Much of it was spent doing some crochet. I got a walk in outside, with lovely weather to enjoy, as well.
My daughters got the one garden bed cleaned up and weeded. As usual, the north end of the bed was filled with elm roots. They got two rows of garlic planted, and will be adding a third row, tomorrow. Then it will be mulched and pretty much done for the winter.
When I went over to see them, I got a few comments on the colorfulness of my bruising that they could see. 😆 I got these pictures, yesterday.
The first one is the arterial line site. It went in and was removed while I was under anesthetic. Being arterial, it is the “riskiest”, but looking the best.
The second is the IV port location. The student nurse removing it had trouble with the tape and dig a fair bit of pulling and tugging.
The third one looks the worst, and should have been the mildest. That’s were the anti- coagulant was injected, in my tricep. It was also the only one that hurt.
Funny how it all seems backwards in severity.
Meanwhile, I finished off a crochet hanging storage bag I was working on. Then, I whipped up a little critter, more as a reason to use some safety eyes I got, but never started a project that needed them. I’ve always used buttons or embroidered eyes on things, previously. It had to be tiny, because I could find only a little handful of polyfil to stuff it with. A quick project is always satisfying.
The enforced reduced mobility should be a good time to catch up on various incomplete projects. Something to make the time feel less wasted!
When I had a laparoscopy done, some 15 or so years ago, the thing that surprised me most was how it basically wiped me out for a month. I felt so weak for so long, and completely drained.
Now?
I feel none of that. If anything, I’m feeling downright energetic! The fact that residual pain from the areas they worked in has reduced so much, so quickly, certainly helps. Basic biological functions that were painful yesterday are pretty much pain free now. I still have to watch myself, of course, but I’m really amazed by how quickly the pains are passing.
I will continue to sleep on the couch in the living room for some time, though. Which means that cats have my king size bed to themselves. You’d think they’d be happy with that, but it hasn’t stopped them from trying to tear down the door into the living room. This set up was made to be temporary and easy to remove. It’s basically just famed chicken wire, with a hook and eyelet on either side of the door to keep it closed. Last night, several different cats decided they absolutely needed to get through that door, because I was there, grabbing at the chicken wire with their claws and trying to pull it open.
My older daughter stayed up almost all night, so that she would be available in case I needed help, and she ended up luring the cats away with wet cat food, after which they finally stopped trying to tear down the door. Mostly. I did actually get some sleep, and found getting in and out of the low couch much easier than I feared. I’d still like to raise it up by about 4 or 5 inches but, for now, it is working. My daughters set up my walker near the couch so I could use it to help get myself up and down, and that worked out very well. By morning, though, I found I didn’t even need to use it.
My brother and his wife did end up coming over for a few hours today, making sure to let us know we didn’t need to even come out to greet them. They had some winterizing to do, and very little time to do it. My daughter did head out to return their container from the lovely turkey soup my SIL had sent home with us, though.
I spent much of my day in the cat free zone. Got some crochet done until I found myself being blinded by the morning sun once it cleared the spruce trees. My husband and daughters made sure I got my high protein meals and plenty of hot tea.
Temperature wise, today was a lovely day, but we had high winds again. In the late afternoon, the girls helped get my walker outside so I could do some walking around, and we were seriously buffeted. We found a lovely surprise on our compost ring; my brother had left a bag of their compost for us. I had been perplexed by this, when he brought us several buckets of compost in the spring but, while staying overnight and their place, they showed me their electric compost machine. I’d never heard of such a thing before, though I’ve seen other types of countertop composters. This thing cooks down the kitchen waste and the end result is a compost that looks a lot like course coffee grounds. I was very happy to see more of it.
When I first started walking around the yard, I checked out the vines on the chain link fence. I’d picked the tiny yellow winter squash a while ago, but those were easy to reach under the frost cloth I’d draped over them. I remembered the green one from nearer the middle of the fence. The wind had torn most of the frost cloth loose, so I could reach around and finally found it. As we walked around the main garden area, I ended up picking the muskmelons that were under the plastic all this time.
In among the frost killed bush beans, fresh onions are growing! I’d harvested the onions from there, but obviously missed a few. These are quite small, so it’s possible they are transplants that simply didn’t grow until the bush beans died back.
While walking around, the girls and I talked about where we could plant more of the little haskaps, and the various things that need to be taken down and put away for the winter. There’s no way we’ll be able to get all the beds cleaned up and prepped before winter. As long as we get one done, planted with garlic and mulched, I’ll be happy. The next while should have good daytime temperatures, so my daughters will be able to harvest the last of the carrots, beets, parsnips and the rest of the chicory root, little by little. That has priority over clearing beds for next year. They are also wanting to get as many more of those smaller pots of haskap as possible planted, too. Looking at the long range forecast, it doesn’t look like the ground will actually freeze until about mid-November. That is unsure, of course, since the forecast that far ahead is based entirely on averages, and this winter is not supposed to be average with that Super El Nińo. It’s entirely possible the ground won’t freeze until some time in December.
I’m rather okay with that.
The hardest thing for me right now is to not go out there and try to do stuff, because I’m feeling way too good and way too energetic!
Last night was a strange one. I kept getting nurses coming by, asking if I was ready to go home, pretty much until shift change. I was quite a mess, apparently. I took a selfie after my brother came and left with my daughter, sent it to my family, and even I could see how absolutely grey I was. They were still asking me about going home, though!
Pain levels were pretty much non-existent, unless I tried to move. I had to get help in and out of bed just to go to the washroom. Mostly lifting my legs for me, so that I didn’t strain my abdominal muscles in any way. The big concern is that I might tear an internal stitch.
Then there was my neighbour…
This ward has three recovery beds with just curtains for privacy, plus a bed in an isolation room. I was in the middle of the three curtained beds, and there was one other person who had the same surgery as I did. I know this because I could hear EVERYTHING. Surgical details. Discharge information. Who her transportation was. Several of her phone calls to that person. Then, hearing her throwing up in the bathroom, repeatedly.
She was still discharged, though they did ask if she wanted to stay overnight and she said no. That left me as the only patient on the ward.
