My sweet catfish

Horabagrus brachysoma 'Indian Sun Catfish'










She died last night after my toddler dumped all kinds of crap into the fishtank. My 12 year old was supposed to be watching her while I went for a quick walk with the dog. I did two emergency 30% water changes in the span of 4 hours and hoped for the best. I suspect that her gills got clogged up with all the fishfood my toddler dumped into the tank.

I had this fish for almost 4 years. This fish was protection against the Mormons who won't stop knocking on my door. I don't know how we will defend ourselves from the evil fish killing Mormons now. (yes I know how silly that sounds)

I'm going to release her in the Skokomish river so she can float down to the hood canal and probably be eaten by crabs. A burial at sea only seems right for a fish. When my other fish died I would feed them to the chickens but this fish is too big for the chickens to eat in one bite and I don't have chickens anymore. Now my fish tank is empty except for one lonely pl*co.

This morning the water is very cloudy and I suspect the ammonia is off the scale so I did another 30% water change. The Pl*co seems ok, plecos are very tough fish but catfish are pretty tough too.

It is common knowledge among aquarists that when you talk about your pl*co online you always replace the "e" with a * to prevent it from dying. Click here to learn more.

Close up pictures of my Mongoose XR front brakes

The results





My new wrist








All the bike riding callus is gone now.

Physical Therapy for the Wrist

Spend at least 15 minutes soaking your wrist in alternating hot and cold water baths before you start the therapy. Then soak again in hot or cold water (what ever feels best) after you exercises. The pre soak really helps get the wrist loosened up.

Got to at least one physical therapy session if you can afford it. Go for the whole series if you can.










The scene of my wrist breaking, wrist spraining bicycle accident
modeled by my 4 year old.







I’m in my second week of physical therapy for my wrist post DVR plate insertion. Wow this is really not fun. The therapy hurts and I have to do it six times a day. I will be really glad when this is all over.

My first visit to the physical therapy was hard on me because I was feeling very paranoid and the time and I left the place thinking that everyone there hated me. My second visit yesterday went much better for me.

No one can tell me how much this therapy will cost, not Mason General Hospital, not the therapist and it seems not even the billing department. I find this outrageous. It seems that the only way I can know it is going to cost will be when I get the bill after it is done. My therapist wants me to see her two days a week but I am only seeing her one day a week since I have no idea what it will cost.

Whatever the cost I’m sure it will be mind boggling. The same hospital ER charged over $600 for a splint plus another $64 for the doctor to put it on. I’ve looked online and see I could have bought the splint material for $25 plus shipping. Too bad I could not just show up at the ER with a broken wrist and the splint materials in hand and just paid the $64.00 to have the splint put on plus the fee for simply sitting in an ER room. The total ER bill from Mason General (a publicly funded hospital) for doing the x-rays and putting on a splint is $2,200 but that that nothing compared to what the hospital where I had the surgery is charging.

Providence Saint Peter Hospital has sent me a bill for $24,000 for my day surgery. I assume I will also receive separate bills from my surgeon and the anesthesiologist. I could have bought a really nice bicycle with disc brakes many times over for what all this is going to cost me even AFTER my insurance pays its 80% share. My insurance is still listed as terminated even though I have a letter from them saying I have on going coverage. What a shame that I was afraid to make a large purchase while manic and I was riding a cheapo second hand pawn shop bike to work off my manic energy when I crashed. I had my eye on a lovely purple bicycle with disk brakes at an Olympia bike shop but like I said I was afraid of making a large purchase while manic.

I finally got my bicycle back from Olympia today and indeed the front brakes are sticky. So the bike is mostly to blame for my crash but it is my mania that is to blame for the very high rate of speed I was traveling at when I crashed. I have “very good” bones (according to my surgeon) and I have never broken a bone before this in spite of my years of skateboarding and dirt bike riding. I had to crash at a high speed in order to do this kind of damage to my lunate fossa.


This curb does not seem steep enough to bring a mountain bike to a dead stop


I have purchased some fiberglass casting tape online so I can make an art project with it and that is how I found out how cheap the stuff really is. I assumed it would be really expensive being a medical item.

