This was not my favorite month this year. It could have been worse, but still, I am ready for October.
It's actually hard to believe that my finger saga has only gone on for a month, because it feels like at least six. I started adding up the costs, but when I went over a grand I turned off the calculator...no need to wallow, and the bottom line is keeping my finger: priceless.
I did not realize for most of this time how freaking serious this injury was. I saw both the orthopedist and occupational therapist today, and they both stressed that I am a very lucky girl...they expected to admit me for surgery at least. The doctor praised me for being a very compliant patient, and I admit that made me feel oddly good, just like the kudos from the OT made me puff up with pride. Yay me, I excel at finger curls.
I'm not completely better...I have to do the finger curls every hour or two or my finger stiffens right back up, and I have to run it under warm water and fold it into a fist to get it working again. I'm missing about 10 degrees of bend on the top joint, and I'm fumbling with things...money, bottle caps, keys. And it hurts a bit, especially after the therapy. If I'm not back to normal in six weeks I can go for a cortisone shot.
But this afternoon they put my chart back in the fileroom at the doctor's office, and declared the case resolved. I'll try to do that too, and instead of bitching about my finger I'll go back to bitching about everything else in the world.
I went to a used book sale last week and picked up a big box of church cookbooks...those spiral-bound ones with recipes contributed by members and sold as fundraisers. I've mentioned before how much I love these.
This particular box was multi-denominational. The first one I flipped through, the first recipe that caught my eye:
1/2 jigger of Vodka
1/2 jigger White Cream de Cocoa
1 1/2 jiggers Dark Cream de Cocoa
Mix above with French Vanilla Ice Cream. Place all ingredients in blender and blend well. Recipe for 1 tall glass.
I feel like I should put a big sic after this...but that's how the recipe was capitalized, and isn't it creme de cacao? Not that that's important.
What's important is the two and a half shots of booze in a single glass.
Not the Methodist cookbook, I guessed.
When I registered for this year's Maryland Race for the Cure, I noticed that the erstwhile "spirit runner" category for people who want to participate but can't make it to the actual race has been renamed. Now they call it "Sleep in for the Cure."
Now I can get behind that.
And in fact, I did. Not because I'm lazy...which I am, but that is beside the point...but because my sister in on a business trip, and I can't navigate Bawl'mer without her. And I really need to go for a bike ride Saturday to test out whether my hand (80% of my normal strength overall, about 50% of my usual index finger strength, almost 90% range of motion back) works well enough to shift and brake. (If it doesn't, I'm screwed for the Tour of Hope, but I'll worry about that later.)
In the meantime...I've been getting very little sleep, what with getting up early for my conference, going to bed late after too much free hotel coffee, and my hand bothering me. I'm like a zombie right now. But I have been thinking...I can sleep in on Saturday. I can sleep in on Saturday. I can sleep in on Saturday.
If I can just make it to Saturday, I can sleep in.
I'm at a conference this week. (Not out of town, exactly, but so far on the other side of town that I'm leaving pre-dawn and getting home post-dusk.) Today I realized that I forgot to set my out-of-office autoreply on my work e-mail, so I popped into the business center at the hotel to check my messages.
They wanted $5.50 for 15 minutes on the internet.
Blackberries don't look so outrageous now.
The rant of the day:
I don't care if you're in town to protest things I support, support things I protest, or if our politics match up one hundred percent and you just want to see Tom Wolfe...if you insist on standing on the left side of a Metro escalator, particularly when they are single-tracking trains...I don't like you.
When I was a kid, we used to have a lot of extended family parties (grandparents, uncles & aunts, cousins, second cousins, aunts' step-siblings, people who'd lived next door for a long time, people who were in line behind one of us at the grocery store...the definition of family is a bit broad.) In the summer, we had cookouts: hamburgers, hot dogs, and half smokes. Graduating from hot dogs to half smokes was like moving from the kid table in the kitchen to the real dining room table on Thanksgiving, a rite of passage.
