Posts Tagged ‘body issues’

I’ve been working a lot

Friday, March 18th, 2011

I know, I know.  “Where did  I go?”

Two weeks ago I was still sick.  I rested through the weekend and went to work on Monday (3/7), still feeling it a little, but not so much that I was going to stay in bed again after being stuck in bed all week.  I love my bedroom, it gets great light and and there’s lots of blankets and pillows and I can read for hours or watch TV.  But by the end of being sick, I was DONE being in there.

Justin knows what I mean, because as soon as I got over the cold, he caught it.  Same symptoms: mild cough and nasel drip and some sneezing and lots and lots and lots and LOTS of sleeping.  He got frustrated with being in bed so much, too.

That week, while he was sick, I worked on trying to catch up on the work that I had missed the week before — I only worked 12 hours that whole week when I got sick.  So I worked more than 50 hours that next week to try to catch up.  I didn’t catch up.  So this whole week I’ve been trying to do that again.  I worked normal hours on Monday, but the rest of the week I’ve been working an extra hour each day.  And I’m here at work today, too.  I hope that I won’t need to be here all day, but we’ve been trying to get 3 airplanes delivered (one of them has 3 separate documents for me to complete) and I’m behind on getting preliminary documents out for airplanes down the road.  This week, I’ve completed 6 documents and I’m working on a 7th.

It’s been a heck of a week.

For a while there, I was hanging out with friends in the evenings and weekends.  This whole month, I’ve either been sick or I’ve been working.  I’m ready to be done with this schedule.

On the positive side, because there’s sunlight in the evening and because spring is in bloom here (Sorry, all you northerners!  You should come visit! Bring lots of allergy meds!), Justin and I have been going for walks when I get home.  We wander around the neighborhood mostly, not going very fast, just making sure to get outside and stretch our legs after sitting in front of computers all day long.  And it’s been a really enjoyable time, wandering around and babbling about books we’ve read and things in the news and other random things floating around in our brains.  I’ve enjoyed it so much that yesterday, even though we had a chiropractor appointment after I got home, I found a place where we could go for a walk before we hit a couple stores for things.  It’s a big patch of woods just off the main road.  With trails!  It’s just there, without much information about it and with no one in sight the whole time we walked around.  It’s the perfect place to go running, I think, because the trails are in pretty good condition and it’s wooded, so it’ll stay cool, and it’s beautiful!  I’m excited to go back there again.

And I’m hoping that next week will be significantly more quiet than this last week.  My intention is to work no overtime the whole week.  And to not have people asking when I’m going to finish something because I really need to have it done by such-n-such date so there’s time for review and oh, by the way, did I know about this really significant change to the scope of the project?

Anyway.  It’s the end of my lunch so I’ve got to get back onto this.  But that’s what’s been going on.  Life should calm down a little soon.  It’s either that or I make myself calm down and the rest of life can just carry on with the crazy by itself, thank you very much.

By the way, my shoulder is feeling more and more healed.  It still hurts when I move it certain ways and sleeping is still annoyingly paintful, but it doesn’t ache with that throbbing ache that it did a couple weeks ago.  I’m still icing it sometimes and I’m still taking it easy on that arm and we still have no idea how I managed to injure it in the first place, but it’s getting better.

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This is why I haven’t been writing

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

Sunday was great!  Slept in, got breakfast in bed, read a book, talked with all my immediate family, got delicious dinner, and watched a funny movie.  It was delightful!

Monday, my department moved from one side of the building to the other and considering all that has to happen with that (people to move the computers, people to move the boxes and bookshelves and file cabinets, people to move the phones) and the number of people moving (about 30) and trying to get some work done at the same time, it went surprisingly well.  My feet ached by the end of the day, but I think it was the most smooth move we’ve done yet.  I got lots of compliments on how well I got everybody organized.  It almost makes up for how frustrated I was getting at the end of the week when people kept interrupting me to answer their questions about why the printer still wasn’t working or where they could get keys for their desk or what to do about it being so cold on one half of the room (the other half is warm and part of the problem there is that the thermostat for the warm half of the room is actually out in the hallway, and the thermostat for the cold half of the room is broken — we’re working on it).  Anyway.  It was successful.  I went home, Justin rubbed my feet, I fell asleep sitting in a chair, but woke up in time to watch Castle.

