I really need to get to reading

 I've only read four books this year. The last one was Your Knee Replacement: A Patient's Guide to Understanding Knee Arthritis, Preparing for Surgery, Maximizing Your Outcome, by Ryan C. Koonce, MD. OrthoSkool Publishimg, 2019. ISBN: 9781733135849 (that's the eBook ISBN).

I have had a lot on my plate these days and just have had no time for reading. With the surgeries coming up, I will. I did ask a librarian at Lexington Public the other day about any issues in terms of trouble getting them back to the library as I am the only driver in the house. If I can't return them, that's fine, even if I don't tell them. Most books have multiple copies, and even if not...they don't do fines. I can probably get a friend to get hold or take them back on Sundays when she comes in to play in the game when I'm feeling well, but still, that's reassuring.

In the meantime, I have a VERY large to-be-read pile.

Here are the books I have out from two different libraries to read:

LEXINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

1. Allegiance - Stories by Gurney Norman. Old Cove Press, 2022. ISBN: 9781956855029 [Gurney Norman taught me creative writing when I was at the University of Kentucky and is a well-known local author. He was the 2009-2010 Poet Laureate for the Commonwealth of Kentucky].
2. Autism Adulthood: Insights and Creative Strategies for a Fulfilling Life, 2nd. edition by Susan Senator. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2018. ISBN: 9781510732711
3. Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World that Wasn't Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg. New York: HarperCollins, 2021. ISBN: 9780062876805
4. The Electricity of Every Living Thing: a Woman's Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home by Katherine May. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing, 2021. ISBN: 9781612199603
5.  Information Desk: An Epic by Robyn Schiff; New York: Penguin Books, 2023. ISBN: 9780143136804
6. The Jewish Way to a Good Life: Find Happiness, Build Community, and Embrace Lovingkindness by Rabbi Shira Stutman, The Experiment, LLC, 2025. ISBN: 9798893030174
7. The Lifelong Gardener: Garden with Ease & Joy at Any Age by Toni Gattone. Portland, OR, 2019. ISBN: 9781604698534
8. Neurodiversity for Dummies by John Marble, Khushboo Chabria, and Ranga Jayaraman.  Hoboken, NJ.: Wiley & Sons, 2024. ISBN: 9781394216178
9. NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman. New York: Avery Books, 2016. ISBN: 9781583334676
10. Nurturing Nature: A Guide to Gardening for Special Needs by Jill Mays. Future Horizons, 2024. ISBN: 9781963367058. (this is aimed at helping autistic children, but I figure a lot still applies)
11. Off the Spectrum: Why the Science of Autism has Failed Women and Girls by Gina Rippon. New York: Seal Press, 2025. ISBN: 978-154160-502-2
12. Part of Our Lives: A People's History of the American Public Library by Wayne A. Wiegand. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780190248000
13. The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention, a 70,000-year History by Simon Baron-Cohen. New York: Hachette Books, 2020. ISBN: 9781541647145
14. A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD: Embrace Neurodiversity, Live Boldly, and Break Barriers, by Sari Solden and Michelle Frank. Oakland, CA.: New Harbinger Press, 2019. ISBN: 978-168403-261-7 [which, when I went to grab the ISBN on Amazon (because the book unhelpfully just says Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data on File and doesn't even include the ISBN) I bought on Kindle 5 years ago, so I might as well give that one back for someone else to read. :)]
15. Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, New York: Harmony Books, 2022. ISBN: 978-0-593-23524-9
16. The White Storm: How Racism Poisoned American Democracy by Martin Gelin. Essex, CT: Prometheus Books, 2025. ISBN: 978149308351

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY LIBRARY

1. Julian's Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought and Action of Julian the Apostate by Rowland Smith. London: Routledge, 1995.ISBN: 0415034876

So 17 on the TBR pile. Whew. Let's see if I can get through them all. That would put me at 21 if I can get through them all, so still 15 more after that (the goal is 36). I also need to look at a book on shoulder surgery that I've already read, which I own, that has exercises for my right rotator cuff. I'd hurt it picking up a box of kitty litter back in March, but we'd decided to just do home exercises like I did with the left after that surgery, rather than do surgery on the biceps and rotator cuff on this one, both of which are torn. I need to get it strengthened before I go into my knee surgery as I'll need better upper body strength.

I did cancel my Kindle Unlimited subscription because 1) DEI and 2) I'm tired of giving money to billionaires and instead have been buying locally or from other companies such as Better World Books. alibris is another one. But for Kindle books, I'm stuck with Amazon. :(

Okay, that's a long post. I've got to wrap this up. I think it's been an hour or more!

Also terribly sad. This so needs to end.

 

From A Mighty Girl

To catch up, post #2

 September 2021 May 2025

_______________ ____________

Weight: 328 lbs. Weight: 228 lbs.

