forestofglory | Entries tagged with medical

I have been meaning to come here and chat about my sewing projects but a lot has been going on.

We had another storm, and last Tuesday at noon or power went out and remained out until Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. our house got really cold. It's surprisingly difficult to focus even on things that can be done without power while the power is out. So my week has been disrupted.

Meanwhile my family has been having various medical issues my mother fell and now the chip in her humerus. Unfortunately she's in a lot of pain.

And my mother-in-law had a tooth extracted and is slowly recovering. She's on a soft food diet right now.

But I want to give you a quick sewing you update anyways. I finished the short sleeved top I was working on. And cut out another one which I haven't started sewing yet. And I have made a little bit of progress with one of the baby quotes I'm working on piecing. Plus the kid has wanted to do some small projects. We made a quilt and are working on some pillows for her stuffies. It continues to be slow going but satisfying.

Yesterday I asked a friend to hold my hand virtually while I set up text to speech on my phone. Four the last week or so my left hand has been hurting as well as my right hand and making things harder for me.

So I wanted to try more hands-free things. So far using text to speech feels kind of strange. I don't really talk the way I write. It's also a little bit odd not having to think so much about spelling. Yesterday I wanted to talk about vampireism, normally I would have to think pretty hard to spell that. But text to speech just knows how it spelled.

The other thing I'm trying at the moment is that I've taped a stylus the back of my hand so that I can use it to turn pages on my e-reader and push buttons on my phone using mostly my elbow instead of my wrist. It worked well for reading last night and I used it with my phone this morning. I think it's going to take a little practice to figure out exactly the best angle to tape it at. But I'm pleased that I thought of this.

I'm not enjoying having my hands hurt but at least I'm figuring out some workarounds.

I'm back form camping, it was very fun and also exhausting! I'm now home and showered and it's been October for a few days so it's time for monthly goals

Here are my goals for September:

1) Continue wrist treatment
Post OT things continue to be up an down. I can do things though, I have to be more careful than I really like. Still its vast improvement over not doing things

2) actually finish the rainbow quilt top
I did it! Finally! And I think it looks awesome. Pictures on Instagram and Twitter

3) Post something on ladybusiness
I read over and edited one of my wips, but then didn't send it to anyone for editing. Instead I got distracted by my fic wip.

4) Finish a second draft of my current fic WIP
Not quite, I wanted to write all the missing bits before considering the draft complete, and I made progress on them but didn't finish.

5) Do two lessons in one of my classical Chinese textbooks
Done! I got to start the Assassin Retainers section in A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese by Paul Router which is exciting for me!

I would have liked to do better at my writing goals, but I feel ok about how well I did on my projects in September. here are my goals for October

1)Write fic or LB posts on 20 days. Stretch Goal actually post something!
Rather than trying to finish things I'm just going to try to keep making progress. A writing day counts if I write at least 3 sentences or edit and least a page.

2) Baste Chicken baby quilt
I'm making up this quilt top for a new baby arriving in my community this winter. I have all the materials already. i want to baste it (basically gluing together the layers before I sew them together) before the rainy season starts as its an outside task that I can't do when its wet out.

3) Sew a garment for the kid
This will probably be the dress she picked out fabric for last month which I have already cut out, but I'm also planning some long sleeve shirts for her.

4)Celebrate the kid's birthday!
I have already committed to nice dinner on the day of and family party for with other fall birthdays

5) Halloween!
This can be fairly low key I hope. I need to figure out a costume for the kid and take her trick-or-treating

6) Two more Classical Chinese leasons
Planning to do some more Assassin Retainers!

I hope you all have great October!

The subjective experience of time continues to be very strange, but its now the middle of September so it's time to see how my goals are going.

1) Continue wrist treatment
I had and appointment with my OT and things are better now! She gave me some strategies for doing things in a ways that hurt less. My wrist still hurts, but I can do a lot more things and feel much happier.

2) actually finish the rainbow quilt top
The only progress on this is that I have order and new more ergonomic rotatory cutter, and I'm waiting for it to arrive before I do more.

3) Post something on ladybusiness
No progress on this.

4) Finish a second draft of my current fic WIP
I've revised a lot of this and fixed many problems but I've still got some missing scenes that I'm not sure how to write

5) Do two lessons in one of my classical Chinese textbooks
I have done one lesson. It's so nice to be working on this again!

Considering that I still have bum wrist and that we had a long heatwave last week, I'm feeling good about how far along I am with these goals. I'm still getting used to being able to do things but needing to pace myself, and I haven't figured out a new rhythm yet, but I'm getting there.

Hello everyone. Last week was the first week in years where I didn't post anything here. I have been a bit overwhelmed (Nothing too serious, just lots of little things)

Since its the beginning of a new month let see how I did on last months goals.

