Miniature Disasters

 (credit to KT Tunstall for the title)

Well, you’ve heard a lot about my brain exploding, so maybe I’ll take it down a notch and talk about less deadly things for a while. I mean, I don't actually talk about my brain injury much in real life, outside of some complaints about how my brain now works (or sometimes doesn't), so this has been a good outlet for that. However, to be completely honest, the rest of my health-life is not unlike some fantastic cascade of slow motion fender-benders. Each time someone else winds up in the mess that's happening, it looks bad, then ends up being minor damage, or even no real damage at all. 

So, there's this surgery thing this year (wow, so weird, I’m getting surgery in February for the second year in a row! Universe, don't make this a running gag, please), and through an apparent communications snafu, it's my hand surgery. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm very much looking forward to not feeling like a hunk of sort-of-sharp glass is occasionally stabbing into my wrist, or like I have a white hot bracelet on suddenly. I just really thought my parathyroid surgery would come first. Since the appointment for the hand surgery is already made, I’ll need to wait probably six weeks after it for the other surgery. That means another few months of a low calcium diet. I’m doing pretty well with that, though, usually getting about 500mg of calcium per day. 

On that, actually, it's really hard to avoid calcium. Everything is supplemented with it. I never realized how many things have added calcium. There’s the things you expect to be high in calcium; milk, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, bone broth. Then there’s cereal (added calcium), almond milk (added calcium and vitamin D), and more vegetables than you’d think (most leafy greens, soy beans, and broccoli to name just a few). 

In short, and if I mentioned this before, I apologize: I'm on almost as strict a diet as I was when I was trying not to get migraines. It's kind of intense. 

But, I'm doing it. No sense in calcifying cartilage if I can avoid it by dietary changes (yes, this has happened to a close family member). All that calcium apparently has to do something. Well, something aside from damaging my kidneys anyway. Overachieving minerals, I swear. 

The hand surgery though, that should make things easier. It's fixing something that causes pain, so that's good. Plus, I have someone who can work with me on recovery. 

So, you see? A cascade of minor fender-benders. No giant accident you can't look away from, no squealing of brakes and broken glass. Just all these small dings. Can even totally be fixed for less than you’d think in a body shop. 

But holy hell, it all looked like it was going to be a disaster