My plan had been to see if I could do a bit more shoveling this afternoon. It was supposed to be relatively warm, and there was enough snow last night that the paths and sidewalk really should have been redone, on top of widening areas to make it easier to drive around.
After doing my morning rounds, I was still thinking of heading back out after breakfast, but in the end, decided against it. I’m feeling remarkably good, after yesterday’s fall. My right knee is certainly getting colourful. I’d hoped to escape it, but today, my entire body was starting to feel stiff and sort. Particularly that left shoulder.
Now, I could have just pain killered up and headed out anyway, but that would likely have set me back for days. In the end, I’m mostly happy I can get out of bed and walk. I’ve certainly had worse pain than this, but I also know what happens if I push myself too far.
Because I can be an idiot that way.
So rather than repeating past mistakes and potentially rendering myself immobile over Christmas, I decided to stay indoors. Mostly. We did get a delivery from the pharmacy today. I had no idea we were getting one. My husband’s bubble packs were ready, and their usual delivery day happens to fall on Christmas day this week, so we got them early. Since I was out anyhow, I did the outside cat stuff early, so I wouldn’t have to fight with my boots again, later on.
It was so hard not to grab the shovel. Just for a little bit…
😄
Instead of heading out and shoveling, I pain killered up and worked on some crochet. I found a ball of cotton and have been making dishcloths. My younger daughter, meanwhile, is in worse shape than I am, after wrestling with little Spewie for so long!
I’m extra glad we decided to just do lots of finger foods and heat and eats for our Christmas Eve celebrations. I’m still planning to do a turkey on Christmas day, but tomorrow, the girls will be taking care of things.
Now is a good time for quiet days.
On another note, I called the hospital to get an update on my mother. She is doing really well and responding well to treatment. The nurse said that my mother was one of her easiest patients, and has been very sweet. Which is a surprise, because she usually isn’t. I think she’s just really happy to be in the hospital right now. It’s not the nursing home she wants to be in, but she was very concerned about being alone if something went wrong.
I asked if she knew anything about the next stage of things for my mother, because she cannot go home to live independently anymore. She had not heard anything about that, but she did tell me, there are no plans to discharge her to go anywhere right now. So that was good news.
I had the call transferred to my mother’s room and we had a bit of a chat. My mother sounded really strong and cheerful. She even told me that she’s been using the hospital wheelchair to get to and from the bathroom! I brought her my late father’s wheelchair a while ago, since she was asking for one, just so she could try it out and we could see how the design worked for her. She refused to use it, insisting she wanted us to get her a new one that was smaller. 🫤
The one in the hospital is pretty much exactly the same size as the one she has at home.
I’m just glad that she is using it, instead of the hospital walker. It’s the kind that has wheels at the back, skids at the front and no seat.
She did have one complaint, and that was being cold. She’d asked for a blanket and they gave her one, but apparently won’t give her another? She thought they had the air conditioning on. Last night, she said she slept under her parka! So when I told her my brother and SIL would be visiting her tonight and were wondering if she needed anything, she asked for a blanket and more socks. So they will be taking care of that. I told her my sister was planning to visit her tomorrow, and I was going to visit on Christmas day. She was happy to hear that, but also said that we didn’t need to come out and visit if the roads are bad or the weather gets worse again. She’s happy with just a phone call. Now that she’s in the hospital, we don’t have to worry about her safety as much anymore!
So that was some good news, there.
Looking at the forecast. Christmas Day is now supposed to reach a high of -8C/18F with snow all day. Previously, we were seeing forecasts as warm as above freezing, but it changes constantly. We’ll see when the day comes, I guess! I’m just glad to be seeing milder temperatures again.
After my fall this morning, I really didn’t think I’d be up to doing much of anything for the rest of the day. I still think I’m really going to be feeling it tomorrow…
… and yet…
I ended up falling asleep for something like four hours. Checking my knees, my right knee has some swelling, though not at bad as I thought. I’m sure the anti-inflammatories have made a difference! I can take these up to three times a day, and I now have a 3 months supply. I’ve been taking them only once a day, if at all, so I can take more without any concerns of running out.
Much to my surprise, while my left knee is also starting to let me know that it got hurt, too, I am not in pain, in a general sense. It only hurts when something touches my knee, even if it’s just a cat tail brushing against my knee as I walk by. I’m definitely developing quite the bruise on my right knee.
The left side of my body is also letting me know it’s not happy. This is the side that I hurt the most when I had my fall in the summer. My left shoulder in particular has never really recovered from that. After landing on my right knee, it was my left side that hit the floor – after I bounced off that bucket – so it’s no surprise that my left side is feeling it more.
Still, after my nap, I felt really good. I am not limping, but I already hobble because of the OA and bone spurs in my feet, knees and hips, so I’m just penguin walking a bit more. Walking doesn’t hurt, but WOW am I thankful for all those arm bars that were installed for my late father. I need those at the best of time, and now is not the best of times! I’ve also got the cane with feet that stands on its own at my bedside. I don’t need to use the cane for walking, but I can use it to help me get up and down from my bed.
My daughters took care of changing all the litter boxes today, but a path to the litter pellet compost pile had to be cleared. When my daughter headed out to start on that, I headed out, too. I actually felt good enough to shovel more!
While getting the shovel down from where we hang it in the sun room, I realized that I didn’t actually trip on the cat carrier after all. Even with my fogged up glasses, I knew where it way. What I couldn’t see was the open door, and that’s what my foot caught on.
The carrier has been repositioned! We keep the carriers in various places in the sun room so the cats associate them with safety and comfort, so I didn’t want to move it out entirely.
One of the areas I worked on was the cat paths. Part of this was done this morning, before my fall.
I cleaned up the path to to the catio, then made a new path around all the shelters. This gives access to the little solar panels for the motion sensor lights inside the water bowl and kibble shelters, so we can clear them of snow as needed. I also cleared a second path to the catio shelter.
In the last picture of the above slide show, you can see the path the cats have made in the snow, to where they can get under the storage house. I’ve started to clear a path that way, but not very far, yet. Over time, we will clear a path to the corner of the storage house, and also redo the path to the fire pit and wood piles, so we can use it.