So what is a half smoke? It's like a hot dog, but bigger and spicier (and frankly, better. Um, no pun intended.) I assumed everyone knew half smokes until just recently, and I've found myself trying to define them by what they aren't...they are not Polish sausage, Italian sausage, or chorizo. They aren't those little cocktail weiners. They are, apparently, not universal.
I did a bit of web surfing and found this out: half smokes are the D.C. signature food. I saw several references to Ben's Chili Bowl, but as far as I know, you can pretty much get them at any hot dog cart. (You'd miss Ben's chili, but this is about the 'smokes. And I say as far as I know, because, honestly, it's been a while since I had lunch at a hot dog cart...I work in the suburbs, and if I'm eating downtown it's usually at a hotel for a conference: chicken, rice, and green beans almondine. Makes a half smoke damn appealing.) And since I've been leaning vegetarian, I admit I haven't looked at the processed meat section of the grocery store lately, but you used to find half smokes (mild or hot) right next to the hot dogs. They were even packaged in multipes of four like the buns, further evidence of their superiority.
So that's the deal with the half smokes...not much, really. Next up on local oddities: duckpin bowling.
Today we ripped out grass in the front yard and replaced it with a bunch of dead-looking things.
Okay, the bulbs I trust. But the hosta looked like a giant spider fossil.
I don't think my yard will ever look like Ted's.
I haven't forgotten the half-smokes, I'm just spending all my spare time doing finger curls. I have seventy percent range of motion! Tomorrow we start on strength!
Which so good, because yesterday I tried to drain a pot of pasta, and, well...I need to regain strength.
I never thought something so minor could be such a production, and that's with my lucking out and not needing surgery. But the OT told me she had a patient who lost an infected finger completely, and that was with getting on the antibiotics promptly like I did. But hers wasn't a rat bite...it was her cat that bit her.
The doctor cancelled my surgery reservation for tomorrow.
Yay, me. I smacked down Streptobacillus moniliformis by sheer force of will.
Yeah, okay, maybe it was the doxycycline. But the sheer force of will didn't hurt.
I'm starting to look forward to October...just write September off, this party sucks, I'm goin' home.
We put one of the rats to sleep on Saturday, one of the older girls. She had three tumors and could no longer walk straight, and she had trouble using the water bottles. But it was such a hard decision...was she ready? I never want to be responsible for them suffering needlessly, but I detest playing God.
I'll spare you the end-of-life-what-is-next ruminating this time.
You'd think, keeping pets with short lifespans, I'd either learn to deal with this...or perhaps stop keeping pets with short lifespans. One time my father said "maybe you should get one of those parrots that lives for 80 years, or a giant tortise." He's been known to say some insensitive things about the pets, but in that case, he was actually being sympathetic. He just doesn't see why I keep doing this.
The finger thing may actually be looking up...on Friday I got a gold star in PT, I went from 30% range of motion to 70% in five days. And I didn't cry...I bit my lips, I held my breath, I wrapped my legs around the chair so hard I'm surprised I didn't break it...but I did not cry.
Also on Friday I'd resigned myself that the doctor was going to want to cut, but I got a reprieve. The culture from Wednesday night hadn't grown anything (which I assume means I'm not teaming with nasty bacteria...I would have thought it would have grown something, but microbiology is so not my strong suit), and when the doc start pushing the places that were making me scream, the pain was not quite so intense. Of course, I'd just come from PT, so it was relative. He took blood to check my white blood cell count (and I am sporting the nastiest black-purple-and-green splotch on my left arm, thanks to two phlebotomists who really should look for another line of work...and while I'm not the type to pass out at the sight of a needle, I still don't wanna hear "Oh damn, it's gonna blow" when sharp things are in my veins) and I go in tomorrow, of course, for another recheck. I think the swelling is finally starting to subside, though. Instead of looking like a half smoke, my finger now looks like one of those cheapo hotdogs you'd get in a grade school cafeteria. I can even make out my knuckle.