Once she was gone, some people came to clear the space, take the sheets, sanitize the mattress, get the space ready for the next person…
Except it was done in small stages. I heard them banging around, then they’d be gone and I thought they were done, until someone else came over. More banging and crashing, then I thought they were done. Then someone ELSE came over, more banging and crashing, and finally they were done. At one point, I heard a woman start banging around, then another joined her and started talking about her… female problems, shall we say. I thought she was another patient at first, because of what she was talking about, only to find she out was staff. I could tell when she started using voice commands to use her phone to call the housekeeping department to come and finish the room.
Then the night nurse came and introduced herself and to do my vitals. She started to adjust the bed for me, then said I could do it myself, and tried to find the control pad. She eventually found it dangling near the floor. It’s supposed to clip into the arm bar, and she did try to put it in place, but it wouldn’t stay. So she left it on the bed beside me.
I was getting regular painkillers, regular vital checks then, at one point, she came with an anti-inflammatory pill, plus an anti-coagulant injection. No one told me I’d be getting these, so I had to ask her about it.
Eventually, things quieted down. I was able to get the bed completely flat (which took a surprising amount of fiddling) and could lie on my side and sleep. A couple of times, I had to call someone to help me get in and out of bed to use the washroom.
Then… something changed.
In the wee hours of the morning, I was able to get in and out of bed on my own, with no issues. Before getting back into bed, I walked back and forth in the hall, with no problems. I kept walking until I felt I was starting to risk overdoing it before going back to bed.
Even with the interruptions for more painkillers and vitals being checked, I actually got some real sleep.
Then breakfast showed up. Scrambled eggs, a hashbrown pattie, a bowl of oatmeal, fresh sliced apple, milk and coffee. It wasn’t as good as supper was, but I couldn’t complain about it, either.
I drank the coffee.
I was reminded why I don’t normally drink coffee. 😄
I was happy to see the doctor come in during one of my vitals checks. We talked for a while, as I really wanted to know what was going on with the scarring they found, because it couldn’t be from my appendectomy, when I was 12. He said, yes it could. I told him about the cyst I had removed. He asked which side it was on, and I told him they thought it was attached to my left ovary. The scarring was all on my right. Things were stuck to my right ovary. I told him, I had pictures of my cyst (taken after I was inflated, but before it was removed, so you could see quite a lot) and there were no scars. Plus, the pains didn’t start until about 6 months ago.
In the end, we have no idea what happened. He mentioned a few possible causes such as infections and such, but I’ve never had anything like that, that I know of.
They took out scar tissue and some lining I can’t remember the name of which, hopefully, will mean no more pains. It was too dangerous to take out any lymph notes but, by observation, they looked fine. So did my uterus – from the outside. The cancer was all on the inside.
I told the doctor how I was feeling, with some before and after comparisons. When I mentioned that I was able to walk until I finally stopped myself so I wouldn’t over do it, his response was, “there’s no overdoing it.”
…
I wasn’t going to say anything, but I’m notorious for overdoing things. When talking to my daughter about this later, she just laughed and said that he obviously didn’t know me, because I overdo things all the time! 😄
I got instructions in regards to the five incisions around my abdomen that the robot used to do the hysterectomy. What everyone kept forgetting about was my left arm. Before I was put under, I was told they’d be inserting a line there and told me what it was, but I have no memory of the name. When I woke in recovery, it was pointed out to me and I was told it was an arterial line, so I needed to be extra careful with it.
After the visit with the doctor and the nurse finished doing my vitals, I saw the ball of gauze under tape and asked what sort of care it needed. The nurse wasn’t sure, but said she would find out, then left.
She never came back.
Later, a nurse and student nurse came by to do my final checks and final explanation of things. I got my new prescriptions and an explanation of each one. It included Tylenol, but I’m already on T3s, so I didn’t need to fill those. It was mostly the student nurse doing everything, and she also removed my IV port. I asked about my left arm and she wasn’t sure, so she said she would ask and come back with an answer. They came back to reinforce one of my incisions and I asked again. She had forgotten to find out, apologized and said she would ask and come back.
She never came back.
I was all done by then and could get dressed and leave. I kept my daughter in the loop, since she and my brother were coming to get me. At first, I said I could meet them at the doors, but I was waiting for the student nurse to come back.
I ended up meeting my daughter at the registration desk for the ward, then we headed out.
It was a relatively quite drive to my brother’s and we didn’t stay long. With a long drive ahead, we made sure to use the washroom (the hospital really REALLY wanted me to poop!) and say proper thank you’s and good byes.
Since we had new prescriptions, our first stop was the pharmacy in town. Which meant my daughter could find out about her prescription that didn’t get delivered on Thursday, at the same time. As I reached out with my left arm while talking to the person about getting my new prescriptions, I saw my left arm.
The skin under the clear tape covering the gauze was bright red, with what looked like a red streak heading past the tape, towards my elbow. It was not red like that when I washed my hands at my brother’s, so this happened during the drive. It was also warm under the tape, but not on the skin around it, though that warmth did go away. Meanwhile, because part of the tape was over my wrist, every time I moved my hand, the tape there would twist and roll and was starting to come loose as far as the gauze. There was also a visible bruise under the gauze that looked darker.
The women I was taking to could see it, too, and asked if I wanted the pharmacist to take a look. I said yes, please!
By this time, my daughter had picked up her own prescription and we sat to wait the 20 minutes or so for my prescriptions. The pharmacist came by to take a look, and she seemed concerned. It could be an allergic reaction to the tape (I’ve never reacted to medical tape before, and it wasn’t on any of my abdominal incisions), or it could be the start of an infection. She recommended I go to the hospital to get it checked.
Better safe than sorry with something like this!
So we waited until I got my meds, which turned out to be completely covered. I got an anti-inflammatory, and something to protect my stomach from it. Not the same ones I took before that seems to have started all this. I was also given a non-prescription laxative, because these meds can cause constipation; so can the T3s I’m taking. They REALLY want me to poop!
That done, we paid for our stuff then headed for the ER.
I’m pretty sure the admissions clerk recognized us.
I showed her the redness and said I needed it checked, and that I’d just had surgery yesterday. As she asked more questions, I told her I’d had a full hysterectomy.
She looked at me in shock, saying “and you’re out already??” I told her, they wanted to send me home yesterday! She just shook her head in amazement.