My daughter, meanwhile, was going the much bigger job of clearing turn around space, after making the path to the litter compost pile.
While she struggled with little Spewie, I was able to go behind her and use the snow shovel to break up the packed snow that had formed at the top. Some areas were drifted higher than Spewie is tall, so breaking that up made it easier for the little snow blower to get at it. In between passes, I cleared out a corner at the sidewalk area. This way, once pulled up to the house, we’ll have more room to open the doors and walk around it, while carrying things.
We didn’t finish the job completely, as it was starting to get pretty dark. My daughter has issues with working in the cold, as breathing cold air triggers coughing fits and hurts her lungs. She was wearing a home sewn cloth mask, but it’s snug against her face. Which means it quickly got very wet, resulting in her breathing in her own condensation. My new coat, when zipped all the way up, has a collar that reached up to my nose. That creates a warm bubble of air that prevents coughing fits. My daughter’s coat doesn’t have that. We need to find something she can wear while outside that will created the warm air bubble, but doesn’t touch her face.
Right now, we have enough space for the truck to turn around, though I still want to round out a corner, at the very least. After that, we have some turn around areas in front of the garage I want to widen a bit. I had a chance to walk around the outer yard before heading inside. My brother cleared enough in the outer yard to drive up to the barn, as well as their trailer and camper. He even cleared a path to the electric meter for me, so I can access it to do a reading.
While working on the inner yard, I could see where deer were digging around the the flower and haskap bed between the sidewalk and the vehicle gate. While walking around where my brother had cleared the snow, I found evidence showing the deer were using the cleared paths to get around, too! Much easier than fighting through the deep snow. 😁
Once everything was put away, we came inside to hot tea my older daughter made for us – turmeric and ginger tea, for me! The Instant Pot stew that was started before we headed outside had just finished and was depressurizing, so we had hot food waiting for us as well.
So far, I’m still feeling good, though I can feel I’m stiffening up. I did take more anti-inflammatories and painkillers with my supper, so that should help.
Hard to believe it’s just a couple more days before we start our Christmas activities on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I’m still focused on digging things out, and have left all the decorating and such to my daughters. Not that we do much of that anymore, and what we do is limited to the cat free zone, AKA, the living room. It’s going to be a quiet Christmas this year.
While doing my morning rounds, three kittens were playing on the hand rail in front of the sun room – but did not what me anywhere near them! They know that rose bush will protect them. 😄
The third image of the garage kittens was from this evening. I went to tie off the catio door for the night, so it won’t blow around. I didn’t even seen them in the cat bed at first! I wasn’t able to get closer, though. I was able to pet them both when I fed them this morning, while they were eating, but that smokey one will not let me touch her, any other time.
Yet.
The littles are all over the place in and around the sun room, and I was able to get a couple of decent shots. That white and black kitten in the last two images has such surprisingly blue eyes!
Sadly, though, we lost another kitten last night. Once again, I found it in the new cat cave in the sun room, like the last one. About the only thing I can say is, at least they passed away in the warmth of a cuddle puddle, and not cold and alone.
Once the morning routing was done, I had time for a quick breakfast before heading out early to my appointment. I wasn’t sure how long things would be, so I made sure to go to the post office before it closed from 11:30am to 2pm. They close for the day at 5pm.
Then, just to be on the safe side, I made sure the packages of seeds were put into an insulated bag, in case the cab of the truck got too hot. I’m glad I did, because yes, it certainly did!
I got to the shopping commons the clinic is at early enough to grab a proper meal for lunch. I’m glad I did because I ended up getting into my 1:30 appointment about 45 minutes late.
The first thing the doctor did was ask how the new prescription was working out. I told what a huge difference it made, and that I’ve hardly had to take any painkillers since I started taking it. She was really happy to hear how well it went. Especially when I told her I have only been taking it once a day, before bed. She commented that I’m already on a low dose (I can take it up to three times a day), so it was really amazing that it’s made such a difference. She commented on how this particular anti-inflammatory is really good, and she thinks it should be prescribed more often. I did mention the one time I took with with just a snack rather than a meal and how that really did a number on my stomach. She was just nodding her head and saying, yup… it does need to be taken with a full meal, because it can be so hard on the stomach, otherwise, and mused that that’s perhaps why it isn’t use more often. All I can say it, it has helped me so much, I’m willing to make the effort to take it properly so that doesn’t happen!
I then told her about my hip issues and asked for X-rays to find out what’s going on. She looked in my file and it’s been more than 5 years since my hips have been X-rayed, so it was time. We already know that I have OA and bone spurs, but something is going on with that left hip that’s making it worse. She wrote me up for a complete pelvic X-ray, so both hips would be checked out.
Then we got to why I was there in the first place. My arm.
I was able to read the report on her monitor with her. They found no anomalies in my shoulder or elbow. Which surprised me, because they do still hurt at times. Especially the shoulder. Which suggests to me that the issue is now soft tissue damage – though the anti-inflammatories are helping with the arm pain, too!
Then there was the hand/wrist. There was a potential anomaly, so they recommended to get it X-rayed again in 1-2 weeks. We were already past that, so she printed out another requisition to get my wrist done again, along with my hips.
As for the follow up, normally they would call me to book a follow up appointment, but I mentioned that my daughter already has an appointment coming up on the 9th, so she said to go ahead and book my follow up then. Which I took care of while picking up my printouts.
Next stop was the hospital, where the lab and X-ray is. Once I gave them the forms, I had time to message the family with an update, and was soon called in for the X-rays. The tech took X-rays of my hand in some very different positions from the last time it was done. At this point, all they can do is confirm whether or not something actually broke in there. After all this time since my fall, it’s not like they’re going to put my wrist in a cast or anything.
Once the hand was done, I got the hips done, and that was it. It was very fast.
That done, it was back to the shopping commons where my doctor’s clinic is, this time to make a quick stop at the grocery store. I hadn’t realized we were out of bread until last night. While I was there, I picked up some sandwich meats that were on sale, and a few other little things.
From there, it was a stop at the gas station and the home.
