Seasons Change

 

I live in a part of the world where seasons change.  When the mountain ash don their orange foliage, we know it's autumn.  And then...winter.

With climate change, though, the seasons are no longer predictable.  Or 'normal'.  Now we have wildfire season, flood season, landslide season.  After the wildfires in the summer, the autumn rains bring avalanches, floods, infrastructure is destroyed - again.  Hwy 1 only just got the last of the major infrastructure damage from the horrible rains/floods/avalanches, a few years ago repaired.  

And, last but not least, winter.  Our winters are 'too warm' and instead of snow arriving and settling in like a warm blanket over the earth, we have freeze/thaw, over and over again.  Roads get icy, people drive 'too fast' and wind up in the ditch.  Or into another vehicle.  Meanwhile they scream about the road clearing crews, bitch they aren't clearing the roads quickly enough.  But never stop to think about the loose 'nut' at the wheel and instead just stomp on the accelerator harder, not realizing that speeding up the slipping wheels just make them spin faster.  (Hint, put your vehicle into 2nd gear and press on the accelerator very gently.  You will get where you are going slower, but more safely.)

Another week is wrapping up.  I sort of accept Saturday as the 'end of the week' these days because that is the night I refill my pill containers.  I take so many I'd get carpal tunnel if I had to twist open that many bottles every day, twice a day.  So I fill my containers once a week.  Then, all I have to do is remember to take them.  

I bought a barometer app for my iPad.  So many people report that people with chronic pain issues discover their bodies turn into barometers and when the barometric pressure takes a large in- or de-crease, their pain levels are 'amplified'.

Since I'm taking the class with the pain clinic, and we talked about pain amplifiers last time, I decided I needed to have some 'proof' that it is actually one of mine.  Of course once I got it, the pressure has remained steady.  Guess I'll find out soon enough.  It would be good to know before I talk to the pain doctor next week.

I've targeted a couple others, and am trying to change things in an effort to reduce the amplification of pain in my body.  When they say the pain is 'all in your head', it is no longer an effort to minimize your pain, but a statement of how the body actually processes pain.  Yes, it is in your brain.  But that doesn't make it any the less uncomfortable!  However, there are things that can be done to reduce it.  Perhaps.  It depends.  Dammit.

It's been just over a month since I had the new drug, and it is hard to judge if it is working well.  I was started on a low dose but I neglected to ask what that dose really was.  So I'll ask next week.  And then see if he recommends we wait until I get another infusion.  And when.  

I can say that things have 'changed'.  Not all of it positive change.  But that might be due to the low dose and as I get further infusions and perhaps higher doses, things might get better?  In the meantime. I keep paying attention.  

It seems very...self-absorbed.  But since what I love to do depends on my being physically able to actually do it, it is necessary.  

I have managed to 'limp' along.  I pay a lot more attention to my physical well-being, and if my body flat out refuses to go the loom, I work on other things.  Mostly distraction, rather than anything actually 'productive'.  

But I pay attention to those distractions because some of them are 'tiring' - like the reviewing I'm doing.  When I find myself tuning out mentally, it is time to leave the desktop and do something else until I can process information again.

However, I checked the warp beam on the loom last night, and wound off the last of the current weft.  I may cut the warp off once I've used up that weft yarn and 'sacrifice' the rest of the warp.  Unfortunately Canada Post is having labour issues so I can't order yarn from my usual supplier.  I'm not out - entirely.  But I've been thinking about one of my other 'stashes' - a bag full of cones of a fairly fine cashmere.  I still have some silk yarn (not all the same thickness/quality) and I might put a natural white silk warp into the loom and use up the cashmere to make some scarves.  

But I don't have to make up my mind - yet.  I have enough of the 2/16 to do a few more warps of towels.

Seasons change.  So can plans.