Night Tempest: Welcome to the Dark Side

Hey all,

I know you have a lot of questions and some of you are mad and worried that I haven't said anything until now, but there is a reason for that.

Fall rolled around, which is basically preparation for our busiest season of the year at work (Thanksgiving and Christmas).  At first I stepped back from the blog because work was picking up, and frankly, I was exhausted by the time I got home and didn't feel like writing.  But come late October when my wrist popped, making a very audible sound, followed by immense pain that sent me to the hospital immediately, writing was like the absolute furthest thing from my mind.

Turns out Carpal Tunnel caught up with me.  In the back of my mind I knew I had early symptoms and would eventually have to have the surgery.  Some of my fingers would fall asleep while at work, which wasn't anything new because of nerve damage I have in my pinkie from a previous injury.  But now an entire side of my hand would just go numb, and shaking it out to wake it up felt like pins and needles stabbing me repeatedly.

Yes, it was partly my fault for not alerting my doctor to this earlier (so take this as a warning if you're doing the same with your physician) and I should have been taking precautions other than doing exercises I found online and hoping for the best.  So when I found out that not only would I need immediate surgery on one hand, but two, because of the stress I'd caused my right hand from relieving the left of it's duties over time, I was kind of upset to say the least.

My doctor told me writing was out of the question and that I'd be off work for about a week.

Okay.  No big deal.  Right?

Wrong.  I have the surgeries back to back.  I wear the ugly braces on my wrists.  I get back to work for about three days, taking it easy with clients and giving myself more time, before a massive storm rolls through town, bringing with it snow demons and the icy breath of the devil himself.  Everyone was told to stay inside.  My boss shut down the salon.  And all I wanted was orange juice.  Because on top of everything else, I'd come down with the flu and orange juice was the only thing keeping me from spontaneously exploding.

So my stupid ass bundled up before the worst of the storm hit and ventured out to visit the grocery store LESS THAN TWO BLOCKS AWAY.

Needless to say I never made it out of the driveway.  I slipped on ice and went down, using my hands to catch myself instead of my face.  You want to talk about pain?  I'd had the surgery less than two weeks prior.  I was still healing, barely healed in fact because of the intensive damage I'd done to myself, and then...to conclude all of the drama by hurting all the work done to me for a stupid bottle of orange juice?

Yep.  Just my luck.

And now I have to wear what my doctor is calling "The Chastity Braces of Doom" because he's evil like that.  I can only take them off to shower and typing this out took like three hours because of how they get in my way, and because I'm down to plucking at keys like my grandmother without her glasses.

It's torture, but it's reality, and hence my absence from the blog or any social media.  Pinterest is about all I can do because my phone has a stylus and I can tap with ease without the braces chaffing.  So I'm sorry if I'm not around or if you were concerned.  And no, I can't promise you any updates right now or promise you anything really.  I have no idea how long it will take for me to get my stride back and type more than half a page before it hurts.  And I'm sorry, because this all totally sucks, for you and for me.

But I thank you for your love and for being worried about me.  Just know I care about you guys as much as you care about me.  Thank you so much.

Love,

Night