Tamara Unleashed

We arrived in St. Remy de Provence about 530 PM. I drove from Marseilles as I was the only one who managed to get some sleep on the plane. I did not have any pain in my hand, just a bit of mild numbness in the morning so my hypothesis that sleeping lying down is more likely to trigger the pain was supported.

The closer we got to St. Remy, the narrower the roads got – not Ireland narrow and without adjacent tall hedges blocking visibility, but the 35 mph speed limit seemed fast. My iPhone integrated into the Nissan’s system which made navigation easier. There are A LOT of traffic circles. The countryside looks just like many paintings I have seen – olive trees, grape vines and quaint old towns. I am ready to go exploring on a bicycle.

.We managed to find a parking place reasonable close to where we are staying and parked for 19 hours. Tomorrow we will move the car to a spot further from the center of the city where we do not have to worry about time running out on the virtual meter.

The airbnb is 3 levels. The stairs are steep. Each sleeping area has its own bathroom/shower. I have the futon to myself managed to arrange enough pillows that I could sleep in a partially relined position. I am awake at 6 AM feeling pretty normal with no pain and mild numbness.

Moving a wall in these old buildings requires some serious tools.

We went out to eat about 6 PM only to discover that the restaurants don’t open until 7 PM.

We discovered a pig with a pig beret looking in a window. She cooperated for a photo op.

We went shopping and brought back wine, cheese, bread, olives and snacked until we were full enough to go to bed.

I struggled to pick out a bottle of wine because the French wine labels are so boring This is the most interesting I could find. It was quite good – $5/bottle.

Our plan is to explore St. Remy today and then go from there.

Using topical diclofenac, a Tramadol, wrapped elbow to keep it from bending, wrist brace and sleeping in a partially reclined position on the couch, I did not wake up with pain. This is a very poor experiment because I have absolutely no idea which of the interventions was helpful. I am going to see if I can get some more Tramadol before I leave for airport at noon. I am also going to get a lidocaine patch to use. I have had intermittent mild numbness in my hand this morning but NO PAIN.

Off we go to St. Remy de Provence.

At 5 AM I was awakened with severe burning pain and numbness in my hand from my carpal tunnel. I thought it had been moderately severe before, but this was a whole new magnitude. I was wearing my wrist brace. I got up and started pacing. I grabbed an ice pack out of the freezer. I decided there was no way I could go to France tomorrow with so much pain. The pain was 10/10 for 10 minutes and then 9/10 for 10 minutes and then gradually subsided over 90 minutes to spotty mild numbness and then gone for rest of the day. I have a whole new understanding of what “Crazed with pain” means.

I ultimately decided to come to Spartanburg and try several different things to try to avoid the pain tonight. I will wear the brace again. I “borrowed” a Tramadol to see if it will help; I took some Aleve midmorning and have used topical diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory. I am going to sleep sitting up as I do think lying supine makes it worse. The nurse said to try keeping the elbow straight so I will try to wrap it in an ace bandage to see if that will help me not bend it while I am sleeping. Fingers crossed.

When I left Nashville, my thinking was that if in spite of all of these changes, I still woke up with severe pain, I would not go on the trip. But as I had a pain-free day, I can suffer with the morning pain in France or Nashville. If I go back to Nashville, I could hope for a cancellation on the schedule to get the procedure before June 5th but that is not that likely.

So as I prepare to sleep, I hope I will be on the plane to visit St. Remy de Provence later tomorrow.

This is what the cut looked like on Sunday – 24 hours after injury. It was a bit red with a bit of swelling but I thought it was related to having a tight bandage on all day.

Above is midday yesterday before starting the antibiotics and below is this morning after 2 doses of antibiotic. I had to see my doctor to get them and she reminded me I need to take cuts on my hand seriously because they can quickly become problematic.

What did I learn from this experience – dull knives can cut particularly with a lot of force behind it. Don’t do stupid things at the end of a long work day. Don’t superglue a wound that has not been thoroughly cleaned. Get antibiotics for hand wounds especially when cut is from a dirty knife on a dirty hand. Use a better tool to cut the blue board.

