Medical

Blinded

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I wasn’t able to get more work done in the garden this morning, though my daughter was able to water the newest transplants for me. We were still getting thunderstorm warnings, and hoped to at least get some rain while I was out.

My younger daughter and I headed out early for my eye appointment. It was my first appointment in this province, never mind the eye clinic, so I wanted time for the initial paperwork. Even with a stop along the way, we got there about 45 minutes early, which I’m quite alright with.

Before the main appointment, the staff took care of things like reading the prescription from my current glasses (which are not my newest glasses), and I had to warn them that the arms don’t close, just in case! Then I was taken in for some pre-tests, including the puff test and getting photos of the inside of my eyes. Then I had a while to wait until my actual appointment.

Once I got in, the optometrist asked me if my appointment had actually been at 1, not 2. I assured her that it was at 2; I was just really, really early. She was relieved! Seeing me come in so early, she thought there might have been a mistake in times made.

The appointment took quite a while. One difficult thing was trying to give some sort of accurate time from of when I last had my eyes checked (I think it was 8 years ago, give or take), or how old my glasses ere (more than 10 years. Maybe 15?) and why I was wearing those instead of my newer ones.

My prescription ended up changing exactly as I expected it to; my distance vision has improved, but my near vision has gotten worse. It’s going to be a pretty major change, so she warned me that once I have my new prescription, it’ll take as much as 2 weeks to get used to them, and that my depth perception might be quite off.

As we talked about the different tests, I mentioned that I brought another driver, just in case it was necessary. Once she found that out, she asked if I were up to getting the dilation drops for the last test. If I had not had someone to drive me, she would have tried to to the test without the drops. It can take a long time for the eyes to recover, and driving would not be safe.

Since it takes about 15 minutes for the drops to do their job, I sat in the waiting room for a while, as she saw other patients before getting back to me. The test itself wasn’t too bad, but I sure was glad to have my daughter to do the driving!

When it came time to pay, they couldn’t find my husband’s account with the insurance company. We’ve had this problem before, with our pharmacy, as they changed things up a few times over the years. The account number hasn’t changed, but where the clinic is supposed to look to find it has. The cost was only $45 (it was partially covered by our province’s health care system), so I just paid it and got the receipt for my husband to submit for reimbursement, which he was able to do right away, by email. I also got a printout of my prescription. As much as I would have liked to buy new glasses there, I was looking at the cost of frames while my daughter had her appointment, and it was hard to find any that didn’t use up at least half of the amount our insurance will cover. Most cost more than our coverage. Heck, my lenses alone would probably cost more than the coverage. The amount covered (once every two years) has only gone up about $40 or $50 since the last time I got glasses.

After paying the bill, I was feeling well enough for us to make a quick run at a nearby grocery store, though I had to get my daughter to read labels for me. Mind you, I have to do that anyway, but usually just for the small print! 😄 Once I got home, I started looking at the Zenni website. While setting up a new account, I got my daughter to help take a picture of my face without glasses, then measure the distance between my pupils.

I probably should have washed the sweat off first. My face is SO shiny in the pictures, but who cares?

Then I uploaded the pictures and took a good look at them, to choose which one would be best for “trying on” glasses.

This was several hours after I got the dilation drops.

No wonder they are feeling so strained! Wow!

Anyhow, I got all set up, then started looking at frames. I got feed back from the family on which ones they thought looked best on my picture, because I’m terrible at judging such things. Then I had to do it again, because it turned out most of the ones I liked the best didn’t come in the size I need. I had assumed the different frames could come in their ranges from XS to XL, but it turns out that each style came in one size.

Ultimately, though, I was able to afford two pairs. Both metal frames. I haven’t done plastic frames since I was in junior high. They kept breaking in half. I figure modern plastic frames are better made, but even with two pairs of glasses, I don’t want to take a chance!

It’s going to be so good to have new glasses again. And to have two pairs! I’ve never had two pairs of glasses in the same prescription before!

With both pairs of glasses with progressive lenses, the total came out to just over $200. I printed off the receipt for my husband to submit to the insurance company for reimbursement, too. That will certainly be a help to the budget.

As you can imagine, going outside to get work done was not an option this evening! Too hard on the eyes. Even writing this post, after waiting so many hours, is still putting quite a bit of strain on them. As for not getting work done outside, it worked out okay, I guess. We didn’t get the predicted thunderstorms, though we certainly heard some going by. Looking at the weather radar, the system had lots of tiny storms in it, scattered all over. We did get some rain, though. I would have been happy with more, with the heat we’ve been having, but am thankful for every little bit we get.