When I was about 10 minutes from home, I could see the highway ahead of me, disappearing in a cloud of white. It turned out to be an absolute wall of rain! It was coming down hard enough, with so much water on the road, I had to slow down and was about ready to pull over and wait it out. It did lift a bit, though, and I was able to continue. By the time I got home, it had blown over – something I was very happy about, since I needed to get out to open the gate. Particularly since, with the inside handle on the driver’s side door broken off, I need to open the window so I can open the door from the outside.
No complaints about the rain, though. We needed it.
Anyhow.
So all went well with the doctor, though I am surprised nothing showed up in the X-rays for my shoulder and elbow. The shoulder injury it still sometimes an issue, and I was expecting some sort of damage to my rotator cuff. My left elbow has been a problem for a long time, since well before my fall, but that is due to nerve damage, so I guess that wouldn’t show up in an X-ray.
In a couple of weeks or so, I will be back to find out what they find in my hips.
That should be… interesting! I hope I get to actually see the X-rays this time, and not just a report. I’m very curious as to what shows up!
Meanwhile, it is now past time for me to have the supper my daughter made – a nice, substantial meal to take my anti-inflammatories with!
The littles are happily discovering the perks of being close to the house. They’ve been sleeping on various cat beds all over the place, enjoying reliable access to food and water, and the creche mothers are taking good care of them. Some are still super shy, but even they are getting brave enough to go into the sun room.
I was on the late side getting out this morning. I had a rough night. What little lawn mowing a managed with the push more did more than remind me I hadn’t fully recovered from suddenly getting sick.
It reinjured me.
My left arm, that I injured in a fall more than a month ago, had been feeling fine for awhile. Well enough that I wondered just what we’d be talking about when I see my doctor at the end of the month, to go over the X-rays.
Last night, all the joints were hurting enough that I got my older daughter to come over and rub them down with Voltaren. Only after that could I finally get some sleep. By then it was around 3am.
My left hip has also increasingly an issue. Not so much with pain, but stability. The lack of it! It’s gotten so that I have to sit down to put on my pants, because I can’t stand on my left leg. When taking the two steps from the original part of the house to the addition, I can only step up on my right leg. If I try to step up using my left leg, my hip just gives out.
Something else to talk about when I see my doctor!
With that in mind, I got one of my daughters to help me in the garden at the end of my morning rounds.
When I first got into the old kitchen to start preparing the wet and dry cat food mixture I feed them in the mornings, I spotted one of the white and grey littles, right at the window! This window used to be an exterior window, before the sun room was added on, so the sill on the outside is angled down for any moisture to drain away from the window. It makes it a challenge, but the smaller cats and kittens are still able to get onto it and not slide right off. To see the littles up there – I think the one I saw traded off with a second one while I was filling the kibble bowl – is good progress. They have figured out where the food comes from, and are comfortable with that.
Now if only the garage kittens would come out! They are SO hungry by the time I arrive to feed them, because they don’t come to the house where there is more food, after their bowl is empty. I’m seriously considering moving the isolation shelter closer to the garage, and use it to slowly get them closer to the house. The problem with that it, the littles and the outside yard kittens are already using it regularly.
Maybe the catio would work, instead.
After the cats were fed, I continued my rounds and checking on the garden.
I’m quite happy with what’s happening in the trellis bed. The noodle beans are still stunted, but the sunflowers and pumpkins are looking great!
One pumpkin plant – the one with the pumpkin in a sling – is the biggest of the five, and opened up a couple of massive flowers this morning. There’s just male flowers, though. I’ve been seeing tiny female flowers start to form but, so far, they’ve all shriveled up and fallen off, long before they opened up. So it looks like we’ll get a single pumpkin this year.
In the second image of the slideshow above, you can see the tallest of the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers. it has almost reached the height of the top horizontal support for the temporary trellis netting, which is at least 6 1/2 feet from the ground, so about 6 feet from the inside of the bed.
I’m surprised by all those little tomatoes I found when doing a major weeding, some time ago, and transplanted. I’ve since found three more that got missed, but I won’t bother moving those. Some of the transplants are getting surprisingly bed. The largest one is hidden under the leaves of the biggest pumpkin plant! One even has blossoms on it. I suspect that some of them, at least, might be Spoon tomatoes.
Speaking of Spoon tomatoes…
My younger daughter came out to help me pick them. With the instability of my hip, I can only pick from one side, where I can lean against the log wall. My daughter can actually get right into the bed, standing on the mulch in between the melons (which are not really growing, even if some are blooming) and pick the tomatoes on that side of the plants.
Yes, those are grapes! My daughter found the ripest looking clusters. There are lots more, but they are still more on the green side. If my guess is correct, these are Valiant grapes and they should get much bigger, not be the same size as the Spoon tomatoes. Once we figure out a place to transplant them, hopefully they will do better. The vines themselves are doing great where they are, but the fruit is not what it should be.
This is the first time in a couple of years we’ve been able to harvest some grapes before the raccoons ate them all.
Under the colander is a selection of fresh herbs; two types of oregano, two types of thyme, sage, basil, lemon balm and even some dill weed from the self seeded dill that came up among the herbs. I also gathers some walking onion bulbils; we don’t want them to spread beyond where they are now, so the bulbils are for eating, not growing! There’s a small amount of bush beans, some Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes and some Chocolate Cherry tomatoes.
At the bottom are some nasturtium seeds. My daughter was admiring the flower bed (the Cosmos are getting so tall!) and asked about the nasturtiums, which are winding down right now. While checking them out, we noticed some of the seeds had started to dry up and fall off the plants. Rather than leave them there to likely rot, we gathered them up. They are now in the cat free zone (the living room) where we are keeping gathered seeds and seed pods to stay cool and dry before they get stored away.
As for the rest of today, I’m not sure what I’ll manage to get done outside. I’ll give myself a chance to rest, but I most likely will just pain killer up and head out later and do as much as I can. We shall see.
My daughter and I had back to back morning medical appointments with our doctor last week, but we had to reschedule to today, since we didn’t have transportation last week.
Last night, I got a call from Home Care.
They didn’t have anyone to do my mother’s med assist for this morning.
