A Day of Errands
Jun. 21st, 2024 09:26 amYesterday was a day of errands for me. Mostly I schlepped my family around, actually. Shawn kicked the day off with an appointment she wanted me to sit in on, in order to be a second pair of ears. She recently discovered that her right knee has degraded to the point where she's going to need knee replacement surgery sooner rather than later.
I know what you're all thinking. How do you DISCOVER this all of a sudden? Shouldn't you have felt your knee slowly getting worse?
This is precisely what happened with Shawn's gall bladder. It was zero to IT NEEDS TO COME OUT RIGHT NOW. I think this happens because she suffers nearly constant migraines my beloved wife just doesn't notice the rest of her body falling apart. So, she had some swelling in her knee and then got an x-ray where the doctors were like, "Mrs. Rounds, you have not had cartilage in this knee for what seems to be years.... how are you even walking?" And Shawn will be like, ?? because she's on day 26 in a row of the kind of cluster headache that is colloquially dubbed "suicide migraines" because they are that bad.
So, at any rate, she is looking at knee surgery in October and this is going to be an ORDEAL, but on the other hand, one of Shawn's great stress relievers is going for walks and not being able to do that has not exactly helped the migraine situation either. So, knee surgery it is!
Then, we had to text Mason from the clinic to make sure he was ready to be picked-up for his hair appointment, which we had accidentally scheduled perilously close to the end of this consult. But, he was up and ready and so we whisked him off to a salon that specializes in long, wavy hair. Mason inherited SOME of his mother's curls, but you wouldn't know it because his hair is long enough to be kind of heavy and it weights down a lot of the natural curl. He's had some split ends happening for awhile now too, so any way, even though it was not on par with surgery consultation, it was still fairly important to get done.
Then, as the driver of the family, I hung out near the salon (no hardship as it was close to Nina's Coffeeshop.) I brought Mason and I home and had about an hour to catch my breath when, speaking of migraines, I got back in the car to take Shawn off to the suburbs to her neurologist. The exciting news on that front is that migraine medicine continues to evolve and Shawn is now going to be the recipient of a new med that has some promise. FINGERS CROSSED. I told her that one of my sincere wishes for her is to have a day--just even one, single day--that is 100% pain free. I'm not sure she's had that in her adult life. (I mean a lot of chronic pain sufferers don't, but this is also my wish for all of you/them.)
It was a lot of driving around for me, but I got a LOT of Duolingo done. I have started this new habit, which I think is actually working for me, wherein I spend my first several minutes of every session just going over the new section they have called "words." You get almost no points for doing this, but I don't care. It's what I need, if I want to have any hope of actually remembering Japanese. It's basically vocab review? I've been missing this in my life since I had to drop Drops (an app that is solely devoted to vocabulary).
Plus, I am fond of listening to the actual radio.
Do people even do this any more? Like, I'm not talking about streaming music or a podcast, I mean that stuff that is in the air on radio waves. Like, where you tune your radio device to a frequency. Very old school. But, it's one of the few ways I'm introduced to new music. My weird habit of listening to the actual radio is the only reason I can sing along to Taylor Swift at my age.
You may have also noticed that I missed "What Are You Reading Wednesday?" this week, despite the fact that I've been starting to be more consistent now that I'm reading and consuming things for my new cyberpunk podcast. This is because (spoiler!) our next episode is going to be about the anime sensation Ghost in the Shell, and so all I would be doing would be listing Ghost in the Shell in all of it's half-a-zillion iterations.,, and I figured that might be a bit boring for you. Because, seriously. ALL I am doing right now (and will do until we record next Tuesday) is reading and watching the movies, the anime, and the manga.
Because there is A LOT.
So far, I have AVOIDED the live action, but I might just break down and watch it because I'm sure my co-host will want to complain about it a little.
I am behind on the rest of my life as a consequence, but I'm starting to get my feet up under me.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_siobhan and magenta I am finally hoping to sit down and write a reply volley in our various snail mail games. I actually have been saving your letters to read and reply to, so my apologies, but this is me savoring the experience. But the goal is to have things in the mail to you both before the week is officially done.
