Quarantine Diaries – Weeks 59 and 60

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Thistle

So much of life right now feels tentatively safe at the moment. It feels like for the last 13-14 months, I’ve been living in an underground shelter, hunkering down and waiting until things are safe again, and now we’re peeking out to see if we can reemerge. The danger is still out there, but my family is as safe as we can get, and if we take reasonable precautions, we’ll be okay. For now, at least. It makes me laugh a little, because I know a lot of folks – including family members – who are Preppers, some with actual literal bunkers, and these are the folks who have refused to stay home, to wear mask, and now to get vaccinated… Like, what was all that Prepping for? Why bother if you refuse to actually take shelter and wait for the danger to pass when it comes?

Week 59 – April 23 to 29
217,219 cases, 3,354 deaths, 235 seven-day rolling average (up 13), 1.9% positivity rate (down to an all-time low and better than any metro areas in TX). Hospitals have actually seen a few days of decreases, which shows just how well our vaccine program is affecting our community!

The J&J vaccine is back on the market now, cleared by the FDA after the clotting issue. Pfizer (and I believe Moderna too) announced that boosters will be available in the fall, to come 6-12 months after initial vaccination (and hopefully any updates for variants). HEB is doing walk-in covid vaccines now, Metro Health is setting up mobile vaccination clinics to get into various neighborhoods, and the city is opening their mass vaccine site to everyone eligible without any appointment necessary. Right now, we’ve got roughly 572k folks fully vaccinated and 840k half-vaxxed in SA. Additionally, we’re up to seven breakthrough covid cases now (cases after full vaccination). All have been mild.

Jason had his second dose this week, with some mild fever and fatigue the day after. His symptoms were less than any of the rest of us. We also had our family memorial this week, which was tough. I had to not argue when I was told things like “I’m not getting the vaccine because it doesn’t prevent spread, it just prevents you from feeling any symptoms.” Sigh. I will be relieved when May 11th comes around and we’re all as immunized as possible. J and I talked to Morrigan as well, to see if he’d managed to get his shots yet, and he said he was planning to do so after mid-May when he moves into the apartment he and his roommate have leased. I’ll feel much better after he gets his doses too!

Generally over the last year-and-a-bit, the focus of these quarantine diaries has been on personal, local, and sometimes statewide happenings related to covid. Very occasionally, I’ll mention something happening on a larger scale. If I’d tried to track the covid-happenings worldwide, I would’ve given up the project ages ago. But right now, the crisis in India is so extreme that I feel the need to mention it here. The spike in cases/deaths is the most steep I’ve seen from any country this whole pandemic, and is even worse than we can tell, as many cases/deaths aren’t being reported because infrastructure, testing, the medical system, and so many other areas/departments are overwhelmed and unable to function. People are literally dying unseen and unattended in the streets. Someone – I’m not sure who to credit – has created a list of charities and folks helping on the ground in India. If anyone has the capability to help, please do.

Week 60 – April 30 to May 6
219,008 cases, 3,379 deaths, 205 seven-day rolling average (yay!), 2.6% positivity rate. Another 2 cases at the local high school this week.

Even though TX is almost the worst state in the country for percent vaccinated (44th!), San Antonio is still doing okay. We currently have 928k folks who have received their first dose (61.6%) and 647k fully vaxxed (43%). That number should continue to improve as 1) doses are now being administered to jail inmates (you might recall we’ve had several MAJOR outbreaks at the jail) and 2) the FDA is set to approve the Pfizer vaccine for the 12-15 age group next week. Current predictions are that they’ll be approve for under-11 by fall (some reports say ages 2-11, some say 6mo-11). I hope that happens because then my nephews can get their doses! There isn’t a lot of news beyond that this week, except that it was election week here and our current mayor handily won his reelection bid. (Whew!)

As for at home, my boys hit their two-weeks-post-vax on Wednesday, so they are now as protected as currently possible. Laurence and I went to the school for the high school play last weekend, and I was surprised (and pleased) that all the actors wore masks the entire time, managing to project their voices and enunciate well even through cloth! Laurence later had to go into the school for end-of-credit testing (because it’s TX, and yeah standardized testing is the most important thing in the world, eye-roll), and he felt a lot better about that since he’d had his vaccines. Ambrose is set to house-sit for my sister in Dallas in a few weeks, and will be flying up there – another thing we wouldn’t have even considered before his shots! Then there was the morning I spent at fellow-hiker Lindsay’s house, helping to take care of her newborn (above pic) while she’s in the hospital for complications – everyone in the house was vaccinated, so none of us had to wear masks, and that’s just so…old and new at the same time.

Moving forward
Unless we start getting a lot of crazy news, I’ll be posting these Quarantine Diaries a little further apart again. It really does feel like things are holding steady in our local area, the negatives and positives in a precarious balance atm. I’m sure with the variants running around the world, we’ll see another wave at some point. But for now, things feel relatively stable(ish). I’m afraid to say it and jinx it!

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Wellness Wednesday – A New Hope

Posted on May 5, 2021 by Thistle

No, not a Star Wars joke. I know enough about Star Wars from my SW-obsessed child to know this is the name of a movie, and apparently, on looking it up, it’s the first movie that came out, and I’ve actually seen it, even though uuuugh not a SW fan. Anyway, I mean a REAL new hope, one for me, one related to my foot, which I lamented about in last week’s WW post.

