I already posted a photo of the new kitten on the block. This is a photo I took, just before I caught it.
The kitten in the back is the one I caught. The puff ball in the front is also on the list for kittens that are so tiny, they need to come indoors.
It is not at all cooperative.
There are two more black kittens with white spots on their chests from this litter (plus a much bigger one from another litter that is more catten then kitten, now). One of them should be fine and is bigger, but the other is staying teeny tiny. I don’t know why there is such a difference in sizes in the same litter, but the littles are at far greater risk, so if we can snag them for indoors, we will.
In other things…
My husband and I headed out fairly early today to get our blood work done. The results should be ready in time for his appointment with a doctor, tomorrow. Hopefully, this is a doctor that will take him on as a new patient. Once of the requirements for his disability income is to be under the care of a doctor, and he doesn’t have one right now.
These were fasting blood tests, so after it was done, we had to go for breakfast. With all the medications my husband is on, he doesn’t feel hunger anymore, but I was at the “getting dizzy and nauseous” stage of hunger. There was one restaurant we’ve been to before that I thought would be open, but it turns out to open just before lunch, not for breakfast, so we stopped at a hotel café not far away. This is one of those places that has been around forever, and where locals go to regularly for breakfast. I haven’t been there in years!
It’s not accessible, though, so my husband had to cane it up the stairs. Once we were there and settled, looking at the menu, I happened to glance across the room and saw a familiar face I hadn’t seen in years! It was an old friend of ours from high school! The last time I saw her was before she’d moved up North to one of the territories! It was really great to run into her like that!
After breakfast, we made a stop at the pharmacy to pick up prescription refills that would normally have been delivered today, then headed home.
My husband told me to go ahead and park in the garage, rather than drive up to the house, once we got home.
Then he fell, trying to get out of my mother’s car.
Well. More like a half fall. He ended up with one knee on the ground, one leg still in the car, and stuck in a most awkward position. After some struggling, he managed to get himself up. There was little I could do to help him.
He thought he was fine at first, but after a few hours, that knee that hit the ground (we have a dirt floor in our garage) was starting to really hurt.
Thankfully, he has plenty of really powerful pain killers, including one that’s “take as needed”.
I had intended to wait until closer to the end of the month but, after this, I sent a message to our mechanic, who also used vehicles available for sale. It’ll be 6 months at the end of September, that I’ve been using a low limit credit card to rebuild my credit score. Which means I should be able to apply for financing on a vehicle and have payments we can actually afford. The last time I applied for financing, the terms and interest rates were insane, they wanted a high down payment, plus the payments would have been $700 a month!
We messaged back and forth for a bit. He actually has a truck available right now. I had walked over to see what he had available, the last time I was at the grocery store across the street, and it’s a really nice truck. We could certainly use one but, for our primary needs, we need another minivan, though we could possibly get away with a SUV. He told me he would look for something for us. He knows our needs by now.
Not long after, I got a call from him. He told me he was with a new financing company now. One that specializes in helping people rebuilding their credit. He’d talked to her about our situation, and that we were living on a disability income. She told him that they could do pre-approved financing. That would go a long way in helping him know exactly what he could find for us, and not be stuck with a vehicle to sell to someone else, if we can’t afford the financing.
So I gave him permission to pass on my contact information and I got a call from the company already. The initial process has been started. The next step at our end will be to send in our ID and probably proof of income, etc., like we had to before. We should know in the next couple of days, what we can get for financing. From there, our mechanic will be able to look for something that meets our needs, and falls into the financing parameters.
I pray this all works out. As much as I appreciate having my mother’s car to use, it meets my mother’s needs, not ours. Plus, that thing needs to be replaced, too! My mother has already told my brother and that we should just sell it, but it’s too difficult for her to get into a larger vehicle, so a small car is needed for her. She won’t buy another car, though. She doesn’t drive or even have a license anymore. She’s got no problem with the idea of us buying another car for her, though… Not that we could afford to have two car payments!
Today, I was taking my mother to a medical appointment – and appointment that had been moved up 2 hours. I’d say that was why I was up and doing my morning rounds early, but in reality, I was just up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I can’t even blame the kittens on that one, because I woke them up trying to roll over. I had a least 3 of them on and against me, keeping warm. I have the window open just a bit for air circulation, but when we’re hitting 7C/45F (at least when I checked), it does get a bit chilly! I was also checking on my computer during the night, having left it on to upload the garden tour video I posted this morning.
I made sure to have a solid breakfast, though, which turned out to be a good thing, even though it was a couple of hours earlier than I usually have breakfast.
I got to my mother with adequate time for a short visit, then we headed out about an hour before her appointment. With the time it took to get her and her walker set up in the car, then the drive in, we got there about 10 minutes early for her appointment.
We ended up waiting about an hour before she was finally called in – and there were others who were already there waiting for the same doctor before us! They, too, had been called to have their appointments rescheduled, and were told to come in the same time my mother had been told, which was not the time I was told when I phoned to confirm!
So… yeah… Not a good start.
This doctor is new to us, with our previous doctor having moved to another clinic. My husband and I are seeing her on an interim basis for prescription refills, but my husband already got a letter from her stating she would not be accepting him as a patient. Which was a surprise, since we even talked about it during our appointments, saying we knew she was not accepting new patients. So it was a surprise for me when I brought my mom in, and she told my mother almost right away that she was accepting my mother as a patient!
So this was a follow up appointment to talk about some test results. My mother is still refusing to take the T3s because they are a “narcotic”, and when I mentioned that word being used was one reason my mother wouldn’t take it, and my mother mentioned reading about all the bad things that would happen if she took them (meaning the possible side effects listed), and so on. The doctor seemed quite amused that my mother wouldn’t take them because they are a “narcotic”, but didn’t try to reassure her or explain anything.
Which was basically how the entire appointment went.
Now, my mother is already not happy with this doctor. She’s female, she’s black and she has a strong accent. Unfortunately, she also speaks quickly, and tends to bowl over us when we tried to explain things. Even I was having a hard time understanding her. She seems nice enough; I’m sure I’d enjoy her company in a social setting, but as a doctor? Nope. I’m not happy with her, either.
In the end, my mother was given a new, short term prescription to try for a complaint she brought up, with instructions that included to go ahead and stop taking them if they made her feel too drowsy, or if they didn’t do the job, then given a requisition for a urine sample to get a culture done, which had not been part of her previous lab work.
Then the doctor abruptly left.
Okay, they were far behind, but usually there’s at least some sort of comment to let you know the appointment was over, even if it’s just a goodbye or some sort. It felt almost as if she were leaving in mid conversation.
No matter.
The lab is across the waiting room, so we went straight there. The lab’s waiting room was crowded, but there was a chair available for my mother while I handed over the requisition and got her medical card for them to confirm. The couple sitting next to her were sweet and got up so I could sit beside my mother.
My mother commented on how many people there were. She was clearly not happy and started talking about just going home. I totally understood the feeling but I told her, you only need to give a urine sample. All these other people are probably waiting to get blood work or X-rays or something. Yours is just in and out. It shouldn’t take long.
I then started talking to her about the new prescription and explaining what the doctor had said.
“You mean I have to buy more pills?”
Uhm… yes.
“I’m not buying them!”
I explained again what it was for, and she declared that it wasn’t much of a problem and she could live with it. She said she didn’t understand what the doctor was saying (my explaining it obviously meant nothing), so she wasn’t going to fill it. Knowing my mother, however, I know she would not have been saying the same thing if the doctor had been male. That’s more of a thing for her even over skin colour. Likewise, if my brother were the one explaining it to her instead of me, she would have been more willing to listen.
By then, we were both getting really tired, too.
Then she got called in and it was just as quick as I told her it would be. As we went to the car, though, I could really see how she was slowing down.
