Angel Ackerman's Blog, page 38

Untitled: a post about lingering grief

They say with time it gets easier, and I suppose I have to trust.

But this week has been damn hard.

My first big injury without my father and my first bit of car trouble without my father.

Both times when I used to turn to my father.

I tried to reach out to my mother, but there’s just something about that relationship that always goes sideways. And I whatever I try to do to fix it fails.

I shared a poem I wrote about grief to Nancy, my blind friend, when I saw her today. And I think she’s anxious to see where I can go with it.

And first thing this morning— I saw this post from a very clean and well curated antique shop in downtown Easton, advertising its fresh wares.

Now I am not an antiques person, but V. Murray Mercantile puts a lot of effort into curating and presenting their merchandise. And this post featured a vintage Schmidt’s Beer lamp, which was my father’s preferred beer.

And I just wanted it. I wanted the beer lamp. I wanted it so I could think of my dad and the light he gave my life. And he could still give that light. And at the same time, it could poke a little fun at his struggles with alcoholism, because he knew his flaws.

Stroh’s Brewing produced Schmidt’s and closed in 1999, selling its business to Pabst, according to some quick, unverified internet research. That was the same year I got married. Apparently, they revived a beer called Schmidt’s in 2019, which ironically was the year my husband and I amicably separated.

I discovered this website which appears to be from the beer’s 100th anniversary merch shop, and feels like the internet version of a ghost sign: Schmidt’s Of Philly, but has a 2019 copyright and seems to be legit even though the history stops fifty years ago.

I signed up for the mailing list.

So the teenager and I went downtown at 1 p.m., fighting construction.

The store is only open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the lamp sold first thing.

I am crushed, but I know realistically it is my grief I am feeling and has nothing to do with a vintage lamp.

It’s about the little girl, who used to run from the house to her dad’s workshop with little brown bottles of beer whenever her dad asked for a cold one. He was usually tinkering with his Harley. Sometimes the lawn mower.

Either way, he usually had a Schmidt’s.

The latest in the saga

So I spent a good deal of today dealing with paperwork for my mallet finger— trying to get the info I need to return to work since my specialist doesn’t think I need short-term disability for my finger to heal. That I just need to not use the finger.

For info on my injury:

The original blog post on the incident is here.

And the follow-up medical stuff is here.

I had filed a FMLA leave request, which I thought would lead to at least a week or so of short-term disability since Patient First told me to anticipate potential surgery and eight weeks of healing time.

But the doctor avoided both of those with a cast.

I’m stuck in limbo between waiting for the specialist’s office to fill out the forms to release me from my FMLA leave and the accommodation form for Stitch Fix, and I never quite reached the point of short-term disability but had started a claim.

I called the medical forms office at my specialist, and it took a chunk of the day to verify that they won’t have my forms ready until potentially next week— which of course intensifies my need for short-term disability which is a different set of paperwork a doctor needs to sign.

With my work week starting on Sunday, even if my release form arrived Monday morning and Stitch Fix could work everything out for me to return Tuesday, at that point I’ve already missed 1.5 weeks of work.

And I’ve used a lot of my paid time off recently while I was accepting voluntary time off— so when this occurred I only had 20 hours of sick time.

I’m not complaining, but I am trying to plan my household finances.

And then my supervisor said to come to work Sunday and we’ll see what we can figure out.

The ups-and-downs of navigating this system where medicine has become such a business that everything is so complex even for someone as organized as I am is exhausting.

But luckily the teenager puts reminders like this on my iPad. “Have a good day and don’t kill anyone.”

As compensation for my draining day, the teenager and I went to Aldi in our pajamas planning to buy chips, get gas, and stop at Arby’s to try their new boneless wings. The commercial got me. Because I hate celery. Watch it here to understand.

But when we got to Aldi, and bought our chips, the car wouldn’t start.

So I got to call AAA. Or in my case, text AAA. The teenager was very excited because she never witnessed a AAA call before. Because she doesn’t remember when I locked the keys in the trunk when she was 2.

It was the battery, which George from AAA replaced. We left Aldi 30 minutes after we called. It was all super fast.

And then we met George again at Wawa for gas.

The teenager loved the whole process and wants to learn more about cars and car repair even more than she did a few months ago.

As for the winds, for six dollars I was pleased but the teenager noted they were all spice and no flavor. I enjoyed them but they were over-sauced and the two flavors did taste extremely similar.