Oh...you guys do know what a half smoke is, right? I mentioned half smokes at work the other day and nobody in the room (one from Bawl'mer, two from New York, and an Eastern European) had a clue what I was talking about.
I was trying to think of a funny way to tell this, but I'm really not in a very good mood.
Apparently the doctor hasn't been making me come in every other day because I'm so charming or because he's relying on my $20-a-visit copays to gas up his Escalade. No, he's been watching the infection in my hand. And today he decided that it isn't healing the way he'd like to see it heal.
See, I'm a little taken aback, because I thought I was doing well. I mean, yeah, everything hurt like a mother-shut-yo-mouth, but after just two days of playing "where is pointer" I can almost curl my finger around the steering wheel. And since I didn't have red streaks moving up my arm, and I'm taking a billion milligrams of amoxicillin boosted by the clavulanate and have been since three hours after the bite, I assummed the bacteria hadn't taken hold.
But the fact remains that my finger is fuscia and puffy and warm, and today the doctor recommended surgery.
I'm not into surgery. We made a deal...he took fluid for an actual culture to see what bacteria I'm infected with, and he switched me over to doxycycline (which seems a bit shot-in-the-darkish without the culture). If I'm getting better by Friday all is good.
If I'm not getting better by Friday, he did mention possibly giving me intravenous antibiotics, although that appeals to me only minutely more than having him slice up my hand. The slicing seems to be his preference, and he didn't seem too optimistic about the doxy. I have a feeling I better clear the calender for next week.
I visited the occupational therapist today. (Not the physical therapist, the occupational therapist. I'll look up the difference another time.)
I don't like to swear too much on my blog. Not that my grandma has a PC, but if somebody hooked her up with one and she figured out how to surf the 'Net, I wouldn't want her finding this and being shocked. Plus, shouldn't one be able to express one's self without resorting to profanity?
That said...here's my reaction to occupational therapy:
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK fuck fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Fuck fuck FUCK. And FUCK.
I've been thinking alot about New Orleans, and remembering my first trip there. It was while I was living in Pensacola, just a couple hours away on I-10, and we went for a beer festival. In theory, my then-husband was in Pensacola in service to the U.S. Navy, but a series of injuries and some spectaculary indifferent medical care left him with lots of free time. He filled that time hanging out with the brew master at a local pub, and we went to New Orleans to help pour the pub's brews at a beer festival.
I don't remember the time of year, but it was hot and humid, and arriving in the city we found traffic at a crawl because the street we were on was being repaved. We were to meet up with the beer people at Dixie Brewing, and when we finally got there, on of the guys from Dixie handed me a glass filled straight from the brite tank. I'll never in my life have a beer as good as that one, and I'll have a sentimental fondness for Dixie forever.
I checked a flood map yesterday, and Tulane Avenue, where Dixie is, was under over six feet of water last week. I haven't been able to find out any news on how they fared.
The beer festival itself was at the fair grounds, and before it started on Saturday, some guys from Abita Brewing took us to lunch. At the recommendation of a local, I got "a Frenchuletta and a frozen Barq's."
(I believe this was just after Coke had bought Barq's, and the locals were lamenting a loss of quality. I would have loved to tried the original.)
The Frenchuletta, though, was what blew me away. Damn, that was a good sandwich. Essentially it was an Italian cold cut with an olive salad spread, but it was the first time since I'd moved south that I'd gotten a good Italian sub. It mystified me, but in Pensacola, subs, be they cold cut or hot steak & cheese, were impossible to find.
They clued me in that the Frenchuletta was actually the restaurant's variation of the more classic muffuletta (the "French" part being the bread; a muffuletta is made on a round Italian loaf.)
That evening, we had dinner somewhere in the French Quarter. I remember very little...I spent the day at a beer festival, after all...but I remember having a muffuletta for dinner. And I'm not sure, but I think I had the leftovers for breakfast.
And I left with a quart of the olive salad from the Central Grocery.