Normally, after her appointments, we would do things like go to a grocery store, or go to a restaurant for lunch. After a bit of indecision, my mother asked what restaurants were close to one of the two grocery stores in this town. I only know of one, that we’ve been to before, for sure. It’s a franchise she normally likes, and we went there the last time she had an appointment in this town.
No, she won’t go there anymore. Why? “You saw what people were there.”
*sigh*
I reminded her that the service was excellent and the food was great. Her response?
“I’m just to tired of brown people.”
*sigh*
I pointed out that this was not a very Christian thing, and the subject was dropped.
We were going to drive past one of the grocery stores, and she wanted if there was a restaurant near there. I could not remember seeing one, but drove into the parking lot anyhow. That’s when I could see the Subway, though getting to it involved going back onto the road and taking a different driveway, because of barricades between parking lots. The spaces closest to the doors were also barricaded, so we had to part fairly far away – no disabled parking at this place, even though the doors and building were accessible!
We went in and my mother went straight to a table, expecting to be served. I explained how it works to order at a Subway. Reading a menu on the wall was more than she could handle, though, and she started asking if they had soup. I couldn’t see that on the menu, nor could I see any over the counter, but my mother started shouting from her seat to the one guy behind the counter, asking if they had soup. They didn’t, so she suggested we leave.
Which was probably for the best. Ordering at a Subway would have been beyond her, anyhow. I would have had to make decisions and order for her, even at the best of times.
From there, she just wanted to go home.
When we parked at her place and I started getting her walker out, she started asking if there was something she was supposed to give me. I knew nothing of that, so she basically threw me $20 for gas and told me I could go home! She didn’t even want me to help her with the doors!
It’s not the first time she’s been this tired after an outing, and I really couldn’t hold it against her!
I, however, was getting pretty famished and seriously considered going to a restaurant before heading home, but in the end, I was just too tired. I pulled over long enough to message the family and update them a bit, then headed home myself.
Thankfully, there was food at home that just needed heating up, so I got to eat right away. Then I updated my husband with more of how things went before finally going into my office/bedroom and indulging in some kitten therapy.
Ghosty really, really loves licking noses.
When I’m out of the room, though, I’m going to have to find a way to protect my keyboard. When I got to my computer, I found the task manager and calculator open. Neither of which have short cuts on my keyboard!
It’s past 5pm right now, and I’d love to just go for a nap right now, but that would really mess my up for the night!
A day out with my mother is tiring enough on my own, but this doctor’s visit was even more exhausting than usual.
I just need to decompress for a while. I’d love to get outside and get some work done in these awesome, cooler temperatures, but the days are getting a lot shorter now, and the jobs I need to work on require more light than I’ll have for very long. Which gets very frustrating, considering how many things have been distracting me away from them.
Ah, well. The world isn’t going to end if they get delayed a bit longer, again.
The Re-Farmer
(too tired to hunt for typos. My apologies for the ones I’m sure are all over this post!)
Let’s start from the beginning of the day, which started off well!
I picked a tiny harvest this morning.
I decided to pick the one cob of purple corn that was the first to develop. I knew it wouldn’t be ready yet, but I wanted to see how it was. In particular the pollination. There was a fair chunk of it that had not been pollinated at all, so the kernels did not develop, but overall, it was pretty well filled.
One of my daughter’s doesn’t like corn, so my other daughter boiled the cob and we split it between us for a taste test. Of course, not being fully ripe, it would not have reached peak sweetness, but this is not a sweet corn to begin with. It was almost meaty in taste and texture. It actually reminded me of the corn I grew up with, that my mother saved seed from, year after year. I didn’t even know sweet corn was a thing until I was in my early teens, and my mother came back from a trip to visit family in the US, with corn seeds they’ve given her. She planted them in the spring, and I remember being astonished by the flavour of sweet corn. I still liked our old corn, though, and this was very much like that. We both enjoyed our taste test.
Later on, my husband and I left early for our medical appointment. Very early. My daughter sent us some cash to treat us to lunch. My husband hasn’t gone out since his last in-person medical appointment, and that was at least 2 years ago. We stopped in the town my mother lives in to pick up gas, then went to a restaurant for lunch.
Which is when I got a message from the cat lady, asking if she could call me. Talk about perfect timing! If we had left when I originally planned, I would have been driving when she messaged me and would not have seen it for some time later.
She wanted to talk to me about possible placements for 4 female outside cats! She was contacted by someone on a farm near my mother’s town. Their yard cats of 14 and 15 years had all passed away, and they needed mousers. They have an ideal set up, including an insulated and heated barn. Basically, they would be inside cats that are allowed outside. They gave their cats quality food, regular vet visits, and – as amply demonstrated by having cats that lived more than a decade – have been able to protect them from predators. There was even a vet lined up to check on the new cats.
There are rescues out there that would happily have given them 4 or 6 female cats right now, but they wanted to go through the Cat Lady, instead. They figure to start with maybe 2 cats and keep them in the barn for a couple of weeks before allowing them outside, then getting a couple more and repeating the process.
When I mentioned that our female cats are all nursing babies right now, including the ones with older babies (they just nurse any kittens that wants to nurse!), and it turned out the vet had brought up that concern as well.
In the end, she asked me to talk to the family about it. If we go with it, she will bring a trap for us on Saturday, when she comes to pick up the sick kitty.
I’ll get back to that later…
From there, we continued to the clinic. We got there early, and were shown into an examination room right away, but the doctor was in emergency at the time (this clinic is in a hospital building), so we were among several patients waiting. By the time she finally was able to see us, it was about 20 minutes past our actual appointment. Not too bad, except my husband was really struggling with pain levels.
She ended up spending a lot of time going over his medications list. Unfortunately, he forgot to bring his meds along, but he does keep a current list in his phone. There was some confusion about doses, because what he was actually getting didn’t match what the official descriptions said were available. I think in his case, because he’s on such high doses of some things, there are exceptions being made.
One problem that was unexpected is that she could not prescribe opioids. Apparently, the College is telling doctors not to prescribe them anymore.
Opioids are the only thing that have even remotely been able to bring his pain levels down.
He didn’t need those renewed yet, though, so we should have time for him to get a new doctor, when they arrive at this clinic in the fall. This doctor added that she couldn’t take him as a new patient, but we already knew that. This is just interim. Going over his medications list, she commented that he was going to have a hard time finding a new doctor.
*sigh*
Funny how it’s easy to find a doctor, if you don’t really need one, but if you do need one, and especially with a complex file like my husband’s, it’s harder to find a doctor.
She also focused a lot on his diabetes. One of his meds actually causes weight gain. It’s an anti-depressant and he’s been on is since before we moved out here. What I remember is that it prevented weight loss, but she says is actually causes weight gain. She said it’s also for sleep. As someone who has Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea, he certainly wasn’t taking it to make him sleep! He’s off that now, and he’s happier for it. As we were leaving, he vented his frustrations. He has so many problems, but doctors keep focusing on the diabetes. The way he put it, he’s got a heart condition that has a life expectancy of 4-6 years, from time of diagnosis. Which means 2-4 years from right now. He is in constant pain, and when I brought that up, she dismissed it. He had been told, early on, that until he gets his pain under control, he won’t be able to get his blood sugars under control. Apparently, that’s not a thing anymore. She did put in a referral to a diabetic nurse. Then she brought up “it’s the diet. It’s all the diet.” And the weight, of course. He won’t get his sugars under control unless he loses weight. I’d already mentioned, he barely eats, because of his pain levels. With all the other stuff, his blood sugars are far from a priority for him right now. She also brought up that he’s on cholesterol medication, but he’s never had high cholesterol. He was put on that by the first doctor we had when we moved out here, because that doctor puts all his diabetic patients over a certain age and girth on statins. Never mind that the actual research shows statins do nothing, and actually cause more harm than good. The doctors don’t seem to be on top of the most recent data.
<<< pause for interruptions >>>
Okay, more has happened, but I’ll get back to that later!