Treating my mallet finger

It’s Tuesday and my life has been turned upside down by my “mallet finger” injury acquired Friday night, taking off my socks as I chronicled here.

I filed for short term disability leave based on what Patient First told me about the injury. Since my work week starts on Sunday, and the accident happened Friday night I thought it best to get the incident in the system as soon as possible.

The original injury left me with a finger that would not straightenAt Patient First

With it happening on Easter Weekend, I was told by the doctor at Patient First to make an appointment with an orthopedic hand specialist Monday.

The doctor at Patient First explained that I had pulled the tendon out of my knuckle and that I needed a specialist to determine whether it would heal or if I needed surgery.

And I did my best to work around my enormous splint and changed the tape once Sunday night.

Even on Sunday night, I had no pain, minimal swelling and no bruising or discoloration. The nail was fine, too. And I was amazed at how the angle of the finger had improved.

48 hours after injury The angle of my mallet finger 48 hours after original injury

Some recommendations came my way from friends and everyone recommended the same doctor at OAA Orthopedic Specialists. Unfortunately, he was booked into July. So I accepted an appointment with one of his colleagues, at an office 18 miles from my house. I called at Monday morning 8 a.m. and the only appointments they had this week were Tuesday at this office in the Allentown area.

That was today. The splint Patient First gave me is enormous— and I was very anxious to get not only news and a treatment plan, but also something more reasonable.

I filled out all the paperwork I could online, and headed out of the house for the 30-minute drive to the doctor. On Monday, I had already gathered my x-rays and reports from Patient First, a release of medical information form, my return-to-work form for the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy and the FMLA/short-term disability insurance paperwork.

(I also tried to clean the Tupperware cupboard, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher and made an enormous homemade Crunchwrap with homemade tortilla chips.)

Chicken fajita black bean filling Homemade corn tortilla chipsHomemade crunch wrap

I cried all the way down the highway. I miss my dad, who passed away in December, and I’m struggling with a lot of life right now. And I snapped driving to the specialist.

But when I arrived— h*ly sh*t. The orthopedic office shared a plaza with the Lehigh Valley Hospital Cancer Center and the Steel Fitness Premier Facility. The scheduler told me they had free valet parking but damn I did not expect that. It was a big hospital facility.

I went in, read the directory and discovered my office was on the second floor. And when I got to the second floor, I saw about ten check-in/ receptionists. Damn.

One checked me in and I was told to proceed to waiting room seven. The whole arrangement vaguely reminded me of the Beetlejuice scene where the dead people wait to see their counselor.

But they moved me right along and I met my doctor very quickly. And I was told getting dressed and undressed is a common way of getting injured.

The doctor produced a brochure from a nearby drawer. And it was the same information from the same hand specialist professional organization I had found online.

He explains that there are two tendons in each finger, one running along the top from knuckles to fingernail, and another running under the finger. I overextended the top tendon at that tip-top knuckle, tearing it from the joint.

Because I did not damage or break free any bone, this means I don’t necessarily need surgery. That immobilizing the finger at the top knuckle will allow the scar tissue to reconnect the tendon. And then occupational therapy will get that tissue usable.

The mallet finger brochure

The doctor said there are three treatment options:

SplintA surgically-placed pinA finger cast

He recommended the finger cast. For eight weeks. And that he will see me in four weeks.

Paperwork and work release proved to be more complicated. He simply gave me a note asking me not to use the finger and that I could return to work today. I don’t think that’s enough for the folks at the Bizzy. So I asked the staff to please fill out the two forms— the one for the Bizzy Hizzy and the one for disability insurance— and told them I had read the sign and would gladly pay the $10 per form.

They wanted fax numbers or for me to pick up the forms, but I’m not driving 30 minutes back tomorrow or whenever they get the forms done. I think I found the fax for the disability folks and finally reneged and let them mail the form to my warehouse.

They also told me the forms should be in my portal so when they are done I hope I can download from the portal and send them where they need to go. If that doesn’t work, I have to call the Bethlehem office and make arrangements to pick them up there.

The OAA office also called The Institute for Hand and Upper Extremity Rehabilitation (a mere mile away) and arranged for them to see me. When I arrived, they were on the phone with my insurance company.

The staff at The Institute were beyond friendly, and every staff member apologized for making me wait. But I was impressed at how smoothly they ran and how they managed to balance the walk-ins and the scheduled patients.

Even more impressive, they had a binder promoting the small businesses they have “interacted” with— I hope I can leave one next time. I forgot by the end of my visit.

