So I just took my walk to Manor and back. I was about halfway there when I realized how much pain I was having. All morning I’ve had twinges of joint pain where the hip joint and knee joint are deteriorating; these are greatly reduced with the celecoxib, thankfully. But walking any sort of distance at all causes the supporting muscles to hurt. It’s a different kind of pain and I’m learning better how to distinguish it. I know that if I take this walk at least twice a day the muscles will strengthen, however much it hurts along the way. It will get better over time.

This is critical for me because when I am dyeing, I am on my feet an hour and a half or more for each dozen skeins per session. If I hope to be able to get back to work like I once did, I have little choice but to do these walks regularly. UGH

Another aspect of the process is pulling hanks from cones. This is also a mostly stand-up task. Clearly I can’t be pulling cones and dyeing in the same day. Not yet anyway. So today and tomorrow I will focus on pulling all the hanks I’ll need for the dyeing I plan to do later in the week.

This morning I was up early (a little less than five hours of sleep) and got my Kroger order in for the week. This time I printed out my order so I can more accurately check the order when it arrives instead of guessing or trying to remember what I’d request. I also put in specific substitutions for specific items (like canned peas if they can’t find frozen). I’m hoping that will mean I get more of what I want.

Tomorrow will be 12 weeks from surgery, and I am FINALLY getting to a place where my lower tract is getting close to normal. That is, I am beginning to once again get the ‘normal’ (for me) signals that it’s time to use the toilet. I’ve been getting unfamiliar signals from other parts of my lower tract, so I didn’t know what they meant. But yesterday and today, however, I got the old familiar signals. Yayyy. I hope this means I will begin to be normal in my toilet routines as I have been for most of my life. I certainly hope so, anyway. The last several months have been, quite literally, a pain in the ass.

Anyway, onward into the day.