Not only because they turned me on to the muffuletta, but also because they were such wonderful hosts, I also became very enamored with Abita Brewing. They make one of my favorite beers (Purple Haze) and I named my beagle after Turbo Dog.
Abita Springs is on the north side of Lake Ponchartrain; their damage from Katrina was minor. They are, however, already working on Fleur-de-lis Restoration Ale to help fund the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation.
I made a muffuletta for lunch today (it's sitting in the fridge waiting for kickoff). As it happened, I had olive salad...the good stuff from Central Grocery, and I hear they didn't do too badly either...from my parents' vacation to New Orleans. I was just thinking, it'd be better if I had some Zapp's chips, and I'm glad to see from their site that they are also back up and running.
I wish I could find some good news about Dixie.
(And from Chuck Taggart's Gumbo Pages: more history of the muffuletta, the recipe for the olive salad, and the answer to my question. Apparently, I had lunch that day at Liuzza's.)
Victor thinks I'm serious? That's a laugh. I spent the day on my Barcolounger in front of the tv. And I'm ready to renounce being a sports fan (first time since what, last December?)
Maryland blows 10 point lead and loses to Clemson
(Y'know, there's a lot of orange in the uniforms of ACC teams. What is up with that? Orange is the ugliest color in the spectrum.)
Theoretically-fighting-for-a-wildcard Nats fail to score against Atlanta
(Yes, if you'd told me in April that we'd even be fighting for a wildcard spot in September I would have been thrilled. Did I not say two days ago that I'm whiny right now?)
And what really sucks: with all the drugs I'm having to take, I couldn't even drink a couple of beers while watching these games.
I was intending to hype this a lot more this week. On the other hand, with Katrina, I don't know anyone who hasn't been participating in the spirit of One Day's Pay.
It only takes a second to register, and the registration is only so the organization can count how many people are participating. The goal is 30 million participants by 2010.
The direction is so vauge it almost seems silly: "take time out of your day to help a friend in need, give blood, donate to a charity, volunteer your time, or just be kind to others."
Almost, I said. Almost. In reality, I don't find it silly at all, and I said why two years ago when I found One Day's Pay afer an afternoon of searching the Internet. I said this then and I feel this way still:
I've been reading about the various September 11 observances, and wondering how to observe the day myself. I'm reminded of Lincoln's words in the Gettysburg Address:
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.A group called One Day's Pay is encouraging everyone to set aside part of the day to "help others in need."
It is only my poor power, but at least I can try to add and not detract.
I'm wishing I didn't have that narcotics-make-me-puke gene, because I could really go for some opiates right now...ow ow ow.
Typing hurts.
The hand surgeon took the splint away and said to use my hand, because, y'know, if you keep making that face it's gonna freeze that way. Or in this case, if you keep that swollen purple finger sticking out straight like that, you'll never bend it again, at least not without surgery.
It isn't bending...it is still too swollen...but I'm trying. And holy mother of the flying spaghetti monster does it hurt.
I go back Monday so he can look at it again, then I start physical therapy. I keep thinking back to my first physical therapy session after my knee surgery, the one where the therapist got out the protractor and said "Let's see your range of motion." So I bent my knee as much as I could, and he said "Pretty good, let's see if we can-" *CRACK* and you could hear my wail of agony in Seattle.
So between now and Monday I'm going to use this hand as much as I can stand, and I'm following the directions to soak it in warm salt water with a little hydrogen peroxide (he also took the stitches out, and after the first soak I did see some drainage. Not, thankfully, of the purulent discharge variety, although they are still sufficiently concerned about infection that I get two more weeks of Augmentin...time to find the probiotics, because one carton of yogurt a day is not going to cut it against broad spectrum antibiotics of that level...so I'm hoping that whatever drained will make the swelling go down.)
Ow.
I know this whole thing is my own fault and all, but I'm going to keep whining anyway. At least it will keep my fingers moving.