After my husband was done, including getting a requisition for blood work, it was my turn. I only needed one prescription renewal. Should have been fast and easy. She still had to “see” me as a patient, though, so she took my blood pressure. Which, of course, was high. It isn’t high when I test it at home. She was ready to prescribe me blood pressure medication, but I said I wanted to wait on that, because it doesn’t match at home. Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve tested myself, since my husband has the machine in his room now. So she asked me to test my BP morning and evening, three times a week, for three months, then follow up with our new doctor. It’s also been ages since I had my blood work done, so I left with a requisition for that, too.
I had also made an appointment with this doctor for my mother, but I really don’t think my mother would like her. She’s female, black and has a strong accent. When I called my mother about it, we talked it over. The only reason for her to see a doctor right now is for the same reason as my husband and I; for an interim doctor to renew prescriptions. Not the dozen other things my mother thinks a doctor should be able to fix for her. My mother has no idea about the status of her prescriptions, and once I realized she didn’t understand what she needed to ask the pharmacy well enough, I told her I would call them tomorrow, while I’m in town. If her prescription renewals are good for a couple more months, I’ll cancel the appointment. If she needs a prescription renewal within the next month or two, we’ll keep the appointment.
So that’s done.
As soon as I could, after we got home, I headed outside to do my rounds early, walk around and get some fresh air. It was starting to rain, but that was okay. I also fed the yard cats a bit earlier than usual.
Which is when I saw Not Junk Pile on the cat house roof.
With a dangling foot.
It looks like her foot is broken at the “wrist”.
Crap.
I’m bringing my mother’s car in for an oil change tomorrow. I’ve also asked to get that check engine light looked at, plus a check on the wheel alignment. I’m feeling a shudder in the front driver’s side tire that concerns me. We’ve got a budget for this.
We don’t have a vet budget right now. That’s going to have to come out of money meant for a vehicle down payment.
*sigh*
I called the emergency vet, anyhow. She said that, if we could bring her in tonight, they’d treat her. So my daugher and I got the cat carrier and went looking for her.
By then, it was raining harder, and there was no sign of her.
We went looking again later, but still nothing.
We did see her kittens, though, and figured out where their new “nest” is. It’s no longer in the tarp covered board pile (formerly known as the junk pile). They’ve found a way to get into the space under the concrete stairs outside the dining room door. A perfect spot for a mama and her kittens. Impossible for us to get at.
I’ve also been in contact with the Cat Lady. This is one of the mamas we were thinking would go to the farm she was telling us about. She’s going to work on arranging more spays for us, and will be dropping a trap off for us, too. Between adopting out 4 female yard cats, plus getting spays done, we should be able to reduce the number of kittens next year.
Of course, that will also depend on how many of this year’s kittens are female, too! Hopefully, we’ll be able to get some of them done, early next year, before they go into their first heat. This year, they started having babies before the snow was gone. 😥
While I was working on this, we’d gone out to try and catch Not Junk Pile. When it became clear we were not going to get her tonight, I sent an email to the vet clinic, letting them know the situation an dthat we’d be trying to bring her in in the morning. I then called the emergency vet back and updated her as well. That means we’ll have to be out and feeding the cats quite early, and try to get her into the carrier. My daughter and I will work to get her to the vet when they open at 8am, then drop the car off for 9am. My daughter can stay at the clinic while I take care of the car stuff. I’m also going to have to swing by the pharmacy to pick up prescription refills. My husband has been without insulin for several days now.
This litter of two that live in the junk pile by the chain link fence are starting to explore further afield.
Gush, they are adorable!
This morning, the girls were out very early to clean out the eavestroughs. There was one corner, however, they did not do. It was occupied!
This is an active wasps nest.
We’ve had wasps around here before that we had to destroy. Once, because they had made their nest partly inside the wall somewhere, finding their way in under the eaves at the corner of the old kitchen and my bedroom. The next year, it was because they had built their nest under the old kitchen, through a crack in the crawl space foundation – and were also somehow getting inside the old kitchen!
This one, however, looks like we can leave it. Wasps are pollinators, and I would prefer not to destroy pollinators if I can avoid it! When they die off in the winter, we can remove the nest.
Part of my plan for the day was to head into town after I finished my morning rounds. My husband was supposed to get prescriptions delivered yesterday, but it didn’t happen and we didn’t know why.
Before heading out, I phoned the pharmacy, since I figured I could order my own refills a bit early, too. I mentioned what happened with my husband not getting his delivery yesterday, which was a surprise to the pharmacist I spoke to. She checked, and his name wasn’t even on the list for refills. She said she would take care of it, and mine as well. My prescription needs to be renewed by the doctor, however, so she was going to fax the clinic about that.
Well, that didn’t work out.
I got a call just as I was about to leave for town. The pharmacy had a letter from our doctor. Our doctor had moved to a clinic in the city, and we were going to stay with him until we could find a new doctor at a nearer clinic. Preferably the one he just left. There just aren’t a lot of rural doctors around, and most of them are not accepting new patients. My husband had tried to do a phone appointment with our regular doctor, as his disability insurance requires regular doctor’s visits, but it ended up not happening, and we didn’t know why the doctor never called. We did know he wanted my husband to come in, in person, but the drive is just too painful for him.
Well, the pharmacy’s letter from the doctor was telling them that my husband was no longer a patient of his, because he did not see my husband within 3 months of his moving to the new clinic, therefore he could not renew the prescriptions.
?????
Yet, my husband tried to do a phone appointment within that time frame, and the doctor never called.
So I called the new clinic and asked about it.
It turns out that, to maintain status as one of our doctor’s patients at this new clinic, they required at least one in-person visit for a physical within 3 months of the doctor moving to the new clinic. Which would have been by the end of June. Once that was done, then phone or video appointments could be made. Since we did not do that, we are no longer his patients (I was asking about my husband, but it would apply to me as well).
Which means neither of us have a doctor at all, and my husband can’t get his many prescriptions renewed.
So I decided to call the clinic we’d been seeing our doctor at. They lost three doctors at the same time, and I hoped they would have new doctors by now, and that at least one of them would be open to new patients.
They will be getting new doctors.
In the fall.
September, at the earliest.
There was, however a doctor at the clinic who had agreed to see our doctor’s patients until they could find a new doctor. So I made an appointment for my husband with her. This weekend is a long weekend, but they were able to squeeze him in on the Tuesday.
We’ll have to keep on top of the status for new doctors at this clinic. Until then, we’ll have to see this one doctor that was willing to take on our old doctor’s patients temporarily.
Once that was done, I finally made my way to town. One of my husband’s prescriptions did not need a renewal, so I could at least pick that up. While there, I informed the pharmacy of why we lost our old doctor, but that we have an appointment with another doctor, so they can expect to get a fax about the prescription renewals on Tuesday. I was asked to make sure to call ahead of time before filling the prescriptions, because they get so many faxes, it can be hard to get to them all. Which is fine. My husband normally calls his refills in for delivery.
At least my husband was able to get one of his injections, but that prescription was added to work with the other injection. The one that’s missing is a slow release insulin. My husband is going to have to monitor his blood sugars more. He doesn’t like to do it, because it’s so discouraging. Chronic pain causes elevated blood sugar readings. The pain also results in loss of appetite, so it’s not like he’s eating much at all, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference, whether it’s his blood sugars or his weight. The only thing he’s been losing is muscle mass. For someone who was so athletic in the past, this is very depressing. There isn’t much that can be done about it, though. He’s on the strongest doses of painkillers they are legally allowed to give him, and they barely control the pain at all. Quality of life? What’s that?
*sigh*
So… yeah. That was something I did not expect to be dealing with, this morning. At least now we finally know that we no longer have a doctor! It doesn’t make finding a new one any easier, though. That’s the one down side of not living in the city. There are plenty of doctors in the city to choose from. Not a lot of doctors want to live in rural communities, though.
*sigh*
At least we were able to book an appointment with a doctor that can take care of prescriptions for us.
