Deaf, dumb, blind and lame, but strangely happy nonetheless

Oh dear, two weeks have passed without a post from me. What a slacker. My excuse for not writing last weekend is that I was planning and throwing a party. My landlady was out of town for three weeks, and she said it would be okay if I had a small party while she was gone. So I invited about twelve women to come over last Sunday for food and games. It was a lot of fun, but I've decided that next time I have a party I'm going to make all of the food in advance so I don't have to spend half the party in the kitchen, cooking the pasta, dressing the salad, heating the bread. Even with that inconvenience, though, the party was fun. I love Victorian parlor games.

I kept meaning to write during the week this week, but somehow it just didn't happen. I don't like sitting at the computer because I've done something terrible to my ankle, which has kept me off my trampoline since Monday. It started the week before last, and was just a twinge, so I ignored it and kept jumping on my trampoline every morning until it became too painful to do so. Since it seemed to be getting worse, I went into the Urgent Care on Monday for an X-ray, fearing that by continuing to jump while in pain I may have done crucial damage. The doctor said I strained some ligaments, gave me an Ace bandage and told me to keep off it for a day or two. Well, okay, but it's been five days since then and the ankle is no better. It doesn't feel like ligaments to me. It feels like something is wrong with the joint, inside. Of course, my idiocy in having worn my new four-inch cutout booties to the meeting on Tuesday night probably didn't help. I felt no pain at all while I was wearing them, though. In fact, the pain was better when I had them on. And they're so cute that I just couldn't resist. The next day, though, when my ankle was worse, I vowed to eschew heels in favor of flats and to stay off my feet as much as possible until my ankle is healed, and that's what I've done ever since. Not that it's helped. The ankle is more swollen now than it's ever been, and a bruise has formed. If it's not significantly better by, say, Tuesday, I'll probably have to go back to the doctor. I really want to get back on my trampoline. I've noticed an increase in my irritability since I haven't been jumping.

I'm extra broke this pay period, but I'm not sure why. My only real extravagance, the cutout booties, I paid for with my credit card, so that didn't affect my bank account. I did buy a ticket to see Grizzly Bear at the Hollywood Palladium on the 20th of this month, but that wasn't enough to create dire poverty. I'm not sure what the cause is, but I'm on such a strict budget right now that I can't even afford the traditional post-ASC breakfast with my friend David tomorrow. ASC stands for Area Service Conference, and it's the monthly meeting of all of the local NA groups. I always have some sort of Area commitment, and at the moment I'm sitting on an ad hoc committee for the purpose of doing an Area-wide inventory, to see if there are improvements we can make in our efforts to serve NA and its members and groups, as well as the larger community. This means that I have to show up at the ASC every month and give a little speech. I always look forward to breakfast afterwards, and it's too bad that I can't go this month. Maybe David will take pity on me and buy me breakfast this time.

I would be able to go if I didn't have to go see the ophthalmologist on Tuesday to have my blurred vision checked out, but I need my breakfast money for the co-pay. The last couple of weeks I've noticed that my vision has been blurry, not all the time but often enough to be bothersome, so when I refilled my Interferon prescription last week I talked to a pharmacist about it. Sure enough, blurred vision is a side effect. The pharmacist said I should have it checked by an ophthalmologist, just to make sure it is, in fact, a side effect and not something else. I think it's a bit pointless, myself, but I talked to Judy about it and she insisted that I make the appointment. So, there goes another $20 co-pay and three and a half hours of missed work, just so I can be told that the blurred vision is a side effect.

The other side effect I'm having is that I bruise easily. A few weeks ago I started noticing little bruises all over the place, but I couldn't remember having bumped myself hard enough for a bruise to form. I thought I must be extra clumsy lately, but eventually it dawned on me that the slightest bump results in a bruise forming. I talked to Judy about the bruising and she said that it might be from taking Advil, which I take two or three times a week for headaches, and more often lately because of my ankle. I suppose the headaches must be a side effect as well because I never used to have to take Advil. I'm not sure why that only just occurred to me. Anyway, Judy said that if I don't mind going around looking like a battered woman, it won't hurt me to keep taking the Advil.

Since I didn't write last week I wasn't able to crow over the fact that I am now past the halfway point in my treatment. The second half began a week ago yesterday, so it's all downhill from here. Now that my lungs are behaving themselves, for the most part (I still have a bad lung day every so often, and my voice is still pretty thrashed), I don't really mind the treatment so much. And now that my thyroid levels are perfect, and have been for some time, I can see how much of my recent misery was caused by hypothyroidism and not by the Interferon treatment. Because I feel so great, physically, I have an irrepressible sense of well-being, most of the time. The well-being may also have something to do with my having completed step seven, but whatever the cause, I'm grateful for it.

Now the only thing I have to wish for is that my ankle would heal quickly so I can jump on my trampoline again.