

They're having a tailgating thing at work today (it's near the UK stadium, so it seemed a good opportunity to get my co-workers together), and I was thinking of going, am actually wearing the shirt they'd bought for us, but between the news and the fact that I'm stuffed with Indian food to the point of near torpor, I decided not to go.

I've done my shelf dusting for the day.  I have some laundry to do and the game notes.  Also, I need to take things to the storage unit and put them in there, put away my laundry from last week, make my bed, and generally straighten up my room.

Tonight we're planning on watching Cats, which I have out from the library. I've never seen the musical.

But before I do all that, I really want to take about a 45-minute nap.  So I'll stop here.  Perhaps I'll write later, though.

I'd like to say

That I've been on a planned hiatus, but that wouldn't be true.  I've mostly been accessing the Internet via my phone lately,  and it is a bit of a pain to blog anything of any length with autocorrect,  etc.

So here's a bit of a resolution here, a bit past the middle of the year, to log into the laptop and actually write.

Of course,  I'm writing on the phone right now.  And it's almost 1 am,  so I should put it down and sleep,  as this is the first week of school at university and I'll need to arrive early to deal with parking at UK.

So for now,  good night.

Also

I originally went to Kohl's to return something to Amazon. I didn't get why Kohl's would do that until I got a 25% off coupon for using them to do the return. They had some swimsuits, and given that the pretty blue one I'd ordered is a bit tight, I thought I'd check them out. I found a bottom skirt that was nice and roomy, with a tank top that crisscrosses in the back and I can move in very well. (Mind you, I'd ordered the blue suit in a size up from my regular and it barely fit, especially with trouble around the bosom.  These are my normal size.) They're both black, so even though they're different brands they look good together. The nice thing is between the 25% off sale and the 25% off from Amazon, I got it for half off the total. I'm going to return the other suit to Amazon, since I can move better and it looks better on me. So I'm ready for aquatherapy. Yay!  On the other hand, that means returning the other swimsuit to Amazon via Kohl's, where I'll be very careful about that curb!

On Saturday

I took a pretty bad tumble at Kohl's coming out of the store and crossing the curb. It was one of those gradual ones for the carts and was marked, but I kind of stepped on the slanted part and just went down to the ground. A couple of guys came by and made sure I'd gotten hurt and check if I needed steadying as I got up. Fortunately, I didn't fall into traffic or break my glasses (which would have meant that I couldn't have driven home). Also, I was wearing jeans, so while I came down on my right knee hard, and it is red, it's not bleeding much. My right elbow is scraped up pretty badly. Both palms of my hands are scraped and my left wrist (which is already a jumble of bones, as at some unknown point in my childhood it was broken, according to x-rays from a couple of years ago,) is really hurting.  All the fingers are sore, especially if I make the 'ok' sign. My shoulders are both sore, not from direct hits, but the impact shock. It happened about 12:20 pm and finally about 6:30 I went to the urgent treatment centre for x-rays and to make sure nothing was broken.  I just have a mild sprain in my knee and a bad sprain in my wrist and hand, so I've been taking ibuprofen, icing it, and wearing a brace (the night splint I already had at night, a smaller one during the day).  

As YKWIA says, I am a danger to myself (but not others). I hate being a klutz.

Well

I got the swimsuit yesterday (right after getting my medicine, which had to go to a different pharmacy due to the unavailability of my small independent pharmacy to get that low dosage of Lyrica from the distributor--apparently it's getting ready to go generic and supplies are low, but Kroger has some stockpiled in their warehouses) and driving home in a torrential downpour.  I sat in the car for about 20 minutes while it rained, then it finally broke a bit and I dashed to get the package (which was thankfully plastic, much as I hate the stuff), and then went over to pick a friend up from another friend's and have dinner with them.

So I didn't get to try on the suit until almost 11 pm when we got back.  It was, to put it mildly, interesting.  It does technically fit.  I normally wear a 3X in clothing, or in American sizing, 26-28.  I went for 4X and 28-30 thinking I probably needed some wiggle room.

One, it's from a Chinese company, and apparently, they don't consider that women that size have large breasts.  I had to squeeze my bosom into rather small cups (my bra size is a 48DD).  This was definitely a B cup.  Two, while the bottoms did just fit, the top bunches a bit under my breasts and has to be pulled down.  Plus it's really hard to get into.  But...I can bend over and move fine in it, and it may stretch a bit over time.  So for now, I'll hang onto it.

On the other hand, it occurred to me that I may still have the bright pink swimsuit.  I'm going to check the tubs in my storage unit just to be sure.  It fits better, I think, and even if I keep the other, it wouldn't be bad to have two suits because chlorine does a number on them.

The aquatherapy is supposed to be twice a week for 8-10 weeks at Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Hospital.  They have a 5-foot deep pool to do exercises in.  I'm trying to get my boss to adjust my schedule once I've gone to my initial visit so I don't miss work or have to take personal time off.