*sigh*
Thankfully, we have to drive through my mother’s town to get to where our doctor’s clinic is, anyhow. It just meant leaving earlier, and my mother getting her meds half an hour earlier than scheduled (still within the time range they are supposed to be taken), so we could get to our appointments on time.
Which meant the outside cats got fed a bit early, too!
The full belly babies were very snuggly, afterwards!
My daughter and I were then off to the doctor’s, stopping at my mother’s along with way. I popped in to do the med assist. My mother did know I had an appointment to get to, and knew it would be a quick stop. Thankfully, she did not try to delay me, like she had the last time I had appointments to get to!
While she was doing her meds, I noticed she had started working on her grocery list. I was wondering about that as, the last time I asked, she told me she didn’t need one. I kept expecting her to call for Friday or the weekend, and she never did, so I knew she’d be low on things. I wasn’t going to be able to do it today, but my friend is picking me up tomorrow morning, as she goes to take her car to the garage to be looked at. We are planning to visit my mother as well, so we’ll see what works out, timing wise. My sister is also planning to visit my mother tomorrow so, if necessary, she can do the shopping. My mother prefers that I do it, though. I helped my mother do her shopping so many times before she could no longer manage it, I know what my mother prefers. My sister doesn’t, my mother hasn’t been happy with some of her substitutions. 😁
That done (my mother even behaved! 😄), we continued to the town our doctor is in. We didn’t get there as early as I had been planning on, but early enough that I could make a quick stop in the grocery store that shares their parking lot.
The only thing I needed to get was bread, but neither of us had had breakfast, so I was thinking of picking up some sushi or something. There was none to be had, but I did find an alternative. They had a selection of hot meals set up with their rotisserie chicken display. So I picked up a perogie dinner and a lasagna, plus a couple of drinks. Other options were meatloaf with mashed potatoes, vegetables and gravy, or a porkchop with mashed potatoes, vegetables and gravy.
My daughter chose the lasagna for her meal, and we ate in the truck. My perogies were unusual in that, not only did they not come with the usual sausage and sour cream, they were served with vegetables in a white sauce, topped with melted shredded cheese.
I’m not sure which of those did me in.
After eating, we went into the clinic about 15 minutes early. Once checked in, I immediately went to the washroom.
While there, I got a message from my daughter saying that they’d come for me, to take me into a room early, so we traded appointment times and she went in ahead of me.
So I went to the waiting room and…
Immediately ran back to the washroom.
Then I got a message from my daughter.
Her lunch was suddenly giving her grief, too. She suggested we trade appointment times again, telling me which room she was in. So when I got out, I let the receptionist know what we were doing, and went to the room my daughter was in while she ran for the bathroom.
When our doctor came in, she clarified with me that we were both seeing her today, and had just switched times.
For my appointment, I had two things to talk to her about. The first was about my painkillers. I’ve been on T3s and they really haven’t been any better than taking over the counter painkillers, so there’s no point in me being on prescription painkillers. This is something I’ve had issues with all my life, with prescription medications, and especially painkillers. Either I need basically double the dose to have any sort of effect, or they don’t work like they’re supposed to. Since we’re basically just treating the symptom, and this is for my arthritis pain, I asked if we could try me on anti-inflammatories.
After talking about it, she agreed. I got two prescriptions; one for the anti-inflammatories that I can take as needed, up to three times a day. The other is for something I would take only once a day, and it’s designed to protect my stomach lining. I’m also supposed to only take them with food, because the anti-inflammatories can be very hard on the stomach.
We’ll try them for 3 months, then do a series of blood tests, including for kidney function, and see how things are.
Then there was the other thing I wanted to talk to her about.
My arm that I hurt when falling, about a month ago.
I almost decided not to bring it up, since it’s been doing better, but there is still pain that should not be there.
I told her what happened, and how my arm felt after landing so hard on it. I started to raise my arm to show her what my range of motion was like, only do discover I could only lift my elbow to shoulder height before pain stopped me. !!!
So she manipulated my arm a bit, while feeling at my shoulder joint, and I could tell her exactly where the pain was, and when.
It’s also the part of my palm under my thumb and my elbow that still have issues.
She took some notes and gave me a requisition for X-rays. Lab and X-ray is at the hospital not far from the clinic – and I needed to go there on behalf of my mother anyhow – so I could do that right away.
When I was done, my daughter was still in the waiting room and got called in soon after. I got my printout and waited.
After hitting the washroom again.
Once my daughter was done, we drove over to the hospital.
Thankfully, they had two bathrooms as we both needed to run for it!
I then talked to the receptionist on behalf of my mother. There was a requisition for bloodwork on file that I picked up, so my mother can get that done along with her monthly blood work. That gets done in the first week of the month, so I booked the medical appointment my mother has been asking for, for the week after. That way, the doctor could also go over the lab results with my mother, too. When I spoke to my mother last night, she was lamenting that they didn’t call her about her last blood test. I told her, they only call if there’s a problem. If they don’t call, that means everything is good!
She doesn’t believe that. She thinks they’re hiding things from her.
Appointment made, we went into the lab and X-ray area, literally across the room from the clinic reception desk, and handed in my requisition, then we sat to wait. It wasn’t very long before I got called in.
I had three X-rays done on my shoulder, two of my elbow, and three of my wrist and thumb. What surprised me was when the tech set my hand on the X-ray plate so that it was straight on the outside edge, thumb on top and straight.
The surprise was just how much holding that position hurt.
Not only that but, after the doctor had manipulated my shoulder to examine in, I was starting to feel muscle/nerve pain creeping up from my shoulder to my neck. A sort of pain that was making me feel dizzy. For a while, I thought I would have to get my daughter to do the driving!
That done, we started to head out again – after yet another stop at the bathroom.
There was something my older daughter needed, and there was a dollar type store I knew of that might have it. If it wasn’t there, we’d probably have to go to a craft store in the city to find it, and that wasn’t going to happen today. So this store was our next stop.
Once in the store, we did find what my other daughter needed – or at least the closest to it. I had hoped to wander around the store a bit before we left, though, as it is very different from all the other dollar type stores I normally find.
My insides, however, had other plans.
Okay, we’ll just pay for things and be on our way…
Or not.
As I was paying, I asked if they had a public washer.
No, I was told, but you can use ours if you need to.