I was talking to a friend on Instagram, and she said that though she had some arthritis in her foot, she was lucky that it had never bothered her too much. That made me think a little more critically about the various things my ortho dr said. So I have arthritis in the top nubbin of my heel bone. That really shouldn’t come as a surprise, as that bone – in the spot that used to be broken – has continually had a dull ache whenever I do too much exercise, or if my feet are a bit misused (like when I skid/slide on trails, catching myself from falling but wrenching my foot in the process). I realized – that is the arthritis. And while yes, sometimes I have to take a day or two off my foot til the ache dies down, it has never prevented me from hiking, running, walking, etc.

Then there’s the swelling. I asked the ortho why arthritis in my heel would cause the weird, localized triangle of swelling and pain on the top of my foot. He said it was possible that the cyst on/in the bone had weakened and leaked. But…um…maybe I’m misunderstanding, but all that swelling can’t be from a leaky cyst, because a cyst causing that much fluid would be visible as a bump on my foot, and it isn’t (and never has been). I’m not sure what else he might be saying, as it didn’t make much sense, and it was only his best guess anyway. He basically told me that he didn’t know and couldn’t explain it. That got me thinking about the timing of things.

  • September 30 – ran a 5K without any problems
  • October 17 – slipped while on a long, arduous hike, hurting my foot (my best guess of where this all began)
  • October 24 – first instance of major foot pain after an uneventful walk
  • October 25 – wrote in my journal that my foot was swelling on the top and felt like it had stress fractures all over the area
  • October 29 – attempted to run a 5K but my gait was off because my left foot was injured and aggravated; even walking felt weird and uncoordinated
  • (between October and March – no letting up on the foot, continuing to hike/walk regularly and run periodically)
  • March 15 – saw my primary care dr, who determined the source of the pain was in the 4th metatarsal; she suspected a fracture and referred me to ortho
  • March 18 – hiked up (steep) Enchanted Rock on ouchy foot (Bad Manda!)
  • ***After March 18, I stopped doing all harder hikes, any running, and cut back on all walking/hiking generally.
  • March 25 – initial ortho appointment; swelling down to just in the evenings so only visible in photos; MRI ordered
  • April 14 – double foot MRI; I couldn’t pinpoint the painful spot any longer like I could on March 15 and had to guess for the imaging
  • April 27 – ortho follow-up; no pain remaining in the top of the foot, swelling now happening some days but not others

If you skipped through all this, here is the point: From October when my foot began to act stupid to mid-March when I went to Enchanted Rock, I didn’t rest my foot at all. I didn’t stop running, I didn’t cut back on my miles, I didn’t refrain from harder hikes. However, after Enchanted Rock, I began to do all those things. Several times, I took long five-to-six-day stretches with no exercise at all. Between when my primary doc found the painful spot on the fourth metatarsal and my follow-up with the ortho six weeks later, I was no longer having pain and the swelling was intermittent. What does that sound like? IMPROVEMENT. Possibly HEALING.

I think it’s likely that I did have a stress fracture, and the swelling was an attempt to stabilize it, and the long-term rest has kinda helped. Maybe if I take some time off completely, it’ll heal the rest of the way. Or if it’s something else, something they didn’t find, maybe some time off would also do it some good.

So I’ve made the decision. I have several pre-planned events coming up this weekend and the next. After May 15, though, I have nothing exercise-related on the calendar until June 12. That’s four whole weeks that I can take to rest. Rest, stretch, focus on other exercise, focus on dealing with my personal issues that always crop up in May, focus on getting a grip on my iced coffee addiction (ha!), avoid the outdoor heat, etc. Stay off this foot for a month, see if it continues to swell, and then move forward with whatever results. Maybe it’ll go back to that periodic dull ache in the bone that’s the arthritis, and I can handle that. And maybe it won’t – maybe I’m just out of luck as I mentioned in last week’s post. But it’s worth a try. Staying off of it for an entire month is one thing I haven’t tried, and maybe it’s the one thing that’ll save me. Because we all know that pushing myself despite the pain has not exactly been good for me, now or in the past. You’d think I’d learn that by now, no? Heh.

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April 2021 Wrap-up

Posted on May 3, 2021 by Thistle

I say this every year, and 2021 is no different: April is very tough for me, and the beginning of a difficult season. In normal years, April brings in waves of heat and the beginning of summer. It’s followed by a month of PTSD flashbacks (May) and then by summer vacation for my kids and the inevitable chaos of everyone being home with no time to myself. This year, it’s more difficult, because in addition to heat and PTSD, the kids have been home full time since mid-March 2020, a 13+ month summer vacation. It’s starting to really wear on me, and I’ve started letting go of the last remnants of schedule and routine that I had left: my daily journaling, morning exercise, specific laundry days, etc. Things are becoming more random, more chaotic, and with that, I get more and more overwhelmed, letting things go, so that the cycle deepens. It’s a very hard time of year, rougher this year, and even rougher than it needed to be as a month filled constant medical appointments. Jason once asked me if there was anything I could remove from my calendar to free up more time, and my response was, “Only the things that I like.” It was that kind of month.