BMI: 57.6 kg/m2 BMI: 40.1 kg/m2

Size: 4x - 30/32 Size: 2x - 18/20

I've been given the go-ahead to have my knee replacement surgery this summer, contingent on my HbA1c, which a home-test says is 7.3, but yesterday I had an official lab draw and it was 6.4!!!!!!!!

I have dental work scheduled for June 24th. I have to wait 3-4 weeks after that to do the first surgery, so sometime in late July or August. But I should be able to call Monday and, barring any trouble with my bloodwork, etc., go ahead and at least schedule. I'm nervous yet excited. This is all getting quite real.

I feel much better physically than I did back then. I'm not so winded when I bend over. I do have more pain in my knees in some ways because my cartilage is completely gone, but still...it has to be helping. And it's nice to be in sizes I haven't been in since at least 15 or 20 years ago. I do have a little impostor syndrome going on. The medication has been a big part of it. I still eat badly at times. I'm hungry in the morning but not at night as a rule, and that helps. I'm not very active because of my knees. I'm trying to do chair yoga, though. My insurance has a benefit where you can get into a lot of fitness online for $10 a month (or in-person and online for more in tiers).

It's now officially 100 lbs. That last pound has been elusive, and I've been retaining some water of late, so I've been fluctuating up to 232 or so. But I got a little dehydrated from a cold and went down to 225, and today I'm exactly at 228, so I'm right at the 'hey-I-lost-exactly-a-hundred-pounds-mark-and-I'm-happy!

I feel pretty good. I've lost almost a whole person. I'd like to get down to 200. I think that I'd feel best there. The 'normal' weight for my height is insanely 145, which I think would be too thin for me. Even in high school, I was 180. The last time I was 145, I was in 6th or 7th grade and four inches shorter!

But 200 would be nice, a BMI of 30.5 (right on the edge of class 1 and class 2 obesity, but well under severe obesity). It's ridiculous how low you have to go to get to overweight. I know BMI is not the best measure, anyway. But I know I felt well at 200 lbs, and I hope with the knee replacements I can finally be more active and achieve that by being able to walk.

v

So sad

I don't care how you feel about politics. This is still wrong. Murder does not repay murder does not repay murder. Innocent Palestinians should not be dying. Innocent Israeli civilians should not have been killed during the October 7th attacks by Hamas. This young couple should not have died. He had bought a ring and was about to propose to her. A whole life ahead of them, eradicated. So many lives stolen. So much blood. When will this end?

2 Israeli Embassy staff shoot and killed in front of Capital Jewish Museum in DC

I have been a very busy girl today

 

Originally I had planned to take some things to my storage unit, as it was a pretty day, but I ran out of steam. Unfortunately it's going to rain the next three days, so my next opportunity is Thursday, but I get off at 4:30 PM, so I think that's doable. They're winter clothes and photographs, mainly. My stepmother sent me five boxes of photos, some in frames, from my father's side of the family. I just don't have the room here; I live in my friend's library, essentially. But I got everything else, small and large, accomplished. Go, me. [I didn't make a list yesterday, but it was fairly decent in terms of being productive but balanced with rest, too.]

Time for bed. Good night.

Given to me on my birthday last month by a co-worker

 

Subtle, yet subversive

 

Flourish. Dream. Thrive.

Wise words

 

Shinedown used this song as a fundraiser during Covid, and it's still very got wonderful lyrics...

I have almost obsessively been listening to the Shinedown station on Pandora, and I'd not heard this song before. Looking into it (it was a single, because it didn't quite make it onto their album Amaryllis), I found out that it was originally given to donor as part of a fundraiser for first responders during the Covid epidemic. The photos took me back to that time, which wasn't so long ago, of course, but seems like such a different world. As a healthcare worker (albeit not a first responder), I was considered an essential employee and continued through the whole pandemic. I also made it through the pandemic without Covid, only getting it last October. I have seven vaccinations total, and I credit that with a lot of it, as well as handwashing, masking, and social distancing. My roommate got it when I did, so it was a bit of a health scare, but we both wound up with something akin to a bad flu, and I kept testing positive, so I was off work for ten days, with burned some of my extended illness bank. But I was thankful it wasn't worse. To give you some idea of how seriously it was treated in this house, he (for good reasons I won't go into) still has me wash my hands as soon as I come through the door and wipe down groceries with disinfecting wipes (although I think the efficacy of the latter was kind of debunked early on, if it makes him feel better, it's alright).

Anyway, the song is excellent. Kudos to Shinedown for doing their part in helping, and then making it widely available. It was their record-breaking eighteenth number one hit (I think they're way past that now), and I'm glad I found it.

Wow...I've missed two whole months of posting...

