Just Expanding

For anyone who follows me on Facebook, this will be kind of a repeat, so I apologize if I bore you here. I did change to a winter scene as it is kind of technically coming on winter here, even though it is around 80 today. If you know me, you will know that this is an older picture, but I have lost so much weight that I can actually fit into those jeans today. Spooky. I do have a theory on the sudden shift in climate which is driving my little sinus guys crazy. After the rainiest summer I can remember here, the weather, just before the upcoming elections has turned hot and dry. I expect due to the fires of hell heating up to welcome the new elected officials. If you are going to be a Tea Party Candidate, remember how tea is made. A good boiling is waiting for you. It is still my belief that the British are looking at this trend in horror. There are undoubtedly people in the UK who can't figure out why we think stapling tea bags to a straw hat is supposed to show signs of culture. We're already laughing stocks throughout most of the world. Come on people, why give them something else to use to prove that we are buffoons. Seriously, we are willing to invade other sovereign realms in the promotion of democracy and human rights in endless, pointless and expensive wars, but we don't even allow our own citizens equal rights. Really, am I the only one who is offended by the hypocrisy in this?  I am still going on with my Coffee Party idea. If you have rallies where everyone just holds up a can of coffee, you do not waste a luxury item as you can take the can back with you after the rally. Signs like "Trouble is Brewing," "Don't elect Drips," "Perk up the Economy," "Grounds for Dismissal," "Cup of Common Sense," "Grind them Down," "A Fresh Mug for the same old drink," and pictures of coffee mugs with Hitler mustaches will be allowed. Also highly recommended will be bobby-pinning a coffee filter to your head. This will give us a religious angle, as we can then state it is a religious event in that we are "Brewish." When we have finally elected our new President, he or she will move into the "Maxwell House." There will be Senate of course, "Chock Full O'Nuts." The Congress, naturally, will be decaff or Sanka. O.K. worked that one pretty much to death, I'll move on.

Still having some health care problems. I did break my large toe on my left foot. The nail bent all the all the way backwards (and that is just as painful as you think) and when I wrapped it in adhesive medical tape as a splint it got ripped off when if went to clean and change the dressing. Welcome to Gitmo E.R. This is my 'clutch foot' and when you have only one working arm, it makes driving and shifting even more of a challenge. Terri is making me wear my slippers, as the toe is too gross to look at. Then again, Halloween is just a few days away. Maybe I'll just go out in public barefoot and without a shirt on. I believe my 'Frankensteinish" scarred torso will be a huge hit with all. I also fractured my right wrist by slamming a sliding patio door into it and the jam. That one is healing a bit quicker, but considering the right arm was the one that worked, you can see how this was a disappointment to me. I had been weaning off my percocet for weeks, but I decided to refill my prescription given the way things were going. Imagine my surprise when I got a call from the pharmacy telling me that my refill was denied and I was told to call the Doctor to renew. I did, only to find out that my surgeon quit a couple of weeks after I last saw him. This is the guy who'd already done three reconstructive surgeries on my arm, and had two more scheduled. I guess I'll have to breaking a new surgeon in now. My insurance company forces me to go to the same place, so I can't follow him wherever he is now, even should I so desire. Fortunately, his P.A. (Physician's Assistant) still works there, so when I asked to talk to him, he remembered me and went ahead and called the pharmacy for me. Apparently anything of Dr. Bentley's is being referred out and routinely turned down. I am SO glad that my use of inappropriate humor is such that the PA remembered me. (When my wound was leaking so badly after my second surgery I told him that it had more discharge than an 80's porno film). Soon as I told him that, he recalled me immediately. This is a health and safety tip here. Don't be remembered as a stoic and good patient. People will remember you more for being off-color and outrageous. It certainly saved this situation. I still have to figure out how I'm supposed to get to my CT Scan. I can't ask Terri to take off work all the time, and driving a greater distance than around the neighborhood is a danger to others. I am a damn good driver, but with my disabilities, even thought I am still mentally acute, my brain is going to write checks my body can't cash. Still though, as I have stated in the past, I am adapting. If you see a guy slumping around a supermarket looking like Quasimodo, chances are it's just me. I tend to instinctively shelter my left side so I kind of hunch and lurch. On the other side however, as I have also reported, my right arm is getting so buffed that I can bench press a refrigerator with it. This is how I managed to fracture my wrist. The patio door is tough to slide and you give it a healthy jerk to get it moving. This time the healthy jerk didn't just move the door, it tried to close it with my arm in the way (and it nearly succeeded).

My friend Alan is also having his own health concerns, as is his lady Heather, who developed a staff infection. She's not having to do the month or so long IV treatments like I've been getting used to, but these killer antibiotics are just that. I'm still taking one for my toe so it doesn't get infected, and am glad they kept changing prescriptions so I had a nearly full bottle of pills left. I knew with the way I work, they would come in handy. When the home health care suppliers left me after the last surgery, they told me to just dispose of the over supply that I had been given. Yeah. Right. Like I'm not going to need them in the future. The IV equipment alone has proven to be a keeper. Come to think of it, another good Halloween costume. I can wear one of my hospital gowns, the orthopaedic slings, and drag around my IV pole with a bag of saline and be "Patient Man," The super hero with a saggy ass. To wind up this subject, I can only say that I hope that both my own and Alan's conditions improve to the point that we can go on another road trip during his winter semester break. It's been over a year now since I've hit the roads, and my couch could probably use the break.

Well that's it for now. My best to all from the ether, and wishing you a Happy Halloween. I think Halloween should be renamed "National Prostitute Day." What other holiday offers tricks and treats?

