Weekly Mileage #180 and the ER Trip

Sunshine keeps tucking her in, and she happened to be playing with her pink bunny, which made a cute picture :)

Monday was a busy day. School work, grocery shopping, bill paying, etc.

I heard Ocean hollering for help outside, and when I went out, I found him like this.

He's usually quite fearless, so I asked him why he didn't hop down. "There's poison ivy down there!" There wasn't, but there were prickle vines that would have hurt his bare feet.

We finally received Jeremy's VA paperwork in the mail. They can't find his health records from when he was in the National Guard (they seem to have gotten lost when he transferred to the Reserves), so they're currently basing his disability strictly on his PTSD, and it's at 30%. The rest of his service-related issues are deferred, pending an exam (which hasn't happened yet because of the pandemic) and evaluation of his health records. If we can't find them, we can use paperwork from civilian doctors who've treated him and buddies familiar with the injuries, but that's a lot more legwork, so hopefully we won't have to go that route. His rating will probably increase, since it doesn't take into account his back (or the other issues being considered, but those aren't as bad as his back).

Tuesday after music lessons I had a telehealth appointment with my sleep doc. I asked about possible cataplexy, as I'm pretty sure I have it. Thankfully it's just when I laugh really deeply- I can't breathe for about a minute, which could be a cataplectic reaction. It's different from the usual leg and arm weakness that you usually hear about, but since it's related to emotions, she thinks it's most likely cataplexy.

I also asked about the problems with heat regulation. If it was at night time, then yes, it would be because of narcolepsy since REM influences heat regulation and night sweats are common. Daytime issues are probably not related to narcolepsy. So who knows what's going on there. Not the answer I was hoping for, but pretty much what I expected. I'll need to go to my regular doc to get some testing done to see if we can pinpoint what's going on.

After that, I asked about her writing the doctor's letter so I can get my National Parks Access pass (for people with permanent disabilities), and she said she'd do that for me. She hadn't had any ask her to do it and she said she'd mention it to some of her other patients.

more puppy snuggles

That afternoon I had an IEP amendment meeting to allow Ocean to have online speech therapy twice a week- if it's not in the IEP, it doesn't happen. His previous IEP was for once a week in person.

I had an unplanned ER trip around dinnertime. I was cutting some leather and not being as aware of blood bubble as I should have been (in hindsight, I think it was because I was cutting on the left side of the piece of leather, rather than on the right, which is my dominant side). I sliced a chunk right off the side of my left ring finger. Jeremy was worried about how much it was bleeding (I sure wasn't doing the doctoring- I was focusing on not passing out), so he drove me to the ER while Sunshine fed the boys dinner.

Jeremy had to wait in the car, but I was seen right away. No stitches, which we knew would be the case since there's nothing to stitch together. They did soak the wound in TXA solution to help it stop bleeding, though it had already slowed down a lot by then. They bandaged it up and we headed home. It hurts, but some ibuprofen helped with the pain and I slept without any problems.

Wednesday Jeremy called the VA to ask some questions and found out that none of his dependents were in his file. They added all of us, so now he'll receive the person with dependents rate rather than the single person rate.

I did some leatherwork and paid closer attention to what I was doing.

It is a bit disconcerting that I cut myself so badly. I'm usually much more spatially aware when I'm cutting leather. I know I have spatial awareness issues (pretty sure it's because of the narcolepsy- it seems to be common issue among narcoleptics), so I work hard to be more aware in situations where I could get injured- trail running, leather work, etc. I guess I need a little more work in this area, though.

massive bandage for the first 36 hours, then I downgraded to bandaids and neosporin

A silver lining to cutting myself: I realized that I need to talk to a lawyer and get a liability waiver worked up and include that in the signup process for my leatherwork class. I already planned to teach knife safety as the first module, but hadn't considered the importance of a liability waiver.

I got my letter from my sleep doc (super fast!) and now I just need to submit it.

I still sometimes have a hard time accepting the label of disabled. Labels don't define us, but the health issues that lead to that label do define what we can physically do. With Jeremy's disability stuff coming through this week as well, we've been talking about it a bit. Accepting that our bodies are broken and we'll never be able to do the things we could 14 years ago (in Jeremy's case, it's 21 years for me) isn't easy. Never mind that our bodies are getting older- we're not that old and without our issues we would still be able to be active. It's frustrating to have limits forced on us. I push back against them as much as possible, but the reality is that I am limited and if I push too hard I will pay for it.

Thursday Jeremy and I went to Costco and Harbor Freight. I got a tabletop 6 ton pneumatic press for my leatherwork and we stocked up on sale items at Costco. Jeremy came along to help carry stuff since my finger was pretty sore still. :)

arbor press on the left, pneumatic press on the right

I put the press together and tried it out, and I'm so glad I got it. I've been using the arbor press to try to press my makers mark into leather, but I just can't get enough torque and enough pressure to press the mark in properly. The new press does it so easily. The arbor press isn't a complete loss- I use it for punching holes and such, so it will stay on my work table. I put velcro dots on the back of my brass marks and the end of the press bar and everything stays in place.

arbor pressed mark on the left, pneumatic pressed mark on the right

I did hit a roadblock with my sewing machine I bent a needle while sewing in reverse, which this machine doesn't like doing, and boogered up the needle plate- it's now shredding my thread. I ordered a replacement, but it won't be here till Tuesday.

Friday we went to a friend's house for the kids to play. We met with another friend as well, who is the teacher for our online seminary class. Seminary starts on Tuesday! There will be a zoom class once a week, probably Monday morning, then they work on their own the rest of the week. My plan is to use it as our scripture study, but we'll have to see how it goes.

Weekly Mileage
total- 0 miles

2020 totals

29 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

166.79 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
22.50 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
250.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
439.29 miles total