A while ago, The Teenager and I decided we wanted to try a Dairy Queen banana split. That we’d share one. And we decided tonight was the night.
We ordered one using the app, and when we arrived we were faced with two new ice cream options: the churro dipped cone and the end of the rainbow shake.
The banana split was delicious. Their strawberry topping was our favorite and it looked like they put two whole bananas in there.
But then The Teenager wanted to try the Rainbow Shake because it looked like it had the crunchies she loved from the cotton candy Blizzard.
So, she went into the Dairy Queen and ordered one. And the churro-dipped cone.
The shake was strawberry flavored and those crunchies tasted like sugary breakfast cereal.
Meanwhile, the ice cream cone tasted like the bastard child of Dairy Queen and Taco Bell, like someone had taken those cinnamon cream cheese balls they have right now and stuffed them with ice cream instead of whatever that cheesy stuff actually is.
This week has been a roller coaster— but isn’t that just the way? People have been telling me I look like I’m loosing weight but I don’t know if that’s true.
The teenager took the dog for a rainy walk at Lafayette College the other day. She sent several very lovely photos.
I have many odds and ends making life out of the ordinary from little foster kitten Jean-Paul Sartre to my dear friend Nan moving from my neighborhood to a senior community.
Nancy in her new place
I ordered a kitchen scale off Target.com to measure Jean-Paul’s growth. He’s up to 1 lb 5 ounces. That was after a big breakfast of pate and kitten milk. He has a hearty appetite and screams for food like any baby does every 4 hours.
He is super inquisitive and smart. He carries tiny toys around in his mouth and plays with our dog, Bean. (Here’s a video.)
Meanwhile, guest fosters Coffee Bean & Pinto Bean are having fun in my room. Khloe and Louise do not like having babies around, but the cockatoo Nala sure does.
For some humor, let’s mention that the Teenager recently discovered that the Morningstar Farms breakfast Pattie’s I have been feeding her for almost two decades are vegetarian. She called her dad to find out if he had been in on this secret.
We never hid that they weren’t real sausages from her and she’s been able to read for a long time. The shock was real, and she’s still talking about it days later.
She didn’t have a chance to go grocery shopping for her nights in the kitchen. I suggested using my Hungryroot ancient grain gluten free pancake mix and the Morningstar sausages. It was a lovely, hearty breakfast-for-dinner. And like she had accused me of when she first discovered my fake breakfast meat, “It was all a lie.”
The teen also got her first fix from Stitch Fix and it came from the warehouse where I work, the Bizzy Hizzy. Click the photo to see her unbox.
Click to see what’s in the box
Speaking of work, I took voluntary time off on Monday and my stats were 100%, 88% and 98%. Andrew at Apex Training has been working be hard with exercises like split leg squats. My quads feel it. My balance is improving, my aches and pains feel like muscle fatigue and not deeper pain or joint issues. I have caught myself almost falling several times, and can sometimes feel my leg scissoring or even notice my left foot dragging behind before it trips me.
Even my chiropractor, Nicole Jensen of Back in Line Chiropractic and Wellness Center has made comments about how well my body is moving and how things are improving. Today she said my right side was locked up, when it’s usually my left, and that everything went back where it belonged easily.
When I hopped off the table, she told me to look at myself. “I have never seen you stand up with your feet so firmly planted and your poster straight,” she said.
And I felt it, I felt really solid.
So I don’t know if this is where I confess I tried the new Wingstop chicken sandwich. Most of my diet lately has been vegan. But last night I hadn’t had dinner, it was 8 pm and my body was devastated (in that good way). I could barely move after my shower. I considered skipping dinner.
But then I thought about my food intake for the day:
4:30 am: Supercoffee dark roast with half and half
5:30 am: Wawa coffee con lèche (it was a bribe to make myself go get gas)
6:30 to 8:30 am: 20 oz water
9 am: Kind Peanut Butter Breakfast bar and about 3 oz cranberry juice cocktail
9:30 to 11:30 am: 20 oz water
12:15 pm: quinoa with roast zucchini, white beans and my home canned roasted tomatoes, 6 oz Diet Pepsi
2 to 5 pm: 20 oz water
5:30 pm: sunflower seeds
6 pm: 12 oz cucumber water
I thought a chicken sandwich would be good for protein and I saw the commercial for Wingstop’s new chicken sandwich on Hulu. It was good, not as big as I thought a sandwich from a chicken joint would be— but to be able to slather any sauce from their menu on our was really cool. I had a mango habanero sandwich and a side order of the honey hot rub boneless wings. It hit the spot.