Bitching and moaning

Been off the radar for quite awhile, I am aware. When a bi-polar goes into a down phase, it can last a very long while, and with the health problems I have been having, I just haven't felt very humorous of late. I can leave the house on ocassion, maybe once a week to go shopping for food, but that's about it, and I'm down for a day or so afterward. My friend Alan came up to visit a couple of weeks ago, and by the time I got my bedroom and bathroom cleaned for a guest, all I could do all weekend was sit on the couch and talk. I did manage to brave a trip to Costco with Terri last weekend, but I can't use my quad-cane with a shopping cart, so I depend on that for support. With my peripheral neuropathy, I can't really feel my feet, so without something to steady me I walk like the old man character that TIm Conway played on the Carol Burnett Show {I think it was Mr. Tuttle). Slow and unsteady. It doesn't help at all that it is so damned hard to put on socks and tie shoes with only one really usable arm, that I have to wear sandals. Well, with the cart supporting my weight, I manuvered to avoid the idoits who only go there for the free food samples that block the isles, and broke my big toe on my left foot. It turned black almost immediately, and now hurts like a sumbitch. It also tore the nail almost clean off being bent backwards, and you know how fun that feels. I've wrapped it with some adhesive medial tape, medical supplies I have up the butt from all the home healthcare people, but I'm keeping a an eye on it. If it goes to green, I guess it's another trip to the doctors. It hurts like hell though. To make matters worse a couple of nights ago, I went to close the sliding glass door, which is very stiff, so you have to grap it and give it a good yank and then push it from the other side to close it. Well in this case, I had forgotten how much stronger my right arm has become since it has been doing all the work since the end of April and instead of getting the door nearly closed the good yank crushed my wrist between the door and the jam. Most entertaining that. It too turned black almost immediately and with the bruising and the subdural hematoma, is a very attractive sight and also painfull. Shame it had to happen to the only hand I can actually rely on these days. Nothing serious, both just ugly and painful. Terri is becoming quite disgusted with me. Speaking of Terri, she is going to the yearly Jousting Tournament and again this year, but as in the past two years, something always makes it nearly impossible for me to attend. Oddly enough I shattered my shoulder on April 28th, which is exactly one year to the day that I had to be raced to the hospital for the viral empyema last year. I'm thinking that this is not my lucky day and next year I'm going to stay in bed in a dark room until the day passes. Of course, then I will probably have a stroke or a heart attack instead. Over the past two years I have developed a freindship of sorts with the home nurses, who all remembered me from last year. One of them brings me avacados from their trees, and borrows DVDs from us, and another actually ran out to get me a pack of cigarettes one day when I was out and stuck to my IV. Now that's home health care. I'm glad I kept the IV set up from last year though, it came in handy this year when I got a staff infection from the mutiple surgeries and once again had a month or so of solid drip treatment. When they did the surguries on my right side last year I was also infected and had to take the vancomysn which caused the almost partial loss of hearing in my left ear, which is one of the side effects and also requires blood samples twice a week to test it's toxcicity. I'm getting so good at this shit now I could probably become an Army Medic. Losing around fifty pounds since the accident, and with all the needle marks in my arm, no doubt the people I do ocasionlly meet probably think I'm an addict of some kind. At 6'2" and around 185lbs, I have almost no clothes that fit me except from drawstring pants or shorts, and all of my shirts, which have to be button, since I can't raise my left arm enough to put on pull-overs or tees, and even those make me look like I'm a five year old wearing his daddy's shirts. Still, I persevere, and adapting to being somewhat crippled. I forget some times, and instictively try to do something with my left arm and that can be quite comical, such as when you take a skillet off the brner only to spill all it's contents on your feet. Forutnatly, as I said, I have almost no feeling in my feet, so all that happens is they turn funny colors when burned. We really should get a small dog so the food won't all go to waste. But, on the good side, as I said, my right arm is becoming quite buffed. I could do one sport maybe, arm wrestling, as that is a sitting down sport and at sitting down I have become dashed deuced brilliant. I run out of breath very easily having only one lung, so many movable activities makes me pant like a dog. But hey, it only takes one hand to work a TV remote, right? It could be worse. One of the things I find annoying is having a long phone conversation and not being able to light a cigarette while I do so without telling the other party to hold for a moment. If I do have to go out by myself, I have to wait for Ter to get home, because I just can't drive the Van anymore. It's not only painful to do so, but too difficult and I'm afraid my inability to properly shift and drive could cause a hazard in a panic situation where I'd have to react quickly. Probably just as well on that one too though, when I had my last vascular incident, the ER Doctor was kind enough to inform the DMV and they suspended my license and I was dropped from our insurance policy. On a good note though, we just got our property tax statement recently, and it didn't go up very much this year. One thing I'll never understand though, is why we are being assessed for the land and the improvements when this is a condo, and we don't own the land. They naturally factor in increased value for the improvements every year, and in the economy, the value of the condo is down drastically than that it was two or three years ago. This is a puzzle to me, in the same way that it can be difficult to put on pillow cases, and yet every morning, they seem to be able to virtually escape their captivity all by themselves. I'm think of just laying out the pillows and cases on the bed after I've changed the sheets and see if they'll crawl into them themselves. You know, reverse psychology.  One thing that is good for one of our two remaining cats, Bubba, is that he quickly learned how painful my surgical scars are, so on the rare occasion I do fall into a sound sleep, my furry 20 lb alarm clock can just jump on me there when he decides it is time to be fed. This is easy for him now, as for well over 50 years I have always slept on my side. Now I have to sleep on my back. Of course this exacerbates my snoring from annoying to positively stentorian. It's a good thing I do have my own room, as Terri would other wise never get any sleep.

Well, I guess that's enough bitching and moaning for the moment. My best to all from the ether.