Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff

[Alamias]

@tnp That was kind of my reaction. I honestly wasn't sure if I was feeling something or if my mind was just thinking it was feeling something the night of, but I was fine the next day save for the sore arm.

[Cobalt]

Four-five days if recovery... Yeah, I believe it.

Eta' that is to say my gallbladder has successfully been removed, I'm home, and either delirious from body pain or from drugs.

[Warma Sheen]

@tnp That's just how my first one went. The second one hit harder, though. If you can, schedule it so that you have time to recover the next day. I got it in the morning and most of it hit me that night. I had aches and chills, freezing but sweating. It wasn't terrible but it was highly annoying and uncomfortable and kept me up most of the night. There also might have been a bit of hallucinations or just generally being out of it mentally.

But to remove most of the risk of dying from COVID - and thus removal of the anxiety of going out into the world - it was very worth it.

[Testament]

I've had tinnitus the majority of my life. Probably ever since I was in my teens, thinking it was a good idea to have blaring headphones while also mowing the yard. I didn't make good decisions.

Lately it's been getting louder. First around the end of November, but after a couple of weeks, I was able to get used to it. Or at least treat it like I could ignore pretty well.

Two weeks ago, it got louder again, and in both times, it's been on my right side. I"m fairly certain its TMJ related, because that side of my jaw always tends to pop often in that particular hinge. But still it's getting to point where I can't ignore it, where I can feel the ringing in my ear. Nothing else. Pressure point exercises, neck and jaw stretches. Massaging the fascia in my jaw, tapping a various locations on my skull that would trigger nerves point to the auditory center in my brain, nothing.

This is a living hell. Ever day, never ending. The same high-pitched ring. I have to keep an earbud in my right ear with a low frequency tone to drown out the ringing, because I can tolerate a low frequency hum so much more than a high pitched ring.

I don't wish this on anyone. I would just about anything, anything for a moment of pure silence. I don't know what it is anymore. Is it stress from work. Is it one of the medications I'm taking. Is it my diet? Because tinnitus is so strange and even to this point, a lot professionals can't seem to pinpoint the point of original because there's so many of them, they're not often much help.

I can understand so much more fully why suicide rates in people with tinnitus is so much higher than those who don't have it. Hell, the CEO of Texas Roadhouse committed suicide because the tinnitus he had because so bad as a side effect of Covid, death was preferable. I can't imagine how bad it must've been for him.

I'd pay a lot of money if someone could figure out a decent treatment.

[tek]

@testament I have tinnitus that acts up when my TMJ flares up. I was taught this thing by one of my doctors that helps temporarily.

Press both palms over your ears, with your fingers cupping the back of your head.

Take your index fingers and, using your middle fingers for leverage, snap down at least forty times against the base of your skull.

I don't know why or how this works, but it gives me temporary relief..

[Crawfish]

@warma-sheen

The second one hits harder?

Nooooo gdi

[GreenFlashlight]

@crawfish Anecdotal evidence suggests it depends on if you've already had COVID. If you have caught it, the first dose is harder. If you haven't caught it, the second does.

[Arkandel]

We finally moved houses. It was tiresome as fuck but it's such a cultural shock to be out of a major city and into suburbia.

This whole area is strictly residential without a 7/11 in sight, and there are multiple large parks within a ten-minute walk from my house, yet I can also drive for literally under five minutes to entire city blocks' worth of big box stores - restaurants, Home Depots, you name it.

But what did it is a large garage that can host a home gym. It's not heated so I'll need to get some space heaters for the winter for sure, and it will cost... more than I care to think about to buy all the gear. But in the long run it will save money (at a conservative estimate that's after 4 years' worth of memberships, mind you ), and... it's available. Unlike actual gyms in the midst of pandemic lockdowns.

The cats on the other hand, for some reason, seem to be surprisingly okay with this. And the dogs really like the much larger yard, especially the puppy when she gets the zoomies.

[Ganymede]

@arkandel

Which 'burb did you move into?

[silverfox]

There is a possibility I might be able to move into my dream position at the school I'm in currently. (We're on better terms now that Admin have started to be more open about mistakes that were made this year and have actively attempted to make change.)

Possibly.

POSSIBLY.

I am trying to manage my expectations but it's hard when I just want to jump around and clap my hands wildly.

[GreenFlashlight]

@silverfox Go ahead, jump and clap. We're not watching. At least, not since you covered your webcam's lens with tape.

[Solstice]

I feel like every single thing I get in life anymore is chronic, and just has doctors shrugging and being like, "Oh well, that's your life now."

Makes it hard not to despair.

[Macha]

@solstice I feel you here. And trying to get anything for pain from one of said chronic conditions, is pretty much impossible.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@solstice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I feel like every single thing I get in life anymore is chronic, and just has doctors shrugging and being like, "Oh well, that's your life now."

It's a big awful pill to swallow. Particularly the knowledge that no matter what you do from here and on, it's not going to get better. There is no 'someday I'll be well'. Only 'how long can I postpone the inevitable', and trying to make the most of what you have left.

Not going to lie, there are days where I feel like it's a battle so uphill that even getting out of bed is too hard.

[Macha]

I have been apartment hunting. And I went to look at one the other day 4 flights of stairs up. My spine and hip said 'fuck no'. And punished me for it. Stupid Ankylosing spondylitis. Can't even use you for scrabble.

[GreenFlashlight]

Spoilered for mentions of self-harm, suicidal ideation, and PTSD.

***=NSFW content***

click to show

I found my iPod earlier today. It's full of music that isn't on my phone for mostly Luddite reasons; music I haven't listened to since before Dad died because honestly, when's the last time you listened to an iPod? Yeah, that's about what I figured.

