Dr. Feelgood

I had a follow-up visit to the doctor today and we are both pleased with the progress. The diagnosis last week was severe muscle strain. The treatment was pain management to allow the muscle time to relax itself. She gave me a prescription for vicodin that was 1/2 the strength that I had been taking, but I take it every 4 hours whether I am feeling particularly painful or not. She also gave me prescriptions for Flexeril (muscle relaxer) that I take 3 times a day and morphine patches (25 mg) that last for 3 days.

So my pain is being managed quite well. Today I will try going back to the exercise regemin that I got from the physical therapist and had been doing since February.

Rita and I stopped for breakfast after the doctor and the ham was so good, it made me think of Marcel and all the good breakfasts we have had together.

How it came out

the trial run, that is.

I never should have left the house. First of all, because we didn't have reservations we ended up sitting way at the back of the bus. The motion back there around curves and through rough pavement was horrid on my back. They brought us a wheelchair right to the bus lobby and Jeannette was a trooper pushing me through the casino, but the motion of getting in and out of the chair took a huge toll. Then there was the whole bus ride back.

I have been pretty much bed ridden with pain ever since. Today is the earliest I could get a doctor's appointment and Rita is taking me at 11:00 am. The most I am looking for is stronger pain pills. I don't know if there will be any other remedy.

I wouldn't mind all the aches of aging if it didn't hurt so bad.

Restless dreams

I dreamed that someone was chasing me with a 2 x 4. They caught me. It was that little green guy from the Ben Gay ads in the funnies years ago. I opened my eyes. My back was throbbing. BOOM boom, BOOM boom. It was throbbing in direct correlation to my breathing. BOOM boom, in; BOOM boom, out; BOOM boom, in; BOOM boom, BOOM, boom. I looked at the clock. It was two and one half hours since I had taken a pain pill. What was I going to do for the next three and a half hours till I could have another one.

While I was contemplating this, someone drove a nail into my left ankle. It really hurt and I tensed up. My right foot took that tensing motion as an invitation to cramp and my toes started to curl down. I quickly sat on the side on the bed to place my foot flat on the floor to stop the curling process. Another 15 minutes had gone by.

As I sat up I said "Hello, there" to the new pains. The rib cage that wouldn't let me take a deep breath. The neck and shoulder pain that made my head tilt funny. Another 5 minutes went by. All my pains were mocking me. "If," I said to myself, "I can stand up, I am going to take another pain pill, and a sleeping pill, and some quinine so that a cramp doesn't come back and wake me if I should happen to fall asleep."

I placed my hand on the corner of the dresser near my bed, and bracing myself, began to stand up. The tremor in my hand dropped it off the dresser and I was plunked back down onto the bed. What to do? I looked at my pillow and tilted to the right and laid my head back down. I could take a deep breath in that position and it didn't hurt. Also, if I tilted just so, my shoulder didn't hurt as much. Another 10 minutes went by. Now I only had to wait three hours for a pain pill.

I pulled my legs back up under the covers and they both seemed relaxed. Now it was just me and the BOOM, boom; BOOM, boom. I conciously changed the rhythm of my breathing so they wouldn't coincide. I closed my eyes and began a string of Hail Mary's.

When I opened my eyes, another 20 minutes had gone by. I didn't feel any pain. Another couple of Hail Mary's in gratitude. The World Series of Poker was on ESPN2. I had seen that episode but it didn't matter because I didn't have my glasses on. They were scrolling sport scores along the bottom of the screen. The Nations had beat the Martians. The Corinthians had beat the Philistines 5 to 3. I reached for my glasses to see who the teams really were.

Big mistake. Several twinges reminded me that I wasn't supposed to be moving. So I lay very still and closed my eyes. Next time I opened them there were only 20 minutes to wait till I could have my next pill. Maybe I won't need it.

So I drifted off to sleep anxiously awaiting a visit from my good friend Mrs. "I-need-to-pee", and her sisters "right-now", and "hurry-up".

Trial Run

Jeannette and I are making a trial run at the Windsor Casino today. The last couple of times I have gone there I just had to walk as far as the bus lobby and Adrienne got a wheel chair for me and wheeled me wherever we had to go. Alas, Jeannette doesn't have the youth and strength to do that. She can push me over smooth surfaces but most of the casino is carpeted and that's harder.

