downs and ups

weekdays are easier than weekends for me, at present. this afternoon we received word of my teammate's promotion, which i'm especially glad about because in the evaluations i posted before my surgery i suggested that he's ready and that makes it pretty clear that we're all aligned. the past week or so of work has been a real struggle, today had some rough spots but a couple of productive conversations were had that (metaphorically speaking) made the sun come out. gd lost her temper with mr smear this morning, but the outcome of the unpleasant event seems to be relatively positive. i have a million things that need doing, but after a bit of mucking about i'm ready to do my physio exercises and go to bed early again. i'm not sleeping well, but i'm sleeping a bit and i'm grateful for it. gods, i really can't wait to be off crutches.

restless leg

i'm tired of being tired. my knee's generally doing alright but not when i'm supposed to be sleeping, and my hips and back are sore from the exercises and from compensating. i can't really get comfortable when i'm not in bed.

the last week was a bummer, i didn't get much in way of a sense of accomplishment and i fell off the caffeine wagon right back into heavy coffee drinking - which i suspect is partially responsible for my being on edge and restless. speaking of restless, i've been suffering from particularly bad rls the last couple of days.

the new bed was delivered yesterday, it's great but not enough to beat all these other contenders for my attention...

i'm actually finding weekends more difficult than workdays, to be honest. i've spent a lot of time alone with mr smear and it's frustrating not being able to play with him or take him out to do stuff. it's also hard dealing with a boundary-pusher who knows i can't chase him around.

having said that, i've found a few great games for the ps3 and he's been playing really well with me. at least that.

gd and i had a fight the other day that i found quite demoralizing, in that i've been re-evaluating since and i'm really not sure how to be effective in communicating the things that are important to me. i feel like nobody cares what i have to say, even when they know i'm right, and especially if they're close to me.

suboptimal

today was a long day. some of it was immensely gratifying - in particular gaming with mr smear* - and some of it was exhausting, in spite of me doing very little. i tried to be productive, i tried to make some progress with the next podcast episode, but when i wasn't trying to keep mr smear occupied or looking after my knee i found it very difficult to focus.

i did make a couple of health insurance claims, though, which was a big deal.

things that got me through the day: returning to braid, fiddling with a couple of levels of 7 billion humans, and a little bit more of a song of ice and fire. and the unframed ice-cream that my mom brought home. and a hot shower when i was freezing.

and now to do my exercises and go to bed. hopefully i'll sleep.

* i find it very sad that mixed-up mother goose no longer works on a mac. i really loved how mr smear responded to it and because we're forced to play the html5 port i was worried that we couldn't save our progress. while writing this i realized i hadn't actually tried, and lo! progress saved. i don't know how they made that work, but i'm very grateful!

back to the office

one week later. feeling better, we might possibly be returning to our home today. still barely sleeping, although last night was an improvement.

gd and i have had some frustrating fights over the past couple of days, but i think we're doing okay. she's been sick as well as recovering while i've just been recovering, which has introduced some unnecessary tensions...

... it looks like we'll be renewing our apartment lease, which is good. it was my mom's birthday this week, we took her to balducci's and had a really good evening. now praying that the spa i bought her a voucher for honours our agreement and lets her go whenever she actually wants to (if the voucher you're selling online expires, shouldn't you mention that before the purchase is complete?)

my physio seems to be going well, but some of the elements really hurt. and i've been promised that it's going to get a lot more painful before it gets better.

i've been back in the office since wednesday morning, and i'm SO much happier. not only does sharing the same physical space with my teammates make a big difference, but our temporary offices are beautiful and we have an excellent view of table mountain, in contrast to the view of my last three weeks (and right now) which is the buildings across the road. by tuesday evening i was starting to lose my mind and i actually had to hobble outside and spend five minutes staring at the sun. and being jealous of the beachfront joggers.

we got a message from mr smear's teacher on thursday morning that seriously upset me: not only did they have what was effectively an easter egg hunt for lag ba'omer - wtf?! - but "the dairy lady" is visiting the school on wednesday to indoctrinate the three and four year olds into believing that dairy is good for children, which it most certainly isn't. it's sheer insanity, it's 2019 and there's no need to push unhealthy, unethical and unsustainable habits on defenseless kids.

ah, mr smear and i have been playing old-school computer games together since yesterday and really enjoying ourselves! in particular, mixed-up mother goose, super solvers midnight rescue, pac-man and stunts.

