Here are some words about the week and some sh*t that’s going on, but also:
Some scattered videos about life (mostly cats)!!!
Also, here is some context if you’re new here or like a review (if not, skip right past these repeat words and go to the new post below):
Word Nerds who give even just $5 a month help make that possible.
I truly need your support, use your support, cherish your support, and won’t let it go to waste.
Want to change up the pace? You can read some of a fiction novel I shared here as thanks.
Want to read some novellas? Here are some on Kindle (though I can send to anyone who needs the help). There are even more than you see listed here, so reach out if you’re in a reading mood!
Want to read on?
Shutting up now…
But one last thank you for the road: THANK YOU!
I need your suggestions!
(Please)
But first: I am having a hard time writing.
Not mentally (I can pump out novels in days) but in a literal, physical sense.
The last week has included dictating all work emails and curriculums to my partner, who has to take the time to write it all out - my brain to his fingertips - and that’s not very fair. But it is what I’ve had to do to survive. And I hate it.
Writing is my freedom. It’s my heart. But I’ve been having hand “attacks” and I’m starting to call them attacks recently on purpose.
The word “attack” implies that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Attack means that we subconsciously remind ourselves that there IS an end at some point to the pain.
So even though I don’t have the medical “why” yet, and this has been going on and off for years but I can’t muster the patience to pursue it as readily as all the other shadows, it’s worth trying to remind myself that suffering is life, but suffering isn’t always as bad as it feels on its worst day.
If you have any takeaway from this whiny, spur of report, it’d be to consider using the verbiage “attack” as often as you can to keep some level of hope alive.
But having said that…
I am TERRIFIED of talking about pain meds online.
There is nothing that creates more vitriol (Not totally true. I’m being dramatic), and I don’t need to invite that into a life that already has a lot of cr*p-cannolis as is. Even so, it’s perhaps no surprise that I have a neurology team who manages nerve pain as needed, and that that requires medications. So here’s the problem that’s happened over the last few days of silence [silence because it hurts too much to type. Rather, I needed to safe my pain-cost-balance for things more prescient to time with my kiddo in the nest, or other must-do’s along the way]:
I have been avoiding running out of critical medications for the last few years, knowing it had the power to derail all power-through functioning that I force daily.
I am so careful to make sure my meds are orderly and ordered, and still… over the last week, we faced an accidental prescription snafu with no fallback option. So the thing I’d been fearing could happen for years, happened.
The first bath I’ve had in a year. (This was a hotel. We moved for family reasons, but those family reasons left us rushing into a place that I long to say farewell to: Say prayers! Therefor= Best evening I’ve had in a long, long time. Warm heat. Cozy carpet. Amazing bath. It’s the little things!)
And it’s not the suffering and how it interrupts life that is grating and mortifying to suffer through. No, it’s the fact that I am violently reminded that I am not a person with her own agency like I trick myself into believing. If there was a zombie apocalypse, I’d be one of the first to die.
So I’ve got the cervical spine pain (that could be a shoulder for all I know. A lot of questions to answer) and the flares of gnawing, aching, swollen feeling hand, wrist pain.
And so… I’d love your suggestions.
Does anything come to mind, Dr Quinn Medicine people? Anything that helps you? Anything that sounds like you or someone you love?
I’ll report back.
First, I am crossing my miserable fingers and hoping this passes fast.
This is a Part Two… A continuation of yesterday’s work.
(So if it doesn’t make sense or have a good flow… Be sure to read in congruence with yesterday, pretty please!)
Maybe it stands alone without the connective threads?
Writing can definitely be a choose your own adventure that way.
Thank you for a beautiful week together.
Hey, guess what?
If you’re reading this: We are both still alive right now on planet earth.
Thanks for being alive with me… and most of all, alive and reading.
Yours,
B
When I had my Cervical Spine fusion (C3-C7), my hand pain went away. Just a thought. Nerve pain is such a weird and tricky thing to figure out and it is different for everyone.
Sending healing prayers filled with love and hugs! 🙏🥰