The Institute has one main rehab room so I got to see other patients at work, and every therapist acknowledged me, and apologized that I was waiting. One therapist, fitting a patient with some sort of brace or sling, was chatting with me about my injury.

The casting process was fascinating as I had never heard of casting a finger before and the person helping me also explained my injury. In this day and age when medical professionals usually don’t explain things, I was amazed at how many people took time to explain.

Mallet finger cast

My finger was only 15 degrees floppy today, which is a huge improvement from Friday. BUT if anything bends the injured area of the finger that could start the recovery clock back to zero as it could tear the scar tissue (which is why the hand specialist recommended the cast).

I certainly don’t relish the idea of eight weeks in a finger cast, nor do I enjoy the paperwork hurdles I now have to jump, but I’m relieved to have moved on to the next stage of the process.

The staff at the Institute also commended me for seeking treatment right away, as most people wait a week or more to address it and that causes more stress and damage to the healthy parts of the finger and can make the healing process more complicated and less successful.

My professionals:

OAA Othopedic Specialists

The Institute for Hand and Upper Extremity Rehabilitation

Give Poetry a Chance

Parisian Phoenix tackled poetry… check it out

It’s National Poetry Month, so it only makes sense for one of the poets of the Parisian Phoenix family to weigh in with a blog post. I’m not positive…

Give Poetry a Chance

Socks pose a threat

Good morning. As you may have seen on the post from the Parisian Phoenix Publishing blog, yesterday got a little crazy with F. Bean Barker needing a quasi-emergency vet appointment for a splintered toenail.

I did some housework, unpacked my Hungryroot box, read some of an old Harlequin and basically hung out with the dog while the teenager worked.

Now, with my cerebral palsy, I have a bit of an aversion to socks and shoes. They are hard to take on and off, and sometimes they make me fall. Just like “Agador Spartacus” in The Birdcage.

The teenager got home from her last dog client of the day around 8:30 p.m. Friday night, so I was happy to head to the shower and get to bed close to my regular work bedtime.

I had on my cute cat socks my neighbor gave me for Christmas which perfectly matched the baby blue sweater which had also been hers.

I had removed all my clothes and only had my socks left, and the shower was running. I slipped my left hand into my sock. It got a little caught around the heel. And oddly, I felt this enormous pop and thought I heard something.

But my sock was still on my foot.

So I swept that off and looked at my finger. Which was a little floppy past the last knuckle.

My finger fully extended

I laughed and hopped in the shower after screaming down the stairs, “I think I dislocated my finger taking off my socks.”

I kept laughing. Stress response. I didn’t even bathe because it became apparent there was something wrong.

Which made me laugh harder because I was removing my socks.

The teenager dragged me to Patient First. I have an official diagnosis of “mallet finger.” And if I chipped the bone I may need surgery.

I emailed my paperwork to my warehouse supervisor— as I can’t go to work until I see a hand specialist. And with the holiday tomorrow, that will need to wait until Monday before I can even find a specialist and make an appointment.

It looks like the prompt splinting of the injury may save me some complications later so here’s hoping.

More on this type of injury.

Seasons of books and publishing

We had a ridiculous time taking the dog to the vet today, which I made into a topic for Parisian Phoenix’s blog.

I promise some laughs in this one…

And the dog even got a six piece chicken McNuggets.

I started pitching my book, Manipulations, the first volume of the Fashion and Fiends series, to traditional publishers and agents about 20 years ago…

Seasons of books and publishing

Survive and conquer

Growing up, I never felt like I had a disability— maybe when you’re younger your body has more ability to compensate.

But I’m guessing with decades of repetitive stress from walking funny and the normal wear-and-tear from age, it makes sense that the last decade has left me hurting.

The last decade led me to my first official broken bones. The last decade left me with a host of experience with weight training, body building, gaining weight, losing weight, chiropractic care and orthopedic and joint issues.

And like I mentioned, I’m not in my twenties anymore so none of this should be surprising.

But it’s really hard to maintain when troubleshoot these physical issues and it’s frustrating when suddenly you wake up in the morning not only stiff but feeling your bones in a way I can only describe as poking where they shouldn’t be.

Ninety-five percent of the time getting up and doing a normal routine eases some of these sensations, but this week was hard.

Today— after all of my ten-hour warehouse shifts— I woke stiff and feeling like my left leg didn’t want to cooperate.