most important takeaway for the week: i'm really, really happy with my new job. i've been doing it for three months already, i'm getting a bit more of a handle on things, and they seem to be happy with me too. i'm feeling particularly fortunate right now.

back to work

some of this past week went well! and some of it not so well. i've been generally exhausted but muddling through with work (with varying degrees of success), and been too utterly exhausted and uninspired to make any progress with my personal projects.

mr smear has been all over the place this week, we've had some successful moments and we've had some very unpleasant failures. gd's been getting progressively better, i've been feeling... i've started physio, so i guess that's something. i'm still struggling to sleep and this weekend i've almost exclusively spent sitting on the couch doing *nothing*.

and not for lack of trying.

the hatred i bear crutches

i've been recovering from my surgery for two weeks now, and for this past week i've been so uncomfortable and sore that i've barely been able to sleep at night. i've frequently been getting up wobbly, due primarily to exhaustion or being half-asleep, and about fifteen minutes ago i got up when i heard mr smear calling for me and lost my balance.

lost. my. fucking. balance.

i fell right onto my right foot and hit my knee with my full weight, suddenly and violently. the pain was extreme but pales in comparison to how devastatingly demoralizing it is that i might be set back, whether lightly by a couple of weeks or seriously by another surgery.

gd's never seen me ugly-cry before tonight. i'm currently sitting in shock, wondering how i'm going to be functional in the morning and praying with every fibre of my being that this doesn't mean more time off work and unable to be a functional parent.

weekend survival mode

friday 17th:

another sleepless night. getting it together to take the cleaning lady to the hospital to help get gd home, a long story with a very helpful uber driver and we were finally back at my mom's.

a delicious friday night dinner by gd's friend

saturday 18th:

gd and i both waking up around 4am with aches and pains and insomnias

starting the day with the lego movie - videogame, not sure whether mr smear was enjoying the experience as much as i did.

gd's friends taking mr smear to the park across the road and having a great time

a day of actual productivity (gd claiming it was hers for inducing me after her hypnotherapy class), working on my encryption solution and getting through a good chunk of research for the next podcast episode.

watching flushed away with mr smear - what a fantastic film!

sunday 19th:

finishing another episode of game of thrones before 1am, gd and i waking up around 4am again

a tougher day as neither gd nor i were ready to deal with mr smear's level of energy. starting the day with more research and experimenting with war thunder (amazing) and dota 2 (cool, not doing that to myself).

our cousin dropping off her son and picking up mr smear to take him to see his first movie at the cinema, and me giving her son some tips and tricks for examination-conditions programming and running him through a practice exam. my sister rocking up for a quick visit, and then my son being returned with a fantastic report about him being perfectly behaved and loving the movie - although, like everything i'm interested in hearing about - refusing to tell me anything about the experience. "no, only mommy and granny!".

an interesting rehash of a decade-old conversation with my mum, a fiery indian curry dinner (gd needed to have hers replaced, i just ate in tears), completing the podcast episode research and posting this and getting ready to get ready to return to work tomorrow.

busy

sleeping in a little, the joy of mr smear coming to play with me before going to school, gd's friend arriving to help out

taking an uber to the hospital, expecting to be there for a short time but ending up going to the pharmacy, waiting for a while with the rabbi, going on a mission to retrieve gd's belongings, eventually getting home pretty worn out

a giant delicious lunch while learning about the history leading up to the vietnam war on netflix, lying down for a bit while our cleaning lady picked up mr smear, her returning just as another friend came in to play with mr smear (with great success)

my mom coming in for dinner, then paying gd a visit (doing much better)

mr smear passing out on the way home, showering, messing about on social media for a while and then receiving a distressing call from gd (a sister had hurt her with an injection that she hadn't wanted)

now to try to sleep.

verge of tears

i have literally just spent the entire night trying and failing to sleep. different pillow configurations, even sleeping on my side, all abysmal failures. and now, just before 5am, i started settling and my leg started itching like crazy. i want to cry.

the past three days have been... rough. i tried to go back to work on monday, that turned out to be very ambitious and costly. the best part was trying to work from my late uncle's apartment upstairs and being locked out of my mom's apartment.

on tuesday i saw the surgeon, who assured me that he'd warned me that i'd need at least two weeks off. mr smear had been cagey and grumpy for a while, and tuesday afternoon he actually arrived at my bed and wanted to play with me which was wonderful.

