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The fatigue, oh god the fatigue.

We have this weird ant problem. Ever since we moved here more than a year ago, we’d need to pick an ant off of us when in bed, now and then. There’s no trail, and we don’t know where they’re coming in. They just APPEAR. And lord how they stink when you squish them. I just picked one off this iPad. For the last month it has been BAD. I probably pick 30-40 off of me per day, and whenever I wake up at night I pick off another one. We’ve got ant traps everywhere, but since there’s no trail it’s hard to know if they’re in the right spot. WHAT do they WANT? There’s no food, grease, water, or sugar in the bed. Just us. GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Go away ants you’re making me CRAZY. And there’s another on my arm. They just appear from nowhere! I’m losing my damn mind.

Woke up feeling pretty good, with a little bit of energy! I tidied up my side of the bedroom which inspired Dave to work on his side too. It’s not done yet but it’s so much better! I put away my SAD lamp because the days are so much longer that I don’t need extra daylight, and I cleaned and put away my humidifier because it’s warm enough (50s, generally) that I can keep the bedroom window open all day and the furnace doesn’t run much, so it’s not uncomfortably dry inside.

Then I made a quick mushroom-ginger soup for lunch (Dave licked the bowl) and baked a dozen of my frozen cookie-dough lumps, and then WHAMMO I hit the wall and dragged myself to bed for a rest. Slept a bit but mostly just rested.

Feeling better now after a few hours of nothing. Should be able to get up for dinner.

Lovely gentle drippy rain all day.

Greedily ate one more slice of pizza before bed last night, unhappy stomach in the night, bad sleep, exhausted. Stayed in bed all day.

Tonight I did my lung exercises and my (seated) physical therapy leg exercises for the first time since my big hospital stay. It’s hard for me to walk from the bedroom to the kitchen to get food and that is very scary. If I remember right, I was this out-of-condition when I started physical therapy but improved quickly. Within a couple weeks I felt much stronger, I think. God I hope so. I can’t DO anything and there are things I want to do.

I did my lung exercises tonight. I have a little gadget called a “flutter valve” that you blow into, and the back-pressure is supposed to help open up my lungs and loosen and clear out gunk. And then my other gadget, my inspirometer, helps strengthen my diaphragm and whatever other muscles help me inhale. Tomorrow I hope to do a few of my leg exercises because lordy I’m in BAD SHAPE. Walking so slowly. Ugh.

Dave made us a lovely lunch of sautéed salmon (so tender!) and the “chips” (crinkle-cut fries) that he makes in his deep-fryer. Ok, I admit, I didn’t think we needed a deep-fryer, but the chips he makes are AMAZING. He peels the potatoes, cuts them with his crinkle cutter, and fries them perfectly so they’re lightly crunchy on the outside but soft and fluffy on the inside. I’ve never had such delicious fries. I was wrong! We do need a deep-fryer. But all that hot oil frightens me so Dave gets to do all the frying.

When will I have a not-tired day? When? It was all I could do to drag myself out of bed a few times today. I washed, dried, and folded a load of towels. I did the washing up and cleaned the counters so the kitchen sparkles. I sat on the sofa to watch Taskmaster. Now it’s 6:30pm and I’m headed back to bed to listen to the Taskmaster podcast. And that’s my day.

Finally caught up on Succession s04e02 tonight. Omg so good.

Helped Em finish her sewing project, then lay down for the rest of the day.

Darn I forgot to post yesterday! And I was sure I’d written something. Well, Monday was a nice quiet day. Kirsten went to Henry’s and took the girls outside to play for hours. I made another Italian casserole and rested and ate.