Dr Abbas also wrote a referral for cognitive behavioural therapy with a psychologist.  According to him, aquatherapy and CBT together reduce fibromyalgia pain about 50%.   That, along with the Lyrica, will hopefully help with the pain.  The Lyrica pills are tiny (they're just 25 mg, the lowest dose they make).   So that'll probably be once a week, so three appointments a week, hopefully, the latest they can get me in.

I'm at work right now, in the break room. I don't clock in for another 15 minutes (and I'm blogging on my phone hotspot, not the hospital's network).  I came in at 7:30 to see how easy it would be to adjust my schedule.  It wasn't too bad.  My main problem is when it gets dark in the morning in the fall and winter.

I'm in the break room, and I stopped by my office and got my fan from my desk, so I'm sitting here with it on.  I'm just always so hot after walking through UK to get here, especially as muggy as it's been here lately.

We're having an employee appreciation pizza party, with door prizes and such.  There was going to be a talent show, but I think that was cancelled.  Anyway, after noon there are no surgeries or anyone in clinic, and we'll shut down.  I may be able to go home early today.  I have a lot of phone calls to make today, especially on offsite imaging requests, scheduling ultrasounds and MRIs.  I'm about a month out on my surgery authorizations (yay!)

Okay, I guess I should pack up and get ready to clock in.  Have a great day!

Being proactive (finally)

When I was about 25 or 26 I was diagnosed by a specialist they brought in at UK's Student Health with fibromyalgia. At the time there were doctors who didn't believe it even existed, and there wasn't much to do about it, except try to stay active to stave off the chronic pain. There's no blood test, and at the time there wasn't much they could do medication-wise. And so I've lived for decades with a lot of pain that limited my activity levels. I finally decided a lot had probably changed since 26 or 27 years ago and it was worth going to a rheumatologist to see if anything can be done. So I went this morning and turns out that I'm doing a lot of things right already. I use my CPAP religiously. I'm on medication that helps with anxiety and depression. I used to do yoga but can't get up from the floor anymore, but he suggested doing chair yoga or modified poses. He also prescribed 8 to 10 weeks aquatherapy and some cognitive-behavioural therapy, both of which studies show reduce pain 50% together with no other treatment. He also put me on a very small dose of a medication, the lowest available given the other meds I'm on, but my pharmacy didn't have it, or Kroger on Tates Creek either. My pharmacy tracked down one that had it (apparently the low dose is not popular). But since it's a controlled substance (but not an opioid) the Kroger pharmacy has to request a new prescription from the doctor. So I can pick it up tomorrow. I'm really hoping all this will help and I can be more active.
Also, when they weighed me I had a crossbody purse on with my phone, etc. in it, and it was already lower than I expected. So I've lost about 8-10 lbs in the last couple of weeks without trying. That was nice.

When I moved away from the apartment, which had a pool that I rarely got in due to having a bright fuschia swimsuit that made me feel like a giant pink blobbie, I got rid of the suit and gave it to Goodwill. So today I ordered a new suit for the aquatherapy. Here's hoping it fits fine and makes me feel less conspicuous than the old one did. I've attached a photo on a model. 
Meanwhile, I have both initial appointments made and I've emailed my boss about tweaking my schedule when I know more about how often I need to go to therapy and when. 

Alright, time for bed. Good night. 

x

What losing all my documents in a Windows update last autumn taught me

So last autumn I was one of the people who lost all their documents by upgrading early to the October 2018 update. One thing I did after that was to purchase a 128 GB SD card to put in my computer's slot, where I keep all my documents, pictures, music, etc. I also use Dropbox and an external hard drive. The idea, of course, is that I back up, and frequently, at least once a week, on at least two of those. I did backup to Dropbox before the deletion, but not as frequently, maybe once a month, so I lost a couple of weeks' worth of data. Now I don't have many documents, and they're not earth-shatteringly important, except for things to do with the Cthulhu game that I have been playing weekly since July 1991 (hello, 28 years). So that's the main thing I have to back up. I've gotten it down so I only have to really back up those files I update. My friend, who uses my old desktop and I back up his stuff on an external hard drive, has tens of thousands of documents and another tens of thousands of pictures, along with some videos and lots of e-mail. So, his is much more of a process, as he routinely changes where things are on folders and is constantly editing--again, mostly to do with the game.

I did the latest May update with no problem. It was not pushed out to my computer immediately, as it had been flagged for some reason or other, probably due to my Dell. I knew it would not update with the SD card or any USB media attached, but that's fine, as the whole point of having the card is to lock my documents away at the time of update, so I'd planned to remove them anyway. But all in all, it was a much smoother process.

I am more than a little tired of rain...

The heavens opened up just as I was leaving work today. The window of the shuttle leaked on the way to the parking lot, leaving the right side of my skirt quite wet, and then on the way to the car, I was absolutely soaked. The picture does not do justice to the sheer amount of water. I was so very wet down to my skin, and that was WITH an umbrella.

Beautiful

One more orchid (which has two succulents in separate soil) for the office. I couldn't resist the colour. That brings it to 23 plants. I doubt I have any more room at this point, but I'm beginning to think I really am hoarding plants.