I managed to get a few things done before I had to head out to my mother’s. This is what I was greeted with, when I started getting the kibble for the outside cats.
This kitten has moved right into the shelter area! He runs away from me, but waits until I’m fairly close before he does. For example, I was able to walk past him while he was on this rail, and all he did was tuck himself further under the rose bush.
After feeding the cats and doing my morning rounds, I got out the extended pole pruner and cut away some of the problem branches from Chinese elms near the chain link fence. We’ve been pruning them back pretty much every year since we’ve moved here, but the branches grow back very quickly. Pruning one tree now allows for more light to reach where the peas are planted, but the branch that’s casting the most shade is too high for the pruner, even at maximum height. I dragged off the one branch I did get down, to add it to the pile by the fire pit. I really should have broken it down to smaller pieces, first! Elm is a very heavy wood, and once it was on the ground, I realized the branch was quite a bit bigger than I thought.
I also worked on the elm near the vehicle gate into the inner yard, next to the asparagus patch. This is another tree we’ve cut back before, but when the septic truck came out, it was hitting branches again! I got a couple of the problem branches down but started running out of time, so I just broke them down quickly with the mini-chainsaw pruner and piled them for the girls to haul away later. Some of the branches that need to be taken down will probably have to wait until fall, as they would end up falling right on the asparagus and strawberries. If I wait until they are mulched for the winter, they will protected enough.
Then it was time to change and head out to get some gas, then pick up my mother. We then drove to the next major town, about half way to the city from her place, for her eye appointment. I wanted to get her there early, since she was a first time patient. I explained to her that they would need her health care card and do the “paperwork” to get her into their system, and that they would need to take her glasses to measure her current prescription and do some pre-tests. When we got there, though, she actually seemed surprised when they actually did all the things I explained to her. It was as if she didn’t believe me or something! The timing worked out just right, though; all the pre-stuff was done just before her appointment time, and the eye doctor called her in, right on schedule!
There were a few tests she did with my mother that she didn’t do with me when I had my appointment, like checking my mother’s peripheral vision. My mother will have a fairly minor change in her prescription. She mentioned having headaches, mostly when reading, so we hope the change will make those go away. If the headaches turn out to be caused by something else, she’ll at least be seeing better!
Then the doctor went over the photos taken of the inside of my mother’s eyes. She is showing early signs of macular degeneration, but it is still dry, so there is no treatment for it. She was given a booklet about a specific multivitamin that can help slow down further degradation, that also has a grid eye test on the back page. The doctor got her to use it as instructed, looking at a center dot with one eye covered, and what to look for. It turns out that, with one of her eyes, the grid lines look wavy. For now, the thing to watch out for is if it starts to get worse and, if it does, to get back to her right away.
The one odd thing was when she asked if we had any other questions, and my mother started asking about why an eye might turn all red. The doctor said there could be many reasons and, as my mother continued, I realized she was talking about what that happened to her, four or five years ago. After having a sneezing or coughing fit (I can’t remember which, right now), she popped a blood vessel in her eye. I drove her to the hospital in this town every day for a week, so she could get a blood thinning injection, to help it heal faster. And it did.
Turns out, she either doesn’t remember why it happened, or doesn’t believe that her sneezing/coughing fit actually caused it, anymore. It looks like she’s rewriting her memory about it, too. When I realized what she was talking about and mentioned driving her to the hospital for the injection daily like that, she gave me this death glare for saying something. *sigh*
But, the appointment went well, and she got her prescription. She had brought up with me earlier about the possibility of going to Walmart to get her glasses, because one of the people in her building suggested it. I told her that she could probably get cheaper glasses there, but recommended getting them here, because she’d get better care. After her appointment, when she was told she could look at frames to get her new glasses if she wanted, she started hemming and hawing. I again recommended doing it right away here, if only to get it over and done with, and she sort of agrees. But first, I took her to the counter to pay for the appointment. That confused her and, for some reason, she thought they wanted her health care card again. She had the money for the payment already set aside in an envelope in her purse. She was told she could pay for it together with her new glasses, but that confused her even more, so I told them to just process the payment for the appointment on its own.
With her knees being an issue, my mother wasn’t up to wandering around to look at frames, so one of the staff asked her some questions, then went looking for frames that were sort of like what my mother already had. She ended up bringing two metal and two plastic frames. One of the metal frames were a bright red that matched the shirt my mother happened to be wearing, but my mother would not consider such a bright colour! What was funny about that is that the frames she did choose were a plastic pair with blues, browns and greys, and very trendy! 😄 They look good on her, though, and she liked them, so that’s all that mattered – though I know my mother well enough that she chose them more because she was overwhelmed by having to choose at all.
Then they started asking her about what coatings she wanted, and that was almost more than she could handle. She basically told the woman that was helping her at this point to just give her good glasses, and that she would trust her! 😄 They checked her current glasses and basically matched what she already had.
As we were talking, my mother kept asking questions about the chain and how long they were here, etc. They didn’t quite understand what she meant at first, and told her about other franchise locations, but she was really trying to ask if they’d been located anywhere else. She was still convinced that there was only one eye clinic in this town. They told her there was another one, and where it was located, so she figures that’s what she was remembering. I don’t know when she was last taken to this town to get her eyes tested, but considering she says she was taken to it by her niece, it had to have been well over 10 years ago!
I’m amused that it took them telling her there was another eye clinic for her to finally believe it. We even drove past it later one.
The main thing is, her glasses are ordered. They’ll call me when they are in, and I’ll bring my mother in to pick them up.
That done, even though she was clearly tired, my mother wasn’t ready to go home. So we ended up going to a chicken place for a late lunch/early supper. This is a place she normally goes to in this town, but I don’t know that she’ll be willing to go back again, even though the food was excellent, and so was the service. There seems to have been a change in ownership since we were last there, the the people running it are *gasp* not white. We heard another customer talking to the guy that seated us (well; my mother ignored him and walked right to the table she wanted, so… tried to seat us) and he said he was from Pakistan, so when the waitress came by towards the end of the meal, my started asking her where she was from and how long she’s been in Canada…
She was born here. Second generation Canadian, it turned out.
Thankfully, my mother behaved, and didn’t make any rude comments.
Oh, that reminds me. During conversation, she brought up not going back to the Chinese restaurant that’s right next to her building. Why? Because she’s been seeing so many strange cats lately. *sigh* I think one of the people in her building told her this, but when I asked, my mother said there was something in the news about a Chinese restaurant in the city, where they were caught serving cat meat. The problem is, she could have seen something about this years ago, and who knows in what context it was in. Now, very suddenly, she has decided that because she once saw a strange cat in the field outside her window, it means the Chinese restaurant next to her place is using cat meat…
*sigh*
Anyhow…
When it came time to take care of the bill, I made sure to pay it, because my mother doesn’t believe in tips. Before we left, though, she took the receipt from me. When I got her home and she looked at it, she was really shocked by the amount. I told her that included the tip, and she was all “why did you give a tip? She just did her job. She should be happy to have a job…” The usual.
I told her, I tipped her because she gave us really good service. I know the tipping expectation has gotten pretty extreme these days, but some people will always get tips from me. Wait staff is one of them (especially if my mother’s behaviour has been particularly bad!). Our septic guy is another. 😄
By the time I got my mother home and was getting ready to head home myself, I realized I’d been out for 6 hours already. Almost 5 1/2 of those were with my mother. No wonder I was feeling so tired!
One the way home, though, I swung by the post office. I wasn’t expecting anything, but I did want to see if the tomatoes and peppers were gone. The peppers were all gone, as well all the Black Beauty tomatoes, but there were still a few Spoon and Romas left. I hope someone will take them, but if they’re still there the next time I check, I’ll take them back and try to find someplace to plant them!
Once at home, I went straight back out again to do my evening routine with, today, included giving the Korean Pine in the outer yard a deep watering.
