Category: Adulting

Growing up, most girls will learn about menstruation either from their parents (usually their mother) or their school system. That presentation can be at varying levels of enthusiasm based on cultural significance, among other things, such as the outdated “you’re a woman now!” concept. Bleh.

But nobody in my age group seems to have gotten the perimenopause talk. Part of that may be because of social norms that discouraged talking about menstruation, even more so for older women, and some because our mothers may not have reached that stage at the point when they were sharing the menstruation talk. All of this came to mind when I saw this BBC article about menopause today… older women are quitting their jobs because the system isn’t set up to support the changes we’re going through. The lady featured in this article said “She suffered with night sweats, heart palpitations and migraines that left her feeling weak and lethargic.” She quit because her management didn’t provide the necessary support to deal with those changes.

Like other people I know, perimenopause brought irregular periods – sometimes more frequent, sometimes less, usually heavier that before – which makes preparing for them difficult. When I still worked in an office, I gave up on planning and always carried supplies with me. Hot flashes led to clearing out any turtlenecks in my closet; I was too warm wearing them and the higher neckline made my throat feel constrained. There was a period when my breathe would catch at random intervals; while I received a prescription to deal with it, the doctor didn’t actually mention that it was common during perimenopause.

As to night sweats, well, it’s hard to tell whether that’s hormonal when multiple cats are sleeping on the bed. It’s probably a mix.

Spam has become pervasive for those of us with an online presence. Unlike my friend John, I’ve never tried making haikus from it, though I do have to laugh at how wildly untargeted some of the spam is. In this particular case, I’m focusing on comments posted to my blog – none of which you see because I have always had the comments set to moderated. I thought I’d break down some of them for educational and entertainment value.

Allegedly from a Gmail account, consistent enough to sign with the same name as the account (while not someone I know): “It’s been a while, but I just read an article online about momsguidetothegalaxy.com and thought it was important to message you guys to disprove this article. It seems like there’s some unfavorable news that could be detrimental.” This includes a shortened link, so the goal is for me to click through to their site. Interestingly, this and most of the recent spam are in response to an August post about Wordle and related games.

Is that Russian? “Ещё можно узнать:” Google Translate says yes. Most of that comment was links, the preview hover on them shows multiple websites that I also can’t read.

Dental hygiene relates to Wordle… how? “If you’re dealing with bleeding gums, tooth decay and sewage breath… And if the thought of eventually losing your teeth does not let you sleep at night… You need to know this.” Link is to a video I’m fairly certain I do not want to watch. There are a couple like this, with different openings.

OK, I kind of like this one: “mukRgDKpG” This reminds me of losing a credit card in college, which someone tested by buying a dollar of gasoline, cluing the bank into the loss. Presumably if this comment was allowed, more spammy comments would appear from the same source soon.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), podcasts to boost my audience, foot/nail fungus (ewww) miracle cures… it’s like there’s no limit to the subjects spammers will try.

Oh, excuse me, I must go reply to “You got 55 646 USD. Gо tо withdrаwаl => [plus URL]”… yes, that’s what they entered as their name. I’m so sure it’s legitimate that my eyes are rolling like dice.

Anyways, the lesson here is that spam is prolific and if you don’t know the person, don’t click on the link they sent you.

As I mentioned last week, I had surgery on my dominant hand. As you can imagine, that has made for an interesting few days, especially the first couple when my hand and forearm were bandaged.

I have for years been misusing the term “ambidextrous“. I’m not actually ambidextrous; I’m mixed-handed. This became an important distinction when one of my hands was temporarily out of commission. Ambidexterity is the ability to use both hands equally, which I definitely cannot do. I write and hold a fork left-handed, but crochet and hold a sword right-handed. Holding a fork right-handed, just for those first couple days of healing, felt unnatural, while crocheting left-handed seems awkward. Finger foods are fine on either side though. (Washing dishes one-handed was interesting too!)

Give it a try if you’re curious… stop and think about the item you’re about to use and see how it feels in your other hand.

First of all, no before photo in this post… I couldn’t capture the bump on the back of my left hand well for a before photo. The after photo is completely bandaged, so nothing gruesome.

Before

Back in October, before I went to Montreal, my hand started hurting… just a little… and I noticed a bump just before the wrist. It disappeared during that trip, then returned in full force after Dorkstock, to the point where I headed to Urgent Care (5 minutes away) right after work one day. They quickly diagnosed it as a ganglion cyst and referred me to Orthopedics.

“But Frances,” I can almost hear you say, “that was 4 months ago. Why are you just having surgery now?”

The answer is there’s a process to follow before surgery. First we tried anti-inflammatory medication, and when that didn’t eliminate the cyst (though it did reduce the pain), the doctor drained it. Well, tried to… the cyst wasn’t particularly cooperative with the initial needle or the larger one she used next, as neither one managed to puncture the cyst to remove content. Despite that, the bump and related pain lessened for a bit, and she instructed me to give it about 6 weeks and reach out to a colleague who specializes in hands and wrists if it returned. I scheduled that appointment immediately after Capricon, had a 5 -minute appointment with the doctor to confirm that I wanted to move forward with surgery, and scheduled it for the next available date, which was a month out at the time.