Victor, here, filling in while Nic can't type. Really, she can't.
You've heard of a two-fingered typist? Leave it to me to have an abnormal gf: She's a one finger typist, and the finger she uses to type with is the one that was bitten.
Actually, she's a four-fingered typist; it's just that those four fingers are on her right hand, which is where her bitten finger is, and the doctor she saw yesterday (a general orthopedist) told her to stop using her right hand.
He also made an appointment for her with a hand specialist for Thursday PM, and we'll know more tomorrow.
Especially if you do something really stupid.
I mentioned the death of my rat Saturday. That left her cagemate Oliver alone, and seeing him sitting on his shelf looking out at me was breaking my heart. Am I anthropomorphizing his feelings? Beats me. He looked terribly depressed.
Here is where I got stupid. If you don't keep up with the finer points of rat keeping you'll have to trust me on this one: really, really stupid.
I brought Oliver out with three other rats, rats who are also grown males and territorial. They were out for several minutes but I'll cut to the chase: big rat fight. And I didn't want anybody to get hurt because I'd fucked up. And so it didn't even cross my mind that the one who got hurt might be me.
George, a big sweet rat who is usually a momma's boy, got me on the second knuckle of my right index finger.
Much blood. Pain like I have never felt. On the way to the urgent care clinic, Victor's warning that animal bites need to be reported to animal control. Unthinkable fear about how they might view this.
The doctor at the urgent care clinic stitched the wound partly closed and gave me an antibiotic, a tetnus shot, and offered a narcotic. Thing is, I puke within about 20 minutes of every narcotic I have ever taken. The doctor said "Sucks to be you." Well, not in thoses exact words, but that's what I got out of it.
She also told me to see a hand surgeon on Tuesday, to evaluate for nerve damage. I haven't been able to bend the finger, but for now I'm thinking that is because of the swelling. And animal control hasn't knocked on the door demanding I turn George over, but I am sick wth dread over that idea. I'll be phoning the vet tomorrow too. I think the bite laws are about rabies control, and the vet can attest that George is neither rabid nor dangerous.
But I'm an idiot, and I'm anxious, and I'm in pain.
Yesterday was on the plan as a good day: spectacular weather, tickets to the big Maryland-Navy game. Instead of spending the day outside, though, I spent it watching one of the rats die.
She was eight days shy of her third birthday, which is quite old for a rat. I knew it was close...as recently as Wednesday, she was still launching herself out of the cage when I came in with dinner, but by Thursday night I was having to entice her to eat yogurt and baby food. Saturday morning I couldn't even get her to drink Pedisure.
She started what I would assume were the death throes around 4:30 with a seizure. I held her, and for the next two and a half hours she had convulsions...some where her whole body jerked, some where just her front paws trembled. In retrospect, if we'd known it was going to take so long, we might have taken her to the emergency vet, but it seemed like it was about to happen the next moment.
She was a tough rat, surviving illnesses and injury for nearly three years, and I wonder if that strength was what kept her raging against the dying of the light.
You know where I'm going with this, I'm sure...my ongoing struggle with acceptance of death and my ache for something that will transcend it.
I don't believe she was in pain or panic...I saw both just over a month ago when she broke her leg after catching her foot in the cage bars. This was different.
I read an article (in Discover, I think) recently about the brain activity in and after near-death experiences, and it touched on the way people who were, briefly, clinically dead did have a memory of "seeing" what was going on, but seeing it from above. And it had the classic "go toward the light" motif. And it had an explaination for the phenomonon...hypoxia or something. I may be misremembering, but I believe one theory was that the chemical flood going on near death was giving the subject a bit of a trip, as it were.
As I held my little girl I did wonder what she was seeing. It wasn't me, I don't think...her eyes were glassy and she didn't track my finger. She did move her legs like running a few times, which reminded me of the death scene in Watership Down, where Hazel runs off with El-ahrairah and leaves his body behind.