I was watched the entire time by cows. 🐮🐮🐮🐮
I thought I had been hearing them for the past couple of days! I love it when the renter’s cows are here!
I was planning to go to bed early tonight, and get and early start working outside, but it’s already 9pm as I finish writing this, and I still need to update my siblings about how things went with my mother!
Then, it’s bed time. Hopefully, I’ll actually fall asleep instead of suddenly becoming wide awake once my head hits the pillow! 😄😄😄
I wasn’t able to get more work done in the garden this morning, though my daughter was able to water the newest transplants for me. We were still getting thunderstorm warnings, and hoped to at least get some rain while I was out.
My younger daughter and I headed out early for my eye appointment. It was my first appointment in this province, never mind the eye clinic, so I wanted time for the initial paperwork. Even with a stop along the way, we got there about 45 minutes early, which I’m quite alright with.
Before the main appointment, the staff took care of things like reading the prescription from my current glasses (which are not my newest glasses), and I had to warn them that the arms don’t close, just in case! Then I was taken in for some pre-tests, including the puff test and getting photos of the inside of my eyes. Then I had a while to wait until my actual appointment.
Once I got in, the optometrist asked me if my appointment had actually been at 1, not 2. I assured her that it was at 2; I was just really, really early. She was relieved! Seeing me come in so early, she thought there might have been a mistake in times made.
The appointment took quite a while. One difficult thing was trying to give some sort of accurate time from of when I last had my eyes checked (I think it was 8 years ago, give or take), or how old my glasses ere (more than 10 years. Maybe 15?) and why I was wearing those instead of my newer ones.
My prescription ended up changing exactly as I expected it to; my distance vision has improved, but my near vision has gotten worse. It’s going to be a pretty major change, so she warned me that once I have my new prescription, it’ll take as much as 2 weeks to get used to them, and that my depth perception might be quite off.
As we talked about the different tests, I mentioned that I brought another driver, just in case it was necessary. Once she found that out, she asked if I were up to getting the dilation drops for the last test. If I had not had someone to drive me, she would have tried to to the test without the drops. It can take a long time for the eyes to recover, and driving would not be safe.
Since it takes about 15 minutes for the drops to do their job, I sat in the waiting room for a while, as she saw other patients before getting back to me. The test itself wasn’t too bad, but I sure was glad to have my daughter to do the driving!
When it came time to pay, they couldn’t find my husband’s account with the insurance company. We’ve had this problem before, with our pharmacy, as they changed things up a few times over the years. The account number hasn’t changed, but where the clinic is supposed to look to find it has. The cost was only $45 (it was partially covered by our province’s health care system), so I just paid it and got the receipt for my husband to submit for reimbursement, which he was able to do right away, by email. I also got a printout of my prescription. As much as I would have liked to buy new glasses there, I was looking at the cost of frames while my daughter had her appointment, and it was hard to find any that didn’t use up at least half of the amount our insurance will cover. Most cost more than our coverage. Heck, my lenses alone would probably cost more than the coverage. The amount covered (once every two years) has only gone up about $40 or $50 since the last time I got glasses.
After paying the bill, I was feeling well enough for us to make a quick run at a nearby grocery store, though I had to get my daughter to read labels for me. Mind you, I have to do that anyway, but usually just for the small print! 😄 Once I got home, I started looking at the Zenni website. While setting up a new account, I got my daughter to help take a picture of my face without glasses, then measure the distance between my pupils.
I probably should have washed the sweat off first. My face is SO shiny in the pictures, but who cares?
Then I uploaded the pictures and took a good look at them, to choose which one would be best for “trying on” glasses.
This was several hours after I got the dilation drops.
No wonder they are feeling so strained! Wow!
Anyhow, I got all set up, then started looking at frames. I got feed back from the family on which ones they thought looked best on my picture, because I’m terrible at judging such things. Then I had to do it again, because it turned out most of the ones I liked the best didn’t come in the size I need. I had assumed the different frames could come in their ranges from XS to XL, but it turns out that each style came in one size.
Ultimately, though, I was able to afford two pairs. Both metal frames. I haven’t done plastic frames since I was in junior high. They kept breaking in half. I figure modern plastic frames are better made, but even with two pairs of glasses, I don’t want to take a chance!
It’s going to be so good to have new glasses again. And to have two pairs! I’ve never had two pairs of glasses in the same prescription before!
With both pairs of glasses with progressive lenses, the total came out to just over $200. I printed off the receipt for my husband to submit to the insurance company for reimbursement, too. That will certainly be a help to the budget.
As you can imagine, going outside to get work done was not an option this evening! Too hard on the eyes. Even writing this post, after waiting so many hours, is still putting quite a bit of strain on them. As for not getting work done outside, it worked out okay, I guess. We didn’t get the predicted thunderstorms, though we certainly heard some going by. Looking at the weather radar, the system had lots of tiny storms in it, scattered all over. We did get some rain, though. I would have been happy with more, with the heat we’ve been having, but am thankful for every little bit we get.
Tomorrow, I hope to get some good progress outside, because I’m going to be making a second Costco trip the day after. In the process, I’ll be swinging by the egg lady’s homestead and dropping off some Black Beauty and Spoon tomatoes for her! They are taking 6 of each, which still leaves me others to give away. I offered them to my family members, but they all have plenty of their own tomatoes already!
Meanwhile, I need to get to bed, and give my eyes more time to recover in darkness!
A while back, I was seeing the one ‘iccus that was still around. Chaddicus? Thadiccus? I know it’s not Bradiccus, because he had a white tail tip and was… well… male… and I don’t think it’s Saddicus…). This cat was very pregnant, so when I heard a kitten squeaking that one day, I assumed it was … Thadiccus. I’ll settle on Thadiccus.
But then I started seeing the mama, and finding dead babies, and when she came to me for comfort and cuddles, I realized it was Junk Pile.
Except this morning, I saw both of them at the same time.
That’s Junk Pile on the right, sitting on the roof. She no longer lets me touch her, never mind carry her, but at least she doesn’t run off quite as much.
That’s Thaddicus in the kibble house.
Junk Pile has more white on her chest area, but if you can’t see that area, they look almost identical. We also don’t often see them both at the same time, and I hadn’t seen Junk Pile for days before the kitten sadness.
Thaddicus is not pregnant anymore.
Which means, there is a litter of kittens somewhere outside the yard. If they survived being born this early in the year.
*sigh*
Thaddicus tends not to relax when people are around, so the chances of her lying in a position where I might see if she’s nursing is very low.
Meanwhile, Rosencrantz is also getting pretty big. She tends to have her litters in the junk pile by the chain link fence. I was really hoping we’d be able to catch her and get her fixed before she got pregnant again.
At least last year’s kittens were mostly male, and the Cat Lady has been able to help us with the females that we’d been able to socialize. Still, we have three calicos and two torties that are quite feral, so we will potentially have quite a few litters again this year.
*sigh*
Well, we’ll see how many of the males disappear over the summer, and find their own territory somewhere else.
Meanwhile…
My attempt to find a new doctor has not been successful. I found a third clinic in the town we’ve been going to and called them this morning, but they are not accepting new patients. When I asked, the receptionist knew of only one doctor that was accepting new patients, and that was in the smaller city where the specialist I took my mother to see is located, and I know that would be more than my mother would be willing to put up with. My husband and I still have some options to explore, but unless we’re willing to go to the cities, there are no doctors available for my mother.
So, we’ll likely wait to see when new doctors transfer to our doctor’s clinic, to replace the three that are leaving.
In between all that, I’ve been cleaning up and cleaning out this blog, to reclaim media storage space. It has been unexpectedly frustrating.
I’ve been taking out my old Critter of the Day and Photo of the Day posts. I hadn’t realized just how many of them there were! I started doing these in 2018! Most of these had only a line or two of text, or none at all. All had at least one image, with some having two or three images. So far, I’ve deleted images from and trashed over 270 posts. The first frustration is that so far, this has only recovered a little over 1% of my 13 gigs of storage space. On the plus side, 1% storage space is enough for a lot of photos!