Sunday one of the other Supervisors on Site lended me his Fat Max utility knife which worked much better because the blade extends much farther to do a deeper cut in the blue board.

My very own Fat Max will be delivered today.

Days I do Habitat, I drop Carli off at James at 630 AM. This was waiting for me this morning. So sweet. However, he wanted me to wear the ballon around the Habitat site today. We have had a lot of rain over the past several days. Thursday and Friday, they worked in rain. Yesterday and today we worked in the mud.

This was what I looked like at noon yesterday. I wore the same pants today.

Today it was cloudy at the beginning, followed by a 30 minute downpour followed by bright sunshine – I prefer the cloudy. Yesterday I cut my finger while trying to cut the “blue board which is 1.5 inches deep. The utility knife does not cut through the full thickness. Theoretically, you cut part way through and then you can break it the rest of the thickness. Perhaps with lots of practice you can get this to work reliably but my team was struggling with it. So I was given a big “dullish” kitchen knife to try. It worked a bit better but was very dull. Just as I was saying “this is so dull, I don’t think it would even cut skin”, I cut the skin at the base of my left index finger – I was wrong. It cut full thickness of the skin but I had sensation and movement so I wasn’t too worried. It was bleeding a fair amount and it was in a position it was going to be hard to bandage. We poured water over it and antibiotic ointment and but a couple of small steri- strips on it. It slowed the bleeding but did not stop it. I was then offered Super Glue which is what the Habitat people use. It worked. It immediately stopped bleeding. I covered it as best as I could. When I got home, it was bleeding a bit so I decided to wash it with soap and water and use hydrogen peroxide on it and then applied more super glue. I ended up with superglue all over my hand but the bleeding stopped. I left it open over night. Bandaged it as best as I could to keep it clean today. it worked.

The bandage worked. The would was clean. The only thing I am a bit concerned about is infection since the knife was dirty and my skin was dirty at the time of the cut but so far so good.

This is me at the end of today – happy that I was able to help build homes for other mothers that are working so hard to provide homes for their families.

Now I get to have dinner at my son’s and pick up Carli, my balloon and flowers.

Happy Mother’s Day.!!

Two friends for my Krakow trip and 3 women I have not traveled with yet are heading to St. Remy de Provence – arriving May 19th and returning on May 28th. Yesterday I went to AAA to get an International Driver’s License. I am not sure who the old woman is in this photo. We have an AirBnB, a car and one of our traveling companions visits this area every year so we have lots of options of things to do. One day will be a winery tour. I will skip the day of cooking lessons as I would not be able to appreciate any of the flavors and cycle instead.

I have held my mail; gotten the driver’s license and have enough Euro’s from previous travel to get me started.

As my condo has been such a mess from the bathroom renovations, I have not unpacked my cruise suitcase yet. So today is the day, I will select clothes from the cruise suitcase to go into the France carry-on. Toiletries is always the challenge for carry-on. I got may haircut yesterday so it takes fewer products. I need to make sure I can purchase spa 100 sun screen in France and I should be able to do it with just my carry-on.

The renovation is complete except for drawers next to sink and the hardware which will be done on Monday.

It was so fun to be able to hang my first coat up in the hall closet. Floor will be finished once I figure out the plan for taking care of the water damage from upstairs water damage. Closet will be full by end of the day along with the bathroom cabinets.

Wednesday the cabinet guy came to install the “tower” on top of the granite only to discover that the granite installers installed the back splash when they should not have. When I saw the granite last Friday after the installation I saw the back splash and thought the cabinets must be notched out for the backsplash – not the case.

So the backsplash was removed later that day and the tower installed. Yesterday the crown was placed on top of cabinet. The two side drawers need to be made a bit less deep to allow clearance for the sink.

