Angel Ackerman's Blog, page 34

Freedom was nice while it lasted

So, as directed by my doctor, I went to see my friends — the occupational therapists at the Institute for Hand and Upper Extremity Rehabilitation.

They fitted me with a custom splint molded to my finger (for $50) that despite my doctor’s recommendation that I wear the splint at night only, they want me to wear the splint 24-hours a day for the next week, which for me will be nine days because that’s the day I can get there again.

I am to remove this splint when I bathe, when I wash my hands, and five times a day to do physical therapy exercises.

The exercises are 10 reps of basic hand gestures: straightening the hand, lightly bending the top of the hand, and making a loose fist.

If the hand loses progress instead of gains it, then the cast will be reapplied.

In pondering this, I realize several opinions of mine that may be greater truths:

Had I accepted my doctor’s solution of “cheaping out” and reusing my stinky cast as a splint, my recovery from this mallet finger would be more direct versus gradual. I believe gradual, supervised steps toward healing are better and I wonder if there are statistics about patients and the long-term success rates with these injuries with various treatments. How many patients would hear that insurance won’t cover it and end the conversation there without considering that the $50 might provide more than just a splint, but also guidance and expertise.Are my occupational therapists just over-cautious or it is a case (as I think it is) that the therapists see more of this injury and in the same manner than nurses often know more than doctors, do occupational therapists understand more about function than fancy specialized surgeons?

Free the Finger! Cast-free after 9 weeks

I was very apprehensive and so excited to see my doctor at OAA today to get my damn cast off for an evaluation of my mallet finger.

The teenager texted me as I sat in the exam room.

“Free the finger!”

They had a devil of a time cutting it off— apparently after even five weeks in the same cast it was firmly on.

Both the hand/orthopedic specialist and the hand rehab office it’s unusual for patients to maintain a finger cast for so long. That doesn’t make sense to me, because why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to maintain agility and strength in your finger?

Free the Finger!

the Teenager

And don’t give me that “it’s too hard” or “I need my hand to do stuff.”

I work in the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy warehouse folding clothes. And after my brief stint on short term disability to deal with my balance and hip issues stemming from cerebral palsy (and made more complicated by now not being able to rely on the left side of my body with this temporary injury), I went back to work and performed at 100% and higher with my finger in a cast and restricted hand movement.

That finger had so much caked dead skin and here’s the really fascinating part— my knuckle no longer has wrinkles because it has not bent.

In the beginning of my treatment, I found my doctor cold and impersonal but as he gets to know me I like him more and I get more personable interactions from him.

He told me I should gradually increase my finger flexibility with care not to hyperextend it (otherwise known as don’t bend it backwards) and splint it at night. For the splint, I could take my cast back. And tape it in at night.

“It’s cheap, but it’s dirty,” the doctor said.

Yeah, no thanks. I lived with that grimy thing long enough.

“The other option is to return to the Hand Institute and they’ll make you a splint.”

(Which, coincidentally Cigna, my insurance, does not cover. But as I do not cheap out on my medical care, I will pay for. Because right now my HSA is empty because having a disability and doing everything you can to keep yourself ahead of that disability is expensive. So please, consider this and how lucky I am that I can support myself because if I had to really on family and government benefits to subsidize my care, I’d be crippled.)

I imagine there’s a third option— buy an over-the-counter splint. And I was going to consider that. But to me, the cost of the custom splint comes with the knowledge and enthusiasm of the people at the Institute for Hand and Upper Extremity Rehabilitation. These people love and know hands.

And if I can only teach others one concept about your health, it is this: invest in yourself, meaning, find the right medical providers for your team that understand your needs and share your personal philosophy and concerns. This requires being vulnerable in a way that might be uncomfortable and it might mean having difficult conversations with people you don’t like. But it may also lead you to better understanding of yourself and of those people who seemed like callous know-it-alls disinterested in you.

I peppered my hand specialist with questions today— rapid fire as he typed my splint referral into the computer. And he respected them. The questions.

How much movement is okay? What should I watch for? I pack boxes and fold clothes and put things on conveyer belts. Should I splint the finger at work if it starts to feel weird? Is there certain motion I should avoid?

“There are no rules,” he said. “Just be careful and the occasional splinting wouldn’t be bad. I’ll see you in a month.

He made eye contact with me as if to say, “you know your body. Follow your gut.”

But he also knows I’m the patient who kept a finger cast on longer than the average Joe. So maybe, just maybe, he trusts me.

For previous installments on my finger injury: click here.

Messages from the street team

At work today, by my math, I did 102% in my home department folding clothes— 159 fixes to be exact during a ten-hour shift that started with a 20+ minute meeting. Yesterday I shipped 565 packages in Freestyle, which is 113%.