Then, while the paperwork was still being done (and she cut off the city hospital bracelet to put on a new bracelet for this hospital), a nurse came by to see who was next to be brought in, and she was told about my arm. She took a look, we talked for a bit, and she ended up taking a picture to show the doctor. She was back before the paperwork was done, saying the doctor thought it might be an allergic reaction, but she would take a closer look when it was my turn.
We didn’t have very long to wait.
It was the same doctor I saw the other two times I was at the ER!
She remembered us.
I ended up telling her about the hysterectomy, the endometrial cancer, and the scarring they found, which would explain the pain she’s treated me twice before. The nurse was there was well, and both of them were looking at me, saying “I can’t believe you’re out already!”
After looking at my arm, she told me she’d have to take the tape off, and I said that I expected it. Between the redness and the bruising, I expected at least a big dark bruise under the gauze.
It’s hard to see in the first image above, but under the tape was quite red, and there’s a swoosh of red on the elbow side. There was some concern about removing the tape and gauze from an arterial line, but when they took everything off, it all looked really good! You can see that in the next image. The bruising turned out to only follow a vein. The site itself just looks like a little vampire bit, and was completely clean and clear.
Since I had no reaction to any other tape on me, their best guess was that I was reacting to whatever was used to sanitize the area before the line was put in. The nurse said a name, but I can’t remember what it was.
It looked so good, they saw no need to do anything to it. I just got a button bandage to cover the two little pokes.
Then I suggested, maybe my IV site needed to be done, too. The student nurse had a hard time with it, and the gauze under the tape (not a waterproof tape, like on my left arm) was saturated with blood that had already dried hard. They took the tape off and…
It looked fine. I just got another button bandage on it, just in case.
They were quite happy with how it all turned out.
I got instructions on what to look out for, and what to do if the redness got worse instead of better, and then we could go. My daughter went to bring the truck around while I updated the family. I was just heading out the doors when the nurse and doctor came back and caught me. The doctor wanted to give me a tube of allergy cream to use on my arm, if the redness got worse, so we wouldn’t have to go back to the pharmacy.
That was so sweet of her!
After that, we could FINALLY go home!
Through all this, I was doing really well. Obviously, there’s internal pain, which is a bit more extended because of all the scar tissue they had to deal with. It means having a full bladder hurts, having gas hurts, and eliminating hurts. Moving around, shifting, bumps on the road, all can hurt, but the pain is limited to just the surgical areas. I’m not feeling other pain. I’m not feeling sick or dizzy. All the long list of things to watch out for has not been an issue. Just localized pain directly related to the surgery.
I kept hearing from the family, how much better I was looking, too! I’m no longer grey, for starters.
Which means I’m going to really have to watch out. I feel “too” good, and it would be way too easy for me to … well… overdo things, regardless of what the doctor says!
I will have to sleep on the couch, though. In the cat free zone. The cats have a habit of parkouring off my belly at times, and I certainly can’t have that happen!! I’m not sure how well that will work, as the couch is quite low and hard to get up from. Not much choice in the matter!
So we are now home and I am in my 6 week recovery period. I’ll be getting a letter in the mail with my 4 week follow up appointment with the doctor. He’ll have the pathology results by then, which will tell him what stage the cancer was at. Once we have that information, we can know what needs to be done next, if anything, other than monitoring.
I’m also banned from driving for the next 2-3 weeks. No to using power tools or machinery. No to making any legal decisions. No to lifting anything more than 10 pounds.
Which means I’m going to have to get a lot of stuff done through my daughters. Normally, I focus on the outside stuff, they focus more on the inside stuff. Now, I can’t do any of it. So my daughters are going to do all the winterizing and finishing off with the garden, cleaning up and preparing beds and putting things away for the winter.
With all the haskaps we’ve got planted, my daughter and I have decided we should plant flower seeds in the loose soil around them now, so they’ll come up in the spring. My daughter also wants to plant a few more of the haskaps that are left in the little pots. We’ve got some warmer days for the next while, so it’ll be perfect for that.
Which reminds me. A few days ago, my SIL sent me a screen cap of a “this many years ago today” photo that showed up for her on Oct. 13. It was of my late father, sitting in his walker by the house, in the area in front of the old basement window. All around him was bright green grass. The picture was taken on Oct. 13, 2014. The last time we saw my father was a Thanksgiving road trip in 2015, another mild fall. We’re having another mild fall now. Talking to my brother on Thursday evening, he well remembers years when we had to make our Halloween costumes over snow suits, and my parents driving us in blizzards to houses to shout, “Halloween Apples” (we didn’t shout “trick or treat”, because that was mean).
I’m quite appreciating our mild weather, and we are expecting a mild winter, too, thanks to that Super El Nińo. Here’s hoping!
A mild winter will also make it easier on all of us, health wise, too.
It was actually pretty good. Chicken Alfredo fusili with cubed squash. Cappuccino cake. Tea, and milk.
I drank the milk, even though I dislike milk as a beverage.
Things were good when I woke this morning. Then, maybe half an hour before we left, pain levels started to increase. They got worse during the drive in.
We arrived about an hour early. I got checked in right away.
Pain levels increased. Eventually, I could not longer sit and tried walking around the waiting room with my walker, when is when someone came for me.
The woman who came to get me took one look at my face and started asking about my pain levels.
I got in and gowned up and, once settled in the gurney with the heated blanket across my abdomen, my daughter was able to come join me.
Pain levels increased.
The attending nurse called the anesthesiologist and got the okay to give me T3s, since that’s what I’ve been taking lately.
Pain levels increased, and my face must have been something, because the nurse came back and looked very alarmed. She asked me what I would rate the pain levels from 1 – 10. I told her, if I were home, I’d be considering going to the ER.
She started to ask if I wanted stronger painkillers, then cut herself off and saud, she would get something for me. Not long after, we heard her telling someone, I need hydromorphone. Now.
I got it through the IV. Oh, what a difference thar made!!
While going over all the pre-op stuff, the nurse started saying I would likely be staying overnight. My daughter messaged my brother to make sure that was okay, and she could crash at their place, one more night.
They were pretty much expecting that, wondering why anyone was saying day surgery, to begin with.