Today Lulu had school so Kirsten brought Em back here so she could practice her cello and do her school project with me. Her assignment was to make a quilt square using fabric that is meaningful to her. The kids are allowed to just glue their fabric to cardboard, but of course Em wanted to actually sew! And it was a perfect project for us to do together because I have scraps of so many things I’ve sewn for her over the years. We used a pink sun-protection fabric that I used to sew clothes for her second trip to Burning Man (age three), gray fleece scraps from the first Halloween costume I made for her (an awesome robot with electric lights and knobs), and rainbow jersey that I used to make her Christmas joggers! Because we were using difficult thick stretchy fabric I set her up to do Foundation Paper Piecing with great big seam allowances. I also showed her how to draw small versions of her quilt square and use markers to color them in and decide on fabric placement.

We got the whole square finished. She did all the cutting and all the sewing, except I helped sew through the big horrible lump at the center where all the seams crossed. Tomorrow we’ll sew it to a backing, pillowcase-style, so that she can stuff it and have a keepsake memory pillow when her project is returned to her :)

And then Henry and Co. showed up in the afternoon. I hid in the quiet bedroom, Henry hid with me to finish his work day, the girls played on the trampoline for hours, and Jayla and Kirsten chased the baby around.

So. Tired.

Nice quiet day. Better sleep last night. I baked cookies! And then I was exhausted and slept for the rest of the day.

We both had an extremely rough night so today was a rather hard day but oh well, maybe we’ll sleep tonight.

Kirsten and Emma arrived around 2:00, YAY!!! It’s wonderful to see them again. Em is so tall now, and sweet, and articulate, and intelligent, and so lovely. I’m a very proud auntie.

Henry, Jayla, Lulu, and Freyja showed up a bit later and the little girls had a riot playing together. No quarreling, just high-quality Cousin Time. Awesome. There’s nothing like cousins.

Henry went to the grocery store for us, put away the groceries, and moved more heavy things from place to place. We would be absolutely sunk without him. He even moved our beds a few inches apart so that Dave’s back-pain thrashing won’t jounce me awake all night. I hope. Poor Dave. He has such a hard time getting comfortable, and when he raises and lowers the head of his bed, the Bluetooth gets confused and lowers MY bed flat and then I can’t breathe and I dream that I’m dying and wake up gasping for air. So tonight we’re gonna make him some presets. Those just send one quick signal and shouldn’t adjust my angle. I hope. Lord. We need sleep so badly.

I gave Em and Lulu each a beautiful hardback copy of the wonderful new kids’ graphic novel retelling of Beowulf: Bea Wolf, by Weinersmith and Boulet . They were thrilled!

Now they’ve all gone back to Henry’s house. Em will spend the night there (possibly the whole week) and Kirsten will come back here to sleep and spend a quiet day tomorrow.

Felt a bit more like myself. There was some spinach and a half-used jar of marinara in the fridge, so I whipped up a quick Italian casserole. Spiral noodles, cottage cheese, spinach, marinara, and a bit of fresh mozzarella and shredded Parmesan. Easy peasy, very tasty. In fact I think I’ll have a bit more after I write this.

Today is the first day since I got out of the hospital ten days ago that I didn’t spend most of the day in bed.

Rough day. Was awakened so many times in the night by various things, then awakened again during naps by various other things. Brain is mush.

Dave has made great progress in the second main floor bathroom! He says we’ll have a functioning toilet tomorrow. He bought a sink and a tap, and has plans for the floor and shower. Very exciting.

I had such a good dinner. I took a chance on a package of De Wafelbakker’s frozen buttermilk pancakes after reading reviews (had to buy a bunch of easy-fix stuff because damn I still can’t do anything but lie here, more or less) and I finally got around to trying them. Wow! They’re great! Just as good as homemade and not too many crappy ingredients. A fair trade for zero-effort pancakes. I ate three pancakes and an all-natural pork breakfast sausage patty (gasp). I know, I know, the planet, the intelligent pigs. :( But I eat almost zero meat and once in a while I want some greasy tasty protein. Sorry planet. Sorry pigs.

Series 15 of Taskmaster started tonight and was excellent as always!

Agan, ok for a few hours in the morning. Maybe three today. Did a little sewing on a prototype washable Swiffer pad. Not happy yet but it’s a start. Then CRASHED.