I did not work a full ten hour day any day this week. But you know what? That’s okay.
My stats on Sunday were 105%, then 98 Monday, 88 yesterday and 94 today. What happened?
I don’t know. I was in pain Monday, stiff and uncomfortable yesterday and almost fell today but caught my balance.
And then Andrew at Apex put me through legs. We did split leg squats and he got to watch my hip do the funky angles it does. And I got to feel every fiber in my knees, quads and hamstrings.
Plus, I walked more than 8,000 steps today while my legs were stiff. Well after that workout they are not stiff but jelly.
The Teenager showed one of her dog walking clients some of the neighborhood dogs and their tricks— here is the video.
And then for the final event of the day we went to Waffle House as earlier this month we had heard that August 24 was National Waffle Day.
I had a scrumptious hash brown bowl with egg, cheese and jalapeños.
I wept tonight. I nearly wept myself into a panic attack. My guts are still fluttering. And I flung things down the stairs.
But that’s the end of the story. Let’s start at the beginning.
On Monday night, after the teenager’s car accident, I went to Apex Training for my 100th session at the gym since I started about ten months ago.
Because it was my 100th session, the my trainer picked out 6 exercises for me to do 100 times, at my own pace, breaking them into sets as I saw fit.
I was a little stiff the next day, which was yesterday, but I still managed to do 100% according to the metrics at work. But my the end of the day my right leg was unsteady.
Today I woke up very stiff, with my muscles in my lower body so tight I struggled to bend and I had even less control and stability in my right leg.
I only made about 90% today.
By the end of the day, my right quad had this dull burn to it, but it didn’t really hurt. But it was getting more and more difficult to control as my stiffness dissipated.
But the teenager and I still made it to my 101st session at Apex and celebrated by trying the new strawberry Frosty at Wendy’s. Which, by the way, is much tastier with a Wendy’s sugar cookie.
I took my custom splint off— today marks one week of wearing it and taking it off every 3 hours for occupational therapy exercises and when needed “for hygiene.” And the finger is looking steady!
I removed the splint to wipe down my hand with a wet nap before eating. I set it down carefully in my lap. And then it just disappeared. I checked the take-out bag. I checked my bra, the car compartments, the seat.
The teenager told me to stop wiggling around that it had to be in the car and we’d look at home.
We didn’t find it at home.
So I went to the kitchen and started to cry. my finger had looked so good wrapped around that Frosty cup as I smeared the Frosty on my portion of the cookie the teenager and I shared.
I checked my local CVS’s website: no splint in stock. So I checked my local Walgreen’s: no splint in stock. And so it went.
Still upset, I found a piece of wood my cockatoo had stripped from her toy and taped it to my finger.
My splint. Hopefully I’ll find a better solution in the morning.
Yesterday was my first day working with a custom splint on my mallet finger instead of a cast. And it went really well— except for the times I put my splint back on the outside of my hand instead of the inside. And I went to apply fresh tape and the nurse at work wanted to help.
All-in-all, I achieved a new record (for me) in Freestyle, shipping I believe 574 items or 115% of the 500 item goal for a 10-hour shift. And that includes 15 minutes I spent trying to find a work station that was operational. If you subtract that as official “non-production time” it might be damn close to 116%.
Today, a Monday, with the traditional Monday through Friday people at work, I was assigned to a different table in QC, my regular department. It was a table just a smidgeon higher than the table I worked at last week and the line was on the left instead of the right.
This is the first time since my return-to-work in late May that I have worked on the left. In one way, it’s nice because I have been having issues with the stability of my walk and control in my right leg, so working on the left means I can use my left side more.
But working on the left side means I’m shoving all those boxes with my injured hand and after two hours the cuticle area under my nail on my injured finger is tender and really red. Despite this, at one point this morning, I reached 118%.
But then I got a call from The Teenager. She rear-ended someone in her father’s 2022 Kia SUV. The car he bought after he rear-ended someone in late December and totaled his beloved 2016 Nissan Juke.
She’s fine. It was raining and she misjudged how long it would take her to stop in the wet. The car looked driveable, but when she tried it started leaking fluid and overheating. So, she called AAA to tow it.
