The Next Day

[copied from dland]

Again, thanks for the neat birthday wishes and ecards and stuff.

We just got back from dinner out at a vegan Chinese restaurant in the small city where R lives. Very nice, and I've got plenty of Crispy Tofu for tomorrow. The sauce was delish.

So I continue to sleep a lot -- unusual for me -- and yet I am dragging myself around, exhausted. I got out of bed this morning at 8, an unheard of hour; I'd rather be in Target at 7 -- and by 11, I was leaving the supermarket and wondering if I had the energy to get to my car. I thought I'd close my eyes for a while when I got home, but the phone kept ringing. I did improve somewhat through the day, but I'm getting ready to crash again.

My knee is hurting me today, not where it was actually broken, but in the spot I felt the "pop" when it first happened. (The bone was fractured in the center, but the pain is on the side.) Since I know the bone is healed (which I know because it doesn't hurt every day, just sometimes) I am going to have to assume that this is something I just have to live with. Going to the gym is probably good for it, and I need to make myself go more often. I so love it there and feel good about being there and what I'm doing, I just can't get up the energy to go do it often enough. I'm shooting for tomorrow morning.

I also need to get better about using eye drops. In one of my recent searches for more hearing aid information, I came across the message boards for the Acoustic Neuroma Association, which I've seen before but haven't participated in for years. Once again, I do see how lucky I am, as many of these people were left with impairments far worse than mine. But others, it seems, had doctors who knew what they were doing beyond the surgery; mine did not. My surgery went very well, but it never occurred to him that physical therapy might help my facial paralysis, and that there were other treatments for my paralyzed eyelid. Even so, there was a board talking about dry-eye and they're right, eye drops often are the answer and I must do it. I was also curious to see that there are AN people exploring the use of Botox to help with some of the facial paralysis, which is interesting; apparently it has been helpful to some Bell's Palsy patients. Maybe I'll see what the new doctor has to say. It might do something for that spot over my right eyebrow that's kind of frozen in a down position, so unless I can relax my face 100% -- try that sometime -- I have a bit of a permanent scowl look. Wouldn't mind getting rid of that. The hope is that freezing the damaged muscle in a relaxed position, which the Botox does, will give the nearby muscles a chance to try to work normally so that when the Botox wears off in time the problem doesn't come back. I'm sure I'll have to ask a plastic surgeon at some point, but it's an interesting thought.

R was telling us all about her job at dinner, and she seems very happy about it. It looks like a pleasant and good job, and is probably one she can have for life, if she wants it. I already knew that this was a company that keeps employees very long term, but she confirmed it; the others told her that "nobody ever leaves."

K, in the meantime, went to campus today and got her student ID and textbooks, and starts classes on Wednesday. She's on a path, but sometimes it's hard for her to hear about her sister's cool job and all, although she's not actually jealous, as such. But by the time she's her sister's current age, she'll have a good job, too, teaching. It's what she wants, and always has. If she had taken a different route, she'd be teaching today, but you know, you make decisions and you have to deal with the results. She won't regret it in the long run, but she's losing patience with it a bit now, I think. Ah, well. It'll be better once the semester gets underway and she's busy.

Okay, it's the couch for me.


WATCHING SVU :: ENTRY #1347