Tomorrow, I hope to get some good progress outside, because I’m going to be making a second Costco trip the day after. In the process, I’ll be swinging by the egg lady’s homestead and dropping off some Black Beauty and Spoon tomatoes for her! They are taking 6 of each, which still leaves me others to give away. I offered them to my family members, but they all have plenty of their own tomatoes already!

Meanwhile, I need to get to bed, and give my eyes more time to recover in darkness!

The Re-Farmer

Well, that’s going to make things difficult

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First, the cuteness.

Gooby followed me around while I did my morning rounds, and posed nicely while I was switching out memory cards on the sign cam.

I got a call back from the plumber today, and we’re looking at him coming in some time in the middle of next week. From the sounds of it, he was driving (hopefully, hands free!) while talking to me and couldn’t give me anything more concrete, but we’ll get a call once he has the info. It’s not an emergency situation, so I don’t mind the wait. We have everything else we need, ready and waiting, barring any unforeseeable damage that might be found once the old tub surround is removed.

We got a bit of a boost in the mail today; a carbon tax relief check. One government takes a whole bunch away, another gives a pittance back. It’ll help with the work we need to get done, at least.

The reason I made sure to go to the mail today was because my mother phones yesterday about a letter she got from her doctor. We have the same doctor, so my husband and I got the same letter.

Our doctor is leaving the clinic for one in the city, as of April 1st.

The letter invites his patients to follow him to the new clinic, while offering virtual and phone visits, but driving that far for in person visits is a bit much for all three of us. The current clinic is already pushing it for distance as it is.

So I called the clinic to ask about other doctors there that are accepting new patients.

It turns out they are losing THREE doctors, not just one. There is one doctor that is willing to see their patients for now, but she can’t possibly take on that many new patients. Not that my mother would be willing to see her. She was already complaining about the doctor we’re losing, because he’s not white, but for a doctor to be both not white and female… that would be just too much for her to handle. 🤨

So I started doing some searches. There is only one other clinic in that town, and when I called, their answering service mentioned one doctor that was accepting new patients. I looked up the name and discovered both the clinic and that doctor have way too many negative reviews.

So I tried looking up doctors in the smaller city – that would be pushing it too much for my husband, but not as much for my mother.

That was pretty discouraging, too.

I finally tried looking at the town closest to us. We won’t go there anymore, but my mother might. No go.

There’s a town to the north of us that my husband and I could try, but that would be too far for my mother, plus it would require me to drive south to my mother’s town, then north to this other town, then back to my mother’s town, and finally back home, adding an extra hour of driving time.

Our province does have a service we can register with that will pair people up with family doctors, but if there aren’t doctors withing our area accepting new patients, it’s not going to help us.

What will most likely happen is, we’ll have to wait for new doctors to transfer over to the clinic that we’ve been going, and start seeing one of them.

With my husband’s private disability insurance, he must be “under the care of a doctor”. Every year, he has to fill out a form that includes mentioning how many doctor’s visits he’s had. Thankfully, phone and virtual appointments count, so until we are able to find a new doctor, it will have to do.

The “fun” of living in a rural area. Doctors tend not to want to work out in the boonies. There are simply more patients in the cities. As I understand it, doctors that have recently immigrated to Canada are required to serve in rural communities for a certain number of years first – five, I believe. Which is about how long our doctor as been at this clinic.

Oh, wow!

As I was typing this, I got a message from my SIL. It turns out there where is a mobile medical unit in our province that does house calls.

That would be ideal for my mother!

Time to go contact them and find out how it works!

The Re-Farmer

Update: looks like the mobile clinic is for the city only. However, I did just find there’s another clinic in the town we’ve been going to. This one looks more hopeful!

Really? What now?

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But first, some adorableness. I had a parade following me this morning!

I had three others behind me as I headed back to the house. When I stopped to take this picture, Pointy Baby actually started running towards me! He is one of the few that lets me carry him while I walk. The others prefer to get underfoot on the path! It’s hard packed snow, but if my foot slides off while trying to not step on a fur ball, I sink a good 6 inches or more.

I so look forward to the snow being gone.

I so look forward to being done with other things, too.

Like car trouble.

Yesterday, I left early to go meet our beef supplier and pick up a BBQ freezer pack; three kinds of steak, burger patties, and two different types of farmer’s sausage.

It’s a good thing I left early, because I intended to use my mother’s car. I haven’t driven it in almost a week, and it was running just fine.

I didn’t notice anything wrong while on the gravel road, since everything shakes anyhow, but once I got on the highway, the whole car was still shuddering. When I got to highway speeds, I didn’t even get a mile before I pulled over. It felt like the wheels were about to fall off! I walked around and kicked the tires, but there wasn’t much I could do on the side of the road. I decided to go home and take the van.

