Medical

A day of kitties, dentists and… of course

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My husband and I had joint dental appointments this afternoon, which meant – of course – I couldn’t sleep last night! I got maybe three hours of sleep before I finally got up to take care of the outside cats and do my morning rounds.

I had company.

Gotta love the murder mittens! 😂

Once the outside stuff was done, I had enough energy to grab a couple of PB sandwiches for breakfast and then crashed for a couple of hours, so I would at least be safe to drive.

I don’t think my husband was able to eat anything at all this morning. He meds really mess with his appetite, so he doesn’t typically have any sort of breakfast.

Which turned out to not be a good thing!

His appointment was at 12:45, and the plan was for us to go for a late lunch after we were done. We both had changes in our medical information to update them on before our appointments, so we headed out early to have time for that.

Thank God for AC in the truck. For all the rain we’ve had, it’s still hot and muggy, with the humidex making it so much worse. Stepping outside of the house or truck was like walking into a wet wall of heat. The rain doesn’t seem to have done much to reduce the smoke in the air, either. We’re just as smokey today as we were yesterday, and yesterday was the worst I’ve seen since we moved out here.

We had a bit of a surprise during the drive to town. For some distance, we could see something on the side of the road. A whole bunch of large somethings.

They turned out to be Guinea hens! About five or six of them! Someone’s flock had escaped. 😄 I had no idea anyone in that area kept Guinea’s.

Once at the dentist, I had a form to fill out with my new information. For my husband, he brought printouts and we just handed it to them to input into his file from. None of these forms ever have enough space for the number of medications he’s on. The first time we filled one of these forms out for him, we wrote the list out on the back and it pretty much filled the page.

My husband got called in first, and I had a while to wait before I was called in. Long enough for him to get his Xrays done, and then inform us they had to double the freezing to do what they had to do, so it was going to take longer than expected.

My own visit was actually a pleasant surprise… I think. I had a couple of teeth that have been bothering me, and I thought I had a cavity starting under a crown. After the Xrays were done, they found no cavities. In fact, other than needing a cleaning, my teeth are great.

So, why the problems I’ve been having? The dentist was perplexed. In the end, the only thing he did was the slightest of grinding and polishing of a sharp edge that I was feeling that I thought was the edge of a cavity. I didn’t even need freezing. He tried all sorts of things to try and track down the source of the issues I was describing, and everything was testing out fine. About the only thing he can think of is that there is a crack under a filling, too small to show up on an Xray, but he really couldn’t tell.

I will have some other work done another time, and eventually get to talking about what to do about my missing teeth, while we still have insurance, later on.

So my husband and I are booked for another double appointment next month.

My husband, unfortunately, needs more work. Today he got a temporary fix, but he does have a confirmed cracked tooth under a filling. He was in the waiting room by the time I got out, and still so frozen, going for lunch was out of the question!

We booked the next appointment, but had a problem settling the bill. For some reason, our insurance wouldn’t go through. My husband’s did, but not mine. This has happened before, and not just as the dentist. After fussing with it for a while, she ended up just printing out the invoice/receipt for both of us for our records. They’ll keep working on whatever is going on with the insurance company and if there’s anything not covered (I believe we are covered 90%), they’ll mail us a bill. I seem to recall they did this for me the last time I was there and had a tooth pulled.

From there, we made a quick stop at the grocery store. My husband stayed in the truck – he was in no shape to walk around! – and I dashed in to pick up something he could keep in his medication fridge to eat once the freezing wore off.

My the time we got home, it was time for me to head out to feed the outside cats and start my evening errands.

Which is when my cell phone rang.

*sigh*

Of course.

It was home care.

They didn’t have anyone for my mother’s med assist for tonight and tomorrow night. I confirmed the times she was scheduled for. I had enough time to update my siblings in our group chat, call my mother, grab a food and go.

When calling my mother, I found out that my sister had left not long ago. She had been able to come over to do my mother’s laundry during her scheduled time, which was really nice. I would have done it, if we didn’t have our dental appointments. Given what happened with the med assists, if I had done it today, I would have gotten home and had to turn around and come back almost right away! My sister is normally not available, so she doesn’t even have the lock box code.

Unfortunately, every time I call my mom to let her know I have to cover the med assist again, she starts ranting at me. Why are they calling me? Why don’t I tell them I live far away? Like it’s somehow my fault. I tell her, don’t take it out on me! She says she isn’t; that I’m the “victim”, so she doesn’t seem to realize that yelling at me every time really is her taking it out on me, even if it’s home care she’s mad at.

The call was short, though, as I told her I needed to have my supper (lunch, actually), then go.

Including the time it takes to get ready, open the gate, get the truck out, then make the drive, it takes about half an hour or slightly more to get to my mother’s. While there, I give her the supper time meds, then prepare her bed time meds for her to take herself, later. She’s supposed to take her supper time meds with food. She had her Meals on Wheels at noon today, but didn’t really have much she was up to for supper and ended up asking me to get some instant oatmeal started for her, and prep her milk that she likes to add to it as well. Even so, I was there for less than 10 minutes, and then it was another half hour to get home.

Talking to my older daughter about the situation just a little while ago, she pointed out that we won’t be able to do this in the winter, and I’m the closest! We’ve already had one call where the person who was supposed to do my mother’s med assist wasn’t going to come into town because it was too dangerous to drive on the highway during a storm. I told the person calling me, if the aid couldn’t come in because the roads are too dangerous, neither can I! (Which was completely true that day.)

That’s something I’m going to have to remember to bring up with the case coordinator. There’s a reason my mother’s meds are in a lock box, but if med assists are so unreliable due to staff shortages, this is going to be a real problem.

Unless, of course, they finally get my mother into the nursing home, like she wants so much!!!

So that was done, and I’ll be back tomorrow. My brother and SIL will be out this weekend with their grandkids, if all goes well, so maybe my brother will be able to come with me, too. With how she treats him, he doesn’t want to, but she behaves better when I am there.

Anyhow.

Once done and back home, I was able to finish my evening rounds.

Which has its perks!

Sometimes, those perks have blue eyes.

That smokey coloured garage kitten is getting darker as s/he get bigger. I still wonder where the blue eyes genes came from! There has to be a cat at a neighboring farm. It certainly isn’t from one of the males that lives here.

The white and grey is becoming increasingly curious, and allowing me to be closer. The smokey one runs away, which actually surprises me. After that one time I was able to not only pet it, but pick it up and hold it, I thought it would be the easier one to socialize. Instead, it’s been the harder one!

It does help that the mother allows me to pet her and starts purring. If she’s around, like she was when I got the above pictures, they are less prone to simply running away and hiding.

Once the evening stuff was done, I could finally settle in for the day. It’s not even 8pm yet, but I’m seriously considering going to be, with how little sleep I got last night. The only reason I have against it is that it’s so hot and muggy in my bedroom/office. The AC doesn’t affect this part of the house, and there’s only so much the fans can do, even with I have the box fan set to blow the hot air and smoke OUT the window during the day.

Tomorrow is supposed to get just as hot as today, with some rain in the late evening. Then we’re supposed to get about a week with little change in the temperature, but no more rain. Also, no change in the ongoing severe air quality warnings.

I do have to make sure to make a dump run tomorrow. I’m really dreading it. The conditions have gotten so bad there, I skipped going last week. I did as on a local group if anyone knew if they’d brought out the front end loader and pushed all the built up trash into the pit, but no one confirmed either way. Considering it’s been at least two months since the trash accumulating at the edge of the pit has been pushed in, you’d think it would be done by now.

I truly doubt it.

Our new council is really dropping the ball when it comes to this particular landfill. There are two others in our large municipality, but I don’t know their conditions, I’m not sure where they are, and it’s really not worth the extra cost in gas to drive the distances to them.

It needs to be done, though.

What a pain.

Ah, well. We’ll deal.

For now… yeah. I think an early bed time is definitely a necessity.

The Re-Farmer

What a day!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

… and it ain’t over yet.

First up, today has been the smokiest day we’ve had yet, and it hasn’t let up. It’s absolutely insane out there. It was also really hot and muggy, right from the get-go. We did get rain last night – enough to fill the rain barrel from half full, at least – but you’d never know it other than from the odd puddle in areas heavy with clay.

I did have a tiny little harvest this morning.

Just a handful of bush beans. Barely. The purple pods are from two of the three surviving Royal Burgundy plants. The one that got et by a deer is still recovering.

When I first headed out with the kibble, I was very happy to see that one of the feral kittens – the white and grey one – was INSIDE the sun room! All four of them, plus their mom, were near the house and shelters, and they even started eating from the trays by the house instead of running away to the shrine feeding station. Huge progress there! The garage kittens are still keeping their distance, though.

As I was doing my rounds, I spotted the four ferals again, on my late father’s car.

I had to zoom in from quite a distance. The faces on the white and grey and the calico as they stared at me… too funny! That white and grey has a very interesting shape to its face. I noticed fluffy Colby tends to be on his own, away from his siblings, more often than not.

My rounds done, I brought out my late father’s wheelchair that my daughter had dug out of storage for me. I took the plastic cover off and cleaned off the dust and cobwebs. I was going to lubricate it, too, but couldn’t find my cans anywhere. So I did as much as I could, then loaded it into the truck.

When I got back in, I found the girls were busily cooking as much as they could, before the power was to be shut off at 9am. I left them to it and called my mother to let her know I would be bringing the wheelchair over for her to try out, as we had discussed.

I have to admit, I was really angry at my mother by the end of the call.

She started off with saying, why so soon? I reminded her of our conversation. Then she kept throwing up more excuses, one after the other, about why I shouldn’t be bringing the wheelchair over. She wanted us to talk about it. I explained again, we need to know if she can handle a manual chair or not so we have something to discuss. At point point, she even tried to say that she only wanted it for if she fell down. As in, it would help her get up?? It made no sense.