Tuesday, I woke up and couldn’t move my right arm very well.  I couldn’t raise it up above my shoulder and it hurt.  All day, I kept on trying to solve moving issues and try to get a document completed that I’m really late to submit.  That evening we went to the chiropractor’s office for adjustments and he (actually, let me put in here that when I say “my chiropractor” I could mean one of three people — it’ s a family business, so it could be the father, his daughter, or his son — but it’s just easier to be non-specific) (in this case, it’s the son) fixed up my shoulder blade so I could move my arm, commenting that I “really messed it up.”  Trust me, it gets worse.  And afterward, we stayed behind for a health talk and free pizza.

I have no strong recollections of Wednesday, so it’s safe to say it was a lot like Tuesday.  Answering annoying questions while trying to get work done.  Not making it very far on my work, but resolving a lot of moving issues.  I did manage to make a good deal of progress on one aspect of the project, though, so that was good.  Unfortunately, my shoulder was still hurting.  And I spent the evening working on paying bills and balancing the checkbook.

Thursday I worked from 7am to 8pm and it was exhausting.  I had to finish up as much of my project as I could, so I eventually put on my headphones and put up a sign saying that I was trying to finish up this project, so please let me concentrate.  And I’m pretty sure that my lead started turning people away and telling them to let me work because I was able to get a lot of work accomplished without being interrupted.  I was still there after everyone left, but I managed to get it done and sent out for review and I might actually get it submitted before the middle of next week.  Still VERY late.  I went home, Justin drew me a bath, and I sat in the bath, reading, until after 10, when I got out and went to bed.

Friday, I slept in a little before going back to the chiropractor’s office again because my arm was feeling even worse.  He (the son, again) started poking at different spots on my shoulder to try to identify the problem.  Once he found the spot and I stopped gasping in pain from him poking a finger at it, he took his activator (hammer thing) and tried to put it back into place.  Once I stopped crying from the pain (seriously, it hurt SO MUCH! it was like an 8 on my pain scale), he put a cold laser on it and then gave me a cold pack and said that if it wasn’t feeling better by morning, I should come back in and he’d take an x-ray.

What I hurt, somehow, was my sternoclavicular joint, though I’ve got no idea how I really did that because usually it takes something like getting punched in the chest or something with a contact sport.  But let me tell you, it hurts.

I went to work after getting an ice pack from home and managed to get caught up on another project that I’d been neglecting all week and left after about 4 hours of working.  I went home, kept putting ice on my collarbone and relaxed.

I was still in pain this morning, (I keep moving wrong in my sleep and hurting it) though not as bad as the last couple days.  The constant pain has dulled down to a localized dull ache from a pressing pain across the whole shoulder and I have a lot more range of motion through my arm.  I still went back in and the chiropractor (son, again) took an x-ray.  It didn’t show anything, which was a little disappointing.  But I guess that’s still the better option rather than having something broken or obviously wrong.  He put the cold laser on it again, did NOT hit me with the activator (I think I might have punched him if he’d tried again), and told me to rest it and keep in icing it.

And that’s the plan.  Rest.  Ice.  Tomorrow I’m singing at church and Justin’s running the projector from the back.  Today we have no plans.  So I’m resting.

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I don’t want to talk about this

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

I met with a nurse practitioner at work for the second time today.  She and I are working on my health goals, primary of which being lose this weight for once and for all.  It didn’t go well.  I’m back up to the highest weight I was at last year.  I’m miserable.  I’m frustrated.

So.  I’m meeting with her again on Tuesday.   And I’ll meet with her again the week after that.  And I’ll keep on meeting with her every week until I’ve got a handle on this, at which time I’ll drop down to seeing her every other week.  And she’ll have me weigh-in on the scale in Medical.  And she’ll ask if I’ve been logging my food.  And what I’ve been doing to exercise.  And ask all the uncomfortable questions that someone apparently needs to ask me in order to keep me on track.

I cried in her office this afternoon just because I’m so frustrated.  And embarrassed.  And stressed.

Justin and I  walked through Best Buy yesterday just for the fun of seeing what cool toys were out (not that we could buy anything) and I tried out one of those new Kinect games.  The stupid thing takes pictures while you’re thrashing around like an idiot!  The pictures were so embarrassing.