After a while, the surgical team came over and introductions ensued. Then the surgeon told me, the full hysterectomy might not stop the pain.
Talking to my daughter later, she said the doctor looked both alarmed and confused.
He explained that endometrial cancer does not hurt. It can’t. If something else is causing the pain, removing the parts and pieces night not stop it. That’s when he started saying I would probably be staying overnight.
More questions and I explained the pain is specifically around the uterus and ovaries.
That was part of the confusion. There should be no pain from this type of cancer.
I was soon moved to the other hospital, using the overpass across the street, because the other hospital is where the robot is. I woke up back at the Women’s hospital, in recovery.
Turns out, I had issues.
They had to remove unexpected tissue, but could not remove any lymph nodes.
They found a lot of scar tissue. Things were stuck to each other. which would explain the pain! They thought it might be from my appendectomy. Which happened when I was 12, so that makes no sense.
I didn’t think of it to bring it up at the time, but when I had laporoscopic surgery to remove a large cyst, more than a decade ago, there was no scar tissue.
So this happened since then. However, I had no pains like this until a few months ago.
Very strange
So I am still in the recovery area. I had forgotten my phone, and my brother came over to drop it off, then he and my daughter left very quickly, as my SIL was waiting with the car in the drop off zone.
My daughter was with me in recovery for quite some time, and was there when a food tray suddenly appeared. No one had said anything about my being able to eat though by then, I was quite famished.
Since then, my vitals are regularly being tested – and the different nurses keep asking about my going home for the night. With the last one, I told her, my ride just left. At this point in the say, they should no longer be asking. I can hear the woman in recovery on the other side of the curtain. She had the same surgery as me.
They are discharging her tonight.
!!!
There is lots more, of course, but that’s enough for now. I’m going to have to page a nurse, anyhow. I need help getting out of bed, just yo use the washroom.
I’m no longer on IV or oxygen now. I cant use my IV dancing partner to keep from falling, but I do have my walker. When I got help earlier, I asked for the nurses arm, and ended up trying very hard not to lean on her. She was just a tiny little bird. No way she could support me if I fell!
Well, I just my last vitals done for the next while. Next painkillers at midnight, so I can get a nap in.
I got assistance to use the washroom, then tried to do the walking I’m supposed to do. Started feeling nauseous before I reached 30 feet. The nurse walking with me got me back to the bed, but had to get someone ekse to help me actually get in.
Much of the day was spent getting as many little things done before heading out. Things I won’t be able to do for weeks, after the surgery.
Of course, that meant the phone kept ringing. The pharmacy. Home care with their annual call to my husband. My mother.
That one got weird.
The prescription delivery arrived, but it wasn’t until we were on the road that we realized my daughter’s meds were not included. Which means the pharmacy didnt hear back from her doctor with an extension for her refills. Not good, considering she was already out.
We left a bit earlier than I originally planned on, because the weather was getting unpleasant. I’m glad we did, as the weather meant it started getting dark earlier. We did make one stop along the way to fill the tank again. It wasn’t down much, but the town on the highway we took was still at a lower price than we’ve seen everywhere but Costco. We went in to get drinks, too, and ended up getting chicken skewers to have on the road as my high protein supper. I find the skewers dry, but they are something I can eat while driving, and my daughter loves them.
We got yo my brother’s in good time, and have had a wonderful evening, talking. I learned all sorts of things from my brother that I was too young to remember, and some from before I was born.
We have all started settling in for the night, as I write this. My fast officially starts at midnight, and I made sure to bring meat snacks that I can have until then, so I don’t find myself famished in the wee hours. Hopefully, I will actually sleep. Knowing I have an early timeline for the morning usually means I end up awake all night. 😆 We shall see.
I am so looking forward to tomorrow and getting this over and done with!
Less than 12 hours before I am to check in for surgery.
The counter down has gone from days, to mere hours.
One more day after today, and then I’m in for surgery.
It was not a good day today.
Oddly, for the past couple of days, I have been feeling not just frequently hungry, but famished. I don’t have much appetite, but I make myself eat adequate portions yet, only a couple of hours later, I’m famished again. This morning, I woke feeling so hungry, I felt like I would pass out if I didn’t get some food in me.
I did manage to get the outside cat feeding done first. I later found out my daughters were having a difficult time, too.
I got a head count of 14 this morning, as they enjoyed their cat soup. From the state of the sun room, it looks like raccoons were digging around and moving things that cats just don’t have the bulk to move themselves.
The cats definitely are more comfortable with my cat whisperer daughter than with me. Even my older daughter has been able to walk up to and pet the Shrine Lady. You can see her in the second image, eating cat soup outside. She had been in the sun room but ran out with my moving around, even though I had made no effort to approach her. Meanwhile, my daughters have even managed to pet the remaining calico. I saw her this morning. She ate from the tray under the water bowl house and won’t let me anywhere near her. I ended up not topping up the water bowls because I didn’t want to scare them away by dragging the hose around.
I then made myself a large, high protein breakfast, as per my instructions in the homework I got from the cancer clinic. I had to make myself finish it. That whole “being hungry but having no appetite” thing is unpleasant, to say the least. Unfortunately, my pain levels kept getting worse, to the point I had difficult standing up straight and had to walk… in an… interesting posture, shall we say… to reduce strain on the pertinent areas. My daughter had to do the driving and most of the dashing around today.
Which she was having trouble with, too.
I’d considered leaving a bit later, closer to when the post office closed, as I thought a package might be in. I wanted to give the postal clerk time to process things. I checked tracking and found the expected delivery date had changed from tomorrow to Oct. 21, which is the same date as a second package. The depots the packages were in were also in different provinces. There was no way they’d be in this week at all.
So, we headed out about an hour earlier than I originally planned, but still stopped at the post office to get our regular mail. My daughter had to go in to get the mail while I stayed in the truck. It was good that we stopped, because my daughters got what looked like Government of Canada envelopes, and I got my annual notice about our vehicle renewal registration.
My daughter also came back with the package I had thought might come in today, but was suddenly listed as coming in on Oct. 21. So very strange.