I don't have much else to report, I don't think? How are you all!?
I know what you're all thinking. How do you DISCOVER this all of a sudden? Shouldn't you have felt your knee slowly getting worse?
This is precisely what happened with Shawn's gall bladder. It was zero to IT NEEDS TO COME OUT RIGHT NOW. I think this happens because she suffers nearly constant migraines my beloved wife just doesn't notice the rest of her body falling apart. So, she had some swelling in her knee and then got an x-ray where the doctors were like, "Mrs. Rounds, you have not had cartilage in this knee for what seems to be years.... how are you even walking?" And Shawn will be like, ?? because she's on day 26 in a row of the kind of cluster headache that is colloquially dubbed "suicide migraines" because they are that bad.
So, at any rate, she is looking at knee surgery in October and this is going to be an ORDEAL, but on the other hand, one of Shawn's great stress relievers is going for walks and not being able to do that has not exactly helped the migraine situation either. So, knee surgery it is!
Then, we had to text Mason from the clinic to make sure he was ready to be picked-up for his hair appointment, which we had accidentally scheduled perilously close to the end of this consult. But, he was up and ready and so we whisked him off to a salon that specializes in long, wavy hair. Mason inherited SOME of his mother's curls, but you wouldn't know it because his hair is long enough to be kind of heavy and it weights down a lot of the natural curl. He's had some split ends happening for awhile now too, so any way, even though it was not on par with surgery consultation, it was still fairly important to get done.
Then, as the driver of the family, I hung out near the salon (no hardship as it was close to Nina's Coffeeshop.) I brought Mason and I home and had about an hour to catch my breath when, speaking of migraines, I got back in the car to take Shawn off to the suburbs to her neurologist. The exciting news on that front is that migraine medicine continues to evolve and Shawn is now going to be the recipient of a new med that has some promise. FINGERS CROSSED. I told her that one of my sincere wishes for her is to have a day--just even one, single day--that is 100% pain free. I'm not sure she's had that in her adult life. (I mean a lot of chronic pain sufferers don't, but this is also my wish for all of you/them.)
It was a lot of driving around for me, but I got a LOT of Duolingo done. I have started this new habit, which I think is actually working for me, wherein I spend my first several minutes of every session just going over the new section they have called "words." You get almost no points for doing this, but I don't care. It's what I need, if I want to have any hope of actually remembering Japanese. It's basically vocab review? I've been missing this in my life since I had to drop Drops (an app that is solely devoted to vocabulary).
Plus, I am fond of listening to the actual radio.
Do people even do this any more? Like, I'm not talking about streaming music or a podcast, I mean that stuff that is in the air on radio waves. Like, where you tune your radio device to a frequency. Very old school. But, it's one of the few ways I'm introduced to new music. My weird habit of listening to the actual radio is the only reason I can sing along to Taylor Swift at my age.
You may have also noticed that I missed "What Are You Reading Wednesday?" this week, despite the fact that I've been starting to be more consistent now that I'm reading and consuming things for my new cyberpunk podcast. This is because (spoiler!) our next episode is going to be about the anime sensation Ghost in the Shell, and so all I would be doing would be listing Ghost in the Shell in all of it's half-a-zillion iterations.,, and I figured that might be a bit boring for you. Because, seriously. ALL I am doing right now (and will do until we record next Tuesday) is reading and watching the movies, the anime, and the manga.
Because there is A LOT.
So far, I have AVOIDED the live action, but I might just break down and watch it because I'm sure my co-host will want to complain about it a little.
I am behind on the rest of my life as a consequence, but I'm starting to get my feet up under me.
the_siobhan and magenta I am finally hoping to sit down and write a reply volley in our various snail mail games. I actually have been saving your letters to read and reply to, so my apologies, but this is me savoring the experience. But the goal is to have things in the mail to you both before the week is officially done. I don't have much else to report, I don't think? How are you all!?