Yes, please!!!
So while my daughter took the stuff to the truck, they let me use the staff washroom.
I have no idea what those perogies did to my insides but, by then, I was in serious discomfort. Almost enough to make me forget the pain in my shoulder!
God bless that woman.
Once back in the truck, I called the pharmacy in the town nearest us. They had received my new prescription from my doctor, and would be able to fill it right away. The time it would take us to drive there was likely enough for it to be ready.
That arranged, we were on our way again.
About half way through, I realized I was not feeling good again.
We made it okay, though. My daughter was also feeling unstable, so when we got there, she made the mad dash to their one bathroom first, while I asked about my prescription. The pharmacist was just doing the final check on it. Since I had to wait anyhow, I sat down at the blood pressure machine.
Funny. My blood pressure was a bit high. I wonder why that would be?
The machine was next to the bathroom door, where my daughter was, and I saw a woman with two tiny children try the door. While they were waiting for my daughter to come out, a guy came over with a stroller and joined them.
The entire family ended up taking turns.
I was still okay, and totally get how it can be with such tiny children!, but once I got my prescriptions and the bathroom was free, I ran for it.
Yeah. By this time, I was in major pain.
One of the things we noticed while getting out of the truck, though, was that one of the front tires was looking really low. The front tires were both replaced, but of all four tires, three of them still need to have their sensors/valves replaces. The sensor batteries are dead, and the valves in two of them have a slow leak. This one tire, slightly more than the other.
So we had one more stop to make, at a gas station. I got to stay in the truck while my daughter checked the tire pressure on all the tires, and ended up topping up three of them.
After that, we could FINALLY, head home.
Yeah. As soon as I got home, it was straight for the bathroom.
Then my daughter.
We had two different meals, so it’s strange that we were both affected. She’s lactose intolerant, but I am not. All I can say is, I’m never going to be buying a hot lunch meal from that grocery store, ever again! They were good, too, but absolutely brutal on our insides!
Later on, I had to get my daughter to help me do the evening cat feeding, because I was still too unstable. She, at least, seems to have recovered.
I’m at the point where I am once again starting to really feel the effects of that examination of my shoulder again. My rotator cuff is hurting, and the muscle/nerve pain up to my neck is now affecting both sides of my neck, and my triceps in my left arm.
It’s been about a month since I fell. This is insane! I am sure I didn’t break anything, but I’ve clearly done some major damage somehow in there.
I’m really looking forward to the results of those X-rays.
Thankfully, the rest of my day doesn’t require me to go anywhere, and with the off and on rain, I’m limited in what I can get done outside, anyhow. It’s not even 6pm yet, as I write this, and I’m seriously considering going to bed soon.
My daughters are making supper right now. I’ll be taking some of those anti-inflammatories with my meal, and probably go straight to bed after that. Hopefully, I’ll remain stable enough to actually get some rest!
My daughter was able to get the most adorable Eyelet pictures when she joined me for the evening walkabout.
Eyelet really loves to be carried and cuddled. So does Sir Robin.
Now for the boring stuff.
I’m happy to say my left arm did rather well during the night. I was pro-active on the pain killers and getting my husband to rub the joints with the Voltaren cream, from my hand to my neck. Oddly, it was less painful on my arm to sleep on my left side, which seems rather backwards. I wasn’t going to complain, though.
All day, I was practically crawling out of my skin, wanting to do stuff. It was a gorgeously cool day out, and it would have been perfect for so many jobs that need to be done around the garden beds and yards. I kept having to stop myself. I had to get my older daughter to do most of the work with feeding the outside cats; basically, I passed the kitten food bowls out to her. I didn’t do my full rounds, but we did walk around the garden beds closer to the house.
I’m glad we did because, as we were in the old kitchen garden, she spotted something odd about the pink rose bush. The stems, in between all those thorns, were covered with little bumps. They were the same colour as the stems, so I didn’t really see them, but she realized they were bugs.
There were so many of them, the rose bush was starting to droop, and the roses that have started to open were showing browned edges on their petals.
We weren’t too sure what to do about it but, just to start, we got the spray bottle of soapy water and sprayed it down.
It was still quite early when we headed back inside, so I tried to lie down again.
That didn’t work.
I finally realized I was getting light headed, so I got up and made myself something to eat. While I was doing that, I started getting some messages from my SIL. I knew my brother was coming out today, so she said she’d find out when he planned to be here.
He already was.
He went into ninja stealth mode and left without her even hearing him – then got here shortly after my daughter and I came in, so we never saw him drive in! He parks by their trailer, which is blocked from our view by trees.
As soon as I could, I headed out to say hello. He was still unloading from his car and hadn’t have breakfast himself, yet, so once everything was in, we chatted in their trailer for a while, as he ate. It gave him a chance to show me the new security camera he picked up for the gate, along with a wi-fi booster.
Over the next while, he plans to do here what he used to have at their house that they sold; add security cameras all over the place. The main thing, though, is the main gate and driveway, since that’s been our vandal’s primary trigger for rage and vandalism. Now that they have so much of their equipment here, our vandal can see bits and pieces of it from the road, and it’s driving him bonkers that he can’t come onto the property to see what’s going on and help himself to things. So I’m quite content with my brother wanting to set up more security cameras!
My brother had lots to do, though, so as soon as he was done eating, I left him to it.
I did head back out and harvested some things from the garden and put them together in an insulated bag for my brother to take home. I finally harvested the garlic scapes, so there was plenty for them, as well. I was also able to pick a couple of turnips, lettuce and chives, with blossoms for them. My younger daughter had cleaned up and smoothed out the stuff she made in her blacksmithing workshop. She set aside her two best ones as a thankyou gift for my brother and SIL for the gifts of that workshop, and I was able to add that in, too.
My brother wasn’t at his trailer, though, so I left it on the step for later and headed back in.
Which is when I got the phone call.
From home care.
*sigh*
Yup. For the third day in a row, no med assist for my mother. Yesterday (Saturday), it was the two evening visits, which get done by the same person. The day before, it was the morning visit. Today, it was the evening visit again.
