Making it to the double digits provides me with a feeling of accomplishment. I have no idea why; it really is a silly metric. Today has been a solid ok, I guess. Starting out on the plus side, after “breakfast” this morning (375 mL real food substitute, 15 mL painkillers, 15 mL liquid multi-vitamin, 14 mL flax seed oil, 10 mL regulatory medication, and 200 mL H2O – what a balanced meal, right?), I went back to sleep. This nap lasted for a few hours, so I think I’ve caught up on rest for the moment. I think this was possible because I’ve relearned how to sleep in normal person positions. Until last night, I’d spent the past month only able to sleep on my back and at an uncomfortably elevated angle (usually around 60 degrees). I can finally say that I like sleep again. So this makes me happy.
Most of the day was uneventful. I paid some bills, reorganized some of the files on my hard drive, decided that I need to perform a complete wipe of the drive, and started backing things up to prepare for that little adventure. I got some more writing done, realized that I’m totally unhappy with chapter one, and then said, “Screw it,” and decided to keep going. I’ll fix it later. My fiancee1 and I ran a few errands – nothing of earth-shattering importance or interest – and then entertained a friend who dropped by for a while. And that was basically the day.
This would be the paragraph where I further bemoan the pain in my jaw. But that would probably bore you, so I’ll skip it.
My one achievement for the day – Seedless Watermelon Italian Ice from Ritter’s Frozen Custard. Sure, it’s not a really solid food, but it does require the use of a spoon. I didn’t manage to eat a lot of it; the muscles that I’m having to retrain tire easily. Additionally, I’ve noticed that too mch exertion causes swelling to recur along the left side of my neck and throat, which can prove to be exceptionally uncomfortable. In the flavor department, I was able to taste the watermelon – barely; there were hints of it in the back of my throat. I’ll count that as a good sign. It not as though watermelon is the most potent flavor in the world, so even just a hint will work. I anticipate that, once the swelling has subsided in a few months, and once I’ve relearned the mechanics of swallowing, I’ll be able to concentrate more on the flavors of the experience than the physicality.
But today is was the physicality that preoccupied my mind. With each bite I would take a small amount of the dessert on the spoon and bring it to my lips. With no tongue to provide guidance, the next step was a combination of drawing the spoon between my lips and slurping (yeah, I’m going to need to find a different culture so that I can be appropriate at the dinner table). Next, it was necessary to strengthen the slurping action and move my jaw in an elliptical motion to move the ice to the back of my throat. Once it was there, the act of swallowing seemed to remain basically the way I remember it. The whole process is actually much slower than it sounds. I eat perhaps a dozen bites in a twenty minute period. I’m sure that this will improve with time, but I still have to fight the urge to become frustrated. On an intellectual level, I know that I am progressing well; yet, as I’ve mentioned before, I am not a patient patient. This process will annoy me. Worse than that, it will bore me; boredom is not something that I handle with grace. Add that to the list of demons to conquer over the next year.
In unrelated news, since there was the major internet outage yesterday (and yet Comcast was one of those bills that I paid without question, go figure. . .), my fiancee and I curled up in bed and watched the entire first season of True Blood. We were quite entertained. Lately I have been reading the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton, but I believe I’ve reached the point in the series where it basically degenerates to horribly written porn. The first few books of that series are fairly well-written detective fiction, but somewhere along the way, I think Ms. Hamilton decided that her readers were more interested in how pretty, sexy, and seductive Anita’s boyfriends are than in solving the murder du jour. Perhaps she is correct for the most part; however, this reader was more interested in, you know, the actual plot. Character studies that are light on plot can be fascinating, but not if they’re written as dime-store romances with no need for symbolism or semicolons. Anyway, to return to my point, I’m contemplating ordering a few of the novels on which True Blood is based. The reviews on Amazon.com are rather impressive, and one can never have enough vampire fiction. Plus, one more distraction couldn’t be all bad, could it?
That’s all for Day Ten. I hope all is well with you and yours. Until next time, take care of each other.
Blessed be.
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1 – For the record, she has asked that I not use her name. Therefore, I’m pondering several alternatives to “my fiancee,” which is too reductive of her as a person and takes too long to type. Maybe I’ll call her Bob. Or not. I don’t know. Thoughts?
