...and i'm upgraded daily

So, I had surgery yesterday - an ulnar nerve release at the elbow; because basically the nerve had become trapped in some tissue at the left elbow and was limiting feeling in my ring and little finger, as well as significantly compromising my left-haded grip strength.

One of the upsides to my job is knowing who the decent surgeons are, so I was able to see him and ended up having surgery yesterday afternoon. Short version is that everything seems to have gone well; I have some time off work and a review in abt 10 days to get the stitches out. However, there was some fun along the way!

1. Being wheeled to theatre on a hospital bed is WEIRD, y'all. Seriously, it feels quite bizarre.

2. The anaesthetic nurse was lovely, though weirdly was able to tell my glasses prescription by how close I had to hold my file to my face to confirm my signature on the consent form. I was impressed but a alittle freaked out at the same time.

3. Abovementioned anaesthetic nurse doing her "distract patient whilst anaesthetist finds a vein" thing, which led to me being able to rec Gaurdian of the Dead by  Karen Healey (which is awesome by the way, in case I have somehow forgotten to rec it you you lot) to her, and she wrote it down and everything :D

4. I forgot to take my veins to hospital with me; the anaesthetist poked at my hand and wrist a few times, then ended up having to find a vein in my foot. Silly veins.

5. My left arm and hand are BRIGHT PINK. It's from some kind of anti-bad things chemical they used, and it will wash off eventually, but it's weird, particularly since I have to keep the bandage dry until my review.

6. Hospital food is still terrible. Seriously, how can something be so un-tasty when you've had one small snack in the space of about 20 hours? D:

Anyway, then Stephen rescued me and I am home now.

Hope y'all had a more fun Friday!

• Health: So, a few months ago, I went on a bit of a RockBand bender, and ended up with a pretty sore left wrist. Around that time, my 4th and 5th fingers started going numb, and, well, they’re still numb. I have nerve conduction studies booked for Tuesday, but it looks like I’ve got ulnar nerve impingement in the base of my hand. Basically, similar to carpal tunnel, but the nerve on the little finger side of the wrist rather than the thumb side. I’m told the surgery to fix it is pretty similar, with similar recovery expectations, and I’ve seen enough of those through work to know it’s relatively okay. Still, hand surgery isn’t the best of things to be needing, so :/

• Moar Health: Brainthings are going well; anti-depressants seem to be working, I’ve been feeling more productive, and I’ve noticed significantly fewer spikes of “Oh my word I am too crap a person to even exist why am I taking up space in the world,” which is a good sign. Haven’t been able to catch up with my therapist for a while now due to scheduling issues, but it’ll happen. We tried hypnotherapy, and I have a recording of the session to refresh, the point of it being to try and kick my subconscious out of hating me quite so much since reasoning with it hasn’t worked so far. That seems to be relatively helpful (cf lack of abovementioned spikes).

• Work: Is work, but is benefiting from my improved productivity. I’ve had a few rounds of clients being jerkfaces, particularly one large client who seems to have an issue with telling me when they have issues (despite me working with them for a few years now), but no problem whingeing at Head Office that I’m not doing things I can easily prove I’m doing. I have no idea, but I suspect part of it was trying to save face re: the local manager they had being shit, and their replacement is quite great so far.

• Moar Work: Bosslady is back from maternity leave next week, which is exciting because she’s lovely and a pretty great manager. Not that current manager is bad, but having her around again will be good.

• Life: Canberra is fucking cold, and I am so over this winter thing. There are prospects for a return to Brisbane around the end of the year, which would be awesomesauce. There’s prospects of a transfer being possible, work-wise, which is do-able if I want to hang around, in an area that’s different enough that I could do it for a bit to stash some cash away.

• Ideas: I’ve been getting a bit more serious about the idea of doing a massage course and going in that direction. Of course, it depends on how the whole hand surgery thing pans out, but from what I’ve been told it shouldn’t be an issue, and I’m able to massage with my hand still dodgy, which is something. Who knows.

• Creatives: I’ve been missing my creatives, of late. Though tbh, I’ve sort of reached that stage where I’m wondering if they existed in the first place, they’ve been gone so long. The fact that I’ve been looking at old posts and stuff from when I was still at uni and feeling like all my intelligence (or ability to communicate that intelligence, or something) has somehow dribbled out my ears since graduating. Idk, I think I need to set aside some time for myself to just DO stuff, and forget about whether it’s any good, even if I just stash it away and come back to it later or something. Though it often feels less like ‘where do I start?’ in terms of ideas and more ‘where did the ideas go?’. If anyone has ideas on kickstarting one’s creativity, I’m open.

So that’s me, at the moment. How are you?