As for my letter about our vehicle registration, it also included my driver’s license renewal reminder for next month. I have “safe driving” discounts, so the $55 for the license had a $15 discount. There was, however, another $20 driver’s license fee added on, so the total is $60. One fee goes to the province for issuing the license. I believe the other goes to the insurance company for processing it.
The monthly payments for the insurance on the truck, meanwhile, have gone down again. I have enough merit points on my license that it’s been going down every year. Not by much, but every little bit helps.
Our next stop was in town at the hardware store. My daughter went in with my cards to ask if they had any Roof Melt and pick up a bucket, if they had any in stock. It turned out that it was too early. They’ll be getting some later. I should remember to call them and ask them to set one aside for me and let me know when the inventory has arrived, so we can come in and get it right away.
From there, we finally made it to the pharmacy, and I had to go in for that one. I had to let my daughter take the walker out for me and get it set up before I could even get out of the truck. I felt a bit guilty about about that, as it was clearly painful for her to get it out of the truck for me. She was caning it the whole time herself, and looked like she could have used a walker of her own!
My daughter had her own prescription to refill, but they couldn’t do it today. Tomorrow is their delivery day and it will be ready for then. Which means she will have it before we leave to spend the night at my brother’s.
Then I talked to them about my husband’s refills, and they weren’t able to fill those today, either. They needed to fax his doctor for more refills on one of them. So I made arrangements for those to be delivered tomorrow as well. The pharmacist that helped me looked them up from last time to see the cost, and they weren’t covered, it seems, by either his private nor the province’s prescription insurance. Either that or his 75% coverage still left him with almost $150 to pay.
Then I asked to get a refill on my T3s, but also asked if I had any other painkiller prescriptions on my file. I knew the tramacet wouldn’t be there, as it was only for 14 days, but I couldn’t remember if I still had tramadol available.
I did not.
That’s okay. I just had to wait about 20 minutes to get my 3 month’s worth of T3s. That was less than $45 for the 3 months, after insurance covering 75%.
During this whole time, I was heavily relying on my walker, even as something to lean against while sitting on one of their very comfortable waiting area chairs.
We had one more stop before going home, this time at the grocery store. My husband needed distilled water, which happened to be on sale, so it worked out to be less than what it would have cost at Walmart, for his four 4L jugs. He requested some “healthy crunchies”, which is never easy to find. He was happy with what I managed to find, though. Since I’m supposed to be low carb/high protein, I found some snack meats for both of us – also on sale, which was nice. Since we’re all going to be having much to deal with over the next while, I ended up getting boxed cereal for all of us – all on sale – even though I won’t actually be able to eat any of it for a while. My daughter remembered that we had not picked up pasta at Costco, and some brands were on sale, so we got a few packages. It was a good sale, so there wasn’t much choice left on the shelf. There was a really good sale on a brand of pasta sauce, too, but those shelves were completely empty! Even with all the discounts, it still came out to just over $100, but it came out of my husband’s budget, not our regular grocery budget, which was nice.
Thankfully, by the time we were done there, I was finally starting to feel a bit better and the pain was slowly starting to pass. Which is good, because my daughter was in so much pain that she was trying – and failing – to hide, I could get the walker into the truck myself. Normally, with heavier stuff like the water bottles to bring in, we would have backed up to the house to unload, but my daughter said she wasn’t up to getting back into the cab again to park in the garage, and she didn’t want me driving, so she parked straight into the garage. Thankfully, I have this convenient walker and I used that to carry the heaviest bag with the water bottles, along with another bag, to the house with it.
I did stop along the way to check out the sunflowers.
The Mammoth sunflowers are still blooming, and are pretty much the only thing left for the pollinators (the alpine strawberries are also still blooming). Today is a bit warmer, but it’s still cool enough that the pollinators weren’t moving very much!
The plan had been to take advantage of today’s warmer weather to get things done outside, but that’s not working out. Both my daughters are having issues preventing them from physically doing the stuff today. As for myself, while the pain has finally passed by the time I started writing this, if I try to do any of this stuff myself, it would be back again in a very short time; probably worse. I’ll be heading out to do the outside cat feeding soon and will at least walk around the yard to get some fresh air and sunshine, but that’s pretty much my limit right now.
One more day.
One more day of this, then it’s surgery day! I am so looking forward to it! If all goes to plan, I’ll have my 6 week recovery period, and then I’m going to once again be the most able bodied person in the household again. 😄 By then it will be December, though. Anything we don’t manage to get done in the garden by then will have to wait until spring, unless we have a ludicrously mild winter. Which is possible. We’ve had them before. I recall seeing a local photo, taken in the early 1880’s, of farmers plowing their fields – on Christmas Eve!
A thought occurred to me, though. My daughters both have appointments in the city on November 3 and 4. My older daughter’s appointment is at the Women’s hospital. The original plan had been that I would drop them off, then leave the downtown area and hang out at a shopping area, with free parking, until they messaged me to come get them.
I will still be restricted from driving at that point. Which means we could park where I did last time and I would keep adding $2 to the machine ever half hour until they are done. Or my daughter would have to drive around the maze of streets to find a parking spot and we all walk over, which I would be very limited in doing. Or we would drop off my oldest daughter and my younger daughter would drive us to a shopping area with free parking and stay with me. The hospital has free wifi, so my older daughter, who has a phone but no plan and doesn’t want one, could message us to come back for her.
For her sister’s appointment, the creepy clinic does at least have a whole 3 free parking spots available, just behind the building.
It’s frustrating that we haven’t been able to get my younger daughter her full license by now, and she has to have someone with a full license beside her when she drives. We can’t use our truck for her road test, with the various dashboard lights on. We know what they are on for, but the tester can’t accept that. She has to get 2 hours with a driving instructor before she can do a road test, and we’ve heard of places where they do the 2 hours and then the road test is booked for right after, using the driving school’s vehicle, but there is no one local that does that.
Her sister, meanwhile, can’t even take the written test until she gets her new glasses prescription and finally gets new glasses, and a road test isn’t going to happen until after she has her own surgery. Whenever that will be. Same surgery as what I’m getting in a couple of days, but they’re talking about a 6 month wait, still. Somehow, she’s not considered as urgent as me, even though it nearly killed her.
Bizarre.
But I digress.
Time to go outside and feed some kitties for the evening.
