Category: Adulting

A couple years ago, I posted about my first MRI experience, which was for my hip. While I found the sound variance fascinating with a headset, this week, I experienced an MRI without one, and it was definitely annoyingly loud at various stages, even with the earplugs they provided. When it wasn’t too jarring, I was – as I was concerned about in my previous experience – bored.

I understand why I didn’t have a headset this time. Technically, I had two MRIs back-to-back: one of my spine and one of my brain. It’s safe to assume that they don’t want a headset showing up while scanning your head.

Good news! No concerns at all about my brain. Well, at least not on an MRI.

Bad news! We’re back to arthritis in my neck being the likely cause of the tingling in my fingertips that I have been experiencing since May. The EKG I mentioned back in July that was checking for nerve damage/carpal tunnel showed nothing significant, which led to me seeing my Primary Care Physician (PCP), who then referred me to Neurology.

On the plus side, the neurologist is amazing – attentive, taking notes, looking up possibilities while we were talking about my symptoms and eliminating options based on symptoms that I don’t have. She called me within a couple hours of the MRI results hitting the system to discuss what I should try next. I’ll schedule a follow up with her in a month or so to discuss the effectiveness of the latest possible solution.

Near the end of May, I visited the Orthopedics department at my medical group to assess a new problem in my right hand – my fingertips were intermittently numb. A couple days earlier, I had been discussing that problem with a pair of people who had similar symptoms dealt with, and in each case, it was related to carpal tunnel. I received a carpal tunnel diagnosis years ago, so it made sense that these new symptoms could be related.

And yet, when I saw the doctor and mentioned my carpal tunnel, instead of being sent for an EKG – apparently the only accurate way to diagnose carpal tunnel and determine the severity – I was sent to a month of Physical Therapy (PT) on the possibility that the arthritis in my neck was causing the numbness. Here I am, eight PT sessions later – with out of pocket expenses and eight gardening mornings lost – scheduled for an EKG a couple weeks from now.

I’m not clear on the decision making process here, though I suspect the bureaucracy of insurance is part of it, opting for the presumably cheaper PT instead of another test. (I’ll know for sure which is cheaper once I see the billing.) I am disappointed in the process, having to wait more than two months from my initial appointment to possibly discover the cause, and having lost so much gardening time.

It’s been a weirdly busy week, including a physical therapy appointment this morning, and I suddenly realized it’s Thursday evening and I haven’t written a blog post yet. I did make art, a couple versions, over the last couple days, but I’m not ready to share them. Zuko left a scratch on my leg Monday when he launched himself at Arwen, Arwen fell off the bed Wednesday morning and hooked into my left elbow to catch herself, and I appear to have encountered poison ivy last weekend, at least according to my right wrist.

That’s the long-winded way of saying I’m taking this week off.

I took a sick day this week. I woke up a couple times during the night feeling poorly, then a couple hours before my alarm that morning, unable to get back to sleep. I dragged my way towards breakfast and realized that I would have a terrible day if I attempted to work. I commuted my way to the living room, booted up my work computer, send out some “I’m sick” messages to team channels, posted an out of office message, and logged out.

I hesitated though, in making that decision, and I realize that’s a flaw in our system. In elementary school, we had awards for “perfect attendance” (it didn’t count excused absences, which I wondered about when I received one), though if you think about it, that’s mostly an award for your parent calling in when you’re absent. As an adult, my early jobs didn’t involve e-mail, so calling in sick was actually calling someone and hoping they didn’t object. (I don’t recall it being a problem, though there was one time when my car wasn’t working where I was asked if I had another way to get into work.)

We shouldn’t have to justify sick days. If anything, people should be encouraged to take them, paid, to avoid sharing their illness with co-workers and, depending on the job, customers. In my case, working remotely, I have to be fairly miserable to call in sick. Fortunately, my boss understands that sick days exist to be used when needed and has never questioned my need to use one.

More specifically, the satisfaction from successfully adulting is weird. I suppose some parts seem more obvious than others, like finishing my holiday shopping early, and having holiday cards in the house already. (A few have made it to the mailbox.)

But there’s the glee of having a new oven and stove, and it hits on several levels. The old oven had an intermittent heat sensor issue which occasionally made baking frustrating. It was the last major appliance in the kitchen from the previous owner, and we wanted to replace it before it forced us to (unlike the dishwasher and refrigerator). The new one is marketed as accessible; the major change from our previous one is that most of the pieces that can be removed are dishwasher safe. And, to my budget’s immense satisfaction, the range was purchased with a Costco gift card.

Now we’re hitting several celebratory firsts… each of those favorite dishes like the first pizza in the new oven, and the first pancakes on the built-in griddle. Yes, that center section of the stove is actually a griddle-shaped burner with a custom-sized griddle! See, that’s one of those weirdly satisfying bits from adulting, along with the warning beep a minute before the timer finishes.

That satisfaction comes from smaller things too, like the new-to-us set of craft drawers, or replacing the difficult to access garage light bulb. And it definitely comes from the new shower head that I installed in the master bathroom. Who knew there was so much water pressure? And the shower draws warm water faster… because there’s more water pressure!

‘Well, that’s a cute idea,’ I thought, when I spotted journals for childhood memories labelled for parents and grandparents. It’s not the first time I’ve bought something like this; I gave my father something along these lines a couple years before he passed away. I don’t believe he used it, so it’s my mother’s to fill in now. This is, however, the first time I considered buying one for myself as we were picking up two Grandma ones (same questions!) to share.

Since I bought it in September, it made sense to start at that date, rather than filling in from the beginning. Oops, I cropped the dates out when I took the photo… rest assured, the questions about Halloween are around that date, not back in January. I’ve taken to reading a question ahead, then setting the journal down to think about it for a while before answering. The questions for September are largely about school, all the way from elementary to high school, and I’ve found myself thinking about things that while not forgotten, are rarely reflected on in my current life. Oddly, it has a bit of a calming effect in what has been a chaotic year of home improvement, convention planning (huh… apparently I haven’t written about co-chairing next year’s Capricon yet), and changes at work.

Whether you find a pre-printed book, one of those online options that provide a prompt every day, or just a blank journal, consider writing down your memories to share with your family. Our lives have changed so much with the advent of household technology that our reflections on the past will be a window into how life has changed.