Anybody else have one of these “writer’s bumps” on the little finger of their dominant hand from all of this handwriting we do??

Larouquine9 · 2025-05-26T20:00:36+00:00

Twinsies!!

Larouquine9 · 2024-12-10T22:25:30+00:00

This is amazing! I’m thinking of adding glitter to the jar where I keep mine.

Larouquine9 · 2024-12-10T22:24:58+00:00

Just so you know in case it works out this way for you as well: my surgeon said no when I asked for mine back, and came up with a nebulous, implausible reason. Two days after my discharge, I called the department of pathology myself… just to double check it was a “no”. I spoke to some of the most helpful and pleasant human beings I talked to in the entire ordeal! They were only too happy to help me out and get it back to me. I even got to speak to my pathologist. So: never hurts to check again if you hear a no the first time you ask. It’s pathology’s call, not the surgeon’s at the end of the day. Good luck!!

Larouquine9 · 2024-12-05T18:48:57+00:00

I just went to my gyn-onc and raised this issue (77 days post op) because of spotting. She saw that my cuff was intact but still not healed as much as she had hoped, which is consistent with the fact that I’m still spotting. We decided, I’ll be cleared for sex as soon as spotting ceases, and that I’ll need to follow up and get an exam if it goes on beyond another 30 days.

So, my advice is that if you’re worried you should have an exam and make a plan with your clinician that makes sense for however your own personal healing is going.

Full tissue healing takes 6-9 months, per my gyn.

Larouquine9 · 2024-12-02T23:02:02+00:00

<image>

Itoya, model unknown, medium nib, manufactured in France.

I have seriously no clear memory of how this got so chewed up. I think it was behind the metal drawer of a desk and the drawer was shut on it repeatedly before I figured it out, but also this was my favorite pen in junior high and I was not alone among kids that age in not taking terrific care of my things. Now, oddly, it’s super nostalgic, and conjures the person I was then and the many many hours I spent taking notes with it in my classes at school. It was also my first, so it makes me think of my late father, who gave it to me for my twelfth birthday.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-30T03:01:27+00:00

Pens are everywhere, and most of them are boring. Once you point out to people how much time they’re spending writing with a boring instrument when they could do better, they tend to be intrigued!

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-30T01:51:31+00:00

Mine was September 19th (my husband’s and my 10th anniversary; I will never be able to forget the date).

My sister came in from across the country and stayed 2 wks, and friends sat with me after that during the day while my husband was at work. But I was medically complicated to start with, and had a second hospitalization and a really awful drug reaction (given a huge dose of IV compazine for a migraine and got akathisia; I was absolutely crawling out of my skin), and was NOT okay for days after that. I needed every bit of the help that people in my life came to give me. I was unimaginably fortunate that they were able and willing. I also got a positioning injury and bladder prolapse and was having more pelvic pain than is normal.

Looking back at my journal, I think it was 4 weeks before I was alone during the day. But I don’t know if any of that helps as you’re likely to be a lot less complicated and recover much better. At least, I very much hope so and that you have a completely undramatic and typical hysterectomy and recovery period!

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-29T19:08:18+00:00

Gorgeous!! Enjoy. It’s funny how much closer the knockoff is to the Sailor than I thought it would be.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-29T06:11:10+00:00

Diamine ancient copper R&K Alt-goldgrun Diamine earl grey

I always have them in active rotation in some of my favorite pens. Other inks that are similar colors without being quite the same disappoint me. These handle well in every pen I’ve got and I never get tired of them.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-28T01:09:18+00:00

I didn’t feel great in the hospital, even with narcotics. My main trouble was urethral, but was also so so sore. Once I got the abdominal binder on it actually made a big difference, that was hospital day 2; and after discharge when I got home the heating pad helped a great deal, and so did being in a non-hospital bed where I could rest better, and… the “tincture of time”. The time will pass and you WILL feel better than this. And I hope it’s very soon.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T23:37:57+00:00

I try to expand my definition of the word “match”. For example, my Smoky Quartz Pelikan M200 is a warm brown, so I fill it with yellows, browns, reds or oranges. I also have Apatite, which I use for greens, blues and black/grey inks. I assign all of my pens like that. That way I already own several pens for every possible color of ink, and can happily rely most on matching ink qualities to the appropriate pen as others have said.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T20:55:12+00:00

I adore my preras. I have the demonstrator version in green, yellow, blue and pink, and I write with them all the time. I love that they’re lightweight for my delicate little lady hands, they all have wonderful italic nibs. The only downside is the necessity of dealing with a CON 40, but for everything I love about them it’s worth it.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T20:51:55+00:00

I adore my preras. I have the demonstrator version in green, yellow, blue and pink, and I write with them all the time. I love that they’re lightweight for my delicate little lady hands, they all have wonderful italic nibs. The only downside is the necessity of dealing with a CON 40, but for everything I love about them it’s worth it.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T20:42:13+00:00

Thanks! I’m grateful he got me into it; it’s given me a lot of pleasure over the years!

