PNewL PNewS
Volume 24 Issue 4 “All the pnews that phits.” Holiday
2016
Shoulder Season
I am so sick of hearing myself talk about
my bum shoulder and yet it is all I feel like talking about. I thought if I
wrote about it here, I might get it out of my system. Let’s see if it works.
I fell flat on my face in Namibia and I
believe while protecting my camera and binoculars, I may have landed on my
shoulder. When I got up, I was so thrilled nothing was broken (other than my
confidence that I was able to put one foot in front of the other without
tripping over myself), I moved on. Ribs were sore for a couple days but nothing
dire. I was so pleased that I hadn’t hurt myself in a locale where dealing with
it might have been a drag, I felt good. Until I didn’t.
First, I realized it was very
uncomfortable to reach into the back seat of my car. I stepped up my monthly
massage to maybe every three weeks until Christa finally said, I think you
should be talking to someone other than me about this. I googled shoulder injuries and found some tests—yes I can do that,
ouch, no I can’t do that. Went to the doctor who gave me the same tests (and
got her co-pay) and announced I was not a candidate for surgery. Got an x-ray
that everyone agreed would show nothing (it showed nothing). Went to the
physical therapist who (along with Christa, the massage angel) said the
shoulder is a complex thing and I have made it painfully complex—it is frozen.
So now I am having weekly and sometimes
bi-weekly appointments with the aforementioned physical therapist (or physical
terrorist as someone just called him) during which I either cry or almost cry,
and I add to a lengthy list of exercises…some of which hurt and others of which
make the other ones easier or harder to do. I have more pillows in my environs
than I ever had in my life and Roger and I race to bed to see who gets which
pillows each night.
When I told my neighbors my shoulder was
frozen, two of them said they had had frozen shoulders. (They both seem pretty
normal now—this is fixable.) As time has gone on, my unscientific research
makes me feel like one in four have experienced this agony. And it is agony. I
have to move my other shoulder to remind myself that my arm could once do the
movements my PT wants me to attempt. Many daily tasks are still nearly
impossible. Putting on a bra. Washing an armpit. Scratching the back of my
head. I have permission not to rake leaves. Nighttime is not the joy it has
always been—for some reason the pain gets worse and I wake myself up moaning.
As I said to the PT yesterday, who knew these parts of my body existed much
less could hurt? I have found the shoulder rules a lot of real estate in my
upper torso and arm.
I feel there
is hope finally (patience is not my strong suit so this is a big step). I have greater range of motion than I’ve had
in the last couple months but it still doesn’t even occur to me to reach into
the back seat of my car. There are still odd pains—nerves that fire down my
arms unexpectedly, aches that seemingly come out of nowhere. I call them wasabi
pain because it comes on strong but goes away fast.
I am not
sure that rant really helped but there it is. Meanwhile, if your shoulder ever
stops working the way you think it should: go see someone IMMEDIATELY. It just
gets worse til you start the work to unstick it.
Things I am Learning
& Miscellaneous Observations
• I
took a clay class this fall. It was a lot of fun. It reminded me how much I
enjoy classes…if only to get that intense period of concentration on one thing
I am so bad at getting at home where I can wander around…and wander and wander
and forget why I was wandering…ah but I digress. We are hand-building so I am
bringing home items that only a mother could love. With mine long dead, it’s
unlikely anyone will appreciate my efforts, but it has been fun. No harm, no
foul. And for some of you, Christmas is …well…look out!
•
There has been a saying bouncing around Facebook that speaks to me. “They” say
it is a Polish proverb. In English: Not my circus, not my monkeys. I love that.
However, the other day, I was looking around the house, which is particularly
messy these days (all I want to do is play, and anyway, cleaning upsets the
dog), and I thought, “Uh oh—this IS my circus and the little black dog IS my
monkey!”
• I
don’t know why it is that the biggest macho-ist guys who work on my house are
the ones who think Roger the Dog is going to bite them.
Thoughts on Christmas
• Whoever is stealing the Christmas ornaments on the road: I hope you are enjoying them as much as I did.
• Whoever is stealing the Christmas ornaments on the road: I hope you are enjoying them as much as I did.
•
Whoever left the frosted decorated Christmas cookies on that same road, Roger
thanks you.
•
Gatherings that include doing things—more than eating and drinking—are my kind
of events. Thanks to Joanna and Kay for several hours in front of a jigsaw
puzzle.
