This Is My Brain On Drugs

For young ones who might not recognise the reference, "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" was the slogan for a series of anti-drug commercials from back in the 80s, suggesting that illegal drugs will scramble your brain.

While I'm waiting for treatment for the pinched nerve(s) in my back, I am taking some powerful medication (prescribed by my doctor) and it is indeed scrambling my brain.  That's one of the reasons I'm on sick leave; you wouldn't want to hear me try to teach through this haze!  Today I thought I'd share one an example of how this is affecting me.


First, I need to establish that I am an experienced and competent knitter.  Knitting has been a hobby for most of my life.  I can make socks that actually look nice and fit people's feet, and sweaters that people really do wear and enjoy, even when I'm not around.  I can even do "stranded knitting", which means juggling multiple balls of yarn of different colors to make pictures in the knitted fabric.

So when my back started acting up I thought "at least I have a hobby I love that I can do while sitting on my recliner".  And it's true; knitting has been a comfort at this time.  But it has also reinforced just how much the pills are slowing me down.


Recently I saw an item in our church bulletin about collecting things for people in the Merchant Marine.  One of the things they were looking for was knitted hats, mittens and scarves.  Apparently many people working on ships are not well-paid and are in great need of such items when they sail through cold regions of the ocean.  That sounded like a wonderful way to help others at a time when I am stuck at home and not able to do much.  Normally this sort of item is quite easy for me to knit up quickly.

Yesterday David drove me to Michaels to pick up some yarn.  I was looking for some thick yarn in order to make some warm items in a hurry, since the deadline is only a few weeks off.  Luckily they had some BIG cakes of chunky yarn at a reasonable price.

These things are huge -- more than half a pound of yarn each.  The yarn is of the "super bulky" variety, meaning you have to use big needles and you get about 3 stitches per inch.  Perfect for making nice warm stuff in a hurry.  I thought that one cake was probably enough for a hat/mittens/scarf set but decided to buy two.  And then I noticed they were having a "buy 2, get1 free" so I took home 3 cakes.  If I can't use up all three by the deadline I can make more for next year.

This was yesterday morning.  That afternoon I cast on a simple hat -- really just a tube that comes together at the top.  No complicated shaping.  And by the evening I had finished a large-sized adult hat and was feeling pretty pleased with myself:

A nice basic warm hat for someone in need to warmth.  I felt pretty good about that.

This morning right after breakfast I followed up by making a mitten:

I polished that off in just a couple of hours and was extremely pleased with myself.  Mittens are obviously more complicated in shape than hats and so they take more fiddling.  I have a favorite generic mitten pattern that tells you how to make a mitten to fit a particular hand using any kind of yarn.  This was thicker yarn than I had used before and I was aiming for a large adult male hand so I had to estimate up a little from my own hand size.  But I got it all to work and was happy with the result.  I even took careful notes so that I could make a second mitten to match the first.

I took some time off knitting and then picked up my yarn and needles in the later afternoon to make the second mitten.  Now comes the problem.  By this time of the day I've got a lot of pain medication in my system and my brain is mush.  I referred to my notes from the morning and cast on and nothing went right.  I ripped out the first attempt and tried again.  Still it didn't work and I couldn't figure out what I'd done wrong.  After several attempts to get more than a few inches of a mitten done without error I gave up in disgust.   After dinner I felt like knitting again but decided to start a scarf instead of trying anything more complicated.  That turned out to be a good decision.  A scarf is basically just a flat rectangle, so no shaping involved.  I chose an extremely simple stitch and got more than a foot of scarf done:

Lesson learned!  While I'm on these pain medications I need to work on simple projects in the evening and save the more interesting stuff for earlier in the day. 

Please don't misunderstand; I am very grateful for these pain pills.  Without them I was spending my time huddled up in a ball and crying with pain.  I will continue taking them faithfully until I get up to the front of the queue for treatment that can actually fix the problem.  But it is a very frustrating process.

Hat & Mittens & Church

Since starting my sick leave I have been devoting a lot of time to knitting.  I just finished a project that I've been meaning to do for ages: a hat and matching pair of mittens.  This is just in time because my favorite hat & mittens got lost at the end of last winter.  But I'd been meaning to make these anyway and it was fun to do.  Here they are:

Working on them helped pass the time as I'm needing to be pretty sedentary because of my back.  I've got lots of yarn left over and am planning to follow these things with a scarf. 

If you're a knitter and want to know about yarn and patterns, I'm marglamb on Ravelry (link).