1) Continue wrist treatment
Well I got the steroid shot (turned out not be be cortisone, but a different steroid that I forgot the name of, beta-something) Anyway it helped a lot! My hand mostly doesn't hurt now! However I'm scared to do too much and mess my wrist up again, so I'm still rather limited in what I am doing. But I am typing a little and that seems to be going ok.

2) Back to school
This is going well. The kid seems to be enjoying the school year so far, and we've mostly gotten into a routine.

3) Write on ten days
I did great at this! A friend cheer/beta read my messy draft and I was able to work on the second draft, and write on 14 days! I was right that doing some more writing would make me feel better too. Also editing stuff on my phone isn't has bad as I thought it would be.

Goals for next month:
1) Continue wrist treatment
I've got a OT appointment a week for today, so I suspect that there will be ongoing exercises.

The next goals are all assuming my wrist continues to improve

2) actually finish the rainbow quilt top
This is so close! I just need my wrist to be ok enough.

3) Post something on ladybusiness
I have a couple of things drafted or partially drafted so hopefully I can make this happen

4) Finish a second draft of my current fic WIP
I've made some progress on this already! There's still some major problems to fix, but hopefully if I keep working on it slowly but steadily I can fix it.

I don't want to get too ambitious, so I'll stop there for now. How is your start of September going?

ETA: I know I said I didn't want to get too ambitious but I thought of one more thing
5) Do two lessons in one of my classical Chinese textbooks
I've been able to write enough to finish up the lesson I was working on before I got put on strict rest. While I was resting I studied a lot of vocabulary on Skritter with my phone so I'm a bit ahead and can work on either textbook for the moment! I'm not sure which lessons I'll end up working on, but I'm excited to get back to my textbooks!

Well it's the middle of the month so let's see how my goals for the month are going.

1) Continue wrist treatment

Well my wrist is still not great and it's still very limiting. I have an appointment for a cortisone shot next week and I really hope it helps

2) Back to school

School starts this week! Kid seems excited about it at least

3) Write on ten days

Doing well on this one, I've written on 7 days so far. I worked on some non fiction and I got a friend to read over my very messy fic draft and I've been working on the missing scenes from that. Writing has helped me feel a bit better

I only have those three goals for the month because I wasn't sure how my wrist would be. And that seems like it was the right choice.

How is your August going?

So I've been trying not to use my right hand for the last week and a half. Here's a couple notes on that's going.

* I have declared comment amantisty on DW. I hit the mark all read button on my inbox. There where some things there that I really wanted to get to but I just can't right now.

*I've been writing my daily to do lists with my left hand. I think my hand writing has gotten a little bit better.

*R found me a one handed cutting board with some ways to hold what you are cutting! I still can't do much but I've cut up a couple of peaches now.

*Last Friday I had a small fall and put wiegth on my wrist. So dispite all my resting it's been hurting more since then. I might have do an extra week of rest. It's very discouraging

*I can't drive which makes it harder to take the kid places, but a couple of times now R has dropped us off at a park. So I've gotten to do some outings.

1) Ongoing Wrist issues

Well these have gotten very bad. I had an appointment with an orthopedist who advised me to try doing as little as possible with the wrist for three weeks. So that's what I'm doing. It's boring and frustrating, and upsetting. So given this I'm not able to meet many of my goals for the month. (Also forgive the lack of formatting, I'm writing this on my phone with my off hand)

2) Post something on

ladybusiness

This is not going to happen. I can write on my phone, but I can't edit and editing is what needs to happen next.

3) Write fic on 15 days

This is still technically possible, last month I wrote almost 3k on my phone using just my left hand. However I have had neither focus or inspiration so far this month so I expect I'll only write fic a few days if at all.

4) Finish the purple section of the improv rainbow quilt. Stretch goal: Finish the top

Sewing is totally off the table for the rest of the month so this isn't happening. Very frustrating! I'm pretty close to finishing.

5) Do lessons 4-6 in An Introduction to Literary Chinese by Michael A. Fuller

This requires writing by hand to do right and I can't do that either. Still doing daily vocabulary practice on Skritter so at least I'm getting ahead there

6)Summer Excitement

I'm still hoping to do some fun things with the kid. There's a lot I can't do, but hopefully we can go to the beach and for some fun walks and things

7)Celebrate my Birthday!

Still planning to do something nice for my birthday at the end of the month. If nothing else I can eat some good food.

So how is your month going

How is it July already? The subjective experience of time is just wild. Anyways its time to look back on my goals for June and set some new goals forJuly.

My Goals for June were

1) Write something for ladybusiness
I drafted an essay! And I also started to write a rec list but then realized that I want to read a few more things and see if I want to include them too. So I feel like I succeeded at this goal even though I didn’t post anything.