I was going to start with the oldest posts and work my way to the more recent, since it was a while before we figured out how much to reduce our file sizes and not use up memory too quickly, so a lot of those files are larger, even though we had already started to crop and resize fairly quickly. A number of them won’t be removed, since the images in them are stored on Flickr. Flickr limits the number of files you can upload, however, so I can’t use that anymore, without getting a Pro account. I don’t want more annual fees.
The biggest frustrations I’ve been having is with WordPress’ lack of media organization. Everything that’s uploaded is there by date of upload, but if you try to do a search for, say, all images uploaded in a specific year and month, the only thing that will come up are images where the year and month are part of the file name. The only way to see all the images for a month is to keep scrolling back in time. Which is fine for the most recent couple of years, but this is a very photo heavy blog, and after a while, WordPress starts really struggling. Then I start getting pop ups saying WordPress is not responding, asking me if I want to wait or cancel, as thumbnails of images stop loading for a while before suddenly whole groups of them will appear. Then I can scroll down a bit more, and the while thing starts over again.
Last night, I did that for hours, just to reach 2019, when suddenly there was a glitch and I had to reload – but the reload put me right back at the start.
There’s a reason I was trying to scroll back through all the images to get to 2018 (I never got past 2019). What I had started to do was do a search for all Critter of the Day posts. You’d think all the posts with Critter of the Day in the title would show up, but nope. Every post with the word “critter” or “day” would also show up. Still, it made it easier to go through the old posts, and I did even get some going back to 2018 that I tried to deal with. I would open each appropriate post in a new tab in edit mode, then open the image/s I wanted to get rid of in another tab. From there, I would cut and past the file name of the image into another tab I had for the media files and do a search for that specific file. Once it came up, I could delete the image, go back to trash the post, then move on to the next one.
The problem?
Sometimes, the searches just didn’t work.
Obviously, the image is somewhere in my media storage, but they don’t come up in the search. This was a particular problem with early images, when I was using only descriptive words for the file names. I’ve since changed to starting every image file with the numerical year, month and day. That way, if nothing else, I can do a search for the numerical part of the file name and a whole bunch of files will come up. I then find the exact one I’m after, delete that one, then trash the post it was in.
Except sometimes, even that didn’t work. There are some files that simply will not come up in the media search, even though I am copying and pasting the exact file name as it shows on the image. The search cannot have the .jpg or .png file extension, or it won’t come up. Some images had an _ added to them for some reason, and most of the time, if those were there, the image wouldn’t come up in a search (but today, I had a whole bunch work, anyway!).
So while I was able to clean out almost 300 images, there are some that I will have to find the hard way. By scrolling through years of images to get to the date the post was made.
After much wasted time and frustration yesterday, I tried again today, slowly scrolling through media files in between doing other things. I still barely made it to 2019.
So instead, I’ve been going through the post files, looking for the picture of the day titles, from more recent to older. These newer posts have images that are all coming up in a media search, so it’s been a lot more productive.
But I still have only freed up about 1% of storage space total.
This is going to be a long, slow, monotonous job.
Looking through all those old photos, though… Gosh, there are some really good photos! I had fun with them, too. Especially the silly deer faces – I had a whole daily series of photos just for silly deer faces! But, this is not a photography blog and, unlike other posts that are still getting hits years later, they are just taking up space. Aside for the first day or two after being uploaded, no one sees them.
Ah, well. This is all a learning process!
I’m done with that for today, though. There’s probably another two or three hundred more posts to go through before I’m done!
Gooby followed me around while I did my morning rounds, and posed nicely while I was switching out memory cards on the sign cam.
I got a call back from the plumber today, and we’re looking at him coming in some time in the middle of next week. From the sounds of it, he was driving (hopefully, hands free!) while talking to me and couldn’t give me anything more concrete, but we’ll get a call once he has the info. It’s not an emergency situation, so I don’t mind the wait. We have everything else we need, ready and waiting, barring any unforeseeable damage that might be found once the old tub surround is removed.
We got a bit of a boost in the mail today; a carbon tax relief check. One government takes a whole bunch away, another gives a pittance back. It’ll help with the work we need to get done, at least.
The reason I made sure to go to the mail today was because my mother phones yesterday about a letter she got from her doctor. We have the same doctor, so my husband and I got the same letter.
Our doctor is leaving the clinic for one in the city, as of April 1st.
The letter invites his patients to follow him to the new clinic, while offering virtual and phone visits, but driving that far for in person visits is a bit much for all three of us. The current clinic is already pushing it for distance as it is.
So I called the clinic to ask about other doctors there that are accepting new patients.
It turns out they are losing THREE doctors, not just one. There is one doctor that is willing to see their patients for now, but she can’t possibly take on that many new patients. Not that my mother would be willing to see her. She was already complaining about the doctor we’re losing, because he’s not white, but for a doctor to be both not white and female… that would be just too much for her to handle. 🤨
So I started doing some searches. There is only one other clinic in that town, and when I called, their answering service mentioned one doctor that was accepting new patients. I looked up the name and discovered both the clinic and that doctor have way too many negative reviews.
So I tried looking up doctors in the smaller city – that would be pushing it too much for my husband, but not as much for my mother.
That was pretty discouraging, too.
I finally tried looking at the town closest to us. We won’t go there anymore, but my mother might. No go.
There’s a town to the north of us that my husband and I could try, but that would be too far for my mother, plus it would require me to drive south to my mother’s town, then north to this other town, then back to my mother’s town, and finally back home, adding an extra hour of driving time.
Our province does have a service we can register with that will pair people up with family doctors, but if there aren’t doctors withing our area accepting new patients, it’s not going to help us.
What will most likely happen is, we’ll have to wait for new doctors to transfer over to the clinic that we’ve been going, and start seeing one of them.
With my husband’s private disability insurance, he must be “under the care of a doctor”. Every year, he has to fill out a form that includes mentioning how many doctor’s visits he’s had. Thankfully, phone and virtual appointments count, so until we are able to find a new doctor, it will have to do.
The “fun” of living in a rural area. Doctors tend not to want to work out in the boonies. There are simply more patients in the cities. As I understand it, doctors that have recently immigrated to Canada are required to serve in rural communities for a certain number of years first – five, I believe. Which is about how long our doctor as been at this clinic.
Oh, wow!
As I was typing this, I got a message from my SIL. It turns out there where is a mobile medical unit in our province that does house calls.
That would be ideal for my mother!
Time to go contact them and find out how it works!
The Re-Farmer
Update: looks like the mobile clinic is for the city only. However, I did just find there’s another clinic in the town we’ve been going to. This one looks more hopeful!
Today I took my mother for her follow up appointment with the specialist, to tell her how her scope went.
The one she still thinks didn’t happen, because she doesn’t remember the procedure.
The one where, even after the explanation by the pharmacist that seemed to mollify her, she still thinks prescribed her new medications, replacing other medications she suddenly now things worked so well (which rather contradicts why she went to the doctor over concerns that lead her to this specialist in the first place).
It didn’t help that, once we got there, we ended up waiting in the examination room for an hour before he came to see her!
My mother wasn’t at her worse behaviour towards me, but she certainly wasn’t having one of her better days.
I am so exhausted.
As for her procedure, they found no problems. No damage to her esophagus or trachea at all. No, he didn’t change her medications on her and did not give her any new prescriptions.
As for her not remembering the procedure, he talked about the medicine they put into her IV (she’d never mentioned an IV to me; only the throat spray) and how he’d talked to her about not finding any reason to take any samples…
…
…
It wasn’t until we were driving home that something finally cleared up for me. After her procedure, she talked to me about how a doctor she’d never seen before had spoken to her and told her they didn’t “finish” because she was on blood thinners, so she was convinced that taking samples was THE reason she was there, but they didn’t do anything at all, because she didn’t stop her blood thinners.
