healthcare

Unexcepted concerns, and unexpected finds

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I am so exhausted.

First, the cuteness.

Adam was blocking my way into the house again, nursing the bebbies – including Button! I’m so happy to see he’s been absorbed into the creche.

Now for the more serious stuff.

Last night, I got a call from my mother. She had called for an ambulance and, as we had discussed before, she was letting me know so that I could update the rest of the family and check on her place, etc.

That was at about… 4:30pm – ish.

After several hours with no word, I tried calling the closer hospital ER I thought they would take her to.

She wasn’t there.

So I tried the next hospital, and there she was.

She was stable and doing fine, but a doctor had not seen her yet.

After confirming phone numbers for myself and my brother, who has PoA, that was about it.

My plan was to head over to check on her place in the morning. I wasn’t decided on whether I should call the hospital before I left, or from my mother’s town.

I ended up not being able to sleep at all until past 5am. Since I was intending to do some driving, when I woke up less than 2 hours later, I asked my daughters to take care of the morning outside stuff and tried to get more sleep.

It didn’t work.

About an hour later, I found a direct message from my brother, asking if I’d heard anything. No one had called him. I had not heard anything, either.

I was tying my shoes, getting ready to head out, when the phone rang. It was the hospital, letting me know my mother was discharged and ready to go home with a prescription. After confirming which entrance I’d be picking her up at, I was on my way.

It turns out she’d spent the entire night basically in the waiting room, in between getting tests and Xrays done. There were no beds available. When I got there, she was talking to another older woman who had been there just as long as my mother, and still hadn’t been seen by a doctor! It was 15 hours in the ER by then!

I got my mother into the truck, and she was so tired, she wanted to go straight home. She was, at least, given a meal while she was there!

I tried to ask lots of questions about how things went, and she was already starting to forget details. I got information in dribs and drabs over the next while. When we were at her place, she showed me the hand written prescription she was given. I didn’t think she had one, since she also told me the doctor assured her copies of everything would go to both her doctor and the pharmacy.

The good news is, the issue found the last time she saw the doctor has improved. The bad news it, it had nothing to do with why she called the ambulance. She did get one of her prescription doses increased, though, and – little by little – she told me things the doctor suggested that we’ve already been trying to get her to do for … oh… several years now? She still flat out refuses to get a hospital bed.

Then she showed me the physical prescription. I couldn’t read some of it, but it looked like one medication’s dose was increase, so I said I would take it to the pharmacy and talk to them about it.

I’m glad I did. They needed that physical copy.

It turned out one medication was back to normal; the pharmacy didn’t even know there was a chance, since it was a temporary experiment. Another did have an increased dose. After some discussion, I went back to my mother’s to get her bubble packs, so they could add the change to them. It was going to take long enough that I had time to have breakfast while I waited!

By the time I got the updated bubble packs and brought them to my mother. She was sleeping soundly, so I just left them on her table with a note.

I think hung around town just long enough that the post office would be open when I got to our little hamlet. M, I got your surprise parcels, but have not looking them them yet. Thank you so much! I ended up having 4 packages, including a large but light one, so I messaged my daughters to have one of them meet me at the garage, to bring them in.

Once we got everything inside, it was late enough that I decided to top up the kibble for the outside cats.

That’s when I found a less pleasant surprise, on the ground under the water bowl shelter.

A stillborn kitten, still fully encased in its amniotic sac and attached to its placenta.

I went around to put kibble in the bowls under the shrine, and found a second one!

After that, I decided to do some walking around to see if there were any others.

There was not, so I buried the two that I found.

I don’t even know what cat was pregnant. There is one – I believe a sibling to Peanut Butter cup – that we’ve not been able to get close to, but I’ve been able to confirm as female. I think she might be pregnant. She’s so fluffy, it’s hard to tell, but if she is, she still is, and the stillborns were not hers. No other cat that I know is female looked even remotely pregnant.

After the sad job of burying the babies, I made a point of checking things I normally would have in my morning rounds. I find my morning rounds to be very meditative and enjoyable.

It was, however, hot and muggy. As I write this, just past 4pm, we’re at 29C/84F with the humidex at 32C/90F, and we haven’t even reached our high of the day, yet.