I am going to scan my physical therapy instructions so people who can not afford physical therapy will know what they need to do. I could not find instructions like this online when I searched. I would still recommend seeing a physical therapist if you can at all afford it and if you can actually find out what the cost is going to be up front. Click on the images to enlarge them.

These exercises hurt if you are doing them right. I've been told that with fractures after they have healed you are to ignore the therapy pain.


Follow up I have finally found that out the therapy cost will be about $200 per session and they want to do 2 sessions a week for 6 weeks.


Update: about 3 weeks after my therapy started I was given a wrist band to wear instead of a brace. Now about 4 weeks later I am going without the band. The band was hurting me. I do not have all my volar or dorsal flection back but I have most of my forearm rotation and I was able to shovel snow. I still have to be very careful because my wrist hurts and the therapy still hurts a lot. Even typing is hurting my right hand when I hit the backspace key.

Another update, after 5-6 weeks my therapy is over. Typing does not hurt at all. Pulling on hard to open doors causes some pain so I push the wheelchair button with my elbow when the buttons are available. Almost all of my flexibility is back and I have regained around 75% of my grip strength. When from 25 at the start to 55 where my good hand 70 at the start (but it was sprained too) I think that is a measurement of psi but I don't know.



March 30 Update, it is now almost six months since I broke my wrist. I don't have much pain now and my flexibility is good. I still don't have all my strength back. I hope my wrist will continue to get stronger. Before the fracture my husband would come to me to get tight jar lids open. I have always been very strong and it is frustrating to be weak. I mainly notice my lack of strength when I am doing mechanical things such as screwing and wrenching. Basically anything that requires rotational force. Clearly I need to screw more often.

Two year update. My wrist it great, I'm not sure if I got all my wrist strength back, but all my flexibility is back and most of the pain is gone. I have to wear a brace when I type on my laptop or my wrist really hurts. Also pounding on things with a hammer and using some types of hand tools causes some pain. So my wrist is not as good as new but it's really close.

You know you live in a backwards town when...

They don't repair the streets, turn off half the street lights and close down the library. All three of those things are in the works with the street lights going off in January. As near as I can tell the streets have not been repaired in about 20 years. The dirt road I used to live on was nicer then most of the streets in town.

The City's Administrator, Dave O'Leary, has said that the City can no longer pay for library services and if the voters turn down annexation, the Shelton Library would close. The City Commission is expected to see the first draft of the cancellation letter next Monday.

It looks like I have found myself a hiking partner who won't mind if I talk to myself. I have long debated getting a dog to go hiking with and mostly did not get a dog because they are not allowed in national parks and have to be on the leash in the National Forest trails. But access to the National Parks from Shelton in the winter is almost nil and I've been doing mostly road hikes ever since they started closing staircase in the winter. I'm thinking I'll be free to let her run off leash on washed out and gated up roads in the National Forest. It's not like there is anything she can damage in a third growth tree farm and I hike on roads that are closed to cars and I never see other hikers on these roads.

I'll have to teach her how to heel on a leash so I can walk her into Staircase and Dosewallips campgrounds. But I won't be able to teach her to heel until my wrists are a bit stronger. She is a five-year-old Springer Spaniel. My neighbors adopted her from the pound yesterday but only kept her for one day because she was trying to eat their pet birds (well she is a bird dog!). I first saw her today when my neighbors were walking her back the pound. I offered to take her since I love spaniels and had been shopping for a pound dog before I broke my wrist. I got a good deal here since the pound charges $75 to adopt a dog. My neighbors were quite happy to give her to me and return home instead of finishing their walk to the pound. Good thing I just happened to be out walking then.

She is spayed and housebroken and knows the commands sit and lay down.

Staircase Open to hikers this winter

Routemap to Staircase Ranger Station

Some good news. Staircase road is closed as usual this winter but it is only closed to cars this time. Hikers are allowed to walk on the road now. This opens up some new hiking and geocaching opportunities for me. I used to do most of my winter hiking at Staircase but after the fire on Mount Rose they started closing the road to both cars and hikers every winter. With the past road closure about a dozen of my geocaches are unreachable every winter.