And so when I got to the gym, Apex Training and met with Andrew, my trainer, I gave him my report. “Nothing hurts,” I said, “but nothing wants to work.”

We did leg day. And for the average person, it probably would have been easy. But even my bodyweight bench squats seemed difficult and clumsy. Warm up stretches I can usually knock out without breaking a sweat were a struggle.

And he critiqued my lunge stance and examined it until I could feel the muscles at least trying to work the way leg muscles are supposed to work— i.e. together.

And the worst exercise was a simple calf raise standing on plates so I could extend my heels. While holding barbell.

I’m no longer stiff. Especially after my shower. But man am I tired and wondering what muscles I will feel tomorrow and how my chiropractor appointment will go.

Fitness lamentations and celebrations

It’s been a demanding week with my body in revolt for most of it.

I’ve succumbed to some bad moods but for the most part kept it together— and even enjoyed another pizza outing with the teenager and my blind friend Nan where we have officially determined that Nan and I think Nicolosi’s eggplant parmesan is our new favorite pizza. The teenager is in the chicken-bacon-ranch camp.

The teenager has been housesitting and her own dog F. Bean Barker seems to prefer sleeping in her crate downstairs to being in the teen’s bedroom alone with the two foster cats, Mars and Khloe.

Mars & Khloe

It has taken a few nights of sleep deprivation to discover this.

And it’s cold. And rainy. So the dog and I are both grumpy.

But this week I have started a new routine— getting up at 4:15 am so I can write for 30 minutes before work. In addition to my publishing business (Parisian Phoenix Publishing), I also need to commit to my writing.

Speaking of commitment, I’ve been trying to buy a bookshelf all week.

But I did buy a microphone for the business so that hopefully we can record some authors reading their work and have discussions with and for writers as part of our marketing material.

Nan and I got together today to run errands, see what was going on with Axiom, drink chai and read poetry. The best publication we looked at today was definitely *82 Review which featured Nan’s poem, “Brewing Chai.”

The magazine is very very diverse in its style and I am very excited to read more.

One of the best pieces I’ve read in a long time is “A Child in Need of Services” (a flash submission) where the speaker talks about the origins of their three talents, with such humor and joyful voice that you just don’t see the ending coming. The author is Amanda Skofstad.

We retrieved Nan’s laundry and I parked the car at the high school and walked the half mile in the cold rain (uphill as the teen would remind us) to the gym so the teen could have the car after school to go to work.

But I made it to the gym… for session 73 at Apex Training with my trainer Andrew. I love his current approach— a lot of back and shoulder based weight training for the upper body and creative more-or-less body weight exercises for the lower body so we can develop some muscle memory in those body parts that don’t understand how to play on a team. We also did some hex bar work and other stuff. I always feel good when I leave.

But by far, the hardest exercise for me today was wide stance squats. That had me struggling, concentrating, breathing and thinking I wouldn’t make it through. For squats. Bench squats at that.

Let me explain.

My cerebral palsy makes this the ultimate torture. Remember— my quads, hamstrings and calves never relax. My heel tendons are too short and my ankles don’t have the right mobility. My knees point in because of my femoral anteversion, and that just means the top of my femurs go into my hip sockets at the wrong angle.

So when I do that wide stance bench squat, I need to practice the most muscle control I can. I have to plant my feet and manually rotate my toes to what feels like uncomfortably out. And when I rise, I need to maintain balance, push with my upper region of my legs and force my hips out so they can force my knees out.

It’s damn hard.

But I can feel those body parts trying to cooperate and that’s exciting. If Andrew and I had more money and could work less at traditional full time jobs, I would love to train every day.

I posted this to Facebook:

I came home and stood in the rain for ten minutes holding an umbrella over the dog and she still wouldn’t pee. I took a shower, got dressed and gathered laundry. The washer wouldn’t work. My seven month old washer.

So I made myself an omelet of peppers, two eggs, heaps of Black Bear Mexican turkey, a slice of black pepper Cooper, a half slice of horseradish cheddar and piled it on my last slice of ShopRite bakery seeded rye.

The teenager came home and I googled the error code on the washer and she moved the whole wash tower and ripped the rear access panel off. When the drain pipe wasn’t back there, I had her read me the exact model number so we could Google again. We found this video, by a man with nice hands: Fixing the washer.

The teenager watched about half a minute, grabbed a bucket and ran to the front access panel. Within seconds, she had removed the whole plug apparatus and flooded the bathroom with gallons of wash water.

