brokenTAO

brokenTAO.com will now house my blog, my illustration/concept art AND my jewelry and home decor stuff. Hang tight while I learn WordPress, haha!

Older blog entries can still be found here: http://brokenbrawler.livejournal.com/

So I had surgery on Tuesday morning. Everything went pretty well. There was a little bit of mind-screwy-ness going on with me because the prep room and the recovery room looked identical to me and even though I knew I had the procedure done afterward, it didn’t feel like they had moved me anywhere. Apparently I also nodded off mid-conversation, was moving my hands with my eyes closed, woke back up and was all “oh my god, I was just folding laundry.”

They removed 4.4 pounds of breast tissue. I do not know if that includes the axillary breast tissue that was growing up into my armpit or not. Incidentally, the incision in my armpit is the most uncomfortable.

Brian and my mom have been awesome. Since anesthesia made me sick, I kept throwing up my pain pills, so they had to keep me over night. Even so, I was getting up and using the regular toilet on my own (which was a lot since my body was desperately trying to flush the drugs out of my system) and generally felt ok. It was strange, I didn’t even feel nauseous, in fact, I was super hungry, but I could not keep anything down until morning.

So Wednesday afternoon I came home. I took it easy, though I think I did some housework, laundry, dishes and was generally on my feet a little. Thursday morning I felt fine and was desperate to wash my hair, however, the act of tipping my head upside down to wash my hair in the sink proved to be a stupid, stupid move. I got incredibly dizzy, a side effect of the tramadol, and puked up my breakfast. That was the last time I’ve thrown up now though.

Saturday I got to take the bra and dressings off and see what I had. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, but removing the gauze was a pain in the ass and took both me and Brian. I got to take a shower, YES! and then we redressed the incisions, put a more comfortable sport bra on and then I noticed I was breaking out in hives, similar, but not as severely as I had after my back surgery.

Apparently, tramadol is a less powerful relative of norco, which I am extremely allergic to. So the tramadol built up in my system enough to really start messing with me. Since Sunday morning, I’ve been on only tylenol and have been just fine. Hives are way down today, dizziness is still there, but only in waves right now, and I’m finally sleeping more than twenty minutes at a time before snapping awake in a panic. I got several good chunks last night and a solid two and a half hour nap this morning.

I have my follow-up with Dr. Mishra Wednesday morning.

It’s Secret of Mana Theater’s ten year anniversary today and a special edition has been released: [LINK]

I’M IN IT. WOOO!

Ahem. It’s kind of a geeky joy moment for me. The first five years, I was simply a fan, but now I’m a part of it. The big story of course is that, holy crap, ten years? Damn, we’re old. Sprite Monkey (aka “Author”) and I have been hard at work pulling everything back together. There’s a clear line to the finish. It’s gonna be fun!

I knew it was going to kick (hence the towel padding my shoulder) but it was still startling, particularly since the trigger pull is so gentle and fast.

Our weekend in a bunch of pictures:

Last kenjutsu class until the fall.

Paired drills. Brian working with Mitsuko Sensei, Chris with Uhler Sensei and Mata sitting out.

I am now the proud owner of a 1927 Dragoon M91/30 Mosin Nagant. She’s a sweet, sexy Russian… I call her “The Goon”.

and she shoots THESE: 7.62x54R rounds. BOOM.

Brian took the first shot. Right out of the box, it shot great. Nice sensitive trigger. The bolt is smooth.

Denali biting the bolt. WTF? I broke the mosin down all the way and thoroughly cleaned it out. As with most mosins that have been in storage so long, she was coated and packed with cosmoline, which is a lot like petroleum jelly. It preserves the gun perfectly, but is a bitch to clean off. It took about two hours to completely clean it up. I had fun though and didn’t even need to look at any diagrams to put it back together again!

Yesterday we met someone that Brian and I have been communicating with through Twitter for a few months. Her name is Britney and we recently found out she only lived 30 minutes away. She’s basically a hunting goddess. She let me shoot one of her shotguns (my first time with a shotgun ever!), we shot skeet and I even hit a good bunch of them. Brian had shot skeet before (a long time ago) so he did much better than me. He was even pegging doubles! Britney took this picture of me shooting the Glock19.

Britney also shot the Glock and did great.

Our groupings. Brian was the one in the middle, but he was testing a new ammo, so it doesn't represent a typical grouping for him at ALL. Haha.

This is Britney obliterating a very fast moving clay. It was very fun to watch!

This is my shoulder last night after we went BACK out to our range to shoot the mosin some more. It has a steel plate on the butt of the stock and it kicks HARD. I only shot it twice without padding and this is what happened. It getting darker and bruisier this morning all ready.

So yeah. Wooden swords, then boom, boom, boom all weekend.

Me ‘n B like to shoot:

The kenjutsu program is fizzling out. Unfortunately, we saw this coming. The sensei and their daughter make their hour and a half trip out to the dojo only to have it just be me and Brian. Mata and Chris show up sporadically. There have been only two other students, but they are neither dependable or promising.