I left work early. At four hours into my shift, I think I had QCed 69 fixes, and goal for that specific time of day is 65. That’s with going out to my car to get info for my daughter, calling her father, and similar nonsense.
I was listening to an episode of business wars, the podcast, or was it The History Channel’s The Food that Built America and the history of Burger King vs. McDonald’s and the invention of the Chicken McNugget.
Now I distinctly remember the debut of the Chicken McNugget, which, according to the podcast, became available at all McDonalds in 1983.
I was eight. Probably riding around with my mom in her 1979 Camaro (black). We lived in a very rural area in Pennsylvania’s Slate Belt. The closest actual town was Portland, Pa., which I feature in my first novel, Manipulations (and if you are interested you can buy it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, or at Bookshop.org here — the Bookshop price includes shipping and designates a portion of the profit to an independent bookseller of your choice).
Anyway, we had a very small supermarket in Portland so my mom would do most of her family shopping in Stroudsburg, Pa., the gateway to the Pocono Mountains. If she were shopping at Kmart for clothes or household items or at Shoprite for our groceries, we would often stop at Burger King where the delight would be a cheeseburger and some onion rings.
But if we had to go to the Stroud Mall, McDonald’s was across the street. So we want to McDonald’s. I didn’t like McDonald’s — they put onions on their burgers and I don’t like onions. So, eight-year-old me was very excited for these Chicken McNuggets. If my mom was in a good mood, I could order a Chicken McNugget Happy Meal. Which— in the eighties— came with six nuggets in a styrofoam container. And of course, I only liked the barbecue sauce.
So the podcast got me thinking about McDonald’s in general especially since I worked at a McDonald’s (a very busy McDonald’s) from the summer I graduated high school until the August after I graduated college.
We made $5.25/hour in the late 1990s. A full-time employee made $200/week. And we got one meal per shift. I ate a lot of McChicken sandwiches.
I’m thinking about McDonald’s and listening to Conan O’Brian and Andrew Gurza (not together although that would be amazing), when I get the phone call with the teenager in tears.
“Mom, I rear-ended someone in Dad’s new car.”
This was her first car accident. It’s a rainy day here and she misjudged how far she needed to stop. And she didn’t want to slam on her brakes harder and lose control of the car.
At first, she and the police officer who responded thought the car was driveable. It started leaking what looked like antifreeze and overheated. So the officer called AAA.
I told my Stitch Fix supervisors the situation and asked to leave.
The teenager told me she was on a side street “out by Target” “by the library” and I misinterpreted her and went to the wrong town.
The teenager texted me a photo of the nearest intersection and I realized my mistake and turned around.
A very kind officer waited with her and I drove her to the dog walking client she had been driving to when the accident happened.
And then I grabbed us lunch at McDonald’s because their triple cheeseburger is my favorite sandwich on the menu and I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
So I spent a good deal of today dealing with paperwork for my mallet finger— trying to get the info I need to return to work since my specialist doesn’t think I need short-term disability for my finger to heal. That I just need to not use the finger.
I had filed a FMLA leave request, which I thought would lead to at least a week or so of short-term disability since Patient First told me to anticipate potential surgery and eight weeks of healing time.
But the doctor avoided both of those with a cast.
I’m stuck in limbo between waiting for the specialist’s office to fill out the forms to release me from my FMLA leave and the accommodation form for Stitch Fix, and I never quite reached the point of short-term disability but had started a claim.
I called the medical forms office at my specialist, and it took a chunk of the day to verify that they won’t have my forms ready until potentially next week— which of course intensifies my need for short-term disability which is a different set of paperwork a doctor needs to sign.
With my work week starting on Sunday, even if my release form arrived Monday morning and Stitch Fix could work everything out for me to return Tuesday, at that point I’ve already missed 1.5 weeks of work.
And I’ve used a lot of my paid time off recently while I was accepting voluntary time off— so when this occurred I only had 20 hours of sick time.
I’m not complaining, but I am trying to plan my household finances.
And then my supervisor said to come to work Sunday and we’ll see what we can figure out.
The ups-and-downs of navigating this system where medicine has become such a business that everything is so complex even for someone as organized as I am is exhausting.
But luckily the teenager puts reminders like this on my iPad. “Have a good day and don’t kill anyone.”
As compensation for my draining day, the teenager and I went to Aldi in our pajamas planning to buy chips, get gas, and stop at Arby’s to try their new boneless wings. The commercial got me. Because I hate celery. Watch it here to understand.
