Today was my last official day working with a disability accommodation in the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy warehouse. It’s Sunday, tomorrow is the Fourth of July, and I had a helluva time getting out of bed when the alarm went off at 4:15 a.m.
So I didn’t.
I was in the middle of an anxiety dream where I was with an old friend that cut off ties with me a decade ago… and I think a few people I’ve lost were in that dream.
I reset my alarm for 4:45 and started my day a little off and then the Keurig decided I only deserved half a cup of coffee. As. If.
Today was my first day working in my new splint. (If you didn’t know I lost the first one in my car, you can read that story here.)
I’ve suspected since Friday afternoon that my new splint was too tight, but I didn’t confirm it until I started to see marks on my finger, deep ridges, yesterday.
During work today it got pretty unbearable— so when they let us out early I came home, heated the teapot and dropped the custom splint into a bowl.
I poured the boiling water into the bowl and reshaped the plastic. It’s not nearly as perfectly molded as the professional job, but it doesn’t pinch my finger.
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 first things first— let’s embarrass the teenager.
She graduated from high school Friday night. (Above, pictured, left to right: me, her father, her, her paternal grandfather and grandmother and my stepmom)
The weekend that followed included several dinners with family members and we have a party planned later this week.
The other updates:
I have been killing it in the gym. My plank time is more than a minute now. My strength is improving and for the first time ever, I did exercises with a 30-lb dumbbell.
It’s been seven weeks since I got my first cast to treat my mallet finger. Two more weeks until it comes off. Remember that when I mention that I am hitting milestones like the one mentioned above.
I hit the goal for Freestyle on Sunday at work in the Bizzy Hizzy. I shipped 500 items in, if I remember correctly, 363 packages. What makes that amazing is that we also had a one-hour training — so 500 items is the goal for a full day. Taking the training into account, that puts me at 110% for that day.
Yesterday and today I worked at the same left side table in QC. Even with pushing boxes to the left with a bum finger, I did 166 fixes yesterday (102%) and 169 today. (104%).
But here’s the weird part— i was in pain but it didn’t impact my movement. I started each day extremely stiff and with a little bit of back pain, but not in the low or upper back, in between. And as I eased into my shift, my hip hurt deep in the socket, up near my groin, but in the front in a very small but specific spot. And my quad would feel intense pain that sometimes went into my knee but for the most part didn’t. Tylenol doesn’t help. It gradually subsided over two hours. It happened in exactly the same way today.
I combat this my paying extra close attention to all my movements. I plant my feet on the floor and hold my core and glutes tight. I force out my toes and my knees and as I move my body to retrieve clothes below my waist I bend with my hips and stretch them. Is this what helps? Is something out of whack (like my femur) and stiff by morning and I force it back into position?
In very sad news, Charles Ticho, the nonagenarian author who penned the Parisian Phoenix book Stops Along the Way died today. I will be addressing this soon on the Parisian Phoenix blog.
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.
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:
I am moving wrong, or
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:
Mr. Accordion’s ingredients Mr. Accordion at workMr. 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.
It’s the end of April and it was 35 degrees last night. The price of oil continues to skyrocket and I’m still heating my house halfway through spring.
The cold does not help the poor circulation in my hands which has intensified in my left hand because my mallet finger restricts my movement.
My hands are painfully cold, except when Andrew is making me curse him in my head at Apex Training. Today was leg day, and I was so tired that when I came home and let the dog out I turned around and lost my balance and slammed right into the brick wall between my mud room and my kitchen.
Nala, my six-year-old Goffin’s cockatoo, started shaking and plucking her feathers today. Nothing in her environment has changed except the neighbor’s dog has been barking nonstop all day. The teenager believes his distress causes her anxiety.
Speaking of the teenager, she made this thick chocolate chip cookie/blondie dessert that I topped with ice cream that Sobaka’s mom brought home from Penn State when we dog sat last weekend.
Before the teenager brought home our dog, I would never criticize a dog owner, but now that I see the difference between different dog care styles, I feel back for dogs that aren’t spoiled like Sobaka and Bean.
And I don’t know how Sobaka’s mom does it— that dog is a bed hog.
But now an update on my mallet finger:
Stitch Fix has been amazing. Because my specialist at OAA took a week to return my paperwork and then didn’t properly fill it out, the onus was on me to find jobs I could do to not hurt myself. It turned out I can QC just fine— I hit 92% just fine.
But here’s the thing… my specialist knows hands, he doesn’t know me. I don’t think he heard me when I said I have cerebral palsy and that I work 10 hours a day in a warehouse. I’m just not sure that environment is safe for me right now,
Why do I say this? Because this week drove home to me how much I rely on my left side for stability. By forcing me to work 90% on the right, I am struggling to keep my right hip in place.
I am so stiff by the end of the work day. I also end up pinching and slamming my right fingertips and by the end of the day my left fingers I can use are swollen and sore.
And I fold 750 clothing items a day, handle 150 boxes and rip open probably 500 plastic bags. That’s a lot of fingers moving.
