snow is now ruining my life

Okay, it's not quite that bad. But remember how I said that all the shoveling around the time of the blizzard in January was giving me repetitive stress injury in my wrist? Well, it got me good this weekend. I was packing up my hockey gear for a game on Saturday, picked up my bag in my left hand, and BANG - massive pain. I couldn't grip anything, which made getting dressed for the game kinda tough. But holding the hockey stick wasn't too bad, so I played. I think that was a mistake - I was definitely feeling the pain by the end of the game.

So now I'm pretty much incapacitated. A friend of mine is a hand therapist, she told me to use ice, do some gentle stretches and "tendon glides"... so that's all okay, and I'm wearing a brace to stabilize it, but I don't know how long it's going to take to get better. I was trying to pull on my boots in a hurry this afternoon so I could go out and catch the guy who plows our neighbor's driveway so he could do ours as well, and got the same stabbing pain again. Gah. No more shoveling for me, for a good while at least.

I'm worried about our upcoming trip to South Africa - we're supposed to do a fair amount of golfing... I just hope that I can still do that!

Whew!

When I played hockey last Sunday and Tuesday, after not having played since the Tuesday before, I felt crappy. Sunday I actually had to sit down for a while because I was feeling lightheaded, Tuesday I just felt like I wasn't as fast as usual, was more out of breath etc. I was afraid that by cutting down my schedule I was really going to decrease my performance, if those two skates were any indication.

Skated again this morning, after not having skated in ten days, and felt *great*.

Figured out what it was - I had a mild case of the flu last week, which I discovered when I got a fever, chills and aches on Friday night. I had felt like I was fighting a cold all week - stuffy at night, a mild sore throat, and then it hit me for real on Thursday / Friday. I guess I really shouldn't play when I feel like I have a cold, it really kicked my butt! At least i know that now though.

And I'm so glad that it was because I was sick, and NOT because I had lost my edge after just a few days off!!!

SNOW SUCKS!!!

I hate the snow. I am getting repetitive stress injury / carpal tunnel in my left wrist from all the damned shovelling I've had to do. let's see... Had to shovel when I got home last Wednesday night (can't pull into my driveway with *any* snow on it 'cause it's too steep). Thursday morning - more snow overnight. Saturday evening, trying to get a jump on the blizzard (8in). Sunday morning towards the end of the blizzard (somewhere between 0 and 48 inches, depending on drift size). Sunday evening after it had finally stopped snowing. Wednesday morning before leaving for work. Wednesday evening getting home from work. This morning, clearing up the last of it. GGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

There is NO place to put the damn stuff anymore.

AND! To top it all off, this bleeping white stuff has been the cause of TWO cancelled hockey games and a cancelled practice. So I have not played hockey in 9 days! I need my fix!!!

What REALLY ticked me off? I didn't want to drive in on Weds morning this week, but had to because we had a hockey game in the evening, and I needed to bring my equipment and the team jerseys. I didn't know it was supposed to start snowing in the morning, I was under the impression the snow wasn't going to start until evening. So I woke up late. For snow anyway - 7:30. (*&@#$ shovelling meant that I didn't leave the house until 8:30. Then it took me an hour and a half to get to work. Yes, you read that right. NINETY minutes to go 8 miles. FUCK. I practically could have walked there in that time. And then (I'm sure you can see what's coming here) the fucking hockey game was cancelled. Yes. Cancelled. Basically, I completely wasted two hours of my life (the 30 min of shovelling + the 90 min of driving).

Did I say that I HATE snow???

Finally! A voice of reason!

I was listening to NPR on my way home tonight. Which is unusual these days - I basically quit listening around a year ago - I was tired of the constant fundraising (What used to be a biannual drive has turned into "buy chocolates for valentines day" "buy flowers for mothers day" "buy our special Car Talk tie for fathers day" and so on, ad nauseum), and couldn't take listening to all the election talk. Everything Bush says or does pisses me off, so I decided that it was very unhealty for me to live my life in that state of constant angst.