On the drive home, she suddenly asked me, was this the same doctor that we saw last time?
Yes, it was.
She didn’t recognise him. It must be because he was wearing a mask.
No, he wasn’t. No one at the clinic was wearing a mask.
Which is when I asked her if she hadn’t recognized him at the hospital. There was a pause, and I could almost hear the “click” in her brain, and she said, no, she hadn’t.
All this time, she thought the procedure had been done by a completely different doctor she’d never met before.
Once she realized what was going on, she commented that she’s been having a harder time remembering faces.
!!
There was a whole lot of other stuff we talked about during the hours I spent with her, and most of them were not pleasant. Even telling her mundane stuff, like how we had to replace the parts inside the toilet tank, and need to call a plumber for the bathroom fixtures, she suddenly went off on a tangent about how I only ever talk about “bad” stuff, and how if I only went to church, we would have blessings and nothing would ever go wrong anymore. *sigh* She’s been watching too much TV prosperity gospel. Particularly stuff by people on talk shows, selling their books. God is not a magic genie in a bottle, there to answer our wishes.
It gets really mentally exhausting trying to keep up with the sudden changes in topic or getting blindsided by illogical assumptions.
It made the hours seem so much longer, that’s for sure.
But, it went over okay overall, even if she went off on how she wished she never saw this doctor, and that the procedure was a total waste of time, etc., etc.
I was more than happy to get home.
Before I settled in for the evening, though, I decided to feed the outside cats, first.
When I go into the old kitchen, the cats in the sun room hear the noises I make and get pretty active. I started to hear a very unusual meowing, though. One I did not recognise. I opened the inner door to see, and discovered The Distinguished Guest was there.
Then he turned to walk towards an empty food bowl.
Using only three legs.
He wasn’t putting any weight on one front paw, if he could avoid it. I couldn’t see any blood or obvious injury, but recently we’d heard a cat fight outside, and when my daughter checked, she saw it was Shop Towel and TDG again – the two toms that wander in and out, but don’t live here.
I’m so glad we brought Potato Beetle inside.
Poor TDG is having a really hard time, but he won’t let us near him. He was hungry enough to not run away completely while I was putting kibble out, but he did keep running off to other trays, as I moved around.
I’m still sure that he used to be a pet that got dumped. When he first showed up, he did allow us to pet him, but now he’s gotten completely feral.
I really don’t know how to help him. I don’t want to contact the rescue about him. For starters, we have no way of knowing when he’ll be around, so it’s not like we can count on trapping him. Plus, she’s still recovering from major surgery.
She did contact me last night, sharing about how Cabbages, the bitties, and the other outside kittens that got adopted out.
Including Plushy, who just went through some major surgery, too!
Thankfully, he went to a family of means!
He had been perfectly fine until one morning, he threw up and there was blood. They immediately took him to a vet. They X-rayed him and found an intestinal blockage, from a twist. It’s the sort of thing that can happen randomly and has no specific cause. They put him into surgery immediately, and found all his intestines were messed up. It ended up taking a team of 3 vets 4 hours (and $6000, up front!!!!) to save him. Apparently, they were amazed he didn’t die as a kitten, with how is insides looked. !!!
He is now on special food, because his intestines are now shorter, but is doing fine. In fact, other than throwing up blood that one time, there had been no sign of any problems at all! While he was living with the cat lady and getting vet care, there was no sign of problems. Of course, while he was living here, when he finally decided that human contact was an enjoyable thing, we saw no issues, either. Yet, apparently his insides were messed up and, while it’s not actually unusual, when it happens, they usually die as kittens.
The Cat Lady even commented about how so many cats from us have had problems. With Tissue, it was behavioural. Cabbages had her major health problems (she’s doing fantastic now, and angry at the Cat Lady for being chastised after stealing a chicken leg off the counter), Muffin is a total homewrecker that is all over her husband, but won’t let the Cat Lady come near her, and of the two bitties they still have, the tuxedo turns out to have a “grade 3” heart murmur, which is apparently the most common type. Not a major issue, but still something to keep an ear on.
The bitties are going to be fixed during spring break, and they are totally loving life with the Cat Lady and the other rescues!
I wonder if we’d ever even discover they had issues if they had remained yard cats? Yard cats tend to have such short life spans, we’d probably never know if they disappeared because of something like this, or if a coyote or eagle or something got them.
I’m just glad the family that has Plushy now was both willing and able to have her taken care of!
Today turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day! Just look at that sky!
It was nice and mild, with almost no wind, too.
Among my plans for the day was to take my mother’s car out for a test run, but also get some seeds started, now that the living room is barricaded from the cats and the shop lights are hung up by the window the current seedlings will be rotated to.
Well, that changed.
First, I got a call from my mother.
She was upset, because the specialist had put her on new medication, and she hasn’t been feeling well since the procedure she still thinks didn’t happen, and he’s not her doctor, so why did he change her blood thinners to something else?
After asking questions, things became less clear! I couldn’t tell if she had a new medication added to her bubble packs, or if there was a new medication outside of her bubble packs, or what was going on with her blood thinners, which were now a different colour, and another pill was now a different size and no longer has a number on it, and…
I asked if she could read or spell to me the name of the new medication, but she just started talking about her blood thinners, and how she hasn’t been feeling well since the procedure and it’s because the specialist changed her medication… but she got her prescriptions delivered only recently, so she’s only been on these “new” medications for a few days. But she was telling me it’s the new medications that where making her not feel well…
It got very confusing.
So…
I asked if she wanted me to come over to take a look.
Well, she did need to go to the bank, and the pharmacy, and she’s running out of groceries…
Well, now!
So we worked out a time for me to come over, and for me to pick up lunch, since her fridge is getting empty… oh, and I’d better make sure the girls would take over for me at home, so that I could stay with her for a long time.
*sigh*
All righty, then!
So I talked to the girls about what I needed to get done, so that I could at least have space to start on the seeds, then headed to bed.
It was a very cat-interrupted night, so I didn’t get much sleep.
Then, I made a discovery when I popped out to use the bathroom during the night, then paused to talk to my husband.
The door of the cat barrier was open.
I know I latched it after I turned the lights over the aquarium greenhouses off. Did someone open it during the night? My husband had seen it open, but thought I’d done that deliberately. I mentioned it to the girls, and they basically said the same thing.
So I latched it again, after making sure there were no cats in the living room, and went back to bed.
In the morning, it was open again, and the living room was full of cats.
After spending some time checking the hook and eye latch and trying to figure out what was going on, my husband suggested pulling on the bottom of the door, like a cat might do.
Sure enough, a couple of pulls on the bottom of the door, and the hook bounced right out of the screw eye and the door swung open a few inches.
Well.
So much for a cat barricade!
I let the girls know what we found, so they could figure something out while I was away.
Because I didn’t have a chance to test drive my mother’s car to see if that shudder was done, now that I’d knocked the ice away from the moving parts of one wheel, I used our van. My mother has a little folding step stool she can use to help her climb into the van.
I left early enough to hit a bank machine before going to the Chinese restaurant for the lunch that she wanted (but no rice, because rice makes her cough… ???), only to find the door locked. Again! The sign said they were open 7 days a week, and they should have been open for more than an hour, by the time I got there. The last time I tried to go there was when I spent the night at my mother’s after her scope procedure, and she wanted take out for supper, and they were closed then, too. Was the restaurant gone?
I decided to go with the fall back option and went to the gas station that has the most awesome fried chicken and potato wedges (just chicken for me, since I’ve given up starches and sugar for Lent; the breading on the chicken is pushing it! 😁), though my mother has decided it makes her sick. While paying for it, I asked about the Chinese restaurant, and it turns out that they are now closed on Mondays – they just haven’t changed their signs yet!
Good to know!