Yesterday, when I saw no rain in the forecast, I wrote that I would have expected thunderstorms. Well, last night, I did hear thunder in the distance as storms passed us by. While I was driving to get my mother, there were storm warnings on the radio, including the possibility of golf ball sized hail! Our local forecast now says rain should be starting around 11 or 12 this evening, and continuing until about 2am. We are now also expected to have rain all day Monday. We’re supposed to cool down slightly over the next few days, then get hot again. For us, that means close to, or hotter than, 30C/86F.

The conditions are frustrating. The coolest part of the day is in the morning, but the humidity is so high, it’s too damp to do anything like mowing or weed trimming. I need to get the weed trimmer out to work on the log frame of the low raised bed, but the winter squash plants are getting so big and long, it’s going to be a challenge to do the work without damaging them. I should be able to temporarily fix them to the trellis netting for the peas and beans, though.

So the grass cutting and weed trimming needs to wait until things are no longer too wet – but by then, it’s too hot. The temperatures don’t start coming down until about 7pm – and if the heat doesn’t get us, the mosquitoes and horseflies will! Bug spray or not bug spray!

Bah. At least the garden is planted. If we’re expecting rain tonight, I might take a chance and plant some kohlrabi in the empty space where the Purple Caribe potatoes didn’t come up.

But not until things start to cool down.

Until then, I’ve got a couple of boxes to open up and see what’s inside!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: transplanting tomatoes, luffa, onions, thyme and mulberry, plus some updates

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Yesterday, I had my eye appointment, which included pupil dilation, so I had my daughter there to drive me home. I’ll have another field of vision test in 6 months, though probably not the dilation. This will be my third field of vision test, which will give a solid baseline to compare with in the future. For now, the miniscule hemorrhages she can see in my eyes have not really changed, and we’re still in the monitoring stage. As for my regular eye test, my left eye has changed, but not enough to be worth getting new glasses.

All that went well, and I took a break from stuff to give my eyes time to recover. So I can’t blame that for my rough night. I was just getting pains in different places at different times, making it impossible to get comfortable, nor stay asleep for very long. So my daughters did the morning cat feeding and kitten cuddling for me while I tried to sleep in.

Tried to.

This time, it was cats that kept me awake! Butterscotch, after months of hiding under a chair, now likes to sleep with me. Or on me. She still won’t leave my room, but this is progress! She gets along with most of the cats, but some of them have decided to be aggressive towards her, so every time she sees them, even if they’re just walking by, she starts snarling and growling. Then there’s Ghosty, who likes to lick my nose, and Shadow, who tries to eat my buttons. Or Cheddar and Clarence, who get aggressively cuddly!

It’s better than being kept awake by pain, at least!

In the end, my having a late start turned out to be a good thing. I was inside for the call from Home Care about my mother and her wanting to move to a nursing home. We’ve dealt with this guy before, and he has assessed my mother in the past, which didn’t help her any. They can’t provide the help she needs. He was somewhat confused about getting the fax from her doctor to do a panel on my mother. It turns out, this is basically the opposite of how it usually works. Typically, someone has a fall or some other incident that puts them into the hospital. That’s when Home Care does their panel, the doctors do the other tests, and the person usually doesn’t go home from the hospital, but straight to long term care.

Which is not what we were told. When my brother called the nursing home my mother wants to move to (which is where her sister and my father, as well as many of their friends, spent their final months and years), he was told we needed to get a doctor’s recommendation. Which we now have. We didn’t know Home Care would be involved until that appointment. Home Care and a brain MRI are the last things that need to be done.

As he was explaining it to me, he felt that, since my mother hasn’t actually put herself in the hospital or had any falls, he doesn’t expect his assessment to amount to much. We already know this is basically putting her on a waiting list, but when I mentioned this, his response was that “waiting list” is basically too generous a term. More like an “indefinite list”.

She’s coming up on 93. I really don’t think that’s going to be an issue.

At one point, I called out the absurdity of the situation. Basically, because my mother is being so careful about things like NOT falling down and hurting herself, she’s being penalized for it? He sort of walked that back but, really, that’s what it comes down to.

Anyhow. The appointment was made for Monday, which is nice and fast. I will be there for this one. The assessment should take 1 1/2-2 hours.