The van hasn’t been driven for a couple of days, and it did NOT want to start! Once it did start, it ran fine, and started without problems after that.

*sigh*

After looking up the different possible causes for the shuddering in my mother’s car, I ruled out most of them. It didn’t have the right “symptoms”. I ended up emailing my brother about it, and we later talked on the phone. He suspects a U joint or the drive shaft.

Whatever it is, we can’t do anything about it right now. Our “unallocated funds” have already gone to replacing the tire on the van, and a few other things. Unless we go into the replacement vehicle fund, which I really don’t want to do!

I’ll talk to our mechanic later. If nothing else, I can get it towed to the garage, later in the month, and he can check it. We certainly won’t be driving it again until we have some idea of what’s going on. I also want to stick my phone under the car and try to get some pictures. I forgot to do that while doing my rounds this morning, but I’m going out again this afternoon, so I’ll do it later.

Speaking of other things funds went to, I ended up buying two different brands of tax software, and I am so incredibly frustrated. I got TurboTax again, after having problems with Ufile.

Our tax returns are simple. At least they should be. My husband has a T4A for his private insurance disability payments, and a T4A(P) for his CPP Disability. He qualifies for the Disability Tax Credit. I have zero income, and can get the Caregivers Tax Credit. Besides that, we can claim medical expenses. That’s it.

Well, with Ufile, I first had to find where the T4A and T4A(P) even was. Their category names didn’t match what was in them very well. It was very confusing, and when I did find the right form, it was missing lines. For the T4A, there was the line for what taxes are taken off, but none for the income. I went looking through the help section, where it to told me where I could input the income line from the T4A instead… and those lines didn’t come up anywhere, either! I could find nowhere to claim the Disability Tax Credit, nor my Caregivers Tax Credit.

So I got TurboTax and discovered it’s completely changed in format, but I did figure out most of it. Enough to “finish” our taxes – but while it apparently did claim my husband’s Disability Tax Credit, it wasn’t calculated into the return. For the past few years, he would come up as owing money until the credit was factored in, so he’d get the credit, minus what he would have owed. This time, he came up as getting a return… but no credit. As for mine, there was no option to apply for the Caregivers Tax Credit, so mine came to nothing at all. I went to the Canada Revenue Agency website and found the exact line numbers to apply for the credits, finally found them by going through the forms in the advanced sections – but it wouldn’t let me input anything, because our returns were already calculated, therefore it was finished. No, I had not filed them. I just saved them.

We’re looking at a difference of several thousand dollars in our favour, here.

After bashing my head against it, I finally threw in the towel.

Today, I’m going in to a tax preparer to get it done. If she can straighten this out, it’ll be well worth the fees! Especially since, according to the CRA website, there are two different amounts I can claim for under the Caregiver’s Tax Credit.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to do such basic tax returns.

I had other plans for today, but they will have to wait.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be driving around with the van again, when I really want to be using it as little as possible, all because something has suddenly gone wrong with my mother’s car!

*grumble*

The Re-Farmer

Long day, and still chill!

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Well, I’m happy to say that my mother’s car ran well today, though it certainly did not enjoy starting! I made sure to give it time to warm up in the garage, before taking it out into that wind.

My first stop was to the post office, where I had several packages to pick up. One of them was these:

The heated gloves my husband got for me!

They were listed as XL, but they fit quite snugly when I tried them on. They were too stiff to wear while driving, though, so I went back to my mittens!

These have some interesting features. Obviously, they have batteries. The USB charging cable can charge both at the same time, so I’ve got that happening right now.

The third finger on each hand has a finger loop on it. You can just see one on the right glove. I have no idea what that’s for. The finger tips are touch screen compatible. They have wrist loops to keep them from getting lost, as well as being water resistant and having adjustable cuffs.

It wasn’t until I got home that I discovered that one of the other parcels was also something my husband had ordered for me. A new pair of the “Military Tactical work boots” to replace the ones he got me last year. I love the side zipper feature on these, and wore them almost constantly, until the leather finally split and cracked on the side of one boot. This time, as soon as he unboxed them, my husband treated them with some leather conditioner – something we actually found while cleaning up the basement. A full gallon jug of it, barely used! He plans to treat the leather regularly with it, so hopefully this pair will last longer.

One other thing that came in the mail was particularly important: my husband’s disabled parking permit! He doesn’t get out much, but when he does, it will make things much easier for him to be park closer.

After picking everything up at the post office, it was off to my mother’s town. The roads were not too bad, though I was driving against blowing snow. Stopping for gas in the wind wasn’t too bad, either. Then it was off to get my mother’s prescriptions, hit the bank, then stop at the Chinese food place to pick up lunch. I even managed to get to my mother’s a bit earlier than I was shooting for!