Long story short: What she had really wanted was for my siblings and I to have some sort of meeting to talk about her wanting a wheelchair and what to get her. However, even that broke down to, she wants my brother to be doing it. She wants him to be at her beck and call at all times. She’s becoming increasingly obsessed with trying to control him and especially to get him away from his wife. Both of whom have never been anything but beyond kind to her.

When it became clear what she was really after, and she was starting to go on about, why doesn’t he call her, I told her flat out that she treats him like s***. Oh, and how does he treat me, she responded.

Like a queen, I told her. Of all of us, he treats her the best. No one treats her better than he does. And she hates him for it.

Yes, I used those exact words.

It blows me away, how her mind has become so twisted when it comes to my brother. We have a theory. As my brother ages, he’s looking more and more like our dad, so she’s treating him like she treated my late father. Which was not good. Our vandal has been abusive towards her for years, and she goes out of her way to defend him, but my brother helped her so much for so many years, making sacrifices, giving so much of himself to her, and she constantly stabs him in the back and makes more demands of him. Nothing he does is ever good enough.

When it comes to how my mother treats me, I don’t care. It took me many years of healing to get to this point. She can’t hurt me anymore. But she can, and does, hurt my brother, and that angers me.

I cut that conversation off and simply told her, I was coming over with the wheelchair for her to try. If she didn’t like it, I could take it back, but we needed to know if she could actually use it.

By the time I was on the road, it was not much past 8:30am. As I was turning onto the main gravel road, I could already see an electric company vehicle about a quarter mile up, parked across from our side of the road. I had to wait for another huge company vehicle to go by before I could continue. In the couple of miles to the highway, I passed a convoy of electric company vehicles, of all shapes and sizes, going the other when. The junction at the highway as a transformer station next to an off ramp, and there was practically an army of more company vehicles and staff milling about!

These folks were loaded for bear!

Later on, I got a message from my daughter. The power went off at 9am, on the nose.

I got to my mother’s shortly after 9. One of her neighbours happened to be by the main doors and was kind enough to open them for me as I brought in the wheelchair, and we chatted along the way. She, too, commented that it’s unlikely my mother has the arm strength to use it.

When I had called my mother, she was eating breakfast, so I was surprised to find she had gone back to bed. She started off saying that the home care aids hadn’t shown up to do her meds yet, but she was scheduled for 9:30, so it was still going to be a while. I had to move things around to make space for the wheelchair while my mother sat on her bed. She said she was really tired and ended up lying down again. I reminded her that this was for her to try out and see. Her apartment is not wheelchair friendly. If she did get a wheelchair, we would have to remove several pieces of furniture, at least, for her to be able to get around. I actually sat in it myself and tried moving around, and it’s incredibly easy to move. However, I’m not almost 94 years old with hardly any arm strength left.

In the end, I was done and heading out with still another 15 minutes before the aid was expected to arrive! My mother was like a completely different person than how she was on the phone.

Since I was in town anyhow, I decided to go to the home care office and see if I could talk to the case coordinator. There were things I wanted to update her on, in regards to the long term care panel. This morning’s phone call being a big one. Thankfully, she was in and able to take the time to see me.

I filled her in on some of the behavioral and cognitive changes I’ve been seeing. She was very surprised when I told her I’d just dropped off a wheelchair. The home care aids hadn’t noticed any changes in my mother’s mobility. They wouldn’t, though. They’re only there for 5 minutes, and my mother is usually sitting at her table, waiting for them.

I was happy to hear that there have been no complains about how my mother treats the home care aids, after a particular racist incident some time ago. I told her, my siblings and I had all had a talk with her about that, and that this sort of behavior would go against her being able to get into a nursing home, like she wants. So far, it seems to have worked!

My mother has an appointment with her doctor next week, so she suggested I ask the doctor for another mental health assessment. It’s been over a year since her last one, and some cognitive delay was noted, but not “enough” to get her into a nursing home. I brought up that I think her vision is also getting worse, but getting her into the special clinic in the city for treatment is just too much for her.

We did both agree that, with all the stuff she’s going going on, my mother is doing really amazing for someone who’s almost 94! Between her messed up knees, her feet, her hands, her vision, etc. the fact that she’s still doing as well as she is is amazing. Which, unfortunately, is the problem. She doing too “well”.

It’s so bizarre that we have someone that actually recognizes she needs to be in long term care, and actually WANTS to be in a nursing home, and they can’t approve her because she hasn’t fallen and broken a hip or something. So frustrating!

That done, I took advantage of being in town to pick up a few things at the grocery store, then another 40 pound bag of kibble at the feed store before heading home. In the last mile before our place, I was seeing guys up one of the power poles, but only one company vehicle on the road, well past our place.

As we were expecting a prescription delivery, plus my brother and SIL coming out with their new “house”, so I had left the gate open when I left for my mother’s. Much to all of our surprise, the power came back on just before 11:30, instead of the scheduled 2pm! That army of workers really got things done fast!

The phone rang almost immediately. It was the delivery driver letting us know we was almost at our place; something we’ve asked him to do, since we usually keep the gate locked. So I headed out to meet him, only to find an electric company truck driving in! They drove up to the main power pole, then reversed their way out the driveway again. As they were passing me, I let them know that there was a delivery about to arrive, just so they’d know a vehicle was on the way. They had just enough time to go to the driveway in the unoccupied property across from us when the delivery driver arrived.

That done and my husband newly supplied with medications, I got my computer going and started checking the trail cam files. For the gate cam, which also takes video, I’ve got a 32 gig card. For the sign cam, which is set to take only still shots, I have a 16 gig card.

I uploaded the sign cam first, then started on the other, only to discover the second card was empty.

It was also a 16 gig card.

I’d put the wrong card into the sign cam!

So, off I went to switch the cards to the right ones, then uploaded the files from the 13 gig card, transferring any new files from the sign cam into the appropriate folder, and started checking them. Which is when I realized that the electric company people had come to the closed gate several times yesterday, with someone climbing over the gate to get in to check the power pole in our yard.

Then I checked the new sign cam files, which were recorded after I made the mistake in switching them out this morning.

What I discovered was a whole bunch of files of our vandal on his ATV, going back and forth.

I went and switched out the gate cam’s card again, to see what was going on.

In that short time, I saw the electric company vehicle going in and out a few times. What I also saw was our vandal stopping on the road to stare down our driveway, several times. Not just while the electric company guys were there and there was something to see, but even while they were gone. There was even a recording time stamped *after* I’d switched out the sign cam cards, so after I’d already done out to meet the prescription delivery.

I was about to update my brother and SIL when I got a message that they had just arrived. So I headed out to talk to them while guy they’d hired to haul it out got unhitched. Then I went and closed the gate! I didn’t lock it, as the electric company guys might still have needed to come in, but it was at least closed. Then I opened and closed it for the driver as he left. I’ll go back later to chain it again.

In the end, my brother end up moving their new abode – which will be a permanent set up – to a different spot. One that can’t be seen from the driveway, and not very visible from the back up driveway, either.

They’re still here and setting up. It’s going to be great to have them as “neighbours”! I just wish we didn’t have to constantly be thinking of what our vandal might end up doing.

Do we really want to go through all the hassle of trying to get another restraining order? It’s such a pain to go through that, and having to drive so far to go the court office. And yet, he is escalating.

Also, for someone who is supposedly dying of cancer that he says we caused, he’s pretty darn mobile and active.

*sigh*

Looks like we need to get more cameras.

On a more ordinary note…

We’re still insanely smokey out there. Our ongoing air quality warning now also includes reduced visibility warnings. It’s also hot and muggy. We’re supposed to get a bit more rain this evening, then again tomorrow morning, but not in any significant amounts. Those thunderstorm and tornado warnings we were getting yesterday didn’t affect us, but apparently there was a possible tornado touch down south of the city. There were also insanely severe thunderstorms that caused lighting strikes as much as 20km away from the heart of the storms themselves!

If we could just get some rain. Just rain. Lots of it. We need it so badly!

With that in mind, I need to decide if I’ll trust the forecast, or go water the garden anyhow, after supper.

I’ll probably be watering anyhow.

The Re-Farmer

Garden firsts, tiny harvest, long morning

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, I headed out early to feed the outside cats and do my morning rounds, since I needed to go to my mother’s fairly early.

There is actually some progress in the garden today!

The first of the Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes is starting to develop a blush. As with so many other things, these tomatoes have stagnated in growth, but there are a few tomatoes developing at least. The rest are still very green.

In the next photo, we have our first open female pumpkin flower. I made sure to hand pollinate it, just to be on the safe side!

Last of all, I had a teeny, tiny harvest. A whole four of the yellow bush beans growing among the corn. It is odd to pick them when there were so few (from two plants, too!), but picking them will encourage more production.

I also picked the most Spoon tomatoes at one time for this year. There was maybe half a cup’s worth. This time, I washed and bagged them up to bring to my mother as a little treat. She’s not supposed to eat acidic foods like tomatoes, but loves them. These are so small and there are so few, they shouldn’t be an issue.

I headed over to my mother’s, getting to her place at around 9am. That’s when the lab opens, but she was scheduled for her morning med assist for 9:30. (She laughed in delight when she saw the teeny tomatoes!) So I helped her out with a few things and rubbed the Volataren on her back for her – something that the home care aid would have done, if I weren’t there. Then as she was getting ready to put on her slippers, I saw her toes needed some serious work! She had hired a foot care person to do her feet a while back and my mother told me she didn’t do a good job. As near as I can figure, though, it wasn’t a good job because her toenails are now long again. ???

I tried to do her feet, but it turned out she doesn’t have toenail clippers. Just fingernail clippers. Some of her toenails were so thick, they couldn’t fit into the clippers. Even scissors just slid off. She had a nail file I tried using, but it was so old, it was practically smooth.

Now on the shopping list for my mother: proper toenail clippers, and one of those callous grinders. There are special toenail grinders, but that would have to be an online purchase. I might order one for ourselves, actually. My husband needs help with his feet at times, too.