Once I got off the phone with him, I called my mother to give her the appointment time and explain some of the things he told me. I suggested she write down the things that concern her the most, just so nothing is forgotten. It’s not just about her physical difficulties, but we also talked about how she’s noticed problems with her memory, too, and that needs to be taken into account.

Then I sent an email to the family to keep them in the loop. It would be ideal if my brother could be there, too, since he’s got a longer history of helping my mother out, plus he has Power of Attorney, but there’s no way he can get off work for it.

Well, part of the deal for us living here is that I am now able to take on this stuff for my mother. My schedule is the most flexible, and we live the closest to her.

I was eventually able to get outside and get some things done. We had scattered showers, but that’s it. The yard still has water pooling all over, so mowing the lawn is still out of the question. We were also getting high winds, which were blowing the plastic on the box frame over the eggplant and hot peppers loose. I kept putting the weights back on the bottoms, but in the end, just before I came back in for the day, I ended up tying twine all the way around, on two levels, to keep the plastic in place. If the sheets had been long enough to overlap, it would not have been an issue, but it is what it is. I also finally anchored the T posts holding the netting for the snap peas to climb. Some of them are getting long enough to actually start climbing, and the weight of them would eventually pull the posts inwards. Now, they are secure.

But that was at the end of things.

I decided the place to start today was in the wattle weave bed.

I’ve already transplanted the Forme de Couer tomatoes in the rectangular bed. There were only six Black Cherry tomatoes, so I decided those could go in the old kitchen garden, too. They got their protective plastic rings, as well, each with a pair of bamboo stakes to hold the rings in place and, eventually act as supports for the tomatoes.

I had two pots of luffa, but they each had three plants in them. I considered just planting them in groups of three, but decided to split them, so we now have six luffa plants. I put them in the same area as last year, right around the turn of the L shape. They also got the protective plastic rings, but just one bamboo stake. These were positioned closer to the wall, so that the luffa can be trained up them, until they can reach the lilac above.

Then, because there was still space, I transplanted the last of the Red Wethersfield onions, and the German Winter Thyme. There is self seeded chamomile coming up in between some of the strawberries, with room for the thyme beside it. More chamomile is coming up in the path, too!

There is still a small space that can have something planted into it, closer to where the garlic is in this bed, but I have not decided what to put in there. Most of the transplants we have are things that will get rather large, so they would not be appropriate for that spot. I should look through my seeds for direct sowing for something to go there.

Once everything was transplanted, I used some of the grass clipping mulch that had been removed from the other beds in the spring, and mulched around everything. Especially right up against the wattle weave walls, since a lot of stuff growing outside the bed makes its way through there.

At this point, the only tomatoes left to transplant are the San Marzano – and I have no idea where those are going to go!

What really needed to get in the ground, probably more than anything else, was the Trader mulberry. They’ve been in their pots for too long, and were not looking very healthy.

These went on the north side of the main garden area. These can get quite large, so I didn’t want them casting shade over places we want to grow vegetables. Plus, they will act as a wind break from the North winds.

For now, however, they need to be protected.

The first one went in front of a gap in the lilac hedge that the deed have been getting through. I used the loppers to clear away some lilac and little poplars. There was also a dead poplar on the fence side of the hedge. It’s been dead for a long time, so I was able to basically tear it loose from the ground. I laid it across the gap, near the fence (it’s an old barbed wire fence that’s slowly collapsing), which should also deter the deer from using this spot.

Of course, as soon as I started digging a hold for the mulberry, I started hitting rocks and gravel. I added nothing to the soil, though. The planting instructions for these specifically stated to NOT add anything to the soil when transplanting.

Normally, I would have set them slightly above grade, but this area is higher than other parts of the yard, and tend to get very dry. For this reason, I actually want water to pool a bit around the trees before it drains away. Once the sapling was in place, I emptied a 5L watering can around it, to settled in the soil and the roots. Next, thick cardboard was placed around the sapling as a first layer of mulch. At this size, they need to be protected from critters. I had some wire mesh that was used for something else last year. It was taller enough that I could cut it in half. I put bamboos stakes through the wire, then into the ground through holes in the carboard, so they would hold both in place.

Then I walked about 10 paces to the West for the second sapling. There was no gap in the lilacs there, so I cut away some of it to make a little protective hollow. This time, when digging the hole, I was hitting both rocks and roots! The loppers had to be used a few times to cut through the roots.