I’m going to look at my topo maps and start making plans for winter hiking at Staircase now. 1.4 miles to the Mount Rose trailhead so Mount Rose will be in reach until the snow gets too deep.


Route to the Mount Rose Trailhead


5.5 miles to the Staircase campground so this could be a road hike very much like to road hike into the Dosewallips campground. The advantage is this will be closer to home for me and I'll have lake Cushman on one side the entire way instead of the Dossewalips River. You really can't see the Dosewallips river for very much of the way.



Route to the Staircase Ranger Station



The WTA has changed the system for posting trip reports and I don't get it. I can't post about trails that are not in a drop down menu but have to ask for them to be added. My first attempt at logging on I lost my password and now can't use my preferred name. I'm not liking this new system and I just might be done posting my trip reports there. I figure the WTA will start spamming me too now that they require me to give them my email address. The advantage of this new system is supposed to be that trip reports are posted right away but I'm not having any luck getting my trip report for South Mountian posted. South Mountain is not on their list, maybe it will not be allowed because it is a road walk but it is listed in a local book of winter hikes in the Puget Sound.

With the new system my direct link to the newest trip reports for the Olympics has been broken but I'm working on fixing it.


FOREST SERVICE ROAD 24 TO CLOSE FOR THE WINTER

Olympia, Wash -- Due to safety concerns for Olympic National Forest visitors, Forest Service Road 24 is scheduled to close to all motorized vehicle access beginning October 31st . The road is the main access point for the Staircase area of Olympic National Park.

The gated closure, located just beyond the Mt. Rose subdivision, began as a precaution following the 2006 Bear Gulch II fire which burned approximately 1200 acres directly above the road. This safety measure is necessary to prevent injury to the public from rock and debris slides expected throughout the rainy winter season.

“This road has proven to be a dangerous place in the winter,” said Dean Yoshina, District Ranger for the Hood Canal District of the Olympic National Forest. “Although we have lifted the restriction on foot traffic that was in place for last year’s closure, we ask that visitors remain aware of weather conditions and stay clear when the potential exists for heavy storms.”

Due to the steep topography, this section of road sometimes experiences debris and rock slides during the winter months, requiring routine cleanup and maintenance. However, the fire increased the amount of debris significantly, as storms from last winter caused so much debris to cover the road that repairs took until the end of June to complete.

An assessment team will continue to evaluate conditions, monitor slope stability and track debris accumulations to determine the level of winter access in the future.

The Forest Service will announce a scheduled opening date in the spring when risk levels return to normal and debris removal and maintenance can begin.

For updated road conditions throughout the forest, visit the Olympic National Forest website at www.fs.fed.us/r6/olympic/conditions/.


MT. ROSE Trail #814 OPEN 2.9 miles to summit via summit route, 6.4 round trip mileage. 800’-4,300’ Trail is in the Mt. Skokomish Wilderness. Peek-a-boo views of Lake Cushman, Prospect Ridge, Dow Mountain and Lightning Peak may be seen on ascent. Trail travels through quiet, old growth forest, and from ridge loop trail, views of Bear Gulch Valley, Mt. Ellinor, Mt. Washington, Mt. Pershing, and the distant Huckleberry drainage may be seen.
Conditions: Road to the trailhead closed 10/31/08, trailhead will be accessible by foot only. The Mt. Rose Trail crosses an area burned in 2006 by the Bear Gulch 2 Fire. Snags and partially burnt trees exist along the trail. Use extreme caution in this area, and avoid use during windy or rainy conditions. The fire burnt heavily over the trail at the top of the summit route and the trail may be difficult to follow for 1/4 mile.
Remarks: Route to the right (ridge route) is marked to the ridge with orange diamonds in the trees. Trail is extremely steep and is very hard on the legs coming down. Ice axe when snow is present, good hiking boots and the ten essentials are highly recommended. Parking pass is not required.