Brunch, pedicures and lady date oh my!

So I started off my morning with a very vivid stabbing pain in my left hip and knee. It was like if my knee was bent it was too bent, if it was straight it was too straight and it really did not appreciate the 14 pound of butter baby goodness known as toast residing on top of it. At 6am I wasn't sure I could even get out of bed it hurt so bad. I was then cursing myself for doing the stairs twice after PT and promptly busted out my heating pad and passed back out for 3 hours. 

Upon my 9:30am alarm I glared at the clock and wondered what had possessed me to make brunch plans the morning after physical therapy. I hit snooze for some reason even though I was no where near sleeping for an additional 10 minutes. 

I got up, pulled myself together or the most together I can be. Sweat pants, vivios tshirt, crocs and even flat ironed the front of my hair before slapping on a beanie. Growing your hair out is hard work! 

Anyway by the time I glanced at the clock again it was 10:15 and Angelle was on her way to get me. I got down to the bottom of the first set of stairs and my stomach started hurting. 

This is in part to eating refried beans that were past the expiration date because google told me it was ok to do so, but that in itself could be a whole blog post! Just don't listen to google kids! 

So Angelle gets here we get everything loaded into her Tahoe and then I am noticing how high up her seat is. I am not very tall a whopping 5'4". I say "I don't think I am going to be able to get in there" and Angelle is all "oh if you can get one cheek up there we can get you in".

So I proceed with my walker to her truck, do my little turn around and back up to the seat. The seat is as I feared in the middle of my back. 

Andrew suggests that I grab the "oh shit" handle which I do and then he suggests lifting my leg to help boost me into the car. I am already at this point uncomfortable so I let them know this and then we decide to take my truck instead. Which requires unloading all the stuff and reloading into my vehicle. 

SUCCESS I am in the truck and we are on our way after Andrew puts some air into my tire. (Perhaps now that it seems I will be keeping this truck for awhile I should invest in some new tires.)

We are now off to Bills Cafe to meet Flora. We arrive and Flora greets me at my door. She has already put our name in, but there's a 40 minute wait which doesn't give us enough time to order, eat and arrive to pedicure appointment by 12:30. So Angelle suggests "the breakfast place" yes it's really called that see for yourself:

We get in right away and put in our order. Now I had been browsing the bills menu for days and was about to make my adventurous plunge into eggs Benedict but the breakfast place didn't quite have the same variety. I decide on "southern breakfast". It has my usual variety of things I like: hash browns, eggs and biscuits and gravy. I also of course request hot sauce. Once the order is in we head to the restroom. My damn water pill tends to kick in every 20 minutes it seems but not much I can do about it. 

The path to the restroom is fine, the actual door into restroom is narrow. Thank goodness I had my transfer chair as I'm not entirely sure my manual chair would have fit. But the kicker was the door to the actual stahl. I swore it was built by smurfs! I took one look and knew my walker wasn't fitting through there. I started to panic thinking there was no way I was getting through. Angelle offered to walk me through but I never feel quite as stable with a person holding me up as I do my walker. I ask her to see if it will fit through sideways and it does so I have to do a weird side step in and out of stahl, but at least baby bladder has been emptied. 

Return to table promptly as our food does. It was very quick I was impressed with the service. Also was impressed she brought me 3 hot sauces to choose from. Any place that has pepper plant hot sauce that always wins out! Speaking of I need to pick some up for the house. 

The food is decent, however I prefer my moms biscuits and gravy! 

Have some much needed girl talk and before we know it we need to leave. 

Some idiot with a handicap placard seems to think he can make up all his own rules and parks illegally right at the ramp of the sidewalk which makes it impossible for me to get through so we have to squeeze through near this van and the dumpster. Yum the smell of garbage in the morning! Some people giving us all a bad name! 