[side note: I sent a link to my husband to see what toenail grinder caught is attention and he came over to talk about it. He noticed that these grinders are basically just Dremels for toes – I had noticed that, too, and we both got a laugh over it. He has a variable speed Dremel and was suggesting we just buy the tips and use that. Which wouldn’t work too well for my mother! 😄)

While I was working in my mother’s feet, the home care aid arrived so I paused to let my mother take her meds. Normally, she would be having her breakfast with it, but she was fasting for one of her blood tests. She mentioned that to the aid, who said that she was going for blood tests herself, too.

After checking to make sure my mother’s back was treated, the care aid left. It took a while for my mother to get organized before we could leave. She decided she wanted to go to the bank today, too. Normally, she makes out a list of how many of each denomination she wants, but hadn’t done that, so she was looking all over for an old list. It took a while to redirect her away from that and assure her, she could still get the variety of denominations she wants, even without her list.

Thankfully, my mother was feeling better today than she was yesterday. She has to use a stool to get into the truck, with me lifting her slightly to help out, and she was concerned about whether or not she could do it today. She managed like a champ, though! Once at the lab, there was someone else at the counter, so I got her seated while she looked for her health care card. While waiting our turn, who should show up, but the health care aid we saw this morning! 😁

After my mother was checked in and the forms dropped off, we waited again. It turned out that they were short two people today. At the check in counter was an Asian guy that we’ve seen a few times. My mother prefers the girls, and they weren’t in today, so he was doing it all. At one point, he was at the counter and my mother was staring at him, then started crossing herself, repeatedly. Like she was trying to protect herself from the scary non-white person. *sigh*

The last time I brought her in for her monthly blood test, she asked me to make sure I was in the room with her while her blood was being drawn. It turned out that a while back, when I went to get an EKG done while she was getting her blood drawn, it was this guy that had drawn the blood, and she was convinced he faked it. She was positive that no blood was actually drawn, because she didn’t see any go into the vial.

The when she asked me to be there, it was one of the girls that drew her blood, but this time, it was the guy. As he was drawing her blood, with me sitting nearby, she actually spoke up, asking if he got the vein or not, because there was no blood going into the vial. Meanwhile, from where I was seeing, I was watching the vial fill. She had an extra test done this time, so I saw both of them fill. But my mother said she couldn’t see it.

I am now thinking this is related to her macular degeneration. Parts of her vision is obstructed so, because the guy drawing her blood wasn’t white, that must mean he was faking drawing her blood.

…

He was absolutely sweet with her, though, but sadly, that means nothing to my mother.

*sigh*

After her samples were drawn, we headed out and stopped at the bank. She hasn’t gone in ages and my brother has been getting her monthly cash for her, because it’s so difficult for her now. With his work hours, he’s only been able to take out smaller amounts through an ATM, and not all in the denominations she wants. This time, since she didn’t have her list, she asked me to go to the counter with her and make her requests as she had instructed me in the truck. This is a first. I usually go along to be available to help her with things, physically, but this time she actually wanted me to talk to the teller for her. The teller, of course, confirmed with my mother after I passed on the instructions, that it was what she wanted. My mother asking me to do something like this, especially involving money, is a really big shift.

The banking done, my mother was really hungry from her fasting, so she suggested we go somewhere to eat. It was early enough we still had to wait for the restaurant to open at 11. While there, someone else showed up to wait for the doors to open. My mother, being my mother, had her usual complaint every time we go to this place. The sidewalk to the door has broken edges on the concrete. She constantly rants about how they need to fix it, it looks bad, it makes the entire town look bad, it’s bad for business, etc. In reality, though, she just doesn’t like the look of it and demands it gets fixed for her. It really isn’t that bad. She started going on about it to the guy that was there, too, and we were both commenting that this would be very expensive to fix, and I pointed out that special permits would be needed. Plus, part of the area wouldn’t even belong to the restaurant, but to the town, so it would be the town’s responsibility to fix about half of it. All of which she angrily dismissed.

Then the poor guy came to unlock the door.

He held the doors open for my mother and her walker. My mother, meanwhile, didn’t miss a beat and went from complaining to us about the state of the sidewalk, to yelling about it at the poor guy. He did give an apology for it and said that it would be fixed when they could afford it, but my mother just kept being really rude and angry at him. I apologized, of course, but he seemed to take it in stride.

We had ourselves an excellent lunch, though, with my mother ordering a medium pizza for herself, so that she could take half of it home for her supper later on. Even with ordering, though, my mother was so impatient. She was hungry, which probably explained some of the behaviour, but she seems to think that if she tells the waitress how hungry she is, they will somehow magically produce her order instantly. Almost immediately after placing her order, she was complaining about how long it was taking! Once she got her food, though, she was very happy with it.

My mother insisted on paying for the meal, but she doesn’t believe in tips, so when she gave me just barely enough cash to cover the bill, I snuck a tip to the waitress. The last time my mother saw me leave a tip, she actually yelled at me on the way home over it.

That was our last stop, though, and my mother was more than happy to get home. Getting in and out of the truck is so difficult for her, but she manages it! Still, she had to stop and rest on her walker several times, just to walk the short distance to her apartment.

One of the things she was telling me to talk about with my brother (as her PoA) is about getting her a wheelchair. I tried asking her some questions about it, but she just said she needs a really comfortable wheelchair, and she can pay for it.

Now, we still have my late father’s folding wheelchair. That’s not what she’s asking for, though. She wants something “comfortable” (which is so subjective!). The problem is, I don’t think she has the arm strength to wheel herself around in a manual wheelchair. I tried to explain that to her, but it took several times for her to understand what I was getting at. Once she did, she tried to say that if she could stand at the counter and cook her own food, she could operate a wheelchair. I told her that there is a big difference between doing stuff at a counter or stove, and trying to move around her own weight. At which point she asked, what’s the alternative.

*sigh*

Several times now, my brother has tried to provide her with motorized mobility devices. Including a motorized chair that took up less space than her walker does. She refused to use it. When I brought it up, she said she didn’t like how jerky it was and she was afraid she would run into things. I told her, it was just a matter of getting used to it and learning how to use it.

In the end, I told her I would bring it up with my siblings but, in the mean time, I would bring my father’s wheelchair over. She could try it out and see just how well she can handle a manual chair. If she can, then we can look into getting her a “comfortable” wheelchair. Otherwise, we’d have to look into a power chair.

Our province does actually have a program that provides manual and power chairs on loan. On looking into the details, though, my mother doesn’t qualify, as she is in the process of being paneled for a nursing home.

The other problem I didn’t even bother bringing up is, my mother’s apartment is not wheelchair friendly. We would have to get rid of some of her furniture for her to be able to get around.

Well, we’ll be seeing my mother’s doctor next week. Perhaps there is something the doctor can do to expedite getting my mother into some sort of supportive living or long term care. As far as how the home care system paneling goes, they’re basically waiting for my mother to have a fall or something and end up in the hospital before she qualifies for anything. Which, of course, we’re doing everything we can to avoid!

In the end, I spent about three hours helping my mother get around and do the things she wanted. She was pretty exhausted by the time I got her home, and so was I! Enough that, once I got home, I ended up crashing for a couple of hours.

I still feel like I could sleep for a week.

Meanwhile, my brother and his wife came out, late this afternoon. They were returning their trailer from the camp ground up north and parking it. It was several hours of driving for them to get here. My brother was then running around like crazy, as he usually does! My SIL was able to catch me up on things while I gave her a tour of what I’ve been doing around with the garden. She really liked the new section of wattle weaving, and I told her about the issues I was having with the project, and my plans to get some basket willow, and where I would be planting them. Definitely with more planning than with the other willows we’ve got on the property! Some of them, like the ones near where the ejector is, should be cut down. They were planted way too close to the ejector and, even at its new location, their roots can destroy the system. I’m really surprised that they were planted there in the first place and, from the looks of some of them, someone already tried to cut them down at some point, and they just grew right back!

My brother and his wife have been talking about ways to help out with big jobs like that. We simply don’t have the tools and equipment to do a lot of it.

There isn’t a lot left of the season for this year, but next year I suspect there are going to be a LOT of changes and progress being made here, now that they no longer have their acreage to take care of, and can come out here more often. They’re even going to bring out a more permanent structure they were able to get a very good deal on. Something more like what in the UK is, I think, called a caravan. I can’t remember the name of it she told me. They want to be able to bring the grand kids out and have them stay the night, and that won’t work in the RV trailer they have right now.

I’m excited over their grandkids being able to come out here, too. They live in another province, so I hardly ever get to see them, and they’re growing so fast!!!

There are going to be so many changes here over the next few years!

The Re-Farmer

August coming in hot

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We’re only 3 days in and August is already hammering us, and it looks like it’s not going to get much better for a while! As I write this, it’s just past 6pm and, depending on which app I look at, we’re still at our high of 27C/81F, or we’re 25C/77F with the humidex putting us at 29C/84F.

I just got back from outside, and I’d go with the humidex of 29C/84F.

Looking at the long range forecasts, we’re looking at highs of 30C/86F or higher. In a couple of weeks, though, we might start getting overnight lows dropping below 10C/50F here and there. We’ll see what actually happens!

This morning, at least, was pleasantly cool. When I first headed out, early since I had to go to my mother’s for her morning med assist, I at first thought the smoke was really bad again. Happily, it wasn’t smoke, but fog.

Well. Mostly. Once the fog dissipated, it was still really smokey. Last I read today, several new wildfires have been spotted, while several others have merged. High winds and poor visibility have prevented helicopters and water bombers from being able to go out, but things have cleared up a bit, and they were able to see the changes.

There was, of course, morning cuteness.

I didn’t see the calico this morning, but fluffy little Colby now likes to join the crowd of cats converging at the sun room doorway, calling for food. The garage kittens wouldn’t move away from the garage this morning, so I brought their bowl back. I was hoping if I left it closer to the house, they’d be encouraged to come over, but they’re still too scared. It doesn’t help that their mother is so stand-offish and aggressive with the other cats. She will let me pet her sometimes, and starts purring right away, but she does NOT like other cats! The kittens did seem curious about the other kittens, when I saw them by the house, so they might be different as they get bigger and braver.