Amused at the nostalgic surprise of the discovery, I took the delightfully tiny machine to the car to listen to as I ran some errands. It's full of old stuff by its nature and mine; stuff from the sixties I inherited a love of from my parents, stuff from the late nineties when I started to actually like music after almost twenty years of not getting the appeal of all those noises, stuff from up to the 2010s when the machine was last relevant. I popped the cord in, and after a moment's annoyance at how quickly it started playing on my car's sound system compared to the dog's age it takes for it to negotiate with my phone, a big doofy grin spread on my face as I waited to hear music I hadn't heard in years.

I no longer remember what the first few songs were, but the fourth one was "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab for Cutie. It's from one of my favorite albums of all time. The lyrics are clever, the beat is quick and quirky, the bass kinda slaps. I loved this song, but more than that, I'd sincerely argue it is an objectively good song, well crafted by people who understand the science as well as the art of music.

So when I heard it, my face went pale, my heart lurched in my chest, and I started leaking big, fat beads of acrid, fear-scented sweat because (and I don't know if I can convey this to you who weren't there in my skin) I realized not only had I forgotten the song, I'd forgotten the context in which I'd last listened to it and the person I was at the time. Suddenly that song took me back in time ten years to when that tune, and most of the ones surrounding it, were the soundtrack of the biggest, extended mental health crisis of my life: years of misery, driving to this or that patient's residence with that song playing on the car's sound system but me not hearing it because all I could hear was a silent voice in my head urging me to end it all because unhappiness is all I was heir to. It's hard for me to even write about it now; my lips are dry and my pits stink as I think of how that song would be playing as the long sleeves I wore to cover my scars irritated the fresh wounds I'd cut into myself, or the time a package of taco shells on top of the fridge at work once made me flee to the bathroom blinded by tears I didn't want anyone else to see because I knew I'd eaten my last Mexican meal and would be discovered weeks dead in my bathroom, or the time on a family vacation I sneaked out of my hotel room and walked into the ocean to let it take me before the not-quite murdered voice of my conscience told me it would be cruel to make my family wonder without knowing.

Five For Fighting's "Chances" coming on next didn't help.

Now the iPod under the passenger seat of my car. I don't want to throw it away because I'm irrationally terrified of it: this malign time machine might have the power to warp out of my trash can like the haunted doll in a shitty horror movie (to reset itself to a previous point in time, like) to punish me for trying to be rid of it, but if I leave it in the car where it thinks there's a chance I might listen to it again, maybe that will propitiate it enough to not haunt me more fully.

This isn't about me being comically, childishly scared of an iPod. Not really. This is about being ripped out of the present into a nightmare but nevertheless accurate past I would have said, before now, time had softened and dulled the bite of. This is about me wondering in all seriousness if there's such a thing as "the past," or if it's just a different kind of present that can jump out of the bushes and snatch you whenever it wants.

I'm going to go take a shower now and drink some tea until my fingers stop shaking. Jesus.

[Ninjakitten]

@greenflashlight I know you don't know me, but virtual hug available if wanted. Music can do that kind of thing sometimes, and I'm sorry it brought that all back up; the other thing I saw and think is also important is that you made it through. The past is past but it's always part of us. PTSD is a pretty strong demonstration of that, and I hope you have access to someone who can help find a way to lessen its impact. I'm sorry you went through that, both originally and today.

[Cobalt]

@greenflashlight I'd also offer internet hugs. I'm sorry.

---

So, for a treat since it was my birthday recently, a little before said birthday... I went out and got -short- acrylic nails put on. Had them on for three days... Was getting out of my car when I slammed my pinky against my door.

***=Gore.***

click to show

I tore the fake nail completely off of the nail bed, ripped the nail out down the finger, and a good amount of skin. I, having already been at the ER e-fucking-nough this year was like 'whatever it's just a ripped off fake nail' and asked my boyfriend to clip it off for me.

Cue pain and agony, while we realize that it's too bad to deal with at home, and a trip to the ER. Where they -put the nail back inside my skin- and wrap it up.

After my got numbed so I wouldn't feel it, I realized what I thought was just a flap of skin hanging off of my finger was actually my nail...

Also they had to numb up my hand from multiple places because the first round didn't numb it enough and having your nail tucked back -inside of your finger- hurts.

Plus on top of that we cut off the majority of the fake nail at home, because instead of going to the ER immediately I decided to try and take care of it at home, because who goes to the ER for breaking a nail? Well, yeah, I didn't break the nail at all I ripped it the fuck out.

But anyway I have exposed fucking nail bed on my pinky, and it constantly hurts.

Do you have any idea how much you actually use your pinky? It's alot. I -can- type, but it hurts. I -can- hold things, but it either hurts or my grip is terrible. I have my finger wrapped up, of course, while the nail and cuticle and skin heals, but god damn it hurts.

....I'm gonna stop typing now, but I just needed to vent.

[GreenFlashlight]

@ninjakitten @cobalt Though I don't like hugs, I do appreciate the spirit in which they were offered and the fact that you offered instead of imposing. Thank you both for being so considerate on both fronts. And I'm better now, I got through it. Cobalt, super sorry about what happened to your finger. You never notice how much you use your digits until it hurts to do so.

[Ninjakitten]

@cobalt Oh, man. It's been a while, but back around junior high, I somehow kept spraining my pinkies. And yeah, I still remember how much it turns out you actually use them day to day. Everything moves them. A surprising number of things touch them. All kinds of things become a whole lot trickier if you have them wrapped or splinted or etc. It'd be bad enough without the direct cause, which, ow. I hope it heals up fast and well.