....Anyway.... I was driving M's car home rather than mine - I have a cd player in mine so I've taken to listening to books on CD to keep my mind occupied. His doesn't, so I was listening to "On Point" on NPR.

Tonight's guest was Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics : Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. What a breath of fresh air! Finally, someone who thinks the way I do about things like the war in Iraq, morals (yes, I am a moral person even though I do not believe in organized religion), the downfall of families (not due to gay marriage), how we as a society should be addressing poverty, terrorism.... and on and on. And of course, he's way more articulate about it that I am.

Now we just have to find a candidate who espouses those views, instead of the way the democrats have been acting for the last 4+ years, trying to be "Republican lite" instead of offering a true alternative. I think that if they followed what I heard Mr. Wallis talking about tonight, they would find that it resonates with a huge majority of the populace.

Hiccups

I've hiccuped every day for the past 16 years. More than half my life! I went to see a chiropractor the other day, and she was talking about how all the muscles in your back are attached to your spine, including your diaphragm. I notice that I didn't hiccup for a few hours after my first appointment, and for more than a day after my second. I'm wondering if my hiccups have just been a symptom of my back problems! It'll be really interesting to see if they go away.

Anti-big news

So my sister is not pregnant. Anymore. She had three positive home preg tests, a faint line, then a darker line, then a fainter one again. She had the sore bbs, they were definitely getting bigger. So I thought for sure she was. After the third home test, she went to her doc to have a blood test, which was negative. Then she got her period the next day - much heavier than normal. So probably a very early miscarriage. Sad. She called me in tears, unfortunately I didn't have my cell phone turned on so I missed it. When I talked to her later in the day though she seemed to be okay with it. I think she hadn't really started thinking of herself as pregnant yet, because of the lines on the preg test being so faint, and it happened so early. Hopefully it doesn't mean anything about what will happen in the future...

new blog...

I stopped by my sister's last night. It wasn't nearly as hard as I was imagining. I think the whole idea is sitting a little better with me now. I had a really good conversation with my friend in Baltimore on Saturday night (really Sunday morning) when neither of us could sleep. She said exactly what I needed to hear - Nic, that really sucks!

Anyway, I've been doing a bunch more searching on the web, and while I've found some research articles and other info relating to getting one's period after having been diagnosed with HA, there really isn't much practical stuff out there. So I thought I'd move all my discussions about that to a new blog.

One of the things I've decided to try is getting closer to 8 hours of sleep a night. So it's off to bed for me now.

Big news...

So I was all excited because I actually got my period on Tuesday. Then my sister called to say that she thought she might be pregnant! She was four days late, and had taken an early detection pregnancy test on Sunday and there was a faint second line. She wasn't sure though, because she'd then taken another one, and her doctor had given her one as well and those had both come up negative. But she said she's *never* late, so she was wondering what was going on. I told her to wait a couple of days and then take another one, 'cause they're not always positive right away. I was really happy for her when she told me, but at the same time a bit sad - we were supposed to get pregnant together. And I've been trying so hard to be positive about not getting my period...

Then I talked to her again today and she's definitely pregnant - she took another test today, and it was a definite positive, a nice strong second line. I'm away right now, visiting a very good friend in Baltimore, as M is in Europe for work. So I'll stop by her place on my way home on Sunday night so we can be excited about it together. She said she wasn't that psyched until we talked - it's so much more fun to share with someone else.

I really thought I was fine with it, and I *am* excited for her, but I can't sleep. I've been lying in bed for the past hour, and can't stop thinking about it. First of all, thinking about how, like I said, we were supposed to do this together. And I would have waited a lot longer for her than she did for me... About how it's so fucking unfair that she gets pregnant the first goddamned month she tries to. About how hard it is going to be not to let her see me being sad. About how stupid my fucking body is - I'm in the best shape of my life, and it doesn't think I can handle being pregnant? What the fuck is up with that???

I need a hug.