We had a decent amount of time to visit and have lunch (breakfast, for me!), then head out early for her appointment. I’m glad we did leave early; it was blowing snow the whole way, with very little shelter along the route. Even as small as the profile of my mother’s car is, I could feel us being buffeted, and the engine working to maintain speed against the wind. The place was easy to find, and had plenty of parking, so we didn’t even lose time with that, and got there about half an hour early.

The specialist my mother was seeing shares a building with another clinic and a pharmacy. As we came in, there were signs all over, saying that even though there are no longer any restrictions, they still required masks. Which is bizarre, since yet another study was just released showing that wearing masks or not makes no difference in preventing the spread of respiratory viruses, even when comparing surgical masks with N95 masks, at all (there’s now close to 80 such studies, just in the last few years, with exactly the same end results). You’d think the medical community would be on top of this sort of thing. We passed several of these signs just going through the two sets of doors; I’m not sure my mother even saw them. There were even stand alone signs scattered around main lobby area. As we entered, a woman wearing a mask started coming over, asking which doctor we were there to see. I gave the name and she directed us to the doors behind us. Doors that didn’t have a single sign on them. We walked in, and there wasn’t a mask in sight. Not the receptionist, not the other patients, and not the doctor. It was like a sanctuary of sanity in a sea of junk science!

Getting there early meant we got brought into the examination room early, but the doctor took longer with another patient, so he actually saw us late. Which was fine, except my mother got it in her head that the car would freeze and not start because we were waiting soooo long. I reminded her that I spent more time with her in her apartment before we headed out, and the car started just fine. Plus, the day was still getting warmer! She wasn’t satisfied until the doctor finally came in and she brought it up with him – and he promised to give us a boost if the car didn’t start! 😄

The visit started out a bit confusing, because we were thinking we were there about her breathing issues, but this was a referral about her acid reflux. When she gets really bad heart burn while lying down, she also has trouble breathing, and thinks she’s having a heart attack. Her heart checked out extremely healthy – fantastic for someone in her 90’s – but she still can’t accept that there’s nothing wrong with her heart. The doctor tried questioning her, but eventually started explaining things more to me, while simplifying things for my mother, as he figured out that I would be working to explain things to her later on. He asked her all kinds of questions, but it’s really hard to get clear answers from her, because she keeps wanting to talk about other things.

One of the things that came out is that my mother has been taking all her pills – she thinks she’s taking a lot, but really, it’s not that many – with food. She’s on a medication for acid reflux, that is in her bubble packs as a morning pill. It is NOT supposed to be taken with food, which I never saw indicated anywhere. She should also be taking it in the evening. She takes her evening pills at 5pm, but doesn’t go to bed until 11, so we talked about changing the timing.

After questioning her more, he decided it was appropriate to get a scope done on her, to check if there is any damage from the reflux. Then he talked to her about dietary changes. I recognized what he was talking about and reminded my mother that I’d given her a printout of what foods were good and which weren’t, and she said she never looks at it. *sigh* High acid foods are things she should be avoiding, like citrus fruits, onions and garlic, and tomatoes.

My mother loves her onions and tomatoes.

My sister recently gave her onions and a jar of tomatoes from her garden.

I’ve sent the food list to my sister, and we’ve talked about this before, but my sister just seems to forget completely!

A few more things were discussed, and then we headed out, stopping to get some information about the scope from the receptionist.

My mother was already trying to back out of it, asking if she really needed to get it done.

*sigh*

When she has these “attacks”, she gets really scared and things she is literally dying. But she hasn’t had one in a while, so now she doesn’t want to actually do anything about it.

The appointment was set for the end of this month and, after checking with my mother, my number got put down as the person to call with more information and instructions, closer to the date, which I will then pass on and explain to her. We also got a printout for her about the procedure and what she needs to do in advance. That was something for us to go over when I got her home.

I had offered to help my mother with shopping if she felt up to it, but she wanted to do that in her own town. All she needed was milk, anyhow. I did realize, with the longish drive ahead, it would be a good idea to find a public washroom before we got on the highway. There was a Walmart handy, so I ended up going in, while she stayed warm in the car, so I picked up milk for her, anyhow! I’m glad it worked out that way because, by the time we got her home, I don’t think either of us was up to a grocery trip!

