Monthly Update

It looks like monthly is about how often I can manage to write these posts so for the few of you who will read it, here's the one for March.

Things continue to improve around here.  I've been taking all sorts of showers.  Showers in the morning, showers in the evening, showers at suppertime!  I haven't been this clean in forever.

I'm still dealing with this pain in the butt, and pain in my hip, and something new.  For the last couple weeks, the ring-toe on my left foot (the little piggy that had no roast beef), has been doing something weird and uncomfortable.  For a week, it felt vividly like it was broken and twisted straight back at a horrible angle.  It didn't look abnormal.  I don't think I bonked it on anything.  It just felt like that for a week.  Then my pinky toe felt like somebody was squeezing it really hard in a pair of pliers for a couple days, and now it's kinda gone to the middle toe where it has started to twinge.  It feels like it's spasming violently.  Like it's having a bad cramp.  Again, nothing looks weird.  If I touch the toe, it actually seems to hurt worse, so I've been avoiding that.  I think there is a nerve somewhere that's trying to reconnect, and currently has a loose connection.  It's really annoying, and I hope it will stop soon.  I said from day one that I have no interest in getting any feeling back because all I'm likely to feel is pain.  I hate it when I'm right.

Apart from that, lots of good things have been happening.  The food fairy came this week.

Chicken lemon basil pasta, cheesy smoked sausage and pasta,
dorito chicken casserole, and zucchini tomato bake

I also met one of my neighbors on my hall this week.  I invited him over for beers last night, and he said he and his wife were going to invite me for dinner sometime.  We'll see how that goes.  I'm optimistic.

The other thing that's happening is that I've started doing something that has interested me for many years, but I just haven't had the ability to pursue it until now.  I'm not going to talk about it too much right now, but it has been holding my interest, and adding some much needed excitement to my life.  It gives me something to look forward to every morning.

Last month I worked with a physical therapist to practice my car transfers, and they went pretty well.  I got pretty confident getting into and out of the car, and my procedure for getting the wheelchair in and out improved quite a bit too.  By the end, I was able to get in the car in under 5 minutes, and the same for getting out.  The biggest problem I still have with that is that my pants fall down every time I transfer in or out.  Since I can't pull my pants up without getting in bed, that's a big problem.  I might be able to fix that problem with some different pants, or possibly some suspenders.  I'm going to need somebody to take me shopping.

Also of note, my friend Emily is coming to visit in early April for almost a week.  I'm hoping I will feel good enough to go out and do some stuff when she's here, so that could be a bunch of fun.  Maybe she'll take me shopping.

Martinsville is also coming up at the end of March, so I'm hoping to get another visit from the guys.  That's always fun.

I have plans to do a post where I talk about some of the modifications I've made to my apartment that make my life easier, but I'm not quite ready for that yet.  Soon I think.  Unless I get that going in the next couple weeks, I'll probably talk to you again in April.  If you want an update sooner than that, come buy me dinner, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know.  :)