Back at Work
Today was my second day back at work, but I'm only working six hour shifts per doctors' recommendations. I'm glad I listened to them because that last hour of the six is a bit of a challenge. It's also a challenge to get the number of exercises done that I'm supposed to do now that so much of the day is taken up with work. I can't do them all in one fell swoop when I get home so I've had to get a little creative. The physical therapist showed me a modified version of the one I have to do 100 times a day so I've been sneaking some of those in at work on my "restroom" breaks. We have a large woman's restroom with a spot that works nicely - no one has come in the restroom yet when I'm exercising, but I'm sure I'll get a strange look at some point. I do some of the easy ones in the morning, the really difficult ones after I've been home for a few hours and recovered from sitting at work and more easy ones off on and in the evening before I go to bed. I'm having a hard time remembering which ones to do, how to do them and how many to do. I didn't write it all down because I normally have a very good memory. Unfortunately one of the side effects I get from codeine is that it really screws up my memory. The effect on long term memory is only temporary as far as I know based on past experience, but the short term memories of anything that happens while I take it is pretty much lost forever. I was hoping this wouldn't happen if I was only taking it at night, but no such luck. The Vicodin has gone a long way to helping me get at least some sleep at night so I don't want to stop taking it, however, I'm in danger of really screwing things up at work and also messing up the finances at home (if I don't remember those automatic withdrawals and coordinate our other spending then we will end up with bounced check fees and that's VERY expensive.) I emailed the doctor's office to see if I need an appointment to find out if there is an alternative medication I can take. Hopefully they won't make me come back in and pay a $20 copay just to get a different medication, but it seems like these days I need a doctor's appointment for everything that I used to just be able to call in for and I suppose I can thank HMOs, PPOs and Managed Care for that.

The reduced hours at work have me a little concerned since I'm not working enough hours to qualify for the health insurance and I might have to pay hundreds of dollars a month to keep it. So far the company is cutting me some slack on this since it's likely to be a temporary situation. And in another surprisingly generous move on their part, they let me use my vacation time for the time I was out. Normally vacation time has to be approved in advance and the request submitted to payroll no later than the start of the pay-period. It's a big hassle for payroll to process a request late, but they did it for me anyway, whew! I didn't have enough vacation to cover all of the days missed, but I did have enough time to at least get a small paycheck next week so things are not looking as grim as they were a few days ago.

Well, I'm off to do some more exercises and any more discussion here would just be an attempt to delay doing them (it's the really hard ones, hence my temptation to keep typing...)