August 30, 2021

Banality Update

With the cascading fiascoes and calamities in the news, the status of you humble blogger is of limited concern.With that in mind, there's this.


My days when not engaged in PT have been taken up staring at the TV, contemplating the news with a sense of dread, until late last night and  this morning, when I exchanged that for sitting on the loo looking into a bucket, contemplating with a sense of dread everything I've eaten the last three days . Emotionally (though not physically) it was an improvement,

My PT was cancelled today because....sick. According to both the physical and occupational therapists this rather explosive bug has been sweeping through the area to such an extent that over half of their patients have cancelled. I'm fine now but...lighter. 

That's not to say there hasn't been progress, Friday, in a hilarious display of the very opposite of dexterity, I ate a meal with chopsticks. I repeated this feat Saturday, and again this evening with a sliced watermelon. It's slow and clumsy, and my hands are all numb but I did it. I've gotten as far as the mailbox and barn, which are about 50 yards in both cases, so my range is increasing. If all goes well, I'll be in out-paitent therapy in a week and can then work towards getting my strength back. The next big hurdle is the neurologist, on the 15th, which will determine how long before I can return to work. It could ba as little as 6 weeks, which is a welcome difference from the 6 MONTHS I was told to prepare for.

Illness and news aside, the main annoyance has been some of my medications, specifically the diuretics. I'm not going to elaborate...but it turns out that Dakooters already has. 


In response to some commenters, I do need to clarify something about the mask thing. The thick blood that contributed to the stroke was caused by too many red blood cells, which is, in turn often caused by low O2. As I don't have any conditions like sleep apnea that restrict one's O2, it is logical to assume that wearing the mask during my VERY physical job was a contributing factor. Indeed the company, prior to COVID, required everyone who wanted to wear a mask to sign a legal waiver because they were known to cause strokes and heart attacks. HOWEVER, I was not at work when this happened. I was at home with a bad cold. Also, and more importantly, I'm a fatass. I put on 80 pounds over the 18 months of lockdowns, despite the lifting and often double shifts. Given the sheer physicality of my job, my fatassery is a frustrating conundrum, but it is there, and is the main cause of strokes and other diseases of gluttony. The mask thing is a concern, but the main factor that will be examined in any evaluation of my mishap is my overall fitness and the fact that I allowed myself to slip so far. 

All in all, while there are constant frustrations as my body betrays me with demoralizing regularity, I'm making fairly steady progress. In comparison to those horrors I see on the news, what I face are essentially first world problems. 

I hope to post more in the near future, but internet service is rather diffident at my current location and the mee.nu servers are going through a bit of temporary chaos, ironically because they are being upgraded as part of mee.nu's policy of constant improvement. Me n' You is one of only a few such services that are dedicated to free speech, so please be patient. They are upgrading their infrastructure and moving ever upward.

Excelsior Pixy!



Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:46 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 621 words, total size 4 kb.

1 Thanks for the update. It's heartening to hear of your progress. I'm amazed that you're talking about returning to work at all, much less possibly in weeks. Best of luck!
And clearly you haven't lost your way with words, that was a masterpiece in telling us what your going through without over-sharing, as it were.

Posted by: David Eastman at Tue Aug 31 01:09:09 2021 (t/97R)

2 The weight gain is frustrating. People come home after a hard day and cannot help but gorge while unwinding. With how dense modern processed food is, no physical activity can burn it all. Especially things like potato, pizza, pasta will fatten you up in a flash.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Aug 31 08:43:06 2021 (LZ7Bg)

3 The news is an information operation, designed to make things look worse than they really are, and demoralize you about doing anything to address the issues. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of very bad things being done. But we can know that they do not have things as secured in reality for them as they want, and there are in fact things that such as you or I can do. We win, they lose. It is just that the intervening events are unforeseeable, so we are betting on Americans. We are betting on them because of what the things that didn't happen confirm about Americans.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Tue Aug 31 09:41:58 2021 (DHVaH)

4 Hi Brick,  Thank you for following up on my prior comments.  I'll leave this as my final followup so I don't get annoying on it.  Professionally I manage HR systems, which means I know just about enough about HR to know when to get others involved, but I'm also not a complete novice as I do get exposed to HR's responses.  I've also known individuals trying to navigate workers comp and it can get very complex, often during a stressful time when they are dealing with the immediate health issues.
1. Waivers, particularly when they are around your health and are a condition of employment are not necessarily ironclad.  If your employer made your continued employment contingent on the waiver, the ground can get very slippery very quickly for them as that can be considered coercive.  A lot depends on local law, aspects of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Dept of Labor also occasionally weighs in on this sort of thing as well.  It's not something I would wade into without competent legal advice.  My advice, don't assume that the waiver fully protects your employer, it may not regardless of what it says.
2. I'm not an expert, but I believe that the stroke would be considered a consequence of the thickening of your blood, which would be the injury that occurred at work.  The other health issues may or may not muddy the waters, that's beyond my expertise.  The main thing would be how likely you would have been to have the blood thickening and the resulting stroke absent the working conditions you laid out previously.
3. Finally, as a general reminder, the ADA does require that your employer work with you on reasonable accommodations to protect your health, if you ask.  This can be anywhere from reasonable modifications to the work environment, to moving you into another position.   
Sorry if I am pushing this a bit, but I've seen both individuals trying to navigate this and the inner works of HR when responding.  The law gives you a lot of protections, but only if you know enough to use them and if you don't make mistakes early on.  Assumptions in this realm are not your friends.
I've said my piece, I'll go back to minding my own business, celebrating your continued recovery, and pray for its' continuance.

Posted by: StargazerA5 at Tue Aug 31 19:43:15 2021 (ElYwz)

5 "Sorry if I am pushing this a bit"
In college, I briefly worked as a scheduler in a factory.  I watched a young woman with severe RSI injuries in her wrists silently suffer as her bosses told her they didn't have any work in the office to accommodate her work-acquired injury.  This place was almost always embroiled in multiple lawsuits over the same issue.
I hope your employer isn't pulling anything like this, Brick, but don't let them get away with it if they try.

Posted by: Rick C at Wed Sep 1 21:44:54 2021 (eqaFC)

6 I was ecstatic to be able to stop taking Lasix, 2+ years after having heart surgery.
You'll get there.

Posted by: Canthros at Wed Sep 1 22:47:07 2021 (mToqK)

7
I hope your employer isn't pulling anything like this, Brick, but don't let them get away with it if they try.

No, they're real good about finding light duty/busy work for someone who was injured on the job, but if you were injured outside it doesn't apply. If I'd had the stroke at work I might be starting back there this week. As it is, I probably have to wait until October before I can do full duty.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Thu Sep 2 02:01:16 2021 (jcjjo)

8 And you thought that the version of "Sandman" from Metallica's black album was radio friendly!

Posted by: L. Beau Macaroni at Fri Sep 10 16:40:30 2021 (fieDC)

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