The day before, the office called to give me a specific appointment time mid-afternoon, and reviewed the things I should avoid going into that day: alcohol, lotions, jewelry are the primary ones that come to mind. Arrival time was an hour before surgery time.

Once there, it was a lot of waiting time. Wait to check in, wait briefly in the waiting room, then wait for most of an hour in my pre-op room until the doctor came by to inject something numbing into my hand. Once that had time to settle, I took a luxurious wheelchair ride to the operating room, where the view of my hand was completely blocked by a draped sheet. I could feel poking and prodding happening, but no pain, and then my hand was bandaged up.

After

After the procedure, I was wheeled back to my pre-op room, offered a snack, and told I could change back into my clothes once I was sure I was stable. At that point, my fingertips weren’t numb anymore, but the rest of my hand still was, including the knuckles and base of my fingers. It’s a weird sensation that lasted for hours; that area was still numb when I went to bed several hours later – and partially numb in the middle of the night.

By early morning, none of that numbness remained, though any pain is mostly limited to movement. Part of my release instructions are to move my fingers frequently, so I’ve experimented with different movements to see what’s comfortable. For example, typing sitting down is a bad angle for my wrist, but standing up seems to be OK. I’m also applying ice packs regularly and found a position at my work desk for keeping that hand elevated most of the time (including with an ice pack). The bandages stayed on for two days (coming off just before this post is live), and I have a follow-up appointment in just over a week to make sure it’s healing well.

In terms of other restrictions, well, the doctor said to listen to the hand… if something hurts, I’m probably not ready to do it yet.

As we come upon Super Tuesday and other primary dates, I thought it was important to mention that voting in primaries matters as much as voting in the general elections. Like with the general elections, there are local races that are probably not getting much press that you should absolutely pay attention to.

Let’s start at the top. If you use Ballotpedia to create a sample ballot based on your voting address, you should see the federal elections (in my case, Presidential and Congressional district candidates) and state races (Senate and House of Representatives). I’m (not surprisingly) voting in the Democratic Party primary, so without Ballotpedia, I wouldn’t have realized that our incumbent state representative has no primary candidates from other parties. When we bought this house in 2016, I noticed in that general election that several positions only had Republican candidates, so this is definitely a shift. If there’s one thing you can give the previous President credit for, it was galvanizing people to run for office at all levels because of how offensive he was (well, is).

And that’s where Ballotpedia stops for me. It says there are 4 candidate races on my ballot, so I have to research the county and township races somewhere else. Most of the primary candidates at this level are both incumbents and running unopposed, leaving only one race I feel I should research: the county recorder. Since the local races are the ones that will have a more direct impact on me – they influence property taxes, school and library boards, and such (though I still don’t know why county coroner is an elected position) – I’ll take the time to look up these two candidates before completing my mail-in ballot.

As I age, my doctor has begun throwing about terms like colonoscopy and shingles vaccine. The colonoscopy discussion started a couple years ago, before the recommended age for them was lowered, and we agreed I’d do take home tests until I hit the half century mark. The take home alternates to colonoscopies have, I’m sure, more formal names, but are commonly referred to as “shit kits.” I would, my doctor informed me, be sending a sample bowel movement to a laboratory. It’s only getting more detailed from here, so feel free to quit and come back next week for less stinky content.

I was surprised at how small the package was the first time I brought one of the kits home. As it turns out, that particular kit style only wants a small sample… but across multiple days. They provided some sturdy paper to place under yourself (held in place by the toilet seat), wooden sticks to scrape off a sample, and three foldable sample cards which get folded back to closed after you let the sample dry. Ewww, right? An important note is that you need to write your personal information and date on the outside of each card, preferably before adding the sample. Once all three samples have been collected and dried, you drop them into the provided plastic envelope, seal it, slap a stamp on it, and put it with the outgoing mail.

This year’s kit is fancier, a bit closer to what I originally expected – and the test results are supposed to be good for three years. It’s shipped from the testing company and the same box is used to return the sample. There’s a zipped bag inside the box, along with a toilet seat insert, a sealed container for the sample (that fits into the seat insert), a test tube with some liquid in it, and another container with liquid that will be added to the sample. Plus two instruction books: the big one, which includes step-by-step instructions with illustrations (in English & Spanish) and the little one that tells you how to ship the kit back.

The basic process is similar to the previous years: poop, catch it, package it up. Despite the bigger packaging, it’s actually simpler because it’s a single day’s sample and it gets sealed up immediately instead of dried. The little test tube has a stick that comes out and gets a small sample before the other container of liquid gets poured into the main container, and the instructions are clear as to the order everything needs to happen in. Once re-bundled, the company provides a link to schedule the package pick-up, so you don’t even need to leave your house.

If you’re approaching an appropriate age, consider asking your doctor about a take home kit to check for colon cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, there’s been an increase in colon cancer rates, particularly in younger adults, so every opportunity you have for early detection is a good idea.