A River Runs Through It: A Soggy MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I’d be very happy with improvement. Thanks for the wise advice. Coming from you, it always carries a lot of weight.

OK, that scares the crud out of me.

The surgery is less than two days away, so I don’t think I can do that. Plus most of the ortho docs here work for the huge clinic where my current surgeon practices. I’m trying to take heart from the fact my doc referred me to this guy–not that that makes him infallible. I don’t know. I tried looking up other options, but it turns out if your vertebrae have such a chokehold that your spinal fluid can’t even get past them, neither PT nor painkillers nor steroid shots work. And if I let this go too long, I run the risk of losing bladder and bowel function, among other things.

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Woke from a hard, hard sleep at 5 as FCD was coming back to bed. Wish I could have stayed in bed, but I have to fetch a young 'un in a bit. At least I can sleep in tomorrow if I so desire. And Saturday, my delayed b-day dinner is on.

It rained overnight - most of the snow is gone from our yard, what with the rain and temps getting into the 50s yesterday. Temps are supposed to climb all day - to near 60 overnight ahead of yet another freeze. At least we’re to be spared snow (she whispers, so as not to anger the weather gods…)

I think I’ll run one more load of laundry today, or maybe I’ll wait till tomorrow. Who knows. I will take trash and recycling tomorrow morning before the cold returns. That’s as much planning as I can manage at this point. Maybe when the caffeine kicks in…

nellie - my only experience with back surgery is being married to it, and based on what I’ve observed, you absolutely must do what the Dr says while recovering. Trying to do too much too soon will result in more surgeries, not that telling that to someone made any difference. Good thoughts coming your way!

Happy Thursday!

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Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 62 Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 81 and cloudy for the day. TWPTB say tstorms are movin’ in tonight and tomorrow will be a day of rain/tstorms/apocalypse. We shall see. This mornin’ we shall go get plague tests. Neither of us is feelin’ any symptoms, but ‘tis best to be safe I suppose. We shall also have N.O.L. at Newk’s today bein’ as I have a gift card and all. Any other need to feed will be via forage. We shall, as always, continue to hone our sloth skills as well.

nellie people are gonna always share surgery horror stories. Ignore those and as others have said, do what the doc says while recoverin’, do the pt, do the follow-up appointments, take it easy, give it time. You will be fine. Remember you got a big ol’ mumper family to back you up and cheer you on.

All those in favor of seein’ VanGo in tights say “AYE!” What? Somebody had to go there! OK, possibly only I would go there.

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, alack, alas, woe, and bother, I suppose I must purtify and don appropriate bein’ amongst the masses attire. Life is just so difficult!

Happy Thursday Y’all!

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Right up there with pregnancy horror stories, or vacation horror stories, or any number of horror stories designed to poop on your parade. Apparently for some people, the only good story to share is a horror story.

Daughter is running late, which is good. Dark and rain are a bad combination for me when I have to drive. I asked her to delay her departure, and it turns out, she’ll be running late anyway. So, whew!

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Good morning everyone.

Nellie, I agree with the rest of the good advice; follow doc’s instructions, do your pt/ot and ignore the horror stories. It’s going to be fine!

I went to the Olympia office yesterday for the express purpose of meeting with SD to go over the return to work policies and some other things. We never got to meet. I told her we should set a date on the calendar so this doesn’t happen again. She felt bad, I felt bad; but it’s how our days go. If it’s not on the calendar there is a very strong chance it won’t happen because there is so much going on for both of us. So, the plan is for me to drive down there again next Wednesday. Not looking forward to it, but I need to get used to getting my butt down there at least once a week anyway.

It’s currently 41 degrees and partly cloudy. The high forties are the expected high and there will be rain.

Polar was definitely upset at my departure yesterday. So much so, that he was completely off his feed last night and refused to eat dinner. It always takes him a day or so to recover if I’m gone all day. He’s going to be in bad shape later this month when I go to Yakima.

It’s time for the second cup of coffee. Have a great day everyone.

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Morning all. A nice 54F heading for 65F today, but another wave of rain is due this afternoon and tomorrow’s high is supposed to be only 38F. Will try to get out and do my shopping and exercising early.

E-mails says taxes have been accepted by both the Feds and Ali-bama, so hopefully this month or March I will get a chunk o’change added to my checking account. Will try not to spend it all in one place…

nellie, haven’t had surgery in 20 years, and that was to fix a fractured elbow, not my back, so I can’t really comment beyond what the other MMP’ers are saying. I will say that having second (or third or fourth) thoughts on such a procedure would seem to be common, but it’ll help if you can accept that it’s your Drs. best option, no one is looking to hurt you, and they’re doing their best to help you. In other words, a calm patient is better than a panicked one–NOT that you shouldn’t ask questions if you have them! It’s your body they’re cutting into, you deserve to know what’s going on.

Taters, agree that meetings need to be scheduled, especially if there is a fairly major drive involved. And extra skritches to Polar.

OK, onward into Thorsday. Webcomics need reading.