I honestly wasn’t sure if I was up to the trip today, health wise. Pain levels increased again during the night. Not especially bad, except the bleeding suddenly increased, too. I found myself feeling quite dizzy in the morning. I thought, at first, it was because I was really hungry but, even after I ate, the dizziness stayed. I didn’t think I’d lost that much blood, though!
My daughters, meanwhile, ended up not being able to sleep at all last night, so if I couldn’t drive, neither could my daughter.
In the end, though, I found myself feeling before by the time we were ready to leave, and kept feeling better the whole time. My daughter, meanwhile, was able to get some sleep during the drive in, though she still wasn’t feeling well throughout the day. Bad PMOS (formerly PCOS) day.
We got it done, though! Under budget, too, though I did skip a couple of things I would have liked to get, but couldn’t justify the expense. Others, I didn’t get because we simply couldn’t get to the displays. Too many people blocking the aisles.
On the way out, we did stop at a gas station and put in $30 in gas. Just enough to make sure we didn’t drop below half a tank before getting to the Costco. Surprisingly, the gas prices were down to $1.689/L When we got gas in town on the way to Walmart on Sunday, the prices were $1.829 When we reached the Costco, the first thing we did was fill the tank. The price of regular gas there was $1.669 Usually, Costco gas is at least 5 or 10 cents lower than elsewhere, which suggests that prices in the city were still high. Odd, that. Filling the tank cost $61.74
For a moment, I considered using a handicap parking spot but figure there wouldn’t be any spaces, so we parked further out. While toodling by on my walker, my daughter using her cane, I was glad I didn’t bother trying. Every single space was filled, and they have a lot of them. That’s pretty typical.
The shopping itself went rather well, in general. The only frustration was all the people who kept abandoning carts in the middle of the aisle while looking at things, stopping in bottlenecks to get their free samples, or just hanging out and chatting, leaving little space for a cart to get through, never mind a flat cart. Several times, I just gave up and we turned around to another aisle, skipping whatever we would have gotten otherwise. It if was just one person, I’d have politely asked to get by, but it wasn’t. It was usually half a dozen carts, with their scattered people, blocking almost the entire aisle!
I really, really dislike shopping.
Anyhow. This is what $485.98 looks like.
With the trip we managed on Walmart, it meant we needed a smaller Costco trip than usual. We did include a couple of treats.
Okay… bottom of the basket stuff…
We got two rotisserie chickens. The cashier caught herself accidentally scanning on of them twice. There’s a case of Monster energy drinks, which my daughter sent funds for. More toilet paper, because we just can’t really have too much toilet paper in this household. For the cats, we got two 11.6kg bags of kibble; one for the inside cats, one for the outside cats. Given this is the middle of the month already, this might last us until the next stock up trip, just over 2 weeks from now. We did not get more canned cat food.
We loaded the belt first with cold/frozen stuff and heavy stuff. They had 4L jugs in 3% milk, so we got one of those (normally, we get 2L cartons locally). There is no difference in price at Costco, since milk is price controlled by the government, but my daughter informed me that we were out. There’s a 3 pack of 2L oat milk for my daughters. I picked up a brie, because it was on sale. Two panini packs for sandwiches. A block of Old Cheddar cheese (we still have some at home, so I just got the one). I wanted a heat and eat for my husband, and the same weight of dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets cost less than the ones that weren’t in fancy shapes, so we got the dino nuggets.
I got only 3 pounds of butter, as I’d already picked a couple up at Walmart. The name brand butter at Walmart was a better price than the Kirkland brand Costco butter.
We got a 2 pack of butter chicken sauce that was on sale, some peanut butter, and a large container of canola oil. There’s a double flat of eggs. We also got a 2 pack of loose mild Italian sausage meat, and our treat was a pack of 120 mini Halloween chocolate. We don’t do Halloween – no one comes out this far – so it’s just for the four of us.
I remembered to grab a 2 pack of parchment paper; something we find we use quite a bit, making washing up much easier. For bread, I got just one 2 pack of rye bread and our usual 2 packages of wraps, but I also picked up two large bags of the triangular ciabatta buns. There is also a large sushi platter for the girls, which my daughter sent funds for.
There we have it. Only about $80 of this trip was cat stuff, too.
My husband let us know, after the Walmart trip, that he had started his last bottle of distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. Costco doesn’t carry that. We considered making a side trip to a Walmart on the way out, as they have the best prices for that, but in the end we decided it wasn’t worth it. Tomorrow, I’ll be going in to pick up prescription refills for my husband, and my daughter has refills as well, so we’ll pick up distilled water in town tomorrow, instead. The difference in price is not enough to make up for the extra cost of gas to get them at a Walmart. I need to remember to stop at a Home Hardware as well, and see if they have any Roof Melt in stock. We need to make sure no ice dam forms over the sun room roof again. Even with the new roof, we had water starting to leak into the sun room because of the ice dam that forms.
Once we had the truck loaded and headed for home, we did make a stop at a gas station just outside the city to use the facilities. I got some snacks and a drink for my daughter, and remembered to pick up some gum for after my surgery. I still find it so weird that they actually tell you to chew gum as a way of reducing gas. Gum can often lead to the opposite effect, but they also say for 5 minutes, before or after eating, so… maybe that makes the difference? Either way, I now have gum.
Which reminds me. I got a call on my cell phone while driving out. My daughter was able to answer and put it on speaker phone for me. It turned out to be the hospital. They were looking at my very short medications list. I have one prescription I’ve been on for many years, morning and night, and I need to stop taking that as of today. I can still take my T3s, though. I should see if I can get more of those while at the pharmacy tomorrow, as I am out of the stronger stuff I had only a 2 week prescription for.
I also remembered to call the eye doctor and reschedule the joint appointment for my older daughter and I. I booked it after they called to reschedule, but before I had a surgery date. Being only a week after the surgery date, I figured it wasn’t a good idea to do it so quickly. I wouldn’t be driving myself, anyhow, since I would be getting the eye dilation drops, but it still seems too soon. It is now booked for the second week of November; almost 4 weeks after surgery. That should be safe.
Just a few more days. I am so looking forward to getting it over and done with!
Stocking up takes on a whole new meaning when we’re not sure when we’ll be able to go shopping again.