The cats fed and my morning rounds done, I was soon off to my mother’s to do her morning med assist. Since I was there yesterday morning, there wasn’t a lot else that needed to be done.

Since I was out anyhow, I kept on going to the smaller, nearer city. I hit the Canadian Tire first to get more stove pellets for the litter boxes. While there, I picked up some deer repellant spray that I can spray directly onto our fruit trees, as well as surfaces. It’s supposed to repel racoons and mice, etc. too.

My peas had been getting a second growth spurt, with several plants blooming and developing new pods.

This morning, they were gone. The pea pods and fresh growth, that is. Not the entire plants.

I’m not going to spray my peas with this stuff, so I stopped at a Dollarama next. I found more of the taller tomato cages, like I set around the plum tree. I picked up four sets of them and plan to put them along one side of the bed with the peas as a sort of wall, and spray those, instead. I’m going to just do the side with the Super Sugar Snap peas, since those are the ones still trying to produce, and where I have a couple of drying out plants with pods I’m allowing to fully mature to collect seeds for next year. I’ve bought more pea seeds, but none are sugar snaps.

Last of all, I hit the Walmart, starting with an early lunch at the McRaunchies. One of the things on my list was some ibuprofen for my daughters, but I was still too early. The pharmacy department was still closed and the extra strength stuff was covered and locked, still. So I took my time getting the other things on my list, plus a few other items I remembered.

In the end, I got four 4L bottles of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier, the ibuprofen (the most expensive item), a container of beef bullion powder, a couple of containers of sour candy for my husband (for when his blood sugars drop), four little bottles of sugar free water flavours for him as well, plus a bag of praline covered peanuts and two containers of gum to keep in the truck. Last of all, I grabbed an energy drink for the drive home. It cost just under $83. !!! The scary thing is, if I’d bought all this locally instead of at Walmart, it would have cost about 50% more.

That done, I headed home with only a stop at a gas station along the way. Gas in the town nearest us is the same as the city, at $1.379, instead of the $1.389 that it is in my mother’s town. I’ll be back at her place on Tuesday, to take her for her monthly blood work, and I wanted to make sure I got gas at a slightly better price.

Once I was home and the truck was unloaded by the house, I couldn’t move it because there were too many kittens around the tires. It was too early to feed them to lure them away, so I left it to move at feeding time. Once my daughter and I put everything away, I decided to just lie down for a bit. Between my aversion to shopping and the heat, I was wiped out, so I thought a bit of a rest was in order.

Two hours later, I woke up to find myself encased in cats. 😄

Good grief. I just checked the temperature again, as I want to do the evening watering, and it has actually gotten hotter!

Well, the garden needs to be watered. Time to put on my big girl panties and suck it up.

I really don’t tolerate the heat like I used to, that’s for sure! I used to love temperatures like this!

Ah, the joys of getting old.

😄😄

The Re-Farmer

They’re here! Plus another outing, and I just couldn’t resist.

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I got a call from home care last night.

No med assist for my mother this morning, nor for tomorrow morning.

*sigh*

Which meant I was out a bit earlier to feed the cats and do my rounds, but I didn’t have time to water the garden. The heat is on and is staying for the next few days, so we will likely be watering twice a day again. My daughters took care of the watering while I was out.

When setting out the cat food, I’ve been putting some in a try by the back door of the garage, where the garage kittens have been hanging out. Usually, I see them playing behind the garage, then running to hide as soon as I come near. They weren’t there this morning, though their mother followed me.

It wasn’t until I was heading back to the house with the bowl that I saw them! The white and black one was at one of the water bowls. It is a large former heated water bowl and was needed refilling, so the kitten was basically climbing the side of the bowl to be able to get to the water. The smokey one was a few feet away, chewing on some taller grass. As I very slowly and quietly got closer, it saw me and ran away…

In the direction of the house!

I still had to put the food bowl in the sun room, so I tried to skirt around, worried I would scare it away completely, but nope.

It ended up running into the sun room – then started eating!

I ended up leaving the bowl outside and finishing my rounds, leaving the water refills for later, so as not to scare them off.

I am so happy they have finally come to the house!!

That done, I was soon on the road to mother’s. When I called her about it last night, I remembered to ask her to make a shopping list so I could do her groceries as well. She had that ready when I got there. After giving her her medications, we went over the list, and added a few more things to it.

Her shopping goes pretty fast, so I was soon back and putting things away. My mother was getting dressed for the day and asked me to rub some Voltaren on her lower back, where things have been bothering her. The morning med assist with home care has extra time to do stuff like that for my mother. She tells me they don’t do a very good job of rubbing it in, though!

There were only a few odd things with my mother on this visit. During conversation, it got around to getting the door fixed, and I told her it was going to cost over $4000. She had asked me to let her know how much it would cost some time ago. I did mention it shortly after we got the estimate, but she got distracted by something and I don’t think she heard me. Her immediate response when I told her the amount today was, “I don’t believe it.” I’m not sure if she was accusing me of lying, or that the company was over charging. I went with the latter and told her that my brother had replaced a door on his house – just the door, not the frame – and did all the work himself, and it still cost them over $2000. That was years ago, too, before all the prices started going crazy.

She still doesn’t believe it.

Since she did ask, I mentioned a few other things we’re dealing with when she suddenly got all overwhelmed, saying it was “too much for me” and too much for her to deal with.

???

I said to her, I’m not expecting you to do anything. I’m just telling you about it! This isn’t for you to fix. Then I realized what was going on and added, I’m not our vandal. He used to go to her for money constantly – and she would give it to him! He got many thousands of dollars out of her, and I think she was expecting me to ask her for money. Now, she did imply that she would help with the cost when she first told me to let her know how much it would be, but this is my mother we’re talking about. She’ll throw money at our vandal at the drop of a hat, likely due to some odd feeling of guilt over how he’s turned out. Especially after the youngest of my brothers died, and he took full advantage of that. When it comes to me or my brother, however, she will often make promises about paying for things, then try to back out at the last minute. She did that when it she said she would pay for our moving out here to take care of the place, then tried to do it again with the new roof. So I don’t ask. She still acts as if I’m making demands of her.

Makes it very hard to have conversations with her at times.

As I was getting ready to leave, my mother asked about our crab apples. I told her, we won’t have apples until the end of August on one tree, end of September on the others. Well, someone had left a big box of crab apples in the common room, and she’d taken some for herself and for me. I’d seen the apples in the box and, while I knew my mother would have picked the best she could find, they weren’t in good shape. She started bagging up some crab apples for me and I tried to tell her we didn’t need any, I just did our big stock up shops, we have plenty of fruit, etc. She scoffed and started telling me how I should cook them, what I should do with them. All desserts. I told her, we’re not really dessert people. She scoffed again and said she was saving me money by giving them to me. I’m not sure how, but she then started talking about how I should be cooking our own food, and I would be saving money by cooking…

???

I told her, of course, I’m cooking. What does she think? We get food out of the air?

She started talking about how we’re “modern” and about food in boxes.

So… because I didn’t want to take the crab apples, she thinks I don’t cook, and we only eat prepared food from boxes?

I told her, do you know how expensive boxed food is? I do the cooking!

Ah, but we must be buying boxed food all the time, and that’s why we’re always short on money.

…

So…

Things are tight (which I didn’t even talk to her about in any way) isn’t because everything is breaking down and needing to be replaced or repaired. Not because the cost of living has gone through the roof. No. It’s because, in the almost 40 years since I moved off the farm, I apparently never cooked and we only eat prepared food.

I told her she was starting to make things up, just like our vandal. Her response? Well, I guess he had to learn it from somewhere.

…

*sigh*

So I now have a bag of bruised crab apples. We’ll find something to do with them. They won’t go to waste. My mother does have an incredible talent at making what was supposedly a gesture of kindness into a pretty nasty attack on my uselessness as a human being. Absolutely bizarre.

Ah, well. Not much we can do about it.

I had considered going back to the grocery store for ourselves, but just didn’t have the energy. I had tried to go to bed early last night, but that didn’t work. My left hip was particularly bad last night, so I got up to take painkillers – the first since I’ve been on anti-inflammatories – but didn’t have a water bottle handy. I now have a small drinks fridge in my bedroom that my daughters gave me to make space for the AC upstairs, so I just had to stand up and take two steps to get a water bottle.

Instead, I got hit with a Charlie Horse in my left thigh. I couldn’t even stand up, never mind take those two steps.

It’s been a a while since this has happened!

Thankfully, what I could reach was the Tei Fu lotion. Also thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as others I’ve had, and the lotion soon did its work. Getting back to sleep after that, though, was not easy, as my leg would still twitch and twang as if it was going to start cramping up again, for hours.

Being as tired as I was, and after dealing with my mother – and this her on a good day! – I was more than ready to just go straight home.

As I write this, it’s coming up on 5pm, and I’ll be heading out to do the evening yard cat feeding. I’m not looking forward to going out there. I think doing my evening stuff in the heat yesterday is what triggered the Charlie Horse last night. Plus, we’re still in the hottest part of the day. We already hit our expected high of 28C/82F, while the humidex put us at over 30C/86F. We’re not expected to cool down to our overnight low of 16C/61F until 6am tomorrow, and then it’s going to scream right back up again. There is rain in the forecast but not for another 4 days.

Definitely need to water the garden again tonight. I did use that Shake ‘n’ Feed fertilizer on most of the beds, so hopefully that will help with every watering as well.

Speaking of gardening.

Yes. I did it again.

I placed another seed order.

What can I say? MI Gardener went from having a 25% off sale, to a 40% off sale.

This time, I got some more unusual items, as well as varieties that I want to try at some point. Most of this is pure seed inventory stuff. I’ve already got the order confirmation, so I’ll write about that in my next post.

After I feed the kitties.

I wonder if the garage kittens are still close to the house, getting to know their cousins?