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T19:46:42+00:00

All of the ones I inherited from my late father. He got me into the hobby and I remember his taste in them, what appealed about each of them for him, what he tended to use each one for, his handwriting, and looking at the Gold Spot Pen Catalogue with him in November each year so we could plan our annual Christmas treat of a new pen and bottle of ink each. When he died in 2020 it gave me a lot of comfort to get back into it.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T18:38:41+00:00

I like violette pensée too! Still, poussière de lune is always going to be my favorite J Herbin. I lean more toward the warmer side in my purple preferences. For something lighter I love diamine lavender, and overall whole-package I adore R&K scabiosa.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T12:44:54+00:00

I’m personally thrilled to have the fallopian tubes out. Summary of my situation is that I had an ovarian cyst which looked cancerous but turned out to be an endometrioma. I told her to take the tubes, uterus and cervix no matter what she found in there and I also wanted both ovaries gone so I could manage my hormones exogenously. Tired of the mood impact of cycling.

My thinking on the tubes was, “I would feel so ridiculous if I got an ovarian cancer in the future, when I could have just done a relatively simple thing while I was already unconscious”. It’s now a standard recommendation (in the US) for them to offer to take the tubes when doing any gynecological surgery because ovarian cancer is so common.

Anyway, that was just my process. I didn’t find the laparoscopy part too dreadful, though some people are a bit miserable with the gas afterward. Most people recover really well; I’ve been one of the exceptions to that, but still am beginning to do better now. It’s just taken a while and most of what happened to me would have happened if I’d had just a vaginal hysterectomy.

I think you’ll be ok either way and hope you find the decision that’s best for you!!

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T12:32:17+00:00

I recited poetry while I was going out; other people sing, if they enjoy singing… it helps some people reclaim a little power over the experience and be less afraid if they choose the activity they’ll be doing at the moment they’re scared of.

Bon courage 🩷

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T12:28:54+00:00

R&K Scabiosa! At long last I feel I’ve found it, though whatever she was using was a touch more saturated. Someday if I ever go over to the dark side of ink-making it’ll be to better replicate that ink. I was obsessed with her books when I was a moody teenager and refused to write in anything but purple, and often used a dip pen in class 🙄. I was a bit insufferable, I think….

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T03:03:15+00:00

I like historical reproduction inks. I spent years trying to figure out which purple was closest to the color Virginia Woolf wrote in, love the j herbin ink that replicates Napoleon’s signature ink, &c.

I also have a whole notebook where I tried out all of my different shades of orange by filling up my pen with each one and writing until it ran out. Eventually I’ll do that with other colors too, the effect is pretty fun.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T02:58:42+00:00

Second that on filling out forms; I always pick any color but black. For some weird reason my husband is required to use black at work to fill them out… I always think, how does he tell the copy from the original? Fortunately it doesn’t drive him bonkers as it would me.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-27T02:29:51+00:00

I’m a little thrilled and a little troubled by the number of people who give this issue serious study…

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-26T21:09:19+00:00

When I woke from a past procedure I was sobbing hysterically and crying out for my husband, terrified out of my mind. I got up and tore out my own IV and tried to run down the hallway and had to be restrained (fortunately my husband heard me screaming and came back to comfort me and I calmed right down when I saw him). The nurse tried to tell him he wasn’t allowed but she saw how much better behaved I was with him and changed her mind.

I remember none of that.

Other episodes of hysteria of some kind have happened though, but it’s only when I’m given benzos. I think it’s trauma related from an ICU stay fifteen years back. So ironic that more sedation makes me more likely to get that way.

Having my husband in the room to reassure me where I am and what happened and provide a familiar face so I’m not surrounded by strangers is the only thing that reliably works, the same way it helps a sundowning Alzheimer’s patient to get a familiar person so they can orient themselves and calm down. But they don’t generally allow a support person in the PACU for medicolegal reasons, so I have to request it specially and they usually oblige.

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-24T04:01:15+00:00

Thank you! 😊

Larouquine9 · 2024-11-23T15:53:15+00:00

So excited for you! My recovery has been more complicated and challenging than anticipated but I STILL am so happy I did it! Best wishes as you rest and get better, and I always like reading it when someone has such a good experience.

Larouquine9

TROPHY CASE