The delight of my morning yesterday was taking a shower. My arm bandages did not come off, nor was there any bleeding. It felt so, so good to feel clean and to know I could go back to regular showering. While I waited to go to see my NP at the clinic, I wrote Jess to tell her that I will not be taking more speech therapy for a while. While I’m seeing Dr. S. twice a month, that is all I want to do.

My speech is holding well for friends. I remain unable to speak to strangers. I tried hard to speak to the receptionist at the clinic, but it was impossible and I could not care less. If I can speak to my friends, that’s all that matters. I’m still worse than I was prior to March 28, but if I can speak to my friends, I am giddy.

I cancelled the cortisone shot that Jennifer offered me. It’s only temporary and, given that I’ve already been waiting for eight months, I don’t see the point. If it works, I’d just be wanting another one and I’d be waiting again for another year. So f*ck that.

Instead, she has ordered barbotage. Barbotage (or needle aspiration and lavage) is a minimally invasive, ultrasound-guided procedure used to treat calcific tendinopathy (caused by my bone spurs). It involves using needles to break up and suck out calcium deposits within my Achilles tendon, followed by a corticosteroid injection to reduce inflammation. 

When I got home, we all had lunch and I had a nap. Then Her Highness and I went for our afternoon walk as the sky brightened and the angel piss stopped. It didn’t deserve consideration as precipitation. It was, as it always is, a delight to be forest walking. I love taking her walking. It is never something I want to put off. Come Friday, though, I may be feeling too poorly to walk her after my shingles shot tomorrow.

Last night was as usual and today may be an outdoor day. I kept waking up last night and so my sleep was fitful and so today I may not feel up to doing too much yard work. We’ll walk with our friends, and we’ll go into the village to pick up meds. Walking will be the highlight of my day.

Clouds and Angels

By the time we were ready to walk yesterday morning, it had clouded over and that somewhat dampened my desire to spend the day outdoors gardening because it was cooler than our glorious Sunday. Instead, I focused on some chores needing doing. 

After our walk, we went into the village to arrange for ana appointment at the clinic and to fetch some tomatoes from the nursery for the edible garden. The clinic is very good to me. Instead of getting an appointment in three weeks to a month, I am going in this morning at 11:40! 

When we got home, I planted the tomatoes and cleaned up one garden bed before heading out for our afternoon walk. After that, came some reading. Sadly, I am about to read the last of my Jackson Brodie novels by Kate Atkinson. And then our regular evening routine carried us through to bedtime.

Today is cloudy and Angle piss has dampened everything. What happened to those April showers made famous in song? I am hopeful that we’ll get some real rain today, but I have my doubts. I am worried about forest fires this year, and about how many trees we will lose to drought this Summer. Sigh.

Thursday, I get my second shingles shot. I am worried about that too. My first one made me sick the following day. And the nurse here says I may have a worse reaction to number two. Double sigh. 

Because it’s so dull outside, I lit a fire this morning. I shall be chillin’ today, reading and doing domestic chores. We will shop after my clinic appointment.

My Day

Sunday, My Day, was a spectacular day! The pets awoke me very early (4:00). Sheba made her wee whimpers, and Fred made puking sounds. I then played Find the Puke, but I couldn’t. I searched everywhere but could not find it. It’ll be revealed in time.

I fed everyone and then read. It is a great time to read while all the pets sleep some more after eating. There was no need for a fire, so both Fred and Ethel retreated to my bed to sleep, Sheba slept on the bedroom floor, and I mounted the chaise to read.

At 9:00, it was time to walk. I could hardly wait. It was such a perfect morning. We did a long walk and only saw one other person. And it was silent; the dawn chorus was long over. We walked for 1.5 hours, and when we arrived back at Pinecone Park it soon was lunch time. (When you get up at 4:00, lunch is at 11:00.) 

And then it was time to work in the garden. I chose to tidy up the edible garden. I’m in no hurry to do anything, so it was a pleasure to work. The edible garden gets lots of sunlight, so I was working in my tee. I had to weed whack the paths around my raised beds before I could rake-up all the cones and other detritus and tote it to the lower forty (behind the fence). Plus, I tidied up the beds themselves, throwing all the weeds and cones on the ground before the big sweep, and as I worked, I found Raspberry suckers growing in the path, so I transplanted them into the Raspberry planter. The last work of the day was to water the plants in containers and the Butterbur that needs so much water.