Once I consider the risk of accidentally losing my cast and bending my finger (which would extend my healing time) and adding the increased fall risk of mine because I am aggravating known issues with my balance and mobility, I just don’t feel safe.
This is a horribly stressful feeling.
I’m going to talk with my family doctor about it. I already mentioned it to my therapist, because I wanted to confirm my thoughts were rational and not whiny or emotional.
Today’s vegan lunch: curry carrots, lentils, quinoa, my own roasted chick peas, toasted sesame seeds, green olives and a touch of Thai peanut sauce topped with pumpkin seeds
And last but not least, cats. Misty caught a mouse! Video here.
Misty and Fog, our brothers Foster Touch of Grey Foster Tripod Louise
According to the Stitch Fix timekeeping software, their human resource interface and their payroll, I am still on leave.
But when I got to the time clock, I was able to clock in without an issue and a supervisor and I discussed how best to put me to work at the Bizzy Hizzy.
The paperwork from my doctor still has not arrived, and my actual supervisor was out sick today.
But I was very grateful for the opportunity to have my first day back fall on a Sunday as Sundays are way quieter and less hectic.
We decided that I would pick a cart of Freestyle purchases and then fold and ship them— which would allow me to test my functionality in the two main areas of outbound, folding and picking.
A freestyle cart should take 40 minutes to pick, and it covers a good 3,000 plus steps, because it contains 80 individual items. My cart took 65 minutes, but it took me three to get started and another seven to deal with internet problems.
And I quickly realized that as the cart got heavier it got harder to steer to the left because my hand didn’t have a good grip on the left side.
At first break, I was at 98% of the required metrics in folding and shipping, but then I got a cart of shoes and ended up falling to 85% because it’s hard not to stick both hands in the envelope when you have trouble stuffing those shoes in there.
My direct supervisor emailed to check on me, so I gave him my full report.
He said not to worry, I’d be back at 100% before I knew it and he didn’t want me hurting myself. If anything changed or I felt pain, I was to let him know immediately.
The supervisor filling in for him also checked in with me periodically.
By the end of the day, I was over 90%.
I can’t help but wonder if the constant movement of all my other fingers makes my injured figure wiggle in my cast. If so, will that loosen the cast prematurely? Something to keep an eye on….
The start of the Covid-19 pandemic two years ago brought an end to a couple toxic situations in my life, and led to many new experiences that were both rewarding and frustrating.
If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you may remember teenager #2, a friend of my teenager who needed a place to stay. Teenager #2 and her cats stayed for about nine months, with minimal support or contact from her parents.
Teenager #2 turned 19 last week, and I don’t know if she’d expect me to remember or not, because I haven’t heard from her since she moved out. And left a very trashed bedroom behind. And her cats taught my cats bad habits we are still trying to break.
I’ve heard rumors that she’s expecting her own baby now.
It’s also been about five weeks since my mother contacted me. Though she will probably read this later and text me nasty messages.
And my dad is three-and-a-half months gone now, and it leaves me wondering how people can be there one second and just… poof… gone.
But I’m not trying to elicit pity, I’m merely stating some of the thoughts in my brain to say that my emotions are already on edge.
So, a couple weeks ago we (the teenager and I) received a text message that our former foster Extra Crunchy was being returned to the rescue because a new baby was allergic.
This broke my heart.
But the family never showed up. They turned up unannounced at the FURR adoption event yesterday and returned him on his first birthday.
Readers, I think I am losing my stomach for rescue work.
Extra Crunchy was one of two kittens who survived a bout with distemper last spring. Feline distemper is a very fatal and preventable disease. FURR received a call that someone had three cats, two female and one male, neither fixed nor vaccinated. The two females each gave birth to a litter of kittens. But everyone contracted distemper. And the adults died.
So they called FURR, and FURR took in these ten dying and starved kittens who had never even had the chance to nurse from a mother.
My daughter asked if she could foster these babies, and our cat foster godmother said yes, but that we had to be prepared for them to die.
So my daughter started syringe feeding them. On the day she took over their care, two died right away. And it seemed like every day another would die, usually in the teenager’s arms.
We gave them ridiculous names because they weren’t going to live. Rufus. The Magician (he would just randomly teleport from one end of the playpen to the other). Spunky. Parker (which was actually Parkour because he climbed everything).
And Extra Crunchy. Because he was covered in formula, cat food and feces. After all, no one had taught him how to groom and no one had groomed him.
Extra Crunchy is currently at Chaar Pet Store in Forks Township.
On Friday, the teenager plans to bring him home for a bath and grooming before Saturday’s adoption event.
In addition to that, my hip is acting up and I don’t have a chiropractor appointment for two weeks. So I’m trying a whole lot of stretches.
The pain got worse throughout the day, and I accepted the offer to leave work at 3 when they announced VTO. I picked my own cart to start this morning, which meant I had a 3,000 step walk first thing in the morning. And by the end of the day, I had shipped 380 items, which, by my calculations is 108.5%.
Yesterday was a good day at work. I worked all ten hours and packaged 561 items. I came home achy, but not in a horrible way.
Then, today I woke stiff with my bones burning. The temperature had dropped 20 degrees and I thought maybe that had caused the issues in my joints.
