Last week I had x-ray and ultrasound scans of the wonky hand. That was ok. Then they did an ultrasound-guided steroid injection into the thumb of same hand. That was not ok. I am a total wooss when it comes to such things. I manage blood tests ok because I don’t look.
I didn’t look this time, either, and it felt like there were three different vials of stuff going in – one was the local anaesthetic so it shouldn’t hurt (ha!), one was the actual steroid, and the final one was another longer-lasting anaesthetic.
It was all horrible, and as per usual I had to have a little lie down afterwards so I didn’t actually pass out. Everybody was very kind, but I always feel so pathetic!
Large, ugly, black-purple bruise where the injection went. A good 2″/5cm long. It’ll fade though, eventually.
And on Monday I am to see the consultant so he can decide, based on the results of the scans, what he’s going to do about the arthritic knuckles (fuse or replace).
Ho hum.
But all is well otherwise in our little world. Could do with the gardener coming and doing stuff, though. The weeds are learning to answer the phone . . . . .
Well, today I spoke to the doctor, and now I have new anti-depressants. Same “family” (SSRI) but just different. The process of changing over from one to the other is so complicated it takes four weeks. I always have a pill organiser for the forthcoming week, but have needed to set up four different pill organisers, labelled clearly Week 1, Week 2, etc. It’s complicated by the fact that my pill-taking week starts on a Wednesday. Don’t ask. Fingers crossed it will all go well.
Tomorrow I have a guided steroid injection into my thumb joint booked – they’re going to check the rest of the hand too while they’re at it and then decide whether to replace or fuse the knuckle joints. They’re talking about ultrasound and x-ray, so I’m not sure whether it’s one or the other, or both. Anyway. We shall see. Hubby is taking me and fetching me – they advise you not to drive after the procedure.
Saturday I have booked my first pedicure since February 2020. I’m really hoping I’ll be ok to drive there, bearing in mind the change of meds and the thumb injection. Mm. That is something I could re-arrange but will wait and see if I need to first.
The sorting out of the spaghetti tangle behind the hi-fi is going well. Just awaiting some 0.5 metre power cables, and it should look much better. It’s already looking tidier. You can see a jumble of wires on the right, and holes in the wall where the electrician took out the old plug sockets. You can even see one of my plug labels ! as well as various Father’s Day cards. It will all be sorted out very soon . . . .
Football again tonight – we watched Scotland vs England on Saturday. England’s game was a bit lacklustre, but I thought the Scots played really well. (Goalless draw). Last night we watched Belgium play Finland. Cor blimey, exciting. Tonight it’s England vs Czech Republic. It’s always a bit fraught watching England play, partly because it’s our team, and partly because they’re not that reliably good! We both shout at the screen, I tend to shout a bit at the inanity of the commentators – they do have a tendency to state the bloody obvious – and why can’t they just shut up once in a while? I don’t need to hear their constant speculation about who will go through! I do understand that they can’t hear me . . . .
I’m a bit worried that the motherboard on my computer is failing. It’s not quite 3 years old yet, so a bit soon. But from time to time things don’t work. For example the monitor (even the new one), the keyboard, and some of the USB ports. So I’m backing up every other day and keeping a watch on it. I did have an old computer where Windows lost all its USB drivers, so installing Linux worked, but I’m already using Linux on this one!
Temperatures are currently lower, so better for me. 17C today, 21C tomorrow allegedly. Anything over 23C leaves me limp. So this is just fine.
Reading some excellent stuff at the moment. Currently halfway through “Barbarossa/how Hitler lost the war” (Jonathan Dimbleby). It’s very interesting, detailed, and intense. At the moment I’m having to leave it for a day or so in between reading sessions because there’s quite a lot about the massacres of Jewish people. Horrific anyway, but as I have Jewish heritage (my Dad and all his relatives) it’s particularly upsetting. It’s hard to understand such hatred, based on nothing except propaganda.