Anyway.  I don’t really want to talk about it.  But, you know, it’s us.  And this is what we talk about with each other.  Plus, it’s what’s on my brain.

So there you have it.

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Sleep is good

Saturday, November 6th, 2010

I was able to leave work yesterday at about 2:45.  I was going to leave at 2, but was asked to stay as long as I could.  I had a chiropractor appointment at home at 3:30, so I had to leave no later than 2:45, but I did stay until then, and it made my lead happy.  I’m not sure I actually did any work for him in those 45 minutes, but just me being there made him more calm.

My back and neck were all out of whack, so the chiropractor appointment was wonderful.  And then Justin and I went to the library and came home with at least 6 books apiece.  Bliss!

Today has been wonderfully relaxing.  We managed to sleep away the entire morning, which, in Justin’s case was because he was up until after 3, but in my case was just because I was SO TIRED.  I was really, really tired.

And then I’ve just been puttering around the house.  I finally put away the laundry that’s been in the dryer for several days.  I got my office put back in order.  I balanced the checkbook and got the receipts checked and organized (I’m so OCD sometimes — how many of you check your receipts against your checkbook/credit cards to make sure you’ve got them categorized right and you’re not missing any and then put them into envelopes for each month?).  That last bit took me most of the afternoon, but it’s been piling up and I’ve been meaning to get to it for ages.  It felt good to finally have it finished.  Justin worried because it was money stuff and today was supposed to be relaxing.  But it really didn’t feel like “work” to me.  It felt good and productive and the heaviness of that task lingering on my list has been relieved.  For another month or so, and then I’ll have to do it again.

Anyway, the last while has been spent curled up with a book, a blanket, and a hot pad.  Cramps.  Stupid, stupid cramps.  Yea for not being pregnant, but, really?  Do I have to feel so crummy?

I think it might be time to just go back to bed again.

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I need decorating tips, people!

Thursday, October 21st, 2010

Last night I got off work and went to Zumba at the YMCA near work.  It’s a good class and a lot of people ladies attend it.  I’m still getting used to the instructor, so I get lost a lot, but I’m still having fun.  The part where I really have trouble is when we do weights.  I’m a weakling and I have trouble doing curls with 10 pound weights.  But I try!  And I try to do all the crunches she has everybody do, but I’m just not strong enough yet to do it the way she’s doing it.  I’m working on it.

After that, I went home (we rescheduled our Wednesday meeting to next week) and was completely exhausted for the rest of the evening.  Justin went out for a long run while I was at the Y and he was exhausted, too.  So we he threw together a quick dinner, and we spent the rest of the evening sitting with our computers.  He fixed my netbook, by the way!  I can’t remember what the problem was right now, but he cleaned out a bunch of stuff and reset the settings and now it works!  It’s wonderful!  We pulled my “nest” chair into his office a while ago so I can sit in there and do stuff while he’s working on his computer.  There are a lot of nights where there aren’t any lights on in the house except for in his office, and we’re both contentedly sitting in there.

Tonight we’re having company over for dinner.  I’m really nervous about it.  I’m worried that it’s going to be really awkward and not go well and it’ll be just awful.  And I’m also not going to be involved in preparing for it at all because I won’t get home until about 6:00 and they’re coming over between 6:30 and 7:00, so Justin’s going to make dinner and clean the house and get everything ready for the evening.  I’m a control freak and micromanager and not being involved with this at all requires that I just sit back and do nothing.  It’s more than a little nerve-wracking.  And it’s probably really good for me.  I should just relax and trust that Justin can take care of it, because I know that he can!  He’s a better cook than I am and more detailed at cleaning than I am!  So I really just need to chill.

And that’s pretty much the update for today.

Oh, hey!  We’re throwing a party at our house next Saturday and I’m looking for some good, but inexpensive ways, to decorate the house.  (I’m looking at you, Krista!)  I’m hoping to dip leaves and pine cones in wax over the weekend and I can string them up around, but I’ve never done it before and I’m not totally sure how it’s going to work out.  So I need more ideas!  We’ve got a wreath on the door already and a leafy tablecloth and a couple things of corn and pumpkin-shaped things around, but not very much.  What should I do?!

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