Sheesh… someone is overreacting

My stars. I go on blood thinners for three months, and my elite of husbands buys a box of 198 Band-aids…

My picture won’t load (probably because I’m out of storage. Yes Google, I know. Get over it.) so you will just have to imagine a humungous box of 5 assorted sizes, colors, and waterproofing.

And why am I on blood thinners? That’s a story for another day, but the Cliff Notes version is I had a procedure called a venogram yesterday, which went better than I expected, but because veins carry lower pressured blood back to your heart, the surgeon wants me on 3 months of blood thinners while it gets used to pulling its weight again after being compressed for an unknown amount of time.

All is well! I’ll try to stay out of the Band-aids!

What I'm up to, and what's next

 If I tell you this, you have to trust that I'm not crowing about it or trying to make anybody look bad, and you must understand I'm not putting myself above others who choose not to do this:

I am scrubbing the outsides of my kitchen cabinets today.

In my defense:

1.) It's my spring break. My Mommeeee is visiting and since she gets wiped out from travel, it's a good day to stay home and chat with her.

2.) I wasn't here last spring to do it as I was in the big city being radiated and didn't want to use my already-short weekends at home to do them then. Then time for fall cleaning rolled around but I started working at school  instead. Yes, it is an "or" situation, not an "and", hahaha. Anybody who has ever been to my house is now nodding in understanding.

3.) It is a really good set of stretches for this afflicted right arm and side. More on that later.*

I may never, ever get to my baseboards (looking at you, my bestie) but I can do these kitchen cabinets. I'm about halfway done. I'll be the only one who even notices that they've been cleaned, but I can tell you that I burned 100 calories in under half an hour, so if you're sick of the treadmill because it is STILL too cold out, well, grab your bucket and a rag, turn up some music, and off you go!

*************

Whoops. That key really stuck. Oh well. 

The scoop on my arm and all that jazz is this: in two weeks I'll have a procedure called a venogram in which contrast will be run through an IV and then watched with an ultrasound to see how compressed my vein is in that right upper arm/ shoulder/ armpit/ axilla quadrant. If it is open at all, the surgeon intends to inflate a balloon in there to "snowplow" it open the rest of the way and then will withdraw the balloon, similar to some heart procedures. I will be awake but under some sedation as they may want me to move that arm in various positions so they can see where bloodflow is being compressed, etc. I will be on blood thinners for 3 months following all that, which I confess to being less than thrilled about, but I understand that is to give the vein practice with easier bloodflow as it recovers. (My main concern is that one of my meds dries out my eyes and nose already and I don't want constant nosebleeds.)

If the vein is completely closed, then the surgeon will have a discussion with my plastics guy to develop a plan to take more drastic measures. Even if the procedure works this time, there's no guarantee the vein will stay open because it's been radiated twice, so we may end up with the second plan anyway. We only got the bare bones of that plan floated, but phrases like, "yes, something from a cadaver could work", "I'm thinking your veins in your legs would be too small", and "we sometimes use the jugular vein but that would be from your left side" were bandied about. 

In the meantime, I'll be starting PT for my shoulder range of motion and having more dry needling done, which I've done twice now and am amazed that it works. I am flummoxed that someone can stick half a dozen needles into me no problem and I feel better but every opportunity for a blood draw is fraught with stress. So weird. 😁

Anyhoo, back to the second half of my cabinets!

Ruminating about the essence of sheep

 One of my wool dryer balls hopped out of the dryer and skittered back into the no-man’s-land between the dryer and the washer. Into the dust. Into the dog hair. Where I couldn’t easily reach to rescue it. 

It got me wondering, “is it in the nature of sheep to get lost? Is that the essence of sheep, even once they’ve donated to become dryer balls, to determinedly get themselves separated and lost? Wherefore doest thou thinkest that thou is going?”

It reminded me of one of my favorite kid stories. One of our boys was in the high chair at our old house and we were poking Cheerios, chasing them around the tray of the high chair. I’d purposely pop them to bounce a little and say, “hey! Get back here!” It made the little guy giggle and so I kept doing it. Eventually I had to wander off to clean something up and I hear, “hey! Hah-bat-choo! Hey! Hah-bat-choo!” That was as close as he could get to “hey, get back here” and we still use the phrase regularly at our house. 

I confess to exclaiming it to my prodigal dryer ball. 

Don’t be that dude. Stay with your herd. Or flock. Or whatever you call a collection of dryer balls.

That works in life, too, you know. Find your tribe and bless ‘em! And speaking of tribes, a belated very happy 80th birthday to one of my parents’ besties! Thanks for being part of our tribe for decades. We are better people because of your friendship. Love you!