2) Write fic on 15 days
I only managed to write fic on 14 days. However I finished a draft of the fic I've been working on for ages and ages! It's probably the messiest draft I've written but it's finished.

3) Read the intro and do lessons one and two in An Introduction to Literary Chinese by Michael A. Fuller
I did this and lesson 3 as well! (This last week has been a lot and language study was one of the few things I could concentrate on)

( Read more... )

Thanks for all your responses to my last post! My wrist is doing a lot better now.

It's the middle of the month so I'm going to take a look at each of my goals for the month

1) Write something for ladybusiness
No progress. Mostly due to my bad wrist. Still hoping to work on this in the second part of the month

2) Write fic on 15 days
I have written fic on 6 days. Which it's bad in terms of meet my goal. However I'm frustrated by how many of those days I just wrote the minimum three sentences and had to stop because of wrist pain or because of lack of focus. I want to make more progress on this fic! I want to finish the terrible rough draft, so that I'm done with that part!

3) Read the intro and do lessons one and two in An Introduction to Literary Chinese by Michael A. Fuller
I'm doing great on this! I've read the intro done lesson 1 and started on lesson 2! If things go well I might be able to do part of lesson three too. And since there's less vocab I've manged to start learning everything through lesson 4 and I'm feeling a lot less stressed out by not being able to keep up.

4) Finish the purple section of the improv rainbow quilt. Stretch goal: Finish the top
Some progress here. (It's hard to judge how far along improv pieces are) This has been slowed down by the wrist as well.

5) Transition to summer vacation
This going well. School is out for the summer. We had one week with no camp where we did a lot of expeditions and things. (When to the park, the libary, on a hike ect) This week she stared a day camp that she's really enjoying so far.

6) Ongoing Wrist issues
This goal is to remind myself to take care of myself, and be forgiving of myself if I can't meet all of my other goals because of it. I am frustrated with how slowly writing and sewing have been going. However I'm am also resting my wrist a lot and I even sent a email to my PT to inquire about possible further treatments.

So things are going ok goal wise. A bit slower than I'd like in terms of writing and sewing but I'm hopeful that with my wrist feeling better I'll be able to do more things in the second part of the month.

How is your month going so far? How are your projects going?

It's the Ides of March! It to check in on my March goals. The start of the month has not been great for me. I've had a lot of brain mush, a bad migraine and my kid has been home sick for a couple of days. So I haven't been as productive as I'd like.

1) Write fic on 20 days
So far I've written fic on 8 days which is bit behind where I'd like to be, but catching up is still possible. I've most been noodling with the one fic that I don't think I'm going to finish. I don't really know what happens after a certain point. But I think working on something is good for my mental health and I don't have any other projects calling to me.

2) Post essay about my research process
Posted this yesterday: "Fanfic Research Methods: A Case Study"

3)Work on Improv Rainbow quilt
I've been slowly working on this. I've been working on the orange part and its slowly taking shape.

4) Do lessons 8 and 9 in A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese by Paul Router. Stretch goal: Also do lesson 10.
I'm a little behind where I want to be on this, but I've gotten most of the way through the exercises in lesson 8, and I've been studying the vocabulary using Skritter.

5) Hugo Nominations!
I did go nominate some 2021 works that I loved! I did not actually mange to read any new things in the last two weeks. Oh well.

6) Get medical attention for my wrist pain, and if given exercises to do at home do them regularly
I'm doing well on this. I had video visit with my doctor who referred me to a hand specialist, who I also had video visit with. She recommended several things to try -- not only exercise but wearing a brace at night. I've been following the recommendation and they seem to be helping!

Well I'm doing better than I thought. The goals that require a lot brain power are lagging a bit, but I'm doing well at my other goals. I hope the rest of the month is better for focusing!

In the last month I’ve both gone to the dentist and taken my kid to the dentist. Dentists offices are such particular spaces to begin with, with their special chairs and lights and tools. Going to the dentist has always been a unique spacial experience for me. With the extra pandemic safeguards in place dentist offices feel even more like their own slightly alien worlds.

My dentist’s office hasn’t actually changed that much. More of the staff wear masks now, and there are some extra plastic panels in the front office, but that’s it. Of course I can’t wear a mask while my teeth are being examined or cleaned. But it still feels different to go to the dentist now, perhaps just because I go into so few buildings these days.

On the other hand, the kid’s dentists has changed a lot. Just before the pandemic started their was a fire in the old office. So during the pandemic we’ve been going to a different, further away, temporary office. Before I used to go in and sit in the waiting room. Now we park outside and text the dentist, then when they are ready for us the text back. I walk the kid to the office and then wait in the car until they are done. So I’ve barely seen the inside of this new office. It gives the whole thing a feeling of isolation.

Dentists offices have always been something of a space apart and the pandemic has only made them more so.