Back to the ordinary. Kiddo is back in routine. @bonenado is on antibiotic getting better. The nastiest part of the intense cold is slightly warming up. We may get above freezing for a few days.
Started my new year off right with neurologist, rest of the month will be MRIs on 2 spine areas and a follow up EMG to check for nerve dysfunction. I haven't been able get back into my walking routine without acutely intensifying my foot pain for months, and if it's coming from spinal stenosis, I need to know before I possibly increase meds again trying to get back into that game. Continuing to ignore it and not exercise only lets it get worse, but I need to make sure I'm not making it worse myself. Closer to end game steps are steroid shots and surgeries (worse case scenario is crippling and paralysis), but I don't show obvious damage (leg weakness, foot drop, etc) during office assessment, which is really good. I'm still doing really well for all the work I've had to put into regaining my mobility the last 6 years. I started mobility and strength work 6 years ago. 6 years ago I was barely able to walk around a store and often used motor carts (for much more than this one problem), and I barely did the shopping. Now I do most of the shopping on a regular basis and never use a motor cart. I'd like to keep it that way for awhile, but this foot pain is becoming a real bear again over the last year.
Jan. 6, Saturday
Routine is such a funny word around here. 😂 The roller coaster is still there, just more predictable.
I've got my part of it broken down into a 3X3 format of things I need to keep getting done or work on this winter and spring. In one format it's personal, home, internet, in another format it's daily, weekly, monthly. The time jags I went through in December necessitate an urgent need to get myself back on track asap. I was able to fake my way through most of it, probably even surprisingly well, but underneath I was barely containing a mess way out of control.
When you throw depression, finances, daily chores, holiday expectations (that's it's own horrible list right there), forgetfulness, and the inevitable emotional fallout all into a dogpile together (I basically just described Christmas for at least 50% of everyone I know), it's a mess. And then January is about crawling out from that mess and starting the cleanup. A lot of people usually give up by March if not sooner, and I think that's because the mess never gets properly defined. Exercising our way to health without dealing with our healthy in any form in the first place (physical, mental, spiritual) is like putting a bandaid on a 6 inch gash. Going to a gym doesn't fix anything. It can help, yes. But without some kind of guidelines, it can actually make the mess harder to deal with.
So, the whole frickin' mess. I have to stay on top of money and calendar sync weekly. I have to stay on top of certain household chores daily. I have to stay on top of internet goals weekly/monthly.
Example- Personal includes hair and nail maintenance, right. Once a month. I actually have it written down because I'm so bad to neglect myself. I'm not the sort of person who even looks in a mirror. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Some people freak out about how they present round the clock, and I'll admit I've had years where I slacked around like The Dude. I try not to do that any more. Personal also includes calling my dad. I am super fail to check in with him, and I need to at least call him once a week. He's old and alone much of the time, and we can always talk about the impending apocalypse and the lastest homeopathic fad in the spam catalogs coming in his mail. Other personal things include medical. I found out last month that my disability papers aren't on file with my doctor, super fail since I got that years ago. I need to make a phone call and find out how to go about getting a copy into their software system. There's more, but you can see how organizing a time table for some things slightly improves my existence.
Example- Home includes the regular laundry and dishes, of course, but I've been extra fail this year with floors and rugs. I used to be pretty OCD about my floors. I have more difficulty nowadays, @bonenado is way overworked, Bunny is tearing around the house, and the floors have been pretty neglected. Well, plus my surgery. I've managed to pull off deep cleaning my floors about every 6 weeks this year. That is unacceptable, even without pets, if for nothing else than my allergies to Mirkwood. If I want to feel better, I need to hold the micro crap down, and don't for one second misunderstand that micro couldn't mean billions and billions of leaf mold spores. I want to breathe easily, so I need to clean my floors. I'm tightening the deep cleaning up to monthly, with weekly touchups when I do my regular weekly cleaning on certain chores. Years ago during my worst horrible year of being nonstop sick, I made a list and we executed it. We threw out our fabric covered couch and replaced it with leather. We shampooed the carpets. We set up hepa filters around the house. Within 3 months I went from monthly antibiotics for continual acute upper respiratory to not sick at all in sinus, glands, throat, or ears. So now I pull down curtains and wash those and rugs religiously. I change the bedding religiously. I rotate all the linens religiously. Been slipping up a bit this year, and it's showing, and that alone is dragging all the rest down.
Example- Internet includes pulling focus back onto the little daily chores I used to do to stay focused on bigger picture. I nearly threw all that out the door the last 6 months. I don't mean Pinky blog, I mean the entire structure I've spent 5 years building. I'm so close to being there. It would be a real shame to let all this slip away. I know the rest is already long, so I won't keep boring you. I'll just say that every little bit adds up, and it's all transient. It's my job to create and maintain my own presence.
From BFF convo
I can do amazing things sometimes a micrometer at a time, as long as I keep tacking on those micrometers. They add up. Again, thank you Chris Hardwick. By the way, all the pics in this post click out to funny sources, check those out.
Stuff is hard. Life can suck. Sometimes perspective is all that stands between us and doom. I can do this.
Watch me fly, 2018. Yes, you can laugh when I faceplant, but I'm still going to make it a few feet through some real air before that happens. Watch me.