Finished Breaking Bad. (Again)

Managed to strip the guest bed and wash the bedding. It’s sitting in the dryer waiting for tomorrow. I also cleaned the Roomba and took pity on it and ordered it some new rollers and filters and edge-brushes. Poor thing is nearly two years old and is using its original rollers, and has only had one filter change. Maybe it will be less confused by its job with some new parts. Today I told it to do the guest room, so it trucked on down the hall to the door, turned around, went back to its base, and cheerfully told me it had finished. Poor little confused robot.

I lasted a little longer before Crash Time today.

We have an unfinished bathroom connected to the master bedroom, and Dave has decided to give it a functional toilet before our guests arrive on Saturday! I’m so excited! We have a second bathroom downstairs (and a third one downstairs and outside, accessible to the workshop) but neither of us are fond of stairs so this will make life much easier. Plus this new bathroom will have a Toto toilet like our main bathroom. It has a heated seat and washes your butt with a stream of clean warm water. It’s heavenly. Dave misses the Toto when he goes out of town and I missed it when I was in the hospital. And that is another reason we don’t love using the downstairs bathroom. No Toto yet :D

Started cleaning the sewing/guest room for houseguests next weekend. Crashed hard after half an hour, had to nap the rest of the day. Frustrating. Need to be patient.

Eating and resting, resting and eating.

I did manage to sit up for a while and catch up on my Botanical Stitch-Along.

Thirteen hexes, thirteen weeks into the year. It’s fun stitching a new one each week.

Woke up too early because I was hungry and excited to see my Lulu, who planned a quick visit today! I took a good bath and washed my hair properly. Put on clean fresh clothes. So pleasant to not be in the hospital anymore.

Lulu and Henry showed up and Lulu got into bed with me, resourcefully bringing our shower seat in from the bathroom to help herself climb into my very tall bed. We had a good cuddle and I read her two stories, and then she brushed my hair and decorated me with red geranium petals.

I was getting my hair done in a salon on a long train journey.

Henry did chores, wonderful boy. He took out trash and recycling, helped Dave move stuff, and swept and swiffered the kitchen and it’s SO CLEAN! Ugh I hate living in a dirty house but we needed to postpone the cleaners this month.

Small girl wore me out entirely. The visit was not short enough, alas, and I am at max sensory input capacity.

Ate and rested, rested and ate.

Felt ok again when I woke up this morning. Gravity back to normal. Got up, started black bean soup in crock pot, ate breakfast sitting at the table and chatting with Dave, then crashed hard and went back to bed and fell asleep. Slept an hour or two, and by the time I woke up the soup was done! Adding a spoonful of baking soda to a pot of beans makes them cook FAST and lordy did they end up soft and creamy and delicious!

Remainder of day I napped and ate and napped and ate, and continued my giant rewatch of Breaking Bad.

Dave brought me a little pizza from the Friday night Pizza Bus so I’m gonna eat a slice now and then fall asleep.

Exhausted. Jupiter gravity all day. Tomorrow will be better.

Too exhausted to write

Home! Home home home home home.

Had one more huge dose (120mg) of IV lasix this morning and then Dave picked me up in the afternoon when I had finished peeing. Picked up Burgerville milkshakes and fries on the way home. Took low-effort bath — didn’t bother to unbraid hair, just soaked and shampooed my scalp and scrubbed my skin. Gray bathwater lol.

Have been in bed since then. Did some embroidery, continued my binge rewatch of “Breaking Bad: A Series of Increasingly Bad Decisions” (this is my own private domicile and i will not be harassed), ate blueberries and cottage cheese. I have a bowl of sliced green apples and goat cheese to work on next.

I’m eating like it’s going out of style. Woke up ravenous in the middle of the night and had to ring for my nurse to bring snacks. He said it’s because I’m healing.

My final hospital weight, after losing multiple liters of extra fluid, was only 104 lbs. I thought I weighed 108-110. All fluid. And there’s still more in me to get rid of. So it’s back to square 2. (At least I probably have a real weight of more than 98)