Jeannette really enjoys our shared casino escapades and apparently stayed awake all night mapping out a plan of action that would require minimum carpeted pushing. So we are going to the bus this afternoon without reservations and if they have openings we will test out her theoretical plan.

I have survived

Survived and thrived and it was probably the best trip of my entire life. Exceeding by far all the expectations.

The secret to enjoying travel in a wheelchair is to bring along at least two people who really love you. I don't think this trip would have been as doable with only one daughter.

I just re-read all of the cruise postings so I would know what I don't need to tell. They covered it pretty thoroughly. One nice thing we found at the very start was there were umbrella's provided with the room for our use. We hadn't thought to bring any.

Adrienne turned out to be a master at organization, navigation and procurement. We booked in advance only the St. Petersburg private car and the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. We figured we would book others when we felt the need. It turned out that by the time we felt the need some were no longer available. Adrienne kept checking the excursion desk and managed to pick up most of what we wanted. It was her perseverance that got us the Rivers and Canals tour in St. Petersburg that was one of my favorites.

Our trivia games on ship were so much fun. One of the last trivia's was a geography one and we only got 8 answers out of 20. Adrienne turned our paper over and said "I'm not telling anyone how bad we did." Usually people shout out their scores. Adrienne maintained her silence until it looked like the winner was going to be someone who had 7. She still wasn't proud of having only 8 but that turned out to be the winning score. It was a very difficult quiz.

The prizes we collected (pens, lanyards and luggage tags mostly) will be used by Adrienne on a turn-around bus trip she is helping to organize to State Line as prizes for their travel games on the bus.

The last couple days of rough seas were very hard on my back and I developed a whole new area of pain that made life a little more difficult. But after being home and doing nothing for a few days that part has subsided. All my current pains are old friends and we are back to normal.

I may survive

These girls are trying to kill me. But I'm a survivor.

The fun started when the phone rang. A trip to the airport and Adrienne was in my car. We stopped on the way home at a restaurant I wanted to try for their $2.25 breakfast special. Adrienne laughed at me when I brought home the extra toast we hadn't eaten. A couple of shopping stops and we got home about 11:00 AM.

We left to get the Casino Windsor bus at noon. As soon as we got to the casino, Adrienne was looking for her next meal. She's a three meal a day girl. Who knew. We had a very nice lunch and proceeded to the machines. I listened intently but none of them knew my name. I had enough canadian cash for each of us to start out with $40.00. about 6 o'clock heading back to the bus pick up area we stopped at a wheel of fortune machine and I took out $66.00 and change. We stopped at a machine that cashes out tickets and it spit out $61.00. My first thought was, "the machine is broken" my next thought (after I looked at and counted the money a couple of times) was, this is american money. The small print on each machine tells you whether it will dispense american or canadian currency. I complained to the cashier and she traded me the proper amount of canadian, taking my word for how much the ticket was for.

Once off the bus, we needed a stop at Long John Silver, (3rd meal). Thursday morning we had some shopping and copying errands and I sent Adrienne on her own. Dinner at the Texas Roadhouse with erika, steph, jeannette and gretchen was a lot of fun but I was really tired. We had plans to get up at 4 or 5 to go to Greektown. I slept a couple of spurts and at about 1:00 AM we were all awake and decided to go then. We left the casino and looked for a breakfast place on the way home. We were confident that restaurants and coney islands would open at 6. Not so. When we got to the one closest to home it was 10 to 7 and we just waited for it to open at 7.

I fell into bed when we hit the house and didn't even hear Gretchen get up for work. We didn't take her with us to Greektown, her having a job and all.

So here we sit. All of our luggage got packed into Jeannette's trunk last night so we can't change our minds about what to bring. We are all showered and shaved and half asleep as we wait for our ride.

Any Minute Now

The phone is going to ring any minute now. And Adrienne will be here. I will jump in the car and drive to the airport and she will be there. That means the cruise starts now. Actually it started the minute Adrienne left her house to go to her airport, but I slept through that part.

Its ringing, she's here.