The Re-Farmer

Food forest first, tiny harvest, and many changes of plans!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

If today had gone as originally planned, we would have dropped the truck off for the insurance claim repairs this morning, and been driving a Caravan until Tuesday.

The courtesy vehicle being broken down, the repairs and truck box cover replacement are now on hold.

Which should have meant a day at home, with no driving around.

Ha!

Last night was actually a very rough night for me. Zero sleep. You know those nights when you start to drift off, suddenly wake up and… that’s it. The more tired you get, the less you’re able to sleep.

That was my night.

I finally got up to do my morning rounds as usual. The morning was still pleasant. The high of 29C/84F my weather app said we were supposed to get, when I went to bed last night, with 31C/88F tomorrow was reversed by this morning. We did, indeed, reach 31C/88F this afternoon, and the humidity is at 85%.

I had intended to water the garden again this morning, but everything was still damp from last night’s watering, and I was feeling like I got hit by a truck, so I skipped it.

I did find a lovely surprise, though! Some flashes of red in a silver buffaloberry.

We have a food forest first.

Our first silver buffaloberry bushes have produced berries! Only two of them.

The berries are edible, but I didn’t try them yet. I believe they’re supposed to ripen to an even darker red, so I will wait a little longer before tasting one.

My morning rounds done, I intended to crash right away, but ended up chatting with my brother for a while, then making a call. My daughter’s computer was supposed to be shipped to their address yesterday, but it didn’t show up. The tracking information now said it would be delivered on Monday. My brother can’t work from home on Monday, which means it would get left at their front door with no one to bring it inside before it got stolen. We considered coming over and just hanging out on Monday, but to do that, we would need a house key, and we don’t have one.

He suggested we might be able to find out where the computer was, and perhaps pick it up from the depot, directly. After much searching on the website, I was able to find a customer support number to try calling.

Of course, the first thing I had to do was navigate the automated menu system. That finally sent me to the appropriate customer service department.

Which got me to the strangest recorded lecture I’ve ever heard. First, there was a bizarre speech about Canada Post being “accepting” of “diversity” and all the usual Woke butt kissing BS. Then it started to say that racism, bigotry, and abuse would not be accept – oh, and they were very polite. Be polite.

I would have taken the second part better if they hadn’t started with the first part, which is the epitome of racist and bigoted ideology, but I digress.

After a minute or two of a robot voice lecturing me, I finally got sent to…

… an AI support voice.

It took a couple of times go get it to understand that no, I did not have a business tracking number, but I did have a tracking number, and let me read it out. Then it basically told me exactly what the website did, and told, hey, did you know you could get all this from the website? You should really use the website.

When it ended by asking if there was anything else, I said no, I’d like to speak to a person.

“It sounds like you would like to speak to an agent!”

It then repeated the same thing it had before, ending with, is there anything else?

It took me three times asking to talk to a person before it finally transferred me to a person.

Who, much to my surprise, answered almost right away.

I explained the situation – after he got the tracking number and repeated to me exactly what the website and AI support voice already told me, assuring me that the package absolutely would be delivered on Monday. I told him that what I was asking was, where is the package now, and if we could pick it up ourselves, rather than wait until Monday.

Once he understood what I was after, he told me that the last time it was scanned was on the 22nd, when it got processed and shipped.

Three days ago.

Since it had not been scanned at any point since then, even though it was apparently in transit to my brother’s place, yesterday, they had no idea where it actually was.

…

So, there was nothing we could do. He couldn’t even tell me if it was in our province, never mind if it was in the city.

Well, so much for that idea.

I passed that on to my brother, and we left it for then, and I was finally able to crash for about an hour.

I had just woken up when I got a message from my brother.

With a picture of a package left next to their lock box. He just happened to catch the delivery as it happened!

Well, that changed our plans entirely!

My brother had to finish things up by 3pm, as he’s heading out of the province for the weekend for one of their grandson’s birthday. I updated my daughter and we were able to be on the road within the hour! Which is good, because it takes about an hour to get to his place, and by then it was just past lunch time.

We didn’t stay for long, as we knew he had lots going on. Much thanks and hugs were given!

Neither my daughter nor I had eaten yet, though, so on the way home, we swung by the Walmart we were at yesterday, and we had a quick lunch. While we were there, I picked up a big bag of kibble that I forgot to get yesterday. The outside cat’s kibble bin was going down fast, and I knew it wouldn’t last until our first city stock up trip.

By the time everything was done, we got home shortly after 3pm. Which is close to when I would normally do the evening cat feeding.

That didn’t happen quite yet, though. I noticed we had a message.

It was from home care.

They didn’t have anyone for my mother’s evening med assists tonight, nor for Sunday evening.

*sigh*

In the middle of all this, I started getting messages from the large animal rescue. They’ve had guided tours and a petting zoo open, as part of their fundraising and educational efforts. Poirot’s kittens are a big hit, and people are interested in adopting.

Of course, they all want a fixed and fully vetted cat, but not pay for it.

They do have adoption fees, but a spay is $300.

I made sure to tell them about the clinic we’ve been going to through the Cat Lady’s rescue, which is $175 for a spay.

We’ve been trying to adopt out cats for a long time now, and I’m starting to get really frustrated with people. Everyone wants a “free” cat, or at least very low adoption fees, but they also want the cat to have hundreds of dollars in vet care spent on them first.

Which is almost like saying they want to be paid to take the rescue.

Just one of the many reasons the Cat Lady is dropping out of rescue.

I had time to send in some of the information the local rescue lady was asking for. Mostly. I’m sure she’ll have more questions. Then I quickly did the evening feeding of outside cats before heading to my mother’s.

Of course, since I was there anyhow, my mother had stuff for me to do. 😄 Things the home care aides don’t do, like floor sweeping, or refilling her water bottles. The aides in the city will do light stuff like that, but not out here in the more rural communities.

My mother then wanted me to leave her morning pills out for her.

It turned out she thought I would be coming for all her visits for the entire weekend. I told her that she was covered for tomorrow and for Sunday morning, but I would be back on Sunday evening.

I did set out her bed time pills, and her inhaler, so that I wouldn’t have to come back for… pretty much the time I’m writing this, right this moment. As I was filling out the booklet where I record when I do these visits, my mother almost took her inhaler, which is supposed to be just before bed. Simply because it was there.

My mother is still convinced she can do her own meds, and doesn’t even really realize that, if I weren’t still there to stop her, she would have taken it at the wrong time. In this case, it would not have harmed her, but that’s why she has a lock box! Well. One reason why.

Once I was back home from my mother’s, I did the evening rounds I normally would have done after doing the evening cat feeding. I spotted this adorable sight and had to get a picture.

After getting the picture (I couldn’t see the second kitten anywhere), I went over and Pinky let me pet her. She even started purring and rolling around in that old barrel.

The kitten, however, disappeared behind the sheet of metal roofing and stayed hidden.

I had considered watering the garden for the evening, but we were getting severe thunderstorm warnings. The wind was picking up, and I could hear thunder in the distance.

Looking at the weather radar, it appears that particular storm passed to the north of us, but it’s still really windy, and I think more little storms are blowing towards our area. I even had some broken branches to pick up as I checked around the yard.

I did manage a tiny little harvest in the garden this evening.

A little handful of Spoon tomatoes!

I gave them to my husband as a little treat. He got a laugh out of them. They are so adorable!

Good grief…

As I sit at my computer, I can see out my window facing part of the maple grove. I’m watching these giant maple branches being violently blown about in the wind. I’m half expecting a chunk of that tree to break off! It has an overhanging branch that is so old and so thick, it’s basically another tree trunk.

Anyhow…

That has been my day today! Not at all as planned or expected.

Tomorrow, I’m expecting to be able to stay home for a change.

We’ll see if that actually works out!

Meanwhile, I think I’ll go visit my daughter and see how the new computer is. 😁

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, eye tests, and oops! I missed one!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Gotta start out with the cuteness!

When I came out this morning, I found all four of the feral kittens in the grass around the catio area, like they were coming towards the house. The little orange one does come to the kibble tray under the water bowl shelter, and I’ve even seen it a bit closer to the sun room, but the others are much shier, so it’s great to see them inching closer.

The garage kittens, I notice, have been spending more of their time hanging out outside. Still right up against the garage, where there are things they can hide behind, but they seem to prefer being outside of the garage rather than inside it, now.

While doing my morning rounds I did my usual check of the garden beds. When I got to the potato bed, I spotted something strange. I guess a cat or something had been digging in the loose soil, and uncovered something I missed!

A single potato! A pretty big one, too! I don’t know how I missed that! 😄

Today I had my eye appointment booked. I was going to be getting the dilation drops, so my daughter came along to do the driving afterwards. Plans for after my appointment included possibly going to my brother’s to pick up her computer, that was supposed to be delivered today.

It wasn’t.

As I write this, and the tracking information still says it’s “in transit” and expected to be delivered between 9:30am and 1:30pm today.

It’s just past 10pm right now.

My daughter and I left early as I wanted to stop at a gas station before my appointment. I was going to go to one in the town my eye doctor is in, but when we got close to the gas station I saw it was mostly blocked off by the truck refilling their tanks.

So we kept on going and got to the eye clinic almost an hour early.

As we drove into the parking lot, though, we noticed a new ice cream store had opened in the same building. When I checked in, and was told that not only was I very early, but the doctor as behind and hadn’t even had her lunch yet, we decided to go for ice cream.

The place was so new, they weren’t finished setting up yet. The menu boards were dark and there was no seating inside, though they did have picnic tables outside. They did, however, have many varieties of ice cream for us to check out, and we got a couple of waffle cones. The tables outside were occupies, so we cross the street to a tiny park where we could sit on some large rocks in the shade. It was very pleasent.

By the time we got back, they took me in very quickly, for the initial photographs of my eyes they needed to take, first. I have the tiniest of hemorrhages in my eyes that the doctor is monitoring. I didn’t have to wait long before the doctor called me in. We started out by looking at the images, comparing back to when I first started seeing her, in 2023. There are slightly more of these tiny hemorrhages, but nothing has gotten worse, so we are still in “monitoring” mode.