Before we started class last Thursday, Uhler Sensei announced that we’d be switching up the class. Their idea is to have Brian lead classes and they would come out once a month. They had a lot of great things to say about Brian and I am very proud. They said he was “a better student than they could have ever hoped for.” Unfortunately, we’re certain it’s going to end up just being the two of us. We’re thinking we can try and work something out where we drive out to them twice a month. We’ll see.

Rodney in particular is a big gun guy and invited us to go shooting with him. It was our first time shooting metal plates and wow, it was a ton of fun. I got to try some of Rodney’s guns. Some Ruger .45 that hurt my wrists and I had to give up on it after 3 shots. A .357 Smith & Wesson Magnum which, hubba hubba, I am in love with. Lots of power, but still very smooth. I’m not one for the big shiny guns, but wow, you can’t argue with that baby! I also shot his snub nosed .38 revolver and it was decent, but I was still in the after glow of shooting the Magnum and it just didn’t compare.

I had my consultation with the surgeon on Friday and things went well. I was extremely uncomfortable when she needed to take pictures, but I understand it’s necessary. My breasts weigh four pounds each and it sounds like they’ll be taking roughly half of the mass. I guess you need a minimum of 500 grams of excess per breast to qualify for insurance coverage and I have over twice that. The way everyone keeps saying “you obviously need this” and blah blah blah, is starting to make me feel stupid for not looking into this earlier.

So I’m just waiting to hear back about a date and we’re ready to go.

The user icon for this entry is probably 95% accurate to the face I was making the rest of the day after my doctor appointment.

I went in with my printed off list and ready to fight. The nurse had me gown up. Dr. Bessert came in, glanced at my list, never had me disrobe and told me I was a good candidate for the surgery. She has three surgeons she works with closely through Metro Health. She said she didn’t anticipate me having any problems with insurance. I’ll have a referral appointment by the end of the week, though it may be a month before I get to actually meet the surgeon. It’s good enough for me. This is better than I had hoped for.

I cried happy tears right there in the office, a little bit more when I got back out to the jeep, then more when I told Brian about it.

Dr. Bessert actually pointed out a few things I never noticed. My shoulders are rolled from all my hunching and I actually have much deeper grooves from bra straps than I realized. She showed me on the computer where she had documented that when I came in before Christmas-time with shoulder pain.

I wonder how much they weigh…

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Last Friday I got to watch Brian have an ultrasound on some of his internal organs, which was kinda cool to see, however, yesterday we found out the results of that exam. He has at least one gall stone and may have to have surgery. It’s not a serious surgery and we’re not (very) worried, but you know, it’s still sucky news. If it solves some of his problems though, then it’s work it. Recovery time is pretty short.

I’ve also reached a breaking point with my breasts. I’m going in Monday to talk to my doctor about having a reduction. I have heard that it can be hard to get insurance to cover it, but hopefully she’s willing to fight for me. If not, I know a doctor that will. Brian is behind me 100% and said if we have to, we can even take out a loan to try to cover the cost and force it. We’ll see.

I forgot to mention that Harley’s blood work came back perfect. Scheduled feeding seems like it’s doing the trick for her.

Holy crap. Where have I been? Ok, ok, nothing extraordinary has happened, since most of you have me on Facebook, Google+ or have been in contact with me in some capacity. Livejournal has been feeling pointless to me for a while and I’ve heard that things are only going to get crappier. I’m not going to close my journal down or stop reading (I can easily add your entries to my RSS) but I’m probably not going to post much at all. I’ve removed my reoccurring credit card info, so once my paid account runs out, I’ll be going free only. By then I’ll be on RSS only. I need to find a way to copy over the content, just to have it.

I no longer train in aikido. The reasons I left are many, but a lot of it is due to the limitations I’ve been left with after my surgery. I wouldn’t say ukemi is too painful, but it is very painful and other factors have simply made it not worth it anymore. I do have emotional reasons for leaving as well, but I will leave that for a private entry in the future if I decide I want to.

I’m currently taking kenjutsu, a japanese sword art. I really like it and hope the program sticks around. It had better since I’ve sunk a lot of money into it already. I’m probably at least $200 in already… hakama ($70), new weapon bag ($40), a new bokken ($36), a new custom tsuba ($50), kotachi ($20ish), another new weapon bag now that my new bokken and tsuba do not fit in the first one ($40ish), and I also have a special obi ($10ish) and tabi ($10ish) on the way. Hopefully I can sell off the unnecessary weapon bag and recoup some of the cost.

I’m also taking yoga and while I do enjoy it, I’m using it as a gateway class. I’m hoping it it will restore some of my flexibility and strength while I try and find something that suits me better.

I’m changing direction with brokenTAO and while I’ll still be doing drawing commissions, I’m going to focus on jewelry and a little bit of home decor. My shop on Etsy has been going pretty well so far. I’ve been making sales. Oh, and not to plug to you guys or anything, but if you wanted something, shipping is free and you can use coupon code GIMMIE15OFF to get 15% off everything.

In the summer, my mother (who is also getting into her own creative productions) and I will be having tables and booths at events and flea markets to sell our wares. It’s going to be fun. I’ve definitely been bonding with my mom a lot lately. Check out her store and site, MI Miscellania.

I’ve already run out of things to say. We’re all doing ok around here. The weather has even been mild enough to get out and do some light hiking. That cuts down on cabin fever and the winter blues a lot.