Sometimes I really do forget I have a blog. Other times it's just a busy life season. Once in awhile it's both!
In the month of May, I've had about half a dozen physical therapy appointments and an OT check in on top of wrapping up the school year. Thing Three performed in both a band concert and the Memorial Day parade. I've had two follow up appointments from last year's docs, some dry needling, made a trip to my hometown for a weekend, snuggled babies at church, wrapped up one preschool class with a zoo field trip and an evening spring program, and this week is Thing Three's last week of school while I try to fit in all the online training I need to have done before the end of June. There was also a visit to a retirement home with the preK crowd in addition to my school fighting off yet another wave of germs. Yeesh. No wonder I'm tired!
Arm/shoulder-wise, things are... meh. I'm wearing my compression glove and sleeve daily, I'm doing my PT exercises more often than not, I'm still seeing more swelling than I'd like, but this may just be my new normal. I don't know how we're to know if the vein stayed open since the venogram without imaging, but none has been ordered yet and the follow up appointment isn't until the middle of next month. I'm wearing the reductor kit at night while I sleep, pumping in my cool Darth Vader vest and sleeve* daily and now have a mushroom-shaped pad? pocket? pouch? thing that I wear with the stalk end tucked inside a compression bra and the shroomy end sticking into my armpit. The thinking is that it will help bust up some scar tissue and increase range of motion by loosening all that up. Jury is still out. I've worn it to bed twice. I think I'll try alternating that with the reductor kit since when I do the kit then my hand is swollen in the morning but if I do nothing then this tightness isn't going to be helped even passively... I don't know. I now better understand being over something even while in the midst of going through something!
* Funny story- I was also issued a pair of shorts that attach to the pump because it's easier to order them and get it all at once than to add pieces later. I figured I'd never need the shorts, but whatever. Then I spent an afternoon vigorously yanking out honeysuckle bushes, including one extra hard yank which landed me on my "butt-ducks" as our kids used to say. I'd already been only a foot off the ground because I was using my legs in a squat instead of my back, but I still sat there laughing at myself for a minute. The next day, my butt-ducks and rear thighs were so tight and whiny that I thought, "hey! I can use the shorts!" So for two days that's what I did and, boy, if you've never had your butt-ducks rhythmically squeezed and released, it's really something. I don't know what, but it's something! I can just hear my Grammy and Gramps laughing at me!
I have little news to report on progress made in the basement since the death of the sump pump. We are looking at tile flooring because we know it's only a matter of time before the new sump pump also croaks and we have zero desire to rip out carpet and padding yet again. For the tile we have a first and second choice, we think. We have not taken measurements yet. We also have paint swatches since we were never wild about the color down there in the first place and it's been... well... this fall will be our 12th year here, I think, so we figured we might as well paint before we do the floor.
None of that was on the Bingo card for 2026. In fact, I have paint swatches taped up in the foyer because that's the room I'd painted most recently and it has held up the least well. When I showed Dada my colors, he sniggered and said it was exactly what was already on the walls and that at least I was consistent. I'd be offended except for the fact that he's right; they are almost identical. *sigh*
Thing Two made it home safely from his welding training this semester and has become a bump on a chair at the tall table. His basement bunker is out of the picture, so even though he's still not getting fresh air or sunshine, he's at least visible. Until he turns sideways, anyway, and then he disappears. He's so skinny! Miracles happen every day, and the proof is that my 20 year old Honda, Pepe the Pilot, survived the entire excursion of getting him to and from class daily through winter in Cleveland, involving both extremely rutted back roads and freeways of crazy drivers. Thank you for all the diligent prayers- they worked!
Thing One is working two jobs and having the typical summertime computer issues of something deciding to quit working and never mind that it has 8 years of art on it. Pshaw. Why should it boot up and do its job? This is in addition to whatever maintenance issues the jobs themselves run into. I believe the quote I heard was, "why is it whenever something happens we always have to tear out a wall??" Apparently when someone puts a coffee pot under a leak and then never checks it again... well, let's just say that we have all been introduced to our friend Gravity and that it doesn't bode well. Otherwise, having fun with the housemates and living the dream.
And we still have Boooooosley, who turned 9 on Cinco de Mayo, is no smarter than when we brought him home at 4 months old, and will probably live forever. Loudly. Ridiculous.
I hope all of you experience a GENTLE transition from spring to summer- goodness knows we all have whiplash here from Ohio being wishy-washy at best about what season it thinks it is- and that the end of the school year brings a routine in which you can breathe, and I don't just mean allergy relief. Take good care of you and revive your spirits.
