Back to Work

Extra-filtered photo because of course I would wake up with a swollen eye on my first day back at work!

No, literally. I got cleared last week to go back to work by my surgeon. My first day back was today. I was nervous that I would be in pain by the end of the day, but it was pretty chill and everyone is wonderful, of course. It was great to see everyone (well, the staff that’s at the office this week).

The drive wasn’t too bad and I miraculously remembered my route. Drove into the compound through the security gates with no problem at all. Walked into the office and chit-chatted with Sam and Catherine and then walked to my cube and I was pleasantly surprised that it was decorated! Michael and Adrian did it, as per Emilio’s request lol. So freaking sweet!

It was a great day. Got to chit chat with my favorite person after work for a bit before physical therapy, too, so that was nice. My foot didn’t kill me but it did swell up a bit after the workouts at physical therapy. Even the tech was surprised by how it looked. Watched Chuck and Larry with the girls in the evening and now I’m in bed. Hoping for more great days!

Learning Again

I’d been meaning to write for a few days now, but since my Desktop computer is still ridiculously slow, and I can’t seem to remember my password for WordPress, and I’m using my iPad as a laptop but my keyboard died (I literally hadn’t charged it in like, 3 years), and I couldn’t find one of those old-connection chargers—I didn’t update. (Wasn’t THAT just the longest run-on sentence in the world?)

Anyway. I had my follow-up appointment with my ortho last Wednesday and of course it took 4 hours. Linda is a saint for sitting with me that long, but thank God she does ‘cause she makes it fun. So when we’ve almost been sitting there for 4 hours and the doc finally comes in to talk to me, he already seems annoyed. He says, “You were supposed to come in 2 weeks ago, what happened?” I said, “Oh, I had to call and cancel my appointment because I had Covid.” And he snaps, “Well, I didn’t know that.” You would think the woman I spoke to would have made a note or something about why I rescheduled. 🙄

He goes on and says I should already be out of the boot. I’m shocked and mumble, “But I’ve been using it for the 2 weeks and I just started putting weight on it. I can stand, but I can’t walk on it at all.” He closes his eyes and says, “Well you need to lose the crutches.” My mouth drops open and I ask when I’m starting physical therapy. He says he’ll get his Worker’s Comp girl to give me information and that I’ll be attending 3 times a week. So to further annoy the man, I ask if I can go to my old physical therapy place because well, it kinda takes a really long time here for follow-ups, and how long would it take at their therapy? He says about an hour or 2 (bullshit) and that he’s in charge of my surgery and after-care so I would be attending physical therapy at their office. 😡

I’ve been putting weight on my foot more and more and have been “walking”…with my crutches. There is NO WAY that I can make my brain communicate with my foot and leg and move it forward. And when I do, I feel like I’m going to collapse from the shocking pain I feel in my heel and the right side of my ankle, where the scar is.

I should be starting physical therapy tomorrow—with my old therapy place. I asked around and I can choose where I want to go so *hmph*. I have to admit though, I’m terrified of what exercises I’m going to have to do. Last time was just sprains and strains. This time I actually broke something and have metal in my leg and need to learn to walk all over again 🙁 .

And speaking of learning again—I’ll have to force myself to eventually learn to date again because Jorge and I are completely DUNZO. Not even sure if I ever mentioned that we were trying to “work things out” again but that was a total flop. I think the holidays made us lonely and nostalgic and it was convenient to spend the holidays together with the kids and our families. But spending a week together just showed me we really don’t belong together. Even for Alaethia’s birthday last week: he was just in such a rotten mood and told me the ugliest things. The one that stuck with me the most and I keep repeating in my head when he randomly texts and starts being “nice” is, “I never should have married you” and other horrible things he said about why we got married. So I was a bitch and talked shit back. Of course before the night was over he texted to say he made a fool of himself and he was sorry but he couldn’t stop himself 🙄 . But it was fine. It needed to happen. I don’t want to waste anymore time being unhappy or on edge. For now, I’m concentrating on the kids, work and just living day by day.

Eenan and Alaethia tested positive for Covid on Friday. Mary picked us all up and we went to get PCR tests done. I was supposed to go out on Friday night but decided I should probably quarantine. Again. We get our results on Wednesday. They called us today and scared the shit out of us saying that all 4 of us were positive. I was freaking out; my hypochondria was acting up and making me feel like I was having heart palpitations and trouble breathing, but I’m sure it was a mild panic attack LOL. They called back to tell us it was a mistake—we were negative on the rapid tests. Jesus Christ.

Anyway. It’s almost midnight and I have to work in the morning so I shall go to sleep.

1st Post of 2022

Guess what I got for Christmas?? No, guess!

I GOT COVID!! 😡

I am currently on Day 11 and I am, thankfully, feeling way better. The only thing I’m really feeling is the darn cough that goes between dry and phlegmy and the shortness of breath. Not only does lugging my body weight on my crutches make me tired; now I’m short of breath because of Covid, too.

A quick summary of how it started:

Day 1, Monday – Woke up for (tele)work and I noticed I had a scratchy throat. I figured it was my leaf-blower of a fan that caused it, since Jorge had just said the day before, Sunday, that he’d gotten a sore throat from my ridiculous fan. He had helped his mom empty out her storage unit and then was taking his kids and Daisy paint balling. He’d invited Jaylen but he was scheduled to work. Much to my annoyance, Jorge ended up staying at his house since he was drinking with Robert.