Those were some of my fixes.

Sunday we were off, a paid holiday to recognize Juneteenth. The teenager and I used the time to visit the senior community where my mom lives as one of her neighbors wanted some of my books.

Grandma S bought all three of my current novels and a copy of the Parisian Phoenix anthology, Not an Able-Bodied White Man with Money, as it contains essays by me, the teenager and her father.

Grandma S, the teenager and I had a lovely visit where I finally got to meet her mammoth cat.

And we all know I love a cat.

We stopped to see my mom and her partner on our way out — thought it would be a good surprise for Father’s Day as the teenager has good memories of my mother and her roommate that involve Yoo-Hoo and tractors and cornfields.

My mom asked for several books as well.

And then some discussions happened that made me think maybe the senior community might be the closest thing I have to a “street team” to publicize my books.

Grandma S said she saw my clumsy video of me reading from Manipulations on Facebook and wants to read more.

Mom apparently enjoyed deciphering the locales and familiar faces in the novel. One of her friends reported that the first novel jumped around too much and was hard to follow. She’s apparently reading the second now.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to get my cast off.

Babbling to Andrew Gurza

One of the very first things I did when I opened my bank account for my business, Parisian Phoenix Publishing, was to buy my art director Gayle a pastry at my favorite pie shop. But the next thing I did was head to Patreon and support Andrew Gurza, a queer man with cerebral palsy who records the podcast “Disability After Dark.”

I requested to join him on the podcast, thinking it would be a great way to promote my business and share my experiences. I wanted Andrew to know how much his honesty means to me and how much I leaned on his support– even though he didn’t know me– in my journey to accept my identity as a person with a disability, in this case spastic diplegic cerebral palsy.

I had to reschedule once due to a doctor’s appointment with my current hand injury, and he had to reschedule once due to his IBS flares. He even started a podcast to talk about various GI issues and he called it, “This Shit is Real.” And I admire him for that openness. A recent and very occasional complication with my CP has been incontinence. Sometimes I can’t feel when I have to pee until it’s the very last second. And that is scary.

We finally had our chat today, and we barely scratched the surface of what both of us could say, and I know by the end I was talking too fast. Nala even behaved, but then my parakeet Yo-yo starting singing.

I hope he can salvage the audio.

I was so excited to have that chat with him as I have listened to the podcast for more than a year now. And he asked if he could contact me again so we can talk about book publishing.

Andrew can contact me anytime! The world needs more people that force discussions that we all need to have. We need to release ourselves from sensations of shame, anxiety and insecurity and accept each other and the perspectives we bring to the table.

I had a notebook because I wanted to write down the brilliant insights I knew we would have together and we had a great, great talk. But I babbled. And now I don’t have much to share with you.

So I guess we’ll have to wait for Andrew to release the episode.

From Joan Zachary: Details on next week’s free presentation of photography and book design

Writer friends: you might want to join us in person or on zoom for this

By Joan Zachary, official Parisian Phoenix photographer This 21st century world is a visual one.  We have social media to thank for this. Are you …

From Joan Zachary: Details on next week’s free presentation of photography and book design

Next week’s events: an origin story and a GLVWG workshop

Happenings at Parisian Phoenix, which include my latest book.

Parisian Phoenix has passed its nine month anniversary this month. This business is like a new relationship: every month matters. Next week, …

Next week’s events: an origin story and a GLVWG workshop

A Tuesday update (PS- the cats are fine)

It’s 4:45 a.m.

I wake at 4:15 a.m. I leave for work at 5:45 a.m.

I don’t need to get up this early. But, I’ve been on 10-hour day shifts in the warehouse now for 6 months and I feel like it’s the best way to maintain some work-life balance and some productivity.

And honestly, by 8 or 9 p.m. I’m usually so exhausted, mentally and physically, that I am mindlessly eating and/or watching TV.

So I rise in the early morning. It’s too early. I have to tip-toe out of my room as to not wake the cockatoo. The cats are confused. But… This is my creative writing time, my Parisian Phoenix business time, my coffee time, and my cuddle cats time.

Our “gen pop” of cats include brothers Misty and Fog, and fosters through Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab Touch of Grey and Minerva, with an occasional visit from our almost 12-year-old cancer surviving old man tripod Opie. Opie is like an old mob boss, but he’s tired now, and Fog, with his 2.5 years, has been challenging him for about the last year. Not in a really aggressive way, but challenging his authority enough that there have been some issues.

This morning, my productivity is not as, well, productive as I prefer. Sure, I tried to tame my curls. I started the dishwasher, took my allergy meds, made a big cup of coffee and checked for book sales. (None last night. The new title debuts next week– and it’s only $6.99. It’s also a novelette and written a little lighter than my usual dark style.)

