[35/365] big day

[cosmolinguist]

I was so stressed about this afternoon, but I got through it, I did all the things!

This morning I made the appointment for and this afternoon I got my first covid vaccine. It was an exhausting and inaccessible process, made much easier by diffrentcolours being with me. For reasons like sleep-deprivation and the emotional fallout of the next thing I'm going to talk about, I was a little more worried than usual that my needlephobic ass would faint or at least cry, but I didn't!

The next thing is that Gary had been his doing weird aggressive things more often lately, to the point where last night I got really upset and frustrated and worried that something physical/mental might be really wrong with him. I had a miserable night and didn't sleep fantastically. So today we took him to the vet, who reckons pain might be contributing so he has arthritis meds now. The vets and nurses are all so nice there, and they're great with him. They really Get him as a person, as a jack russell-shaped person.

Busy afternoon for all of us, human and canine alike. diffrentcolours had to manage some complicated logistics to get me to the hospital, him and me to Sainsburys to collect the shopping, and mother_bones and Gary to the vet (she kindly offered to be the one human per pet that's allowed in the tiny vet's office, she did much better than me at calmly explaining and asking good follow-up questions and stuff on a day when I was just so overwhelmed). It ended up meaning that all four of us had to go to both Sainsburys and the vet. We all had our different jobs to do.

We're all completely shattered afterwards, so we all had Mexican takeaway too (even Gary got little bits of sour cream, which he loves).

Comments

[davidgillon]

this afternoon I got my first covid vaccine. It was an exhausting and inaccessible process

Well yay for the first, and boo for the second! It's really disappointing when the places having accessibility fails are hospitals.

[cosmolinguist]

I think everything about the vaccination program has been so ad-hoc because it's had to be done so quickly, and by mostly abled people because they're the ones who have jobs, so it's not surprising me unfortunately. I've been in meetings of local disability forums and whatnot where people have been bitching about how inaccessible vaccination can be so I wasn't expecting much!

And I've already been asked to write it up for my RNIB volunteer manager so maybe it'll help make the process less bad in the future.

[davidgillon]

When they started with the 80+yo cohort, who aren't the most agile demographic on the planet, you would sort of hope people would get the clue to consider accessibility, but that's obviously too much to hope.

Hopefully there's enough feedback that the process can improve.

[cosmolinguist]

I think the 80+-year-olds probably weren't herded through a hospital like this, and I think the process is very different everywhere because of it all being so ad-hoc and "done is better than perfect," and the obvious problems of disabled people being so disproportionately unemployed meaning that jobs are mostly done by abled people so many fewer people doing the work of setting up these locations will be disabled and therefore they're less likely to think of all the stuff that made me so tired and anxious and grumpy.

[sfred]

I am glad you're on your way to being invincible! I hope Gary starts to feel better soon too.

<3

[cosmolinguist]

Yay I like the sound of being invincible. :) I hope Gary feels better soon too. He was perfectly well-behaved and happy today, which was good to see.

[worlds_of_smoke]

It sounds like a very tiring day. But you got your first dose and Mexican takeaway, so at least there were some good things. <3

[cosmolinguist]

Yep they're all things that it is good to have done. I just hated doing them all. But at least I got tangible results for all of them.

[otter]

I hope you sleep well tonight. Somehow, I'd imagined Gary as a larger dog. Readjusting my image of him to Jack Russell shaped. My dad had a similar shaped dog when he was a kid.

There is a weekly radio program here (KFAI) by and for disabled folks. Today, the host was talking to a couple who make kits to adapt games, such as Ticket to Ride, for blind/visually impaired people to play, using Braille. https://64ozgames.com/ I thought it might be of interest to you.

[cosmolinguist]

It took me forever to get to sleep but I did sleep pretty well!

Gary is very jack russell, he's so neurotic. :) But actually quite deferent for a terrier and very sociable. He has a big personality and definitely feels like a bigger dog than he is sometimes, that's probably why I've given you the impression that he's bigger.

I have a terrible time with lots of modern board games, the complex kind that my friends like are often completely inaccessible to me. I know different things are being done about that, I usually get by on my friends explaining things to me or moving things around for me, and at least the new trends also include a lot of cooperative games that mean people are talking about things and that I'm not solely responsible for things myself, so that works out.

[otter]

Yay for reasonably good sleep!

Sweet W and I usually play Yahtzee or Farkle. I really enjoy Scrabble, but he's dyslexic, so it's not a game he enjoys at all. Anything more complex than that doesn't hold his attention, so my closet full of board games is waiting until I can have additional friends in the house. Tiger and Mouse won't play board games with Mom anymore. They prefer online collaborative games with their friends.

[annofowlshire]

Hurray! All the things! And Mexican to finish!

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I hadn't been able to eat more than half a sandwich all day to that point, so it was nice to be able to devour some tacos. :)

[mrs_leroy_brown]

Dude!* Well done! I am extremely impressed - what a load of accomplishments :) Sux that the vax experience was crappy but hooray for differentcolours' help. And sorry to hear about Gary but hopefully the V-E-T has sorted any issues. It's so hard with befurred ones to tell what is up with them. If only we could speak dog/cat/rabbit/etc!

Celebrating with Mexican takeway sounds like the perfect reward. Mmmmm...I think that might feature in my weekend now :)


*I think of dude as being gender-neutral, but not sure how you might perceive this as agender? If this is something you'd rather not be called please let me know. My younger sibling recently informed me they are agender and its made me realise just how gendered my affectionate terms for people are!

[cosmolinguist]

I like dude! Thanks for asking. While "agender" is still the only word I want to use to describe myself, I'm increasingly happy with "male"-coded words anyway so no stress there. It really is interesting how we don't even notice how gendered so many words are until we have some reason to think about it.

Can definitely recommend Mexican; the place we get it from is fairly new and it's so nice to have this as an option! It has always been my favorite and my time in the UK has mostly been lacking Mexican food.

[po8crg]

Yay for vaccine! You got it the same day as my parents.

Boo for inaccessible medical facilities!

Yay for helpful partners making the inaccessible easier!

Hope that Gary is feeling better soon. One thought I had was to wonder if he was missing Andrew (or the house that you used to live in).

[cosmolinguist]

I'm glad your parents got it!

It had occurred to me that Gary should still be able to visit his other home even before this, but unfortunately that hasn't been possible yet because Andrew's dealing with a mouse infestation and traps/poison aren't pet-friendly.

[silveradept]

Huzzah for getting everyone where they needed to be so they could get what will hopefully help, and good decision on the food choices afterward.