Once the second sapling was done, they both got their final mulch. They each got an entire wheelbarrow load. Most of it went outside the wire mesh, but I carefully added some to the inside, too, making sure there was nothing too close to the saplings themselves.

By the time this was done, the winds were picking up again. I could actually hear it roaring at times, but where I was working was well sheltered! Tucking them close to the lilacs should protect them from the worst of the elements, until they get larger. They will still get the full sun that they need, too. These will eventually grow 15-20 ft/4.5-6m tall. The berries are edible, of course, but apparently the leaves can be used for a tea that helps control blood sugars. It should take 2-3 years before they start producing fruit. We got these last spring, but they were out of the 2 year old saplings, so instead of the one we ordered, we got two, teeny tiny 1 year old saplings that I didn’t dare plant outdoors yet! I don’t know if that will make a difference in how long before they produce fruit, but I’ll just assume it’ll take 3 years.

Assuming they survive in the first place!

We shall see.

We’re supposed to be a bit more rain this evening, but none at all tomorrow. The high should also be cooler, too. That means I should be able to get back to working on shifting those last three beds to their permanent locations. What really needs to be transplanted next are the winter squash and gourds. Especially the Crespo squash. They are getting really tall, I’ve already pinched off flower buds, and more are appearing! So I might first make small raised bed, just for them, behind the compost pile. We made a small bed there last year, but the few things planted there didn’t survive. Right now, it’s very wet, so it would need to be made into a low raised bed, anyhow. I do have a 4’x4′ frame, much like the one that’s around the strawberries planted this spring, that can be repurposed for this, then we can add a few loads of garden soil from what’s left of the pile. We haven’t even uncovered that, yet. That this location is very wet right now would actually be a benefit, since the Crespo squash are supposed to get very large, and they need a lot of water to reach their full potential.

This will be the… third? year we’ve tried to grow them. I just looked at some of my old posts. The first year we grew them was in 2021. So this will be our 4th year trying! They did amazing, the first year, until they got eaten by deer and groundhogs. They recovered so well, with many fruit developing, only to run out of season. We did a large squash patch in 2022, but that was the year we flooded, so just about everything was a loss. Last year, they got their own patch out by the old squash tunnel that still needs to be dismantled. They did quite poorly. This was close to where the mulberry have been planted, and it seems that the spot actually got too much sun and heat. We did get a squash to harvest, but much smaller than it should have been. It started developing so late, it never reached full maturity. So, this year, I am taking that into account in choosing where to plant them. The spot I have in mind still gets full sun, but is shaded in the morning, and doesn’t get baked like the north east of the main garden area does.

The other winter squash will need plenty of room to grow, too, so they’ll probably take up a couple of the beds that I’m working on now, at least. I’m planning to put melons in the trellis bed that was built last year, along the side the trellis will be attached, but those are small enough that they can stay in their pots a bit longer. We might have to get creative in finding space for all of them, though. A good problem to have, I suppose!

I plant to put the peppers in the high raised bed, but they, too, are small enough that they can handle staying in their pots a bit longer, while I work on the remaining beds.

I have three pots that we planted herbs in last year. I think I’ll direct sow summer squash in those. That way, we’ll at least have some, even if we end up not having room in any of the main garden beds!

So many things to plant, and so few beds ready to plant in!

The Re-Farmer

A very long day, and that’s hilarious!

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Today was my day to take my mother in for her doctor’s appointment, but it was late enough in the day that I could still do my morning rounds.

The double lilac in the old kitchen garden are starting to really open up. With the recent deluge we had, with other areas getting snow, quite a few people on my gardening groups lamented the loss of everything they planted on the May long weekend. Quite a few others responded by saying to not put out any tender transplants or seeds until after the lilacs start to bloom.

We have 5 different kinds of lilacs, and they all bloom at different times. These double lilacs bloom first, and we’re still almost a week away from our last frost date! So that’s a rule of thumb I’m going to ignore! 😄

Speaking of thumbs, we’ve got more Red Thumb and Purple Caribe potatoes coming up. No sign of the German Butterball, but they were planted quite a while later. Of the sugar snap peas, the first ones we planted still have a whole three sprouts growing, but the second planting has quite a few breaking ground now! The carrots are still so tiny, it’s hard to tell how many have actually survived. We’ll need to plant more, anyhow. The spinach seems to be struggling, too. We’ve had both excellent results with spinach, and absolutely awful results. In this bed, though, I would have expected better results. We’ll see how they do as our weather clears.

