I've Found a Culprit: Cipro Ruptures Tendons

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I am calmer today. Weekends are my *Nothing But Yardwork* times. It's peaceful out there, and the neighbors driving by and the dog walkers and general Front Yard Fan Club have been wonderful. *You're back, you're BACK!!!* They surround me with unexpected sweetness, they see me out there in the yard again and break into these huge happy grins and stop walking and talk to me as I weed and groom the yard, sometimes staying for hours and hours, just visiting. Lovely people. Most of them, I don't even remember their names. Usually I remember the dogs' names though. heh!

Today I picked pea pods from my gorgeous tropical pea vines, of the very very very blue flowers, and got a big pile of precious seeds. Traded plants and news with the guys across the street, who fed me a fabulous cranberry and goat cheese appetizer. I told them if it were MY guests coming I'd eat the whole appetizer before anyone showed up. Raked some, weeded some, trimmed the orchid tree a bit. Slow, slow, gentle.

I'm going to try to keep everyone up to date, even if by short little posts. Fellow bloggers, now you know why I haven't been by your place reading and commenting even after the allergy coma was over for the year. My hand just doesn't work very well any more. I didn't want to say out loud how bad it was; maybe it would get better...but it didn't and probably won't, so it's reality time.

When sitting down at the computer, I used to answer emails first, then read all y'all and comment, then answer comments on my own blog, and then write a post. Now I'm going to re-order my priorities backwards. I've missed communicating with you, it'll be hard to do the emails so much later. But I know, absolutely, that you'll bear with me. I feel blessed, and not because of counting my blessings. Feeling Blessed Without Counting seems to make their value increase exponentially, somehow.

All right. Here's some news.

Walter's been looking into voice recognition software. Being home helps, for some technical computer reasons I'm not up on. With his own health so damaged now, he's become slow like me. It'll come. For either of us to push ourselves too hard is not a good thing these days.

Adapting to a virtually unusable left hand is still harder than I thought it would be. It makes me even clumsier than before. Today, finally, I got no new cuts in my fragile skin. But at the very end of the day I fell. I was using only my right hand to pull the back door shut. It's sticky, you have to give it a good yank shut before it can lock. My hand slipped off the knob and I fell backwards, hard, laid full out on the tile floor. I'll have some bruises tomorrow. That's no biggie. Worse than that, I broke my fall by landing on the bad hand, bending it sharply backward at the wrist - and for once, my splint was off. Tomorrow will tell me how much damage the wrist took.

Walter got me back up. Uh, he has to do this for me from time to time. We automatically adjusted our movements so he went straight up and back without twisting to the side. I was so afraid it would hurt him, but he says the way we did it, he was okay. Oh, relief, relief.

Financial update. The disability and health insurance premium check was already re-deposited by the employer. I'd called in and left a message asking for forbearance...and that call was never returned. They redeposited so very fast, perhaps they were hoping it would bounce again so they could cut us off. But it didn't. With some help from a friend and my last hoarded bits of *mad money,* we were able to cover that sucker in the nick of time. It is PAID, and Walter is still safely insured. We have to do it one more time before November 30. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

The electricity hasn't been shut off yet, and on Monday I may be able to work something out for that.

Chase had sent us a nasty *10-day* letter, demanding payment by the 22nd or they'd call the loan. I phoned in and told them I'd pay on the 26th, when my Social Security check comes. After asking the rep to read the file notes, I reminded him we've communicated with them constantly, we haven't abandoned the house, we haven't been ducking them, we've never exceeded 30 days past due, and every late payment was because of medical issues. Chase told us in the beginning that if we never went over 30 days, we'd have no problem with them. We're more than 2/3 of the way through the special double-payment *repayment plan,* and wouldn't it be better for all parties to keep it going till the end? Of course it would.

This rep, shockingly, was quite nice, and agreed to the four-day extension with hardly any arm twisting at all. Maybe current events have inspired Chase to be a bit more flexible. Good. They're still next on my hit list, because they deserve to be.

And yes, do I long to get back to those current events, and put out Part 2 of that musty dusty history, instead of dealing with this icky health stuff. Patience, k. Patience.

On the house front, we go to mediation with Citizens on our hurricane claim December 9. We've now enlisted the help of our excellent neighbors across the street for that. One is very experienced with insurance matters in general, the other is a great designer for everything to do with living spaces and landscaping, and both are excellent rehabbers. Walter and I are now out of the running for most any physical work.

I want the insurance repair funds to go to someone I both trust and care about instead of strangers, and I know they can handle a lot of the repairs quite well; I've watched them work. They can also assess who to hire for roof contractors and whatnot. Even though I can normally oversee this sort of thing blindfolded and with both hands tied behind my back, I'm obviously too emotionally wrapped up in this house. Sort of like how doctors shouldn't practice medicine on their own family members. It's been three years since Wilma, and I haven't taken care of business properly, which tells me a lot.

Crap. For someone who loves to yammer away talking talking talking on my blog, cutting myself short when the hand says I must will not be easy. It's already That Time. Crap.

Okay. Two last bits: Cipro, an antibiotic I've taken daily for perhaps a year now, got a *black label* warning in July for rupturing tendons. With the exception of the Achilles' Heel tendons, that damage has my name all over it: elbow, hands, shoulders, below the knee. Here's some links.

And - again - I'll say it every single time you folks do this - your comments and the support I feel pouring toward me from you have given me a much better day. You guys are great. Thank you.
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