Booboo

The bronchitis appears to be well and truly gone. I saw my PCP this morning for regular diabetic blood work and also because I have a booboo in the crease of my left leg which came on about the time I started the Prednisone. Said Prednisone made most of my eczema go away, although there are signs it wants to come back along my right jawline. I was thinking this might be a patch of eczema trying to go rogue. There is a swathe about 2" tall above the crease which is weeping lymph. It doesn't hurt, but it's sticky and annoying as you know what. Other than that, I'm feeling pretty good. Well, other than having been a little crabby and unfocused because of the fasting.

Ah, the abbreviations I have learned because I work in a law office. Dx (diagnosis), Fx (fracture), Hx (history), Rx (pretty much everyone knows that one), Tx (which I am amused to know is not an abbreviation for a minuscule map of the Lone Star State, but treatment).

I'm glad that I went when I did. The booboo is a precursor to a diabetic ulcer (ick!), and I have an Rx for an ointment which targets that. I will also be acquiring a wound care specialist. I hope he's as cute as my hematologist (think Neil Patrick Harris) or she's as witty as Dorothy Parker.

In other news, the bipolar bears were both sleeping when I got home, so I had to bring in the grocery order. That's something that Fourthborn usually handles, given her "freaking [surname] man-strength." Well, I overbalanced while bringing in a 32-pack of DP and fell. My exasperated yell woke both of them up. Nothing's damaged except my dignity, although the shock of it wore off at 3:00pm, and I emailed the office manager and took what turned out to be a six hour nap. I've been up for awhile, and I feel fine. (Also very blessed to not have broken my tailbone or my bad hip.)

I will, of course, report this to my doctor, and the automatic check-in feature will ask me about recent falls for the next year and a half or so. A small but annoying price to pay.

Later, gators. My Trader Joe's Hatch chili mac & cheese is growing cold, and the alarm for my evening meds is going off as we speak.

I got a haircut???

Last one was at some point before the pandemic, so it's been at least two and a half years. Since then I've just twisted it up and clipped it. I think tomorrow there may be some foofing and barrette-ing.

My old Supercuts had closed since my last trim, so I had to consult the Google and Thummim to find a new one. I liked the stylist, who shares her given name with Firstborn.

I wore the new striped shirt with the old flowy pants and was well-pleased. I need to make a pair of earrings to go with. I think I have a string of semiprecious beads that would do.

Didn't sleep as well last night. Just shy of four hours, then up for long enough to do today's Wordle and the daily games on the AARP website, then back to bed for an hour and a half.

I've resumed watching the second season of an Irish legal show on Acorn, and the plot is definitely thickening. I think (another) minor character just got murdered off-screen. I'm about ready to gather up the things I will need in the morning, put on a nightshirt, and watch until it's time to take my evening meds.

I love posh British accents. I love Scots and Welsh and Australian accents (the latter, particularly, if spoken by a certain Aboriginal actor who's really something). And I think my favorite has to be Irish accents. I could sit at a table with the actors in this series and just listen to them natter on about anything and nothing. It's the linguistic equivalent of wind chimes or the oboe or the cello. Strikes something deep within my soul.

My hair feels like silk. I wish Beloved were here to mess it up.

A stellar day at work.

It helps to have one of those, every once in awhile, especially after illness and backlogs. Today I got almost all the way through my resource mailbox, which is where the correspondence comes (and goes, just like the karma chameleon) related to my record orders. There were almost 50 invoices to sort out. I got them all organized and fifteen or more of them sent off for payment. I plan to polish those off tomorrow morning.

With my office manager's help, I untangled and updated my timesheet for last week.

I got a little over five hours of sleep last night and awoke with just the merest hint of fever. Not enough that I had to stay home, but enough to make my thermometer chirp at me like an angry hummingbird.