I also spotted some tiny, distinctive leaves in the wattle weave bed. The chamomile successfully self sowed!

I headed out to go to my mother’s early, first to make sure the truck was prepped for her to be able to climb in, and to be able to get her folded up walker in, behind her seat. The little step stool I got was also handy. Of course, I checked the tires, because I always check the tires! The spare is holding up nicely, but that front driver’s side tire needed a top up again. It’ll be good when we can finally change out those valve stems, but my goodness, our budget has been hit hard these last few months.

Before going to my mother’s, I swung by the post office to get the mail. I’ll get to what was in there in just a little bit! As I was in the truck, updating the family before leaving, who should pull in, but our vandal. At first, he seemed to avoid looking at me, but as he got to the door of the store, he actually waved hello, pleasantly, before heading in. My hands were occupied, so I just smiled and nodded. I have heard that he’s been going to AA and such, as well as struggling with health issues, so maybe he’s improving. I’m not holding my breath, but there was a time when we were very close. One can hope things will get better.

Once at my mother’s, I was early enough that we could go over a few things first. She had two shopping lists; one for the pharmacy, and one for the grocery store. She also had a few little things she needed help with that I could do when we got back, plus some stuff she wanted me to take home with me. This included a church bulletin, which is basically just a newsletter. When we had a church to go to in the city, I really liked their bulletins, as they were basically what the service was for the day, with either responses right in the bulletin, or page numbers for them in service books/hymnals. This was especially appreciated when we first starting going there.

Gosh, I miss that church.

Along with the bulletin, she had a couple of women’s magazines for me. The social workers that visit her building give them to her, then she passes them on to me instead of putting them in recycling. I told her, we don’t read them, so go ahead and recycle them. This was about the only time my mother went on a bit of a rampage. Apparently, she wanted us to read the magazines because we (meaning my daughters) don’t go anywhere (she assumes), and don’t do anything (???), so we need to be exposed to stuff like magazines. I told her, these particular magazines are pretty much all about selling weight loss products. Oh, but they have good recipes! To which I said, Mom. We have the Internet. We have access to everything that’s in this magazine, and more. If fact, we can have access to these magazines, too! She finally stopped pushing after that. I must say, I am getting rather tired of her basically giving us her garbage to get rid of.

Speaking of which, she also had a container of something frozen… for the cats.

*sigh*

At least this time, it wasn’t something full of onions! I mentioned that onions are poisonous to cats, and I think she remembered.

We left fairly early for her appointment, so we had a bit of a wait. That gave me time to show her some photos and videos on my phone that my brother and his wife had sent me, as they are currently out of province. As time passed, I ended up showing her pictures on Pinterest to keep her occupied. I know what to look for, for her, and she seems to really enjoy it. She never got much chance to complain about how long it was taking, which she started to do a whole 3 minutes past her appointment time. 😄

The appointment itself went far more quickly than I expected. When we told the doctor we were there for a long term care assessment, she looked up the file and read the report from the woman that assessed my mother’s cognitive abilities a while back. The one area of note involved memory loss – more short term than long term. There is a medication that can help with that, but I already know my mother wouldn’t want to take another prescription. It turns out to be a moot point. One of the medications my mother is on is for a heart condition, and this medication is dangerous for people with heart conditions. Not that my mother actually has one. When she last saw the coronary specialist, it was shortly after we moved here, and I was there for it, along with my brother. My mother has a very healthy heart, and she was most unhappy to hear that, since she was convinced she was having heart problems and that he must be lying to her (we now know she was feeling really bad heartburn, but it took a few years to figure that out!). This heart medication she’s on is for something else. However, if there’s any sort of contraindication, my mother is not going to get this other prescription.

