Couch 236: NY PS Langston Hughes

My grandma has really bad arthritis in her knees and the doctor said they needed to be replaced. My grandma said no, I'm too old for that. Only this would have been like 25, 30 years ago and now she's 90. I totally get why she said no but I also know for a fact she didn't expect to live decades longer with horrible knees. She also has something with her eyes that requires her to get needles poked in them every month. And the doctor scratched her cornea at the last appointment.

I don't want to live to be 90.

I guess I'm saying at least your husband is at a completely reasonable age for surgery, LT.

My dad tore his ACL last year on his one wheel. Of course he ignored that something was wrong until last month, when he ran into issues snowboarding. Or maybe it was mountain biking. I can't remember. Anyway, he's having surgery tomorrow. I hope his gf can exert some positive influence so he doesn't jump the gun during recovery.

My grandfather also had an addiction to the grabber sticks. He had Parkinson's so mobility got a bit tough for him. At one point, he had a chair that dumped him out onto the floor. He also had a Segway and terrorized the populace with it. But whatever mechanism assists the rider to balance really made a big difference for him.

I love my grabber sticks. Thing is, if you get them too long, then you cant grab the thing you grabbed by it in your other hand - your ungrabbered stick arm is too short to reach the end of the long grabber. They dont warn you about this. So i bought a shorter one too.

They don't look or feel like needles to me. It's more like tiny wires, and I barely feel them when she puts them in much less while they're in. My acupuncturist asked me about reaction to needles before we started the first session, and it sounds like she has some methods to use for people who struggle with needles.

Scarlet, no scars. They really are teeny tiny. Like stopdog, sometimes I will have a bitty bruise or a red dot in a few places but mostly I can't even see where the needles were afterward.

I played phone tag with an acupuncturist today.

I am so glad February is over. Annual faculty evaluations are due. We thought we finished last week, but then the College sent out directions Friday (usually these are sent in early January) with a major change we of course did not know about.

So chiding German chair and I just spent six hours together implementing the change. It was very slapdash but we have no more time. She just left. It’s a little late in our association, but I am starting to like that woman.

I don't have issues with needles, but my experience with it was:
depending on what issue you have, they put the needles in different places, some do hurt a bit when they are put in. You then lie there for like 15 minutes or so, with the needles in. My acupuncturist sometimes put a towel over me, which sometimes put some pressure on some needles or moved them a tiny bit, and that did hurt. In those 15 minutes, I had to usually not move around much, because that hurts too depending on needle position (especially hands and feet). Plus no scratching anywhere, might move a needle...

On the plus side, in certain positions they don't hurt at all and you don't even feel them. One time one of the needles was overlooked and I found it a few hours later, didn't feel it at all until I saw it still sticking out of my back.

I have never done acupuncture but I totally would if I could find a reputable person for it. My shoulder kills me a lot of the time. I don't have a fear of shots or needles or anything like that though.

Thanks for the additional hip surgery comments/suggestions! I'll be sure to look into grabbers and the sock things.

Maybe he could move into the living room for a bit if it would help with the stairs.

Thanks--that would be a good idea for a normal house! However, the living room is on its own floor, so he'd have to go to a different one to get to the bathroom. Though his office and the bedroom are further up. So we'll have to see what works best, how he manages with crutches (I assume?) on the stairs. If he can't manage them initially, he might have to stay at his mom's or dad's for a little bit.

And H already had this house when we got together--I wouldn't have picked it! We'll move to a less vertical house...someday.

I would guess pt will show him how to go up and down stairs - the hopsital wouldn't "release me" until pt had been in to see me. (Those idiots - I would have escaped if they had tried to keep me there). Up was no issue at all =good leg then bad leg on the same step then move good leg up and then put bad leg up next to it and so on. Down was not worse in reality but it seemed worse mentally. There is a saying up to heaven (use good leg first up) down to hell (down steps go bad leg then new leg) -but both up and down are done like little kids -one step with both feet on it before moving to another step. As long as you have rails I doubt he will need crutches on the steps themselves. I used a walker but not on the steps themselves. I started pt 3 days post surgery. I don't know how he feels about pain pills -but my experience is that taking them on time around the clock for the first 3-4 days really helps - it is worse if he lets the pain get out of hand before he will take one. I am not fond of them-but I did take them for the first several days regularly and then just tylenol. The other thing is restlessness - I was ready to be back to my life earlier than my hip was. The other thing is constipation - I eat tons of fiber as my regular diet -but people who don't often have terrible constipation after surgery from the pain stuff they give you - I suggest using senna and start either the day before surgery or when he gets home

That helps to know. Interesting about the difference in going up vs. down. I mean, he's not walking normally on the stairs right now with his injury as it is, so it might be similar.

