Karen Rubin's Ramblings

Day 10 of total silence, once I get through today, I still have 4 more to go!! At home, this isn't too much of a problem. Jared waits for me to type out what I want to say, and while it's probably very frustrating for him, I still manage without too much problem.

Work is a totally different story. If HubSpot is anything, it's fast paced, and it doesn't slow down for anything, even me! My job is solving problems, and I do that most effectivly by talking to people and finding fast solutions. Not being able to talk is putting a real cramp in my style! This is why I normally hate working from home, things are so much less effective when you have to do it all over IM and email. 

However, I am managing. I went in on Monday for a few hours. Completely whiped myself out, and decided that I should probably just work from home this week. Then I worked 10 hours straight yesteday and almost dropped dead. Today I plan to figure out a way to take better care of myself, while working from home. I'm setting my alarm to force myself away from the computer for 10 minutes every 2 hours. Then maybe I won't fall into a coma before Jared gets home. 

As for the not talking, I'm doing well. Not perfect. I've had 4 slip ups. All while I was distracted or sleeping.

• "Hi" to my mom on Day 3, when she woke me up
• "Yes" to Jared, as he was about to pull into a one way on Day 5
• "I'm cold" to Jared, as I woke from a nap on Day 6
• "Gemma" to the silly cat, as we were watching TV on Day 7

I also did one experiment, last night. I'm sort of embarassed by my weakness, but I told Jared I loved him, just to see how it sounded. I really wasn't interested in what it sounds like during week 1, but it's been 10 days!!! It certainly felt weird to talk, but my voice sounded good. 

The good news is I am mostly feeling better. I don't quite have all my energy back, so I haven't been running at all, which is almost as bad as not talking for me. I would really rather not come out of not talking, only to get sick because I pushed it too hard, so I am doing the best I can to take care of myself. 

Thanks for all the support and well wishes!

My parents home is the perfect place to recuperate. It's in the woods, without any neighbors or noise for distraction. It's an absolutely beautiful location that should really be used as a get away resort or spa. The house is filled with comfortable places to curl up and take naps, all while being bathed in sun and fresh air. To top it all off, my Mom is an exceptional cook who makes all my favorites when I come home. 

This means lots of people come here to recuperate and my parents have done this a few times. They know the drill. So this morning when I woke up and was feel blue, they were expecting it. They have noticed a trend when people have surgery. You come home feeling like crap, sleep up for a day or two, and then have a really good day. Then the post-surgery blues set in. You want to be feeling even better, but it takes time. That's where I am at. 

Physically, I'm doing pretty good. I'm sleeping better again, don't have to take naps every 30 minutes, and can eat a lot more (but not everything). My throat still hurt, but I'm probably back to 80%. The thing is, I want to be 100%...NOW!!

I'm also getting to the point where not being able to talk is frustrating me. Sure the computer and iPad work great. The whiteboard gets me by, but you really can't have indept conversations with these tools. It's all very limiting. Try explaining something in more than 2 sentences on a whiteboard, it doesn't really work. 

So I'm changing scenary. We head to New Hampshire tonight to get away for the weekend. I love being in New Hampshire, because it's all about relaxation. There is no internet, so I can't work. I can't expect to get things done and do stuff. I plan to spend the next 2 days, on the couch, reading my book. Hopefully I can kick the blues by the time I go back to work on Monday. 

(Photo Credt:  Zach Klein)

I made it down to Ashford today to get babied by my parents while Jared goes back to work. It's nicer to be here than at home, because my Dad is home all day to give me some human interaction. I think I can handle not talking, but being alone all day and not talking, forget it!

The best way to communicate is on the commputer. My Mac laptop and iPad both have text to speech applications that work just fine. It's certainly a slower, less fluid conversation, but it allows me to make my points. Thanks goodness to Tomcat and Chip (HubSpot's IT ninjas) for letting me take an iPad from work while I am away. I need it for work, but it's even better than the laptop for talking since it's so convienet. The only downside with talking through the computer, is it's real hard not to get sucked into my work email. I have to keep reminding myself I need to rest in order to heal! 

The only problem today is eating. My throat is still pretty sore and I miss real food! Mom made me some carrot ginger soup, which is amazing, and got me some Odwalla smoothies. It feels like I am actually getting some nutritional value, in addition to plenty of ice cream. I really hadn't expected the throat to be this bad. I figure yesterday would be tough, but I would be back to more normal food by today. Hopefully tomorrow I can return to the land of the eating. 

For now, it's lots of sleeping and resting. The codine makes it hard to sleep, so I spent the afternoon in the hammock with a audio book. Nothing better than having someone read to you to make you sleep. 

Surgery went fine and was done by about 10AM this morning. Dr. Burnes was great and told Jared everything went fine, there were no surprises and this is going to make talking so much easier and nicer for me (when I can talk again.) Jared was SUPER excited to hear that I'll like talking MORE. :-) 

Coming out of surgery wasn't much fun, I don't think it ever is. I was worried that my fist instinct would be to talk, because last time I had general anethesia I came out yelling. I did much better and haven't talked at all, but I did moan a couple of times. The hospital staff was really good at reminding me I couldn't talk. A number of hospital staff thought I couldn't hear as well. I had to keep reminding them that I could hear, they didn't need to write things down! I think maybe they just liked my marker board. 

The wierdest thing about not talking are the sounds I make without realizing I am making sound. The noises I don't even conciously think about. The first sip of water they gave me felt so good, I went "mmmm," which of course I shouldn't do. It's a lot more than just not talking, which isn't as hard as not making the little noises. 

Using the white board worked well at the hospital, but at home it's just too slow. I've been using the text to speech software on my mac. I type, and when I am done, the computer reads what I wrote. it's a lot better than trying to convey myself in a couple of words on the white board. I also used Google + to video chat with my parents, they talked and I typed via Google chat. It actually worked pretty well and will probably be how I get a lot of work done when I am back at HubSpot.

The only bad thing is I have a killer sore throat and half my tongue is numb. I got down a milk shake earlier and some mashed potatoes, but eating is hard and I don't have much appetite. I think I am going for another chocolate milk shake for dinner. If that's my biggest complaint, I'm doing pretty well. 

I'm off for the night, hopefully tomorrow the sort throat will be feeling much better and I can start eating some real food! Thanks to everyone for all the thoughtful wishes, emails, texts and messages. 

(Photo Credit: waitscm)