Thankfully, my mother didn’t complain too much about the fried chicken, though she did mock me a bit for not eating any potatoes. Because, of course… 😄
After lunch, I got her to show me her pills, and we got out her bubble pack. She showed me the pills that were now different; she had called them pink, but they were more orange than the lighter yellow they had been before – and in certain lights, those lighter yellow ones had looked pink to me in the past, so that had added to my confusion! She had the prescription list from an old bubble pack that I could compare with.
There were no new medications, and no changes to her dosages.
The only difference was the prefix to the name of her blood thinners, which I told her probably meant they were from a different company.
But why would this doctor change her medications? He’s not her doctor!
Since one of her stops was the pharmacy, I told her we could ask them, but said again, she has no new medications, and no new doses, so it must be a different company – and the doctor would have nothing to do with that. It’s just that sometimes, one brand isn’t available, so the pharmacy has to substitute with another brand that’s the same thing. This has happened to my husband’s medications quite a few times, over the years. She was not reassured, but looking forward to talking to the pharmacist about it.
Before we headed out, though, my brother had reminded me to call for maintenance to tend to my mother’s shower drain. She hasn’t been showering for about a month now, because so much water accumulates at the bottom, she has to stop before it starts flooding into the rest of the bathroom. She’s been refusing to call because the call goes to the city, and that’s really bad and a waste, and she shouldn’t have to call anyone, she should just tell someone here (who that someone is I’m not sure, since she still believes the social workers from the Senior’s Centre are managers for her building), and so on. So before we headed out, I tried calling the number for the department that owns her building, only to get a recording giving me another number for maintenance calls. I didn’t have paper and pen, so I hung up and started getting paper and pen together – until my mother brought me a letter that had the maintenance number right there! She could have given that to me right from the start, instead of directing me to the other number. 😄 It was an 800 number, so not long distance, which she was concerned about, too.
I called the number, followed the automated system, and found myself talking to what sounded like a guy in his truck. Talk about going right to the source! I explained the issue, with my mother confirming details and giving permission for them to enter her place if she wasn’t home.
That being arranged, we headed out.
Sure enough, when we talked to the pharmacist, the change in her pills was exactly what I thought it was. Just a change in companies. Seeing my mother’s concern, the pharmacist took the time to explain how it works legally for when they have to do substitutions, and that if it’s made by a generic company, they have to prove to the government that the pills are exactly the same for doses, etc. before they can be approved as a substitute. When she could see my mother’s eyes start glazing over, she started explaining more to me, so that I could “translate” things in vocabulary my mother would understand. She did such a great job of it, my mother was actually reassured, and that’s saying something!
The last stop for her errands was the grocery store and, by then, it was getting to be too much for her. Even with the stool, by the end of it, she was having a really hard time getting into the van. She was even saying to me, when we get a new vehicle, to make sure it has a handle by the door that she can grab onto! There actually are handles for the seats by the sliding doors, but when we tried having her climb into the middle of the van, instead of the front seat, it was even worse! Her knees are definitely giving her a hard time – which she has also been trying to blame on her medications, because now she thinks they should somehow make her knees better, even though none of them are painkillers or related to her knees in any way. She’s been on these meds for more than a decade, and before the car accident that messed up her one knee in particular, so I don’t know why she would think that!
I might be doing more grocery trips for her, while she stays home! Mind you, with so many errands to run today, it was a lot more stress on her knees than just a grocery trip would be.
Once back at her place, with everything put away, we settled down for a cup of tea. She kept offering me pie or toast or cookies or crackers – the crackers don’t have sugar! – to go with the tea, and made sure I knew how silly she thought it was for me to give up sugar and starches! I told her she could have whatever she wanted with her tea, and didn’t have to change anything for me, but she went with just tea, too.
While we were having our tea, there was a knock at the door.
It was someone to tend to my mother’s shower drain! I couldn’t believe it! I was expecting someone to show up sometime in a few days, not right away!
The woman turned out to be a manager for the building, and she used the same super powerful stuff we had tried on our own drain when the water from the washing machine kept backing up the drain. The smell was really awful, even with the door closed and the fan on in the bathroom. As she was leaving we talked for a bit in the doorway as I asked for instructions, which helped – except that one of my mother’s neighbours popped out and started yelling and ranting at her for talking in the doorway, because everyone could hear us.
The manager took it in stride, like someone who has dealt with plenty of this sort of thing before!
We also had a small world moment; it turns out she’s related to my SIL, and has known her and my brother for many years! Too funny!
One of the things she said to do was run cold water for a while and, if it still backed up, to let a specific person know when she came in, in a couple of days, and they’d go from there. I waited a while after she left, then ran the water…
… and heard some very familiar sounds, as gurgling water filled the pipe before starting to fill the bottom of the shower!
So I quickly ran out in the off chance she hadn’t left yet, and caught her just as she was returning to the building to fill out a log book.
I was able to give her a good description of what I was hearing as the water backed up, and she was all “you’ve dealt with this before, have you?” 😄 Why yes! Yes, I have! I told her about having to get about 30 feet of drain pipe augured. At this point, it has to go to a plumber, so she told me she’d call to make those arrangements as soon as she got back to her vehicle. The plumber might come tonight, but more likely tomorrow.
!!!
I couldn’t believe how fast it was being dealt with! And to think my mother has been putting up with this, and sponge bathing, for a month because she wouldn’t make the maintenance call!
We had a chance to talk some more about our my brother and his wife – she thinks they’re fantastic, too! – and when she found out where I lived, she asked if I happened to know…
Sure enough, we have mutual friends, too!
That done, I updated my mother about the plumber needing to come in and when he might show up. After that, I did have to go before the post office closed, as my husband messaged me to let me know a package had arrived.
Since it was such a nice day, I didn’t stay home long. Instead, I switched keys and left to test drive my mother’s car. If the shuddering was no longer there, I planned to go into town and run it through a car wash to get any last ice and dirt out from the undercarriage and wheels. If it was still shuddering, I’d turn around and come home, instead.
The car was definitely running better. Of course, on the gravel road, I couldn’t really tell at all, but once I reached our little hamlet, it seemed to be running pretty smoothly – at least while I was on smooth parts of the road! Once I got to highway speeds, I could still feel some shuddering, but was that the wheel, or the road conditions? Of course, I was paranoid the whole way, but did keep going to town.
When I parked to run in and buy a car wash, the driver’s side was facing the sun. As I returned to the car, I could see that the last chunk of ice I couldn’t break off had finally fallen loose. Landing on the moving parts, of course! 😄 At least I could just knock it off, easily!
What a difference it made. While it hadn’t been bad before, the ride home was noticeably smoother, even on the rougher parts of the road! What a relief! We had been so concerned that something had broken, and it was just a matter of finding and clearing ice out of one wheel. Blows me away how it had made the entire car shudder to such an extreme!
Too bad I hadn’t been able to do this yesterday, so that I could have used my mother’s car to run her errands, today!
Ah, well. It’s taken care of now.
Once at home, I found the girls had taken care of things for me, including moving the hook part of the hook and eye latch, so it wouldn’t bounce out anymore. The only concern is that there’s still a lot of play at the bottom of the door, and Tissue is the one who’s been digging at it. She is a remarkably muscular cat, and if any of them manage to pull it out enough to get through, it’ll be her! A second latch should solve that, I think, but the package I got had only two of them, and we’ve got one on each side, so we can latch is closed behind us when going into the living room.
The main thing is, tomorrow, I need to finally get more seeds started! Tonight, I’ll be going through the packets again to bring out the ones that need to be started this early, and set a few of them up to soak overnight.
It’s a few days late, but it should still be okay, I think.
Until then, I can prep some trays and get some Jiffy pellets soaking overnight, too.
I’m just so excited to be able to finally plant seeds again! The gardening bug it hitting hard, with these mild temperatures we’ve been having, even though the ground it still covered with a couple of feet of snow. 😄
The Re-Farmer 