Then she tested my vision. Much to my surprise, there is almost no change in my prescription. The tiny big of change in my left eye is so minor, there’s no reason to get new glasses.

Then it was time to dilate my eyes.

Those drops really burn!

After the drops were done, I was sent to the waiting room for a while to give my eyes time to dilate before being called back in. Then I got to get that bright light flashed into my eyes while she examined inside them. Of all the tests, that’s the one that bothers me the most. Not even the puff test bothers me much. I mentioned that and she told me that with some people, it’s the field of vision test that bothers them the most, while others have issues with the puff test. I told her about my mother and her macular degeneration, and how she got the eye injection. I told her, my mother handled them like a champ, but I honestly don’t think I could get that done! She asked me who the doctor at the special eye clinic in the city was that saw my mother. I told her, and she said she had heard very good things about him. She’s read some of his papers, and was quite impressed by them. I told her, he’s really excellent – and has a great “bedside manner”. He was always very sweet with my mother. I was happy to have a chance to share how good he was; if she ever found herself with a patient with newly developed eye issues beyond what she can do in her clinic, it’s that clinic in the city she’d be referring people to, and she would know that this particular doctor is highly recommended for more than his very impressive credentials.

Those tests done, the doctor wanted me to get one of the sets of pictures taken earlier done again, while my eyes were still dilated, since they’d be able to get more detail. After that, she wanted me to book another appointment for 6 months from not. That would put us in January, though. After talking about it, and our issues with travel in winter, which I try to avoid if I can, we decided that I will come back in October for a field of vision test – but no eye dilation! – and then come back for the dilation test again in 6 months after that. This way, my appointments will be spring and fall instead of summer and winter.

While at the counter, settling my bill (a whole $5.50, after the insurance coverage was deducted), there was a guy trying to book an appointment during a certain week. The other receptionist kept telling him they were going to be up north. Somehow, he understood that to mean they were fully booked, which they are – but the staff will all literally be up north. The receptionist I was with told me, she was the one who got them doing this. She mentioned having a lot of First Nations friends up north, and I completely understood. They just don’t have these sorts of clinics up there. They’d have to go south to the city. She said, that’s exactly it. It’s easier for a few staff at the eye clinic to be flown up north and see 200 patients, then to fly 200 patients to the city! And that’s just from one place. They now go up to visit 9 different northern communities throughout the year. It’s fantastic that they can do that!

By the time I was done, we’d heard from my brother that my daughter’s computer was not delivered. She and her sister had their own shopping list, though, which meant a Walmart trip. It would have been on the way home from my brother’s, but we went straight there, instead – after getting some gas, since the station was no longer blocked by a giant tanker truck! Since we were at the Walmart anyhow, I picked up a few little things as well, to tide us over until we do our first stock up shop, next week.

By the time we got home, it was past 5pm, and we were greeted by some very hungry kitties! My daughter took care of putting everything away, then making a heat-and-eat supper, while I quickly took care of the kitties.

The next two days are supposed to get really hot, so when things started cooling down this evening, I went out to give the garden a thorough watering. I plan to water twice a day, when it gets really hope. I am still holding out home that at last some things will start growing again, instead of just stagnating. It’s starting to look like all the red noodle beans are not only stagnating, but starting to die. I did spot one new sprout – a late germinating bean – and it’s all nice and green, like all the others were when they first sprouted. Now, they seem to be getting yellower, every day.

I wish I knew why. Even the extra seeds I had that got planted in the gaps among the peas that didn’t germinate, they’re looking yellow, so it’s not something specific to the beds. I’m at a total loss about it.

The winter squash, at least, seem to be recovering, though it’s unlikely there’s enough season left for them to develop fruit, even if they had an explosive growth spurt. The melons are just… not happening.

So furstrating!

I’m still tending them, just in case they recover. Who knows what will happen in the next couple of months.

Aside from all this, I have something good to share, and that’s how good I’ve been feeling. It’s only been a couple of days on the anti-inflammatories, and I can’t believe how pain free I’ve been. I haven’t even been taking the max dose I can “take as needed”. In fact, I even reduced how many capsules I cat at a time; I can take 2 capsules up to 3 times a day. I’ve taken 2 capsules, twice a day. This evening, I took just one. We’ll see how I feel overnight before I decide if I’ll take 1 or 2 in the morning.

I still have various pains, but the last couple of days have been the closest to being completely pain free as I can remember being in a very long time. Particularly when it comes to how much my body stiffens up if I’ve been sitting for a while, such as while driving, or sitting at my computer. I’m just blown away by how much difference I’m feeling, in such a short time!

Things are now winding down and I’ll be heading to bed soon. It should be interesting to see if half the dose will still be enough for me to be able to sleep without various joints keeping me awake with pain during the night.

I am so happy I thought to ask about trying the anti-inflammatories! What a difference they are making!

The Re-Farmer

Got to our medical appointments! Also, not eating there again. Ever.

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

My daughter and I had back to back morning medical appointments with our doctor last week, but we had to reschedule to today, since we didn’t have transportation last week.

Last night, I got a call from Home Care.

They didn’t have anyone to do my mother’s med assist for this morning.

*sigh*

Thankfully, we have to drive through my mother’s town to get to where our doctor’s clinic is, anyhow. It just meant leaving earlier, and my mother getting her meds half an hour earlier than scheduled (still within the time range they are supposed to be taken), so we could get to our appointments on time.

Which meant the outside cats got fed a bit early, too!

The full belly babies were very snuggly, afterwards!

My daughter and I were then off to the doctor’s, stopping at my mother’s along with way. I popped in to do the med assist. My mother did know I had an appointment to get to, and knew it would be a quick stop. Thankfully, she did not try to delay me, like she had the last time I had appointments to get to!

While she was doing her meds, I noticed she had started working on her grocery list. I was wondering about that as, the last time I asked, she told me she didn’t need one. I kept expecting her to call for Friday or the weekend, and she never did, so I knew she’d be low on things. I wasn’t going to be able to do it today, but my friend is picking me up tomorrow morning, as she goes to take her car to the garage to be looked at. We are planning to visit my mother as well, so we’ll see what works out, timing wise. My sister is also planning to visit my mother tomorrow so, if necessary, she can do the shopping. My mother prefers that I do it, though. I helped my mother do her shopping so many times before she could no longer manage it, I know what my mother prefers. My sister doesn’t, my mother hasn’t been happy with some of her substitutions. 😁

That done (my mother even behaved! 😄), we continued to the town our doctor is in. We didn’t get there as early as I had been planning on, but early enough that I could make a quick stop in the grocery store that shares their parking lot.

The only thing I needed to get was bread, but neither of us had had breakfast, so I was thinking of picking up some sushi or something. There was none to be had, but I did find an alternative. They had a selection of hot meals set up with their rotisserie chicken display. So I picked up a perogie dinner and a lasagna, plus a couple of drinks. Other options were meatloaf with mashed potatoes, vegetables and gravy, or a porkchop with mashed potatoes, vegetables and gravy.

My daughter chose the lasagna for her meal, and we ate in the truck. My perogies were unusual in that, not only did they not come with the usual sausage and sour cream, they were served with vegetables in a white sauce, topped with melted shredded cheese.

I’m not sure which of those did me in.

After eating, we went into the clinic about 15 minutes early. Once checked in, I immediately went to the washroom.

While there, I got a message from my daughter saying that they’d come for me, to take me into a room early, so we traded appointment times and she went in ahead of me.

So I went to the waiting room and…

Immediately ran back to the washroom.

Then I got a message from my daughter.

Her lunch was suddenly giving her grief, too. She suggested we trade appointment times again, telling me which room she was in. So when I got out, I let the receptionist know what we were doing, and went to the room my daughter was in while she ran for the bathroom.

When our doctor came in, she clarified with me that we were both seeing her today, and had just switched times.

For my appointment, I had two things to talk to her about. The first was about my painkillers. I’ve been on T3s and they really haven’t been any better than taking over the counter painkillers, so there’s no point in me being on prescription painkillers. This is something I’ve had issues with all my life, with prescription medications, and especially painkillers. Either I need basically double the dose to have any sort of effect, or they don’t work like they’re supposed to. Since we’re basically just treating the symptom, and this is for my arthritis pain, I asked if we could try me on anti-inflammatories.

After talking about it, she agreed. I got two prescriptions; one for the anti-inflammatories that I can take as needed, up to three times a day. The other is for something I would take only once a day, and it’s designed to protect my stomach lining. I’m also supposed to only take them with food, because the anti-inflammatories can be very hard on the stomach.

We’ll try them for 3 months, then do a series of blood tests, including for kidney function, and see how things are.

Then there was the other thing I wanted to talk to her about.

My arm that I hurt when falling, about a month ago.

I almost decided not to bring it up, since it’s been doing better, but there is still pain that should not be there.

I told her what happened, and how my arm felt after landing so hard on it. I started to raise my arm to show her what my range of motion was like, only do discover I could only lift my elbow to shoulder height before pain stopped me. !!!

So she manipulated my arm a bit, while feeling at my shoulder joint, and I could tell her exactly where the pain was, and when.

It’s also the part of my palm under my thumb and my elbow that still have issues.

She took some notes and gave me a requisition for X-rays. Lab and X-ray is at the hospital not far from the clinic – and I needed to go there on behalf of my mother anyhow – so I could do that right away.

When I was done, my daughter was still in the waiting room and got called in soon after. I got my printout and waited.

After hitting the washroom again.

Once my daughter was done, we drove over to the hospital.

Thankfully, they had two bathrooms as we both needed to run for it!

I then talked to the receptionist on behalf of my mother. There was a requisition for bloodwork on file that I picked up, so my mother can get that done along with her monthly blood work. That gets done in the first week of the month, so I booked the medical appointment my mother has been asking for, for the week after. That way, the doctor could also go over the lab results with my mother, too. When I spoke to my mother last night, she was lamenting that they didn’t call her about her last blood test. I told her, they only call if there’s a problem. If they don’t call, that means everything is good!