Who Won

I am watching the French Open a little earlier in the day today since ESPN2 is running the women's semi-finals live. All week I've been watching those scrolls at the bottom showing team match-ups and what time the game is going to start. I was surprised when I saw the Tigers-Indians come up and they actually had last night's scores posted. Wow, Tigers 10, Indians 0.

BTW does Micky Mouse winning the Stanley Cut diminish it in any way?

Respect or Lack of

this is a story about three people who earned no respect this morning.

The first was the greeter at Meijers whose sigh and eye roll earned no respect when I asked her for an electric cart.

I used my list but succumbed to a few impulse buys along the way. Half pound Hershey bars were on clearance. Probably because they are planning to decrease the volume and increase the price. So I bought some of those. The milk (priced at 3.09) was free if you bought two packages of oreo cookies (on sale 2 for 5.00) so I bought some of those. Natural Wheat bread, that was packaged just like my favorite Brownberry brand was buy one get one free. So I bought some of those. My cart was over flowing.

Now comes the cashier. I can't do it myself any more and it doesn't matter how far down the store the first working cashier is because I'm using the electric cart and travel is easy. The cashiers have those bag carousel things at the end of the counters and I can usually, from my sitting position, take each bag and put it in the cart as she fills it. So now I have the bread, some lunch meat and both packages of cookies in the first bag. As I try to lift it into the cart I say "You're kidding, right?" And as I am re-packing that, she is rapidly filling bags.

I am putting them into my cart, leaving a corner space for the milk. I stop to take care of the payment part of the dance and as soon as she thrusts the paperwork into my hands she comes around the counter and I am thinking "Oh good, I'm going to get help". She piles the rest of the bags into the cart and her parting words are "Don't forget your milk, I don't know where you want to put that."

Where indeed. Short of unloading and re-packing the cart there is no place for the milk. So I put it on the floorboard at my feet and proceed to the parking lot. Usually I will transfer my groceries to a regular cart and wheel that out to my car. The thought of lifting that milk is what made me ride the electric cart all the way to my car. That cashier earned no respect from me.

Now I wheel up to the back of my car and there appears beside me a cart-collector guy. I'm thinking I will not have to lift that milk into the car. Silly me. He was standing so close to the cart, I had to say "Excuse me" to be able to stand up. He moved far enough away to let me open the trunk and that's where he stood till I was all done packing the bags into the trunk. When I was near the end of the bags I almost said "Would you get that milk for me?" but I was fuming a little by then and was going to show him I didn't need no stinkin help.

When I closed the trunk he said "I'll take the cart back." and I said "Thank you." How does that thank you fall out so easily. The sentence I had in mind did end with you but it didn't start with thank.

Meijers is still my favorite place to shop. Most of the employees are courteous and helpful and I don't know why I had to encounter all 3 of the rude ones today.

The Visit

Mama came to visit me this morning. I was standing at the stove when I heard movement in the other room. I assumed it was Gretchen getting ready for work so I continued what I was doing with my back turned. When I turned and looked up there was Mama sitting in my chair in the living room. I was so glad to see her. I rushed in and leaned over to hug her and said how sorry I was to be living in a place where she had never been, and how did she find me. She said that she hadn't come alone. I heard noise in the bathroom and realized that Pa had come with her.

Before he could reveal himself, I was well and truly awake. I should have realized it was a dream because there is no way I can bend over like that. But the warm, fuzzy feeling of having seen her stays with me.

It occurs to me that my children might feel the same way about me. Happy to see me and be in the same room. I'm a little high maintenance right now but I want them to know that I will be visiting them forever even when its just in a dream.

Lazy Days

My mother went on Retreat. Retreat is something Catholics used to do (and quite possibly still do) for a day or a weekend to help kick start their spirituality. With the added bonus of a couple that I have been on, of getting away from the kids for a day or a weekend.

During her Retreat, a lecturer asked the women to write down on a piece of paper one negative attribute about themselves. My mother wrote "lazy". Then all these pieces of paper were gathered and dumped into a makeshift fire pit and the lecturer said he was going to set fire to them and the women would feel cleansed of these attributes.

My mother did not wish to be "cleansed" of her laziness. It was all she could do not to jump up and say "Wait, I want mine back." But, of course burning the papers did not make the attributes disappear, and my mother continued to enjoy being lazy till the end of her days.

