About this blog

I seem to be writing here less and less.  This time I did have a good excuse (and also if I owe you an email this is why):  my internet has not been working very well for the last 2 weeks or so.  It feels like forever.  I think I finally reset the correct thing tonight.  We'll see.  It's been really frustrating.  On top of that I'm exhausted.  My body is pretty used to my pre-ankle schedule of Dr. Mind weekly and Dr. Brain monthly, on different days. Now I have PT twice a week for 30 minutes each time (and 30 minutes of driving total) and Dr. Mind each week.  One Monday per month I have both Dr. Mind and Dr. Brain and those are EXTREMELY long days.  They are absolutely exhausting, beyond what I can even explain.  Then there is my home PT work which used to be something I did for a couple of hours each day but now is a lot less than that because I can't do the balance stuff without a spotter.  I'm also dogsitting a lot more now that we have 2 dogs.  It's a lot and I'm very tired a lot of the time but I'm still not sleeping well.

I think 2 weeks ago I tried a med change; I increased my gabapentin (Neurontin) by 25%.  I was allowed to go up another 25% but I honestly felt worse with the increase so I gave it long enough to be sure and stopped it.  Dr. Brain will have to figure out something else since my mood is still kind of everywhere.

As far as the blog goes, I'm not stopping it.  There's just a big issue with the things I most would want to talk about I can't do that here.  The legal issues with my brother are all still pending and even when they aren't I'm not sure how much I want to put on here about that.  It's hard to explain but it kind of feels like this tragedy isn't mine.  I don't feel that it is his; somehow I feel it is my mom's, probably because she is the one who has been the bravest and I think the most deeply hurt with this.  And it's not something she'd want out there for anyone to read.  However, when it comes to what is on my mind and how I'm coping, those issues are huge.  I don't know when that stops.  I guess I'll just find out one day.  Right now there is a lot of confusion and contradiction in how I feel and until that is over it is even more difficult to say much.

The other thing that is on my plate the most is my ankle and I'm tired of talking about that.  It's been 21 weeks now and I still have months of therapy before I'm done.  I just went through a scary spell where I was standing on a wobbly surface (upside-down Bosu ball if you know what that is) and shifted my feet by scooting them.  In the process I twisted my ankle a bit and tore some scar tissue and irritated a lot more of it.  I was terrified that I'd injured the reconstructed ligaments but after a week of easier PT it is getting better.  The irritated scar tissue led to a lot of pain from a band of scar tissue on the bottom of my foot that I've been trying to stretch away without success since August.  I am finally allowed to do passive stretch and yesterday that partiailly released.  It's not done but it is much more comfortable now.  Passive stretching is hard.  I have so much scar tissue, which is desirable, but it needs to be molded into functional scar tissue that is supportive and the rest of it which needs to loosen up a bit.  There is one direction I still have almost no motion and that scar tissue is really tight.  I have a feeling I'll never have a lot of movement that direction but we'll see.  Therapy has been a little emtional this week as I realized that I am not progressing rapidly with balance and that this is probably the result of psych meds.  My injury was the result of psych meds but I hadn't thought about them affecting recovery.  So I now know that I'm a little behind but not too far, will need several more months to gain balance and proper gait and my PT tried to make me feel better about it yesterday by making the hardest balance activity (throwing a ball into a return net while standing on my bad leg) seem easier by putting me really close to the net to gain confidence.  I saw through it but it was nice of him to try.  It's just hard to think that after 3 months of therapy I have a genuine need for about 3 more.  And I'm not sure that counts my desire to do some therapy without a brace when I reach that point because I haven't been without a brace in 5 years.

What else?  Thanksgiving is coming and it will be hard.  There will be 2 of them because my brother isn't allowed near my nieces.  It will probably be the last one as a free man for him for a while so that's rough.  There is some chance my sister's family will be going away for the holiday and then we'll have one still weird meal here.

Fleas.  I feel so bad about this.  My long hair cat has been shedding a lot and throwing up hairballs to the point of aggravation.  This week he suddenly was missing a lot of hair and there were clumps of hair everywhere.  The shower actually had clumps of hair and some blood.  I took him to the vet and by the time we got there he had red patches in and in front of both ears and was clearly miserable and had lost weight.  I knew he had a flea allergy from when we moved into the house I owned and there were fleas; he wound up a mess.  But there didn't seem to be a way for him to have fleas here.  We went to the vet and I suddenly realized when she found fleas that the stray dog had them and I had been back and forth in the 24 hours it took his medication to work.  So apparently I carried fleas into my home.  By this point Noah had a skin infection as well as bald spots and fleas so he got a steroid shot, an antibiotic shot and both cats got flea treatment.  I got a lot of laundry and steam cleaning.  And a bad case of phantom-itchies.  I felt so bad for the cats last night; the fleas were dying and apparently biting as they did and both cats were miserably itchy.  I had to use a more gentle, slower working flea treatment because my old cat can't process meds so well.  Today they seem more comfortable although Noah is wide awake still which is the combination of steroids and itching.  Poor babies.

The old cat, in other news, is kicking butt and taking names.  She is off her nausea med that a  month ago I couldn't miss a dose of without dire consequences.  I finally stumbled into 2 foods that she tolerates and likes and she is eating real cat food again.  One of them is usually really expensive but is on sale through the end of December so I'm going to be buying immense quantities of it.  Truthfully the expense is pretty well negated at this point anyway if she just eats the food and there isn't waste.  This stuff is pretty much as close to just giving her actual, unprocessed food as you can get without doing that and her tummy likes it.  She's more comfortable, gained a bit of weight and I'm not throwing out any excess foods.  I'm thrilled by this and am now expecting to see her hit 19 1/2 in January. Not bad for a kitty who has had renal disease for 4 years.

Dr. Mind has finally gotten a helpful treatment and is back to being himself again.  I missed him and I'm glad he is better.  I never realize just how much he helps hold my life together until he isn't there doing that.  My depression is even a little better since I know that I have him back and able to focus again.

And that's everything I can think of to catch up on.  I think it's time to curl up in bed with a book and see if I can sleep.  Last night I slept so hard I didn't know the cat had thrown up in my bed until I woke up with a cold, wet sleeve.  I moved to the couch and didn't notice the remotes laying there.  When I turned on netflix today I learned that I had apparently turned on 1/2 of an episode of My Little Pony while I slept and never noticed it.

Hopefully I'll manage to blog a little sooner next time.