“How am I supposed to get that into a bucket?” she asked.

I continue watching the video. There’s a tube you empty first.

“There’s a tube!” she yells.

Oh, Pop Pop on the Mountain, wherever he is in the afterlife, is laughing his ass off now.

The apparatus is clogged with poly fill, a metal ring, quarters and other nonsense. That is fixed now. Drain hoses cleaned. Wash loads continue.

So then we Google the dishwasher as the teen also wants to clean that. We find Big Al. Clean the sprayers in a Maytag dishwasher.

I’m still cold and wet but now some of the appliances are clean.

I added a raisin to my shoe (again)

So, once again, my body started hurting— of course starting with a burning in my hip.

I had a blog post about this Sunday and Monday I thought I should do something about it.

Logically the appropriate action might be to call the doctor or at least the chiropractor.

But instead I put a raisin smack dab in the middle of the ball of my foot and slapped a band-aid on it.

Because when I had a splinter, and also put a raisin there, all my pain (except for the splinter) dissipated.

That didn’t happen yesterday— instead I ended up in hip and spine and lower back muscle pain.

But I still hit the daily goal at work.

And I felt better this morning thought I was achy and stiff all day.

I worked a full ten-hour shift and made 104% of the daily goal. (168 fixes)

Heartstrings and hip pain

The start of the Covid-19 pandemic two years ago brought an end to a couple toxic situations in my life, and led to many new experiences that were both rewarding and frustrating.

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you may remember teenager #2, a friend of my teenager who needed a place to stay. Teenager #2 and her cats stayed for about nine months, with minimal support or contact from her parents.

Teenager #2 turned 19 last week, and I don’t know if she’d expect me to remember or not, because I haven’t heard from her since she moved out. And left a very trashed bedroom behind. And her cats taught my cats bad habits we are still trying to break.

I’ve heard rumors that she’s expecting her own baby now.

It’s also been about five weeks since my mother contacted me. Though she will probably read this later and text me nasty messages.

And my dad is three-and-a-half months gone now, and it leaves me wondering how people can be there one second and just… poof… gone.

But I’m not trying to elicit pity, I’m merely stating some of the thoughts in my brain to say that my emotions are already on edge.

So, a couple weeks ago we (the teenager and I) received a text message that our former foster Extra Crunchy was being returned to the rescue because a new baby was allergic.

This broke my heart.

But the family never showed up. They turned up unannounced at the FURR adoption event yesterday and returned him on his first birthday.

Readers, I think I am losing my stomach for rescue work.

Extra Crunchy was one of two kittens who survived a bout with distemper last spring. Feline distemper is a very fatal and preventable disease. FURR received a call that someone had three cats, two female and one male, neither fixed nor vaccinated. The two females each gave birth to a litter of kittens. But everyone contracted distemper. And the adults died.

So they called FURR, and FURR took in these ten dying and starved kittens who had never even had the chance to nurse from a mother.

My daughter asked if she could foster these babies, and our cat foster godmother said yes, but that we had to be prepared for them to die.

So my daughter started syringe feeding them. On the day she took over their care, two died right away. And it seemed like every day another would die, usually in the teenager’s arms.

We gave them ridiculous names because they weren’t going to live. Rufus. The Magician (he would just randomly teleport from one end of the playpen to the other). Spunky. Parker (which was actually Parkour because he climbed everything).

And Extra Crunchy. Because he was covered in formula, cat food and feces. After all, no one had taught him how to groom and no one had groomed him.

Extra Crunchy Kitten.

Extra Crunchy being syringe fed by the teenager

Extra Crunchy and Parker survived. They beat the odds. Like I did. My mother named me Angel because I was supposed to die.

So it hurts to see his adoptive family reject him, but they did the right thing by returning him to us.

YouTube Playlist for all the distemper kittens (trigger warning: some of these videos may reference or feature death.)

Extra Crunchy is currently at Chaar Pet Store in Forks Township.

On Friday, the teenager plans to bring him home for a bath and grooming before Saturday’s adoption event.

In addition to that, my hip is acting up and I don’t have a chiropractor appointment for two weeks. So I’m trying a whole lot of stretches.

The pain got worse throughout the day, and I accepted the offer to leave work at 3 when they announced VTO. I picked my own cart to start this morning, which meant I had a 3,000 step walk first thing in the morning. And by the end of the day, I had shipped 380 items, which, by my calculations is 108.5%.