Wrist Surgeon, Unemployment, and All the Platforms that Make Me Anxious

I woke up today sore in strange places--or perhaps it is more accurate to say sore in places that once would have been strange. My wrist hurts my feet hurt both shoulders and upper arms ache. Is it because I went to the wrist doctor yesterday?

The trip to the wrist doctor took much of the morning. There was the drive out there in rush hour traffic, which reminds me of why I grow weary of South Florida. The cast on my wrist needed to be removed so that the stitches could come out, and that removal required a saw, a cracking tool, and scissors. I didn't watch that process, and once the cast was off, I did not look at the site of my stitches.

I also did not watch the hand surgeon take the stitches out of my wrist. My enthusiastic flesh had started to grow back over the stitches, but the removal of them just felt strange and prickly, not painful. We looked at x-rays of my wrist, which is healing nicely. But the bone hasn't grown back entirely, so I'm in a cast until June 22.  I could have had it removed on the 15th except that I'm out of town.

I drove back home and gave myself some time to recover. I'm not sure why my visits to the hand surgeon leave me so wiped out, but they do. There's something about the hand surgeon that makes me more anxious then just going to the hand therapist. But happily, yesterday's visit was positive. While I still do not have full finger movement/mobility, the hand surgeon is happy with the progress that I'm making.

One of the drawbacks of having a cast on my lower arm is that people share their broken wrist stories with me. At first it was comforting do you realize how many people have had this experience. But it's also hard to move through the world knowing how vulnerable we all are.  I've always known that on a theoretical level, but lately it's felt much more visceral.

I could have sorted books yesterday afternoon, but I wanted to go back to the unemployment benefits website. I know that if they request information, I only have two weeks maximum to get that information to them. It took me about a half hour to get to the right screen where I found out that they did need more information, information I had already given them several times before.  But I'll play along--I entered it again.

The unemployment benefits website is built on a platform that uses 1980's technology, so giving more information is clunky and time-consuming--will I ever actually get any money? That remains to be seen.  In the meantime there is sorting to do and packing to do, and it's time to begin the day's work.