Roger had a big Christmas this
year
Where
to start? Well, I am past the mid-point of my 60th year and I
thought I would take this as an opportunity to do some of the things I have
been thinking of doing. My family had a motorhome starting in 1966. I have
always thought it was a great way to travel but a lot of what I see on the road
are just too darn big. So I started investigating the options. Gini and I drove
to Hickory to look at a couple Class Bs, which are smaller versions of the big
boys. The first we walked into, I turned around and walked out. The layout was
claustrophobic. The second was nice and drove so easily, but it felt like a lot
of responsibility and breakable bells and whistles.
In the early Fall, there was an event at a
local venue that was something about living on the road. There were a whole
bunch of folks exhibiting their versions of not quite RVs. This is where I
learned about van conversions. I met some guys who were so low key about sales,
I wasn’t sure they really wanted to get rid of any of their inventory. (When I
added it up, these two guys on a gravel driveway in the middle of nowhere had
over $250k worth of vans and didn’t seem to care if they sold them or not!) They
had one van that hadn’t been converted yet—a blank slate to call my own. I sat
with the idea for a while and kept investigating.
One day I found a van on Craig’s List. It
was in Floyd VA—it belonged to a woman who had bought it in California, driven
it across country the long way, and was ready to part with it. It was the first
van this guy had converted and he now has a full-on business doing this. It’s a
Nissan NV200 that gets around 30mpg—I had never noticed these until I saw this
one. Now, I see them everywhere—a lot of companies use them for delivery vans.
His philosophy is that your weekend car can be your weekday car. It all felt
simple—and the price was closer to what I had in mind.
So to make this already too long story
end: I happened to be driving near Floyd. I test drove it. I went home,
pondered. Said I’d buy it…for Roger…for Christmas. Holidays ensued + trip to
Sanibel. Finally got back to Floyd, thanks to Betsy and her new bionic hips,
and brought her home. First trip on the agenda will be to the Folk School, I
think—they have a campground on the campus—for blacksmithing. Then in late
spring, Roger and I will drive west to see people and go to the Angel Island
picnic. It’s a good thing.
Adventures with Foster Dogs
I picked up a foster puppy in
mid-November: Hope. How perfect is that in these hopeless days? She was
precious (and absolutely terrified--just like me and Roger.) It was a short
term foster—nine days. Things started going south shortly after the pick up.
While she warmed up to us, she proved that she had no sense of where to go to
the bathroom and almost seemed to go out of her way to poop on the only
existing carpet in the house. I asked for help. Advice said to keep her in the
bathroom—a larger space than the crate but contained. She must have
claustrophobia because that is when the barking started. After 75 minutes of
barking on Wednesday night and then close to two hours Thanksgiving night (when
I went to try to calm her, I found the bathroom covered in poop. It was 1:14am),
I wrote the organization and said I was done. I did it in the middle of the
night because I knew, in the morning, I might suck it up and attempt to soldier
through the next couple days. They said these things happen. I am sad. She is a
sweet girl—a very affectionate, curious, smart puppy. I will miss parts of her,
but certainly not others. I am also pleased that I took care of myself by not
taking care of a dog I couldn’t help.
Last week, I got Trooper who is here while
his “real” foster mom is on vacation. He is here for two weeks and so far: very
good! He and Roger are similar sizes and temperament. They get along famously
and love to play. Trooper was a Puerto Rican street dog—he arrived in this
country with mange and a broken leg. The mange is gone, the leg may never heal
right. It doesn’t seem to slow him down. He’s a pretty happy guy and fits well
in our household. And he’s darling. I spent 24 hours considering my second
foster failure (Hope, see above, was my first but a different kind)—the kind of
failure where the dog stays put. Then I looked at our life—Roger’s and mine—and
the Tiny TogetherNest camper (named by Leighton neighbor Amy after the RVs of my youth) and realized we
may not have room right now. Trooper won’t have any trouble being adopted—he’s
a love.
Note that doesn’t go anywhere
else:
I
try not to get political in the pnews.
I don’t think it usually matters to me how people vote (as long as they do).
But this election season has been very hard on me both as a citizen of this
country and of the state of North Carolina. I am deeply saddened by the divide.
I am sad about people who are hurting, about the hatred folks are feeling
towards people who are different and towards a president I think did a pretty
good job, all things considered. I am—yes—terrified about the next four years.
I hope things will turn out okay but I am having trouble with that hope. I fret
a lot and cry some (the frozen shoulder and the holidays don’t help!).
This is all to explain a late PNewS and one
a little short on my usual holiday lists. (I know I am the only one who keeps
track of this stuff, but I felt I owed an explanation.) Now, Roger and Trooper
think I owe them a walk.
Here’s
to y’all. And to y’all a good night.