(at the memorial/reunion – photo credit: my cousin Robert)

It was also a month of grief. My grandfather passed away at the end of March, so a lot of that carried over into April. The full force of it hit me in the days after his memorial toward the end of the month, combining with the beginnings of PTSD and causing panic attacks. Additionally, the vet did an ultrasound on Ash and confirmed that he definitely has some kind of cancer, so we don’t know how long he has left. He turns 12 around June/July.

The month was not, of course, without its good points, but I’m going to save those for the highlights below.

Reading and Watching
I read a lot more this month than I have all year, partly due to the library finally being open for browsing again. Even though I don’t need to browse and can put things on hold, I just find a lot of reading inspiration when I get to walk around and pick things out at random! So I read/listened to five books this month, with Wilde Child being my favorite.

In shows, I was really into true crime documentaries this month for some reason. I watched 1) Murder Among the Mormons (an interesting look into the extremes people go to on both ends of the Mormon spectrum), 2) Evil Genius (this whole story was insane and convoluted, and the combination of smart, not-well-adjusted, and superiority complex in a group of friends is ugh), and 3) The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel (a story I already knew from a podcast, but really creepy in how involved the internet “sleuths” got, especially that creepy guy who was basically a stalker to coopted Lam’s story as his own, gross). I also finished watching the current season of Temptation Island (ha!).

Goals
As I’ve said before, my 2021 goals are pretty much a bust because they were just too nonspecific and meh. But I made a new goal this month, that I planned to begin as soon as I could get through all this foot injury stuff. In October, I’m going to Big Bend for a week with some of my hiking group, and toward the end of the trip, we’re going to hike the trail to Emory Peak. It’s a 10-mile out and back trail with an elevation gain of 2500 feet, so it’s WAY beyond my comfort zone! The longest hiking I’ve done with my group has been 5.7 miles at Lost Maples in November. Most are closer to 3-4 miles. The highest elevation gain has been about 550 feet. So…twice as long, and five times the elevation gain. At a much higher altitude (8000 feet vs 1500 feet). That’s going to take some major training! I have a plan picked out that incorporates hiking-specific strength training, higher-intensity cardio or intervals, longer low-intensity walking/hiking, and rest days. Unfortunately, with the news about my foot, this brand new goal might already be a wash. I’m still going to train, but if this will be too much on that arthritic portion of my foot, I’m going to have to sit it out. Boo!

Health
Medical month central: primary care doc, dentist, chiropractor, endocrinologist, three orthopedic surgeon appointments, three x-rays, three MRIs, and metabolic testing. Still need: mammogram, CT scan of abdomen, GI specialist, rheumatologist, potentially another (better) endocrinologist. I am so, so tired of doctors at this point. It’s just too much, with very few answers and no solutions at all. Something else I’m really sick of: unsolicited advice about my health, body, and choice of doctors. My body, my business. (None of y’all – this isn’t something I’m seeing on my blog. Just out in the world in other places.) With the focus on pointless appointments this month, my health didn’t really go anywhere. I was totally unmotivated to do much, and had to take a lot of time off re: my foot from walking/hiking, and wasn’t allowed to run at all. I’m struggling with depression, motivation, all the rest. I just don’t care anymore. Nothing I do matters, so why try?

House
Work continued on the porch and siding. Jason took the last week of April off work, which I wrote about yesterday. We got a lot done – or rather, he got a lot done, because at this point there’s very little I can help with besides holding the fort down – but with all the rain, there’s still so much to do. One of these days, we’ll be finished with this project and all the tools will go into the garage and we will STOP doing house projects for a good, long time. I remember telling Jason that I wanted to hire people to do the work for us at this house, so that 1) it didn’t take so much of our (especially his) time/effort, and 2) so that it would be done in a timely manner. But then so much went wrong with the original folks who made the posts for us outside, that Jason just took over for the sake of costs and getting it right. He prioritizes the costs, while I prioritize the time, and this time costs won out, and we’ve literally been working on this outdoor project for 17 months now and I’m soooooo tired of construction going on… However, it’s going to be beautiful when it’s all done, and he’s doing a wonderful job.

Favorite Photos
I actually took a lot of photos that I liked this month, so it was hard narrowing it down, but here are the best of the best. As always, these are taken by me and aren’t always the best photography, just the photos I personally like the most. Full size versions (not cropped or reduced size) are available in my Instagram stories.

Top: Eva and me playing out on a hike – Eva doesn’t like to take photos, so she skipped one, so I made her take a selfie with me, so she hid and I made faces for the camera. This was such a fun moment! // Neko (yes, I named my porch-lizard) flexes for the ladies. Bottom: headless tree at Palmetto State Park; my very obvious tarot the day I asked for guidance after yoga.

Clockwise from top: One of my favorite hiking group-selfies ever, with Sarah being super-silly in the background, inside one of the shelters over the land-bridge at Hardberger Park; iced coffee on the coolest wiggly sideways tree at Walker Ranch Park; a forest tent caterpillar tries to “blend in” along a branch in our nectarine tree; our porch lady lizard plays peekaboo with me as I try to get her photo (she’s much more afraid of me than Neko).

Highlights of April
I really needed to spend extra time finding the good moments this month. These were my lifeline.

