Week 3: Jeremy has a bad week

Happened sooner than I expected, but I finally had just a really, really bad week. There was bad news, there was stress of the real-life variety, there was trying to find answers to some really inconvenient questions, there was pain, and of course, That Movie. Got to pull myself up and keep going, though. Don't know how many of you are still here after The Week Jeremy Was Gone, but for those who stuck it out, I owe it to you and to myself to grit up and keep going. Sarah Connor style.

HEYYYYY CRAZY LADY! Sarah Connor style!

Yeah, I went there. Shut up, I'm having a bad week.

Today I'd like to talk about pain management. At my age people shouldn't have to know what that means, but of course I don't get to be so lucky. Until I moved to the city I lived a drug-free and drunk-free life; yeah, I had a beer or two, but if you want to sports and keep up your schoolwork you just don't have time for doing crap that could come back and hit you in the face. Buddy of mine got a suspension handed down, then the school decided it didn't want him playing, then the coach went and argued because he was the lynch pin of the first string, just tensions everywhere.

Point is, I'm not used to flying like a kite. Seems half my vocabulary, when I talk at least, has just been the word "fantastic" over and over again. I'm keeping to just the dosage I'm supposed to, but it turns out that pain meds have some pretty real side effects. Large parts of my day are spent either asleep or basically equivalent, just sort of chilling on codeine. Stuff is really potent when you've got no tolerance.

Unfortunately, of course, tolerance is a thing that builds up. I'm in a weird place right now where they help, but I just feel this sort of full-body throb that's raw, red and awful. Part of why I haven't been updating this week is because my right hand's just been royally fucked up with scar tissue from the surgery. I've got three fingers, a thumb, and this big crooked lump that's sort of in the middle of it all. I'll post a picture later from when they worked on it to show just what kind of friendly we're talking, but the gist is it's just this permanent swollen growl of pain.

Anyway. Enough about feeling like crap. Let's talk about the week that wasn't. I think last time I was going into Pirates of the Carribean. That was a fun little romp. High adventure, but just a bit too preoccupied with the dead pirate whatnots. Captain Jack Sparrow made my day; guy's wacky in the best of ways. Barbosa's an excellent match for his brand of humor. I'm told there are sequels and that there's a pretty good chance this week is going to be Sequel Week for some of the things I missed.

There was a one-two punch this week that probably made up a lot of my... what's the word... disspiritedness, let's say. First off, of course, Star Trek finally jumped off a cliff with Harry F. Mudd. Yes, I'll get back into the swing of it - there's too much good in it not to - but just goddamn, that level of extremely backward and pointless sexism. I'm cutting them a lot of slack already for it being so old, but there's a line, you know? As for the second punch, I think we all know what the second punch was.

 Anyway, I really don't want to talk about That Movie again. Instead I'll just gab about the other things. Lacy says some people are thinking my grandparents were strict or backward or evangelicals or any number of other weird things for me not having the Internet at home. I'm gonna just cut through all that now and remind you all they're old. My grandpa is nearly 90. My grandmother has had macular degeneration for the past 6-7 years. They had no real use for the Internet and I could get on for school uses in the library, which is also where they've got all the books. If you've ever been involved in atom, peewee, bantam hockey you know what sort of life I had timewise. When you wake up at the crack of dawn, what fills your nights is delicious delicious sleeeeeeeep.

My grandparents are lovely people, the best people. They're Catholic (I'm not a very good Catholic) but not hugely conservative. They've got people in their lives and lifelong hobbies that they excel at - our house has a full-size loom in the living room and a spinning wheel at the end of the hall, the basement's full of little tools and boat stuff, and it's probably a statement on how cheap new cars are that my grandpa's old blue Mazda is still going strong. By the way, don't use beaded seat covers, they're just not comfortable. Seriously, just the worst thing.

Point is, we're backward people and I love it. Don't get me wrong, I love living with a dishwasher now but there's something I miss from family time cleaning up together after dinner. A lot of conversation happened over the sink, just because you had other things to do between grace and pie. You don't need to be uptight or strict or some sort of wacky Luddite to not get new things; I figure they just looked at the life we all had, shrugged and said "why bother?" It's not like I didn't get exposure to modern tech from my uncles - both engineers and huge geeks besides. My younger cousin is growing up with Mine Craft, which is her favorite game. I grew up with a backyard, a boat, early morning porridge, skates, and the thrumm of a spinning wheel. I know how to play cribbige and tarbish. I had some great old movies for entertainment when I had to stay indoors and room to run around outside when it was nice out. I don't think, even now, that there's anything else I would have asked for.

So I've gotten completely off topic. Where was I? Oh right. The bad news. It wasn't much of a surprise, of course, but I was in for checks on how everything's setting and the doctors were pretty clear. They're confident I'll be walking again, but, well... you all already know. I already knew. Doesn't make it any easier to hear.

I'll probably never play sports again.

In time, with good recovery, jogging might be possible, but contact sports are out. I could take up curling, or, you know, golf, and I do like curling, but it's so not even close to anything I'm passionate about that I don't see how you can categorize it with the same word. Folks, it just hurts. It hurts to have already known that and then to just hear it confirmed, like any chance is gone. The settlement accounted for a lot, but you can't put a price on taking away part of me as a person. It hurts to know that I really am no more than a guy who can watch now.

Anyway, this has been Jeremy's Really Depressing Weekly Update. Let's turn this sucker around in the coming week, eh? Looking forward to getting up out of this whole funk and moving forward.