“I love you, and need you to be the same entitled little asshole you’ve always been! Not this brave, wounded adult.” 
Oh, for the record, I didn’t work out. No TM, no gunz. After writing the novel above, I realized there were people I needed to update. Quiet time and sorting my thoughts helped, tho. Ready for work now.
So mark me down for a full mid-program deload.
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I forget which one it was that was filmed in the 'burgh, but its crazy to see the driving scenes and how he just goes from Brookline to Squirrel Hill, South Side,Moon, and every other part of town in like 30 seconds. No. Freakin. Way.
Anyways, I’m glad you found a good enough outlet. Your guns are already quite good, and with a little more hip dysfunction may reach into great territory. I used to get, along with the ITB thing, some kind of impingement in my right hip. The instability and uneven tension on those ball/socket joints seems to make them susceptible to that. Very sharp and exquisitely painful. My solution was to throw the book of stability/mobility drills at it, but your PT might have better ideas.
Screw that. I have more thoughts on that, but I’m not sure what yours are and its probably not my place to say anyways, so I’ll 
unless asked otherwise.
You know, me & my brothers used to fight like rabid wolves. Like real extremely violent and malicious bloodletting. Until we quit drinking. I need my inhibitions intact and functioning. Especially when tensions are high and emotions are running the show. I hope they can find their way through this without creating too much regret or losing chunks of time in eachothers lives. ← learned the hard way.
. Buttons!
I have no scientific basis for this, but one day after getting stung by bees it occured to me to try allergy medicine instead of creams & benadryl. Zyrtec works pretty well for me for dermal allergens like poison ivy & stuff. But everybody is different.
*Editd to change subluxation to impingement.
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And that is completely okay, especially with everything you’ve got going on. Your stress and cortisol levels are high enough without adding a workout to the mix. Bring on the workout deload when life is hitting you with a tremendous load.
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Just checking on ya. Everything okay?
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Yes, ex is still dying, and we have kids here doing horse camp. I’ve been completely off of everything (sciatica is kicking my ass), but have been looking forward to reorienting on Monday, or whenever this all ends.
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Ugh!!!
Sciatica is never fun. Hang in there. Hopefully things will settle down soon.
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That is so awful! I feel your pain and I hope that very soon, you don’t feel any pain! Sending hugs!!
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Tuesday, August 20
Back to work today after the world’s shittiest vacation. Ex-husband died Saturday, exactly one month after the death watch began. Kids have scattered back home.
Buttons has surgery tomorrow on her ear, which has a mass in it that started bleeding profusely on Thursday last week, and has continued to do so intermittently since. We got better at managing it, but when it started happening blood and clots were spraying everywhere as she shook her head. House was full of people, and of course the little kids were grossed out and horrified. As we were. The smell! But we’re better at it now.
So by Sunday everyone was gone and I started to repair my eating. Still working on pulling that back together. Still dealing with the sciatica, which was getting better, but which reacted poorly to my crouch-walking with the dog, applying pressure to the bleed while trying to direct her to a lying-down spot.
She’s now wearing boy dog leak underpants on her head. It looks like an Amish bonnet, which is cute, but of course it’s underpants, which is something of a dignity downer. There is some question that she might not survive the surgery, and we were spoken to about euthanasia yesterday. Husband can’t even have the conversation and keeps insisting that she’s much healthier than now two different veterinary practices have said (we took her to a second animal hospital yesterday). When he takes her to our land, she’s young and healthy. He thinks she’s just bored at home, where she sleeps most of the time. Pretty stressed about that/him. She has advanced liver cancer, is losing her sight due to toxins from the liver shut-down causing ulcers on her eyes, and there’s a heart murmur. So while I’m anxious to join him in “she’s fine!” it’s hard to attribute her fatigue and muscle wasting to boredom.
I’m very anxious to return to my workouts and diet and normalcy, but for the moment I’m trying to be okay with stretching and eating as well as I can given disruptions. It’s turning to fall here (lows in the 40s coming tomorrow and trees are starting to change at higher elevations, which is where I live) and I couldn’t be more delighted. I can’t wait to spend my time working out and snuggling under blankets and going on chilly hikes, hopefully with Buttons. I’m so tired of this feeling of constant dread I’ve had for weeks now.
Underpants head:
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Poor Buttons. We will be sending healing thoughts, hoping she makes it through the surgery and a speedy recovery.
Hang in there!
