Tag servepro

The dry sauna and the wind tunnel

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I just took my first fall in two-and-a-half weeks, after the jubilation of finally finding my specialist yesterday.

Maybe I didn’t sleep last night. Maybe I did too much at the gym. Maybe I was stressed after reading the report of the insurance adjuster that my home has more than $10,000 in damage from what I call, “the toilet explosion.”

I tripped. I think I might have misjudged the length of my steps when I tried to step over the industrial fan in my bathroom. I went in to wash the drain cleaner down the drain that I had prepped after my shower.

I fell into the cute submarine toiletry holder I let the teenager when she was a little girl. The smashing plastic sent me over the edge of the tub and I hit my head and my left elbow on the ceramic tile wall on the far side of the tub.

I was trying to protect my left ring finger, the one in the cast. I’m less than three weeks away from getting this cast off. I hope for good. Nine weeks with my finger in plaster.

My head hurts. My elbow hurts. But I think I’m okay.

If you look at the photo, I was crossing over the air mover in the foreground and my ass ended up in the box with all the soap and shampoo.

Since temperatures here have been in the 90s, the impact of that equipment in my small bathroom has made it very dry and very hot, probably 110 degrees. The towel rods melted.

I called it my dry sauna. I would sit there and wrap my cast before you bathed and took a cold shower in the hot room. I loved it.

And downstairs— the fans and dehumidifiers are on 24-hours-a-day. You know when you are in a tunnel? The roar of the exhaust fans? That’s my living space.

But today we got the news— the water did $10,000 in damage. It looks like the floor, subfloor and wall in the bathroom need to be ripped out. And we need some plumbing.

There’s a wall downstairs that will need work, and there will be painting. And a new ceiling.

And my hardwood floors will need repair and the entire floor downstairs will need to be refinished.

I think the insurance company is going a little overboard. But we’ll see what ServePro rips out when they start demolition next week.

But maybe… just maybe… we can move some of these fans tomorrow. No more falls.

First day back to work at the Bizzy Hizzy after my cerebral palsy-themed leave

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

First off: 89%

For those of you who know me or follow me regularly, I performed at 89% today after a month of short-term disability leave.

Short answer to how my day was: good. I felt pretty good and my aches and pains at the end of the day feel pretty normal.

Now, for those who want more detail, let’s start at the beginning.

On April 15, I ruptured a tendon in my left ring finger taking my socks off. The nickname for the injury is “mallet finger” because your finger looks like a mallet or “baseball finger” because if you catch a baseball wrong you can sustain this injury.

You can read a more concise summary of those events and my treatment here.

I worked with my hand like that for a week at the Bizzy Hizzy folding clothes for Stitch Fix’s clients, performing at a solid 90%. But… I realized I rely on my left side for balance and stability and using my right side to do everything exacerbated problems I was already having with my right hip and spine as complications of my lifelong battle with cerebral palsy. That has been another journey of mine— learning about my body and how I can work with it to age well.

I often wonder what I could accomplish if my body could do what other bodies do.

So I asked my family doctor if I could take a short-term disability leave from work and focus on building core strength and stretching my hips. Because with this silly finger cast, on top of all my other issues, I was falling twice a week.

Today I returned to work— one ten-hour shift in my home department (QC) before the holiday weekend. I work Sunday. We have a paid holiday Monday. And I have a doctor appointment Tuesday afternoon with the neurological physiatrist.

Returning to work today gave me a way to ease back into it, and allows me to gather data on how my body performs. I can give that info to the physiatrist. If I hurt again by Tuesday, it’s a sign that either:

  1. I am moving wrong, or
  2. I shouldn’t be doing this kind of work with my body.

I arrived at work for my 6:30 a.m. shift and friends greeted me that I haven’t seen. At first I went to the wrong table, but caught my mistake, and corrected myself.

I had a right table, good for my hand injury, and one at a good height.

But then they shut the line down and I moved to a left table that was a tad high for me.

For the first 60-90 minutes, I hit all my numbers.

Eventually, I got a text from Mr. Accordion. I hope he doesn’t mind but I’m sharing his photos because:

  1. They made my day.
  2. I love halupkis.
  3. I don’t have other art for this post.

I don’t think he knew it was my first day back to work but his periodic cooking updates made me smile. Mr. Accordion and I shared an office at my last non-profit job. And yes, he not only plays accordion but usually has it in his car.

Mr. Accordion’s ingredients
Mr. Accordion at work
Mr. Accordion’s Halupkis ready to go in the oven

A couple times today, I had to answer phone calls regarding the toilet explosion that happened in my house yesterday. The insurance adjuster will be here Tuesday and meet with the teenager. I am working on getting water remediation people in to make sure everything is dry.

At the end of the day, I have a weird uncomfortable feeling in my left wrist and the kind of typical aches and pains that come from being older than 40 and working in a warehouse ten hours a day.

I attribute some of my success today to my personal trainer Andrew at Apex. We did an exercise yesterday that was something he called a variation of a good morning. This had me holding a weight across the back of my shoulders and “hinging” at the waist while using my hips for most of the motion.

I tried to replicate those techniques when I bent down to get items out of the bottom of my carts.

Then, when I came home, the teenager had dinner in the oven. I received a lovely message from a former editor at The Morning Call’s short-lived weekly editions, Chronicle Newspapers.

He said I was a truly good person (for all my work fostering cats) and that he missed seeing me every day.

I thanked him and said he made my day.

He replied that there were many times when I had made his and my boss’s day.

That was my favorite job ever, and one I was very good at.

Also, I tried the blueberry muffin flavor of ready-to-drink Supercoffee. My initial reaction was that it was gross. Will give a more thorough review later.