Today, I had hoped to do our second stock up shopping trip.
So much for that.
I woke up with my cold feeling worse. Still not as bad as my daughters have been feeling, but definitely not up to a trip to the city and a stock up shop. Which is getting to be a problem. It doesn’t help that I simply don’t want to go at all in the first place. I don’t want to make the drive. I don’t trust the truck. I don’t want to do the shopping – and certainly not a Costco shop in Thanksgiving weekend!
It turned out to be a very lovely day today. We hit 21C/70F today and, as I write this past 5pm, we are still at 19C/66F. Things are supposed to get quite a bit cooler over the next three days, with overnight lows just barely above freezing.
I did manage to finally get outside in the afternoon and worked on the sun room. I wasn’t physically up to moving things to work on the garden storage side of the room, but I could start setting the cat side up. With temperatures dropping, I want to be able to set up the heat lamps, soon.
It isn’t finished, but this is how far I got, after bringing some trays back at the evening feeding time.
I did not put the big cube cat cage back together again, instead setting the wire frames to make a wall of cubes to put bedding in. I used up all my little dollar store zip ties to secure corners, as the wire walls can pop out of the connectors quite easiliy. We’ve still got scraps of rigid insulation cut to fit the floors of a few cubes, and those got beds and blankets set on them. The insulation is to act as a floor more than anything else. Otherwise, the cats’ feet will fall through the openings, taking the cat beds with them. The smaller cat bed is on the floor, so it doesn’t need the extra insulation layer. The old windshield shade was set on top to act both as a floor that cats can walk on, and a sort of self-warming mat to sit on. Over time, we’ll probably be adding cardboard onto the other cubes to make solid floors in them the cats can walk on.
Other shelves were brought back and a few more cat beds laid out. I had some cardboard pieces that had been on top of the cat cage that won’t be used for that anymore, so I set them on the concrete before putting the larger kibble trays on top.
In the photo, on the left, you can see Colby, the orange and white cat. He’s had scabbing on his neck for a while, but today I realized he has a huge bloody wound and it looks like skin is missing. You can sort of see it in the photo. He seems to have an insanely bad case of ear mites in that ear. I do have some medication for it, from long enough ago that it’s expired. It needs to be injected directly into the ear canal, which is quite difficult to do with outside cats, and is why we still have it. Looking at the instructions, it says it needs to be used in both ears every 24 hours until the bottle is empty, though the bottle is enough for two cats. Being expired, it won’t work as well, but it’s all we have and and we need to at least do something. Getting Colby to allow us to do it, though, is going to be a two person job. Since it needs to be done every 24 hours, it would need to be done with the morning feeding, which is more consistent than the evening feedings when it comes to time.
Next, I need to figure out how to set up the clamp lamps safely. One can be attached to the cube shelf again. We had the second one attached to the mini greenhouse frame near the cat cage. The mini greenhouse is now behind the door and the cat cage is now just cubes. They have to be set up close enough to reach the plug, of course, so that limits things, too. I’m trying to think if one can be attached to the wire cubes, but not have any cats knocking into it while going into the cube beds. One of the issues we had before is that the cats would go under the lamps at feeding time, their tails up in the air, and suddenly we’ve be smelling burnt cat fur. Even with a wire guard over the bulb that one lamp has, their tails still managed to get into the cone and touch the bulb! Ideally, the lamps would be under something that would keep the heat in. In the past, we’ve used old closet doors and the summer door for our basement, but we don’t have the set up to support anything like that anymore. It did give the cats a whole other level of surface to sleep on, though, which they quite liked. It would be good if we could find a way to do something like that again.
At this point, I’m trying to keep access to the large window closer to the inside all open. That window is single pane and has been since before we moved out here. The inside pane having shattered long ago. In the winter, it gets completely frosted. I want to see if I can get a window insulating kit that can cover a window that large. Aside from keeping it from frosting up, it should act as a bit of insulation as well. We’ve tried setting the rigid insulation into the windows in the past, but the sheets are too long and too narrow then, once they were set in, they kept falling off. Plus, the cats really, really like to use that insulation to scratch at!
It isn’t much, but it felt good to at least get that done.
In other things, while I was feeling sicker with the cold, the pain levels didn’t get particularly bad today, which was nice for a change. Hopefully, that will continue tomorrow, and my cold will get better, because we really need to do that second stock up shop! Even if we just go to the nearest Walmart, instead. We might skip Costco altogether at this point.
Today would have been a good one to get some things done outside. Not to hot, not too cold.
It didn’t happen, of course.
I’ve caught my daughters’ colds.
*sigh*
Well, if I’m going to be sick with a cold, better for it to be now, with time enough to get over it before surgery.
My daughters are both quite sick and trying to stay away from me and my husband as much as possible, though I suppose it’s a bit late to worry about me catching it. Yesterday, my younger daughter was especially ill, but is doing better today. Hopefully, she will be feeling better tomorrow, and I won’t be feeling worse, because we really need to do that Costco shop that’s been delayed over and over!
I did manage to accomplish one thing, though. I’ve worked out the transportation issues for my surgery. Instead of us being on the road by 7am, trying to find parking and so on, we will instead go to my brother’s on Thursday to spend the night. My SIL will drop us off in the morning, then come back to get us whenever it’s all done. Then my daughter will drive us home from their place.
Have I mentioned I have the best SIL? I usually say that about my brother, but it absolutely applies to my SIL, too!
Meanwhile, I’ve been spending much of the day drinking hot tea with lots of lemon, or soup stock, plus some Nyquil a couple of times. As has become pretty the usual pattern, the pain levels started kicking in in the late morning, and I ended up painkillered up and in bed for most of the afternoon before it just faded away again.
I did try to at least do some crafting this afternoon. Finished off the beaded garland I was crocheting around but had made a mistake on before. I had worked on it for a while before realizing the shells I was crocheting today looked quite different from the ones I’d been doing before. Turns out I’d completely forgotten how I’d worked the previous shells, with plans to work another row before I found the mistake that was too far back to be worth fixing. The new shells I was doing looked better, so I just kept it. It’s not like this garland is going to be used by anyone but us. It’s now officially finished, flawed as it it. Then I worked on another work in progress. It was just single crochet being worked to make a solid triangle, and it took me a while to remember what I was making it for. The fact that I was falling asleep while stitching didn’t help my memory any!
