New Machines

Kewadin was full of new machines. Its fun to try new machines except when it isn't. It isn't when you put your $5.00 in and hit the button and get nothing. Then you hit the button 9 more times and get 9 more nothings. Those new machines are sucky and you haven't learned anything about them.

Angels and Devils is one of the new penny machines. I put my $5.00 in and hit the button. (For some reason, most of the new penny machines have 21 lines instead of 20). My first spin brought up a bonus. I got to take my choice of the number of free spins. 20 free spins with prizes multiplied by 1, 10 free spins with a multiple of 2, 7 spins with m/3 or 5 spins with m/4. I chose the 7 spins. The second free spin brought up the same bonus so it added 7 more spins. Each win was multiplied by 3. Within the free spins I hit a different type of bonus with the angel on reel 1 and the devil on reel 5 and I chose the angel and she shot an arrow into 996 points. Anyways I made like 2,500 points (read pennies) on that bonus. I cashed out a ticket for $25.00 and put in another $5.00 to keep playing. I continued to get wins and bonuses until I cashed out another $15.00 ticket and put in another $5.00. Each time I got the free spin bonus I chose the 7 spins with m/3 option. During one of these I hit 5 of the biggest prize that paid 2,000 points and it was multiplied by 3. Read 6,000 pennies. I ended up with a ticket for $66.00 and change. That was $106.00 from that penny machine.

King of the Grill was also very good to me this trip and I ended up with $48.00 from the little piggy. I didn't see any of the Milk Money gendre but then, I don't walk the whole casino any more.

Those wins were enough to keep me in the black for this trip and maybe a couple more.

Whaaat

I went to bed at 9 last night because I knew I had to get up early today. I didn't sleep well but I was up at 4 and drove to Windsor to take Jeannette to the train station. I had to pass right by the casino and wasn't even tempted to stop. (I'm going to Kewadin on Monday so I didn't need a fix or anything). I got back home about 6:30 and tried to watch tv for a while. I finally felt so exhausted that I went back to bed. I just got up and I have a sneaking feeling that I'm supposed to know what day it is. Boy, I hope its not Monday, or I will have missed my trip to Kewadin.

Dr. Cathy

I finally got to the doctor for my wrist and her name was Dr. Cathy Beitman. I liked her very much. They x-rayed the wrist and it showed arthritis, of course, complicated with tendonitis. She will add it to my pt workup and told me to take Tylenol Arthritis every 6 to 8 hours for 2 weeks.

The MRI results were in and it turns out that it showed arthritis, of course, along with herniated discs. She mentioned the numbers of the affected discs but I forget. 4 and 5 sounds familiar. She explained why I can't stand for more than a few minutes and why sitting down seems to take the pain away. After I finish with the pt, it the pain persists she will send me to an orthopedist.

I have a one pound bottle of planters peanuts that I put on the top of my refrigerator next to the stove. It must have been too close to the edge because after I had opened and closed the freezer and refrigerator doors a couple of times the jar fell down on the stove. I saw it falling and visions of broken glass and peanuts all over the floor danced through my head. However, the bottle didn't break and all I got is a chip on my stove about the size of a dime. At the time that seemed like the lesser of the possible evils, but now that doggone chip is starting to look ugly.

A Bullet Dodged

My heavy weekend schedule brought back all the pain in my wrist and hand and I was looking to make a doctor's appointment for today or tomorrow. Of course nothing was open when I was ready to call so I was just filling time. I have a Stress Test scheduled in my calendar for 7/28 and they had sent me some preliminary papers to fill out and bring with me. They were sitting here on my computer desk so I decided to fill them out while waiting for the doctor's office to open.

When I got to the last page of the papers it said "Date of test 7/18/05". I checked the calendar and that is today. As soon as the clock hit 8:00 I called to verify. Yes they said, I was scheduled for 9:00 am. There were lots of conditions about eating and drinking before the test and luckily I hadn't violated any of them yet so I said I would be there, except that the papers said the test was 4 or 5 hours and I had a physical therapy scheduled for this afternoon. They re-scheduled the pt for tomorrow and I went for my tests today.

The first one started at 9 with an injection into my veins (like the bone scan did) and instructions to drink a full (10 oz) glass of water. After the stuff had gotten through my veins there would be an x-ray type of picture taking. Actually is was like a cross between an x-ray and an MRI. I had to lay flat on a table and the picture taking device, a disk about 3 feet across, started on the far left side of my chest and took about 20 minutes to move over to the far right side. But it wasn't in an enclosure or anything.

While waiting for the vein flow, I was taken in for an echo cardiogram. This was an ultra-sound picture thing that looked on the screen just like the baby picture ultra sounds. I was poked and prodded all over getting pictures from different angles. First from under my left breast, then under my left arm, then in the center of the bottom of my ribs, (she really had to push hard there) then from the throat area.

I dodged another bullet there. She was entering my information of her computer and I could see the screen and she had my first name as Patricia. I called that to her attention and while she was changing it I looked over the rest. They had my date of birth as 2/12/32. When I told her that was wrong, she left to go to the desk and make sure they changed it there. It never did change on her screen though.

I can just see my insurance company getting billed for a 73 year old Patricia Van Houten. How many years would that have floated around before it got straightened out.

I was sent home and told I could have juice until 11:30 and then just water after that. I go back there at 1:30 for the last set, a new injection and more pictures. It is a stress test that does not require me to walk the treadmill. They do it chemically somehow.

Now I have pt scheduled for tomorrow morning. I am too busy medically to go to the doctor.