I could tell the moment that she did die, or so I thought. It wasn't dramatic, but something stopped besides her breathing...I just knew she was no longer aware. But then Victor took the stethoscope and listened another minute as the heatbeat faded away.
But again, I didn't learn anything.
I spent the first hour at the office today reading the Katrina coverage. After I got home from work, I spent another couple of hours trying to find somebody that could take donations of actual things...clothes, blankets, personal care products. I know, I know...the most efficient way to give help is a cash donation, and I've done that. But that doesn't feel like I have done anything.
I have heard, though I don't know if it is true, that those scrap metal drives during World War II were completely unnecessary. Nobody ever built a bomb or a bomber out of old cans and chewing gum wrappers...but it gave children a way to be involved and feel like they were useful.
I read the Pensacola News-Journal online, and today I did see that people there are organizing trucks of needed goods to Mississippi. I have been wondering if some of the smaller towns on the Gulf Coast have been...not overlooked, but when people in New Orleans don't have water, a guy in Hattiesburg who might want a clean change of clothes is a lower priority. I want to do something to help fill in those gaps, if I can. If it comes to it, maybe I can ship my stuff to a friend in Pensacola and have her drop it off.
There's a kid on an internet rat board I frequent who lives in Hattiesburg, actually. Their house is ok...no power, and they were using soda bottles to carry the gas for generators...but her family is fine. They've been trying to distribute food and water to their neighbors harder hit, and after talking to her about what they could use, I just sent a bunch of stuff from drugstore.com. I'm holding my breath for a confirmation number...I hope UPS can get it to her.
Someone at Victor's office is collecting school supplies and backpacks for kids displaced by the storm who'll be starting school wherever they've landed. I'm sure we have extra backpacks here...this is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.
I want to do something that gets me away from watching the news. I want to feel useful. I need a scrap metal drive.
I got stuck in a traffic jam on the way home tonight. The fire department caused it. Not because they were responding to a fire, or clearing an accident, but because they were out in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in the county hitting people up for money.
Now, I have nothing against fundraising (obviously...that's the primary content of my blog at the moment). And I have nothing against the fine cause for which they were working. But I have a huge problem with people weaving in and out of cars at a multiple-lane intersection at rush hour, slowing traffic down (because they're never back on the curb when the light turns green) and risking an accident. The fact that it's the fire department, the guys who respond to the accidents at this intersection on practically a weekly basis, makes this even worse.
Call me during dinner, get in my way on the sidewalk in front of the supermarket, but for the love of God get out of the street before somebody gets hurt.
And since I'm bitching anyway...while stuck in traffic I was listening to the news. I heard a quote from the president: "Americans should be prudent in their use of energy during the course of the next few weeks. Don't buy gas if you don't need it."
I figured they'd edited the quote poorly, leaving out the rest of the prudent measures we might take: carpooling, public transportation...emergency personnel not needlessly blocking the freaking intersection so that it takes two extra cycles to get through the light so I sit here wasting gas...
So when I got home, I actually looked up the text of Bush's remarks. Nah, that was it. Don't buy gas if you don't need it.
Well, what can I say: as a kid, I was actually inspired to wear a sweater and badger my parents to make sure the thermostat didn't go over 68 degrees, because I wanted to do my part. I can't really think of anybody else who'd be impressed to hear Bush quoting Carter, though.
You don't need me to tell you how to find the Red Cross, or any of the other organizations ways you can help the survivors of Hurricane Katrina...
I have a project this weekend. I had it planned in anticipation of my upcoming September 11 observation through One Day's Pay: I'm cleaning out the house. I have clothes that are in good shape, kitchen stuff that we rarely use, a tv I don't watch. Stuff, a lot of stuff. Obviously right now that stuff isn't going to help a family who lost everything, but when the water receeds and the FEMA trailers are in, I'm hoping I can find a way to get it to someone who can use it.
If that turns out to be impractical, I know I can find a place near home. But I definitely feel like I need to do something else, something active, along with clicking "charge my Visa card."