Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

mostly.

Still in thumb splint; expect to be there for the next month or so. Appointment with specialist is next year - to be expected, with two midweek holidays between now and then. Still rather annoying. MRI got pushed back to next weekend because the insurance company is being stupid. Typing is annoying, as my right hand gets ahead of my left. :(

FCB Holiday concert on Sunday went well. Extra concentration in the bass line (or at least three of us -- dunno about LF) for Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring after Mr FCB Announcer Guy dedicated it to Murph. I suspect we were not the only ones.

Mum says she is snowbound but safe -- 14" of snow in the foothills will do that. She says the problem now is that it's freezing every night, so the roads are pretty much impassable until the black ice melts the next day. Expects a couple more days of that, and then the rain Friday will melt everything.

Bell Choir is playing with the kids for a 'sing along' this Sunday. There are a few books of music for bell choirs arranged so that the players don't have to read music to play - ring on the circled syllables, damp on the underlined ones, and that's what we're using. The words for these carols are not the ones I have memorised. This is irksome. Then we play something else, this one arranged for bell choir, on Xmas Eve. We're rehearsing them at the same time, so some people (who are not paying attention) are slightly confused.

At least for a while -- they tell us that it will warm up (and rain!) this weekend. Monday I woke up to five inches of very-nearly-slush on the ground. I shoved it off the driveway, as it was going to get well below freezing and I didn't want to have the area in front of the garage full of frozen ruts. I only did the area where we turn, because that snow was heavy!

Got word today that one of the FCB tuba players died earlier this month -- he did play the Halloween concert, but that was the last time he played with us. He was in his 80's, so he had a good run.

Still not a lot of progress on the thumb. The OT has asked my doc to order an MRI, as she can't figure out what's amiss in there -- there's something wrong, but the muscles/ligaments are so small that it can be hard to tell exactly what. Her current theory is that there's a tear within (or away from) some scar tissue from an old sprain, but she wants to take a look. Meanwhile, we're addressing the symptoms, and it's far better than it was, but still not even to 75% -- there are still far too many things that hurt to do, and it's inconsistent.

J is spending 12 hours a day away from home; DB is working Nutcracker and coming home between 8 and 9 every evening(and managing to not get too annoyed with the auditorium manager). OTOH, J is also (finally, after 20+ years!) finishing the drywall work in the basement stairwell.

The black cat has resigned himself to winter. He's not pleased, but at least he's not giving me the hairy eyeball when I open the door for him. Sometimes he even goes out!

It's the little things that are the most annoying.
- I can't find a glove/mitten to fit over it. I'm in the process of building one, but acquired feline "assistance", so have called a temporary halt to that project.
- keys can't go into left hand jacket pocket; grocery lists can't go into left hand trouser pockets.
- Typing is hard because I don't have my usual finger spread, and I have to hit the space bar with my right thumb *every* time. And it hurts in weird ways, especially now that she's given me some exercises (will be mentioning that tomorrow when I see her).
- I can't wear a wrist watch. I have tried wearing one on my right wrist in the past, but was never able to get used to it. And of course I can't buckle it on anyway.
- opening safety bottles is harder. Squeezing tubes (toothpaste, skin lotion) hurts in ways it didn't before I got the splint.
- I can't bend my wrist at all, which is not what I bargained for. I mean, it makes sense as the thumb is really part of the wrist, but it's odd. And makes driving different because I can't grasp the steering wheel with my palm & fingers.

The smaller neoprene splint arrived Tuesday, just in time for me to not need it for nearly a week. I will try it for bells on Sunday, but it seemed to work well enough with the big splint at rehearsal. I will be wearing it for band rehearsal on Monday. I managed to play quite a bit with the big splint on last Monday, but when we got to the faster pieces and/or marches, I had to take it off because I couldn't get the intervals with it on. There were some interesting pains to describe to the OT on Wednesday. (I did get a "really? Pain right there even with the tape?" "yep." More clues for the puzzle, I guess.) Still no real diagnosis, but she says there's still quite a bit of inflammation in there. And the webbing between thumb and hand has some lovely deep knots in it, even with the splint and not much movement.

In other news, the pond skinned over with ice yesterday, but by this afternoon the ice had turned to a layer of slush, as the air temperature rose and we got a couple of inches of snow. Snow is actually accumulating a little bit on the roads & driveways, so that's a bit amusing.

J and I went off to WindyCon last weekend. It was fun. Tegan's costume was gorgeous! I talked to people I haven't talked to since last year's Windy (what with me skipping Cap and Muse not happening...).

Well, if by lovely fall day you mean rain and wind, sometimes separately, sometime together. It's still nearly 50F (9C), so it's not nearly as bad as it could be. The black cat has been out a couple of times already today, annoyed every time; but he keeps going out when it's not raining, and romping for the door when it starts to rain again.

I'm nearly done with the gardens - only two to go, and one of them is the one up against the house which doesn't have a lot left to be done. I just need to cut back the alliums and the other late blooming things there. Saturday I finished the E garden, and Sunday I did the garden by the forsythia patch. I should probably clean out under the forsythia and trim it back, too, but not today. I'm hoping for one or two more 'warm' days (or at least dry) this year.

I discombobulated a new doc yesterday. After reading the description of my symptoms (as taken down by a not-quite-intern), she was pretty sure of the diagnosis, and was discombobulated when I told her all the reasons that her preliminary diagnosis was wrong. After a couple of tests, she pretty willingly admitted that she was wrong (it was almost certainly *not* what she thought), and perhaps she learned something. I expect there was some discussion after. {My primary doc is a supervising doc for UMich residents/interns, so I often get baby/new docs when I go in. She still has final call on treatment. She has told me (she lives in Chelsea) that she likes sending new docs to me because I'm good at describing symptoms. Not just 'my thumb hurts', but 'my thumb hurts here when I do W, and this-other-place when I do Y'.} So I get six weeks of PT with the hand specialist, and maybe a splint. It may just be tendinitis, but there may be some actual damage underlying that, hence the splint. I find out tomorrow. whee?