I was delighted to find myself wanting to work in the yard and gardens. Finally, my will kicked into gear, and at the end of the day it is very, very rewarding to see the product of my work. The garden looked fantastic, and because the entire coming week is predicted to be warm and sunny, I will get lots of things done. But Tuesday, with luck, will be rainy. God, I hope we get rain!

I did 4.5 hours work. I loved every second of it, and I am eternally grateful to Dr. Dorscheid and Tezspire because that drug enabled my labour. Without it, I would have had to hire someone to do the work I did today. That’s what I did for the past two years. But at 15:30, I was tired and hot and so I called it quits to walk Her Highness and then do some reading before dinner. My God, I wish Kate Atkinson was as prolific with her Jackson Brodie series as is Donna Leon with her Commissario Guido Brunetti series (I read forty of them; Ms. Atkinson’s series is six books).

Last night was a great version of the usual!

Today, another sunny one, has begun at a rather chilly 8°. We’ll walk with our friends, and then I’ll be watering and doing yard work all day. I’m really looking forward to being outside all day. Below are some recent snaps.

Magnificent old Maple in Elder Cedar.

It's the most beautiful time of year in the forest because 
everything is so brilliantly green.

A large field chock full of Nettles.

Beautiful tiny white flowers in the moss on the side of a trail in the 707 Park.

There are also huge swathes of Vanilla Leaf plant.

Alder trunks have a beauty like Plane trees of southern France.

My left arm post dog-jumping up on me.

My right arm got the worst of it.

 I propped my phone on a tree trunk and took this selfie
of us by triggering the shutter with my watch!

Summer in T-Shirt

I walked Sheba early in the morning, and then we went to Mad Rona’s to meet Stacy for coffee and a chin wag. And while talking to her, I could hear myself getting better at speaking, and when we ran into people on our walks, same thing. I’ve put my ’non-verbal’ buttons away and changed the calling advice that I was maintaining on the top right of this site.

I’m not an idiot. I may crash again, but I feel very good about my speech right now, but I shall take things one day at a time. I am, however, optimistic that this relief will hole. I turned down attending a party last night that I would have loved to be part of, and now, with my speech doing so well, I could have gone. Ah well. I’m not sorry that I stayed home. I’m still crowd averse.

It was a truly beautiful and warm Summer-like day yesterday. I had to take my hoodie off when we were walking and enjoy or forest walk in just my t-shirt. And it will be the same again today, with a high of 20°. Sadly, I am not very interested in doing gardening and yard work. I’m enjoying reading and three walks a day too much.

Today is My Day. I have no plans other than to walk, read and to do a little yard work. I’m desperate for a spa or a shower. I want warm water on my skin, but my arms are so damaged from the dog a couple of days ago I don’t want to get the bandages wet yet. I’ve become a temporary sponge bather and I’m using my electric blanket for a good dose of heat.

•

There was a comedy show that was popular on television. It’s still playing because it was very funny. Two fellows I worked with in theatre from Canada were two of the stars of the show. There were two other comedians as well. One standard bit they did was telling a story together, taking turns with each of them saying one word to tell the story. 

That’s a bit like speech is for me. I want to convey that which might be a sentence if I could talk. I don’t speak in sentences. I don’t use grammar. I use what I call ‘key words.’ These are words that convey meaning and, more importantly, that I can say. There are many phonemes (sounds) that I can’t say, however, it’s more complex than that. 

I can’t say the word ‘apple’ because the soft A phoneme is almost impossible for me to say. I’ve heard myself say it once lately, as I was speaking and I was shocked—and happy. A lot depends on where the phoneme is placed in the sequence of phonemes of a word that I am trying to say. (And here I thought studying linguistics was a stupid idea back in uni.) The way I talk feels like the game Ryan, Colin and their fellow actors did on that show. Each word is a step forward, but you must search to find one that works.

I could go on and on about the complexity of speech. The best thing to do, is give you an example. Here’s something I might say and do: “Visit, friend (I can’t say Dianne, so I raise my eyebrows as high as I can as I say “friend,” and I nod my head ‘yes;’ I’m trying to get you to guess the name. I give a thumbs up or down, to your guess, and my face lights up when you guess correctly), good. We, and then I would ‘walk’ my fingers along my other hand that’s held out flat (this is me saying, ‘walking’, and again, thumbs and face convey yes or no), we I whisper, ‘spa’ in a way that I can and it’s odd, we andthen I’d mime eating, moo-vee.”

So: “Visit friend good. We (mime walking), we spa (whispered), we (mime eating), movie.”