stephbg | A good day (Reply)

I had a good day on Tuesday, with some nice surprises.

I had three things I needed and/or wanted to do: post off medical paperwork by way of a walk to the shops; wash my hair; and do hydrotherapy. Posting the letter was the only time-critical one, so in the end I managed the hair wash and the walk-and-post. That alone would have made it a big day, by current standards. The walk-and-post also completed a major paperwork task that's taken a couple of days to complete so it was very satisfying.

Nice Surprise #1 was a print sale through Redbubble. I like print sales best of all, because it means someone is buying a Pretty Rock picture just for the picture itself – art for art's sake alone. Sure, I'll happily flog mugs, calendars, phone cases and so on, but Art is nice. It's been a surprisingly good month, as I've sold three large prints, a phone case, and a 3 yard block of Pretty Rocks on Frocks fabric. Fabric sales are near equal to art sales in satisfaction because someone is going to add creativity on creativity and make something even more special. In this case the buyer is making a wall hanging for her apartment. My income is in THREE figures now – Woot!

Nice Surprise #2 was a contact from my favourite former boss asking if I was available for tech writing work. He's aware of my health issues, but wanted to ask me to be sure. A big shame I'm not able to help, but so very good to be asked. What a damn fine workplace that was, with interesting and intelligent people, a unique and awesomely powerful and sensible product, and all sorts of interesting and challenging work. I learned a vast amount and really got to stretch my brains. Sure, there was some hair-tearing and yawning on the way to success, but the good times vastly outweighed the bad. It's good to know the work will continue.

Nice Surprise #3 was not throwing up, or even feeling nauseous almost all day. I avoided painkillers for most of the day in an attempt to give my poor liver and chest a break, and it seemed to help. Also had a few Quickeze at critical moments the night before and this might have contributed to the settling. Had to take some pain relief in the late afternoon because of nasty knee and hip pain after the walk, but generally the mild dry weather has made this possible. The knee/hip is old pre-fibro damage complaining about the walking after a lack of walking.

Got two parcels on Tuesday. First was a delayed shipment of digestive supplements that arrived just in time for me to avoid having to break out the emergency stash or drive around trying to find some locally. Cut the resupply a bit finer than I usually do, but it worked out to perfection in the end. It was just nice to be on the lookout for the parcel van and lo, it appeared. Second parcel was some twisty hair pins I wanted to try, which arrived with a mystery free gift. Both pins and mystery item provided some amusement.

Knocked off an item on my To Do list by deciding I definitely had nothing to say to Dr NF any more (he of the many, expensive, and nauseating supplements) and calling to cancel my next appointment in February. The call was somewhat complicated by the fact that they had no record of this appointment, which would have been a serious annoyance if I *had* turned up for it on the day. Nor were they able to confirm if I had a different appointment than the day I thought. This would be seriously annoying if I *didn't* turn up, because I'd be charged quite a lot of money for doing so. Or not doing so. One of those.

My physiotherapist called to see how I was going with the hydrotherapy. I didn't have a lot to say other than it seemed very promising, as long as I learned to do a lot less of it for now! I'm glad she followed up, though. It's a good practice. Since I didn't make it on Tuesday I had hoped to get there on Wednesday, but Wednesday was spent almost entirely unconscious. (At time of writing it's 3am on Thursday, because I'm all awake now of course. Fingers crossed I'll get there today, and will try to exercise caution rather than other things.) I've been trying very small doses of Calcium again, and it looks like it does indeed put me to sleep unexpectedly well, albeit after obscure intervals. Bit annoying to be shoved into unconsciousness all day, and barely able to hold a glass of water with two hands during the intervals. Oh well.

Really enjoying the new microscope, lights and stand, and am starting to see results with new kinds of pictures and subjects. Will post separately about this, but I've got over the initial hump of everything looking awful and I'm keen to work my way through my original collection of non-flat minerals and crystals.

Also throughout the day had a lot of high quality interactions with people online, so I felt quite sociable.

Yup, a good one.