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Afternoon, mumpers! Sorry for the confusion, it’s a toe that’s broken, not my entire foot. It’s actually feeling a lot better today so keeping off it and keeping it properly strapped up is obviously working.

Nut congrats on surviving The Thing, will keep everything possible crossed for you!

nellie people love to share horror stories about anything and everything, and you’ll hear far more of those than you will hear the success stories. Somehow “my surgery went really well and I sailed through recovery” doesn’t have anywhere near the same impact as “I’ll never play the voilin”! As our resident expert says, do what you’re told and don’t expect to be skipping down the lane five minutes after it’s all over :slight_smile:

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Happy Thorsday!

No park today. Everybody wimped out on me because of the rain.
It’s 41 degrees and pouring, but we sit in the pavilion, so we aren’t in the rain.
But as one person said, the dogs aren’t likely to play much as they want to get out of the rain too. I understand the golden doodles mom not wanting to go though, she has to give her dogs a bath when they get home. My dogs don’t collect mud the way hers do.

I’m tired today. Every time I started to drift off last night, I heard my cat crying. I didn’t know where he was, but he was certainly unhappy. Found him under my dresser, he wanted to go outside. So back downstairs to put him out. My son had sent a text that they were expected to get off between 4 and 5. He called me just after 3 to come get him.
Next house is a ranch. I’m so done with stairs.

I think one of my friends is mad at me. She wanted me to bring the dogs to her house for a play date this morning and I said no because I have a pickup and deliveries coming today and the pickup has to be signed for. I called to see if the pickup people could tell me a time frame other than before 6pm, and I haven’t heard back from them. No surprise there, it took three phone calls over the course of two weeks for them to get back to me.

My poor neighbor is still in the hospital, and she has to go to rehab because she can’t walk on her own. Kind of sad, she is 75 years old and was still working at the school with special needs children. She loves her job. If I know her, once she is better, she’ll be right back at irk.
She now realizes she was a lot sicker than she thought. Not covid

Nellie, my father had multiple back surgeries and he was always better afterwards. The guy who used to live next door just had some kind of back surgery. He’s hurting, but it hasn’t even been a week yet. He also has MS, which may make it worse for him.
I think you will be okay.

Men in tights, it’s a good thing.

My son irks tonight and then doesn’t go back until the 22nd, scheduled lay-off. He’ll have two and a half weeks off, so I am making a list of stuff for him to do.

I took a bag of shrimp out of the freezer to thaw yesterday, so I have to make something with them today.

Poor Polar. Dogs just don’t understand.

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We’re back from gettin’ our brains poked out havin’ our noses swabbed. We were in and out of there within twenty minutes. We were told it will take 24-48 hours to get the results, but could be sooner. Specific and yet still vague. Guess that’s the way this stuff works.

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Another regular day of chaos. It’s up to 59 here, and there was some light drizzle. The giant pile o’ plowed snow from 2 weeks ago is still in the work parking lot.

Last time Gordie went for sugery, he woke up without his balls. :open_mouth:
But good luck with the surguery, nellie.

Sounds like you went to a psychic.

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Nellie, add me to the chorus of ‘I had back surgery and it went fine’- actually I’d say it went great for me, I didn’t even wind up needing any painkillers afterwards, but I think that’s just me being weird, and definitely not typical.

Thanks for all the appendage crossing, I’m sure it’ll help, and if not, at least it’ll give cheap entertainment to observers. I’ve got plenty of course-irk to keep me distracted while I wait to find out if I win another round. Got today’s in, now I need to get on with next week’s batch… *assumes position of woe*

I am, however, planning on taking the rest of the day off. I was thinking I’d go walkies, 'cos it was lovely and sunny and springlike with wee burdies tweeting in the bushes and the first spring flowers peeking out and all that, but as soon as I’d submitted the assignment, thick grey clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped, so maybe I’ll leave it until tomorrow.

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I’ve got my appendages crossed for you as well, nellie. I agree with the notion that most people will tell you horror stories. I’ve had to stop reading about spinal fusions for that reason. It’s a lot like labor and delivery - you usually hear about the extremely difficult births (I often feel compelled to share my own) and not so much the fast, easy ones. We’ll be waiting to hear from you.

It’s still blizzard-y outside. For St. Louis that means we have about 5 inches on the ground and the snowplows haven’t yet gotten to our street. The kids have headed outside to play in the snow and overlyboy will soon be hustling for money clearing off people’s driveways. I encouraged him to wait until the snow slowed down but apparently that’s just ridiculous.

I wish we got a snowday, too. Darned virtual work.

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JaneDoe42 i seen this and thought of George

Thanks so much! I’ve seen other articles about that fabulous guy and always admire him. I don’t think GG is going to get that big (I hope), his breeder explained that he doesn’t breed for size because there can be joint issues in cats over 20 lbs.

We have a large dog kennel coming today or tomorrow because I have agreed to make and sell soft cheeses to the diner. I need somewhere safe to put the culturing and draining cheeses because our jerkface thinks that hanging things (like cheese in a drain bag) are toys.

