52 Card Project 2022: Week 9: Squint
Mar. 4th, 2022 09:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI tried going back to work this week. It is not going as well as I hoped.
Monday was my first day back at work since my accident on February 9. I'd hoped I'd be able to work my usual eight hours, but I assumed at least I'd be able to work four.
I barely managed to hold it together for three. And only by turning off the lights over my desk. It seems that the fluorescent lights are causing me difficulties.
Tried working a half-day Wednesday, my usual day off, to make up for not being able to manage a full day on Monday. On Thursday, I developed a crippling headache and so had to take sick time for that half-day of work.
My employer is supportive, but ugh, this is so frustrating.
I am doing screens more--well, I have to, to make this card. Partly that is because I couldn't ignore the war news out of Ukraine, which is terrible, and so I am on Twitter more. I still haven't resumed books, which feels like I'm being punished--before the accident, I was reading a book a day.
So: I am doing more screens than I should, and I am not recovering as swiftly as I hoped.
To be honest, I'm really not doing great. Two years of pandemic isolation, living alone, and now this. I'm lonely and bored and cabin-fevered and oh, I wish at least I could be out on my porch or outside in my garden (but of course if I could, I wouldn't have been slipping on ice, would I?) My walking group stopped meeting due to Omicron. I have been eating for comfort, so I'm at my all-time highest weight. I feel stupid, listless, logy, and gross. Depressed and worried about the news. Depression is a common side effect of concussion. No wonder.
As I was thinking about how to design this card, I looked over the pictures I had taken in the past week, and one thing leaped out at me: I routinely send Snapchats to my girls in order to keep in touch with them, and I habitually download them before sending them. One thing I noticed is that in all of them, I was squinting. I've been light-sensitive, and I'm often tired and/or in pain. And the world seems overwhelming, so I've been instinctively half closing my eyes.
This also seemed like a metaphor. Looking at the news on Twitter about Ukraine is awful, and it hurts, both physically and mentally to read it. But I'm drawn to it, to know. Just as I crave to get back to reading books. So I look, but with my eyes half-closed.
I used a visualization of a woman in profile, her skull semi-transparent to show her brain activity. That layer is itself semi-transparent, too, with an underlayer of a visualization of brain theta waves (the deepest brain activity, present in meditation and healing). Over that, I scattered pictures of my eyes, registering various degrees of pain.
Edited to add: I had just decided to call my doctor about my concussion to see if I needed another follow up. And while I was on MyChart, I clicked on the bill for my concussion diagnosis/care so far.
Understand: they did a diagnostic test (CT scan) and then did nothing more than talk to me and send me home with a prescription for Aleve. No brain surgery involved, in other words.
The bill is one and half months of my take home pay. And I'm insured.
I HATE the American health care system.
I have another appointment scheduled for March 10. More bills.
Squint
Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2021 gallery.
Monday was my first day back at work since my accident on February 9. I'd hoped I'd be able to work my usual eight hours, but I assumed at least I'd be able to work four.
I barely managed to hold it together for three. And only by turning off the lights over my desk. It seems that the fluorescent lights are causing me difficulties.
Tried working a half-day Wednesday, my usual day off, to make up for not being able to manage a full day on Monday. On Thursday, I developed a crippling headache and so had to take sick time for that half-day of work.
My employer is supportive, but ugh, this is so frustrating.
I am doing screens more--well, I have to, to make this card. Partly that is because I couldn't ignore the war news out of Ukraine, which is terrible, and so I am on Twitter more. I still haven't resumed books, which feels like I'm being punished--before the accident, I was reading a book a day.
So: I am doing more screens than I should, and I am not recovering as swiftly as I hoped.
To be honest, I'm really not doing great. Two years of pandemic isolation, living alone, and now this. I'm lonely and bored and cabin-fevered and oh, I wish at least I could be out on my porch or outside in my garden (but of course if I could, I wouldn't have been slipping on ice, would I?) My walking group stopped meeting due to Omicron. I have been eating for comfort, so I'm at my all-time highest weight. I feel stupid, listless, logy, and gross. Depressed and worried about the news. Depression is a common side effect of concussion. No wonder.
As I was thinking about how to design this card, I looked over the pictures I had taken in the past week, and one thing leaped out at me: I routinely send Snapchats to my girls in order to keep in touch with them, and I habitually download them before sending them. One thing I noticed is that in all of them, I was squinting. I've been light-sensitive, and I'm often tired and/or in pain. And the world seems overwhelming, so I've been instinctively half closing my eyes.
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This also seemed like a metaphor. Looking at the news on Twitter about Ukraine is awful, and it hurts, both physically and mentally to read it. But I'm drawn to it, to know. Just as I crave to get back to reading books. So I look, but with my eyes half-closed.
I used a visualization of a woman in profile, her skull semi-transparent to show her brain activity. That layer is itself semi-transparent, too, with an underlayer of a visualization of brain theta waves (the deepest brain activity, present in meditation and healing). Over that, I scattered pictures of my eyes, registering various degrees of pain.
Edited to add: I had just decided to call my doctor about my concussion to see if I needed another follow up. And while I was on MyChart, I clicked on the bill for my concussion diagnosis/care so far.
Understand: they did a diagnostic test (CT scan) and then did nothing more than talk to me and send me home with a prescription for Aleve. No brain surgery involved, in other words.
The bill is one and half months of my take home pay. And I'm insured.
I HATE the American health care system.
I have another appointment scheduled for March 10. More bills.
Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2021 gallery.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-04 04:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-04 07:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-04 11:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-04 11:30 pm (UTC)P.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-07 07:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-03-08 05:44 pm (UTC)It's just vexing that it's too high to pay out of my income flow (which is admittedly only part-time, since my job was cut in half permanently as a result of the pandemic). I'm well aware that I have resources that many people don't.
I am back to work this week again, and this time, I'm doing better. A month after the accident, I can say I do seem to be on the mend.