During our family chat about how things went with my mother, my brother said he was planning to visit my mother, so if it happened again, he could take care of the med assist. Which is great, but I really wasn’t expecting us to have to cover med assists, three days in a row! Yes, we’ve had that happen before, but what was because someone was sick. These visits were all different people.
Before calling my mother, I went to talk to my brother. He wasn’t sure if he would be finished before her first scheduled visit – he had a lot he needed to do before the predicted rain hit. So when I called her, I told her that it might be either me or my brother, but one of us was going to cover her med assist tonight.
My mother wasn’t impressed (none of us are). The weird thing is, she got a double visit on Saturday morning. She had mentioned it to me while I was getting her supper meds out. The last time she said this happened, when the second person came in, my mother said she’d already taken her morning pills – but her morning pills were still in the bubble pack. So I checked, and that was not the case this time, and promptly forgot about it with all the other stuff going on.
As we talked on the phone, my mother was able to tell me when they’d showed up and who they were, though she can’t quite remember the name of the second person.
Then she told me about the 17th, and things got confusing. I thought she was still talking about her double visit, but it was about something else entirely. She said that someone had given her her meds for the 18th instead of the 17th.
???
So she kept her morning meds from the 18th, and stashed them away for the next time no one shows up in the morning.
???????
What I was finally able to get from her is that, when the second person came in for her med assist on the 17th, she noticed a mistake the morning person had made in the form they have to fill out. She had marked the date as the 18th, when it was the 17th.
Which my mother has concluded means that she got the wrong day’s medications. Or something. She’s been furious at me or the home care workers for not giving her the medication from the days that that were missed for some reason, so it’s not really getting the medications from the “wrong” day that bothers her. Basically, she thinks her medications were messed up, even though it was just the date that was wrong.
So when she got her morning medications on the 18th, she didn’t take them, and the home care aid left without making sure she took them.
She then started going on about how we are worried about her messing up her meds (she did that quite a bit), meanwhile the home care workers were the ones messing up her meds…. Except they didn’t. Someone just wrote down the wrong date in their form.
A lot of this was new to me, so I couldn’t get into it too much with my mother at the time. I needed to get off the phone and write it down, while I still remembered the details!
So all that got passed on to my family.
None of us is happy, and my SIL is planning to write a letter to the provincial government, which runs the home care system, about it. I don’t expect that to make any difference. This sort of thing has been going on for as long as the system has been around.
That taken care of, I spent some time doing some research, then tended to a rose bush. From what I could find, the first recommendation for dealing with scale is to prune away the infected branches. Which would cut away too much of the bush. We can cut it back severely in the fall, and it’ll come back, but not this early in the spring.
We don’t have anything like Neem oil or other suggested sprays, but one site I looked at mentioned dish detergent.
Well, we already started that.
A few other options came up that were not of any use to us, but apparently, using an old tooth brush to take them off can work.
So that’s why I tried.
I then spent the next while searching the rose bush, wetting it down with the soapy water, and using a tooth brush to get rid of the scale. This rose bush is a mass of short thorns, so I used a scrap of rigid foam insulation to stabilize the sections I was working on. The thorns could get pressed into the foam and stay in place, while also protecting my fingers from being ripped to shreds!
Once I got them all (that I could tell), I sprayed it down with a hose, then gave it another dousing with the soapy water.
I’m hoping this actually works.
The other thing we need to do is get that ornamental crab apple tree cut back. Sunlight is another thing to help prevent scale!
While all this was going on, I could hear the sounds of power tools being used. My brother had installed a post near the stand I have our trail cam on. He told me he was going to put in a post, and I was thinking “fence post”. Instead, he dug out a 4×4 post from some of their lumber that they brought over before the house sale, and set that in.
The camera is something like 10 feet off the ground.
He even added a few extras, some decorative, some practical – like a little roof over the camera to keep snow from building up on it. The camera itself is solar powered, and the solar panel could be mounted separately from the camera, unlike my solar powered trail cam, which can just pivot slightly to get a different angle. The solar panel is now mounted at the top of that 10′ or so post.
Which means we don’t need to have our trail cam at the gate anymore!
I’m thinking we can move it to record the cat shelters. I want to see how many “visitors” we get (as I have the critter cam up and have used it to chase out a racoon).
But not now, when I can only use one arm!
My brother was rushing to get things done before the rain started, but the rain wasn’t starting. I kept getting weather warnings on my phone about how, the rain will stop in about half an hour, or the rain will start at… but at most, we got spit on a bit.
Which was driving me nuts, because the garden needs to be watered, but I didn’t do it because we were expecting rain. In fact, we were supposed to get rain from about 1pm to about 2 or 3am!
We didn’t.
Later on, when my daughter and I were walking around with Eyelet, it did start to finally rain…
…only for it to stop soon after we got back inside.
I’ve just been itching to get outside, and watering is really about as much as my arm can handle right now.
Currently, we’re now expecting to get a thunderstorm between 7 and 9 this evening. It’s past 6:30 as I write this, and I see now sign of a storm. All of that seems to be passing to the south of us.
I did manage to finally try out those biscuit mixes I picked up at the dollar store. I ended up using two of the four packets. With the first one, I added a lonely piece of Prosciutto, chopped fine, and a garlic scape, also chopped fine. It was so fast, while the first batch was in the oven, I got another one going – this time with cheese to go with the garlic scape – waiting to add the water at the last minute.
I got enough biscuits out of the packages that I was able to bring a bunch to my brother. He was using the big riding mower, trying to clear the tall grass closer to his equipment, and could neither see nor hear me, so I just tucked it into the trailer for him.
When we did finally connect, he told me which app I needed to download and what I needed to be able to log on.
By then, he really had to hurry to finish and get to my mother’s. There was lots more he wanted to do, but they have decided they will come back next weekend – both of them – and stay the weekend to catch up. My brother was telling me what he really wants to do is to stay here, full time, for 6 months so he can get things done.
I’m practically swooning at the though. There is SO much we simply can’t get done, but he can, he has the equipment for it, and if he doesn’t, he has the ability to get it. With the stuff we’ve got going right now, we’re barely treading water and going into debt to pay for necessary repairs. Stuff like this is why we have credit in the first place, but to have so many things expensive things needing to be done, all at once, is good at all.