But when we got to Aldi, and bought our chips, the car wouldn’t start.
So I got to call AAA. Or in my case, text AAA. The teenager was very excited because she never witnessed a AAA call before. Because she doesn’t remember when I locked the keys in the trunk when she was 2.
It was the battery, which George from AAA replaced. We left Aldi 30 minutes after we called. It was all super fast.
And then we met George again at Wawa for gas.
The teenager loved the whole process and wants to learn more about cars and car repair even more than she did a few months ago.
As for the winds, for six dollars I was pleased but the teenager noted they were all spice and no flavor. I enjoyed them but they were over-sauced and the two flavors did taste extremely similar.
I’ve been trying to gather my thoughts for this blog for 24 hours now. And just when I thought I had them… The Teenager had dinner ready. Then The Teenager left for work and forgot to grab her shopping list.
I went to take a photo of it for her and got the largest splinter I’ve ever had in my life.
(And if you are looking at the photo, you’ll also see all the cracks in my toes from the blisters.)
I hobbled upstairs, dug my tweezers out of the closet and manage to very painfully remove the top half of it.
It’s so wedged deep into my foot and still very painful. I’m soaking it in Epsom salt right now.
Just another reason for my left leg not to work.
It’s already been giving me trouble today and leading to a lot of muscle pain in my back and torso. Even though it’s not responsible of me, I accepted the voluntary early time out at work today and only worked an 8-hour day.
So speaking of work…
Sunday I worked Freestyle which is a department where I can usually hit 100 percent. But Stitch Fix changed our small (#5) envelopes. They had two strips of tape instead of one. They were a tighter fit than the predecessor. And they were just sticky.
I ended the day at 86%.
Yesterday I worked in my home department of QC— at the quirky poorly set up table— and reached 100%. But today I was at a high table and only hit 80%.
Yesterday I saw a sports rehab doctor recommended by my primary care physician for his knowledge and training in orthopedic care. He was going to evaluate my hip pain. I shouldn’t say that— he did evaluate my hip pain.
He also read my x-rays, did a physical exam and used the photos and the exam to measure the extent of my femoral anteversion.
Apparently, the head of my femurs aren’t positioned correctly in my hip sockets. It’s what causes me to look like this baby when I walk:
Apparently, as the screenshot shows, it’s not uncommon in children and even more common among children with cerebral palsy. If the bones don’t rotate into the correct position on their own by age 10, often surgery follows.
A rather invasive hip surgery where the femurs are cracked, repositioned and stabilized with rods.
I have an appointment with the neuromuscular physiatrist May 31– but until then here are my thoughts.
1. I still think I am leaning forward at work causing the issue with my toes blistering. If my femurs fit into my hip sockets at the wrong angle, this lean might be “natural.”
2. The doctor I saw yesterday says nothing I do is causing damage to my body, so my activities are limited only by what I can tolerate.
3. Relieving some of the tension in my hamstrings may lessen some of my symptoms.
4. There is no clear solution on how to move forward.
So, I called Nan to discuss it and get her opinion. I learned she never had a shamrock shake. I rectified that. See video.
Yesterday I cleaned a lot of my downstairs and had a relatively good work out at Apex. I haven’t felt incredibly strong lately, but my IUD must be working because I’m not in pain.
I had a good week at work, so cleaning, working on Parisian Phoenix projects and watching Cobra Kai suited me just fine yesterday.
I even found two of the dog’s Kong balls under the couch which made for a very happy dog.
Today, I was supposed to have my annual physical but my doctor’s office called yesterday and rescheduled for next week— which also means another week without answers from my CT scan and physiatrist referral. Neither the neurologist nor the physiatrist’s office has called me back.
And I need a doctor that can help me understand the motion and mechanics of my body, and not just its individual parts.
Today I scrubbed the exterior of the stove and did dishes. Then I went to help my blind friend Nan with some errands and grocery shopping.
We made plans to pick up some pizza at Little Caesars so Nan could try the Batman Calzony. No matter how I tried I couldn’t explain what it was to the blind lady. So we bought one.
But we had time to kill before the teenager got out of school even after we put groceries away. We grabbed the dog and got drinks and hash browns (for the dog) at Dunkin.
And then we surprised the teenager with the dog at school.
Then Joan stopper by to drop off some hand-me-down magazines and erotica, cupcakes and photos that Joan needed us to sort.