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This all sounds really crap! Hope things start to improve from here…
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A lot of heavy things going on, glad you are taking the time off, you are lifting plenty of life stuff. Sending love to Buttons too, she looks like such a sweetie, I wish for nothing but happiness and and blue skies for dogs. They are the best.
I hope things only get better from here.
Fall sounds amazing, going to be 95F today here, it’s still summer in these parts! I’m sure the jackets and extra hot drinks are just around the corner.
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I’m in Texas. This sounds so far away for me 
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Send both you and Buttons big hugs. You’re gonna get through this rough patch - keep taking it one day at a time and remember that you’re stronger than this storm. Sunny days are on the horizon!! Just keep on trucking through!
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Sending love from down under (well that kinda sounded weirder than I intended).
Stay strong and keep smiling.
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I’ll keep you all in my prayers, which are extra strength given my proclivity for occasionally visiting the ole higher power. 
I swear, dogs are one of the only creatures on earth that can subsist purely for the love of their people. So you & hockey guy must be doing a great job in that.
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We must be, because she’s home and doing well post-surgery!
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Saturday, August 24
Weight 150.7
Had PT yesterday and was cleared for lifting “as long as you can maintain form.” I have a much-needed bff sleepover tonight, so have to clean the house and get ready for that (hopefully a desperate deep clean won’t screw me back up), but my plan is to start Monday morning back on plan to the extent I’m able, and get my life back in all the ways (physical, emotional). I’ve already largely put my diet back in place, but the dog’s needs have created some disruption. For example, I ran out of everything reasonable for work lunches on Thursday and had - this should probably be in Confessions - a bologna sandwich for lunch. Bologna sandwich! Which frankly I adore, but which I don’t buy because I’m a GROWN UP (@decimation) and so know better. It was in the house because one of the kids requested it for horse camp lunches.
I think you did the same a few years ago. But I agree that dogs are 75% heart and 25% fur and eyes and stomachs and such. I’m actually in a bit of a marital funk after a fight over husband’s decision to take her for a walk in the woods the day after the surgery, which I said he shouldn’t. Couch day, I said. Recovery. He feels she needs exercise. Like, DUDE, she would follow us to war or through the foulest tunnel into hell! That she cheerfully went is not how we measure the appropriateness of it for her post-op. Urgh. Things are a little raw here. Workouts and normalcy for me will help both of us. (My daughter on Tuesday, crying: “I think we killed our father.” Oy. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that he did Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking, VSED, which hospice allows for and supports. OMG, my life this summer.)
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I did. It was terrible. Her hips/spine were shot, blind, heart failing, all kinds of internal problems.
But if she smelled a raccoon outside she’d spring up and start howling and trying to get outside after it. Just straight adrenaline I think.
. You’re both doing what you feel is best. Convalescence is bad, but so is too much activity.
Yeah. She’ll go. No doubt. I think some light effort until she perks up and wants to go on her own would be good. Like, hears the keys jingle and gets up to see why.
Relateable. I was upset to see Puppy Wuppy suffer, and my wife was upset thinking about letting her go. It was a lot of raw emotion, but I was able to see her side with empathy, in that this was her first dog- and a great one at that. And she’s not as caloused to anything as much as I am. She has some real trauma related problems letting things go. So that buffered my approach with her.
You alluded to it. I know thats a really complicated issue so I won’t say much, other than it wasn’t an option I’d ever seriously consider. I’m more of a die with your boots on type.
Because that. I mean damn, at least go down swinging so the people around you don’t have to admin meds and nursing visits while you pout to death! Fuck!
Sorry. I remember going out as they were wheeling me into the cath lab, enraged at the thought of leaving my wife & son. Nothing on earth or anywhere else was going to prevent me from seeing them again. Nothing.
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I meant YOU, you big meathead! You did the same, as you say right here:
Dogs are not the only ones who subsist purely for the love of their people. You did it, too. As I think I would. What if they need me? What if they just want me? What if they have something funny to say? I want to hear it! I want to kiss and snuggle and cheer my grandchildren and read books to them, or give them my favorite books to read for themselves, age-depending, and in return read the ones they super-highly recommend. I want to kiss and snuggle all of the husband and kids and dogs I love. I still haven’t won every internet argument I’ve undertaken, nor read all the books on my list. There are limits to my desire to live through physical trauma, but as far as I can tell I would not have made the choice he did in a similar situation.
Ugh. My kids. My heart.
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