As for the long term care assessment, I was expecting my mother to get lots of questions, but the doctor basically accepted that, if my mother feels she needs to be in long term care, then she needs to be in long term care! There are just hoops to jump. The first ones, we could take care of right away. My mother got requisitions for lab work, chest X-ray and an EKG. All of that was available right across the waiting room. The only set back there was my mother had to get onto a bed for the EKG. She really struggled to get up there, and there wasn’t any way for us to help her. There was a stool available, but that was actually more difficult. Later on, as she was struggling to get into the truck, she told me it was easier to do that, then get onto that bed for her EKG!

The next things she needs will be done later. She’s got a referral for a home care panel, which will be done in her home, and she has a referral for a brain MRI. Once the doctor gets the last of the results, it all gets sent in for the long term care referral. I’m assuming there is some sort of approval process, then she gets put onto a waiting list.

I had been told we’d be asked to give the names of our top three preferred long term care centres, and I had that ready. However, when it came up, the doctor said there isn’t a choice. You get wherever there’s an opening. Which I found rather strange. Still, even if she doesn’t get in where she wants to be, my mother can be transferred later, when there is an opening. Transfers take precedence over the waiting list.

So the ball is now rolling. My mother is getting increasingly eager to move into a nursing home! I think part of that eagerness is because she feels that, if she ever did need help where she is now, like if she had a fall or something, the people around her couldn’t be relied on to come to her aid. She wants to be somewhere with a staff that has that ability to help, and I think she recognizes her own decline, to a certain extent. Talking about things like memory loss, during the drive back, we talked about things like forgetting the stove on – something she is already extremely cautious about, even if she hasn’t used the stove! When I commented that, if she were having such issues, she wouldn’t even know it, she immediately agreed. I think that was something else she was aware of, but didn’t have the vocabulary to express.

So that was done.

Before taking her home, we made the stops we needed for her shopping. She stayed in the truck! After everything was brought in and put away, I did the few things she needed help with in her apartment. By then, it was time for her to take her evening meds, and she was feeling really tired. So was I!

Once at home and I brought in the mail, I had a package I was told was coming – but the contents were a rather hilarious surprise!

Healthy Poops! 😂😂

Thank you, M, for the donation! 😄😄

The ingredients are pumpkin, flax seed, coconut, chicory root, turmeric, ginger and banana. The dose for under 25 pounds is 1/2 Tbsp per day. The container holds about 28 Tbsp. When we make our cat soup again (we are currently out of wet cat food), this can replace the ground pumpkin seeds we are using now. Until then, it can be dusted onto the kibble.

Not all the cats have … issues… but it certainly won’t hurt! Turmeric is anti-inflammatory, and I’m sure our elderly cats will appreciate that, too. It should be interesting to see how they respond to it! Apparently, cats like it enough that it comes with a warning that this is to be used as if it were a treat, not as a meal, and to start off slow.

So that is something we will start using tomorrow. The lysine we ordered came in early, along with some other cat meds, too.

Yeah. We’re sucks for the cats!

The Re-Farmer

Catching up

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Well, it took a while to make a dent in clearing storage space in my computer. It seems to have made a difference already. It looks like most of the volume wasn’t even photos or video I take casually. It’s all those trail cam files. I keep way more than I need to! At some point, I’ll have to go through a major delete session. Especially with the files going back a few years. I really just need to keep any files that have our vandal in them, but he has so many vehicles, I don’t recognize them all. Plus, I do like to keep the files that caught wild life, too!

I have some morning cuteness for you to start with, though!

When I first took the cat bed out of the cage and set it next to the one the cats were all crowding into, they ignored it for quite a while. Eventually, though, the cat puddle spilled over, and now they are using it. As I was coming in from my morning rounds, I spotted these two on it and had to take a picture! The black and white has now named Patience. The tortie still needs a name.

Anyhow. Time to catch up on yesterday!

I headed to my mother’s early (checked the truck’s tires first; they’re down a bit, but not enough to need topping up), stopped long enough to go over her shopping list, then did her shopping for her. 