We have a spaghetti tangle of various wires behind the hifi, which looks awful. So we decided to do something about it. Most of the wires can be simply replaced with shorter ones (hdmi, power, ethernet), but two of the ethernet/network cables come from another room on the other side of the house. One is a flat ethernet cable, one is a standard round one. The standard one wasn’t particularly well fixed to its plug, and the wire sheath was a bit short, exposing the inner wires.
So I decided to replace the ethernet RJ45 plug.
Well. What a to-do.
Luckily, there is tinterweb and YouTube, which helped enormously.
Inside each ethernet wire, whether it’s “Cat 5e” or “Cat 6”, are eight very small wires, twisted into four pairs. All different colours. They have to go into the tiny little RJ45 plug in the right order. But they are not twisted in the right colour order. Why not? you might well ask, but I have no idea. And of course the twisting leaves the tiny little wires curly, so they have to be straightened out, then sort of wangled into a flat row.
Long story short, I found the best way to manage it, having practised (a lot) on a spare standard Cat 5e cable, is the magic “pass-through” RJ45 plug. That means that you can leave plenty of length of stripped wires, push them all the way through, and then check they’re in the right order before you crimp them. Saves a lot of trouble, and many plugs. Also, once you’ve crimped and trimmed them, you can be more sure that it will all work. There are apparently crimpers which do the trimming, but my crimpers didn’t, so I just used a kitchen knife and sharpened it afterwards.
You can buy network cable testers and I guess it would be worth it if you’re going to do a lot of this. I’m not, just a couple here or there, so I tested mine on our laptop, plugging the spare cable, with new plugs on both ends, into the laptop and a switch box. Oh my, the glee when it worked!
Ethernet cable Cat 5e with new RJ45 pass-through plugs. And a sock/boot.
So now I’m awaiting short HDMI cables, and we have a plan for the power wires, so it should start to look a lot better soon.
And here, to lighten things up a bit, is a photo of our lovely black elder with the pink flowers. It stinks, though, of tom cat. I don’t remember it being smelly in years past, so I’m assuming it’s actually a tom cat. Am currently spraying a diluted solution of white vinegar, each evening, round the base of the plant, and on the patio flags nearby. Today our cat won’t go out. I really hope it’s not because of the vinegar!
The first thing was that my computer monitor didn’t work. I changed the cable. No joy. Luckily, because I’m such a nerdy type, I do actually have a spare monitor (old, second hand, cheap but works) for when I fix other people’s computers. That works fine. Excellent. New monitor arriving tomorrow.
Then discovered that both the wildlife cameras are telling me there’s either no sd card, or that the sd card is full. Hmph. Unlikely that both the cameras (different makes) would be playing up, so ordered some new sd cards. Yesterday in the garden hubby managed to film our local friendly woodpecker, so I really hoped the camera traps would have caught it. Nope. Nor the pair of beautiful goldfinches who were clearly househunting. That’s what made me check the cameras. Sigh.
These are not, unfortunately, pictures from our garden, but stock photos from Pexels. The Great Spotted Woodpecker pic is from https://www.happybeaks.co.uk/bird-library/great-spotted-woodpecker and this is exactly what “our” woodpecker looks like. I notice our British robins are much shorter and fatter than US robins. We have a robin family in our back garden, and they are very inquisitive and friendly (territorial and bossy).
Still awaiting the gardener. Should be here within the next hour or so. I hope so, the lawn is more like a meadow now, only without the pretty flowers. The cat is loving it. She caught, but then lost, a mouse yesterday. Only doing her cat thing, but it’s not nice to see.
Managed to actually shower AND wash my hair this morning, which is always a bit of a mission because of the stupid wonky hands, so drying it is a bit fraught.
Also ordered new vest tops. Not sure what size I’ll need so ordered both sizes and will send back the ones that don’t fit right. One is coral, one is bright blue. Sort of cobalt blue. Yeah.
loonyfeminist 