 Sorry about that. I've been a bit busy. I've:

• Taken a new position at work
• Have been trying to work on my health, particularly my shoulder and dizziness
• Have a new diagnosis
• Started with a new behavioural therapist
• Wrapped up with three health providers (two are retiring)
• Have had an MRI and determined the cause of the freaking amount of pain I've been in
• Have been really tired and in pain, so I've been crashing a lot

-------

PART ONE:

The Health Emergencies

So, in February, I had not one, but two, emergency room visits. The first was a haemorrhagic urinary tract infection, where basically my back hurt all day, I was in some pain, and then suddenly I couldn't pee despite really needing to do so and feeling like I was going to burst, and then suddenly I was peeing blood instead. This was alarming, so I called my primary care provider, who thought I might be passing a kidney stone, so called a friend to take me to the ER [I'd had some reason I couldn't drive, I think, either a medicine or car trouble], where I found out after many hours and imaging (CT scans) that I did not have a kidney stone, but rather a raging E. coli bladder infection--something I hadn't had for years, and which I'd never had this particularly type of before. Apparently blood seeps from the lining of the bladder. But they wouldn't let me go until I could produce a urine sample, which was something like five hours, and then it was such a scant amount, barely the minimum they needed to run the test. I got put on two fairly major antibiotics. I had an excuse but went to work the next day feeling like crap because I couldn't afford and occurrence. We'd had bad weather in January and I'd had one where I'd got stuck on the glazed icy street after a snowstorm and the tow truck couldn't get down my street. My boss had told me to stay home before I could suggest trying to take the bus in, so I did. But I got an occurrence. So there was that. I couldn't afford to take one. But between my coinsurance for my medication and that visit, I met my out of pocket for my health insurance, so that was something, at least.

Then, about the time I got over that, I went to get kitty litter while doing my chores before the Sunday Cthulhu game, I picked a 25-lb. box of Fresh Step off the shelf  and tried to get it into the cart. I felt and heard a large pop in my biceps, and at that point knew I'd ruptured it. I'd been through this before, when I'd fallen in November 2023 and hurt my left shoulder, which required a biceps tenodesis and rotator cuff repairs for both tears of the biceps tendon and several in the rotator cuff. I got home, and when Brenda arrived for the game, I asked her to take me to the ER again.  We were there for quite some day. They did x-rays but no MRI. They said if I'd torn my biceps tendon there would be a bruise.  This was all on my dominant right hand. My hand was numb, and white. They thought that might be a reaction to the trauma, but my arm wasn't broken (I didn't expect it to be). Then they sent me home and told me to take ibuprofen. Again, I had an excuse for two days, but went to work anyway.

The next day I had a very nasty bruise right over my biceps.  Ding, ding, ding!

I made an appointment with my orthopaedist who did the rotator cuff/tenodesis last year. He said I most likely tore the long head of my biceps tendon up near the shoulder itself this time, and that it was probably on its way already, and it had been hurting when I reached for them in the checkout bay. He said that it was attached in two places, so they'd normally clip the long head anyway and see how it healed, so it sort of did what it would do, but that in 40-5% of people, they also injure the rotator cuff, so he'd suggest waiting a month to see how it would do. At first it did seem to be getting better, than it went downhill from there. By the time I went back at the beginning of April, it was clear that I was most likely in that 40-50%. So he ordered an MRI. The MRI showed a completely torn biceps tendon at the long head, with degenerative issues in the rotator cuff and at least three tears in the tendons of the rotator cuff. So. Yeah. He knows his stuff.

But I saw him the other day. He thought even with all that physical therapy would be better than surgery and strengthening would help more, but I have already been through shoulder PT and have pullies, bands, and weights, so he recommended a home exercise programme. So I'm going to focus on that. He also told me to cut back on the ibuprofen. I have been taking the absolute max, and I know it. It's just been hurting so much, all of it--shoulder, knees, etc., that it's been hard to function otherwise. So I'm down to the standard 400 mg. about three times a day. I was taking twice that, for awhile. And that's not good for my kidneys, especially as a diabetic.  So I did take his advice, because, well, I do know better, and he went to med school for four years plus all those residency and fellowship years. :)

Anyway, I've been trying to focus on my health for the last five months. I've also had a lot of dizziness. It started last autumn, well, really before that, I've gone through physical therapy before, but it hasn't resolved it, and it's coming in spells lasting from an hour to a couple of weeks. I'm thinking it may be a problem with my inner ear.  I always seem to have what my PCP likes to call 'Eustachian tube dysfunction', because they're stuffy a lot. So I have an audiogram and visit with an otolaryngologist (ENT) scheduled on May 30th. Oddly enough, just after I made the appointment, the last spell stopped. Of course. But that's good, right? Hopefully, he'll be able to give me some answers.

This is going to be a long post. I'm already tired. Maybe it's best to break them up.

More to come...