I usually bring food for us to have for lunch, and my mother insists on paying me back, even though I tell her she doesn’t need to. She’s been increasingly fussy, though. The best fried chicken and wedges she loves so much, she’s decided are the cause of her “heart” problems (it’s not her heart, but she doesn’t understand anatomy and refuses to believe all those test results showing her heart is incredibly healthy and strong), so she now refuses to eat them. The Chinese food she loved, she now refuses to eat because she’s decided they serve cat meat, and the family that runs it is… well… Chinese. There’s a chicken restaurant that she used to go to regularly, but she said their food always gets to her cold (not an invalid complaint; at least for their chicken dinners). She did love their pizzas, but the last couple of times I brought pizza, she was aghast at the price. Which has gone up quite a bit, and she is convinced it’s because they’re cheating people and the government should make it so all pizzas cost the same. She also thinks restaurants all buy their pizzas frozen from the same place, apparently. Basically, all the options in her town have been slowly eliminated for one reason or another. The last time I was there, I brought a couple of croissant sandwiches and a Chef’s Salad from the grocery store for lunch. I asked if she wanted me to do that again, and she said no. It costs too much (it didn’t cost much at all), and she had food.

Well, I hadn’t had breakfast yet, and I don’t want to eat her groceries, so after I picked up what was on her list, I was going to pick up a submarine sandwich. It was big enough to share, if she changed her mind. Then I remembered the have a hot food display with whole rotisserie chickens, chicken pieces, nuggets and the like, so I decided to see what was in there, thinking maybe there was some hot food I could bring back.

I’ve never seen these in the display before, but they had complete meals available! A big piece of chicken and thigh, a generous quantity of mashed potatoes and a generous quantity of vegetables, for $6.99 !!! I put back the sub sandwich, then grabbed one meal with beans and carrots, and one with peas and corn.

When I got back to my mother’s, I found she had been busy heating up leftovers and putting together a lunch for us – breakfast, for her also! I’m glad I picked up the dinners. Her list was short, but as I put things away, I found her fridge pretty empty. It’s not that she can’t afford to buy groceries. I think it’s more because she keeps cutting more and more foods out of her diet, because she’s suddenly decided they are bad for her! At least she did have some hamburgers made with beef my sister gave her (beef is one of the foods she’s decided to stop buying, opting instead for more processed meats!), so I sure as heck didn’t want to be eating a protein she needs for herself! 

She actually did seem happy with the dinners, too – especially when she saw the price tags on the containers. So we had ourselves a good lunch, and she was all set for supper, too.

My sister had visited my mother yesterday, and changed her bedding for her. I got an email letting me know she found bed bugs. *sigh* My mother’s building is run by the province’s public housing department, which subsidizes rents, so there is one provincial number to call. They did have a separate maintenance number, which I made sure to add to my mother’s phone list, since calling the main office is an exercise in frustration. The automated system just punts you to voice mail, but the voice mail boxes are always full, so you can’t leave a message, anyhow. The maintenance number gets you to a real, live human being – eventually.

The head office for public housing is located in the smaller, closer city, rather than the big city, where the legislature and most government offices are. When I mentioned that this office is for the entire province, my mother refused to believe me, saying it had to be just for our region, because if it was for the entire province, it would be in the bigger city. She simply could not accept that a government department’s head office could exist outside the capital city of the province. I tried to explain, but she was getting herself worked up, so I dropped it. A very strange thing to get upset over!

It was shortly after noon when this was all done, which means we had a couple more hours before her phone appointment with the doctor. I knew where was a chance she’d call early, though, and sure enough, she did. In fact, from the time, I think she was making these calls on her lunch break!

I set us up on speaker phone, and the first thing the doctor asked was, why did we have this appointment? I told her about the tests results that were supposed to be sent to her, and she said she had nothing on file. The last tests results she had for my mother were from September. !!! Then she said she would check online. Our province’s patient medical records are all digital now, but they’re sort of all over the place. She had to log into a system outside the clinic to find the test results.

They came back normal.

All of her tests and scans, including the one the test that needed 5 days to complete, came back normal.

My mother is ridiculously healthy, as far as their tests go.

So we went over my mother’s symptoms again, and mentioned the prescription she gave my mother to test out made no difference. We talked options and possibilities. One of them is to have my mother referred to a specialist, which is my mother’s choice.

The doctor, however, would have to see my mother in person and do a physical exam before she can make a referral.

My mother was starting to lose it at this point. With so many holidays over the next while, it was either making an appointment very soon, or in January.

Given the test results, this is not an urgent situation, so we’re going with January. I will call to make an appointment, later.

The whole call took less than 10 minutes.