I had that feeling — I’ve mentioned it before in my posts about my life with cerebral palsy— that my right leg was not in the hip socket all the way. It didn’t hurt, not really, but the persistent sensation left me queasy and close to vomiting.
The feeling in my hip changed a lot throughout the morning and as the awkwardness and instability in my right leg changed, my lower back began to burn.
Then one of the process leads came around the warehouse offering an early out for all of us— so I told her… I’d like to call my chiropractor, and take the early out.
So I called Dr. Jensen of Back in Line and she, herself, answered the phone.
“I don’t know if you have the time or the interest to see me today,” I said as I explained everything.
She wanted to see me.
So despite the fact that I did 112% in my job yesterday and I believe 105% in QC today, I went to the chiropractor and had a grueling appointment. Things popped. Body parts screamed.
My body still aches— but now my bones no longer feel like they are grinding or that they are pointing the wrong direction.
First, let me start this blog entry at the end— with the pizza the teenager and I shared at Nicolosi’s.
Second, I will discuss my performance at the warehouse this week and how my body has felt now that the splinter-wound has finally healed.
So come for the food and stay for the disability talk if you desire.
It’s been at least two weeks since Nicolosi’s in Forks Township started advertising “pizza flights” on Facebook.
Now, as the teenager’s father will confirm, I love trying pizza. He and I once did a pizza tour where I ranked every pizza on a long list of qualities. This was probably 25 years ago.
When Nicolosi’s started advertising these flights— four of their specialty pizzas combined in one square pie for $20– I knew I had to try one. That’s two generous pieces of each variety you choose.
The teenager let me choose so I tried to pick flavors that would appeal to her, too: (Clockwise from top left) Eggplant parmigiana, pierogie pizza without the onions, chicken parmigiana and chicken-bacon-ranch.
I was not prepared for the Halloween decor, like the zombie pizza man, horror movie posters and plush toys from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I was prepared however for the deliciousness.
My favorite (which surprised me) was the eggplant. The staff was super friendly. The place was simple but also strongly quirky. And all of these things make me very excited to go back.
Next time, I’m ordering the garlic knots in vodka sauce and the cannoli dessert pizza.
And now an update on the random things:
Nala is doing well.The teenager bought me the obscenely large mug from Staples. Click the photo to read about the original attraction to the mug.I had cookies and milk at work.
Now the more serious stuff…
If you’re new here… I am in my mid-40s trying to learn how to age well with my cerebral palsy which impacts the control and structure of my legs.
As you may recall if you read my previous blog post, I had a great workout Saturday and spent the day showing my college roommate around downtown Easton.
On Sunday I woke up and my wound in the ball of my foot (from my splinter) had healed. I performed at 95% in Freestyle at work that day primarily because my printer and my computer wouldn’t cooperate and I lost 20 minutes trying to fix it.
Monday I was achy but managed to work my full 10-hour shift AND hit 100%.
But I was hurting a bit. Primarily my back. So I changed shoes and went to work Tuesday only to have my spine and both my legs start burning intensely. I still managed to hit 97%.
And I had two small falls at home yesterday.
I woke up hurting in my spine and hip. And anxiety plagued me wondering what the day would bring. I felt much better— but my right hip is uncomfortable. Fairly badly uncomfortable. But I finished my 10-hour shift and by my calculations I had 95%.
Tomorrow I visit my podiatrist. We’ll see what input he has.
Today started as an average day in the Bizzy Hizzy. This was welcome in my world as we changed the clocks last night— so as far as my body was concerned it was 3:45 a.m. when my morning alarm sounded.
Yesterday they didn’t open the warehouse because of the predictions of the sloppy winter storm.
I performed as expected in Freestyle, meeting the pace they like us to keep. We ran out of work, so I went out to pick. Now, picking is the act of running through the warehouse gathering clothes. A normal cart for picking fixes holds 40 items. A direct buy cart holds 80. I picked my batch is 41 minutes. That’s pretty good.
But somehow I also managed to ship 515 items— when the goal for a 10 hour day is 500, and I left the department for 45 minutes.
I also learned from the supervisor that I have successfully made it onto the safety team.
The teenager said I could have a cupcake to celebrate.
My lead at work has started calling me a beast— basically because for two days in a row I think I’ve hit 110% of the daily metrics. But he also mentioned it when I lifted a heavy box (probably 35 or 40 lbs) from the floor and carried it to my work station.
At the moment it happened, the phrase irked me and I wanted to take some time and think about why.
I know he meant it as a compliment, in that same way we celebrate achievements in sports or the gym. But that’s not how it felt.
It felt like he underestimates what I am capable of because he knows I have a disability— but he doesn’t know I work out with a personal trainer. He doesn’t know I considered body building a hobby. He doesn’t know I used to take 1,000 pounds worth of boxes like that into a commercial kitchen’s freezer.
I am a beast. And I hope this good spell lasts long enough to figure out what to do if the issues return.
But I am a beast just for getting up and going to that warehouse on days that I hurt.
It takes way more “beast” to perform on a bad day versus a good one.
Angel Ackerman 