Thursday, December 5, 2024

Report on Splints, grumble...grumble!

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.

In addition, now and again I will provide some of my fiction to read, for free, on this newsletter. Everything is available to anyone who subscribes, but I am always pleased when someone shows their appreciation for the newsletter by upgrading to paid.

Daily Diary, Day 1555:

So, yesterday was difficult. The visit to get the splints went smoothly, and the good outcome is that the splint on the left hand works well. The technician was able to make it just big enough so that I can wear it over my arthritic glove, which helps keep the other problems with that hand (bone spurs on thumb, arthritis in knuckles) from being exacerbated.)

But the splint for the right hand isn’t fitting right, causing some pain in a couple of fingers and doesn’t seem to do what it needs to do (which is keep the tendon from slipping to the side of the knuckle.) So I will need to get it re-fitted.

In addition, wearing splints on both hands all day was a nightmare. I couldn’t do even the simplest tasks: open doors, fix my meals, use a fork, take off my socks, tie my shoes, brush my teeth, (never mind flossing!)

Besides not enjoying being completely dependent on my husband for everything, it was emotionally and physically draining. Irony is that the only thing I did seem able to do is type—which is what I had feared I wouldn’t be able to do!!

However, knowing I will have to wait to get the right splint refitted helped me come to a decision. I will only do one hand at a time, even if this means the whole process will take 4 months instead of two. It has already been 8 months since the injury, and everything I have read about this injury is that the splints generally only work if done within a few weeks of the injury, so this is a long shot anyway. In short, no reason to be completely miserable for 8 weeks by wearing both splints 24/7.

Anyway, was not in a good mood when I went to bed last night, but feel more at peace this morning, now that I have made a decision of what to do going forward.

I suspect my grumpy mood yesterday was not improved by the fact that I have only had a small number of sales of the new book. I know that this science fiction series isn’t nearly as popular as my historical mysteries, but the characters are dear to my heart, and I have a little difficulty not taking the lack of sales personally on their behalf (smile.)

Nearly 400 people did buy Tides of Acerba, the book in the series before this last one, and it has a 4.7 star average on Amazon, so the hope is that it is just going to take time for people to discover that the new book is out. And I know that for many authors selling 20 books in 3 days would be a success. So, I will stop whining!

I have already had yoga this morning, and I have had long texts with several friends. I will try to do pilates at least once today, and have my Thursday zoom meeting, then phone meeting afterwards today. So going to be a busy day.

Here is a neighbor’s nice seasonal decoration (again, in short walking distance), but I don’t know what I am going to do going forward since I haven’t heard back from my primary care doctor about a referral on my foot problem. While I have been doing more walking in the house, it is still resulting in swelling in the evening, so going out to walk for any distance seems risky. Oh well, I will come up with something to photograph.

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