Last week's Gudrun order arrived today, at least a week earlier than I was expecting. They must have solved the distribution problem in Germany while I was out of pocket. I have a new stripedy shirt which goes with a pair of pants I bought a couple of years ago that didn't really go with anything else. And I have a crazy-cute tunic bright red tunic with all kinds of warm-toned flowers on it. I wish I hadn't waited so long that the copper (bright orange) petticoat was sold out when I went to buy it. Maybe there will be a similar color in the fall catalogue. I'd also like a bubblegum pink petticoat, but I'm not holding my breath on that. Gudrun's colors are usually softer than that.

I have less than an hour until my final dose of antibiotic. Time to grab a nightshirt and prepare to grab some Z's.

That's four days in a row!

That's one! ah-ah-ah!

Two! ah-ah-ah!

Three! ah-ah-ah!

Four! Four days without using my inhaler ah-ah-ah-ah-ah! [lightning flashes, thunder crashes, and The Count rolls his eyes in glee] 

I have, indeed, spent the bulk of this weekend asleep. I might have been awake all of five or six hours yesterday. I am feeling suspiciously and remarkably human at the moment. I've not needed a nap all day, although I did get a bit drowsy at the very end of Zoom church. In an hour, I'll take my meds and call it a day.

I'm hoping to be productive tomorrow and each day this coming week. It would have been nice to have been able to work on Friday afternoon, but Body said NOPE! in no uncertain terms, and I was in no position to argue.

I've not had the focus to read anything substantial, aside of my scriptures. I discovered a bug in the audio for my French BOM and dug around until I found out how to report it. That was my bit for building the kingdom of God today. By reading along while listening at 70% speed, I am catching subtleties of pronunciation that I'd been missing for the past 20 years.

I watched the 2015 adaptation of "And Then There Were None" and have come to the conclusion that I don't care for Agatha Christie's stories. Have I read the actual books? No, and I don't intend to. I don't like the "closed room" format. Over the past year or so I've watched adaptations of three of her stories and a modern movie styled along the same principles, all of them with actors I ordinarily enjoy, and my lingering reaction is meh.

Nor did I need my inhaler today.

What I did need, however, was buckets and buckets of sleep. It's becoming apparent to me that the Prednisone has worked its magic. I'm not coughing. I can breathe easily. and I caught nearly five hours of sleep last night. It's also becoming apparent that the sleep deficit caused by the Prednisone is catching up with me.

I got the bipolar bears to their monthly checkup and on to the pharmacy. Came home, logged on, and fought sleep for the next hour and a quarter. Emailed the powers that be and lay down for a nap. Six hours later, I bubbled to the surface again.

Since arising, I've polished off my leftover chicken alfredo, one unadorned hamburger patty, a mug of milk, and the last of the triple ginger cookies. I've read the transcript of Carolyn Hax's weekly chat, played a handful of computer games with varying degrees of success, and checked my FB notifications. And now I'm trying to hang on for another half hour so that I may take my medicines and go back to bed.

I suspect that much of this weekend will be spent horizontal and unconscious. For the present I am fine with that, as I have the attention span of a flea.

Please send postcards from whatever adventures y'all are having while I am out like the proverbial light.

Later, gators!

I did not need my inhaler today.

And I slept nearly six hours last night. I've been reasonably clear-headed all day, which is always a welcome thing, although the drive to work was unnecessarily complicated. From my post on FB:

"One of the great things about being my age is that things which once would have frustrated, angered, or embarrassed me now just make me laugh.

 

• Lunch? Check.
• Meds? Check.
• New Fluevog boots (designed in collaboration with Zandra Rhodes)? Check.
• Carefully coordinated petticoats, shirt, earrings? Check.
• Laptop? [crickets] I realized three miles from home that I'd forgotten something essential.

 

I made a (legal) U-turn, drove home, and started over. And, even with a stop at La Madeleine to pick up some comfort food, I was only 35 minutes late to work. Our office manager gave me the option of working late rather than burning my PTO.

The bipolar bears have their monthly doctor appointments tomorrow morning, and I'll WFH in the afternoon. I've asked, since I gave up three full days of PTO to attempt to catch up my desk from Bronchitisfest, if I may work a few hours of OT on Saturday. I'd like to start next week more or less timely with my To-Do's.