Well, we’ll see how things go. While I was at my mother’s, yesterday, she started talking about how she’ll pay to get her car fixed up. Which is great, but we can no longer afford to keep two vehicles insured at the same time. Our insurance has actually gone down, thanks to my excellent driving record (which will not be affected by our insurance claim due to wind damage), but everything else just keeps going up and up and up. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind selling the car, so we can use the space it’s in, in the garage. My brother thinks he can fix it.
Ah, well.
My brother is probably still at her place as I write this. He always goes over her banking with her in detail, leaving the printouts for her, all of which she promptly forgets as she throws away the printouts. She’ll keep some political party donation request letter from 5 years ago, but she won’t keep last month’s bank statements. Which is really, really frustrating for my brother!
Meanwhile, I’ve tried to log into the new security camera, and it says it’s offline, so I think I should go check on it.
Tomorrow, my husband has an appointment at the new pain clinic that’s closer to us. I think my arm will be fine for driving, but I might have issues getting his walker in and out of the truck!
Hmm. According to my weather app, it’s raining right now.
It isn’t.
I should ask my daughters to water the garden while we’re gone. Tomorrow is supposed to be a lovely, cooler day, but no rain.
Well, what we get, we get. Not much we can do about it.
*sigh*
It sure was great to see my brother, though, and we can look forward to seeing them both, next weekend! Yay!
Meanwhile, time for some more painkillers, then one last walkabout outside… and maybe cuddle a few kittens in the process.
Well, I really did a number on my right rotator cuff yesterday. I can’t raise my arm at all in two directions, with limited mobility in other directions.
During the night, I heard a commotion on my craft table and discovered Ginger peeing on it. Getting up to chase him off was quite difficult, and I ended up having to put weight on the injured arm. By the time I was done getting him off and cleaning the mess, I was in a cold sweat and feeling ready to throw up.
Yes, I did take painkillers. In fact, I went so far as to take one of my husband’s prescription pain meds.
It made no difference at all.
After a couple more hours of attempted sleep, things have improved. I will probably need to see a doctor, but I’m not sure where to go. I don’t really have one, and my interim doctor isn’t in the clinic on Fridays, anyhow. I really don’t want to spend hours waiting in an emergency room, either.
My daughters are taking shifts to be available to help me. My younger daughter has the day shift. She fed and watered the outside cats and tried to do a head count. She counted about 20 or so, which has been typical for our warmer days of late.
My daughter is cooking breakfast for me now, so I will have to de-cat myself and get up. I have been trying to at least lie down, if not sleep. Oddly, lying on my left side has been more painful, and not just because of my arthritic hip. I just can’t find a good position for my right arm that doesn’t strain the joint. Lying on my right side, I can at least find a position that supports the shoulder, rather than strains it.
After getting teased with spring, the temperatures lurched back downwards last night.
Also, I am SO tired of our intermittent internet. It took me forever to get any of my weather apps to load! We’ll be able to switch back to the primary account soon. Hopefully, that will be better again. :-/
As I write this, we’re still at -24C/-11F, but the wind chill has “warmed” up to -33C/-27. It was pretty steady like that, all night.
I am really looking forward to that 6C/43F two Sundays from now!!
While doing my rounds this morning, I opened up the sun room to let Potato out for a bit, if he wanted. Along with the warm water, I had a treat for the kitties. I’d kept the meat juices and dregs from a roasting pan. Usually, I’d use it as part of the liquid for a soup, or make a gravy out of it, but this was onion free, and safe for cats. The juices had gelled, so I added warm water to melt it and brought it out for the cold kitties.
They were so excited for the treat!!! Cats that would normally stay away from each other were all pushing their way into the bowl, ignoring the container of warm water they usually go for, while I knocked the ice out of the water bowls. With the temperature fluctuations, the metal bowls are in melted depressions of ice, and I had to use a chipper to get one of them out! LOL
I was happy to see that the terrarium heat bulb was enough to keep Potato Beetle’s water from freezing. There was just a bit of ice on the water surface furthest from the bulb.
Once the water was taken care of, I fought some kitties off the bowl of meat juices and split it between the various food bowls. More room for more cats to have a treat! The very last bits in the bowl, which had chunks of meat in it, went into Potato’s bowl in the sun room. He had gone outside after I’d opened the door, but it didn’t take much for him to go back in! We are a bit concerned about him being alone and lonely in there, but he seems to be content over the whole situation.
I tried to get a picture of his wound, but he wouldn’t stay still, so this was the best I could get! Now that the fur is shaved, we can see that it’s a rather large puncture wound – and there is a smaller one, next to it! It’s drying up and scabbing over nicely, though. We’ll keep Potato in the sun room for a few more days. Once it warms up again, it should be okay for him to be outside with his little nekkid patch.
I’m not sure what we’ll do if he wants to stay in the sun room, though! We’ve tried propping the doors open, but then we caught Nicky the Nose in there, asserting his dominance. :-(
I wonder if that old sling shot I found in the garage is still usable… :-/
Since Potato was content in the sun room, I closed him up again and continued my rounds.
I had lots of company.
I had five of them! Butterscotch and Nostrildamus, the spice boys and Rolando Moon, all came along.
Then I turned around and there was number six.
Creamsicle Jr. many not want us coming anywhere near him, but that doesn’t stop him from following me around!
Unfortunately, this lurch into colder temperatures has been very rough on my husband’s pain levels (the added medications are helping, but not much at this point), and this morning, his TENS machine just stopped working. It seems one of the wires has … broken? I don’t know. He’s in a lot of pain, so his tolerance to try and figure it out is out the window. It’s an older machine, so I don’t know if we can get new wires for it anymore. The plug in port is universal, so we should be able to. I’ll have to do some looking.
But it will wait until later. I just got a call from my sister in law. She’s dropped my brother off to see my mother, and is on her way to deliver the pressure cooker! Time to go open the gate. :-)
It’s barely evening, but I think I’m done for the day! :-D
We had plans to go into the city so the girls could get some shopping done that we never quite get to when we do our monthly stock up. With that in mind, I started my morning routine early, starting with visiting the kittens.