A matter of time

The pain in my hand has subsided enough to give me a wide range of motion but I still have almost zero strength in it. Taking the cap off a pop or pill bottle is a major undertaking.

I always eat my meals in the living room in front of the TV. So I was having soup this afternoon. I tucked a tea towel into the collar of my T-shirt because I know I usually have a few drips even tho I hold the soup up close to my face while I eat.

I don't know what happened this time, but the whole pot sort if tipped over but only half of it spilled out before I could right it again. The tea towel had protected my shirt and the throw rug in front of my chair took most of what fell on the floor. I rolled up the towel, rolled up the rug, rubbed out the few drops that had hit the carpeting with a swiffer-wet. Those things work pretty good on a lot of spills. I used one to get some blood out of the carpet last week when I had a toe bleed.

Well, it wasn't until I walked back into the living room after dispatching all the soup soaked things that I noticed the big blob of soup on my chair. A wet towel and another swiffer-wet took care of that the best I could and I can hardly notice it any more, and I can hardly feel the burn on my inner thigh any more either.

I guess it was just a matter of time till I had that kind of disaster but I hope I have a lot of good years till the next one.

more bugs

I was talking with my friend Pat Specht (Jake Johnson's mother). We don't talk often but when we do its a talkathon. Anyways the lightening bug incident came up and she said that when she was a kid (in Pittsburgh) they used to catch fireflys and draw rings on their fingers with the phosphorencence and they glowed in the dark.

I didn't even think to ask if they killed the bugs first or just went around drawing on themselves with live bug butts.

Doctor, doctor

Bob, the pt guy, after determining that the pain in my wrist had not deminished, suggested that I see the doctor and get it x-rayed. I brought the doctor's phone number upstairs to bed with me so that I could call for an appointment first thing in the morning and not wait until I came downstairs.

However, when I woke up this morning, the wrist pain had moved into the middle of my hand and to the top set of knuckles. I thinking that pain from something broken wouldn't move around. So now I am just going to wait for it to keep moving till it reaches my fingertips and moves off the planet.

Lightening Bugs

Are lightening bugs lucky? I want to believe they are, even when the phosphorescense is sticking to your fingers after you have crushed him to death. Not my fingers, Gretchen's.

What made him come into my bedroom in the first place. I don't even want to think about how he got in. Didn't he know I had an Amazon Daughter ready to come to my rescue? I have always depended on the kindness of daughters.

Movin Right Along

had an MRI this morning. The test itself is painless. They had to make sure I had no metal on or in me. People my age tend to have implants of one sort or another. They asked about permanent eyeliner which reminded me of Steph's tattoos. She is supposed to have an MRI near the end of the month and they will have to find a way to cover her tattoos. I didn't think that a decision about surgery on her knee had been made yet. As for the MRI itself, I remembered that chamber as being a little bigger. It is embarrassing to scrape the sides as they slide you in and out.

The MRI place was very easy to find. I had good directions and they led me right there. Twelve mile across to Northwestern and right on Northwestern and the clinic was on the right. There were no directions to get out. Northwestern is the highway from hell. The clinic was like the last building accessible before the road turns into the Lodge Freeway. The freeway, Northwestern, Franklin, 12 mile and God knows what-all else, all seem to merge right at that corner. It took me a little longer to get home.

My latest ailment is my right wrist. I can hardly move it. I have trouble with the mouse and with the remote control so you know this needs to be fixed. Its been since about Saturday so at Monday's pt session I asked Bob, the pt guy if he could wrap it for me. He said that Ace bandages were considered a "durable medical apparatus" and they didn't have them there. He did suggest a cold pack and did that for me and suggested that frozen vegetables work best at home. After the long drive this morning, using both hands to work the gear shift, I stopped at Farmer Jacks and bought a bag of frozen corn. I put it around my wrist and it felt pretty good. I stopped at the drive in at Burger King and had the corn over my arm while I clumsily used just my left hand to hand over payment and receive change and take in the food and it occurred to me that you probably don't get as much general sympathy with a bag of corn on your wrist as you do with a cast or something.

Sorry to hear that Mary is in the hospital but glad to know she is getting good care.

Happy Birthday America

I spent America's birthday in Canada. Me and Rita and Jeannette went to Windsor Casino on the bus trip. Because of the carnival and Westland Festivities we couldn't park by the city hall as usual and had to park across Ford Road behind the Blockbuster Video (in the Kroger parking lot). I got there kind of early and was like the 2nd car from the back of the store. I spent my allotted amount of money in Windsor and them had the horrendous ride home.

First of all the bus driver didn't even try to get into the tunnel and took the bridge home. We were 1/2 hour in line to get through customs at the bridge. Then he dropped off the Dearborn people and proceeded to Westland. Ford Road was closed off so he went past Ford Road on Wayne to Hunter and across to Civic Center, making a very iffy U-Turn to head sough on civic Center, past the library and into the Kroger parking lot. The trouble was that the parking lot and all of its entrances and exits were packed with people trying to jockey for position for the fireworks tonight.

And besides, by this time it was raining very very hard. The driver finally gave up on the parking lot, went up to Ford Rd. around the barricades, made a left turn around the police cars that were blocking the road and pulled up in front of the blockbuster store to let us out there. That left quite a little walk to our cars. We all got soaked. If you ever wanted to see a senior citizen wet T-shirt contest-- Good thing I was smart enough to give Jeannette my keys and say "you will get to the car way before I will". and Good thing she was smart enough to get to the car and drive it in my direction so I didn't have to walk that far.

It is sooo nice to be home and in my nice warm dry jammies.