But Minerva keeps coming to cuddle, Misty and Fog are playing, and Touch of Grey (Tiggy, as we sometimes call her) is patrolling. Oz is considering waking up in his crate, but he’s giving me side-eye. He will only wake if I plan to feed breakfast.

And if you have cats, you understand why I will not feed them breakfast at 4:30 a.m.

We corralled these “gen pop” cats into the spare bedroom last week for the teenager’s party, as we had some guests allergic to cats. The teenager thought it best to lock them up, then clean, as it would reduce the likelihood anyone would die.

We also passed out Benadryl at the door.

But that was the same stretch of time where two of the three cats accidentally given the dog’s flea meds ended up seizing. Misty and Touch of Grey ended up at the emergency vet, and $2300 later, they are both home. Neither is exhibiting any further neurological symptoms or personality damage.

They are both on muscle relaxers. So the teenager maintained quarantine to facilitate delivering their pills. But last night, she released them.

And I’m happy to watch Fog and Misty play, cuddle Minerva and encourage Tiggy to patrol.

The teenager said she liked the peace and quiet of having them locked up, but she has a dog to keep her company. I miss their cat obtrusion into my daily routine. Especially in the dog-free hours of pre-dawn.

New season: the teenager is now a young adult

It’s over.

I walked into the house after the gym today and I was met with empty rooms, deflating balloons, empty pizza boxes and cake crumbs.

The teenager is with a client. The guests have gone, even the one that drove a distance and stayed overnight.

Throughout the teenager’s life, she frequently lamented that she was the youngest in the class snd never had a birthday during the school year. That inconvenient June birthday.

But yesterday she was able to gather people who celebrated her and had seen her grow and wanted to marvel in who she was as a person, as a young adult, for a graduation/birthday party.

She wanted pizza From Nicolosi’s in Forks Township and pretzel nuggets and dip from the Pretzel Company. (And I think out friends will be patronizing Nicolosi’s now— several of their flights with the pieces cut in half is a great way to spoil guests.)

She wanted to bake her own cakes and decorate them, which she did.

She wanted to play Cards Against Humanity. And we did.

The party started with a raucous discussion of the Hess’s Department Store and ended with promises of homemade pie.

And the dog only ate a small chunk of the red velvet cake.

The teenager is now a high school graduate and soon she will no longer be a teenager. She will be the young adult or the offspring or some other nickname, but she will always be my pride and joy.

So much of parenting is learning, slowly, to step aside and let your child grow into her/his own person. To be mindful and humble and supportive without smothering. To be proud, but subtle. To encourage and guide, but not nag.

And to trust.

To trust your parenting. Your child. And that young person’s decisions.

And seeing that child grown— the love that pours out of you… eventually you might feel like a deflated balloon and then that child does something that makes you float once again.

I will always be my daughter’s mother, but the bulk of the intense, hands-on work is done.

And so today, Curly led us in making an infused oil of basil, lavender and sea salt to bless ourselves and my home with positivity.

It’s all part of the cycle— especially for women— maiden, mother, crone. I guess I might have to transition to the crone phase now.

Reviewing Shannon Gonyou’s Since Sinai

Judaism seems to be a recurring theme in my life these days.

At Parisian Phoenix, we believe in supporting other authors, other publishers and other artists. To that extent, publisher Angel Ackerman …

Reviewing Shannon Gonyou’s Since Sinai

Rebuilding

No fancy title. No big announcements . Just some subtle realness.

Though I do have a little good news. Misty came home today. He’s wobbly, but he’s his sweet-natured self. Video here.

Touch of Grey is still in the hospital.

If you missed that harrowing tale, you can read it here.

The world often seems twisted in an eternal loop of one step forward, two steps back. It makes me miss my dad.

But I noticed today amid the cat drama and everyday life— I worked with my blind friend Nan this morning— that I still have trouble with my right leg, mostly stiffness and lack of control, but no pain.

So when I headed to Apex Training for my session with Andrew, I felt anxious and emotionally exhausted but physically ready to go.

Every session Andrew challenges me more today— and I did a mixed grip barbell deadlift at 100 lbs. And for the first time, I felt like I nailed the form.

As if that weren’t enough, he had me do something I never heard of: a plank up. He wanted me to do 5, but I only did 4 1/2. Well, Greg was willing to give me credit for 4 3/4. And as the teenager says, Greg doesn’t hand out credit easily. Speaking of improvements, in Saturday’s session, I surpassed 60 seconds in a plank.

My strength, at least the physical kind, is coming back.

Dinner was a flat bread pizza — a vegetarian delight of random cheese I found in the fridge, a radish sliced thinly, and some honey with red pepper flakes.