My pain is less awful since I went on sick leave.  Being quiet really has helped.  But the pain is still a real issue.  I still need to be careful where & how I move and sit and still take the pain pills which make me tired and fuzzy. 

I went to church for the first time in quite a while.  It was really wonderful to be back after so long away!  I stayed away because sitting still in a church pews is torture for people with this kind of back issue -- even worse than most hard, straight chairs.  But our church is very understanding and our pastor encouraged me to feel free to move around and do whatever I needed to to be comfortable.  So I spent part of the service lying down on my yoga mat in the "prayer room" next to the sanctuary.  During another part of the service I stood up and stretched in the hall -- and ran into some old friends who were visiting from our of town with their new baby, who I hadn't gotten to meet yet.  That was a real treat!  And for more of the service I was able to get comfortable sitting sideways on a pew.  It was really good to be back, even if it required some creativity to keep from hurting myself.

Going to church was part of accepting that this back thing is a long-term issue and not just a short illness.  I can't live a completely normal life until it is resolved, but at least I can figure out some ways to do things that are important to me. 

OUCH!

Warning: This turned into a rather long post about my current health status.  You don't have to wade through it all.  Here is an executive summary: I am having serious back problems, I'm on sick leave, it's miserable but it can eventually be treated and fixed.  And in the meantime I'm miserable and grumpy but relieved to be off work for the duration.

I’ve had back pain on and off for years but it has always been manageable until recently. It started to get worse in the spring and I had an MRI, which showed two displaced vertebrae and some mild stenosis. My physio explained to me that both of these things can pinch the nerves around your back, which causes severe pain. My doctor’s office agreed to refer me to KOPI (local pain clinic), where I’m told they have some treatments that can really help this sort of pain, basically by convincing your nerves to shut up. So the outlook is hopeful but the waiting time is 3-6 months.

In July it suddenly escalated to the point where I was in excruciating pain all the time and could hardly walk. I called our doctor, who was unfortunately out of town, and I got an appointment with his locum. The nice young locum listened to my description of the pain and gave me some pills. He gave me a note for Queen’s telling them that I needed to do a lot of my work at home where I could be more comfortable. The pills took the pain from excruciating to only just bearable and the thought of 3-6 months was still pretty difficult. In computer geek terminology, it’s a FIFO (“first-in-first-out”) queue instead of a priority queue. People who hurt worse don’t get in faster. Even with the pills there is a lot of pain and, walking is difficult and so is standing and so is sitting in a regular chair. Something as simple as walking around the block or spending half an hour in an office chair is awful. The only way I’m even moderately comfortable is lying down or sitting in a recliner. And the pills cloud my mind so that mental tasks take twice as long as they should.

It was hard to face the start of school in this shape, especially with a half-mile walk between office and classroom and more walking to get to and from the bus. I explained my predicament to my students and held office hours right after class and then went home and managed everything else by e-mail – siting in my recliner with my laptop. It was really rough, not just because of the pain but because the pills made me so sleepy and forgetful. I felt like I was only barely keeping up and I knew the semester would get busier as it went along.

As I was getting more and more discouraged and miserable last week, my doctor’s office called. The real doctor was back and wanted to know how I was and if I’d like an appointment. Yes, please! He took me much more seriously. He examined me and discovered I have no reflexes in my left leg, which concerned him and scared me. He said “I’m surprised you’re still working” and said that besides the cognitive issues he worried a lot about my walking around campus in the colder weather that’s coming, where the sidewalks are often quite slippery. He referred me to a neurosurgeon, which really scared me until he said “don’t worry, nobody does back surgery any more!” and explained that the neurosurgeon was still the best person to evaluate my condition and make recommendations. He said he hardly ever referred patients to neurosurgeons but it was what I needed. That doctor will be able to see me much sooner than the pain clinic – “only” 1-2 months.

I went home and thought about all this for about 2 seconds and then sent a note to my department head explaining my situation and asking for sick leave. I expected guilt trips and stories about how “everybody has back pain now and then” and how there was no extra professor who could cover my course. But he was very kind and agreed right away that I needed sick leave. He has arranged for a visiting professor to teach my fall course and is also looking for someone to teach my winter course as well since it’s unlikely this will all be resolved before January.

I am at home full-time now and finding I feel much better already from being able to rest and stay in a more comfortable environment. And probably not from worrying about keeping up at work. The pain is still there but it’s bearable when I take it easy and take my pills. I’m still in the process of handing over course material to the new professor, but that will be done within a few more days and then I can rest as much as I need to and the mental fog won’t be such a difficult issue. I have never had to take a long leave from work before and the “Protestant work ethic” inside of me is trying to make me feel guilty, but I just feel grateful. I am enjoying not hurting nearly as much as I had been hurting when I had to be out and about.