So we arrive in Japan town and start looking for parking. We decided to just pay the $2 and park in the lot on 6th and Jackson. The weather is beautiful and I forgot how amazing the sun feels on my face. The weather app says it was 59 but I swear it felt more like 70. I was comfortable in my sweat pants and tshirt never even put my hoody back on. 

We arrived at the nail place a few minutes late as well as anyone with a disability knows it takes us just a bit longer to get things done. 

So we arrive at Sakura nail bar, Flora is already there. She's just the messenger of bad news today when she says that they only show the appointment for 2 people and not 3. The girl at the desk says that she would like to know when Angelle called for the appointment. Umm why does that matter? Can you take 3 people or not. So then she says they have an extra nail tech and will be able to work on all 3 of us after all. Before plunging my feet into the water though I ask to use the restroom. 

The hall on the way to the restroom was filled with clutter. It reminded me of the Ram's horn hallway in Michigan. (I seriously could write a whole blog just on bathrooms and their lack of handicap accessibility.) Thankfully the actual bathroom was handicap friendly so that was a relief! Praise batman! 

So I get back out to my chair and settle in. I feel like the chairs are a bit odd.

Like if I scoot forward I may slide off but yet while I'm sitting back I don't feel like my feet even reach the bowl of water. 

The whole time I feel like my legs are stretched out as far as possible while my knees are shaking like crazy because they are tired from yesterday ha. 

I think the girl should have been sitting closer and that may have fixed the issue but what do I know?  

The whole experience was kinda weird with numb/overly sensitive feet. When she was buffing my feet I swore it felt like she was using sandpaper or a hot dagger. I was just glad when all that was over and it was time for my legs to be massaged. Which honestly Andrew does a better job at that and he doesn't get paid to do so lol! 

I picked a Teal color for my toes and was happy with my choice. I really hate feet but here is a picture anyhow!

We leave the nail place and walk back to the car. Well I was pushed but you know what I mean. Flora saved my croc from it's impeding doom when Angelle dropped it in the middle of 6th street haha! Getting back in the truck is difficult as my muscles are sore and the pavement is uneven. We backed it up and found even ground so I could get into the vehicle and not fall and then chatted a bit more. 

Said goodbye to Flora and we were on our way. Just then the gas light starts flashing with that annoying ding and ask Angelle to add that to our adventure. 

Andrew wasn't home when we returned but we managed to get everything handled and me in the house. I am really so thankful when people get me out of the house. It's a huge bitch getting there but I always have fun once I do! 

I just need to figure out an easy system to actually leave the house when he isn't home. It's hard when I can't reach the doors etc. Maybe soon I will be strong enough to do so. Fingers crossed! 

Got myself back up to the main level and waited for Andrew to return home. 

My liver enzymes results came back! 

Let me refresh your memory of the past scores and the "normal" range. 

Normal range 0-36 U/L.

So at least the levels are almost returned to normal! That makes me feel a bit better. Seems perhaps maybe I drank a bit too many craft beers and dining out while in Michigan and my liver was not happy with me. I'm not entirely sure if it was that or my on going 2 month plague, but hopefully it's all on the up and up. 

I'm hoping the next set of tests I will fall in the normal range and can stop stressing about my liver. 

The social security office sent me 2 surveys to complete within the next 10 days. A pain survey and a fatigue survey. 

Some of the questions were a bit ridiculous but I answered them all truthfully. "Do you have to take a nap during the day, if so how many?" Why yes now that you mention it I am feeling quite exhausted by these questions and may in fact need a nap. I hope these help expedite my process. I wrote out all my answers and hopefully they can read my writing because towards the end it was getting pretty bad. 

I'm just hoping that they will actually be able to verify that I am disabled and not some jerk trying to scam the system. It's sad that people do that and make it harder for people that actually need it. 

Positive thoughts though! 

Well I guess that's pretty much my update for today. 

Here's hoping all of you have a great weekend and Super Bowl Sunday for those of you who actually like football, which I am not one of you haha!

Xo