She doesn’t believe that. She thinks they’re hiding things from her.

Appointment made, we went into the lab and X-ray area, literally across the room from the clinic reception desk, and handed in my requisition, then we sat to wait. It wasn’t very long before I got called in.

I had three X-rays done on my shoulder, two of my elbow, and three of my wrist and thumb. What surprised me was when the tech set my hand on the X-ray plate so that it was straight on the outside edge, thumb on top and straight.

The surprise was just how much holding that position hurt.

Not only that but, after the doctor had manipulated my shoulder to examine in, I was starting to feel muscle/nerve pain creeping up from my shoulder to my neck. A sort of pain that was making me feel dizzy. For a while, I thought I would have to get my daughter to do the driving!

That done, we started to head out again – after yet another stop at the bathroom.

There was something my older daughter needed, and there was a dollar type store I knew of that might have it. If it wasn’t there, we’d probably have to go to a craft store in the city to find it, and that wasn’t going to happen today. So this store was our next stop.

Once in the store, we did find what my other daughter needed – or at least the closest to it. I had hoped to wander around the store a bit before we left, though, as it is very different from all the other dollar type stores I normally find.

My insides, however, had other plans.

Okay, we’ll just pay for things and be on our way…

Or not.

As I was paying, I asked if they had a public washer.

No, I was told, but you can use ours if you need to.

Yes, please!!!

So while my daughter took the stuff to the truck, they let me use the staff washroom.

I have no idea what those perogies did to my insides but, by then, I was in serious discomfort. Almost enough to make me forget the pain in my shoulder!

God bless that woman.

Once back in the truck, I called the pharmacy in the town nearest us. They had received my new prescription from my doctor, and would be able to fill it right away. The time it would take us to drive there was likely enough for it to be ready.

That arranged, we were on our way again.

About half way through, I realized I was not feeling good again.

We made it okay, though. My daughter was also feeling unstable, so when we got there, she made the mad dash to their one bathroom first, while I asked about my prescription. The pharmacist was just doing the final check on it. Since I had to wait anyhow, I sat down at the blood pressure machine.

Funny. My blood pressure was a bit high. I wonder why that would be?

The machine was next to the bathroom door, where my daughter was, and I saw a woman with two tiny children try the door. While they were waiting for my daughter to come out, a guy came over with a stroller and joined them.

The entire family ended up taking turns.

I was still okay, and totally get how it can be with such tiny children!, but once I got my prescriptions and the bathroom was free, I ran for it.

Yeah. By this time, I was in major pain.

One of the things we noticed while getting out of the truck, though, was that one of the front tires was looking really low. The front tires were both replaced, but of all four tires, three of them still need to have their sensors/valves replaces. The sensor batteries are dead, and the valves in two of them have a slow leak. This one tire, slightly more than the other.

So we had one more stop to make, at a gas station. I got to stay in the truck while my daughter checked the tire pressure on all the tires, and ended up topping up three of them.

After that, we could FINALLY, head home.

Yeah. As soon as I got home, it was straight for the bathroom.

Then my daughter.

We had two different meals, so it’s strange that we were both affected. She’s lactose intolerant, but I am not. All I can say is, I’m never going to be buying a hot lunch meal from that grocery store, ever again! They were good, too, but absolutely brutal on our insides!

Later on, I had to get my daughter to help me do the evening cat feeding, because I was still too unstable. She, at least, seems to have recovered.

I’m at the point where I am once again starting to really feel the effects of that examination of my shoulder again. My rotator cuff is hurting, and the muscle/nerve pain up to my neck is now affecting both sides of my neck, and my triceps in my left arm.

It’s been about a month since I fell. This is insane! I am sure I didn’t break anything, but I’ve clearly done some major damage somehow in there.

I’m really looking forward to the results of those X-rays.

Thankfully, the rest of my day doesn’t require me to go anywhere, and with the off and on rain, I’m limited in what I can get done outside, anyhow. It’s not even 6pm yet, as I write this, and I’m seriously considering going to bed soon.

My daughters are making supper right now. I’ll be taking some of those anti-inflammatories with my meal, and probably go straight to bed after that. Hopefully, I’ll remain stable enough to actually get some rest!

What a day this turned out to be!!!

The Re-Farmer

More kittens, and an update

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Yes! We have transportation again!!!!

Before my friend arrived, I did have to play interference with an Eyelet, who wanted to follow me along. Which meant cuddle time!

It’s so hard to get pictures of those eyes, but I think I managed to capture their colour pretty well. They are SO white!

Eyelet kept trying to follow me down the driveway, which is not good, since I’m 99% sure he’s stone deaf. You can’t tell to watch him running around and playing, but I’ve gone past him with a lawn mower while we was sleeping and he didn’t wake up, so that’s a pretty sure sign!

I also spotted the secret kitties.

Can you spot the mama in the first picture?

These two kittens are the bravest of the four secret kitties – and the location of their “nest” in the outer yard is still very much a secret. Sprout is a good mama, but I do wish she would learn to accept us humans. When I got closer, she hissed at me and hid deeper in the tall grass. The white and grey ran off and hid. The orange on, however, started to run off, then came back. He’s getting curious enough that I think we might be able to touch him, fairly soon.

Sprout, meanwhile, just glared at me through the grass! 😄

As soon as I could hear a car coming down the road, I tucked Eyelet into the isolation shelter (which is open) and dashed to the gate before any cats or kittens could follow me! I did see Pinky’s two kittens in the garage, but they ran off before I could do more than confirm I was seeing both of them.

The drive to my mother’s town was a good time for catching up. It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.

I did, however, have to interrupt the conversation to ask her about the noise her car was making. She thought it might have something to do with a recall on her vehicle model, but she didn’t know for sure. She needed to get it checked but didn’t want to go to the dealership in the city she bought it from, because it turned out, they suck.

When we got to the garage, I paid my bill – $56 and change, after taxes, including 12¢ for the C clip he used to fix the break in the linkage. I asked about the part he’d ordered, and he confirmed that they had sent him the wrong one for some reason. Frustrating, but their mistake saved me about $300, and the truck is working fine.

Then, since we were there, my friend asked about her car. He asked some specific questions about the noise, then asked if she was okay to go for a drive. So while I got set up in the truck and put back a few things I’d made sure to take out before leaving it for the tow truck, they went for a run. The mechanic did the driving. Later on, my friend laughed while saying it was a good thing there were no police around at the time! He was wanting to see if it was the wheel bearings, as the sound should change while swerving.

The sound didn’t change.

She was really happy with him, though, and booked an appointment with him for next week. I happen to not have anything scheduled on that day, so she’ll be coming over to here, first, to pick me up. We’ll go for breakfast somewhere nearby, then visit with my mother.

Which is what we did after we were done at the garage. Well; breakfast for her, lunch for me. We had a great time catching up before heading over to my mother’s.

I didn’t call ahead to my mother that we were coming by. Normally, my mother doesn’t like surprise visits like that, but I knew she would be happy with this one. She has always liked my friend, back from when we first got to know each other in junior high. Even back then, she called my mother “mom”, just like I called her mother, “mom”. When my mother nearly killed herself causing an accident, years ago, my friend happened to be there to witness it, and took care of my mother afterwards. If it weren’t for that, we would have never found out what happened that day, since my mother basically lied about some of the details, and left lots of information out.

My mother was thrilled with the surprise visit. She was also just as tickled to be called “Mom” by my friend, still, after all these years.

I had showed the pictures I took of Eyelet this morning to both my friend and my mother. My friend has a one cat right now. She was telling me I needed to come visit her and meet her cat, and I joked about bringing Eyelet along.

Long story short, after her car is done at the garage next week and she drives me home, I will grab Eyelet and follow her to her place in the truck for a visit. We will see how Eyelet and her cat get along. If they get along, she might adopt Eyelet! She does know he is probably deaf. I do want to make sure she knows he’s probably got ear mites and worms, and has never had vet care. At least I’ve seen him use a litter box in the sun room, though, so he’ll figure that out rather fast.

Once done at my mother, we parted ways.

I’m now rather glad my sister wasn’t available to drive me today. It was so good to catch up with my friend, while getting the truck back. She has a very eclectic work schedule, so even for her to have today available at all was serendipitous. It worked out for her, too, since she is now going to get her own vehicle looked at with a mechanic/garage owner she really likes – unlike the dealership garage in the city she’s been having issues with!

It’s late enough now that I won’t be starting any projects outside, and will just do my evening rounds after feeding the outside cats. Right now, other than a potential grocery shopping trip for my mother, I have 4 days of pleasant weather to get work done outside. Finally! I have two large projects I’ve had to set aside for now, partly due to being pulled away for other things, and partly because I had to give my left arm time to heal from my fall. It is still bothering me, but at least I can do more with it. If it’s still a problem when I see my doctor at our rescheduled time next week, I’ll request X-rays. It’s been quite some time, and it really shouldn’t still be hurting like it does.

Oh, speaking of medical stuff, my daughter just came by to show me her wrist. The surgical bandage could finally come off today and, my goodness, the incision is healing quite nicely! Oddly, it looked so small while the bandage was on, but now that the bandage is off, it seems larger, somehow. They definitely needed space to evict Squidly.

So that is where we are at now. The truck is back and working, we might have Eyelet adopted out, and plans to spend time with my old friend again next week.

It’s been a very good day.

The Re-Farmer

Surgery went well!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

We didn’t need to leave until 11, so the morning was our normal routine. As usual, I started off feeding the yard cats, and got to see these two again.

Colby looks like a real scrapper! That white and grey is so big, I’m starting to mistake it for one of the three from last year that are really small!

Yesterday, I happened to be in the right place to see Sprout lying in the grass in the outer yard, nursing these two, plus the tortie. The calico is definitely the shiest of the four. The orange one, Colby, is the bravest. Last night, I saw him at the top of the ramp into the isolation shelter. Just a little while ago, while gathering bowls for the evening kitten soup feeding, I spotted the tortie inside the cat cage, inside the big no-longer heated water bowl that’s been repurposed as a food bowl in there. I didn’t see it when I brought out the kitten soup bowl, though Colby, was back again.