I then spent perhaps an hour going through things with her. While driving home and talking about her medication change, she suddenly told me she was already taking that one pill (she didn’t understand what it was for, even though it has been explained to her by me, my brother and her doctor) in the evening. That was something the specialist should have been told! She was still taking it with food, though, and too early, so we worked out that she would be taking that one pill shortly before bed. I had quite a time convincing her that it was ONLY the one pill that needed to be changed, and that she didn’t need to change anything else. She kept thinking she shouldn’t take any of them with food now, but I know for sure that at least one of them is supposed to be taken with food. Then we went over the printout. I marked out on her calendar, when she needs to stop taking things like blood thinners (and confirming which of her pills is a blood thinner – when the doctor had asked about them, she couldn’t remember exactly why she was on them, other than “they are to prevent stroke”, and she’s been on them longer than we’ve been back, so I don’t know, either), vitamins, aspirin, etc, when to start fasting, and when not to take any of her meds at all. Then more notes were written down inside the cover of her bubble packs, complete with little drawings of the pill shapes.

While going through the printout, I got to the part where it said they would have her lying down on her left side.

But she can’t lie on her left side, she tells me. If she does, she gets the pain and problems with breathing.

????

Yes, she’s mentioned that she slept on her side (which is recommended for reflux) to the doctor, but didn’t specify why she slept only on her right side.

Turns out that she gets these attacks every time she tries sleeping on her left side. They happen when she’s on her right side, only sometimes, and that’s when she wants to go to a doctor about it.

That was something the specialist should have been told, but she seemed surprised that this wasn’t automatically understood when she had said she slept on her side!

*sigh*

It took some doing, but we got through it. Before I left, she paid me back for the lunch and gas, so before heading home, I stopped at the bank again to do a deposit, then went back to the gas station to fill the tank again. Driving against the wind really did a number on the mileage!

I am so glad I had the wind at my back for the drive home.

Where my mother is, it is sheltered, but the gas station is not. WOW did the wind increase since morning! It’s still blowing now. Even though the temperature is a relatively warm -18C/about 0F, the wind chill was about -33C/-27F. I think the wind chill was even colder while I was filling the tank again! It was absolutely brutal! I picked up a couple other little things then headed back to the car, pausing to check for messages from the family before I left. Which is the only reason I saw the notification from my bank about the purchase I’d just made.

The number was very off.

They forgot to charge me for the gas!

So I went back in and paid for it. 😄

I’m glad I caught it when I did, or I wouldn’t have seen it until I got home.

And I was sure glad to get home! The running around is pretty draining, but all that time trying to explain things to my mother gets pretty difficult after a while, even though she was definitely having one of her good days.

I’m glad it got done, though.

I’ll also be glad when this chill finally ends. It’s still only -18C/about 0F out there, and the wind chill is still at -33C/-27F! If the forecast is right, the winds will die down in a few hours, and then things will steadily warm up over the next while.

I’m looking forward the air no longer hurting my face!

The Re-Farmer

That’s how she rolls!

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When checking on the seed starts in the big aquarium greenhouse, I’m usually greeted by this…

Beep Beep absolutely LOVES those aquarium lights. They are nice and warm, and I think she really appreciates that, after all her winters outdoors!

Also, isn’t that the most adorable tongue blep? 😂

The down side, she rolls around so much, she starts pushing the one raised light fixture around. I’ve even found it with one end pushed right off the tank! The other light lies flush on the surface, so the frame of the wire mesh covers holds it in place.

In other things…

This afternoon, my husband and I had our rescheduled joint doctor’s appointment. When the phone range this morning, my immediate thought was that it was going to be rescheduled again! It turned out to be someone from home care doing his annual follow up call. The only thing we have from home care is my husband’s hospital bed, so most of the call was to make sure our postal and physical address was still the same.

My husband and I left very early for the appointment. It’s a good thing we did start heading out so early! I went out ahead to get my husband’s walker through the sun room doors (we need to find threshold ramps, but of the ones I looked at, they all seem to be the wrong height), then got the van set up and backed out of the garage a bit. Normally, I would have driven the van right to the house, but we haven’t been able to clear such a large area of snow. I had made sure the path to the garage was wide enough for the walker, and as clear of snow as possible, but anything beyond where there are actual sidewalk blocks will always be a bit rough on the wheels.

I did wonder, though, when I saw my husband hobbling to the van, without his walker.

It turned out he left through the main doors, not the sun room (which would have avoided stairs). He was expecting the walker to be at the main doors, and when he didn’t see it, he just kept going to the van!

When I saw him, I told him I’d go bring the walker, and he was all confused until I pointed out where it was sitting (the cats love the padded seat on that thing!). He went back to get it himself. I remembered just in time to ask if he had his wallet, with his health care card. Nope! He completely forgot! So I dashed inside to get that. By the time we were on the road, it was about 15 minutes later than I had been shooting for, but that is exactly why I factor in so much extra time!

The drive out was very rough on him. Especially the half mile or so of gravel road, just before the highway. It was a complete washboard, and there was no way to avoid it. The best I could do was slow down a bit, but all that did was give him slightly less pain for a longer time. Even on the highway, every now and then there would be a rough spot there was no way to avoid. He spent most of the time doing breathing exercises and meditation to help control the pain (yes, he was on painkillers), and the nausea that came with it.

We made a short stop to pick up a bit of gas and breakfast, which I had also factored in to my timeline, and got to the clinic about forty minutes before our appointment.

The clinic doors had signs saying, it’s cold and flu season, wear a mask! As if that ever made a difference. 🙄 We weren’t wearing any when we came in, and they didn’t say anything, but my husband still asked about wearing one. I think he felt other patients were having a problem with it, though the staff certainly didn’t. They know full well how useless they are. I couldn’t find the Mingle Masks that used to be in our van – I think my daughter might have thrown them out while cleaning out the front of the van, when we thought we’d be able to use it as a trade in – but I’d grabbed the last ones from the box we’d bought several years ago. It’s been so long, my husband forgot how to wear them! 😄

He then settled in for what he expected to be a long and painful wait, only for us to be called in just a few minutes later! My husband didn’t have a lot to cover. We started the paperwork to get a disabled parking permit, which now has to be done online with a doctor. The last time we did it, several years ago, we weren’t sure how it was done in this province, and left the paperwork with the doctor, thinking they had to send it in. Turns out, that’s not how it works here. After the doctor did the online paperwork and printed it out, there was a part for me to fill out as the emergency contact person, then details my husband had to include and sign for. Then it went to the reception desk, where we had to pay a fee to the doctor – cash or check only, and I thankfully had our checkbook – which was $30. Then we get the paperwork back and have to mail it out to a central office, along with a check for $15, for the placard to be mailed back to us. The alternative would be to drive to the city, find the place, then pay for and pick up the placard there.

In the province we lived in before, it was all covered. Even the doctor was able to waive the paperwork fee. All we had to do was bring a prescription to anywhere that did vehicle license and registration, and we’d get a placard immediately.

My husband rarely goes anywhere, but being able to park closer when he does would be a huge improvement for him.

After my husband left to do his bloodwork, I had my own appointment. I am now OFF that injection that was doing such nasty things to my insides. My husband is on the same injection for something else, and his dose got increased, so I’ll just give my fresh new refill to him. I’m now back on the medication I was on before that had no side effects with me, and worked just fine.

I also talked to him about whether or not it was time for me to apply for disability myself, because of the osteoarthritis. The last time I saw him, I got X-rays of my hands, and they only showed the beginnings of arthritis. I’m also not on any prescriptions for arthritis, so I simply wouldn’t be considered “disabled” enough to qualify for CPP Disability.

The hands are just the newest thing; my hips, knees and feet have been bothering me for a very long time. I even told him, I have no problem doing big things, like wielding a chain saw or pushing wheelbarrows around, but I need to use the bath chair to take a shower, I can’t take a bath, I struggle to do stairs, and can barely open a jar, because I’ve lost so much grip strength due to pain in my finger joints.

We talked about the painkillers I’m on now, which is just extra strength acetaminophen that I take morning and evening, and it’s not really cutting it anymore. So he gave me a prescription to try for 2 weeks, also taken morning and evening, to see how it works for me. That got faxed to the pharmacy, so I’ll be able to get that filled for the weekend, when I’ll be able to go into town to pick it up.

And we were done. I didn’t even get a requisition for bloodwork. I went to the lab to find the technician was still trying to find a vein in my husband’s arm and asked him about the parking permit application. It was at the reception desk, so I was able to write a check for that. By the time he was done and we were on our way home, we still had 10 minutes before our joint appointments were scheduled to start!

I love that when we come in early at this clinic, we almost always get seen early, too!

My husband was more than happy to get home, though that last push through the snowy paths with his walker was a lot more difficult than the first time around. He ended up going in through the main doors rather than fight through that last bit of snowy path to the sun room, and I took care of putting the walker away. Which certainly startled quite a few cats when I banged and rattled through the door with it! 😄 While we are at a relatively mild -9C/16F right now, the wind chill is supposedly -19C/-2F. I say “supposedly”, because we have been getting some nasty gusts of wind that make it feel even colder. The cats are quite enjoying the shelter of the sun room, that’s for sure!

Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have a high of -14C/7F and, if all goes to plan, that’s when I’ll be heading to the city for our Costco trip. After tomorrow, temperatures are supposed to drop to a high of -22C/-8F and stay chilly for a while, though the long range forecasts are not showing temperatures as cold as they did when I last checked them.

The weather app that came with my desktop provides interesting extra information, including average and record highs and low. The 30 year record high for today was 3C/37F, back in 2006 – but the record low in 1997 was -36C/-33F! I’m quite happy with a mere -9C/16F right now, even with the wind chill!

This winter has been the mildest – and closest to average – winter we’ve had since moving out here! I’m really, really appreciating it!

The Re-Farmer

Well, that opens up our day

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But first, the cuties!

How many cats do you see?

There’s actually five. It’s hard to see, but there are three cats along the bottom of the window. When I took the picture, I could see the one on the far left moving around. It wasn’t until I uploaded the picture to my desktop and used the auto photo fix to see if it would be any clearer, that I spotted the one way in the back!

It feels so strange to look out our bathroom window and see only a couple of cats on the swing bench, instead of dozen or more. In fact, yesterday I actually looked out once and saw NO cats in there at all! The cats are definitely enjoying the relatively mild temperatures, and using the cat house instead of the sun room. This morning, I counted only seventeen cats, and only two of those were adults. Junk Pile and Caramel. I still can’t get near Junk Pile but, every now and then, I’ve managed to sneak a quick pet on Caramel, while she’s on the cat house roof.

She doesn’t like that, though.

In other things, my husband and I were supposed to be out today. Last month, we had consecutive appointments with our doctor (having the same doctor saves a lot of time and travel!) that got rescheduled to today. Just a little while ago, we got a call from the clinic. A very apologetic receptionist was calling to reschedule us again! She was able to book us for the earliest appointment she could find next week, though, so at least we won’t have more than a month to wait!

So that opens up my day. A trip to the doctor is about 40 minutes on the highway, plus town driving and usually a stop at the gas station along the way, too. We like to arrive early which, at this clinic, often meant actually getting in to see the doctor early. They’re good about that. We’re both going to be getting our regular blood tests done. Lab and X-ray is right there, so what usually happens is, my husband and I go in together for his appointment (I’m there to keep him honest! LOL He has a terrible habit of making light of what he’s going through, which is not a good thing to do with the doctor), then he goes to do his more extensive lab work while I have my appointment. Then I get my lab work done, which tends to be much faster. This way, we get home as quickly as possible, with the least amount of time for my husband painfully sitting in the waiting room.

Between the driving and the appointments, adjusting to make it as comfortable and least painful for my husband, it takes up quite a bit of time, and most of that time is spent driving “gently”. He feels every little bump and vibration, painfully, so I am a lot more careful about things like how quickly I accelerate or decelerate, taking turns, etc.

Gosh. Now I have a whole day freed up! What shall I do with myself?

I guess I ought to clean out the litter boxes in my office I’d asked the girls to do while we were gone.

🤨

The Re-Farmer

They are judging me!

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Because I completely forgot I hadn’t made a post today!

I counted “only” nineteen outside, this morning.

It’s been an almost disorienting day today. The pain in my neck/shoulder area is actually making me feel kinda nauseous and a little bit dizzy. I wasn’t up to doing the third batch of lard. It can wait another day, in its semi-frozen state. Not much productivity for me today at all, and the day seemed to be gone before I knew it.

Time to pain killer up and go to bed!

The Re-Farmer

Changes in plans, and a little bit of everything

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Yesterday, we got our quarter beef in!

We had to juggle a bit to be able to close the freezer lid. No, it’s not completely full of beef – there’s other stuff underneath – but I’d say over half the freezer is now packages of beef.

After I took the picture, I dug out a couple of packages of T-bone steaks to thaw out for today! It’s been soooo long since we’ve had a good steak!

I love how big the stew packages are this time. They’re not visible, but there’s also about two dozen 2 pound packages of ground beef in there.

Today’s plans, however, had already changed before I went to bed!

I got a call from my brother. He’d just talked to my mother, and he was asking if I could take her to the hospital today. !!! My mother thinks she’s got a UTI again (she is likely right), but she told my brother more than she told me, and it’s more of a problem than I knew. My guess is, she was hoping my brother would drop everything, drive all the way to her place, then take her to the hospital and sit with her, like he had done the last time this happened. She’s been suffering for more than a week, but had only just tried calling the community health number yesterday. She can’t handle the automated phone systems, so she just hit 0 and left a message. Twice. No response.

So today, my plan was to call our doctor’s clinic, which is in a town about 40-45 minutes drive from my place, as soon as it opened (after doing my rounds; head count of 27 this morning, and I couldn’t see the new bitty). I wanted to see if I could make arrangements with them, or see if I should take her to the hospital (our doctor’s clinic shares a building with the hospital).

Then I got a call from the home care worker that last assessed my mother. They got her messages from yesterday, and followed up. The person who normally answered the phone doesn’t work on Wednesdays. *sigh* My mother seemed confused about things, so he wanted to clear things up with me, but she had already told him about going to her doctor today.