yesterday gd went in to the hospital for her back surgery. i got some rest in the morning, and was feeling much better for the first time since my surgery, in the afternoon a whole bunch of things all happened at the same time (in particular an uber fail) which caused some stress, then gd's friend arrived to give us a hand just before mr smear woke up from his nap.

he wasn't just grumpy... he cried and tantrumed and behaved abominably for an hour and a half because he wanted his mommy, and it wasn't until my mother arrived that calmed down. i must have spent half an hour of that just consoling him, which was fine, but at one point he was behaving so badly that i literally had to chase him and put him in timeout - on one leg, which physically messed me up and set me back at least a few days.

we went to visit gd in high care at the hospital, apparently the surgery went well but she was very sore and uncomfortable. hopefully she had a better night.

happy mother's day

yesterday was long. the tough mission of the day was going to a family friend's kid's barmitzvah with my mom, i was really glad we went but about halfway through i felt like death, like the slow-release morphine has all released at the same time, and it wasn't until we eventually got back to my mom's that i started feeling less awful. and of course, we had to stop at home to see why people were complaining about us having clothing on our balcony - which we didn't.

it was a long, mindless day of watching videos and being uncomfortable. in the evening, mr smear hurt himself, and was afterwards lying next to me when he suddenly threw up all over the bed. this led to some real drama when gd gave me shit because i, heavily medicated and unable to put weight on my leg, wasn't jumping up to carry mr smear or clear the bedsheets. unfortunately, my angry response upset mr smear and for that i feel really bad.

my mom took gd and mr smear to the hospital to make sure there wasn't anything interesting going on, and the rest of my evening continued just like the day. at some point i realized that the quadriceps of my damaged leg are completely wrecked, i'm going to have to take that up with my surgeon and the physio this week.

most of last night was okay, i think? but there were still a few very difficult periods. i haven't been able to focus long enough to read, really, so for days now all i've been doing is haunting reddit and watching youtube videos.

...

last night's drama is still heavy, but i am (intellectually, at least) very grateful to my wife for everything she's been doing to take care of her boys these past few weeks. and i'm exceedingly grateful to my mother, it's been a long time since i was last completely useless and i don't know what we'd do without her.

where you gonna go?

omg, after an age of discomfort i literally got out of bed, hopped to the lounge on my crutches and then realized that there's no way i can physically escape these sensations.

whine

i hate morphine. and codeine. and imperfect beds (though this one *is* better than ours). i hate feeling like my hips are one complex interaction of a variety of cramps. i hate constipation (thanks, morphine), and that sense of uncertainty after five days that i even need to go to the toilet.

achievements for the day: paying some medical bills, completing and signing forms for gd's surgery, watching a large chunk of videos that were on my "watch later" playlist, getting more confident with my physio exercises, eating (gd's dinner was good, my appetite was not), and playing some mindless games with mr smear for a bit.

oh, and the itching. i HATE the itching.

better?

it's almost 6am, i think i've spent at least a few hours in agonizing discomfort trying desperately to rearrange myself, stretch, and not damage my new knee. not knowing what's actually going on under the brace and bandages doesn't help, every motion feels like i'm tearing something (even if i "know" it isn't), and these three pillows i'm raising my leg with feel insufficient to say the least.

i do feel better for having showered yesterday, although that was logistically a horrible experience and sparked some tension.

aside from gd's dedication and efforts, mr smear has been doing a bit of show-stealing of late. gd and i have been disagreeing about discipline over the past few years, and recently it appears that we've finally hit the same page just with different techniques, and it feels like we're onto a more optimal path.

one very long day

i started fasting on monday morning just before 7am, anticipating being wheeled into the theatre around 2pm. i hung around, uncomfortable, in my mother's office until 10.30am and then she drove me to the day hospital. checked in at 11.30am, learned that my 2-hour surgery was scheduled for 4pm. great start to the day.

at least i had a game of thrones to keep me company, i haven't made nearly as much headway as i should've but i'm enjoyed reading it at least as much as i enjoyed watching the first season.

the morning and afternoon dragged on, i chatted with the physio, with the doctors, with the anesthetist. that last one, it turned out, didn't give a damn what i had to say and ended up giving me a cocktail that thoroughly messed me up to the point where the other doctors were scratching their heads. instead of going home post-op, i scored a trip in the ambulance to the ER because i wasn't breathing properly. between a CT scan, interesting meds and clumsily trying to describe a doctor in a way that made the actual doctor feel like i was disrespecting her, i had a busy night - i was really grateful that my mom was there for everything.