As soon as it was done, my mother was all “I don’t want to see this doctor! I’m not going back there!” This time, however, her reasoning was legitimate, and not just her racism emerging again. She even said, she’d apologize to the doctor, but between her own English and the doctor’s strong accent (plus, she talks fast), my mother simply can’t understand what she’s saying. As it was, I was struggling to understand her at times, too, and kept having to ask her to repeat herself, and I can’t even blame my auditory processing issues for it, this time. I had the same problem when we were talking to her in person.

I still need to find myself a new doctor, too, so I’ll have to make some phone calls to various clinics and see if any of them have doctors open to new patients that would be willing to take both me and my mother.

My mother was also frustrated that we had two days with this waiting, for just a few minutes call! 

As we were talking after the call, I got a 1 hour reminder from my phone, for the appointment.

I’m glad we set the new appointment for the afternoon instead of the morning, so that this time I was actually there when she called early!! My mother could not have handled this call at all, on her own.

But it was done, and we have some next steps to take. 

I spent some time looking things up related to some of the other options the doctor mentioned that she can do herself at home. Some of what I found, she physically cannot do, but there is enough that she can do, that it’s not much of a concern. Then she started to talk about what other foods she should stop eating, and I had to play interference on that one. For starters, there is nothing diet related when it comes to her symptoms, but in her mind, everything comes back to whatever food issue she’s developed, based on something she saw on TV, read in a “women’s” magazine, or hear from her neighbours. It’s all pretty messed up. Even now, she will sometimes randomly tell me, I need to eat more soup (she has no idea how much soup I do or don’t eat). Why? So I will lose weight. She saw some guy on a daytime talk show, decades ago, saying something about eating soup to lose weight. I recall that particular fad, and this was a very long time ago! But it’s in her mind and, because some self proclaimed expert said it on TV, that magically makes it true, and she believes that if I just ate soup, I would lose weight.

Funny. She complains about her own weight, but doesn’t apply this magical advice to herself!

The thing is, she hears and reads all this stuff and latches onto it, and has decided that any ache or pain or whatever she’s dealing with, is directly related to a food of some kind, therefore she must cut it out. She could break her leg, and think that means she ate the “wrong” thing for breakfast. Very frustrating! Especially since she should know better. A lot of stuff she now believes is “bad” is stuff she helped grow, raise and process for almost her entire life. We butchered our own cows and ate lots of beef when I was growing up, but now beef is bad? 

Anyhow. I’m getting distracted.

Once we were done talking about the call and next steps, I was more than happy to head home, and my mother was more than happy to send me on my way, so she could go for a nap!! She did give me some Christmas cards to mail for her at our post office, because she no longer trusts the staff at the post office in her town. I was okay with that, as I turned out to have a parcel in the mail, anyhow. I’m glad I looked at her cards, though, because she had a wrong address for my nephew. I’ve since confirmed the correct address, fixed the envelop, and need to go back to the post office after I’m done this.

As for my parcel in the mail, it was a different brand of lysine for the cats. The previous brand we tried was more granular, instead of the fine powder we were getting before, from a supplier that seems to no longer supply lysine at all anymore. The granular is fine if it’s being mixed into wet cat food or dissolved into water, but it doesn’t stick as well when tossed in dry kibble.

This new brand is a fine powder, and I’m quite happy with it. It dissolves very quickly in their water, and when tossed with the dry kibble, sticks to it much better. Hopefully, this means the outside cats will actually eat more of it, instead of it falling off the kibble when I set it out! It’s working out so nicely, I think we’ll be putting this brand on a subscription. It came in a 500g bag, which is bigger than what we had found previously. We’ll see how long a bag lasts, first.

Now it’s time to grab a food of some kind, and see what other maintenance I can do on my computer! 

The Re-Farmer

A wasted day?

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

It sure feels like it.

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.

The Re-Farmer

A quick update

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Oh, what a long day.

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!

The Re-Farmer

Small harvest, doctor update, and this is the last thing we need!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

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.

Why is this happening all at the same time???

The Re-Farmer

What a morning

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Ugh.

Let’s start with the cuteness, shall we?

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.

The Re-Farmer

Well, that’s going to make things difficult

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First, the cuteness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was pretty discouraging, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, wow!

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

That would be ideal for my mother!

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

The Re-Farmer

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

That’s how she rolls!

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

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

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

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

In other things…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Re-Farmer