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.
Daily Diary, Day 1283:
I woke up this morning after a very good night’s sleep and decided that I’m going to address this day differently than yesterday. Yesterday, because I was still in a lot of pain, I decided to up the amount of Advil that I was taking, but by the afternoon I began to wonder whether or not the effect of taking the Advil plus the antibiotic, wasn’t actually making me feel worse rather than better. So, I haven’t taken any advil or tylanol orally or as cream since yesterday afternoon. My plan for today is to just deal with the pain by putting either tiger balm or a cream that my acupuncturist has given me for joint pain on the knuckle itself. In addition, I got a splint for my right index finger on Amazon around dinner time yesterday, and wearing that during the evening and then at night, while it hasn’t taken away the pain, it’s made it more tolerable.
So today, no pain medication, wearing the splint, trying to limit the use of the right hand is going to be my strategy for that injury.
As for the stye, it has gotten much worse, a large pustule (even this word sounds yucky—as does my stye. I suspect the fact that I feel rather dizzy this morning if I exert myself too much, simply is a function of the fact that it’s clearly pumping out bacteria into my system. However, the message from my doctor was that someone was going to call me today to schedule me to come in and have it drained, which I think will help considerably. Meanwhile, I am simply continuing to do the hot compresses as frequently as possible.
I have done some light cleaning, and I hope to take a couple of very short walks, but that’s all I have on my agenda, except for the usual noon zoom meeting, followed by a scheduled phone meeting, I suspect until the stye gets drained I’m not going to feel tiptop so again, patience is called for. However, I am feeling very optimistic about the fact that the splint is going to make it easier for me to go forward once the stye is better and using dictation and some minor editing once until that injury heals.
The photo is of the wall in the guest bedroom where I sit when I’m either taking my phone calls or listening to my audiobook, so that I won’t disturb my husband who is working downstairs. Yesterday afternoon, as the sun reappeared, I noticed the olive tree, which is out the window to my right, was casting a shadow on the wall to my left. A nice reminder to not not let my physical well-being interfere with enjoying my days. The other photo is from the clouds I saw on my afternoon walk.
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I love the shadow of the olive tree! It is beautiful! Your perseverance is inspiring. I am sorry you have to face these bad days, but without those, would any of us appreciate the good ones quite as much? A question for the ages! ;) all the best Katy