and because drama, the ER team completely mischaracterized my entry in a way that if my mom hadn't caught it, would have cost us a fortune.

tuesday:

i was admitted for the night, hooked up to a monitor, and spent my hours painfully struggling to get some sleep. i didn't get much.

i was all excited by the hospital's vegan menu, right until they brought me butter with it which called everything else into question. ffs.

best part of the week: i was talking to gd on the phone and asked to speak to mr smear, and, for the first time ever, the two of us had an actually conversation over the phone. he even asked me how my knee was! it was amazing.

my mom's friend picked me up from the hospital, we had an adventure getting out of the parking lot, i got home and went straight to bed.

right now - on thursday afternoon - is the first time i've been home and in the living room since.

the meds have messed me up - i *really* don't like morphine or codeine - and i've spent most of the past two days either reading or on social media. it's been real. and gd's back's been hurting her a lot, and mr smear's been sick, so it's all been very interesting.

wednesday:

the big adventure yesterday was going to vote. i'm glad i was able to, and i hope this country starts moving in a positive direction.

gd's revelation that we actually have family, friend and community support was very gratifying. we're both extremely grateful.

today:

i've been less uncomfortable, though still uncomfortable, and i really hope i'm doing my physio exercises right. on tuesday morning the surgeon was happy with my progress but without knowing what's actually happening inside it's all very mysterious. i can't put weight on my leg for the next six weeks, my brain's going to be all fuzzy at least until the end of the weekend, and i kinda want to do productive things but i also know i need to relax and just focus on healing.

having said that, the reason i'm up is because gd's passed out and mr smear has been asleep since he got home from school, so if i don't wake him up soon tonight's going to be *very* interesting.

temporarily moving out

it was a stressful day. my morning was relatively easy because being on crutches makes me functionally useless for most tasks, but gd had a rough day of packing and moving and spent a fair amount of time being irritated with me and the unfairness of it all. meanwhile, i managed to edit and upload my latest podcast episode on a sunday morning, which felt great, until about ten minutes ago when i realized that because of all the interference from gd and mr smear (she wanted my input on packing, he wanted to play), i published it to my test website and forgot to push it to production.

amazing.

we arrived here at my mom's to find ours and mr smear's friends, the four of us went to the park across the road which turned out to be serious work for me on my crutches and my bruised palms were really, really sore by the time we got back. our friend / my teammate spent a good chunk of the afternoon discussing work (she was really glad to learn that someone had stood up for the women in the office, we've all been dealing with someone who's... difficult... and a big part of our thursday talks were clarifying where the problem lies.

her husband arrived around the same time gd and my mom did, the afternoon and evening were largely fun but with the kids presenting a fair amount of frustration as well. dinner from great indian curries was superb. bathing here is more difficult than at home, but eventually we got mr smear into bed and i got my phone ready for tomorrow (ie. loaded with books for me to read), i've spent far too long getting the television at my cousins' place upstairs working for my mom only to realize that it wasn't worth it, and now, just after midnight, it's definitely time to turn in. we've got to be up at 6.30am to be out of here by 7.30, and i have to start my pre-general-anesthetic fast before 7. so no pressure.

not a clue what the near future will bring, so not even sure if it's worth being nervous. i hope everything turns out alright.

sitting all day

between gd's back and my knee, we stayed indoors all day. i spent most of the day in front of my computer, putting together this week's podcast, starting to read a game of thrones, eventually sending in another GAP insurance claim and finally recording the latest episode. we also watched all dogs go to heaven.

oh! and i've chatted with the illustrator, i believe i've come up with a way to sanitize the nsfw pages of the graphic novel without compromising them.

sitting down for long stretches is uncomfortable. lying for long stretches is uncomfortable. standing on one leg is uncomfortable. rls combined with any of them is supremely frustrating. i'm going to bed.

pages and pages

wednesday 1st may:

woke up wednesday morning at 1.30am panicking and sat for an hour and a half putting together a document defending my teammates. continued to sleep badly until woken up early to go with my mom and mr smear to the waterfront to get the car cleaned and buy trousers that i could wear over my knee brace. i took forever to find pants that weren't awful.

returned home to meet the car purchasers (professional outfit), the drove around for ten minutes and then gave my mother an offer that she was happy with, then hung around while contract and payment were sorted out.

