steady upward trend-ish

[dragonlady7]

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Dude’s symptoms improve by the day; he’s returned to work (remotely), though he is still in isolation on the porch.

I want to sit out there with him it’s the nicest part of the house. he was like “i know that’s why i was gonna stay in the living room, you should sit out here where it’s nice,” which, like, aw, that’s sweet, but bruh i fully do have to spend several hours a day in the kitchen doing all the cooking and washing-up, it’s not like I could sit out there that much anyway.

I have pulled up a chair outside so I keep going out there to sit and shoot the shit with him. That seems sensible. He’s still coughing a bit, so he figures he’ll wait another day or two, and then try taking a rapid test before he takes his mask off around me or like, goes to pick up takeout or anything.

I am working from home today and I’ve been at it for 5.5 hours so far and have transferred twelve ostensibly half-hour videos, and edited two of them. Yes! I realized I have Adobe Premier CS 5.5 on my old computer and guess what it can do, yes it can combine and trim and export .mp4 files, and that is all I need. So this old laptop may wind up with a new lease on life, actually. Not that I’m willing to donate it to work, hell no, but if it makes it so I can do all this work from home easily and not need to go in to work much at all, then I’m gonna do the shit out of that.

I have watched, by the way, two separate live births in these home movies, which like– I super don’t get why people record that. But I hope this family is delighted to have that footage accessible to them again.

(The one was labeled that. “[Childname]’s Live Birth” as opposed to her egg-hatching? or being laid as an egg? IDK! This is a foreign culture to me.)

Hip is real bad lately so I’ve started riding my recumbent exercise bike. The batteries died in it so it lost the 500 miles I had on the odometer, so I’m starting fresh. I rode five miles on it the other day with no batteries in it, and those will forever not count, alas…. so, four miles down, 496 to go…. It seems to help; the muscles around the hip get painfully tight but 15 minutes on the bike loosens all that up and helps it sort of settle where it’s supposed to be. Yes I’m going to see a doctor soonish, but I know that the first thing they’ll say is “have you tried exercising” and the second will probably be “have you tried losing weight” and the third thing will be “let me know if it doesn’t get any better” after not giving me any more advice, this is my lifelong experience with doctors who won’t attempt to address a condition until the second time you complain about it, so I do want to turn up with 1) this is the problem, 2) these are the times it happens, 3) these are the solutions I have already tried. It’s worth a shot!

(For the record, the single worst thing I can do to my hip is sleep on either side, my front, or my back. The second-worst thing I can do is certain solo adult activities, which are now Illegal; who knew a hip joint could be a prude! Partnered is fine for some reason though, which is…. weird, but for obvious reasons that is currently Not Available to me. Alas.)

I’ve also been doing a bit of sewing. Now that I can edit videos it’s not quite the end of the world if I leave the room and come back and the half-hour tape ended at 21 minutes. I can just trim the deadspace off! (less than 5 minutes I won’t bother fixing but more than that, I figure a customer deserves not to have that to deal with.) So I set a timer and vanish to the basement for 15 minutes, and then I come back up and work on hand-sewing at the table for the last 10 minutes of the tape. I’ve cut out the pieces for one of those boyfriend pillows, and I’m assembling a dress i cut out ages ago. The fact that I can see and smell the outdoors and the weather has been lovely is making this also much more pleasant. And since I’m tied to the kitchen so much, I’ve been keeping up on dishes and cooking a lot. Which is awesome!

The downside is that it’s very easy and addictive to hyperfocus on the next video, the next video, the next video, so I worked 12 hours yesterday and will probably do the same today. It’s fine, I know my boss would be pissed to pay overtime, so I’m just going to take a bunch of this week’s hours and report them for next week, which is awesome. (Am I going to make it so I work 6 hours or less every day so they don’t deduct the half-hour lunch breaks they don’t pay me for that I never take? Maybe. Well I’m not taking the breaks, I’m chained to my watch and I’ve had multiple meals go cold because they were ready but I had to change out the tape.)

Anyway– today I did take a break, actually, and I spent it sitting in the drive-thru pharmacy line at Rite Aid, to get a proper PCR test. I want negative results before chicken day on Tuesday, so I can be positive I won’t expose anyone. The rapid tests have all been negative but I have multiple friends who’ve tested negative on those but still been contagious, which is what I’m worried about– I will trust a negative rapid test for Dude because he’s had one come out positive, but I feel like some people just for whatever reason don’t hold the virus in the right place for the rapid test, or just don’t– vibe with it or whatever. IDK, I’m no scientist, I just know I wanted a Real Test for the chicken crew.

Yes yes I’ve also been writing but that has been sort of scattered. I should have a chapter update for tomorrow though. (Your picture was not posted)

Comments

[j00j]

I may have mentioned this before as a fellow person with hip woes, but-- Would your doc prescribe PT if you asked? I realize access to and coverage for PT are also potential issues, but in my experience a GP will usually write a script if pushed.

PCRs: They amplify DNA so it makes sense that they'll turn up positive before a rapid will; we saw that in our household as well. Good call on the PCR. My positive rapid also happened when I had uh, maximum snot, so take em when you've got some material to work with I guess.

Glad Dude is feeling better and that you're still feeling ok!