We were getting predictions of rain and thunderstorms. At one point, my weather app told me it was raining right that moment.
It wasn’t.
So I went out to water the garden in the morning. In the process, I gathered what I would call our first real harvest of the year, with everything weeks behind.
I picked a few of the Rainbow Mix carrots. They’re still small, and it was more of a thinning by harvesting action. The baby carrots will taste just fine!
I was very happy when I started checking the bush beans. The yellow ones seem to be ripening the fastest, and I picked a decent amount of those, plus a few green and purple ones. Then I grabbed a few of the turnips that were left and a bunch of Golden Boy celery. I’ve been picking a bunch of celery every now and then, along with harvesting some turnips, but nothing that I would really consider what would be a typical harvest I would normally get from the garden, until today.
After watering the main garden area, I left the harvest on the chest freezer in the old kitchen and went back to watering the garden beds around the east and south yards, and the old kitchen garden. The Arikara squash is looking amazing, and I can see more Blueberry tomatoes starting to form.
About half way through, I was starting to feel pain starting to kick in, but it wasn’t too bad yet. I messaged my daughters asking them to put away the harvest, and if they could make me a breakfast. By the time I was inside and finished eating, it was definitely time to take some pain killers and try lying down.
It didn’t work.
It just kept getting worse. Quickly. Bad enough that I finally started talking to the family about driving myself to the ER.
They agreed.
My brother and SIL were still here and I was updating them, but it turned out they had their Messenger off. Which is fine. I was just keeping them informed.
The girls got the truck to the house and unloaded of market inventory, loaded my walker for me, put my prescriptions and a charger cable for my phone into a bag for me to bring along, and took care of the gate so I didn’t have to go in and out of the truck as I left. The only time I started having issues with the drive in was when I found myself stuck behind someone doing 65kph in a 100kph zone and couldn’t pass.
When I parked at the hospital, I was so incredibly glad for that walker. Sitting while driving wasn’t too bad, but once I was walking, I found I couldn’t straighten up.
Once by the admissions window, I started getting my health care card and the woman at the desk waved me over right away. When I handed her the card through the slot under the window, my hands were shaking violently. I couldn’t stay standing, and my face must have been a sight, based on how quickly she got me processed.
From there, it was a brief time in the waiting room and then I was in the triage room. A nurse got my vitals and asked me all sorts of questions. My BP was, understandably, a bit high, but not too bad. Considering the pain I was quite obviously in, it was not a concern.
Then it was back to the waiting from for a bit longer before they took some blood, and then it was a wait until the results were in. That’s when I got to talk to the ER doctor.
We went over the details again, including the whole background about how this started with those anti-inflammatories I had started taking, a while back. They had worked so well for what I was taking them for, too!
The doctor then found herself with a bit of a conundrum. The things she normally would have done – the tests, the referrals, etc. – were things that were already done, or in progress. There was that one ultrasound that showed abnormal, and it’s why I was being referred to a specialist in the city for a biopsy.
So what, she asked me, did I want her to do, in context of being in the ER?
We talked about the pain levels some more. I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t even lie down, to get any relief. She did prescribe tramadol and she wanted me to fill the prescription right away, to use in stead of the T3s. She even made sure that it was not anti-inflammatory, and that it wasn’t contraindicated with anything else I was taking. The pharmacy was still open for a couple more hours, and she was ready to send me home with the prescription.
As we talked more about how bad the pain was, and she looked at the ultrasound results some more, she realized that my doctor’s referral was something that could take months to be fulfilled. I needed to be seen right away.
She knew of a specialist at the hospital in the smaller, nearer city. She told me to stay until she had a chance to get through to the specialist and see if I could see her right away.
The pharmacy closed while I was waiting.
When she came back later, she told me the specialist wanted me to have a CT scan, and that I should get a curretage.
*sigh*
She wanted me in either tonight or tomorrow. Which I was actually quite happy to hear.
The next while in the waiting room was for the appointment for the CT scan. I was there long enough that I was starting to become hungry to the point of getting light headed. Of course, I kept the family up to date on all this (my brother and SIL had seen my messages by this time). My husband and daughters were suggesting that, if I was going home, to make sure I grabbed food somewhere first, even before I mentioned getting so hungry. Frankly, I would have just gone to the truck for the beef jerky in our road food stash, but I didn’t want to miss someone coming back with information for me.
One of the nurses came by as soon as they had the appointment made. It’s for tomorrow morning, and my daughter and I will have to be on the road by 9am. I’ll need to fast, plus make sure to have a liter of water to drink before the CT scan.
My daughter, meanwhile, has called the clinic for her own appointment in the city tomorrow and left a message about rescheduling. I can’t say I feel too badly about that, since this is the clinic I found so creepy and actually felt was unsafe, while in the waiting room during her last appointment, which was essentially a meet and greet. This is something we disagree on.
So that’s where we’re at now. I’ve just finished having something to eat with my evening meds and supplements and will now start my fast. I’ll be going to bed pretty much as soon as I’m done this post.
Tomorrow should be… interesting.
Hopefully, this will finally bring an end so the issues I’ve been having! Or at least tell us what’s going on, so long after I stopped taking the anti-inflammatories.
Meanwhile, all my brain can do is list off the things I want to, or should be, doing that I physically can’t right now. The pain did eventually recede, but just getting up and walking around it enough for me to feel it threatening to come back.
I need to lie down before I start doing tasks I really should not be doing.
My husband’s condition has stabilized, and he is feeling so much better. He’s looking a lot better, too – though some of that is partly because, with the heat we’ve been having, he finally shaved his head and most of his beard off, a few days ago. Today, however, was a much cooler day; more like our typical summer heat.
We had predictions of rain and possible thunderstorms for the afternoon, so I did not water the garden this morning. I did end up adding more rods to the hoops over the bush beans on the high raised bed. The onions planted with them were starting to poke through the netting. It’s now as high as the netting can go and still be secured around the edges. No sign of beans, though. Lots of flowers, but I’m not seeing a lot of pollinators. I’ve pretty much only seen bees on the poppy flowers. Nothing in the flower beds. With our spring lurching from hot during the day to almost freezing at night, that would have affected a lot of our emerging pollinators.
Our corn started to show tassels a few days ago. Today, I saw my first corn silk. Those, at least, get pollinated by the wind. In the next image of the slide show above, you can see the sudden burst of poppy flowers that opened this morning. In the last photo, we have two yellow zucchini flowers open – both female. No sign of male flowers.
While doing my rounds this morning, I also finally had a kitten sighting, enough to take pictures! I hadn’t seen the kitten in so long, I feared a coyote got it, but then I spotted it in the junk pile. The pile that has since had stuff removed from to the bin (which got taken away today), and other stuff sorted for other types of disposal. That area is going to be disturbed quite a bit before it’s all finally cleared away by winter but, for now, it’s still the place they can hide in! I am happy that Sprout is bringing her baby to the food bowls. We now have a chance to socialize it.
These are not the best pictures, since I had to zoom in so much. I didn’t want to scare them away before the kitten had a chance to get to the food bowls!
Later in the morning, I headed out to town, with a stop to visit my mother before I ran errands.
*sigh*
Before visiting her, I stopped at the nursing station to ask about the swelling in her legs. It’s not at a stage they are concerned about, so I asked if there was anything else. She told me my mother was being mean to people more often. It turns out she’s been going into the hallway, sitting there and mocking the guy in the room across the hall from her. They’ve had to have talks with her about her behaviour.
*sigh*
Then there was the visit itself.
I barely made 40 minutes before I had to leave.
When I asked how she was doing, she was feeling terrible, then started talking about how the staff is neglecting her because they want her to die. They want the old people to die, because there’s so many of them and they want to open up the rooms.
Then my mother brought up our vandal’s funeral, asking me what I thought of it. She has asked me this before, but I don’t think she remembered. Before I could say much, she started telling me how proud she was of him, how he had done so well for himself, etc. All I could do was stare at her as she spoke. I had no clue what she was talking about. Then she mentioned how SO many people were at the funeral. That’s when I clued in that she was rewriting her mind to make him out to be some sort of saint, instead of the person who stole from her, verbally abused her, squeezed many thousands of dollars from her over the years, demanded she pay for things he wanted for himself, vandalized things after we moved here, stalked and harassed us, left the most awful messages on her answering machine, continued to verbally abuse her and, the last time she saw him, he got up out of his wheelchair and walked out after she refused to pay for his funeral, which he’d already told her weeks before he’d taken care of. She saw lots of people at the funeral, and people said nice things under his obituary that my sister printed out and put into a binder for her, so now all the stuff he did no longer matters. She mentioned one comment in particular that I looked up, that included a story about horses. I told her that, when we moved here, he had two horses, but one disappeared. I later found out what had happened to it, and it was basically injured due to neglect and had to be put down. Mentioned that to her, and reminded her of how abusive he was towards dogs.
She changed the subject.
There was no way that I could tell her about the stuff going on around here. Especially the health related stuff, which meant I didn’t have much to talk about with her. So I tried showing her garden pictures, and photos of some of the maintenance stuff I was doing. During the conversation, it also came up that her lunch would soon be delivered, and I mentioned I wouldn’t stay to watch her eat (she wanted me to stay and watch her eat), and I’d be going to the grocery store then going home to have my own lunch, before the storm hit.
*sigh*
Every time I said anything, or tried to describe things I was doing to maintain the property, she somehow twisted it around. She was upset because I used the word “kill” when telling her I got rid of the vines that were killing trees and bushes. She accused me of talking only about “bad things” and complaining, when I was trying to describe how I was fixing things and making them better. She got upset because I was doing things she didn’t understand (she thought I had pulled up the grape vines for some reason), using words she didn’t like, and thinking about other things besides her.
Literally.
She got upset when I told her I was going to the grocery store, because I should only be thinking about her and visiting with her.
It got to the point where I finally said, that’s it. It’s time for me to go. She said no, she wanted my company. I pointed out that no, she did not want my company. She doesn’t enjoy my company. She doesn’t like me, she doesn’t like what I say, she doesn’t like what I do. It was time for me to go. As I walked out the door, I heard her staring her “remember your mama!” line that she uses so often, when she tries to guilt us about how when she’s gone, we will “remember your mama”, so we should go whatever she wants now.
*sigh*
From there, I did get my grocery trip done, focusing on stuff my husband requested. While I was driving home, I heard a notification from my phone and somehow knew exactly what the message was. When I got to the highway we cross before the gravel roads, I was not at all surprised to see a big truck coming up. Sure enough, it was the truck hauling away the bin of garbage – and the notification was my husband letting me know it was picked up! 😄 Talk about timing!
After I was home for a while, however, things started getting painful again, so I had to take some painkillers and lie down for a couple of hours. It did get interrupted by a phone call from my daughter, from her doctor’s office about her upcoming surgery. Then I got a call from the tree company.
Twice.
The first was to let me know they should be able to come by later this week, which is great news. The second was to let me know they’ll be able to come out tomorrow afternoon!
That tree in front of the kitchen will finally get taken down. No more big heavy branches over the roof! They’ll also take down a dead spruce that is tall enough that, if it fell, it could also hit the roof.
I still had my phone appointment with my doctor at 4:15, though I knew it might be a while before he got to me. She’s just back from vacation and would have a lot of other phone appointments to catch up on, too. It was closer to 6:30 when the call finally came in.
The first thing she wanted me to do was tell her exactly what was going on with me, and so she could connect it to the ultrasound results and figure out the next steps. Two of the ultrasounds came back normal, but one was not what it should be for a woman my age. I’m going to get a referral to a specialist and will get a biopsy, and then she gave me a prescription. I found all this quite hilarious, because so much of it is matching my daughter – we’re even on the same prescription now. The causes are different, but the symptoms and current treatment are the same. Even my daughter, on finding out the details, thought it would be hilarious if we ended getting “bulk surgeries”.
Yes, we joke about stuff like this.
Oh, I did ask and the doctor told me there was no sign of any cysts. I’m actually a bit surprised by that, since I am prone to them, but it was good news.
Meanwhile, this afternoon, we did get a very brief, very heavy deluge and thunderstorm pass through. After today, things should be both cooler – meaning average temperatures for this time of year – and no rain. I should finally be able to catch up on things outside. I should finally be able to get the electric chainsaw out and take care of that last big piece of tree that’s still lying in the middle of the west yard and cut that up for fire wood for the fire pit. Maple will make for great cooking fires. I also need to get the push mower into the maple grove. The Creeping Bellflower is taking over and starting to bloom, and that’s the last thing we need! That stuff is just as bad as Creeping Charlie.
I am so looking forward to when the tree guys get here. It will be such a relief to have those to trees down! Every time we have high winds, we half expect pieces of tree to fall on the roof.
The yard cats are not going to like it. They won’t be able to get onto the roof and peek through the upstairs windows anymore! 😄
So this has turned out to be a much more hectic day than expected, but at least most of it was good news. Yes, I consider the doctor’s call good news, too.
One thing is for sure. I am incredibly glad I didn’t try to do the market today.
I did the usual morning stuff, including watering the garden. My brother had his zero turn mower out already, which amazed me, because the grass was still so very wet from dew. He just did the areas he needed to work around, and this mower can handle it.
Then they started loading things into the bin!
After I finished the outside stuff, I came in and started making myself breakfast. Between the fan and the cooking noises, I could hear nothing elsewhere in the house, so it was a surprise when my oldest daughter came rushing in, telling me my husband had been calling for me.
He had his door closed to keep the cats out, and when I got to him, I found him sitting on the side of the bed, barely able to sit upright. He kept falling backwards, and he couldn’t speak. He tried to, but could only manage making noise, while his lips simply could not move. While I was holding him up, he managed to gesture towards the top of his medication fridge, where his Dex 4 bottles were sitting.
He was suffering from low blood sugar. I helped him down a couple of the sugar pills and, once I was sure he wouldn’t fall over again, got a glucometer. During that time, he took a couple more sugar pills. I used the glucometer – which was not easy, as he doesn’t bleed well – and got a 2.5 For those of you in the US, that’s a 45.
By that point, I was on the phone with 911, which was a pain because I could barely make out what the person who answered was saying. I got transferred to the ambulance dispatcher and while I talked to her, my husband visibly improved, in that he could speak, though very slurred. He was able to open the bottle of Dex 4 and took 3 more sugar pills while I had the dispatcher on speakerphone.
Once the ambulance was on the way and the dispatcher got the other information she needed, I tested him again. He was still at 2.5, but already getting much, much better. His could hold himself upright and could speak more coherently. He told me that he’d had to drag himself into consciousness. He had ripped his CPAP mask off, though at the time he wasn’t even sure what he was removing.
Meanwhile, I told my daughter an ambulance was on the way and to open the gate. I had sent a quick message to my brother and SIL, but they were outside so my daughter had shouted out to them that there was an ambulance coming, but she didn’t know why.
Once she was back inside, she started moving stuff around to make room for a stretcher to come through but, in the end, that wasn’t needed. With help, my husband was able to get dressed and use his walker to get outside, where he waited by the front steps, with half a loaf of bread, as he needed to eat something but couldn’t stomach anything else. I’d offered part of my own breakfast that I’d been making (which a daughter tended to and later finished for me), but that was too much for him.
Meanwhile, my brother came over to talk to us. My SIL was at the road, ready to direct the ambulance. My brother told us, they always drive right by – they’ve had to call an ambulance for my late father in the past, and that’s what what had happened before.
Once he was outside, I tested his sugars again and he was up to 3.1mmol/L, which would be about 55mg/dL He was looking and acting dramatically better by then, too.
The ambulance got there very quickly. When they arrived, my husband was able to walk up the steps through the side door while the tended to him, and one of them stayed to ask me questions. My husband had told him he’d dropped to 1mmol/L (18mg/dL). I told the paramedic that the last time that happened, he was in the hospital and they’d given him too much insulin. So the paramedic understood that my husband knew what a 1 felt like. I told the paramedic what readings I’d gotten and, with how much my husband had clearly improved, he jokily apologized that they took so long to get here, we fixed him ourselves.
They did not take long at all to get here. Especially considering they did not come from the nearest town.
They kept him in the ambulance for a while longer and when they checked his sugars, he was at 6mmol/L (106mg/dL) and safe. After talking to him about it, my husband decided to not go to the hospital.
While they were tending to him, my daughter finished cooking my breakfast and I went in to eat – since I was so hungry by then, I was feeling dizzy! Part way through, the paramedic came in to update me and we talked about the situation some more.
Then Leyendecker came over and demanded pets. The paramedic accommodated quite happily. The Potato Beetle came over. He was so taken by then that, when he went back to the ambulance, my husband said the paramedic and brought it up with glee. Sadly, he has two big dogs that have never seen a cat, so adopting one wasn’t an option. 😄
Meanwhile, with everything under control, I could see my brother and SIL tossing things from the junk pile into the bin, leaving behind the electronics garbage, appliances and metal. They also loaded a trailer of stuff to dump, and my brother even went and gathered the toilet collection (I think we found 6 toilets scattered around the yard in total, right after we moved here).
Once my husband was back inside and the ambulance was gone, we took advantage of so many things being shoved aside to make room for a stretcher that never came in. We moved out a couple of boxes from my mother’s apartment and cleared the top of the old dishwasher that can’t be used. It’s the sort that gets wheeled over and attached to a sink’s tap, but it won’t work with the tap we now have, nor could we even plug it in anymore. The top of the dishwasher is what we were using to hold our big jug of drinking water. Once the dishwasher was cleared, I was able to get it out of the house and roll it to the end of the sidewalk. I had to leave it there, as the wheels would not roll well on the grass, so getting it to the bin was going to be a 2 person job. Then I took out some of the electronics waste we kept not getting to the dump and set that with the appliances in the remains of the junk pile. The old dishwasher was sitting where it was for a reason; we have a cube shelf with storage cubes for winter gear that the cats kept tearing up to get into, so the dishwasher was protecting it. Now that it’s gone, we moved our recycling bins to that spot so the cats still can’t get into them.
The main thing about getting the dishwasher out, though, was that we could set up the laundry hose out the window to do my husband’s bedding.
Thankfully, my husband is almost back to “normal” (for him, anyhow). He’s going to be testing his sugars a lot more often over the next while, not to check for highs, but lows, while he adjusts how much Tejeo he is talking. This is a slow release insulin that it taken only once a day.
We have figured out what triggered this. While the girls and I were in the city, we made sure that my husband had food he could easily get for himself. The problem is, between the chronic pain and the Ozempic, he has no appetite. He ate next to nothing, all day, then went to bed early and on an empty stomach. The slow release insulin, meanwhile, keeps doing its thing no matter how much he has or hasn’t eaten. He later told me that what he was feeling this morning was WAY worse than what he’d gone though while at the hospital. It’s entirely possible his blood glucose had actually dropped below 1mmol/L(18mg/dL)
Which brings me to a huge frustration. When my husband had to start seeing a Nurse Practitioner, after our doctor disappeared (he went on medical leave and never came back), she basically ignored his back injury and was focused completely on his blood glucose and on getting him to lose weight. Even the diabetic nurse he was referred to told us that he would not be able to control his blood glucose until he got control of the pain, and he has never been able to get control of the pain, no matter what painkillers they’ve put him on. I firmly believe there is an overdiagnosis of diabetes. A LOT of things can result in high blood glucose. Sleep apnea is one of them, so my husband is dealing with both the chronic pain and the sleep apnea. Also things like high stress levels, anxiety, etc. He’s on a ludicrously high dose of Ozempic now and, frankly, I don’t know that it’s actually helping him. There’s nothing he can do about the spleep apnea; he was diagnosed at a sleep research facility and the head researcher, who was also a university professor, actually asked permission to use his test results in class as an example of how bad it can get. They actually took measurements inside his throat, and found the tissues were smaller than typical for someone of my husbands 6′ plus frame. As he ages, everything gets looser and starts to cause problems. He could lose all the “extra” weight, and would still have severe obstructive sleep apnea.
Which means he may not actually be T2 diabetic. The high blood glucose is more likely a symptom of other issues that cannot be fixed. There is no surgery. Not therapy. No anything that can “fix” the ultimate cause of his back injury, and certainly not the spine damage he was born with that wasn’t discovered until he was finally referred to a spine clinic, after 2 years of the NP focusing completely on his blood glucose and weight.
There is a lot out there about how dangerous high blood glucose is and, in the long term, that may be true. The reality is, low blood sugar is far more dangerous. High blood sugars can cause problems after decades. Low blood sugars can kill you within minutes – and my husband came very close to dying this morning.
The scary thing is that the powers that be keep lowering the threshold. It used to be that you weren’t considered T2 until our BG levels were at 8/144 or above, and after you had that reading after two blood tests (lab tests, as glucometers weren’t common yet) and after several other tests were done to factor other things out. Then the threshold was dropped to 7/126 or higher, and all it took was a single glucometer test at the doctor’s office. Then a new category was invented: pre-diabetes, which is declared if you get a reading of 6.5/117 or higher. Then there was “metabolic syndrome”.
Scarier still is that they lowered the range of “normal”. While looking for conversion charts for this post, I also got charts of what the different ranges were. “Normal” in Canada (probably elsewhere, too) is now a fasting BG of 4 – 5.5/72-99. The first time my husband was “diagnosed” with T2 (which miraculously went away once he got a proper CPAP to treat his sleep apnea), we were told that anything below 5/90 was concerning, anything below 4/72 was dangerous. The safe range was from 5-7/90-126. Now, one chart I found includes a BG reading as low as 2.6/50 as the bottom range of “excellent”.
To top it off, having T2 and higher BG readings is also increasingly viewed as a moral failing rather than a symptom or a side effect, or even just a data point. Treating T2, however, has become incredibly lucrative. I expect attitudes and treatments are going to get worse before they start getting better.
end rant
I’ll get off my soap box now. I’m just so frustrated. I almost lost my husband this morning. I am so very thankful that he recovered so quickly, though he says he’s still shaky. This, on top of the constant pain he’s dealing with. He isn’t living. He’s existing – and there is really nothing that can be done about it anymore. That window closed many years ago.
I found this while using the rain barrel to water the garden from the rain barrel. I had taken the caps off the watering cans, just in case frogs got into the filled cans again. They are kept full so they don’t blow away. I have no idea what kind of caterpillar that is, and hope it’s beneficial. It’s quite adorable.
The first image is our very first fully open winter squash flower. A male flower; I don’t expect to see female flowers for a while yet. The second image is a bit hard to see, but our caraway is starting to bloom!
Today was getting hotter and I normally would have watered the garden in the morning, but the girls and I were planning to head out a couple of hours early for my older daughter’s pre-op appointment. Thankfully, I made a comment about parking at the women’s hospital when my daughter reminded me that the appointment was somewhere else entirely! I had completely forgotten! I would have taken the wrong highway into the city!
So… we took a different route and stopped briefly at a gas station in the one town along the way for drinks and some fresh potato wedges to eat along the way. My younger daughter didn’t eat at all until afterwards, as she didn’t want to get sick at the start of the trip (eating in general always makes her sick for some reason).
The clinic we went to is clear across the city, and took well over an hour to get there, but the route was straightforward and there was plenty of free parking, which was greatly appreciated. We even got there a bit early, with more than enough time for my daughter to do the “first visit” paperwork.
Her appointment went well. She needs to book another pre-op appointment, but the person wasn’t in today so she’ll have to call them tomorrow. By the time she sees this person, they should have a time and date for her surgery. She was told it should be withing 3-6 months which, for Canada, is incredibly fast. She’ll also be getting a requisition for bloodwork emailed to her, which she can get done locally.
Since we were in the city, once the appointment was done, we went to a nearby Walmart to pick up cat supplies for the inside cats, plus a few other things for ourselves. I also wanted to pick up some food for all of us. This Walmart had a Subway instead of a Walmart – nothing on the menu I could eat while driving, but my daughter was able to get a sub for herself and her sister (who stayed in the truck). I tried looking around the grocery section of the Walmart for something I could eat while driving, but there was nothing. As we left, we got more gas and I went in to pre-pay, so I could use a discount coupon, and ended up getting some beef jerky to eat on the road, once clear of the city, with my daughter to hand me pieces.
Once at home and the truck unloaded, I changed and headed out. First to do the outside cat feeding, then to water the garden. After the watering, I was able to finish weed trimming around the East yard garden beds, but was not going to stay out to do more. Too many mosquitoes, even though I had bug repellant on!
I was almost done the watering when my brother and SIL showed up for the weekend. Before I headed in for the night, I quickly popped over to say hello. I was too much of a mess to go inside and visit, so it was a short one. We caught up for a bit, then my SIL remembered she had some things for us. One turned out to be a bag of frozen meat! Some butcher’s shop sausages that they found they couldn’t eat, and a packet of venison that had been given to them, but they aren’t fond of venison. If it turns out we don’t like any of it either (I already know I’m going to enjoy the venison!), we can always give it to the cats!
Oh, after looking at the forecast, I’ve decided I will skip the market tomorrow. I don’t want the truck to be baking in the heat. Not when those high temperatures somehow seems to be causing problems with the battery – or at least has the battery gauge doing weird things! Next weekend might be just as hot but for that one we will be there until 8pm, and things will be cooling down by then.
I will definitely be watering the garden again in the morning, before things get hot. I’m hoping the grass will be dry enough before it gets too hot that I can get the push mower out, as well as more weed trimming!
Last night, we were expected to drop to about 17-18C/63-64F
We dropped to 14C/57F
It was glorious. Best sleep I’ve had in a while!
I still headed out early to do the watering, after after the rest of my morning routine. While watering in the old kitchen garden, I decided it was time to remove the insect netting from the rectangular garden bed.
The self seeded poppies had pods pushing up against the nettings from below, as well as some onion seed heads. They are now free to bloom and be pollinated. The parsnip and beet greens are looking nice and lush.
The cats are going to miss their hammock!
While laying the netting out on the grass so I could fold it up to put it away, I spotted a couple of spots where eggs had been laid. When I folded the netting over, I discovered that one of them still had the spider mama on it! She would not move, and stayed clutching the cocoon of eggs.
I ended up folding the netting in such a way that the spider was on top and uncovered, then found a place in the sun room to tuck the netting away that should be safe from having cats climb on it.
Yeah, I’m a suck.
Even for spider mamas and their eggs.
By the time the watering was done, it was almost time for the general store to open, so I headed out right away. The kibble bin in the sun room was pretty much empty after this morning’s feeding, so I needed another 40 pound bag of kibble.
It is so much handier now that the local general store carries that size. Otherwise, I’d be driving to towns with feed stores, to the north or south of us.
Once back home, I had my breakfast and was on the computer when I started having issues. I was starting to fall sleep at my keyboard. Plus, the pain in my lower abdomen was back. So I decided to lie down for a couple of hours.
That seemed to help, but as I was up and about, the pain got worse again. It got so that I could neither stand nor sit properly because of it. So I tried lying down again. I fell asleep again, covered in cats, and after a couple of hours I woke feeling much better.
Until I moved.
All I did was shift a leg to a more comfortable position, and the pain was back. It went away after a while, until I had to move again. Then, just to top it off, I found I had a headache behind my eyes.
*sigh*
In the end, I had to ask a daughter to do the outside cat feeding. I’ve taken pain killers and am hoping to be able to at least do the evening watering, in a couple of hours or so.
On the plus side, we didn’t break 30C/86F again, as was being forecast last night. We “only” hit 28C/82F. The overnight low is supposed to be 18C/64F. The forecast for later in the week has also changed to less extreme highs. For me, I’m mostly looking at Friday, when I take my daughter to the city for her pro-op appointment, and Saturday, when I will be doing the market again. By myself, this time. My daughters have both been invited to a digital wedding on Saturday that they will be “attending”. For our time zone, it will be in the afternoon. It seems the couple live in different countries and are unable to travel, so they are getting “married” in a game, using their game characters as proxies. Obviously, not a legally recognized marriage, but it’s what they are able to do for now.
What a strange world we live in.
Anyhow.
My telephone appointment with my own doctor is next week. I find myself wondering what the next steps will be, if nothing showed up in those ultrasounds. An MRI, perhaps? I don’t know, but something is very wrong, and it’s causing problems. This started out as a side effect from anti-inflammatories I am no longer taking. While the initial side effect is almost non-existent now, it hasn’t gone away completely, and the pain has gotten worse. It’s gotten to the point that my husband, broken and in constant pain as he is, looks at me and comments on what bad shape I’m in, and that I’m moving around worse than he is!
Speaking of which, my husband finally broke down and placed an order for a new chair. An ergonomic, bariatric chair that he could potentially use as a sleep chair, if it ever came to that. Putting one more thing on his credit card is not something we wanted to do, but we were supposed to get it when our tax return came in, and that mess still hasn’t been sorted out. The new disability tax credit paperwork got sent in a while ago, and he did check off the box giving permission for them to go over his previously filed taxes, and that takes time. He should at least get the tax credit that didn’t come in this last time. Who knows, though. He was officially on long term disability back in 2014, and we didn’t know the tax credit even existed back then. We only found out about it after going to a different tax preparer a few years back, and she had asked me why he wasn’t getting it. She was able to set him up on it, right then and there, and set me up for the caregiver tax credit – something else we didn’t know existed.
Meanwhile, the chair he’s got now is breaking and unsafe, and this is a medical necessity. Perhaps not the specific type of chair. I suppose he could have gotten a prescription for a chair from his doctor, but that would just had more time, and he can’t really put it off for much longer. The chair he ordered should arrive before the end of the month. That’s the most important thing.
All four of us dealing with painful health issues, all at the same time, was not something any of us thought would happen, that’s for sure!
I was out early this morning to water and weed the garden before it got too hot, though at 6am it was 21C/70F and increasing quickly.
We all stayed indoors for most of the day. My brother, however, was back out there, working on his tractor! At least it has a makeshift roof over it, so there was shade.
He also discovered a bee or wasp nest inside one of the hydraulic arms!
In the afternoon, when I knew they were planning to head home soon, I came out to their caravan to visit for a bit and catch up. We hadn’t even reached the hottest part of the day when I headed out. Walking outside was like being in an oven.
A very steamy oven. The humidity is wild. Both our basement concrete floors are wet, and it’s from the humidity. The well pump and hoses are covered in condensation, and all the cold water pipes are dripping.
I got this screen cap at about the peak of our temperatures. 34C/93F at 5pm, with the humidex at 41C/106F.
The next image in the slide show is the thermometer in the sunroom, at 40C/104F. I took that after I had to deal with a surprise as I came back to the house.
Water was spraying into the grass.
I’d pulled the hose up to the house, onto the sidewalk block, to have it out of the way in case I was able to get some weed trimming done. My first thought was that the nozzle somehow got turned on. It’s the type with a slider rather than a squeeze trigger.
The water wasn’t coming from the nozzle, though, but from the Quick Connect. Which you can see in the last two photos of the slide show above.
When I first got close enough to see where the water was coming from, I could see a split wide enough that the yellow washer was visible. I was able to get around to shut the water off, then went to take the Quick Connect off, and it fell apart in my hands.
Talking to my husband about it later, he had actually seen the water start spraying. He thought I’d set up a sprinkler! He figures it was spraying for about 20 minutes.
I got the parts of the Quick Connect off but left the water shut off. One of the front hoses is a metal construction grade hose, and that’s what the nozzle’s Quick Connect was attached to, and the hoses were sitting in full sun.
The water inside the metal hose heated up in the sun enough that the pressure split the Quick Connect!!
Once that was taken care of, took care of the evening cat feeding. There was still plenty of kibble in most of the trays, so I set out cat soup, instead. The freeze dried cat food mix is supposed to be rehydrated with warm water. I use hot water from the tap, and it’s still warm by the time it’s ready to go out. The yard cats still eagerly went at it, even in this heat!
I’ll need to go out again soon and switch out the frozen water bottles I put in their water bowls. They’re all thawed out. I also set a frozen bottle in the cat bed at the top level of the isolation shelter, and set another one in a cat bed at the back of the water bowl shelter. Something hot kitties can lie down next to, and cool down at least a little bit. Those are completely thawed out, too.
It’s been an hour since I screen capped the temperature. We’ve dropped to 33C/91F, but the humidex is unchanged. We are still under a Severe Weather Alert, but are now suddenly starting to get thunderstorm warnings. Not until about 9pm or so and, even then, only a 35% chance. The overnight temperature isn’t expected to drop below 26C/79F, and even that isn’t supposed to happen until about 8am tomorrow! It’s not going to be pleasant, doing the evening watering, but the garden is really going to need it.
One more day of highs above 30C/86F. We won’t be dipping much lower, but enough to make a difference. My main concern is for Friday, though. We’re expected to approach, though not cross, 30C/86F again, and that’s when I need to drive my daughter to the women’s hospital in the city for her pre-op visit. Assuming we don’t have to go to the ER before then, which it’s starting to look like we won’t need to. The “use as needed” medication seems to be helping.
As unpleasant as the heat is, most of what we have in the garden right now likes the heat. It’s a shame the melons we started inside over the winter got eaten. This weather is ideal for them. Ah, well. I’m still seeing little seedlings from the second sowing in the tray popping up, and I’ve been transplanting them whenever and wherever I can find the space. Two of them ended up in the tomato bed, where the tomato transplants didn’t make it. If we have a long, frost free fall, they might actually have time to produce mature fruit.
What an adorable toad! We rarely see toads. Most commonly, we see wood frogs. Seeing toads is pretty rare. I don’t know that the toads themselves are rare; we just don’t see them much.
After the watering was done, we had a bit it time before my daughter and I loaded up the box of the truck for the market, and what few things we needed to bring along from the house, and left early. I wanted to stop at the general store to pick up some canned drinks to use as display items for the new can cozies I’d made. Plus, I picked up a sandwich for breakfast. My daughter didn’t pick anything, and even drank only water (we brought ice packs and small insulated bags), because eating makes her sick, and there’s only a porta potty available at the market.
We drove past the rescue on the way to the general store, and there was already a tent set up! We later heard that someone had set up by 8:30am. The rescue doesn’t open to tours until 9am, and the market officially opens at 10am.
We got what we needed, then drove back to set up for the market, quickly unloading everything so I could park the truck as soon as possible. Otherwise, we block access.
We had the same neighbour as last week. Before, they had really struggled with having only a sun umbrella. This time, they had a tent with mesh walls. A much better set up – until the wind gust started hitting. Their tent started blowing around and they were going to at weight to one corner when I realize they didn’t even have any tent pegs. I’d bought extra at the dollar store, then found the ones that came with our canopy tent, so they were still in the packages. I was able to give them a package of 4, and it made a huge difference! Once pegged down, their tent actually handled the wind gusts better than ours side. It’s supports were more flexible and would bend with the wind. Our felt like it was about to become a kite at times!
Things were a bit busier than last time, and we made a few sales. It was only the second day of a first time market, so I really didn’t expect much. Add in the heat, and I’m surprised they had as many people visiting for tours as they did!
The highlight of the day was their cat. Last time, it was their Great Pyrenees, who did show up later. This time, it was their long haired ginger cat with the Maine Coon face, but not the Maine Coon size. This cat just hung out at various tents, sometimes visibly splayed out in the shade, other times emerging from under a table, and absolutely loving attention. Towards the end of the day, it came out from under a table at the tent next to us, walked over to my daughter for pets, climbed up into her arms and went for a nap on her shoulder.
It was the most precious thing, ever!!!
While we were there, my phone kept pinging with security cam notifications. My brother and SIL had come out yesterday evening and will be here for the weekend. My SIL brought out their big zero turn mower and was out there for hours. Not only did she mow the outer yard, around their equipment, caravan, to the barn, etc., but she did much of the inner yard, too! There’s one section that can’t be done because there’s still part of that fallen maple in the way. The grass doesn’t get very tall, anyhow. I’m just blown away. Yes, it’s on a riding mower, but it was still around 33C/91F, with the humidex making it feel closer to 40C/104F
After the market was done and the truck packed up, my daughter and I stopped at home just long enough to take the things in the box of the truck out, then grab a couple of water jugs for refilling before heading to town. I was in the truck, waiting for my daughter to come back from the house when my brother came by. I commented on the lawn mowing, and he told me that was all my SIL! He has been working on his tractor. He got it fixed and started again and…
Something else broke on it.
*sigh*
He also got stung by hornets, three times – with one of them somehow getting into the sleeve of his coveralls!!!
Once my daughter got back to the truck, we headed to town. My daughter finally felt it was safe to eat, so she bought us “lunch” first, then we went to the grocery store. They have two stations for refilling water jugs and one was being used, so we started using the second one, only to find it had no pressure. Both stations have signs on them saying that, if there is no pressure, use the other station while it recharges, with apologies.
The women using the other station were clearly also having issues. Both machines had low pressure. We tried to do some of our shopping, then come back, but it still wasn’t long enough. In the end, I was eventually able to refill one jug, and didn’t bother with the second one.
We each had a few small things to pick up as well before heading home again.
One thing I noticed during the drive is that the battery gauge was fluctuating a lot again. At one point, the needle kept dropping as I watched, while we were stopped. Still within the normal range, but it really shouldn’t be doing that. This has happened before when we were above 30C/86F, and I had it checked, so I now know it’s because of the heat. After today, we’re going to avoid going anywhere for the next couple of days. Especially tomorrow, when we’re expecting a high of 35C/95F or, depending on what app we look at, potentially 37C/99F – and that’s not counting the humidex. Other areas of the province are expecting higher temperature.
A good day to stay home!
Two more days of this, and then the highs are supposed to stay below 30C/86F for the rest of the 10 day forecast. I’ll still want to be watering the garden twice a day.
Anyhow…
Once at home, I backed up to the house to unload. Once everything was put away, I wanted to feed the outside cats so I could safely drive the truck to the garage. They still had lots of dry kibble, but were swirling.
They wanted their cat soup!
I am thrilled to say that when I headed out of the sun room with the morning cat feeding, I found Sweetie among the cats just outside the door. She was there again, when I did the evening feeding.
Since they had plenty of kibble, I decided to use the large bowl and scoop I use for the dry kibble to make a larger batch of cat soup, with just a couple of scoops of dry kibble added to the freeze dried cat food mix.
The cats were in heaven. Including Sweetie. She still acts nervous when she looks at me and startles easily, but she still went for the food bowls and was not shy about getting her share!
It also gave me a chance to park the truck in the shade of the garage. It stays remarkably cool in there, considering we don’t close the main door at all. In the summer, I park with enough room in front of the truck to access the counter against the wall. That leaves the back end sticking out a few feet. Somehow, it just doesn’t get hot in there.
I still have to get outside to do the evening watering, but it’s past 7:30pm and still 30C/86F out there, with the humidex still at 35C/95F. The mosquitoes are out like crazy, too. We’re not expected to cool down to a decent temperature until 3am.
*sigh*
The garden must be just baking, though.
Well, time to stop procrastinating, cover myself in bug spray and get watering. I’ll have to be careful not to shock the overheated plants with freezing well water!
Today was another day of off and on rain, though more off than on, thankfully. The last storm did a lot of damage in areas, including at least one tornado touching down at the edge of the city. We have much to be thankful for.
While doing my rounds this morning, I was able to harvest some more scapes. The largest one yet, which you can see in the first to images in the slide show below. There will be only one more small harvest after this, unless I find some I missed. The girls and I have already talked about dehydrating whatever we won’t use fresh, and my plan to grind the dehydrated pieced into powder, and that should get started soon.
While checking the old kitchen garden, I can’t help but be amused by the dwarf peas. They are incredibly tiny – I don’t know how big they are supposed to get, but I’m sure it’s supposed to be a lot bigger than these! – and yet they are producing pods! You can see some of them in the last image of the slide show above. The plants themselves are less than 6 inches high.
I’m glad I planted other peas, and am thinking of where I can succession sow more in the next little while. The Spring Blush peas are producing pods, too, and the super sugar snap peas I sowed not long ago are growing nicely. One more succession sowing would not go amiss.
Today is Canada Day, and it was a big deal for us for a change. It has been so long since all four of us went out together! It meant clearing out the back of the cab so we could put down the rear seats in the truck. I was able to put our emergency supplies in the box, along with the cane collection and other items, and secure it all on one side, so there would be room for my husband’s walker on the other.
We went to the cottage of my husband’s brother, in a little town on the lake. Talking to my SIL about how I don’t think we’d ever been there before, and she was pretty sure we did – though it would have been about 25 years ago! As an added bonus, their adult children were able to join us, as did my husband’s sister and her significant other. It has been so long!
We had a fantastic visit. Their cottage is very close to the lake, and the girls and I had a chance to walk to the pier, finding it had a set of steps to the shoreline.
The views from above the water level were gorgeous.
The area has a lot of large rocks set in place to reduce erosion, but there are a few tiny beaches in this area of the lake.
My BIL BBQd, though he had to check on the meat with an umbrella a few times when it started to pour rain. We had a great meal and great company, with lots of catching up to do. Thankfully, my husband thought to bring his “as needed” painkillers, though, as that’s the only reason we were able to stay for about 5 hours, plus driving time of about an hour in total. My husband usually can only manage about 2 hours, including driving time.
We had made sure to feed the cats before we left. When we got home and the girls helped get my husband inside, I stayed out to do my evening rounds. The outside cats were acting really hungry, even though some of the outside kibble dishes still had food in them. I topped up the empty ones, and they were still running around, like they were expecting more.
They were waiting for the cat soup I’ve been making with the freeze dried cat food and cat milk included with the hot water.
So I made some up for them. I’ve been making more than I had been, before, and pouring it around more food dishes besides the one in the isolation shelter.
No sign of Sweetie anywhere. I feel so sad for her! I hope she finds her way back, even if she does remain feral. She must be so scared.
The inside cats were also swarming around and I figured they wanted their wet cat food, too, even though they still had plenty of kibble. I decided to make them some cat soup with the freeze dried mix, too. They keep trying to dig into the boxes to get at the bags inside, so you’d think they’d be happy with that.
Nope.
They sniff at it. I sometimes see a cat taking a few licks, and that’s it.
If the cat soup is still there in the morning, I’ll just take the trays outside. The outside cats can’t get enough of the stuff. They’ll finish it off right away!
The inside cats are so spoiled that they can be fussy like that! 😄
Anyhow.
Tomorrow, it looks like we’ve got a rain free day. We should be able to get the corded electric chain saw out to clean up that big piece of maple tree that broke in the storm, It’s going to be cut to lengths for the fire pit. Maple is an excellent wood for cooking over. We’ll also need to go around the yard with the wagon or the wheelbarrow to pick up all the smaller branches that came down with the storms and high winds, before we can mow the lawns.
I’ve also got the first market day coming up soon, so I want to prepare for that, too. I wasn’t able to find the straight legged canopy/market tent, but we do have a splay legged one, so that’s what I’ll be using. I’ve also been crocheting small things to add to my inventory from when we used to do the markets every summer, back in the day. It should be interesting to see how the market goes. If it goes well, the large animal rescue will extend the market dates into August, too.
All in all, I’d say this is the best Canada Day we’ve had in a long time, simply because the entire family was able to get out, and my husband was able to see both is brother and sister again.
Being broken sucks, but when there are good days, we sure to appreciate them more for it!
You can click through for a short video I managed to take while doing the evening feeding. Being in the isolation shelter means cat soup treat. Curtis had spent the night in the shelter, came out after the morning feeding, then right back in again later. Then Havarti scrambled his way up to the window. Domino is back with her cuddle buddies, and that helps. She definitely still wants to go out the windows when I do the food and water, but when she can’t get through, she is willing to accept the pets. I know that, once she is out of isolation, I’ll probably never be able to touch her again, but in all the time she was with the foster, she hid and never accepted pets like this.
I sent the video to the rescue chat group we have and they were so happy to see her accepting pets.
They also told me, it looks like Sweetie might be coming back, too. She has not settled in at all. They can pet her, but she is constantly anxious. They sent some photos and video. In the video, she is being petted but not responding at all, other than moving her head, watching with giant, terrified eyes. Poor thing! They are going to try and give her more time, but if she can’t accept the indoor life, she will be coming back here.
After feeding the outside cats, I did my evening rounds, and finally had a chance to go into the fenced off area where the tulip patch is, and the saffron crocuses. For all the mulch I added, the weeds have taken over, and I couldn’t even see the saffron crocuses anymore. I pulled handfuls of weeds until I got close to where I knew they were, then had to be extremely careful. After pulling up the tallest stuff, I had the creeping bellflower leaves covering everything. With those, I basically had to grab a single leaf, carefully follow it down to the ground, then pull it out. Pulling from higher on the stem usually resulted in it breaking.
I couldn’t get everything, but the crocuses are no longer buried. Those are the thin, grass-like leaves in the above photo.
I also cleared enough to access the crocuses and a couple of nearby tulips, but that was all I was able to do, today. I’ll have to go in again and clear around the tulips. That is going to take a while!
My older daughter came out while I was putting the “gate” back and showed her some of the progress in the garden. Then we gathered some fresh herbs for the fish she was about to cook for her sister and herself ( my husband and I don’t like most fish) for supper before I continued with my rounds – pausing to check out the pink rose bush.
The white rose bushes are almost done blooming, and the mock orange is looking like it’s about to explode into flowers any day now. Some buds at the bottom are already starting to show white petals.
I was heading towards the barn to take a peek inside, walking past a couple of my brother’s trucks, when I heard a noise coming from one of them. As I went to check one of them, I heard the noise again, coming from behind me. This truck has a home made plywood cap on it that extends over the cab of the truck. For a moment, I feared a cat had somehow got locked inside, though I didn’t think my brother had opened the doors while they were here least weekend.
I opened the door and found this, looking back at me.
I would say this is one of the four that had been in the garden shed until my taking things out finally scared them off. The other three and the mama are probably under or in a shed somewhere. I looked around to try and see how it got in and realized the entire wall of the cap by the rear windshield wasn’t there. 😄 There are just small panels on either side, but there is more than enough space for critters to get in.
So no trapped critters. Just curious ones! I was actually happy to see it. I miss them being in the garden shed!
Now to how this morning went.
My daughter and I headed out 2 hours before her appointment, which should have gotten us there almost half and hour early. We did stop briefly at a gas station in the one town along the highway to pick up some drinks for the road and to get the maps app up. If we get it going from home, the app links to our wifi, then basically doesn’t like to switch to data once we’re on the highway, and the app doesn’t work right. I didn’t actually need it until we were well into the city, but it was ready for my daughter to be my Nav O once we got closer.
Along the way, there was a section that we needed to slow down at – the section of highway that got washed out during the storms not long ago. With all the rain we had yesterday, the gravel patch job was a real mess. I noted that they did install double culverts where the highway washed out, so this shouldn’t happen again, once they finished fixing and paving it.
We had to make one more stop at another gas station shortly after reaching the city, but neither stop took particularly long. It was the traffic and road conditions that set us back. Then, once we found the place (the streets being every bit as broken up as I expected) we found the parking lot I’d seen on the satellite map.
The entrance was through a back lane and partially blocked by a truck unloading cargo.
With all the one way streets, it too a bit for me to be able to drive around and back track. I did manage to get past the truck. From the signs, we saw they did have visitor parking for the clinic – a whole three spots. One of them was occupied. Another was “small car only”, and meant it. The third required me driving to the other end of the lot to turn around and drive back the other way so I could pull in, because there wasn’t room enough for me to drive right in, then straighten out, without hitting a parked car – and my truck isn’t particularly big!
As we walked around the building to the doors, the first red flags appeared. This is NOT a safe neighbourhood. We were maybe 10 minutes to my daughters appointment time at 10am, and there were already several people listing about. This is the sort of area that I wouldn’t want to be walking around in broad daylight without something I could use to defend myself.
No surprise, the entry doors were locked. No signs. I finally saw what looked like a possible intercom with a keypad and pushed a button I hoped was to someone inside.
No one answered, but a Purolator guy came through and let us in the first doors, and a staff member saw us and opened up the second set of doors.
They had a sign in sheet for the visitor parking that I filled out so we wouldn’t get towed, then my daughter checked in. Being a first visit, she was given a clip board with a form to fill out, and we sat in the first waiting room. When she handed that in, we moved to a second waiting room. My daughter was called in soon after.
Given what happened the last time she saw a specialist in the city, I offered to go in with her, as a sort of body guard. She said she would be okay. I will say now, from the start, that she was very happy with this appointment. It was an intake appointment, and she came out with a date for a follow up appointment near the end of next month.
Her appointment went quite long, so I had a lot of time to sit there and look around.
This place is a “community health centre”. Being downtown and in a sketchy area, there are some things I would expect that is different from other clinics. Still… there were significant difference that I could see.
All clinics have a few larger posters on the walls, giving health information about specific things. Or with information for people in abuse situations, telling where they can reach or for help. These are clean looking and informative as much as the space allows for.
This place was splattered with small posters all over the place, and they sent out more red flags. A poster about fentanyl, for example, wasn’t giving information on the dangers of fentanyl, but was about the “myths”, suggesting that using it was not all that dangerous. Another poster, instead of, say, giving information on how to get help for sexual exploitation, or cautioning about the dangers of promiscuous sex (plenty of other signs showed they have out free STD treatment kits) instead directed the reader to an app on… how to engage in promiscuous sex “safely”. Other posters basically pandered to all the current identities and ideologies currently trending, written like they were aimed at people with the cognitive development of kids in elementary school. None of them were about how to get healthy or avoid health problems. They were all basically enabling self destructive behaviour. The focus on race in some of them was both creepy and paternalistic.
Aside from all that, the longer I sat there…. Well. Let me put it this way. In my years, I have been stalked, threatened, harassed and physically attacked by a drunk person who wanted to kill me. I’ve walked through downtown city streets in the wee hours of the morning, when the bars were closing down and the drunks were staggering about. I lived in high crime areas. Then there was the situation with our vandal. Not once, in all these years, did I fell as unsafe as I did in the waiting room of this clinic. Everything around me triggered red flags. Even the times I got smiles from the staff felt… wrong.
Part of safety issue was how the staff had to use security key cards to go in and out several doors. Clearly, it wasn’t just the people outside the clinic that was a security threat. From one of these doors I saw two women come out, talking loud enough for everyone in the waiting room to hear. The older (white) staff member was quite angry as she demanded to know how the younger one knew that there was a laptop. The younger (not white) woman said she’d seen the older woman use it for a presentation. As they walked down the hall, I could see the anger in the older woman as she was first silent about being seen using it, then declared that there were two laptops, but only certain people were allowed to use them. This younger woman was clearly not one of them. The conversation, such as it was, continued as they went down the hall.
Shortly after, the older woman came back down the hall alone. I made eye contact with her and she gave me a friendly smile, totally at odds with how she behaved towards the other woman.
I had found news articles about an investigation and report about this place, released last summer. Among the things they looked into were problems of racism and a “toxic work environment”.
I just saw an example of that. Clearly, firing three board members didn’t fix anything.
By the time my daughter was done – looking quite happy – I was feeling my skin starting to crawl from the skeevy creepiness of the place.
We didn’t talk about it right away. Just getting out of the parking lot and avoiding people staggering in front of the truck, was an issue and I had to focus on driving. It was around 11 by then, and neither of us had had breakfast, other than sharing a bag of beef jerky from the truck snack stash during the drive in. My daughter wanted to buy us breakfast and I remembered that our route took us past a mall that was convenient to get into. So that’s where we ended up going. We found the food court and the first thing I spotted was a bento place I knew was good, even though I’d never been to this location specifically, before. On seeing the menu, we both ended up ordering the exact same thing. A salmon bento – normally, I would have gotten chicken, but it was tempura salmon – and a taro bubble tea.
It was amazingly good. That is one thing I do miss about living in the city. Having access to such a variety of fast meal choices from all over the world.
While there, I mentioned to my daughter about how I felt while at this clinic, that it wasn’t safe, and that I never wanted to go back there again. She was really surprised, because she’d had such a good appointment. I tried to describe what I was seeing with the posters, which she hadn’t had time to look at herself, and she just sort of … made justifications for them. She didn’t see what I saw and, chances are, she’s not going to get what the problem with them was.
This is going to be an issue.
Her next appointment is going to be more on the medical side rather than the intake side, and seeing what surgeons she needs to be referred to. Hopefully, she’ll be referred to actual good ones.
As for the drive, I was very happy to be getting out of the city – and that Damocles didn’t drop the sword again. The truck behaved. I needed to get gas, but the prices in the city were $1.649/L instead of the $1.599 we saw when we’d stopped at a station in the town along the highway. I had decided we would be getting gas along the way, but there was one last gas station, just outside the city, that was at $1.579, so we stopped there. I am planning to do a Costco run on Friday and will be filling the tank there, so I just needed to top up a bit. I’m glad I did, because when we drove through the town again, the gas prices there had gone up to $1.649 while we were gone!
Once at home, I was curious and looked up reviews for this clinic.
I wish we’d done this before.
Yes, there were some glowing 5 star reviews with comments like “best place ever!” But there were just as many 1 star reviews – and virtually nothing in between. These gave more information. At least one other person commented on how unsafe it felt in the clinic – especially for women – while others commented on the unsafe neighbourhood. People who had been going there for years commented that things had gone down hill so badly, they would not be going back. Some would say the doctors were great, but the nurses were horrible. Others would say the complete opposite. A lot of people talked about not getting the care they need, including being turned away from the walk in clinic, being denied mental health help (counseling and therapy are among the services provided), being pushed to go “trans” instead of getting help with their mental health, and some talking about wanting to take their own lives after going there. Plenty finished their comments with “don’t go. Just, don’t.”
Yes, I tried to bring it up with my daughter.
It just got her back up.
This is going to be a problem. I truly do not think she is going to get the care she needs there. I’m reminded of when my husband tried to be the “good patient” for so long, while his real problems not being addressed, and by the time that was looked at, it was too late and he was permanently disabled.
So… I don’t quite know how to deal with this right now. I just know, down to my bones, that this place is not good.
*sigh*
Anyhow. That’s where we’re at right now.
Tomorrow, I’ve got a day at home, and then we’ll be doing the usual end of month running around, plus my daughter has her blacksmithing workshop. When I have the chance to work around the yard, I have a new thing to focus on. My brother and SIL will be having a large bin delivered about half way through July, and it will be picked up again after 10 days. This will be for hauling away the non-scrap metal junk. My brother will take the metal to a scrap yard himself – he has the trailer and equipment needed to do it – for cash.
They’ll have it dropped off near our current junk pile, which actually has quite a bit of metal stuff in it, so anything we want to have hauled away can be brought over to that spot.
I’ll finally be able to clear stuff away from around the garden shed. I hadn’t wanted to do it yet, because there is so much in the junk pile already. Anything we add to the pile now will be hauled away by the end of July. Judging from the size of the bin they’re having dropped off, my brother has identified a lot of stuff in the outer yard that needs to go!
What a difference it’s going to be, with my brother and SIL able to come out so often now, and with the resources, tools and equipment they have. Night and day, really!! There was only so much we could do on our own and, with all the health issues showing up, it’s getting harder just to maintain what we managed to get done in our early years here. I’ve been feeling like we haven’t been able to hold up our end of the bargain for living here anymore.
Well, it’s certainly going to be a very different summer, this year!
So… it happened again, today, but this time at home.
First goal of the day was to make a dump run. As usual, I back the truck up to the house to load it up. My brother and SIL are out for the weekend and my SIL was using their beautiful zero turn mower, so I made sure parked the truck well out of her way.
My daughter and I loaded up the truck, then headed out. Finished up at the dump and head home. With the renter’s cattle now rotated onto this section, we made sure to close the gate when we left, so I stopped in the driveway as my daughter got out and opened the gate. As soon as she did, I went to put the truck back into Drive and…
Nothing.
The shifter just slide back and forth, no resistance.
The steering shifter linkage we’d just had installed as no longer working. Broken? Fallen off? We had no idea.
We just got the truck back. Aside from the drive home, this was the first time we’d driven it! They did test drive it a few times before I got it, but still… it should have lasted.
Damocles dropped his sword again.
Once we got over our disbelief, I left my daughter to take care of closing the gate back up, etc. while I headed in. I saw the barn door open, so I went to see if my brother was there. He was working on some of his equipment, so I told him what happened. He said he was busy, and I told him, I was just letting him know, since the truck was just sitting in the driveway, outside the gate, and told him I was going to go phone the garage – and see if I had any more tows left on my CAA!
I called the garage and left a message, then tried to log into CAA.
It didn’t recognize my password.
I double checked and confirmed I had the right password.
Still didn’t work.
Tried the app. I rarely use the app because I always have trouble with it.
It actually wanted my CAA number input first, but again, I couldn’t log in.
I tried to reset my password. A code would come in to my email account.
It never came in.
I hit resend.
It didn’t come in, and this time, there was no “resend” option.
By that time I got a message from my SIL, telling me my brother was looking at the truck, so I gave a phone handset to one of my daughters, in case the garage called back, and headed outside.
My brother couldn’t fit under the truck to see anything – the guy that had done it before, on the street, was incredibly tiny to fit under there! So he brought out a jack.
The next while was spent getting the truck raised up and secured, with blocks, a second hydraulic jack under the truck, and something I can’t remember the name of that can support up to 2 tons, set up to support the truck’s weight should the jacks fail.
It still terrified me, and it takes a LOT to scare me.
Those two pieces are supposed to be attached. The white plastic visible, fits over the metal nib above. It simply fell off.
In the second picture, you can see what terrified me, the entire time my brother was under there. All the safety precautions didn’t matter. The youngest of my brothers had been working under a car. He had taken precautions. It still fell, killing him instantly.
My brother got the linkage connected, but said it would just fall off again, so he looked around.
What he found was a hook, which holds the weight of the linkage cable. It was bent enough to be touching the transmission. Which meant the weight of the cable was actually pulling the linkage loose.
He thinks something had to have hit the hook. Who knows when or how. He straightened it out and then added some zip ties to hold the cable. Now, the weight of the cable actually pushes towards the linkage instead of away, helping hold it in place.
All the while, he explained things, took pictures and even some video. Some of which I was able to message to the garage.
When everything was done and the truck was back on the ground, I was able to drive it to the garage without any problems.
My brother is the best.
I never did hear back from CAA, so I still don’t know if I have any tows left. When I got inside, I phoned the garage and left another message to follow up. I suggested swinging by with the truck so they can take a look at it at some point. There is no way it should have fallen off so easily, even with the hook bent out of place. Even with what my brother did, it could still simply pop off.
Which meant we suddenly weren’t sure about our next trips.
We were planning to do a combination celebration for Father’s Day and a birthday today. My older daughter was going to treat us to Pizza Hut, which meant a trip to the nearer, smaller city. We would have combined the trip to hit a Walmart and a liquor store along the way.
None of us felt comfortable doing that, even though my brother assured me the linkage should hold now.
We decided we’d go to town, instead.
My younger daughter and I headed in so we would arrive as the pizza place we were going to was opening at 4pm, with my daughter messaging the family to let them know where we were, constantly. We ordered the pizzas, which would take a while to cook, giving us time to go to the grocery store. Along with the stuff we picked up for ourselves, I grabbed a small cake for my brother and SIL as a thank you and a Father’s day gift.
It took longer than expected at the grocery store, so when we were done, we went straight back to the pizza place to pick up our order. Then we made a stop at the liquor store for my daughter to run in and pick up a few things for herself and her sister. Then it was off to home.
Every stop we made, we were both on pins an needles. Would the truck move? Did the linkage hold?
It’s insane.
The truck ran just fine. Didn’t stop us from being constantly on edge!
Once at home, I pulled up to the house to unload, then quickly delivered the cake to my brother, staying just long enough to slip it through their door. They went out for supper themselves, not long after, but they will have desert waiting for them when they get back. 😊
Overall, it’s been a day of “rest” in that I didn’t work on any projects outdoors. While waiting in line at the grocery store, though, I couldn’t resist. I picked up a packet of Scarlet Nantes carrot seed tape. I’ll do another succession sowing of carrots. At this point, I’m basically just throwing as many things into the ground as I can, hoping something will make it. Deer got at the Spring Blush peas in the trellis bed. They’re survive, but a few plants are going to be set back. I really want more of the basics, like peas, carrots and beans. If I could, I’d be doing more potatoes and corn, too, but we won’t have ready space for those, even if we did have the time. There is a space down the middle of the trellis bed where I can plant the new carrots, though, next to the rainbow mix that’s already there. Sort of.
Being the 20th, with tomorrow being the first day of summer, I decided to do the garden tour videos today. I’ll see how the files turned out when I’m done here. Hopefully, I won’t have to do them over again, tomorrow.
So that’s where we are at now. Damocles dropped his sword again, but my amazing brother saved us again, while we had our hearts in our throats the whole time he was under that truck. We’ve all had our pizzas for today – my daughter got us enough to last us a couple of days – and we’re just relaxing until we’re ready for cake or pie and ice cream.
Then I think I’m going to try going to bed early. I feel absolutely wrung out.
Happy Father’s day to the dads out there! I hope you’re having a better time than we have been! 😄
The Re-Farmer 