Which has become the biggest obstacle to my taking advantage of my forced down time to work on crafts I’ve had to set aside, some for years. I’m falling asleep as I try to do anything.
Ah, well. After the surgery, during my recovery period, that should no longer be as much of an issue, and I hope to be able to do more crafting. Things to keep me busy while on forced mobility restrictions, so I don’t go stir crazy!
At this time next week, the surgery should be done, and I should be on my way home.
If all goes well. Must always have a back up plan, just in case!
I would love to have the life our cats are living. 😁
Today, the plan was to do the Costco shopping trip.
Last night, my older daughter let us know she was feeling like she was coming down with something and would be avoiding contact as much as possible to avoid spreading something.
Then my younger daughter also started feeling ill.
Which meant I would be doing the Costco trip alone.
Okay. Risky, but okay.
This morning, I found myself feeling like I was coming down with a cold, too. Very mild. Could have been something else. I decided not to take a chance, so when my younger daughter came in after doing the outside cat feeding, I told her Costco was out. It turned out she was working up to coming along with me, even though she was still not feeling well. Once I told her I was staying home, she went back to bed and crashed for several hours.
I tried to do the same but as soon as I started showing signs of being awake, I got covered in cats wanting attention, so that didn’t work out well. My husband was the only person feeling well enough to throw something into the oven for breakfast, which is saying a lot.
I’m glad I didn’t take the chance of going to the city. Before I was finally able to get up, I was no longer feeling like I was coming down with a cold. Instead, the pain levels started kicking in and the bleeding suddenly increased, after several days with no bleeding at all. It kept getting worse, even as I was just sitting at my computer, until I finally had to lie down. If I had done the drive to the city, then tried to walk around a Costco, without my daughter to take over with shopping and driving, I would have gotten much worse and would have had to wait it out before I could safely drive myself home.
When I did finally lie down, I figured I should phone my mother. I haven’t been able to visit her for quite some time, though my brother has, and kept me up to date. He had been able to set up internet in her room that allowed him to get her an internet radio that he programmed for all Polish radio stations, plus the one local multi-cultural station with a Polish hour that she used to always listen to. He was also able to set up a regular large button telephone for her, instead of the senior’s mobile phone, with an internet phone number. With that one, he programed the phone numbers for himself, our sister, plus two for me – one the land line, one my cell phone – all with photos of us on the buttons. My mother would only need to push a single button to call us.
When he got there, neither was working. Someone had taken away the device he’d set up that allowed both to connect through Wi-Fi. The phone and radio were working fine, but had no internet to connect to. He talked to someone at the front desk and they did find a note in the maintenance log about it, but nothing about why it was taken away. They found another one for her, so he got that set up again and working.
Which is when he discovered that all the pre-programmed buttons on the radio had been re-programmed, all to the one multicultural radio station. My mother had been button mashing again. She also had trouble understanding which knob to use to turn on the radio, which is also the volume button, and was instead using the knob to manually change stations.
*sigh*
While talking to my mother on the phone, she told me about her radio only having one station. I asked her if she was pressing a button and holding. She very proudly said yes.
That’s how the buttons get programmed. Instead of simply pressing a button and letting go when trying to change stations, she pressed and held and programmed the button for the radio station she was trying to move away from – and did it with all the buttons, then couldn’t understand why all the buttons had the same station.
I explained it to her a bit, but it will have to wait until my brother visits next for it to be reprogrammed, and he won’t be able to do that until after Thanksgiving weekend.
She wondered about my sister not visiting and I reminded her my sister was still out of province for a festival with their church. She did not ask me when I would be visiting next, though, and instead asked how I was doing. Nor did she say any of the other things she usually goes after me about. Which is quite unusual. I guess that’s one benefit to having cancer. My mother is behaving better towards me! Sad that this is what it took.
I did tell her about the huge number of trees we ended up getting through my brother. She was curious about how this happened, so I briefly explained. She was pretty thrilled about the idea that we might eventually have enough berries to actually be able to sell them, like she used to do with her raspberries.
In the end, it was a rather short call, and my pain levels were still spiking and I had to say good bye, which got no argument from her at all.
As difficult as things can sometimes be with my mother with her not being able to understand some things – things she used to have no problem with, like phones and radios – we are grateful that she is doing remarkably well overall. My FIL, who was in supportive living since my MIL passed away, had a fall a few weeks back and is still in the hospital. Physically, he’s doing somewhat better, but his cognitive decline increased substantially. He won’t be able to go home, has been diagnosed with dementia, and they are going through the process of getting him into a personal care home. The frustrating thing is that we are completely unable to go visit him. My husband simply can’t do the trip anymore, without being incapacitated by pain just from the drive. My FIL is more than a decade younger than my mother, but is in poorer physical and mental condition than she is. A reminder that, in the end, age has nothing to do with it.
I’m happy to say that my own pain levels did eventually recede, and I’m now feeling much better. I was even able to take a walk outside, and I did the evening cat feeding. Which had an unfortunate surprise for me. My daughter had noted this morning that we were out of kibble, and I told her there was another 40 pound bag of donated kibble left.
I was wrong.
Looking at the stack of bags where I thought there was kibble, there was only litter pellets. No kibble bag left at all.
So I “stole” some from the inside cats’ kibble bin. Enough to last until tomorrow morning. After that, we’re going to have to go out to get more kibble. Thankfully, we can do that at the general store the post office is in, and not have to drive to another town.
The girls were feeling better by the end of the day and considered digging more holes for those last haskaps, but we were starting to lose the light by then, so they will work on it tomorrow, instead. Ten more large pots, then as many of the little ones that we can find space for. We should at least be able to fill the last measured out spaces my brother had tilled, tomorrow.
My daughter and I are then going to have to go to bed early tomorrow and, hopefully, get a full night’s sleep, because we’ll be getting up quite early to get to my brother and SIL’s place to leave the truck while she drives us to my appointment in the city.
Today, meanwhile, was very much a non-day for all of us. We all felt unwell for one reason or another, and got next to nothing accomplished.