  • Ambrose came home limping, saying he’d been tapped by a car at the end of his work day at the local nursery. J and I started asking questions about the employer’s response, if the car stopped, etc, and Ambrose said he’d show us the damage. He raised his pant leg to show us this April Fool’s sign… Ha!! My kid.
  • wildflower hike at Inks Lake
  • basically walking through Jurassic Park (ha!) at Palmetto State Park (the ecosystem there was unlike anything I’ve ever seen)
  • playing “indoor” croquet with made up rules on Easter
  • we got to harvest and eat beans from our garden!
  • girl’s night out to celebrate Alia’s PhD! –> Then later watching her dissertation defense, and celebrating when she officially became a Dr!
  • seeing fellow hiker Rosalyn again after more than a year
  • Red Hong Yi’s artwork on climate change
  • hiking brunch for Lindsay before she has her baby this week (plus later: BABY!!!)
  • going back to Medina River Coffee for the first time since covid
  • my friend Melanie got engaged!
  • the most wholesome graffiti ever (“catch fish and release them!” “ride bikes” “black lives matter -the world”) at the park shelter
  • Jason and my boys got their second dose vaccines!
  • my unlikely hikers and unsolved mysteries shirts  arrived! (plus an extra unlikely hikers sticker that also says “My body took me here.” I put it on my hydroflask!)
  • Laurence got his SAT scores back and scored a 1300. He thinks that’s “low” because it’s lower than his brothers’ scores, so I had to explain that that’s still really good!
  • seeing my siblings and many other family members for the first time since pre-pandemic
  • my first Cairn subscription box arrived, which was very fun!
  • getting to know the anole on my porch, Neko, named for Nekomata because of his forked tail, ha!
  • Jason bought me a telephoto lens that my cousin-in-law (a retired photojournalist) found and recommended, so now I can take better far-off photos! Having lots of fun with that, too.
  • the tornado that passed overhead didn’t hit us – this is the second year in a row where we had to shelter in our bathroom! Tornadoes usually don’t come down this far south. More indication of climate change!! (Does this count as a highlight? The absence of something negative? It’ll have to do.)
  • finally got my digital photo frame set up
  • my book blogger peeps set up a Discord server of book bloggers from back in the 2010 era, so I’m getting to say hello to folks that I haven’t seen in years!
  • my Journey Before Destination shirt arrived, and they sent an extra Strength Before Weakness rubber bracelet as well as a sticker of Shallan! (This is all stuff from the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson, which is my favorite series ever.)

Coming up in May
Nightmares.

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Sunday Coffee – Another Week of “Vacation”

Posted on May 2, 2021 by Thistle

Y’all remember how in February, Jason took a week off work so we could try to finish up all the in-progress projects on our house? And then we didn’t get nearly as much finished as we wanted, because of new projects that cropped up re: Snowpocalypse? Well, it’s been about two months, and we’ve been trying to work on things slowly, in evenings and weekends, during that time. But the problem is that much of the work that was left is far beyond my personal capabilities. I know nothing about building porch rails and attaching soffits! So I’ve been kinda helpless while Jason has been kinda overwhelmed, and he decided to take another “vacation” week to try to get stuff done before it gets too hot. (Too late, honestly – the week he took is our first week of every day 85+ degrees, many days in the 90s, and no sign of improvement in the weeks following…)

The plans:

  • Finish building, sanding, painting, etc anything left on the porch, siding, soffits, etc
  • Clean up all the construction supplies in both yards
  • If and only if those things can be finished, a bunch of little hanging items: attaching a faceplate where we’re missing one, rewiring an outlet in the garage, reorganizing the garage, attaching a fence post that has fallen down, and a bunch of paperwork and other stuff unrelated to construction that has gotten months behind

There were a few potential complications: The first weekend of this nine-day break would be spent in family reunions, which cut us down to only seven days. Jason was getting his second vaccine dose on Tuesday, and that might leave him sick for a few days. There were also a few other obligations – doctor appointments, a meal-train lunch to prepare for a friend who just had her baby, a son struggling with pre-cal and physics, etc. Plus, the forecast kept changing, and there was rain rain rain rain rain…

Here’s how things went:

Siding/soffits: Soffits went up, got painted, and the edges where they meet the sides of the house were sealed off. Porch lights went back up and were wired to the switch inside the house. Finished (most of) the rest of the paint touchups and removed excess paint from the window frames. A few pieces of finishing trim put up and caulked. Still needs to be done: painting the finishing trim; painting the external side of the french doors; a few minor paint touchups. This is about 90% done, or 99% minus the doors. It’s supposed to be dry today, so we might actually finish everything but the doors before “vacation” ends.

(construction supplies & porch furniture in the yard makes this look more unfinished than it actually is)

Porch: I didn’t realize that Jason planned to build some bench seating onto one end of the porch, but he did this as well this week. We finished painting the outside walls and railings, caulked the nail-heads on the deck floor, and began to paint the bench area and deck floor (rain derailed these plans). Additionally, Jason attached and painted some tall posts to parts of the railings, ran wiring from the outlet to the railing, and strung up weatherproof lights for a wonderful ambiance outside! All the electricals were encased in various weatherproofing containers to make sure it’s all safe for rain. He also built hanging posts for bird-feeders, plants, etc. (Again, rain derailed any opportunity for paint!) Still needs to be done: The rest of the paint (hangers, floor, bench, stairs) and poly-ing the floor and stairs. About 80% done. Note: We won’t be painting the insides of the porch walls as those will be covered when we turn this into a three-season porch.