Last night, after I mused about how far behind parts of our garden is this year, I did go and look at last year’s photos. Wow, are we ever behind this year! At least with the winter squash and melons. At this time last year, the winter squash in particular were getting huge, and by the middle of the month, I was taking pictures of the developing squash with my hand for a size reference. I get a strong feeling we won’t have any winter squash or melons this year! The transplant shock, plus those bugs on the winter squash, followed by that one unpredicted cold night, has really done damage. The eggplants were set back, too; last year, they were in full bloom by now. The peppers are going okay, though, compared to last year, at least.

I’ve also definitely lost at least two of the summer squash that got transplanted out, including one of the White Scallop squash. Last year was a bad year for summer squash, but I think this one might be even worse!

I was done my rounds early enough that I took a quick nap before we left. I knew that if I didn’t, I’d be falling sleep while waiting for my daughter to come out of surgery!

We ended up on the road shortly before 11. My poor daughter was fasting, and was so very hungry! The surgery was booked for 12:30, and we got there shortly before 12. We went to the outpatient clinic first, where she registered and got her paperwork. Then we went to the day surgery section on the second floor. The staff found that, while she was on their list, for some reason her chart wasn’t printed out yet, so we sat down in the waiting room while they took care of that. Which took no time at all, and she was soon passing my her glasses and phone, etc. as they took her in to be prepped for surgery.

She told me afterwards that everything went very smoothly. She was even complimented for not being at all nervous about it, as they strapped her down to the “crucifix” operating table. The staff and the surgeon were all really nice, too. She REALLY appreciated the pre-warmed blankets and towels they used on her, too!

While that was happening, I made a quick trip to the nearby Walmart to get a few things. It started to rain while I was inside. I always bag my purchases at the truck, so I was standing in the rain, filling an insulated bag, when my phone started ringing.

My first thought was that it was the hospital, and why would they be calling me so soon? Did something go wrong???

Nope.

It was the home care office. Not the usual coordinator, but someone who was covering for her at the moment.

She told me that this morning’s home care aid got to my mother’s place 10 minutes late. When she got there, my mother told her she’s already taken her pills. The aid opened up the lock box and this morning’s beds were still in their bubble, of course. I told the coordinator, my mother has a secret stash of her pills somewhere. The coordinator told me something like that had been reported. As for my mother taking them herself after the aid was only 10 minutes late (which means she arrived at the time she was scheduled to leave, rather than the time she was scheduled to arrive), she would have decided the aid wasn’t going to show up at all. I told the coordinator that my mother believes that the aids don’t show up sometimes, because they want her to die. That’s something I’d already told the regular coordinator before, so it’s probably somewhere in the file. This is why she snuck out and hid one of her bubble packs.

I asked if my mother treated the home care aid all right, and was told nothing was reported about any such behaviour. After clarifying with me about the medications, she said she would make notes for the file, then follow up with the aid.

Meanwhile, I got a message from my older daughter. The land line had rung, but she never got to it in time, and she was worried it was the hospital. So I quickly told her it was home care, then finished bagging things up and got out of the rain so I could explain further.

That done, I quickly updated my siblings on our group chat, then went back to the hospital. I still had about 2 hours to wait, and I just stayed in the waiting room.

Where I dozed off again!

Why am I always so sleepy during the day, but can easily stay up all night?? It’s not like I’m in my 20’s anymore!

After about an hour or more – my daughter would have been out of surgery and in the recovery room by then – I started hearing a strange noise from the bag of my daughter’s stuff beside me. Her phone was ringing! So I answered it, using my hotel receptionist voice. 😄 Even though I identified the phone as my daughter’s, and that I wasn’t my daughter, the person on the other end launched into their reason for calling. I don’t think she caught on that I wasn’t my daughter!

It turned out to be a clinic in the city. My daughter has been referred to an endocrinologist about her PCOS, and they were calling about an appointment they have for her. I was in no position to take anything down, and explained that I was in the hospital, and my daughter was coming out of surgery just then. We eventually worked out that they will send my daughter a letter with the information, plus they will call back to follow up tomorrow. The appointment is in October some time, so there’s no rush on that.

Not long after, my phone rang. It was the surgery staff, letting me know my daughter would be ready to leave withing half an hour. When she found out I was already in the waiting room, she asked me to go to the main entry, where they have wheelchairs available for patient transport to the vehicle. Standard procedure, and I already knew where the wheelchairs were kept, so off I went.

Unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of options. There was the extra wide bariatric wheelchair. I wasn’t going to use that, because they only have one. There was another wheelchair that was so low, it had to be for a child. Then there was another, but it was so narrow, it was probably also for a child, but at least her feet wouldn’t be dragging on the ground. So that was the one I took.

When I got there, the person behind the desk immediately asked who is was for, and I told her. She then went to take it, to go get my daughter. When she saw it, she commented that she didn’t think my daughter would fit! I told her, I wasn’t sure, either, but I didn’t have much choice.

When they brought my daughter out, she was in a completely different wheelchair. 😄 She had her discharge papers in hand, and a package with a couple of cookies in it. She inhaled those as soon as she got into the truck!

As I was pushing her out of the hospital, she showed me her incision site. I couldn’t believe how tiny it was! She said she was also feeling really good, but for safety reasons, she wasn’t allowed to walk out on her own. She had to be careful not to use the hand or arm, because it wasn’t hurting at all, and her mobility was really good.

Once at ground level, we made a side trip so she could use the washroom. As I was looking out the windows, I spotted something moving around.

Something very familiar looking!

They had a grog in their flower garden!

Interestingly, it was only eating the thistles, not the flowers. We had one summer where we had about 5 or 6 groundhogs in our yard, then they basically disappeared. It was really nice to see one again. I did pause at the reception desk on the way out to let the staff know they had a groundhog in there, just in case they didn’t already know. They buggers are adorable, but they can do major damage!

I brought the truck around for my daughter and, once she was settled in, checked to see how she was feeling. Was she up to eating? I knew she would be hungry, but straight out of anesthesia is not always a good time to eat. She said she was famished, so we headed over to a nearby Subway I knew the location of. Just a few bites into her food, and she told me she was feeling SO much better. Post op, they had told her a number of things to watch out for and, if she had any of those symptoms, to get to a doctor right away. This included feeling light headed or nauseous. Which she was feeling, but she was pretty sure it was because she was hungry. It was. Once she started eating, it all went away!

From there, it was straight to home. As we were driving, I updated her on the calls I got on both my phone and hers. As we talked about her referral to endocrinology, I remembered to asked about her referral for a reduction mammoplasty; I knew she had a call about that, and that is why she has an appointment with our regular doctor on the same day that I do, next week. Since I had my own done in this province, I was curious to know how much things have changed. It turned out there are only two doctors in this province that does them. One has his own clinic, while the other is new to our province, and is in one of the city hospitals.

The one with the cardiac clinic that wouldn’t accommodate my husband’s disability, then ghosted him on the phone appointments.

So… I’m thinking going to the doctor with his own clinic would be worth the extra time on the waiting list.

Which could be a year or two!

When I had the ball rolling for mine, the clinic told me they wouldn’t even book appointments past 6 months, and anything before 6 months was booked solid. I was looking at a long wait for surgery, but I was also put on the cancellation list, and my doctor at the time flagged my file as urgent, because of how much pain I was in. I ended up getting in due to a cancellation, within a couple of months. Hopefully, they will be able to do the same for her, but I don’t know that they’re allowed to flag files like that anymore.

It’s good that my daughter is finally getting all this stuff done. Now, if I could just talk her sister into starting to see a doctor, too!

My daughter may have been feeling good after her surgery, but it still took a lot out of her, and she dozed off on the ride home. When we got to the gate, she started undoing her seat belt to open it. I just looked at her, asking, are you up to that?

Nope. She wasn’t. But she was in the passenger seat, so it was automatic! 😄

Now that we’re all inside and settled in, she decided a nap on the couch would be a good idea!

I’m so glad everything went smoothly. She’ll probably start feeling pain more as things wear off, but for now, she’s mostly just feeling drained. I’m still wildly impressed by how small the incision is. Squidly has been evicted! Once it all heals up, it’s going to make a huge difference for her, to be able to use that hand without pain.

Meanwhile, it has still be raining, off and on today. It isn’t a lot, but enough that I don’t need to water the garden this evening. The yard cats got fed as soon as everything was settled in. I’d picked up more pumpkin seed, so I’ve been able to add powdered pumpkin seed to the kitten soup lately, though the adult cats are certainly getting their share. Hopefully, that will help get rid of any worms they might have. I suspect that’s why some of the really small cats and kittens are as small as they are.

Eyelet is so much like Button was in that respect. I have been putting the 4 friendly kittens inside the old kitchen to get a chance to eat the kitten soup before the adult push them away. Only Eyelet and Sir Robin like to stay and eat. Havarti and Grommet will eat a little, then they want out. Eyelet has discovered the plastic couch that’s in there, so when he’s done, that’s where I’ve been finding him. When I picked him up today, his pupils were so dilated, it concerned me. That’s what Button’s eyes started to do, to the point his irises are almost completely hidden. So I used the flashlight on my phone to test, and was happy to see his pupils slowly undilate, before he started blinking and trying to look away. That was a relief.

So that’s where were are at now. It looks like the rain has stopped for now, and it’s been blessedly cooler. It’s supposed to get really hot again in a few days, but I should have at least one cooler day to get some manual labour done outside! Thankfully, I don’t have any scheduled outings for the next while. Unless I get called to do my mother’s med assist, I should be able to get some decent progress in.

We shall see.

I’m so happy my daughter was able to get this surgery done so quickly! It’s going to make a big difference, once everything is healed up.

I’d say it’s been a very good day.

The Re-Farmer