then we all went out to balducci to celebrate my mom's impressing her boss, their vegan menu is excellent and the red thai curry was honestly one of the best curries i've ever tasted. pricey, but i would rather go there once than to a lesser restaurant twice.

we were *exhausted* when we got home, the rest of the afternoon / evening was survival mode. reading rumpelstiltskin to mr smear was fun, though.

we crashed halfway through the battle of winterfell.

thursday 2nd:

slept badly, woke up to the new page of the graphic novel! unfortunately, i didn't anticipate how much the nudity would complicated things with patreon... and i also didn't consider that that would make it difficult to get the graphic novel into high schools. it looks like i'm going to have to produce a censored version or something.

a long day at work filled with meetings with my managers and coworkers, untangling the drama and eventually ending up quite emotional once it had been solidly established that i'm in a really good team with understanding and supportive managers.

hurting my knee badly twice in one evening, chased with utter disappointment in the terrible execution of the third episode of game of thrones. palette cleansing with the final episode of love, death + robots before bed.

friday 3rd:

a long, uncomfortable night with a sore knee, starting to actually get some rest about an hour or two before alarm, dreams of disappointment wanting to rollerblade for the second time.

a slow start to the day (surgery bureaucracy and meetings), a great team lunch at royale, a long afternoon struggling with tooling - not the most satisfying end to the week.

a surprising phone backup discovery

a nice friday night dinner, a couple of episodes of last week tonight / early bedtime.

today:

another tough night, sleeping a bit but with a lot of movements and positions hurting my knee. mr smear waking up angry with gd for being out of bed, starting the day watching sing (brilliant)

late to bed, early to rise

i finished recording and editing around 1.15am, went to bed satisfied, slept decently and dreamed crazy dreams.

we all woke up early, i posted the new episode, paid some bills and then scrambled to get to the doctor on time, slowed down by ten minutes of frustration because i couldn't get signal for uber unless i stood in the rain.

after days of successfully keeping weight off my knee, i slipped at the entrance to the doctor's office and jammed all my weight down on it. i then learned that if it wasn't so clear that i'm not a heart attack risk (i'm vegan), what i suffered on sunday night would've sent me to the ICU. it was an angiospasm, triggered by anti-inflammatories and my hiatus hernia.

a positive morning at work, an easy lunch, a tough all-hands because until i shocked myself by visibly nodding off i just couldn't keep my eyes open. afterwards they served "snacks", just large quantities of three types of meat, and it made me so uncomfortable i just had to get out of there... i enjoyed a simple but exciting success, and then caught my teammate for a quick chat because she'd said something worrying last week.

a half hour or hour later i returned to my desk with a much better sense of my responsibilities in the team and with a really uncomfortable duty of taking measures to protect myself and my team from a really problematic situation.

my mom picked me up, we stopped at the pharmacy, sat over tea, and then she stopped over at our place for a bit. mr smear's bedtime was sweet (i need to properly translate goldilocks, on-the-fly was far from smooth), and after a brief interlude watching videos about venezuela we watched most of the second new episode of game of thrones.

stay at home dad

... everyone else got to go outside today. i barely got any sleep and while i'm definitely doing better than i was at 2am, it's still a bit difficult to breath and the swelling by the base of my skull is present and tender.

i spent today either working or lying in bed, half the time feeling worse lying down than the awful feeling i had not lying down. it was horrible. i'm glad and grateful that my office is supportive.

i had a chat with our neighbour, who took my news that we might not be interested in purchasing pretty well (not a good idea if we leave the country, and the more we think about it the more it seems like the right thing to do), and the hido arrived for a quick visit which was cool. a little more proud gaming with mr smear, then dinner; it took a while for my system to settle down to eat it. bath-time was good, we seem to be figuring out how to manage things, and bedtime was great (mr smear was really excited by my ending to the goldilocks story, but then a bit disappointed when he asked to see and it turned out she survived after all).

more awesome love, death + robots, and i've just finished recording the latest podcast episode. i'm not sure whether i should try editing it now or wait until tomorrow, i have a 9am appointment with the doctor...

pain x 2

on march 17th i posted about a band of pain around my chest, and between half an hour and an hour ago it just struck again, so intense i wasn't sure i wasn't having a heart attack. it seems to be a muscle spasming and putting pressure on the top of my spine and my neck, shoulders and chest into an intensely painful spin.