I am most excited to have a hall closet. Previously, this space opened on the opposite wall inside the tub/shower room which made no sense when it could have been planned as a hall closet. This is going to end up being a very expensive hall closet because this is higher quality shelving than I needed. I saw a picture and sent it to contractor and said this is the design I want and they reproduced it. The rod for the hangers needs to be move back bit to allow clearance for the hangers in front. They may also need to remove the molding around the door inside the closet. I knew it was a bit of a tight fit for an hanger but I was not expecting the molding inside the closet. I think that is a bit overkill.

This should be all done next week and then I can start planning towards replacing the floors in the dining room, living room and hallway because of water damage leak in unit upstairs.

It was a clear day without wind as we started turning wall panels into walls; securing them to the foundations, sheathing them and top plating.

In the photo to the right, two stacks are the exterior and interior walls for one house.

Below is a foundation waiting for walls.

Above is the house I worked on today. There was a team drilling through the bottom plate into the concrete and then firing bolts down into the concrete. The sheathing is installed on the outside. Fortunately we were able to use nail guns which makes the nailing go much faster but you have to make sure no one is working inside near where you are using the gun which gets increasingly challenging as more sheath goes up. The sheath is nailed to each stud and at the top and bottom every 6 or 12 inches. Nails are placed every 65 inches around windows and doors. There is caulk placed at the top and bottom. It goes pretty quickly once you get the rhythm down. I was supervising a team of sheathers.

The top plating involves placing an additional 2×6 (for exterior and 24 for Interior) board to anchor the walls to each other and the interior to the exterior. There is a lot of measuring and cutting for this step. We did not have enough nail guns for all of the work so the top plates were done with hammering.

You can see the top plating in this photo with Jean, the SOS who has been my main mentor on this journey.

Below shows the area we worked at the end of the day. 4 houses have walls. One is fully sheathed and top plated and ready for trusses for the roof. Supposedly, the volunteers will be building 13 houses to completion by the end of June.

I can’t wait to see how this all progresses

I can hear the footsteps of the man who lives above me. He is an early riser so if I am awake or near awake I hear him. This morning I heard him and then at some point later I heard other footsteps. There were quieter than his and tonally different. The next thing I know there is a man in my bathroom (which I can see through the master closet) with a tool belt on. It is 615 and the electrician is here to install the vanity lights in the bathrooms. The next time thing I know there are 3 more electricians working in a small space.

The bathrooms are getting close to being done.

I was on the cruise when the electricians did their part earlier so they likely thought I was still gone. Thank goodness I don’t own a gun.

Yesterday was a busy day with health care visits. I saw my cardiologist at 9 AM; dentist at 10 and neurologist at 1 in 3 different locations. Thanks to genetics I have a lot of plaque in my heart vessels so my lipids are being monitored carefully. All is well.

My dentist is still out but there was a substitute dentist seeing patients such as myself that could not wait. I liked this dentist better than the other. He was surprised by how many spikes (the dental term is buttons) I had on my teeth. While it was not painful, having them drilled off was not pleasant. He then took images of my mouth that would be used to make the retainer which took a long time (mostly because he was not that familiar with this particular device). I walked out without spikes – with a different bite that I am still getting used to and no space between my front teeth. I asked this dentist to look at my X-rays and let me know how many fillings he thought I needed to get replaced. I am guessing he is going to say that none are urgent. Once I start chaining anything in my mouth, the retainer may not fit properly which means getting a new retainer.

I started waking up with numbness in my right had 5-6 years ago. It occurred a few times a year and I assumed I had just slept wrong. Just over a year ago, it started happening much more frequently and I got it evaluated. The hand specialist thought it was carpal tunnel and recommended nerve conduction and muscle testing as well as wearing a wrist brace at night. I wore the brace and scheduled the test. After wearing the brace for a month or so, it resolved for a few months. It came back so I started wearing the brace again which worked great until just after I returned from the cruise when I started having the numbness randomly during the day. So I got the tests done yesterday and I do have mild to moderate carpal tunnel syndrome. I will go ahead and get the surgery to relieve the pressure on the nerve as the daytime numbness is VERY annoying.

The joys of gradual wear and tear on the body……