In fact, her laziness is alive and well and living in her favorite daughter. My days of actually having to get dressed and do something outside the house are getting fewer and farther between. Its not that I don't like doing things outside the house (well, I kind of don't) but I love the lazy days.

That's OK Grandma

Usually Jackson stories belong to Erika but these two are mine.

While eating lunch at my kitchen table yesterday one of my front teeth broke. The one right next to the one that they fixed last time. When he saw my mouth with a tooth missing Jackson said, "That's OK Grandma, another one will grow in there."

Later he had reluctantly agreed that we could go shopping. He wanted to do something more fun than that but I told him we needed to go to the bathing suit store because I needed a bathing suit. There was someone moving out in my parking lot and their truck was blocking my car so he knew we had to wait till the truck left. While he was watching out the front door for the truck to leave he turned around and said, "Actually, Grandma already has a bathing suit."

Who expects a 3 year old to begin a sentence with actually?

I convinced him that since my bathing suit was black, I needed one with flowers on it. He likes flowers. I did find 2 bathing suits, both with flowers and Erika got one with Polka Dots. It turned out he loved polka dots on Erika.

And Then There Were Two

One little, two little, three little sisters. Papa could sing that song all the way up to 10. And now there are two. Last Friday, Alfreda succumbed to Leukemia that had been diagnosed in January. That leaves Monique, who recently suffered a stroke and is recuperating with her daughter Merrielle, and Julia who had surgery this year for a cyst removal from her breast that was benign.

I could spit

The Fed Ex truck stopped at my house yesterday. They left a mail packet from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Many years ago I participated in a National Institute of Health Diet and Health Study. I remember thinking as I answered their questions "Hah, compute this."

Another time I volunteered to participate in a study of Post Menopausal Women who had never taken hormones. But when push came to shove, I was not willing to take the pills they provided without knowing whether they were placebos or hormones. So I bowed out.

It seems this Institute is now doing a study called Parkinson's, Genes and Environment Study (PAGE). I have been selected as a participant who does not have Parkinson's. The packet included 1) consent forms, 2) PAGE Study brochure 3) 2 Saliva collection kits 4) a Logo Pen and 5) a one dollar bill oh and a prepaid return envelope.

Although Adrienne had some misgivings about giving away your DNA, I have decided, in the interest of science to participate. The saliva collection kits consist of an inner vial with a screw top cap; an outer container (like a large pill bottle)with a snap on lid, a snug plastic bag with a sticky top closure that you put the outer container in. Then there is a Manila bio hazard bubble envelope that the two plastic bags go into. This envelope is stamped "Exempt Human Specimen" There are sticky-back labels for me to affix to each specimen with control numbers etc.

They want two specimens collected within 24 hours. So this morning I did my first one. The inner vial, although it is pretty small has a fill line on it. They ask that you collect the specimen within 15 minutes. Seriously, how much can you spit in 15 minutes.

So the first one is in the bag. Now I have all day to be conscious of my saliva glands and worry about how much I am wasting every time I swallow.

On The Payroll

Last Sunday, Easter, I merged my "in-town" family (Stephanie and Arn) with Rita's and we all went to dinner together and then back to her house for desert.

At her house we were treated to many old photographs and scrapbooks that Kelly had unearthed while cleaning his basement. The trunk that held these treasures had suffered water damage along the years and the items were musty and bordering on moldy. Rita is slowly going through all of it. She had to discard scrapbooks that she had compiled of all her school work and report cards. One from grade school and another from high school. The high school one had souvenirs from dances etc. But at least she got a chance to look through them first.

She has had to work intermittently, because the residue of musty makes her feel ill.

There were things in that trunk from many branches of the family and she is saving what she can for each of us.

Today she brought me something I thought I would never see again. It is a payroll record of mine dated October 18, 1952 from Johnnie's Sweet Shoppe. I worked 3 hours after school on Monday and Wednesday, 3 1/2 hours on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and 6 hours each on Saturday and Sunday. My net pay, was $12.35. I was rich.