I was on crutches for 6 weeks when I was about 8 or 9 where I couldn't put any weight on the injured side. They taught me how to go up and down stairs of course which was pretty handy because my bedroom was on the 2nd floor of the house and my school had several floors as well. At some point, I grew curious what would happen if I went down the stairs the opposite of the way they taught me which was put your crutches on the lower step first then hop down with your good leg. So I decided to experiment with hopping down first and I decided to do this at the very top of the stairs at home. What happened was a sort of pendulum effect where I basically flew down the entire flight of stairs. I remember laying there in a puddle at the bottom wondering what the hell had just happened and grateful that no one was there to witness my stupidity.

I'm sorry y'all, I was lost for a bit. I will try to catch up! I got a new phone and missed the new couch altogether. Then I could not find it again. I hope everyone is doing okay.

The first candidate bothered pretty much everybody, but for different reasons, so we recommended the second one as our preference. We shall see what happens.

Take care of yourselves.

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Morning couch. Getting ready to head to the cardiologist for h's appt, but I have a few minutes so thought I'd say good morning. And send hugs/head nods all around as wanted/needed/appropriate.

My dream-maker has been so super active lately... I'm writing down dreams almost every night. Sometimes 2 or 3 in a night! It's wild. Last night my dream was all over the place and sort of a multilevel one, because i dreamed about a dream in one part of it - I'm building some kind of animal feeder kind of thing, it's huge, me and this other person (? no one I know irl) put together these two big table-like pieces, then turn the piece over, and install a round tube kind of thingy with a flat piece on the bottom of it, inbetween slats in the large combined table kind of piece, and then a pointed lid kinda thing got set on top of the tube. Once it was finished, h pushed it across a patch of rocky ground to where it was being installed in a garden-type place. Then the scene shifts and I'm sitting in some fancy parlor somewhere with my friend A. and I borrow her phone because mine died so I could look up a name I dreamed (that i had dreamed, "Jane Meadows" that I wanted to use as a heroine in a story. I had the whole plot for the story in the dream, but as soon as i woke up and grabbed my notebook, I could not remember the plot at all only the name.

My dreams can be so weird. I know there was an actor by that name, so first thing i'm going to do in working with this dream is some research about her to see if I can find any messages in there.

Well I gotta go finish making breakfast then head to h's dr appt. Later couchies.

I don't want nuclear war.

I hope your H's appointment goes well, Artie! I've been having lots of random dreams lately as well--maybe something in the air?

Artie - jayne meadows played jackie gleason's wife on the honeymooners. I love the twist of jane meadows - it sounds more like anne of green gables, so wholesome! Anyway i think it represents you hiking - in meadows! And your h's hat looks like the one art carney often wore, all smushed down. Your h is all bluster then he turns to mush, just like jackie.

Thats my pre-coffee dream analysis. I admit i am terrible at them.

Today and tomorrow and then a three day weekend from work. (Dad's big 70th birthday party this weekend and sis and fam will be down halfway through the day on Friday.) I gotta clean and decorate, although my Mom's done most of the decorating already. So I guess that means cleaning. So not like a good day off but nonetheless a day off.

Well I caved and got Julieanne a birthday present. Since she TOLD me it was her birthday (twice) I sort of felt like she wanted it acknowledged. I thought and thought about what to send her. So I finally sent her a gift on text message on Monday, some Amazon stock. She was like OMG Thank you. And xxxx (my name) you're so sweet! I responded back with an upside down smiley face. I have no clue what she wanted from me. But I distinctly felt like she wanted something from me. Because she brought it up twice! Very odd. I have never had a T disclose like that before and it was very awkward for me.