I appreciate all the people who have been asking after me and praying for me. It’s not great, but it’s bearable and I have assurances that I will eventually get better. David is taking wonderful care of me. Things could be a lot worse. I’m just praying for patience and for an eventual resolution to all of this that gets me back to a fairly normal life. 

I am trying to practice gratitude.  I am thankful for:

• My recliner
• The pain pills
• My husband and daughter who put up with my complaining about the pain and who help me do things
• The dinners my husband cooks for us in spite of being very busy at his job
• My department head who understood
• Sick leave policy at Queen's.  Some people lose their job when they are sick for a long time
• Knitting
• Books
• Netflix 
• Music to listen to
• Friends who have e-mailed to tell me they miss me from work/church/choir.  I miss you too!

Halloween Weather

I don't have any Tuesday classes, so I worked at home today, tucked up cozy inside our house.  I heard a bit of wind but didn't realize how bad it was until I went out around 3.  The sky was blue and fairly clear in the city, but there were darker skies over Lake Ontario and the wind was really something.  I had to drive down King Street, right along the lake, and I've never seen it like that in the 33 years I've lived in Kingston.  It's not common to see many whitecaps there, but today it looked more like the ocean, or at least a big bay, than a lake.  Great weather for today's holiday, as long as it doesn't blow the younger trick-or-treaters right off of their feet.

I stopped by the Olympic Harbour (the site of the sailing events for the Montreal Olympics in 1967) and walked over the lake.  First, past the protected part with a lot of fancy big boats in drydock:

 but then closer to the open lake:

and since a still picture really couldn't capture the scene I took a short video:

It still can't really convey the feeling of the wind and the spray, but it will give you the idea.

And on my way out, my inner geek couldn't help notice this nice boat with the name of one of my very favorite Sci-Fi TV shows on it.  Can't stop the signal!

When I got home I looked up the official Kingston weather and it said the temperature at 3 p.m. was "9 C, feels like 4" (translates to 48 F, windchill 39), winds 46 km/h (28 mph) with gusts to 61 km/h (37 mph).  Fun to experience for a little while, but I'm very content to be back in our nice cozy house now.

Happy Halloween!

Julie Payette

Canada's 29th Governor General, Julie Payette, was sworn in yesterday.  If someone's reading this from outside Canada and wondering what a Governor General is, she's the Queen's official representative in Canada.  (More details here if you're interested.)  This is always a big occasion, with lots of pomp and ceremony, but our family is especially interested this time because we had a small but memorable encounter with Julie many years ago that is a special memory for us.  I thought today was a good day to share it here.

When our daughter Carolyn was little she was enthralled with outer space. It started when she would draw the common sort of childhood crayon pictures containing houses and trees and a sun up in the sky. She started asking us what else could put in the sky and we suggested clouds or the moon and she demanded even more ideas. So David started telling her about stars and planets and she was fascinated. In no time at all she could list all nine planets (yes, Pluto was a planet back then!) in their correct order going out from the sun. She devoured all of the astronomy books in the children's section of the library. She could tell you which planet had rings and which had the big red spot and which ones had moons and all sorts of other fun facts. And she told everyone that she was going to be an astronaut someday.

When Carolyn was 6 or 7, there was big news: Julie Payette, a real-live astronaut, was going to visit Queen's University and her visit would include a talk for the general public. We marked it on our calendar and waited with great anticipation. David graciously allowed me to be the parental escort and he stayed home with Valerie and Ian, who were not old enough to appreciate the event.   Carolyn put on her favorite dress and we arrived quite early to make sure we got good seats. As it happened, we were some of the first people there and had our choice of seats in the large hall. Carolyn decided she wanted to sit in the very first row to make sure she wouldn't have any tall grown-ups in front of her, so we ended up right under Julie's nose as she spoke.

Julie was cute and funny and informative and a truly wonderful speaker. She told us a lot about the space program and also about her history and how she came to be an astronaut. She was inspirational and interesting and also a lot of fun. She showed us beautiful pictures of space and the space shuttle. She talked about learning to fly a plane. And especially for the children in the audience, she told us how you go to the bathroom in space. (The key point was “there are some things you DO NOT want floating around in zero gravity!”) She managed to be very informative and still quite cool and accessible to a small space-struck child.