Guest Post -- Erika's Day From Hell

Today is Friday the 13th. I am not the least bit superstitious, but more than 10 people have said that to me today. Every year, as the research administrator on our campus, I put together a reception honoring those faculty that have published throughout the past year. I lovingly gather all of the publications together and put out a Publication Listing , then the publications themselves are all sent over to the library where they are lovingly displayed at the reception and then archived. This year I had the list ready in record time and on Tuesday the box full of publications was ready to go to the library. So I closed up the box and I wrote my contact person's name on it and her campus address and shipped it out by campus mail. Big mistake!! When the box had not arrived accross campus by Thursday we started to get a little worried. But when we called the mailroom they assured us that the box either was already delivered or would be very shortly. So we waited until this morning and still no box. After I left to gather supplies for the reception I got the call that someone in the mail room fessed up to having opened the box and redistributing all of the publications back to the authors. WHY? I have no idea. A quick call to Lyle, who was working in his office, confirmed that he had indeed just received his own publication back through campus mail to him. Aaaaargh. Now we were having a publication reception with no publications. Bad enough.

Now, given our quick change to nice weather I had to wait until just before the reception to pick up the fruit and cheese platters. Two large fruit and cheese platters were ordered more than a week ago. Guess how many were ready when I got there an hour before the reception? None! That's right now we had no publications and no food. I am ready to call it a day and go home. But they quickly threw one platter together and I grabbed boxes of cookies to supplement. When I got off of the elevator at the reception site in the library I had exactly 6 minutes to put everything together.

Luckily, my contact at the library had called all of the department secretaries and gathered about 1/4 of the publications to display at the reception. So it looked pathetic but at least there was something to look at. And the good thing about not getting all of the food that I ordered was that I had absolutely no leftovers to cart home. I am so glad this day is over.

Hello Xavier

I just caught the end of The Price is Right and the kid that won the showcase showdown did a shout out to all the musketeers from Xavier, Cincinnati.

No Game Show for Me

My cable bill went up. It was only $3.00 and even though it made me mad that they could just brazenly tack on $3.00 without any notification or anything, I just paid it and decided it wasn't worth the time and effort to spend half a day on hold just to complain.

Two days later, last Wednesday, I was working through my regular TV routine and Channel 15 didn't come in. That was the Game Show Channel. The was my refuge channel when all there was available on regular channels were talk shows and soap operas.

This was important enough to call. The girl didn't know why I was having trouble put me on hold several times and finally said someone would be out that same day.

Of course, they weren't. So when it still didn't come in the next day, I called back. This girl put me on hold several times and finally told me that the channel number had changed. Channel 15 was now channel 112. No longer available to me on my plan but if I would like to upgrade..... I was very angry.

I am a "go to sleep with the TV on" person and my late-night refuge is ESPN Classic. They play reruns of the World Series of Poker late into the night. That night as I turned on channel 35, all I got was fuzz..... I am very angry.

No Diet for Me

I can no longer stand the stress of being on a diet. When I decided a couple of weeks ago to be on a diet I forgot how weak-willed I was. Luckily I caught that mistake after gaining only 3 pounds. I got off the diet and the scale is back where it was.

Here's how it goes. I bought a couple bags of easter kisses when they were on sale, just to have around the house. Not on a diet - I would eat 3 or 4 or 10 every once in a while. On a diet - I ate the whole bag in one day because tomorrow I would have to start dieting for real. Of course, I wasn't any better the next day and the cycle started all over again with a little extra comfort food to make myself feel better about the discomfort that was about to start the next day (for real).

Since I'm not on a diet, there is no necessity of eating something right now, I can always have it later or tomorrow or the next day. I am at an age and a stage where I get along just fine letting my eating habits be governed more by indigestion than weight loss.

I've Been Tested

CBC my local Canadian TV station did a show called Test The Nation tonight. I took the test with them. It was a basic IQ test and any of you can take it by going to CBC.ca/testthenation. I think they said it would still be available on line.

Anyways, I am terrible at visual perception. Which shape goes next in a series. There were 12 of those and I got 7 of them wrong.

Another one I got wrong was: If this is Thursday, what is the third day after tomorrow? I would like to know who I can talk to to dispute their answer.

And still another I got wrong was which simple math problem had the highest answer and I picked 8 times 22. Well when it came time to see the answer it turned out it was 8 plus 22 and of course, was the wrong answer.

By their scoring system, which made allowances for age, my IQ is 124.