(Looks a mess, but getting close to done. When the string-lights are on, it’s so beautiful out here!)

Construction cleanup: Removed a bunch of misc construction debris out to the garbage but much of the wood is having to stay in place with the ongoing work that couldn’t be finished re: rain. Only about 30% done.

Miscellaneous: New outlet wired and faceplate put on behind the coffee area (it has just been an empty hole with a light switch for months). Garage storage shelving areas built. Digital photo frame set up. A bunch of the hanging paperwork (though not all). A new outlet wired into a different part of the garage so we could move our freezer (which previously blocked the light switch and electrical panel!). Fence post reattached. Attached a hose-reel to the external wall of the deck and ran plumbing from there to the spigot on the back of the house. Garage cleaned out and organized. Still to go: the rest of the garage organization, some more paperwork, a few more phone calls. About 80% done.

Extra: My plan for the week was to clean up the front yard/plants, and plant the aloe in the backyard. Rain derailed this entirely. Hopefully next week, while the ground is still soft from rain, I can at least do the planting. There was so much rain this week that we had giant puddles across big portions of the yards, especially the front yard, and a bunch of plant debris (old leaves, pollen rods, etc) is now sitting in these wet, clumped waves that I have to figure out how to clean up. Oy.

We still have the rest of today for “vacation.” But I have a hike this morning, and Jason has D&D with Ambrose and Tyler until 2pm, so it’s only a partial day. Ironic that it’s the first day the sun has come out since Monday. Heh. But maybe we’ll get a few more things done before Jason officially goes back to work tomorrow.

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In Search of Elsewhere, by Steve McCurry

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Thistle

Subtitled: Unseen Images

The cover of this photography book is so striking that I had to check it out from my library on the very first day I was let back inside to browse. The book is mostly made up of photos, with quotes and poems scattered throughout. The photos come from all around the world over roughly 40 years of time. I loved quite a number of the photos – my favorites listed below – and it wasn’t until after I’d finished the book that I discovered that McCurry is the photographer behind the famous Afghan Girl photo. Huh. There isn’t much more to say, and I don’t want to post any photos beyond the cover re: copyright issues, but if you see a copy of this one around, take a look through it! McCurry is a phenomenal photographer with a real eye for capturing the world around us.

Favorites:

  • a Vietnamese farmer riding a motorcycle laden with bags of live ducks, from 2019; pages 74-75
  • a Nepalese girl sheltering under a ragged makeshift umbrella, from 1983; page 79
  • the silhouette of a runner and his (much larger) shadow on rocks under low sun, from 2009 in Brazil; pages 148-149 (this is probably my favorite of the favorites)
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Wellness Wednesday – Foot Update

Posted on April 28, 2021 by Thistle

Fair warning: This post will (immediately) have a foot photo. It’s not gross or anything, but some people hate foot photos.

As discussed before: Something happened to my left foot last September/October. It suddenly began to swell in a localized triangle on the top of my foot, with pain all across that seemed to be coming from above where the foot was broken in 2015. I didn’t suspect it was re-broken in the same place because I could still twist my foot and spread my toes (things I couldn’t do in the two years it was broken), plus it felt almost like stress fractures in those little bones on top, lots of little aching fragments. After several months of avoiding the doctor for fear I’d be told this was just due to my weight, I started off with a round of doctors, specialists, x-rays, and MRIs. I had to call radiology to get my MRI results because the doc wouldn’t give them to me until our appointment, and they showed no fractures etc. So then I just had to wait. My appointment was yesterday.

My orthopedic surgeon showed me a cross-section of my foot via the MRI. (I’m still working to get a copy of this photo.) Below is a photo of a normal foot x-ray (not my foot). There’s a red circle on the part of the calcaneus (heel bone) where I had the fracture in 2015-2017. Unfortunately, I never got a photo from that original MRI in Dec 2016, but essentially the fracture went almost all the way through that little nubbin on the top of the bone, where the red circle is. The orthopedist then told me that the fracture nearly cut the entire nubbin off! I’m using this photo as reference for what my current MRI shows, until I can (hopefully) get a copy of the new photo.

My current MRI shows no fractures or tendon/ligament tears. Instead, that entire nubbin on the top of my calcaneus bone has turned white, indicating arthritis in that bone. The doctor says this is injury-induced arthritis stemming from the old break, particularly since that break wasn’t found for 18 months and the ankle-strengthening exercises my doctors kept giving me were keeping the break from healing. The “catastrophic failure to heal” from that time has resulted in arthritis of one section of my heel, a part that connects to every other system in the foot. Additionally, the cartilage between the calcaneus and cuboid (mid-foot bone) has grown jagged on the arthritic side, and there’s a cyst inside the nubbin. The doctor speculates that the sudden swelling of my foot that began six months ago is a result of the cyst weakening and causing systemic foot failure/damage.

Oy.

So I have a few options, none of them particularly good.

  • I can get an x-ray-guided steroid injection in the foot to temporarily relieve pain. This is pure symptom-management and will do nothing to improve the foot’s condition.
  • I can get expensive and not-covered-by-insurance orthotics that might also provide slightly more support to help with symptom-management.
  • I can get really extreme and undergo surgery. This surgery would cut out the entire arthritic part of the bone, scrape out the cartilage between the calcaneus and cuboid, and then put screws into those two bones to try to fuse them into a single bone. It requires three months of non-weight-bearing recovery and will of course affect mobility in the foot for the rest of my life.

If I choose none of these options, I can continue on as I’ve been doing, taking days off when the foot hurts, and managing symptoms on my own. There’s pretty much no way to improve the situation. My foot is just damaged. So I can work with symptom-relief or I can jump into surgery and hope for the best.

I’m not going to opt for surgery, or even for injections/orthotics. Now that I know that I can exercise without fear of snapping a fractured bone or frayed tendon, I’m going to return to business as (semi) usual. However, I’m definitely going to take steps to improve the situation as much as possible naturally:

  • more emphasis on stretching and yoga, which I’ve neglected, in order to lengthen the tendons in my legs and take the pressure off my mid-foot
  • ditto foam-rolling – I hate that foam-roller but I need to make sure my muscles and tendons are loose so that there’s no extra pressure on the foot due to tightness
  • diversify my exercise – the doctor would prefer that I give up walking, hiking, and running altogether, and focus on no- or low-impact exercise such as biking, elliptical, and swimming. I have no ability to do those three, but I can give up running (for now at least), and spend more time on non-mileage-based exercise, as well as avoiding any high-impact moves (like jumping, dancing, etc)
  • focus on heavy resistance training for bone-strengthening, to lessen the chance of further arthritic spread/damage
  • wear the right kind of shoes – I’m happy to hear my doctor specifically recommends Hoka, which is what I’ve worn for the last 18 months! –>
  • taken plenty of rest days off my feet, especially when swollen or painful, even if I have certain things planned
  • prepare to bow out of longer walking/hiking plans if I see no improvement over time
  • continue my quest to figure out what I need to do to lose weight (note: the doctor didn’t mention anything about my weight, even in implication, which I appreciate, but I also know that the higher my body weight, the more impact on my foot)

I admit, the news is a bit disheartening. I’m frustrated with the doctors who ignored the continued pain/immobility in my foot back in 2015-2016 and just kept treating it like a persistent sprain instead of running more tests for 18 months. I’m sad that I may never be able to run again, and eventually may have to give up all the exercise I enjoy for exercise that I don’t.

But I’ll keep going. At least now I know that every step I take out on a hike or walk isn’t at great risk of immediate major injury. And that’s good news. One tiny ray of sunshine in all this gloom.

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My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Thistle

“Korede, I killed him.” Words that Korede never wanted to experience again, words she has experienced too many times now. Her younger sister, Ayoola, has an inconvenient habit of murdering her boyfriends, and it’s Korede’s job to clean up after her. After all, that’s what big sisters do – they protect their younger siblings from harm.

I remember when this book originally came out. People raved about it, but it didn’t really seem like my kind of book. Then when I went browsing in my library for the first time in over a year, I plucked it from the shelf and decided to give it a try. In the end, my reaction is twofold. First, the book was hilarious dark comedy, with much more serious undertones regarding child abuse and trauma. Second, I kinda wish I had someone (or a group) to discuss this one with, because I’m not sure I understand the point of it. Don’t get me wrong – I loved the book and definitely feel that it was making some very strong statements…I’m just not sure that I understood them. And I’d like to. This is one that I’m going to hold onto in my mind, and hopefully be able to discuss with a group someday.

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Sunday Coffee – Memorial

Posted on April 25, 2021 by Thistle

My grandfather passed away on March 29th. Originally, there was going to be no funeral or memorial service for him, per his wishes. However, my grandmother decided that she wanted a family get-together/memorial for those of us still here, so that was scheduled for yesterday. I admit, I was simultaneously happy – I haven’t seen many members of my family since pre-pandemic – and wary – this is the side of the family who are vaccine-refusers, and there was going to be a potluck. This was going to be hard. My family would be in masks, which we worried would upset a lot of folks (they often refuse masks), and we planned to only eat individually-packaged stuff (ie, we ate our main meal at home beforehand). I do wish that we all could be fully vaccinated prior to this event, but the boys literally just had their second shots last week, and Jason won’t get his until Tuesday.

(my nephew Rory, age 4)

My siblings all came into town, my sisters from up in the Dallas area, my brother from the DC area. I’ve seen Becky a few times since the pandemic began, but have only seen William and Aaren via platforms like Zoom and Marco Polo. Everyone arrived out in Quihi around 1pm. I was actually surprised by how many folks were able to come (aunts, uncles, cousins and their families). The only people missing were Morrigan (at college in KS), my cousin Byron’s two oldest kids (who were at an important UIL event that couldn’t be missed), and my great-aunt (who can’t travel easily anymore). It was more like a family reunion than a memorial, just food and tables set up outside to chat. My cousin’s husband, Robert, took various candid and family/group photos (he’s a retired photographer with NICE cameras!), which I look forward to seeing once he finishes sorting/processing them. At one point, my uncle set up a slideshow of old photos of my grandparents when they were young, as far back as early childhood. Another cousin was scanning those photos in to make digital copies, and I look forward to getting those as well.

It was tough being with everyone re: the covid situation. There were some of us who wore masks except when eating (my immediate family weren’t the only ones), and many of the younger generation were partially or fully vaxxed. But there were lots of hugs and of course shared food – Jason and Laurence both abstained from eating altogether except for some individual bags of chips that we brought – so that felt very emotionally complicated. It was good to see everyone, but there’s a part of me that wishes this was taking place a mere three weeks later so that at least my household family would all have been as protected as possible.

We left in the late afternoon. My dad was prepping dinner for a mini-family reunion of his own, all his kids in town for the first time since pre-pandemic. It was a much smaller affair with no aunts, uncles, and cousins. (Well, no cousins of mine – the boys had their cousins there because my sister’s three boys were with her too, of course.) Other than my nephews, who are too young for the jab (the oldest is seven), everyone at this gathering was at least half-vaxxed. And yet, we all wore masks except when eating/drinking and we set up outside for most of the gathering. It was a strong contrast, particularly in that I never felt weird for wearing the mask! My dad, stepmom, and half-sister live about a 20-min drive from Jason and me, and we used to get together fairly regularly for dinners or swimming or whatever. We’re all looking forward to that, as we’ll all be fully immunized right around the same time and then we can have safe gatherings again!

It was a really long day, and more social mingling than any of us are used to. I’m hoping today will be a day of relaxing and catching up on little things that I’ve neglected.

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Quarantine Diaries – Weeks 57 and 58

Posted on April 23, 2021 by Thistle

Welp, it’s taken slightly longer than expected – most likely due to the wonderful vaccine efforts going on – but we’re definitely seeing another upward covid trend here. After a month of things bottoming out and stabilizing, we’re seeing increases in hospital numbers and daily average cases. The rest will follow soon. Thank you, Gov Abbott, for removing mask mandates and occupancy limits, which has led to this. Also: a real thank you this time to all the businesses still enforcing mask mandates and occupancy limits!

Week 57 – April 9 to 15
211,397 cases, 3,291 deaths, 224 seven-day rolling average (up 37), 2.4% positivity rate (slight increase). Hospital numbers continue to creep up ever so slightly as well.

The vaccine situation just keeps twisting and turning. J&J vaccines were pulled this week due to potential clot issues like the Oxford vaccine in Europe. Pfizer, which had previously said their vaccine covered the South African variant, had a blow as a study out of Israel had the opposite results. In town, the city posted a vaccine signup waiting list on Wednesday, though it’s only valid for people aged 65+ at the moment. People over 70 can now go to any city location without an appointment and get a vaccine. At the end of this week, 711k people have gotten their first dose in SA, and 418k are fully vaccinated.

Our school district voted this week to ease safety protocols. This means that kids can remove masks outdoors now, if they have enough distance. PE teachers and coaches can do the same. Volunteers and guests are being allowed back on campus in a limited capacity, and award ceremonies are back on with specific regulations. There’s more, but I’m not going to list it all. I’m just going to say that I’m glad Laurence will get his second vaccine next week. He had an audition at the school this week and only removed his mask for his actual monologue. I’m really, really happy that my kid is safety-conscious. He could have pushed back on staying at home, but he was so adamant about not going back to in-person school under these conditions that he even refused to go take the PSAT in the fall.

A few awesome pieces of news this week: My half-sister got her second dose this week! (She, like my dad, had no side effects at all beyond mildly sore arm.) And the libraries opened Tuesday. I didn’t even need books, but I had to go inside! In mixed news: My family has decided to host a memorial service for my grandfather after all. It’ll be on the 24th…and it’s a potluck. Sigh. Jason and I are bringing individual bags of chips and at least one other person is bringing cupcakes. It’s really ironic that my comment on the cupcakes was, “Well at least one other person is health-conscious.” Amazing how the definition of that has changed! I’m happy I’ll get to see my family, but I’m wary as well, since this is the side of the family that won’t wear masks, won’t get vaccinated, etc.

Week 58 – April 16 to 22
214,631 cases, 3,330 deaths, 222 seven-day rolling average, 2.2% positivity rate (back down slightly). Hospitals continue to climb in a slow increase. One student at the local high school tested positive this week.

The US crossed a milestone this week – a good milestone this time! A full 50% of US adults have had their first shot, and 33% are fully vaccinated. In town, our mayor finally got his first shot. San Antonio is running about the same on average – 54% of eligible folks had their first shot by the end of this week, and 34% are fully vaccinated. Unfortunately, there’s a worrying trend: after weeks and weeks of not-enough-supply and too-much-demand, this has suddenly flipped. At all the mass vaccination sites, there are tons of empty appointment slots and no one seems to want to fill them. The city’s no-show rate is up to between 30-50%! Eek! We aren’t even close to “herd immunity.” Because of this trend, several mass sites have opened up their afternoons to anyone age 16+ on a walk-in basis, no appointment needed, hoping to get more people in.

More personal milestones this week in the quest to return to (semi) normal. Over the weekend, my hiking group met for brunch with a member who is about to have a baby. It was the first time I’ve eaten inside a restaurant in SA since the day the pandemic hit the city (3/13/20). Laurence and I rejoined Planet Fitness, and as soon as he is fully vaccinated, we can start going to the gym again. Ambrose (above) and Laurence (right) received their second Pfizer doses, so that they’ll be fully immunized in two weeks. Sadly, they’re both experiencing side effects – headaches and dizziness for Ambrose; headaches, fever, dizziness, and hollow belly for Laurence. Fingers crossed it passes quickly! My stepmom Lauren had her second vaccine dose yesterday, and I hope she ends up feeling okay!