At the end of the talk, Julie invited questions. Carolyn's little hand went up in the air and Julie actually called on her. Carolyn's question was “what do you do with trash in the Space Shuttle?”. The answer was that some of it is packed up to take back to earth and some is dropped out into space to burn up as it re-enters the atmosphere. Carolyn was delighted.

When the talk was over, Julie stood at the side of the big room and chatted with people and signed autographs. I wanted to take Carolyn over to meet her, but the crowd and the noise was too much for her. It was a pretty overwhelming experience for a small child. But she came home happy, with a memory to last all her life. 

But the story isn't quite over. The next day David was working hard in his office in the Computing department and heard a bit of a commotion down the hall. Someone walked by and said “Julie Payette is in the lounge!”. Julie is an engineer and had given a talk for the Electrical Engineering department in the adjoining building, and had wandered over to visit with the Computing people too. David went to the lounge and saw that she was chatting happily with profs and students and autographing photos for them. He waited his turn and then said “Could you sign a picture for my little daughter Carolyn? She heard you speak last night and she wants to be an astronaut.” Julie smiled and said “did she sit way up in front? She asked a very good question.” She signed a picture and wrote “For Carolyn, may all your dreams come true. Ad Astra!”

When David arrived home that night Carolyn was absolutely thrilled with her surprise. We found a frame for that special picture and it hung in her room until the day she moved out of our house as a young adult. I think she has it in her apartment now. Her encounter with a real astronaut remains a very special memory – for her and also for me.

Carolyn didn't end up being an astronaut, but she has had great success in a different kind of scientific career. She also writes speculative fiction on the side, some of it involving space travel. She will be launching her first book later this month. Ad Astra, Carolyn! And thank you, Julie!

Pick Up Your Pallet And...

... stop babying your left hand.

I had my post-op check-up yesterday and this is essentially the advice I got.  Things are healing nicely and I should go ahead and use both of my hands normally as much as possible. Yay!  The visit was well timed because it came after a few days of my left hand feeling much better and my wondering how much it was safe to try to use it.

I have stretching exercises to do several times a day.  But when I described the skills I was especially anxious to have back (touch-typing with two hands and piano playing) they said those things were excellent therapy and I should go ahead and do them too.  Typing this blog is quick and easy compared with the one-handed hunt and peck I've doing since the surgery.  The exercises are pretty easy too.  I was worried that I might have a really sore hand by the end of the day but my hand actually feels better.  A little tired and sore at times, but not as much as on Monday.

Piano takes more strength in the fingers and I'm being a little cautious still.  I sat down yesterday and played a simple little Mozart piece and enjoyed it very much but my hand was tired.  I think I'll keep doing just a little bit of piano every day until it gets easier.  It may take a while to work up to playing for a whole church service, but now that I know that it really will happen it's much easier to be patient.  I have been thinking for a long time about buying a new piano, since the one we've got is pretty old and has a lot of issues, and David and I have decided that's off the burner and we'll make it happen soon :-)

Remember Dr. A (who originally met with me and gave me a reassuring diagnosis) and Dr. B (who actually did the surgery and scared me to death with the possibility of malignancy and loss of use of my thumb)?  Yesterday, I met with another member of the team, Dr. C, who basically said Dr. A was right and confirmed that a very thorough biopsy found absolutely nothing scary.  Whew!

After that, I was handed over to an OT who taught me my stretching exercises.  When we were done I asked her if it was OK for me to drive.  We have good bus service here but still with David away at the moment it has been a huge pain not to use the car.  She said she thought it was fine but they're really supposed to let a doctor make that determination.  We went out in the hall looking for Dr. C, but he had just gone into an examination room with another patient and she spotted another doctor I'd never met and asked him if he'd talk with me for a minute.  Let's call him Dr. D.  Here's a summary of our conversation:

• Dr. D, looking at my hand: So what did you have done here?
• me: short summary
• Dr. D: About four weeks ago?  I did that!
• me, looking puzzled: You did my surgery?
• Dr. D: Yes, I was working with Dr. B.

That was a fun coincidence.  I had no idea that a second doctor had assisted, since I was asleep before anybody but the anesthesiologists entered the OR.  Dr. D was fairly young looking and I'm guessing he's a resident.  He had a good teacher and did a good job.   I told him I was glad I got to meet him and thanked him for fixing my hand.  And then he confirmed I could drive and I went home very happy.

