.
So here I am for days and days and days, buzzing around various labs and imaging centers and doctors' offices, and bringing a newly ruptured tendon to the ER too. Taking care of business. Medical business. Money business, hanging on the phone for hours each day.
Plus a bit of housekeeping, seeing as how the Excellent Nephew and Sig Other are coming to visit next weekend. YAY! They'll probably stay at Mom's condo, should the Condo Commandos allow a non-first degree relative to stay there while the owner's absent. More comfy for them, less work for us. ;-)
Naturally, should the Condo Commandos bar the way, they'll be more than welcome to stay here instead. We can't offer them a swimming pool or total privacy, but we can extend a real and powerful welcome.
A free sample voice recognition program is awaiting my attention. *Dragon Naturally Speaking* or something. Walter says, --Check it out first. If you like this one, we'll buy the full $99 program. You'll be able to do a lot more with it then.--
It's hard to take care of some of this when you're as broke as we are. Just putting fuel in the car is a planning issue.
And what should happen Friday?
The income tax refund arrived.
Yes it DID.
It won't make us rich. But it's big enough to bring intense relief from financial stress, however temporary that might be.
We could spend it in one day. Easily. Of course. There's a water bill due for some $1100 from a broken pipe under the house. Tens of thousands in medical bills. Money we owe friends and family, and donations back to people who have kept us fed and electrified and on the web these past months.
There are things we need for subsistence, like restocking all the bulk goods we've slowly emptied through the crisis.
Things we both need and desire, though we could live without. *Space bags.* Soaker hoses, pine bark nuggets, flowers. House paint.
So - knowing how precarious things remain - we're holding back, just sitting on it, making a very few small purchases, carefully planned.
And...yes, a wee bit of indulgence too.
On Friday we ordered in a pizza.
On Saturday, Lotus Chinese Kitchen.
And I'm heading out to the yard in just a minute. Laying down those soaker hoses I've hungered after for 13 years.
My day is filled with sunshine.
.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Oh, EFF! Now I've Lost My Left Swearing Finger!
.
ARGH!!! Just when you think you're making progress accepting and adapting to changes in your health, something else comes along and pokes you in the eye.
This is what I get for gloating, huh? I JINXED IT!
And just to rub it in...it still looks like a Swearing Finger from the right direction.
Pointed at ME, that would be.
That's now a *dropped* finger, just like the right-hand pinkie. Not particularly usable; I can't lift it at all. Other fingers nearby crapped out on me too.
When the damage to a tendon is advanced, you lose most or all of the ability to move affected body parts. Before that? It's more a loss of range of motion and intense pain. "Frozen" can unfreeze. Once it's dropped, though...Now I hunt and peck with the left hand, instead of actually typing. Curiously, I feel more patient with it instead of less, so perhaps I'll get to post a bit more, yay!
I'm not sure which tendon it is, because so many in that area are compromised. I may find out soon, though. Tomorrow, finally, I see the great new PhysMed doc and great new PCP again. Finally - finally - it'll set off the rounds of xrays, MRI's, blood tests, and special treatment requests like IgG boosters that might diagnose and treat my melting tendons.
Not to mention, acquire ammo for my suit against the Cipro makers. The first class action lawyers I queried accepted, then declined, my case. They said they don't want anyone who continued taking Cipro after last July, when its chemical group was black-boxed. I think they're throwing away a client who has a nicely documented, visually appealing case, myself. Oh goodness, such a succession of pix I have on file! The last informal tally I ran, over 50 tendons are already damaged. Surely that high a body count helps. Soon we'll see if the next firm on the list agrees.
And!
Suddenly we're blessed with an embarrassment of riches in Lidoderm patches. That nice new medicare HMO, with the low co-pays for these patches that let me type some? The HMO and pharmacy got together with the new Physical Medicine doc and put together a package of 6 boxes. That was only half the 3-month rx the doc had ordered. But, hey. For $40, I'll take it.
Because what you're looking at there is about $2,500.00 worth of patches.
Sometimes I feel like requesting an armed escort home...
And I'm able to get outside here and there, to find pretty critters to play with.
More excellent ingredients in the Cheerful Optimism Maintenance toolbox.
.
ARGH!!! Just when you think you're making progress accepting and adapting to changes in your health, something else comes along and pokes you in the eye.
This is what I get for gloating, huh? I JINXED IT!
And just to rub it in...it still looks like a Swearing Finger from the right direction.
Pointed at ME, that would be.
That's now a *dropped* finger, just like the right-hand pinkie. Not particularly usable; I can't lift it at all. Other fingers nearby crapped out on me too.
When the damage to a tendon is advanced, you lose most or all of the ability to move affected body parts. Before that? It's more a loss of range of motion and intense pain. "Frozen" can unfreeze. Once it's dropped, though...Now I hunt and peck with the left hand, instead of actually typing. Curiously, I feel more patient with it instead of less, so perhaps I'll get to post a bit more, yay!
I'm not sure which tendon it is, because so many in that area are compromised. I may find out soon, though. Tomorrow, finally, I see the great new PhysMed doc and great new PCP again. Finally - finally - it'll set off the rounds of xrays, MRI's, blood tests, and special treatment requests like IgG boosters that might diagnose and treat my melting tendons.
Not to mention, acquire ammo for my suit against the Cipro makers. The first class action lawyers I queried accepted, then declined, my case. They said they don't want anyone who continued taking Cipro after last July, when its chemical group was black-boxed. I think they're throwing away a client who has a nicely documented, visually appealing case, myself. Oh goodness, such a succession of pix I have on file! The last informal tally I ran, over 50 tendons are already damaged. Surely that high a body count helps. Soon we'll see if the next firm on the list agrees.
And!
Suddenly we're blessed with an embarrassment of riches in Lidoderm patches. That nice new medicare HMO, with the low co-pays for these patches that let me type some? The HMO and pharmacy got together with the new Physical Medicine doc and put together a package of 6 boxes. That was only half the 3-month rx the doc had ordered. But, hey. For $40, I'll take it.
Because what you're looking at there is about $2,500.00 worth of patches.
Sometimes I feel like requesting an armed escort home...
And I'm able to get outside here and there, to find pretty critters to play with.
More excellent ingredients in the Cheerful Optimism Maintenance toolbox.
.
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