Around 9am that same day (Monday), he texts, “We have a problem” and tells me that Daisy and Justin were positive for Covid. Great. I start thinking back to our Christmas get-together and panic about our moms and then for Julien, who hasn’t gotten any of his vaccines (he was with his mom after the vaccines were approved for young children, so I assume he isn’t vaccinated).

Jorge says his sore throat is getting worse and now he has a cough. He’s also getting body aches. I start worrying that my sore throat isn’t from my fan after all. By the end of the night I’ve also got a dry cough and my sore throat is so painful I feel like I’m going to throw up.

Day 2, Tuesday – I wake up feeling awful. My throat is now very swollen and I have a bad headache. I called in to work and spent most of the day sleeping. Jorge Door Dashed some Gatorades to the house for me and the kids (mainly Jaylen) would pop in with gloves and a mask to bring me food (soup, mostly). I started my round-the-clock regimen of Tylenol every 5-6 hours. By the evening I was feverish and then got chills throughout the night. I didn’t even get to find out how high my fever got since our thermometer’s batteries were dead and we couldn’t find out newest one. Trying to get to the bathroom was brutal; every “hobble” I took with my crutches made my head feel like it was going to crack in half, and like my eyes were going to pop out of my head.

Day 3, Wednesday – I couldn’t sleep all night; I tossed and turned from the fever and chills, my throat was still making me feel nauseous and the cough was making my chest and back hurt. I called into work again and once again spent a lot of the day sleeping. The time I spent awake was spent watching “New Girl”. That day was when Angela tested positive and Julien started getting sick, too 🙁 .

Day 4, Thursday – I felt a little better. I was still coughing but my sore throat and headache were FINALLY gone and my fever finally broke. So I worked that day. It was a bit hard to stay awake; I felt so tired, but thankfully it was a short work-day. My body started feeling really sore, probably from my body contracting from the chills the past 2 nights. It felt as though I’d gotten a crazy workout after not working out for ages. Also, Jaylen made us some spaghetti and meatballs with Alfredo sauce. YUM.

Day 5, Friday – It was New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t help but remember my New Year’s Eve from 2 years ago when Jorge was still the district manager at the Wing Stop in San Antonio and he kept coming up with excuses for not coming home (they got super busy, they had tons of orders, etc.) but he was with that dumb little girl, Sabrina 😡 . In my usual fashion, even though I was sick, I brought it up to him and how lonely I was that evening. My biological children had spent that year with Mario, Jorgie and Justin were sick in their rooms with Flu B and Javi wasn’t there. It was just me and Bentos. This year, I was alone again and isolating, but I told myself I wasn’t going to allow myself to get upset about it. Instead, I masked up, washed my hands, gloved up, and made myself some Velveeta/Rotel cheese dip and some cream cheese and raspberry chipotle dip and watched “New Girl”.

The kids FaceTimed me and Jorge FaceTimed me too. He was doing a lot better. He was even working on Javi’s vintage truck.

My babies, at their dad’s

Day 6, Saturday – I realized I lost my sense of smell. I’d been smelling my Vick’s jar daily; to help with my congestion and also, the scent is so potent I’d know for sure when I was losing my sense of smell. Well, Day 6 was the day. I could tell that I was breathing in something minty, but I couldn’t smell it at all. Other symptoms on Day 6: my ears felt like I had cotton balls shoved in them and no amount of yawning or trying to pop them helped. My dry cough would come around every-so-often and I was no longer phlegmy, but I did feel some type of pressure in my chest. Like I almost felt like there’s a rattling in there? Or something. That same feeling is what makes me try to cough to get it out. Another symptom is muscle aches. Everything was still sore.

This was the day Briana broke the news to me that Betty White had passed away at the age of 99. And yet, it seemed like it was too soon. Jorge and I had just been talking about Celebrities that had passed and how sad it was going to be when she was gone. 😥

Jorge brought me tacos that day and we hung out for a bit. It was nice to have human interaction LOL.

Day 7 and Beyond – Jorge brought menudo for lunch on Sunday and it hit the spot. I’d been craving it forever. I tried getting around more (well, as much as I can with my crutches and boot) since I didn’t want to end up getting worse. I was feeling a lot better. Except for waking up all night on Tuesday from coughing. It was so annoying. It made the shortness of breath worse and I called in to work and spent a lot of the day sleeping. That night I was the same and called in half a day Thursday. I was just so exhausted. As of now, I’m a little worried to be honest, about the darn shortness of breath. Sending Jorge to CVS tomorrow to get me some cough medicine. I spoke to Martha tonight; both of us are getting over Covid. Well, she’s in the brunt of it right now. And my poor Jaylen JUST tested positive today 😥 . I hope it wasn’t me that gave it to him. He thinks it’s one of his co-workers. Mary took the girls to get tested today and thankfully they were both negative. I just really hope 2022 is kinder to all of us. I really do. I’m even scared to MENTION THAT because I don’t have the best track record. Praying for and manifesting the best vibes!