I took the bus to this appointment and got home on the bus, but later I did an errand with the car and I felt like a kid on the last day of school!  I have always said that I appreciate living in a city where I don't have to be totally dependent on our car and I try to take public transportation to save energy when I can.  But being able to hop in the car and go directly where I wanted to go without worrying about bus schedules or roundabout routes is truly wonderful!!!  I hope I remember to appreciate it for a while at least instead of taking it totally for granted....

Life With One Hand

Today I thought I would write a post with reflections about living one-handed.  It has been two and a half weeks since my surgery and I've got another week and a half to go before I meet with the surgeon again. My instructions up until that time are to avoid any "weight-bearing activity".

My hand is sore but not really painful -- more of a nuisance then a big problem. But if I try to do anything at all with it it sends me very definite messages to stop immediately! So I'm really okay but for the time being I can't use my left hand at all. 

My first observation is that being one-handed is a real pain in the neck!  There are lot of things that I would like to do or need to do that I'm unable to do, or that I can't do without help. And that's frustrating. There other things that I can still do but which take much longer than they normally would, and sometimes doing one of those things for very long makes my right arm or hand sore and I have to stop and rest it. The last thing I want to do is to get a repetitive strain injury on the right side so that I can't use either hand!!!  It is often hard not to be grumpy, as my husband and son can verify :)

But I should follow by saying that I have a lot to be thankful for as well. My surgery was on my left hand and I am right-handed. There are many things I can do easily with my right hand that I can't do it all with my left hand: writing, using scissors, etc. Plus there many others that I'd normally do with both hands that can manage with my right hand alone even though it's slower and more awkward -- like getting dressed or making a sandwich.

Another thing that I had not  thought about ahead of time is that losing the use of a hand is not as serious as losing the use of a whole arm. There are lots of things you can do with an arm even when the attached hand is not useful: moving inside doors around, holding things down while your right hand does something with them, shoving stuff with your elbow, leaning on something to keep your balance, etc.

And really if I had to make a choice I would rather have a hand out of commission that a foot.  It would be awful to need help just to get from one place to another. Right now I'm very grateful to be able to take walks around the neighborhood because it clears my mind and distracts me from irritation with my hand. I'm happy that moving around inside the house is not an issue at all. I don't have to ask for help every time I want to get to a different room or move across the room. I don't need help going to the bathroom or showering -- those are really important!.  When I need help from a family member or just want to talk to them it's easy to find them and get to where they can hear me.

So I'm doing my best to be a Pollyanna about how things could be a lot worse and it's certainly true. However, not being able to use a hand, even my left hand, is an incredible nuisance. My job is done almost totally at a keyboard and even though it's summer right now I have quite a bit of course planning and email communication to be done before September. And yes, it's quite possible to type with just one hand but it's much slower than two-handed touch typing and I make a lot more mistakes and my right shoulder gets tired so I have to take a lot of breaks.  I haven't invested in dictation software for my computer because it's expensive and not a lot of help with computer code and technical terms.  However, I have a nice free dictation tool on my phone and I'm composing a lot of this blog post with that.  As my husband pointed out, this is pretty "meta": dictating about dictating!

When I'm not typing two of my favorite things to do are playing the piano and knitting. The piano is obviously completely out and even after I regain some use of my hand it may be a long time before I get back to where I was. The best way I  have found to cope with that is to be diligent about reminding myself that I can move all my fingers in spite of being warned about that thumb tendon. I do expect to get back to the point where I can play the piano and organ at church again and my dream of working as an accompanist after I retire from my teaching job is still quite possible.

Knitting will probably come back sooner but it still may be a while.  Knitting is something that makes a great difference to my mental state; whenever I'm nervous or unhappy or worried sitting down and knitting helps a whole lot. We often spend time after dinner in front of the TV and I've always got a knitting project handy to go with that. I've discovered lately that I have lost my ability to sit quietly with my hands folded and just watch something.  A couple of crabby days after my surgery David very kindly drove me to Michaels so that I could buy a knitting loom - probably just as important to his sanity at that point as to mine! It took me a little while to figure out how to use it and originally I needed to weigh the thing down on my lap with my left arm as I knitted with my right hand but I have progressed to the point where I don't need my right arm at all. I'm still sticking with very simple stuff and it's not as creative as some of the fancy kinds of knitting that I like to do, but it feeds that part of me that likes the feel of the yarn and needs to be making something. By the time my hand recovers I'm going to have a big pile of nice warm hats for charity. That's a good feeling to have something productive come out of this time when there are so many things I can't do.  Here is a picture of the almost-5 hats I have made so far since the surgery: