Today, my mother had a telephone doctor’s appointment to get the final test results from her recent ER visits. The previous results would have already been sent to her doctor, but there was the one culture test that takes 5 days to get results. Today would have been enough time for that test to be completed, and the results sent to her doctor.
Her appointment was for 10:30, but I left early to do things like put gas in the truck and pick up a breakfast/lunch of some sort at the grocery store, since my mom has been complaining about the prices of take out food. I ended up getting a Chef’s salad and a couple of croissant sandwiches. They didn’t have a lot of prepared food to choose from, that early in the day.
When I got to my mom’s, I was about half an hour early. My mother told me that she’d had a phone call at 9am, but she didn’t get to it in time. No message was left, but she thought it might have been me. It wasn’t, so I checked the call display on her phone, which only showed the number, date and time, but nothing else. I tried to do a reverse look up and, sure enough, it came from the town the clinic is in. That was as much as we could find out, but it was likely the doctor, calling 1 1/2 hours early! It was also just after the clinic officially opened.
Still, we figured since she didn’t get through, she’d call at – or close to – the appointment time. We also knew that it might be late, if things got busy with her in-person patients.
After half an hour past the appointment time, I called the clinic, just to make sure. It was confirmed that the doctor did try to call in the morning. I ended up being transferred to someone else and I explained the situation again. She looked up the information, then assured me that she would let the doctor know to call us, and that we were waiting for her call.
So… I guess she wasn’t going to try calling again, after not getting through to my mother earlier? It seems my mother’s name wasn’t on the list anymore.
We waited.
And waited.
My mother was starting to get really tired, so she tried to lie down for a nap, and I waited with her phone.
And waited.
At least I got to watch the latest Tasting History video that went live today. 😁
The clinic doesn’t answer their phones between 12 and 1. It wasn’t even 12:15 when my mother started saying that we should call again. I explained their telephone hours to her, but she had a hard time understanding the concept. She did, at least, understand that there was no point in trying to call until 1pm.
When 1:00 rolled around, I called again, just to see what the status of things was.
It was confirmed that my mother was still on the list of people that would be called – and I was assured, my mother would be called.
The doctor, however, was in the ER.
The clinic is part of the hospital building, and the doctors take turns being the on call for the ER. Today was her turn.
The receptionist was really apologetic, but there was nothing she could do – there was no way to know when the doctor would be able to call. Meanwhile, I still had errands to do for my mother, and I couldn’t stay there all day, waiting.
We ended up rescheduling the appointment, this time in the afternoon. I’ll be coming back to my mother’s for it, the day after tomorrow.
When I asked about the stuff my mother had wanted me to pick up for her, she said to forget it. Just go home! She was more than ready to try for a nap again, feeling very tired and very frustrated.
So I’ll do the errands for her on Thursday. I think I’ll go over in the morning, do the errands first, then wait for the call with her. If I wait until after the call to do the errands, it’ll be dark by the time I’d be heading home, and I’d really prefer to avoid that if I can. Yes, I did get deer screamers for the truck, but there are an awful lot of deer out there this year.
The end result is, we still have no idea what her test results are, and what next steps can be taken to figure out what is going on with my mother.
When I got home, I found my answering machine blinking, but no message. My caller ID, however, gives more information, and I could see that the call was from the clinic. The doctor had tried to call me, immediately after trying to call my mother, but I was already on the road to my mother’s place at that time.
On the one hand, I can appreciate that she tried, but it frustrates me that a telephone appointment is not being treated as an appointment, but a free-for-all. We’ve had some telephone appointments for myself and my husband with similar issues. The call comes in much earlier, much later, or not at all! So it’s not an issue with this doctor in particular.
Ah, well. It is what it is.
I just can’t help but feel my day was completely wasted for it, though.
My mother and I ended up in the ER for just under 6 hours.
She got her scan done – it turned out to be another ultrasound – and we were sent back to the ER waiting room until the results came in.
The problem is, for people waiting for scan results (we weren’t the only ones), they get squeezed in between patients with more urgent needs. Plus, only a doctor can discuss the results, not the nurses, and they were really busy. All 14 ER beds were full.
So what I thought might take a couple of hours, ended up much longer!
On the plus side, the cafeteria was open, so my mother did actually get a chance to eat. It was closed when she was there with my brother, yesterday. It was a real demonstration about just how hungry she was when she agreed to have a quesadilla, the only hot food option available. She had to ask what it was and agreed to have one. My mother will normally flat out refuse to try anything new, so this was a big deal!
I also almost drained the battery on my phone, distracting her with things on Pinterest. We tried watching a few short videos, but that was pushing her attention span to the limit, so I went back to Pinterest.
End result, when they finally called her in?
Nothing.
They found nothing wrong in their scan.
Now, with her symptoms, there is obviously something wrong, but they have no idea what. They took a sample for a culture test, which takes 5 days, so see if there’s a bacterial cause. They will phone my mother only if they find something wrong. Meanwhile, all the data will be sent to her doctor, and I will be booking an appointment for her in the near future – but not too near. We’ll see how it works out, with the Christmas holidays.
As for my mother, it seems she’s ridiculously healthy. Not bad for someone who is 92, very round, with busted up knees, and constantly complaining to us about various health problems, and is convinced the doctors are hiding things from her, like that she has cancer or something (she doesn’t). At one point, as my mother was being taken to an examination room, even the nurse that was supposed to be leading the way, only to have my mother race off ahead of her, commented on just how fast she is!
Anyhow.
Once she sees her regular doctor, she might get referred to a specialist to try and figure out what the heck is going on.
Funny how my mother complains about her health so much, but she’s had these symptoms for months and ever thought much of them. She figured they’d go away on their own.
*sigh*
Meanwhile, tomorrow we have to go to yet another town for my eye appointment, which means I won’t have the time I need to finish any of my 2023 garden analysis drafts. It might be a couple of days before I can get back to those.
This has got to be the busiest December for outings we’ve had since moving out here!
Let’s start from the beginning of the day, which started off well!
I picked a tiny harvest this morning.
I decided to pick the one cob of purple corn that was the first to develop. I knew it wouldn’t be ready yet, but I wanted to see how it was. In particular the pollination. There was a fair chunk of it that had not been pollinated at all, so the kernels did not develop, but overall, it was pretty well filled.
One of my daughter’s doesn’t like corn, so my other daughter boiled the cob and we split it between us for a taste test. Of course, not being fully ripe, it would not have reached peak sweetness, but this is not a sweet corn to begin with. It was almost meaty in taste and texture. It actually reminded me of the corn I grew up with, that my mother saved seed from, year after year. I didn’t even know sweet corn was a thing until I was in my early teens, and my mother came back from a trip to visit family in the US, with corn seeds they’ve given her. She planted them in the spring, and I remember being astonished by the flavour of sweet corn. I still liked our old corn, though, and this was very much like that. We both enjoyed our taste test.
Later on, my husband and I left early for our medical appointment. Very early. My daughter sent us some cash to treat us to lunch. My husband hasn’t gone out since his last in-person medical appointment, and that was at least 2 years ago. We stopped in the town my mother lives in to pick up gas, then went to a restaurant for lunch.
Which is when I got a message from the cat lady, asking if she could call me. Talk about perfect timing! If we had left when I originally planned, I would have been driving when she messaged me and would not have seen it for some time later.
She wanted to talk to me about possible placements for 4 female outside cats! She was contacted by someone on a farm near my mother’s town. Their yard cats of 14 and 15 years had all passed away, and they needed mousers. They have an ideal set up, including an insulated and heated barn. Basically, they would be inside cats that are allowed outside. They gave their cats quality food, regular vet visits, and – as amply demonstrated by having cats that lived more than a decade – have been able to protect them from predators. There was even a vet lined up to check on the new cats.
There are rescues out there that would happily have given them 4 or 6 female cats right now, but they wanted to go through the Cat Lady, instead. They figure to start with maybe 2 cats and keep them in the barn for a couple of weeks before allowing them outside, then getting a couple more and repeating the process.
When I mentioned that our female cats are all nursing babies right now, including the ones with older babies (they just nurse any kittens that wants to nurse!), and it turned out the vet had brought up that concern as well.
In the end, she asked me to talk to the family about it. If we go with it, she will bring a trap for us on Saturday, when she comes to pick up the sick kitty.
I’ll get back to that later…
From there, we continued to the clinic. We got there early, and were shown into an examination room right away, but the doctor was in emergency at the time (this clinic is in a hospital building), so we were among several patients waiting. By the time she finally was able to see us, it was about 20 minutes past our actual appointment. Not too bad, except my husband was really struggling with pain levels.
She ended up spending a lot of time going over his medications list. Unfortunately, he forgot to bring his meds along, but he does keep a current list in his phone. There was some confusion about doses, because what he was actually getting didn’t match what the official descriptions said were available. I think in his case, because he’s on such high doses of some things, there are exceptions being made.
One problem that was unexpected is that she could not prescribe opioids. Apparently, the College is telling doctors not to prescribe them anymore.
Opioids are the only thing that have even remotely been able to bring his pain levels down.
He didn’t need those renewed yet, though, so we should have time for him to get a new doctor, when they arrive at this clinic in the fall. This doctor added that she couldn’t take him as a new patient, but we already knew that. This is just interim. Going over his medications list, she commented that he was going to have a hard time finding a new doctor.
*sigh*
Funny how it’s easy to find a doctor, if you don’t really need one, but if you do need one, and especially with a complex file like my husband’s, it’s harder to find a doctor.
She also focused a lot on his diabetes. One of his meds actually causes weight gain. It’s an anti-depressant and he’s been on is since before we moved out here. What I remember is that it prevented weight loss, but she says is actually causes weight gain. She said it’s also for sleep. As someone who has Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea, he certainly wasn’t taking it to make him sleep! He’s off that now, and he’s happier for it. As we were leaving, he vented his frustrations. He has so many problems, but doctors keep focusing on the diabetes. The way he put it, he’s got a heart condition that has a life expectancy of 4-6 years, from time of diagnosis. Which means 2-4 years from right now. He is in constant pain, and when I brought that up, she dismissed it. He had been told, early on, that until he gets his pain under control, he won’t be able to get his blood sugars under control. Apparently, that’s not a thing anymore. She did put in a referral to a diabetic nurse. Then she brought up “it’s the diet. It’s all the diet.” And the weight, of course. He won’t get his sugars under control unless he loses weight. I’d already mentioned, he barely eats, because of his pain levels. With all the other stuff, his blood sugars are far from a priority for him right now. She also brought up that he’s on cholesterol medication, but he’s never had high cholesterol. He was put on that by the first doctor we had when we moved out here, because that doctor puts all his diabetic patients over a certain age and girth on statins. Never mind that the actual research shows statins do nothing, and actually cause more harm than good. The doctors don’t seem to be on top of the most recent data.
<<< pause for interruptions >>>
Okay, more has happened, but I’ll get back to that later!
After my husband was done, including getting a requisition for blood work, it was my turn. I only needed one prescription renewal. Should have been fast and easy. She still had to “see” me as a patient, though, so she took my blood pressure. Which, of course, was high. It isn’t high when I test it at home. She was ready to prescribe me blood pressure medication, but I said I wanted to wait on that, because it doesn’t match at home. Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve tested myself, since my husband has the machine in his room now. So she asked me to test my BP morning and evening, three times a week, for three months, then follow up with our new doctor. It’s also been ages since I had my blood work done, so I left with a requisition for that, too.
I had also made an appointment with this doctor for my mother, but I really don’t think my mother would like her. She’s female, black and has a strong accent. When I called my mother about it, we talked it over. The only reason for her to see a doctor right now is for the same reason as my husband and I; for an interim doctor to renew prescriptions. Not the dozen other things my mother thinks a doctor should be able to fix for her. My mother has no idea about the status of her prescriptions, and once I realized she didn’t understand what she needed to ask the pharmacy well enough, I told her I would call them tomorrow, while I’m in town. If her prescription renewals are good for a couple more months, I’ll cancel the appointment. If she needs a prescription renewal within the next month or two, we’ll keep the appointment.
So that’s done.
As soon as I could, after we got home, I headed outside to do my rounds early, walk around and get some fresh air. It was starting to rain, but that was okay. I also fed the yard cats a bit earlier than usual.
Which is when I saw Not Junk Pile on the cat house roof.
With a dangling foot.
It looks like her foot is broken at the “wrist”.
Crap.
I’m bringing my mother’s car in for an oil change tomorrow. I’ve also asked to get that check engine light looked at, plus a check on the wheel alignment. I’m feeling a shudder in the front driver’s side tire that concerns me. We’ve got a budget for this.
We don’t have a vet budget right now. That’s going to have to come out of money meant for a vehicle down payment.
*sigh*
I called the emergency vet, anyhow. She said that, if we could bring her in tonight, they’d treat her. So my daugher and I got the cat carrier and went looking for her.
By then, it was raining harder, and there was no sign of her.
We went looking again later, but still nothing.
We did see her kittens, though, and figured out where their new “nest” is. It’s no longer in the tarp covered board pile (formerly known as the junk pile). They’ve found a way to get into the space under the concrete stairs outside the dining room door. A perfect spot for a mama and her kittens. Impossible for us to get at.
I’ve also been in contact with the Cat Lady. This is one of the mamas we were thinking would go to the farm she was telling us about. She’s going to work on arranging more spays for us, and will be dropping a trap off for us, too. Between adopting out 4 female yard cats, plus getting spays done, we should be able to reduce the number of kittens next year.
Of course, that will also depend on how many of this year’s kittens are female, too! Hopefully, we’ll be able to get some of them done, early next year, before they go into their first heat. This year, they started having babies before the snow was gone. 😥
While I was working on this, we’d gone out to try and catch Not Junk Pile. When it became clear we were not going to get her tonight, I sent an email to the vet clinic, letting them know the situation an dthat we’d be trying to bring her in in the morning. I then called the emergency vet back and updated her as well. That means we’ll have to be out and feeding the cats quite early, and try to get her into the carrier. My daughter and I will work to get her to the vet when they open at 8am, then drop the car off for 9am. My daughter can stay at the clinic while I take care of the car stuff. I’m also going to have to swing by the pharmacy to pick up prescription refills. My husband has been without insulin for several days now.
This litter of two that live in the junk pile by the chain link fence are starting to explore further afield.
Gush, they are adorable!
This morning, the girls were out very early to clean out the eavestroughs. There was one corner, however, they did not do. It was occupied!
This is an active wasps nest.
We’ve had wasps around here before that we had to destroy. Once, because they had made their nest partly inside the wall somewhere, finding their way in under the eaves at the corner of the old kitchen and my bedroom. The next year, it was because they had built their nest under the old kitchen, through a crack in the crawl space foundation – and were also somehow getting inside the old kitchen!
This one, however, looks like we can leave it. Wasps are pollinators, and I would prefer not to destroy pollinators if I can avoid it! When they die off in the winter, we can remove the nest.
Part of my plan for the day was to head into town after I finished my morning rounds. My husband was supposed to get prescriptions delivered yesterday, but it didn’t happen and we didn’t know why.
Before heading out, I phoned the pharmacy, since I figured I could order my own refills a bit early, too. I mentioned what happened with my husband not getting his delivery yesterday, which was a surprise to the pharmacist I spoke to. She checked, and his name wasn’t even on the list for refills. She said she would take care of it, and mine as well. My prescription needs to be renewed by the doctor, however, so she was going to fax the clinic about that.
Well, that didn’t work out.
I got a call just as I was about to leave for town. The pharmacy had a letter from our doctor. Our doctor had moved to a clinic in the city, and we were going to stay with him until we could find a new doctor at a nearer clinic. Preferably the one he just left. There just aren’t a lot of rural doctors around, and most of them are not accepting new patients. My husband had tried to do a phone appointment with our regular doctor, as his disability insurance requires regular doctor’s visits, but it ended up not happening, and we didn’t know why the doctor never called. We did know he wanted my husband to come in, in person, but the drive is just too painful for him.
Well, the pharmacy’s letter from the doctor was telling them that my husband was no longer a patient of his, because he did not see my husband within 3 months of his moving to the new clinic, therefore he could not renew the prescriptions.
?????
Yet, my husband tried to do a phone appointment within that time frame, and the doctor never called.
So I called the new clinic and asked about it.
It turns out that, to maintain status as one of our doctor’s patients at this new clinic, they required at least one in-person visit for a physical within 3 months of the doctor moving to the new clinic. Which would have been by the end of June. Once that was done, then phone or video appointments could be made. Since we did not do that, we are no longer his patients (I was asking about my husband, but it would apply to me as well).
Which means neither of us have a doctor at all, and my husband can’t get his many prescriptions renewed.
So I decided to call the clinic we’d been seeing our doctor at. They lost three doctors at the same time, and I hoped they would have new doctors by now, and that at least one of them would be open to new patients.
They will be getting new doctors.
In the fall.
September, at the earliest.
There was, however a doctor at the clinic who had agreed to see our doctor’s patients until they could find a new doctor. So I made an appointment for my husband with her. This weekend is a long weekend, but they were able to squeeze him in on the Tuesday.
We’ll have to keep on top of the status for new doctors at this clinic. Until then, we’ll have to see this one doctor that was willing to take on our old doctor’s patients temporarily.
Once that was done, I finally made my way to town. One of my husband’s prescriptions did not need a renewal, so I could at least pick that up. While there, I informed the pharmacy of why we lost our old doctor, but that we have an appointment with another doctor, so they can expect to get a fax about the prescription renewals on Tuesday. I was asked to make sure to call ahead of time before filling the prescriptions, because they get so many faxes, it can be hard to get to them all. Which is fine. My husband normally calls his refills in for delivery.
At least my husband was able to get one of his injections, but that prescription was added to work with the other injection. The one that’s missing is a slow release insulin. My husband is going to have to monitor his blood sugars more. He doesn’t like to do it, because it’s so discouraging. Chronic pain causes elevated blood sugar readings. The pain also results in loss of appetite, so it’s not like he’s eating much at all, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference, whether it’s his blood sugars or his weight. The only thing he’s been losing is muscle mass. For someone who was so athletic in the past, this is very depressing. There isn’t much that can be done about it, though. He’s on the strongest doses of painkillers they are legally allowed to give him, and they barely control the pain at all. Quality of life? What’s that?
*sigh*
So… yeah. That was something I did not expect to be dealing with, this morning. At least now we finally know that we no longer have a doctor! It doesn’t make finding a new one any easier, though. That’s the one down side of not living in the city. There are plenty of doctors in the city to choose from. Not a lot of doctors want to live in rural communities, though.
*sigh*
At least we were able to book an appointment with a doctor that can take care of prescriptions for us.
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!
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!
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.
This morning, we had a combination of light snow and more fog.
Only now, in the late afternoon, do we finally have sunshine.
We still haven’t received a call about financing the replacement vehicle. By now, I figure there just isn’t a lender that will accept our application. I’m sure our credit score is pretty low. After my husband went on disability and we lost 40% of our income, we had to go under a consumer proposal to finish paying things off. That was ended a few years ago, but we have no credit cards, no mortgage and no other loans. Basically, no debt. Which means, nothing to improve our credit score. Rather ironic, isn’t it? We have no debt, therefore we have a bad credit score.
With waiting on the financing, I’ve been delaying our stock up shopping trip. We’re still good for most things, but I didn’t want it wait too much longer, or we’d start running out of things. Mostly cat food, since that’s the one thing we haven’t been able to stock up on. Since the van is still prepped for trade in, including the summer tires in the back, that meant using my mother’s car. Which can’t hold as much, even with the back seats folded down, but it’ll do.
Once on the road, the further south I went, the thicker the fog and blowing snow. I was intending to go to Costco, but by the time I reached the town my mother lives in, I changed my mind. The highways were fine – and the surrounding fields and trees were stunningly beautiful! However, I knew the city would be a mess. So I decided to go to the nearer city and hit a Walmart. It meant a smaller shop, but I could at least get the most necessary items.
I almost didn’t!
This is $261.11, after taxes.
Lately, I’ve been buying 10kg bags of kibble (about 22 pounds). The shelves with large bags of kibble were almost empty, and I had to get the 7kg (about 15 pounds) of economy kibble, instead. Four of those for the outside cats, and more wet cat food for the inside cats, and we were already at about $110.
I got a container of black peppercorns, but they didn’t have the ground thyme and sage I was looking for, in stock. I had intended to buy more protein items, but ended up with just three different cheeses (of the 2 for $10 varieties), some pork chops, and some seafood for the girls. They also requested hot dog fixings, so I got a bulk package of wieners and some hot dog buns, as well as wraps. I got a box of granola bars and Kraft Dinner for them, too. That meant more milk for making the KD. The olives are more of a snack food for my husband, though I like to nibble on a bowl of olives, too. One of my favourite treats used to be a certain brand of sundried black olives, packed in salt, but I haven’t seen them since we moved, so… green olives it is. 😄 There’s paper towels and facial tissues, coffee creamer for the girls (my husband and I don’t drink coffee), and two boxes of Earl Grey Double Bergamot tea. It’s often out of stock, so I was happy to see it. Especially since the tea shelves were pretty empty, too!
Aside from getting this as Walmart, I was also able to swing by a Staples and get some ink for my printer. For some reason, I’m out of cyan again – why that one colour keeps running out, I have no idea. We don’t use our printer much. If the printer is out one colour, it won’t let me print anymore. Not even black and white. Frustrating! While there, I picked up some tax preparation software. NOT TurboTax this year. Hopefully, something that isn’t so frikkin’ counter intuitive. So that was another $55 and change in total gone.
The price of printer ink went up since I last bought some. The economy kibble prices also finally went up. I got excellent prices on some other things, though, so that sort of made up for it.
The unfortunate thing is, I’m going to need to do this again, soon. That kibble won’t last until the end of the month, though as things warm up, the outside cats aren’t needing to eat as much. We also need to get more stove pellets for the litter pretty soon, and that’s a Canadian Tire trip. If I’m getting both, I’d be taking the tires out of the back of the van and using that, rather than my mother’s car.
Another ironic thing, considering our major gardening plans. What I’d wanted to do, and will have to do when I finally make it to Costco, is stock up on quality proteins. We still have lots of our quarter beef in the freezer, but I don’t want to go through that too quickly.
I’ve mentioned more than a few times, that all four of us have various health issues. After much research and assessing of things, my husband and I want to try going carnivore. We’re not going to go cold turkey on it, but the more I look into it, the more convinced I am that our entire family would see significant improvement in all our different issues, by cutting out virtually all carbs. For my daughters, I especially think they need to cut out almost all vegetables. All plants have pesticides in them. It’s their natural defence, since they can’t up and run away from the animals and insects that want to eat them. Some people are sensitive to them than others. Ruminants are the best meat for a low carb diet, as they have digestive systems that ferment plant material, thereby removing those toxins and converting material indigestible to humans into high quality meat. Personally I don’t think I am sensitive to these plant toxins, and could probably do well on keto, but it seems the rest of my family is. My daughters, unfortunately, have been cutting meat out of their diet more and more – probably because of the cost, though one of them says certain meats make her feel sick. That this includes some cuts but not others, of the same kind of meat, leaves me thinking there is something else going on. Anyhow, what my husband in particular really should be doing is going completely carnivore, then slowly adding things back, as a sort of elimination diet. It won’t heal his back (which includes birth defects that were not discovered until after his back injury), but it should at least get him off a lot of medications. I’m hoping that, once they see positive results in us, my daughters will be more willing to go it, too.
Yet another reason why I want to include animals as part of our self sufficiency goals, and part of that includes growing their feed, because the cost of feed is getting pretty steep. If that means growing a garden full of animal food, then eating the animals, I’m good with that. But we have lots of preparation before we can start doing that. First, a chicken coop. Possibly some meat rabbits next. Then set up for a couple of pigs. For pigs, we would get piglets in the spring to be butchered in the fall, so we won’t be overwintering pigs, like we would with chickens. Pigs are social animals, so we’d get at least two. We might get milk goats at some point, but will likely keep buying our beef from the same ranch we’re getting it from now. I just don’t see us reaching a point where we will have our own cows – though we might get alpacas at some point. My daughter wants fibre animals.
Okay, so I’m getting off track here. 😄
Back to other updates.
I’ve been messaging with the Cat Lady. Her surgery was cancelled at the last minute. The new specialist wants to put her on medications, first. It’s so frustrating, but he’s convinced that if they do the surgery now, she’ll end up back within the year. She’s planning on going to the US for a second opinion and possible surgery in the spring. So frustrating! Months of tests and preparation, actually in the hospital and ready to go under the knife, only to have the whole thing turned upside down by someone she’d only seen for 15 minutes. The other specialist thought surgery was the best option. The health care system in this province really sucks. It’s not even the worst province in Canada for that, either, which is downright scary.
All that going on, and she’s worried about how Tissue is doing, too! I assured her that Tissue is doing fine. As I write this, she is burrowed under my sheets, sleeping. A few more days on soft food and medication, and we should be able to let her out of the isolation room again. 😄
On top of all that, I got a call from my mother. Her timing was perfect, as I’d just gotten home. The girls were still putting away the groceries!
I’m heading out again, to help her do her own grocery shopping trip. Then I have to head to another town to pick up a Purolator package. I thought they now had a depot in the general store our post office is in – I’ve picked up a Purolator package there not long ago! But apparently, no. Weird.
I’d love to finally get a call back from the finance lady. Even if it’s just to tell me that no, we can’t get financing. That’s better than hanging in limbo like this! But she’s working really hard to get us that vehicle! 😁 I do appreciate her efforts. But gosh, it’s taking a really long time!
This morning, it looked like I’d be getting more of a day of rest than I wanted. I hoped to at least do some weed trimming. It rained last night again, however, and… well…
There’s just too much water. The vehicle gate into the yard is usually the first place to have water, but there’s enough that it’s backing up into the path along this garden bed. For the water to be high enough to do that, it means all behind the garage and in front of the outhouse is water. It’s also pooling in front of the low raised beds where the old wood pile used to be, though the newly transplanted ground cherries seem to be okay; the mulch seems to be absorbing the moisture and keeping them from being in a pool of water. The grass is getting so tall, most of the water is hidden, but we’ve got open water all over the inner yard. Mowing is just not going to be an option. The weed trimming I intended to do around the squash transplants isn’t going to happen. That lilac by the storage house has a pool of water under it again. Even the spirea on the opposite corner has water under them. The grapes are above the water level, at least. Checking the trellises and the trees, it looks like we lost at least 1 luffa to the wet. Interestingly, the sliver buffalo berry is handling it just fine. Even the saplings that are in pools of water are have leaf buds opening.
The mosquitoes weren’t too bad, thanks to the wind, so I was able to check the Korean Pine without being eaten alive.
I found a surprise next to one of them.
All the white flowers in this photo?
Strawberries. We’ve got a whole big patch of strawberries growing here!
In previous years, when I was able to keep a lane to the back gate mowed, this area had Black Eyed Susan, a local wildflower, growing here. I’d even see patched of daisies. But never strawberries! To suddenly see so many makes me quite happy.
Once back inside, I hoped to be able to take things a big easy, since working outside wasn’t much of an option, but of course, that didn’t happen.
My mother phoned. She’d gotten the call about the sleep test the doctor wrote her up for, but she’d forgotten about it. Thankfully, she told them she’d talked to me about whether she should do it at all first, rather than just telling them she didn’t need the test. She gave me the number and I called them back. It turns out they can send the test machine directly to my mother, and that was looing good – until it came to how it’s paid for. They take payment by credit card, and don’t send the machine out until the payment is made. My mother doesn’t have a credit card. Neither do I. There is still the option of picking it up and paying for it in person, but they need 2 days notice, so that the machine will be ready and waiting for pick up. Which I could do, but I emailed my brother first, just in case. He has a credit card and might be able to get that done and my mother can pay him back later. Whatever we work out, we’ll call them back about it.
Then I read another email from my he’s sent earlier. It was about the beg bug treatment schedule, including a date. I had no idea there was a date – and it’s the same day someone is supposed to be coming out to see my mother for a home care assessment.
So I called my mother back, updated her on the sleep test thing, then talked to her about the bed bug date. She needed to call my sister to make arrangements to stay there for a couple of nights, so that she won’t be exposed to the spray. She said others in her building just stay in the lobby, but I reminded her, she can’t do that, because of her health issues. She finally understood. So while she called my sister to make the arrangements, I had to find a number to call about changing the home care assessment appointment. The problem is, there is no public number directly to the home care department. Even with the guy that called me, the call display showed “private caller”, so there’s no number there. I tried calling the clinic to do it through them, but they must be really busy, because no one was answering the phone. Finally, I found a central number for our health region and left a message – the call went straight to voice mail – and left a message.
So now I’m basically keeping a handset handy and waiting to hear back.
I really dislike talking on the phone. :-D Ah, well.
So I guess things being too wet to get work done outside is a bonus for today.
I’d really rather be outside, fighting mosquitoes while mowing the lawn, than waiting for more phone calls, to be honest!
Yesterday’s fog kept getting denser and denser before finally being blown away last night. The live feed on the security camera looked like a blizzard, but it was just fog!
Now, everything outside looks like something out of a magical fairy tale!
The spruces are the tallest trees around, and their tops always get the fuzziest! :-D
However, even lower down bushes, like this Korean lilac in the foreground, were completely covered!
My mother’s “living fence” of hawthorn is just magical. Particularly when you know that none of those tracks in there were made by human feet!
The length of our driveway was lined with sparkling white trees!
At the end of the driveway, you could really see the wind effect! All the frost crystals in these areas were distinctly directional. :-D
People who had to be out driving in this last night described dangerously slippery roads and almost zero visibility. I am glad we didn’t have to go anywhere last night!
I do need to go into town this afternoon, though. I have a new prescription to pick up.
I had my phone appointment with my doctor yesterday. Of course, there wasn’t much he could do over the phone. I described what happened that day I found myself gasping for breath while driving, but it hasn’t happened since. I’m back to my “baseline”, so he wants to take more of a wait and watch approach. If it happens again, I need to call him. We spent some time talking about just what my “baseline” is, and my chronic cough. He may be my doctor for over a year now, but with the restrictions, we haven’t been able to actually see him much, so I’m still very much a “new” patient for him. He wants me to try using an inhaler to see if that will help. It’s meant to be used once a day. He wants to follow up with me after 2 weeks of using it. He later faxed the prescription in to our pharmacy, and I got a call from them after they got it to arrange getting it filled and picked up for this afternoon. If that doesn’t help, I will be going for lung function tests.
I’ve had an inhaler tried on me before, when I first started trying to find out why I had developed this cough. It made my cough worse, so I stopped. Then we moved out of province, so this was over 17 years ago. After the move, I had a whole series of lung function tests done. They all came back normal, but again, that was a long time ago. Probably about 13 years or more. So we shall see how this goes.
My daughter had her phone appointment right after mine, but she will need to physically go in to the clinic for the things she is wanting to get checked out. We have an appointment for her on Monday afternoon, and she will likely need at least two other appointments at the clinic, for other things.
Thankfully, the weather will continue to be mild. In past winters, we stopped my husband’s appointments completely, because of the weather and road conditions. That is not as much of a concern this year, so my daughter can make all the appointments she needs. For my husband, though, if he can get away with just phone appointments, he will. The drive itself is just too painful for him.
The Re-Farmer 