Last but definitely not least: Ted Nugent. Snort. Thank you, karma. That is all.

Moving forward
We seem to be in a race to get enough people vaccinated to counteract that state government’s stupidity, but we have to content with people’s fears, political nonsense, and distrust of the medical field. Sigh. Please, people. Get vaccinated.

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Wellness Wednesday – The Clothes In My Closet

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Thistle

In September 2011, after I’d lost 60 lbs and had crossed the arbitrary dividing line between a 2 or a 1 at the beginning of my weight, I finally decided to get rid of my bigger clothes. I’d held onto them, worried that at any moment, I might suddenly boomerang in weight and need them. For a long time, I didn’t yet believe that my body was truly behaving like a body again, and losing weight according to traditional energy in vs out principles. Because, you know, it didn’t for the 11 years of my tooth infection. (Nor does it now, when something else is wrong that I haven’t yet figured out.**) But in September, I believed, and I got rid of a ton of clothes. I kept a few nostalgia pieces, but otherwise as I continued to shrink, I got rid of the larger clothes.

Then, of course, I began rapidly gaining weight in mid-2014. I had to buy more clothes…and more…and more… Eventually, my weight settled into a five-pound maintenance range for many years, and my wardrobe stabilized. However, I had all these clothes that were now too small.

In the fall of 2015, I KonMari-ed my clothes. Using Kondo’s principles, I threw all my clothes of all sizes into the same pile, and evaluated each of them for joy one by one. I kept all those clothes that lit me up, even though most of them were too small. In fact, the larger clothes – the ones that actually fit – fell into two categories: ones I actually loved, and ones I had to keep because frankly I couldn’t afford to replace half my wardrobe for something as ephemeral as joy. (Also, I knew that a big part of me would never find joy in clothes that represented, in my mind, my failure to be at a smaller size, but that’s a topic for a different time.) Over the years, I would work to slowly weed out clothes that were “just necessary” and replace them with those that I loved. When you stay at a stable weight for many years, you can do that sort of thing!

In the fall of 2016, when my family lived in northern WI, I took all of my “too small” clothes and sorted them into approximate ranges of size. I bought four rolling under-bed storage containers and filled each of them with one range. The range that was furthest from my size went next to the wall under my bed, the hardest to reach, followed by the next smallest, and so on up, to the last, which were the “almost fits” clothes. The ones that would fit in 10, maybe 20, pounds. For years, these were my “goal clothes” storage, and remain under my bed to this day. Only lately, the “almost fits” box has gotten fuller and fuller, and to many of the clothes within are now 30-40 lbs away.

I needed another box.

Y’all, I totally broke down over this. I didn’t want a fifth size range. Four fit under my bed perfectly. I didn’t want to go buy an entirely new wardrobe. I didn’t want to spend the money. I didn’t want to feel the personal humiliation. I didn’t want to admit that these last 20 lbs that I gained after that stupid medication last fall weren’t going to come off and allow me to sit back in my old, comfortable maintenance range.

Then on the 11th, I attended a journaling hike focused on self-acceptance, and I realized that I needed to stop fighting the truth. Every time I tried to put on a shirt or pair of shorts that no longer fit right, I felt like crap. I could squeeze into them, uncomfortably, but I didn’t feel good and it certainly didn’t look good. My choices were becoming more and more limited. I finally broke down and decided that, while depressing, while frustrating, I just needed to do it. Take all the clothes from my closet and drawers, throw them in a pile on the bed, try each one by one, and only put back the ones that still actually fit. Then, KonMari the rest to decide what’s worth keeping, and pack a fifth box.

Last Friday, I pulled all the clothes from my closet and drawers except that which I knew fit (like pajamas, undergarments, socks, etc). I laid them all out on my bed, and then proceeded to try things on pile by pile. If an item fit, it went back into the closet/drawers. (Spoiler: very, very few things had this happy ending.) If it didn’t fit, I sorted the clothing into “under-bed-storage” and “donate.” With being the same stable size for about 5 years (the longest I’d ever been the same weight in adulthood!), my wardrobe had gotten a bit overgrown, and there was a lot in it that I’d held onto for no reason. It had been too long since I’d KonMari-ed my stuff. By the end of Friday, I had a full box to go under the bed, and three large bags of clothes to donate. My winter wardrobe was much-thinned, but since I’d gained the weight over that time, I’d supplemented along the way. My summer wardrobe, though…I was left with zero capris or skirts, one pair of shorts, four shirts (two that only kinda fit, and one that I really dislike), two camis, and three dresses. Oy.

(Left: before. Top Right: storage/donation. Bottom Right: my entire remaining summer wardrobe)

So it’s time to shop. Bare minimums for now – more shorts/capris, and a few more shirts. After that, I’ll have enough, albeit slim pickings, that I can supplement over the next six months the way I did over the winter, watching for sales and deals and things I actually like rather than shopping for basic needs. It feels really odd to have my closet so empty, and not in a good way. But I’ll survive. Just one more trial to overcome.

*****
**Unless it’s coffee, which I’m pretty sure it is, and in that case I simply haven’t dealt with the issue because addiction sucks.

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