Hearts in Hawai'i
Pancreatic Recovery & Computer Woes
2/2/2015
More recovery would be needed before I could return to work, and FMLA rules dictated that St. Louis County would need a statement from my doctor on exactly what date I would be able to return to work. But for now, I was home and there was a mess in my home office—stuff I had accumulated while in the hospital, get well cards, things like that. I couldn’t do too much at first, as the simple act of sitting in my office chair wore me out quickly. There was a lot of time spent downstairs on the couch, with a blanket draped over me for warmth. With the weight I had lost, a lot of that protective fat was also gone, and I was chilly!
My first night home was not a particularly pleasant one. I had to set my alarm for midnight so I could take one of my medications, and I still had serious difficulty sleeping on either side. The pain medication helped enough, and I was finally able to get some sleep. But I had to go sleep on the love seat in the loft, because lying flat on my back was still too painful. There were no late nights during that time! I was out like a light, usually by 9 p.m.
There were good days and nights, and some bad days and nights. On the bad nights, I’d take an extra pain pill, curl up and try to ride it out. Oxycodone affects me in interesting ways. It doesn’t necessarily take away the pain, it takes away that I care I have the pain. It relieves the anxiety which contributes to pain. It allowed me to sleep on nights when I otherwise would not be able to.
On January 11, I was able to take my first shower while standing up the entire time. I had taken a shower a couple days earlier and, while I was able to wash my hair standing up, when it came time to clean the rest of me, I had to run the water and sit in the tub. This was a bit of progress at a time when I was looking for any good thing.
The next day marked my first post-hospital visit with my primary physician. She was a little concerned that I was continuing to lose weight, and also issued a letter to the County stating I was to remain off work until Monday, February 2. What was I going to do with three more weeks? Well, heal, for one. I had PC issues which had arose and needed to be addressed, and these issues would lead to a huge change in how I computed and the software I used.
During the next week, I was able to eat a hamburger, go off the antibiotics, and spend the first full night without needing pain meds. Every day was getting a little better and I had regained hope of reacquiring my old life style. Sans all the fat which was part of my diet, of course.
On January 17, the XP mode on my computer quit working. XP Mode was necessary for me to run Lotus, as it wouldn’t run in Windows 7. Microsoft provided a way to create a “virtual machine” within Windows 7 where you could run an older operating system such as Windows XP. I had installed this when I purchased my newest Dell in August 2010 and it had worked well, up until now.
Disaster was averted, mostly, as I was able to reinstall XP Mode. The downside was that I hadn’t backed up any of my Lotus files since October, so there was a ton of shit which was lost. On the financial side, I was able to recreate all my non-cash expenses so was able to recreate a fairly accurate snapshot of what my October, November and December financials looked like.
But it drove home the fact that I couldn’t rely on Lotus forever. Other than what had just happened, it was clear that Microsoft would cease supporting XP Mode at some point. What was going to happen when Windows 10 (now being developed) was released and then became the only operating system you could get on a new PC? These questions had been in the back of my mind for some time, but it was only now that, due to current events, these questions went to the forefront of my thinking.
That week I received a glowing endorsement from my doctor—when she walked into her office for my weekly visit, she exclaimed “You look better!” And I did. The weight was slowly coming back, my pain was gone (most days) and my energy level was better than it had been in over a month. That weekend we finally had our Christmas celebration at our house. Besides the usual pizzas, I had also bought a chicken pizza from Papa Murphy’s. I tried a piece, waited twenty minutes to see how my stomach would react—when it did well, I ate two more. Man, did I miss that stuff!
No sooner did I resolve the XP Mode issue with my PC when it started randomly rebooting. There was no way to predict when it would happen, it would just reboot. This went on for a week, slowly growing more frequent, until I brought the PC down to Downtown Computer. Picture someone only two weeks out of the hospital lugging a full sized Dell computer case down the stairs! A couple time I had to stop as my knees started shaking and I grew worried that I was going to drop the fucking thing down the stairs. They couldn’t pinpoint anything wrong, so I drove back down there and picked it up.
Looking ahead to returning to work, the prospect of having to walk down the avenue or down from 3rd Street every morning wasn’t an appealing idea, so I contacted a worker in the Administrator’s office to see if there were any spots available in the Government Services Ramp. She said she’d check it out and call me right back—within ten minutes I had a spot on the main level! At first she said the open spot was on the lower level which would require me to take stairs, but when I asked if something else was available, she found this gem of a spot! After getting the spot number, I called and asked Patty to check it out and see exactly where the spot was. It was right between two of my favorite co-workers! It had been an associate's spot but opened up when she retired a couple months ago. Another unit co-worker had taken it but didn’t like it because her “car got too cold”, whatever the hell that meant. So she moved to the lower level and this spot opened up. Sweet! It was only $40/month. With the promotion I had received at the start of 2014 and being two years away from another two-step pay increase, this easily fit my budget.
Getting the PC back from Downtown Computer on January 27, I was still having the unexpected shut down/restart issue. I spoke with George from DC and he had me make a change in the start-up procedure so there would be a visual message when the shut-down occurred. Of course, it stopped doing the random shut down after he talked to me. ?
On January 29 I stopped off at the office to quickly assess what I would need to attack first once I got back to work the following Monday and realized some things had changed. We now had to use our ID badges in the elevator to get to floors 5-7, and also to get through the door into our 4th floor office.
February 2 was my first day back at work, and I lasted six hours. This was actually better than I had anticipated and a very hopeful sign.
Previous: 1/5/2015--The Fickle Pancreas
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