One of the things my mother has been pushing to do is change doctors again. There aren’t full time doctors locally, which is why we now to go another town. Plus, the local doctor, who came in from the city once a week, was female, and my mother doesn’t like female doctors. Apparently, there is now a new doctor, though. He might even be there full time now, instead of coming in from the city. I’m not sure. Our doctor in the other town isn’t white, and my mother doesn’t like that about as much as she doesn’t like female doctors. Having a closer doctor would be better for her (but he’s Greek; not sure if that’s white enough for her), however there have been issues in the past with getting good care locally. The hospital just doesn’t have the resources. Whether she switches doctors or not, she won’t be happy. She’s convinced she has cancer or something, but the doctors are keeping it a secret from her.

Anyhow.

I called the clinic right after it opened, but the line was already busy, so I called my mom and told her what I was working on. She was already getting ready to leave! When I got through to the clinic, however, it turned out her doctor had an opening, so I was able to make an appointment for her this afternoon.

So I called my mother back and we worked out a plan. I’ll be heading over to her place early enough to have lunch (she requested Chinese food this time! 😁), and we wouldn’t be in any hurry about leaving. I will be using our van, as it’s better for winter road conditions, so we’ll have to remember to bring her little stool to help her get in and out.

Which means I’m going to be out for most of today.

Ah, well. At least it’s supposed to be a relatively mild day today. Things are supposed to get colder again tomorrow, and I’d rather not be driving my 91 yr old mother around in the cold! We still need to do at least one trip to the city for our monthly stocking up, but thanks to the trip I did manage to make – and the beef delivery! – plus our current state of supplies, there is no urgency on that.

I really like being well stocked. It takes a lot of pressure off. It wouldn’t be as big a deal if we were still living in the city, but it makes a huge difference living in the boonies, and winter is coming on!

In other things, I talked to the cat lady yesterday evening. She showed my pictures of the new bitty to a vet already. Given the size, they agree that it is younger than the other bitties. Once we are sure there are no siblings, she wants to take it in. Like the other cats, it probably already has upper respiratory issues, and being so young, they don’t expect it would survive the winter, either, even in the relative warmth and comfort of the heated cat shelter. The new bitty will join the other bitty. Things have changed there, too. He is not going to the lady that took the other two. Instead, he will be going to the cat lady’s cousin! He’ll be going to his new home after Christmas. Maybe, he’ll have a little orange buddy going with him? Wouldn’t that be cool! Also, she has managed to find homes for 6 cats she was fostering! She will have room for more, soon.

So we will continue to monitor and, if things go as I expect, we will have an orange bitty in the house tonight.

We shall see! It’s not like anything seems to be going to plan, today! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Getting better, and it’s a smol cat!

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Yesterday, the entire family spent as much time as possible in bed, getting plenty of rest and fluids to get over our colds. I’m happy to say we’re all improved quite a bit today. Yesterday, I had to get the girls to do the morning cat feeding, but today, I was able to do it myself again.

Look what I found!

So smol!!!

This is one of the kittens from what had been the youngest litter until the bitties showed up. We’ve had some progress socializing them, though it’s hard to tell at times. There are so many white and grey kittens from two litters – eight, altogether – and they run around so much, it’s hard to keep track of them. I think this is one that has allowed me to pick it up before, but I’m not sure!

This morning, I did a head count and reached 27. Then I counted again and counted 28. I get a different number, every time I try to count heads! 😄

Yesterday, we were predicted to hit 4C/40F, but ended up reaching at least 5C/41F. Today, we’re supposed to reach a high of 3C/37F. My husband’s disability payments come in on the last business day of the month (private insurance) and third last business day of the month (CPP Disability). However, then those days fall on a Monday, as the CPP Disability has this month, it actually shows up in our account on Saturday. So we got his payment today. Normally, I would take advantage of that, and the warm temperatures, and head into the city to do our first big stock up shop for the month. However, when I was cleaning out the ground floor litter boxes this morning (we were behind on that, with everyone being sick!), I actually broke into a sweat. So while I’m feeling a lot better today, I’m still weak as a kitten (a smol kitten!), and definitely not well enough to drive to the city. We’ll see how things are over the next couple of days. I hope I can make the trip tomorrow, because the forecast for the day after says to expect snow showers. I’d really prefer not to be driving on that. More because I don’t trust other drivers! 😁

So today is going to be another quiet day of focusing on recovery.

The Re-Farmer

The sick house

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Posting might be light for the next while. Not only has my cold gotten worse, but now the whole family is getting sick!

It’s been so long since any of us have had colds, the only cold medication we have expired a year ago. I’m pretty sure I bought it more than 3 years ago!

Hot lemonade with honey it is…

The Re-Farmer