Now, I’m cuddling with Louise, watching Gotham Garage and enjoying kitten photos.
I don’t have many plans this weekend— defined by my work schedule as Thursday, Friday and Saturday— in part because my body has been unpredictable, the weather has been crazy and the teenager’s work schedule varies.
I went to the chiropractor at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, leaving work 30 minutes early to get the last appointment of the day. I wanted Dr. Jensen to see my body after four ten-hour shifts in Stitch Fix’s Bizzy Hizzy warehouse.
And, for the second or third week in a row, I could barely crawl home on Tuesday night but felt pretty good on Wednesday. So I feel like I’m not getting closer to solutions to my physical issues.
Yesterday I tried to do some work for Parisian Phoenix, did a lot of laundry, visited briefly with a friend I’ve missed and haven’t seen merely enough of, taught a high school student how to write a press release, watched several episodes of Cobra Kai, ran the dishwasher and went to the gym.
The teenager working on her squat form
The teenager did a lot of work on her squat form while I did some accessory work. I also weighed myself— 157 lbs. Sigh. Still 20 pounds overweight.
Then we had Taco Bell, including the new Cinnabon balls.
Today I worked on the index for the Parisian Phoenix nonfiction anthology on marginalized identities, Not an Able-Bodied White Man with Money, which I will be blogging about on the Parisian Phoenix web site later tonight. F. Bean Barker was my helper.
Indexing is only half complete and man does it allow me to interact with the text in new ways.
Louise has an appointment with a potential adopter tomorrow and today she was quite cuddly, video here. I don’t know how she’ll do in the backroom of PetSmart but all least we’ll be with her.
Nala and Louise
In the afternoon, I accompanied the teenager to her audiologist appointment for a tune-up on her hearing aids.
Then we went for shoes. The teenager needed some and I wanted to buy a warmer pair that fit more loosely — hoping that would ease the blistering and burning in my toes.
I didn’t buy these patent leather stilettos.I didn’t buy these tie-dye Vans on clearance I bought these.
The teenager got new black Vans and a new design, the orange blossom Vans.
We ran into Target just to use the bathroom and I told the pouty teenager we could get a drink at Sonic. But turns out Sonic is still drive through only, so if you can’t have drive-in service what’s the point of visiting Sonic?
So we went to Sheetz, and had appetizers. Which would have been fine if the teenager hadn’t suggested going to see her grandmother, my mother-in-law. And her aunt— who recently destroyed her elbow falling on the ice.
We’re finishing Captain America: Civil War right now. The ice is slowly building up outside as the cold rolls into town. And Peter Parker just made his debut in the series.
The teenager graduates from high school this spring. My baby is graduating in 2022. My baby.
It’s been a good start to the year.
My great grandmother was born January 1, 1900. So every year I think to myself that my great grandmother would be X years old. 122. She died in the 1990s.
I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and cuddled cats until 6ish. And believe it or not, I had a cup of coffee and starting doing chores— dishes, meal planning, updating the wall calendar.
The teenager came home from work around 9 a.m. She and her dad brought my favorite coffee, café con leche, and a Sizzli: pork roll, egg and cheese on a bagel. I have wanted to try the pork roll Sizzli for a while and it was delicious. 19 grams of protein and 400 calories.
The teenager and I went to the gym, where we goofed around during the official Boot Camp class. She loaded 188 pounds onto the leg press! When Boot Camp was under control, we started barbell squats and then Romanian deadlifts.
The teenager squatted 135 pounds! I made it to 115, but I wasn’t comfortable attempting 135. It’s too close to my body weight.
I love to watch her lift.
Then, I went to get Nan as we were scheduled to work. After we finished her writing, I prepared a chicken bone-broth soup and a cheese and pierogie casserole. My Hungryroot is stuck in transit so I rooted through my pantry to see what I could prepare. I had a long overtime shift yesterday and don’t want to spend my day off grocery shopping.
And then we starting reading the upcoming Parisian Phoenix anthology, Not An Able-Bodied White Man with Money. And meanwhile Joan is shooting more photos for Trapped.
I have received several beautiful messages today— from current and former colleagues at work, strangers on my blog, and my psychologist.
And another good thing— I got to laugh heartily with my daughter. Mostly at the expense of her dog.
And this is Bean trying to make friends with Khloe. Video
** P.S. I haven’t done my Cobra pose physical therapy. My spine is hurting. Is this why?
Angel Ackerman 