Between moving our friend and getting my cottage license*, we’ve been pretty busy and GG is acting out while we are home. Hubs doesn’t understand that GG gets lonesome and wants a lot of attention to make up for us both being gone.

nellie, I’ve been reading and digits crossing over your surgery. It has to go well. Not just for you but because I’m going in for my consult on Monday and if it doesn’t go well for you, I’m probably going to just say fuck it and give up.

The hummingbird feeder was slushy this morning, so I made some more syrup and put it out still warm. I was just able to watch a hummer take a sip, then say YES! and settle down to do some serious drinking. His beak didn’t come up for a full 30 seconds.

*TB test and food safety class. I argued with the instructor because my sanitation practices are MUCH better than required. When you are working with bacteria, you can’t just sanitize the counter you are working on, you have to sanitize the entire kitchen.

I’ll be able to order my dairy ingredients and sanitizer through the diner which is going to lower my costs and I’ll be making about the same amounts of cheeses as I already do, but I’ll be getting paid for our surplus. I’ll see how it goes.

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Thank you, thank you all for the encouragement and advice. I’ve read each comment twice, and they’re resonating. Lying in bed last night, it occurred to me that the people sharing surgical horror stories probably do so because they worry about me and/or because it’s traumatic to have a terrible outcome from surgery, and they understandably shudder when they hear of someone else going blithely into what was, for them, pretty horrible. I also remembered that when my now-ex, who had back surgery in the Dark Ages, when laparoscopy wasn’t an option, said he felt relief from the moment he regained consciousness.

Well, THAT’S one nightmare I don’t have to worry about. My balls are safely stored in the closet.

I put in a maintenance request yesterday because WD40 didn’t work on the shower handle and haven’t heard back. I have to take my renter’s insurance forms to the office anyway, so I’ll ask then. I just don’t want the guy here tomorrow while I’m recovering. Today’s excitement also includes cleaning out the fridge–ugh–and the pantry, both of which need it. And I have to walk to the pharmacy to get the post-op meds, assuming the clinic called them in. My bed linens are getting a ride in the washer as I type this.

Poor Polar. Stay safe there! How long will you be in Yakima?

So Sari, the cat was under the dresser but wanted to go outside? I guess cats don’t go to the door like dogs do? (You can tell I’m inexperienced with cats.)

Agreed.

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Call first and make sure they are ready?

Double agree. A very good thing.

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Men in tights? I’m the one in white tights on the raised platform.
Imgur
I no longer have the late 80’s mullet.

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Nice. You wore them well.

Thank you~gave me a much needed smile for the day.

My college drama experience was as Little Bunny Foo-Foo. Broke my toe hopping on stage and my costume was definitely not that handsome. I carefully destroyed all pictures.

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Crap. Wasn’t trying to do that. Never mind me. It will be fine! Boo is always right. :smiley:

Taters does Polar like doggie daycare? I’m just trying to think of something that might distract him on days when you’re gone.

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Feeling old, just now. Barramundi by This Mortal Coil just played on the iPod.OK, the iPod is bad enough; but at least it’s from this century. No, what got me was that This Mortal Coil, which disbanded in 1991, still sounds kind of contemporary to me. Like Portishead. I hear similarities in their music. And Portishead is a current band, right?

Nope. Dummy was released in 1994. Portishead was released in 1997. I think the newest album of everything on my iPod is Third, which was released in 2008. But still, two of the three albums are not long after This Mortal Coil.

Oh, and the Twin Peaks soundtrack comes up in the shuffle too.

Aside from Third I think my newest album is Green Day’s Nimrod (1997).

*sigh*

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Afternoon all. Rain is now due about 2pm local (about 45 minutes from now) and will stick around most of the day. However, I did get all the out-of-house stuff accomplished this morning and the garbage was picked up and I’ve brought the can back into the garage, so I have no reason to leave the comfort of my house–yippee!

I have now officially joined the 21st Century; I bought a mobile phone, the first one I’ve had since I worked in Abu Dhabi in 2003, when a phone was…a phone. This rascal (Motorola Edge, got a great deal from Verison on it) apparently can do most anything except change a baby’s diapers (FCM is still unrivaled in that department). Being me, I came home and printed out the user’s manual, so I’ll probably set Sunday afternoon (after all, there’s no tackleball this weekend) to begin to figure out this wonder of technology.

Then went to the gym and swam 300 yards, with a whirlpool visit in-between, then sat n the sauna for 15 minutes and that was enough for one day.

VanGo, nice pic, but who is the girl mooning you two? :laughing:

nellie, hope they get the shower handle fixed before you have to go off to surgery.

Unknown, I bet those felines find a way to break into the kennel–good luck. Hope the new cheese side business doesn’t disappoint.

Sari, friend will get over it, your life takes some precedence. Hope neighbor gets better, sounds like despite being a hoarder, she’s good people.

OK, have eaten a little midday meal and will try to avoid nappage. I have the calendar marked that Firday is a non-gym day, we’ll see if I have the habit-formed yet and go anyway.

All y’all take care.