Middlest is 39 today, just like Jack Benny. How on earth can I be the mother of two 40-somethings and three 30-somethings?

This is the part where I change my sheets and try to stay awake until 11:00 for tomorrow's Atlantic crossword. Later, gators!

Eyedrops are my new BFF

I had watery, itchy eyes before I went on these new meds. Maybe about ten days' worth, and really annoying, and I kept forgetting to do anything about it. Tonight at Costco I bought a megabox of eyedrops, read the instructions, marked the first bottle with its 90-day discard date, and four and a half hours later remembered to put the drops into my eyes.

And the angels sang. I also put an alarm on my phone for that discard date.

While I got maybe half an hour more sleep last night than I did the night before, it took forever to tall asleep, and I actually had to break out the Cherry Coke to keep myself alert and focused throughout the day. I'm hoping that that means I will be able to fall asleep more easily tonight and stay asleep longer. One can only hope. Tomorrow is my fifth and final dose of Prednisone.

Fourthborn's oral surgery is tomorrow morning, and I'll be WFH once I get her settled in here afterwards.

This is the part where I guzzle some water and call it a day. Wish me luck.

On my second course of meds

And actually beginning to feel somewhat human, but that may only be the Prednisone talking. I went back to the after-hours clinic on Friday night, because Friday was frankly a slog. I could barely catch my breath. I was still needing my inhaler almost every four hours, when I should already have been able to taper off to a more normal every six hours. (When I'm feeling well, I may not need to use the inhaler for several days in a row, but that is not my current reality.)

This morning was my third dose of three Prednisone tabs. How can anything taste that vile? I mean, do they do that on purpose? I took this morning's allotment roughly three hours after I woke up. Yes. It took me a bit to figure out that that is my body on Prednisone. On the other hand, there was not one single instance of feeling drowsy, and I was wonderfully productive at work in spite of having had maybe three and a half hours of sleep last night.

My dreams, what there were of them, seemed to be about police procedurals where the folks in the observation room could hear the thoughts of the perps being interviewed, as well as being incapable of keeping their own opinions to themselves. Lots of embarrassing self-revelations going on, but nobody seemed to be aware of what they themselves, or their coworkers, were saying. Just me, standing there blushing redder and redder and redder.

The bipolar bears have recently gotten me onto Discord, because its notifications do not strike daggers straight into Middlest's cerebral cortex when he has a migraine, which he usually does. I finally decided on a screen name, and Middlest found me an avatar I adore.

I worked from home today, because I didn't know if I'd remain lucid and safe to drive on so little sleep. I have to drive in tomorrow, as there are things I need to do ASAP, that I can only do when I'm there. Plus I have five four days of work to shoehorn into two one if I want to be off all day on Wednesday after Fourthborn's oral surgery, maybe off on Thursday, and off all day on Friday after taking the bipolar bears to their monthly checkup and picking up their refills. In addition to that major miracle, I need to clear up my backlog before I can take more than the absolute minimum PTO necessary to get them where they need to be.

I'm hoping that the Prednisone is going to be my spiritual and physical ace in the hole to get me through the rest of this week, and then I can sleep all weekend. Maybe.

In less me-focused news, I tried something on my phone when I drove into work last Friday. I switched my Book of Mormon app to read to me in French and quickly realized that there's no way in hell (sorry, Sir!) that I can catch more than one word in ten at normal speed, so I geared it down to 70% of that and am planning to read along as I listen. Which I haven't done since Friday. Because bronchitis.

My phone tells me it's time for evening meds. I need to stay up for an hour after that in order to take my antibiotic. But y'all? I'm definitely tired and I'm definitely not sleepy. This could be interesting.

I think I've caught all of the typos and the weird grammar, but I'm typing faster than I have in years, and I'm hoping this all more or less makes sense, and I could probably draft another chapter or two of memoir before bedtime, but also probably better not.

Your intrepid heroine, Ms. Ravelled, on performance-somewhat-enhancing drugs. Yeehaw!