Beep Beep dashed up the stairs when I opened the door to the basement, so I let her be and made sure no other cats came down. This way, the babies got to have the wet cat food, without having to fight over it with their mom! :-D
Except for Saffron, who was much more interested in me…
I think they did leave some behind for Beep Beep, when she finally came down. :-D
Doing my rounds outside is getting so gorgeous right now!
I noticed that the cherry tree by the house is blooming now.
Just the cherry trees by the house. The ones near the new garden plot are not blooming yet. Both areas get the same amount of light and rain. The only difference is the micro-climate created by the house itself.
I also found some surprise blooms.
When cleaning up along the south side of the spruce grove, I found a row of crab apple trees. While I still have much to do in cleaning up dead wood and thinning out the trees, what I managed to do so far, made a difference. Last summer would have been their first summer with more light and space. Like the row of crab apple trees I uncovered when cleaning up the maple grove, they had no flowers at all last year. This year, there is one tree, with one branch, that is blooming!
It should be interesting to see how things develop here over the years. I will be taking at some of these trees, and hopefully the remaining ones will have better conditions to grow and produce.
The lilacs are starting to open up, scenting the entire yard!
The chokecherries growing among them seem to be doing well this year.
I also checked the sunflowers, and even more of them are sprouting. These are the Early Russian sunflowers, which can grow 6-8 ft tall. The others are Giganteus, which can grow 10-12 ft tall. I hope to see Giganteus seedlings within a few days. The package info says it can be 10-14 days to germination.
When the girls and I headed out to the city, we had a wonderful surprise, just half a mile from home!
I pulled over and my daughter tried to zoom in on my phone as best she could, but zoom really sucks on my phone’s camera.
What you are seeing is a dozen sandhill cranes! They had been near the road when we startled them. These are really huge birds!! Seeing a dozen of them taking off at once was really something!
The drive to the city is about an hour, but along the way we made sure to stop at the medical clinic. The town our doctor is in is about 2/3rds of the way to the city. After not being able to get through yesterday, I wanted to ask about getting renewed prescriptions. Especially for my husband. Given he has the kind that requires a hand written, in triplicate, prescription that needs to be delivered to a pharmacy within 3 days of being written, I said I could come back for them after we were done in the city, rather than waiting until the doctor was off the phone with a patient.
Then it was off to the city, where we had several places to do to. Thankfully, they were not all that far apart, but not only has traffic increased substantially again, but so has construction. Most of the stores had no real restrictions or line ups. At least not the ones we needed to go to. We did drive past a few places that had long line ups outside. Even Walmart didn’t have any line ups for the cashiers, never mind outside.
I really feel for the people lining up outside in this heat we’re having right now!
Still, we got what we needed to do, done. There was some temptation to do more with “while we’re in the city anyway…”, but it was just too long, too hot and too draining! If it wasn’t necessary, we skipped it.
On the way home, we stopped at the clinic again. The doctor ended up asking me to come in to see him about the prescriptions.
It turned out that he had already faxed the refills to the pharmacy. Including my husband’s triplicate prescriptions. Because of the pandemic, they’ve waived the requirement for the pharmacy to have the physical prescriptions. Which no one told me about. They probably assumed I already knew.
My husband’s meds were ready for pick up on the 29th – a Friday – but he forgot to tell me about it until after the pharmacy was closed. So I picked them up on Saturday morning, after dropping my daughter off at work. When I picked them up, the pharmacist told me he could only fill so much, because of the need for renewals.
They must have faxed the clinic when my husband called his refills in, because the doctor faxed the renewed prescriptions …
… on the 29th.
Which means that, when the pharmacist gave me 1 week of bubble packs and told me he couldn’t do more (usually it’s 4 weeks) without a renewed prescription, they already had the renewed prescriptions come in, the day before.
:-/
Meanwhile, I’d been out of my own prescription for some time. When I went to get a refill and they couldn’t, they sent a fax to the clinic right away. I came back a couple of days later, and they still hadn’t received a returned fax.
That had gotten done on the 14th.
No one called me, so I assumed they never got a response. I’ve been without my meds for about 3 weeks. That was part of why I wanted to go in to the clinic in person, since we couldn’t get through by phone.
My doctor clarified all that for me, and even printed out copies of the prescriptions for my own records. Once we were done there, we headed to the town our pharmacy is in.
It turned out my prescription was filled and waiting in the drawer.
*sigh*
Thankfully, my prescription is nothing particularly urgent.
I did ask for my husband’s refills to be done, since he’ll be out in a few days. The bubble packs take more time, so I’ll be coming back tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I picked up something for myself.
After helping my brother patch the shed roof, I felt okay, but by the end of the day, my right wrist started to hurt. I have no idea what I did to injure, or even if it was any one thing that did it. I was able to manage well enough yesterday; mostly, I was reminded of it as a problem when I tried to do something like turn a door nob.
I am considered left handed, because I write with my left hand. With most things, I’m ambidextrous. Some things, I’m right handed.
Like when I open door knobs.
When driving around today, it was more of an issue. Just turning the ignition to start the vehicle was painful. Turning corners, hurt.
So I now have a brace to keep me from over taxing my wrist (though I had to take it off to type) and give it a chance to heal. It’s a bit on the small side, but I got the largest size available.
My and my big, manly hands! :-D
Thankfully, I have two strong daughters who can lug things around for me.
When we unloaded the van, we also brought the pieces of tree in, since it’s supposed to rain. Getting the big one was an issue; we did have to cut one of the branches off.
So far, it hasn’t rained here, but from the looks of the weather radar, we should get at least some, though a rather large rain system has already bypassed us entirely. Some rain would be wonderful. :-)
Meanwhile, it’s time for me to get that wrist brace back on!
This morning was more relaxed for me, thanks to my family taking care of critter feeding. Before heading out to take my mother to her doctor’s appointment, I just had to switch out the memory card on the trail cam, then do some of my usual walk-about.
While walking in the outer yard, past where the grass is overgrown between trees, I noticed a large area of the grass trampled down. Some creature or creatures had surely been tumbling about in there!
As a paused to look, there was an explosion of cats and kittens from under one of the trees!
The Re-Farmer 