A Discreet DIY-Related B1tch-and-Moan

Something I didn't mention in my last post:

The other day, when I was using the mouse sander to groom the ratty nosings on the stair treads to the 3rd floor, I was doing my usual thing and taking pictures of the progress whenever I got a tread done.

Well, after I'd been working awhile I picked up my digital camera and was fiddling around with the controls, setting the focus to close-up, adjusting the light color temperature, that sort of thing.  And darned if my right hand wasn't shaking and I could hardly push the right buttons at all!

Weird, weird, weird.  I really hadn't been sanding that long, either.

I shook off the cramp or whatever it was and got back to work.  And comforted myself with the thought that it couldn't be the peripheral neuropathy that sometimes appears as a side effect to the chemo drugs I'm taking.  That would be a pins-and-needles sensation in the fingertips, and that's not what this sudden trembling seemed to be.  Besides, I got over it and things seemed fine.

But by the next day . . .  Well, I can't accurately describe the course of things; I'd rather keep detailed records of holes filled than of chemo side-effect symptoms experienced.  (Does that mean I'm a normal person-- or that I'm not sufficiently attentive to my care?  Whatever.)  It's just that while the shakiness has not recurred, by Friday my right fingertips were definitely tingly, sausagey-feeling, or occasionally painful, and as of yesterday the left ones seem to be joining in.

Damn and blast!  I am sooooooo talented!  I can't throw up like normal chemo patients do, I gotta get peripheral neuropathy.  Which damn well better not go any further and better not be permanent.

But here's the deal:  this evening at church a friend who's a nurse was making noises to the effect that running a sander can exacerbate the problem.  Now, the next thing on the DIY agenda is filling the holes in the stair treads.  But after that, the sander has got to be run.  Those steps have to be fine sanded before they can be refinished, and I'm the person who has to do it.  There is no money to hire a pro, even if I trusted anyone else to do the job I want.

And leaving the stairs and hall floor unfinished isn't an option, either.  In this economy nobody can afford to have a house torn up any longer than necessary, especially not me. 

I know the motto on my blog banner says "I'll make a silk purse out of this house if it kills me."  I don't plan on fulfilling that resolution, not really.  But under the circumstances, it really looks like I'm going to have to--  Well, let's just say I hope the new Bosch sander won't send up too much vibration when I'm taking down the wood filler.  In any case, I've got to try.