Very amusing!

When I looked at yesterday’s blog post today, most of the cat pictures were replaced by new cat pics. I was soooo confused! I had saved them using screenshots. So I refreshed the page and got a whole new crop of cat pics. Well….DUH! Because the pics were labeled with Trump’s name, the Make America Kittens Again chrome extension changed them to kittens 🙂 Lot’s of cute, cuddly kittens!

NOT!!!!!!!

You know what else is funny in a sad way? Often before I answer someone’s question in a Facebook group, I click on their name to get an idea of what sort of person they are. Before the election, I was horrified at the women who had signs saying they were a Trump girl. Usually the rest of their feed was a bunch of hyped up BS, too. I have noticed that almost all of those women have now deleted any trace of how they once felt. If only they had paid more attention to facts BEFORE the election 😦 Ah ha ha ha ha ha….I Googled “i am a trump girl” to try to find one of those high heel emblems. I got a whole page of kitten pictures 🙂 I had to use sneaky tactics to find what I was looking for.

As soon as I leave the little bubble world in front of my fan, I become hot, sweaty and even ditzier. My left eyelid slams shut and I’m sooooooo weak! The longer I sit in my power chair, the more my whole body slumps to the left. I am confused. By the time I saw the doc today, I was so hot and swollen that I could barely think. He would start on one subject, play with the computer or leave the room and it seemed like there were few complete thoughts or sentences. At first he was going to give me another round of antibiotics, but he needed to go look up which ones were OK with myasthenia gravis. He came back frustrated and said I was really too complicated for his clinic 😦 He said I was welcome to keep coming there for simple stuff. What to do with my health is ever simple???

He says because I am allergic to sulfa drugs, Bumex made me sick. He prescribed 30 pills of Spironolactone. He thought about and rejected several others. It was hard to keep up. He never did prescribe an antibiotic. I’m supposed to go back in 2 weeks. He says my wicked bad edema is causing fluid to leak into my lungs and I need to get the edema to go down to make my lungs better. The whole thing feels like a hamster wheel of cause and effect. The harder we try to fix one thing, the worse everything else gets!

I came home and made some scrambled eggs. I was in agony 😦 I could only cook while draped over the counter. By the time I got to my chair, my clothes were soaked and my hair dripping. I had to towel dry several times before I could eat.

Oh, I just remembered….my BP was 180/80 when the nurse first took it. He freaked out. Later, he tried the other arm and I was 140/80. Thanks, steroids! My oxygen saturation was 90 at the highest and 80’s at the worst. I hate being a wreck 😦

I watched some TV and read a bunch of awful Trump stuff. I have never felt so bombarded by bad national and international news. Despite it all, I must still have a hefty will to live, as I am still here. It got too hard to breathe, though, so I took a 2 hour nap. Our snow melted a lot while I was asleep 🙂

Sooooo…..I switched the pouch thing from my old to the new wheelchair. The poor thing is all holey again, despite all the times I have sewed it. To me, switching it to the new chair meant I was committed to using that chair. Well….on the way to the clinic, the chair was making funny noises. By the time I got back to my own door, it was making a racket. I wrote to Mr wheelchair man. He says a fix-it guy will be here next week. I will believe it when I see it! This newer chair has been a total lemon 😦

It has been a gray and drippy day. The upside to that is while I napped, the air got cleaner! 🙂 Nice to see it in the green zone!!! I wish we could stay there. But, we are not supposed to have much rain the next 2 days, so pollution will build again.

I get a double whammy of crazy Republicanism now that the Utah legislature is meeting. It would take a book for me to write about all the idiocy here. Utah is bottom of the barrel for school spending. More teachers flee than stick around. The governor does not want to raise taxes. They have enough money for all sorts of stupid stuff like moving a prison, building a coal port in CA, paying legal fees for politicians who broke the law, etc. Then there’s the Republican opposition to Bear’s Ears National Monument and while they are at it, they want to shrink Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. This is so politicians can make more money by raping the land of natural resources. For ohhhh, so many things, Utah is a laughingstock and object of disgust.

This article in Outside Magazine was just published, but is already outdated. The push is on to transfer federal land to the state of Utah. And, thanks to the horrible air pollution that the legislature likes to ignore, combined with the public lands issues, the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show is thinking about moving to Colorado. It’s a twice yearly HUGE money-maker for Utah. Most things Republicans are for just make me smack my head. No wonder my head hurts 😛

I wonder how much of the forecast will be true? Last week’s wasn’t right thanks to the inversion. Once temps are over 40, I cannot take paratransit. What a useless “service”. UTA is another Utah thing to hate. They are part government, part private and rife with corruption. When TRAX works and the ramps let me on and off, I like going that way. This year I have been left behind at the station numerous times. I’d love to see some of the proposed UTA changes. I won’t hold my breath, though.

My dislike of Utah is intensified each time I wish I had a decent neurologist and think about how much IVIg would make my life so much easier. I already live in a version of hell. Anything after this….dead or alive….has got to be better.

 

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Make America Kittens Again

Looking at all those Trump photos was making me physically ill. Have you seen Make America Kittens Again? I added it to my chromebook. It replaces Trump, and a few other choices with something much cuter…kittens! 🙂 I heard of this a while ago, but now that Trump is everywhere, I decided the ability to substitute kittens just went from a curiosity to a necessity. Too bad it doesn’t work on Facebook. But….when I clicked on a FB story, the pic was replaced on the actual website.

I spent most of today having a sharp pain every single time I took a breath. It’s my lower right lung. I was tired of wincing and crying so took a 3 hour nap this afternoon. I could still feel the pain in my sleep.

When I woke up, I decided to go through old paperwork and get rid of the things I don’t need. Once that was done, I wanted to take it out to the shredder bin. I wrote out this month’s rent check, got several days of mail and bumped into the Relief Society president. It’s only when I interact with others that I realize just how crappy my health is. Getting dressed left me soaked in sweat and gasping for breath. When the pres said hi to me, I couldn’t even see her through the blur. Talking was difficult. Staying focused was tough. I really feel awful 😦

I was glad to get back in my apartment, put a nightgown on and sit back in front of my fan. I feel slightly more alive with the cool breeze. And speaking of cool….all that warm weather forecast for here is only above the temperature inversion. Here in the valley it has been cold, damp and murky. We here in SLC were honored to be #1 in the country for air pollution yesterday….NOT! 

There’s not much interesting going on in my life. Mostly I am just sick and miserable. What a life, huh?

Deal with the devil

I woke up more swollen than I have ever been. The corner of my bed where my left leg was sleeping was soaked. My leg isn’t just leaking…it’s spouting clear fluid. I soon realized the edema was also affecting my eyes. My eyeballs felt like they were going to pop and my vision was blurry. I kept hoping things would get better, but instead, more of me got even more swollen. I retrieved my bottle of Bumex.

Sigh….it did not take long until my tongue was on fire….but at least I finally started peeing. Before I swelled up, I was losing consciousness many times a day. Once I swelled up, I was able to only feel dizzy, woozy and weak…without also losing consciousness. I do not like either choice! Now all the peeing is making me extra woozy. My body is trying to decide what to do next. I feel horribly yucky 😦

Well…on second thought, I feel great compared to the dead guy upstairs 😦 I have made a zillion trips to the bathroom and back. One trip back, I saw the cop car in front of my window. And just as I was about to get up again, a fire truck went by. After a while I got dressed and went out to see what was going on this time. The rabid “Christian” ran up to me to tell me some guy name Dean had died….and that if he had not accepted Christ….she knows where he went 😮 Dang, that woman is something else 😦 She’s the one who is always telling me that she and I do not worship the same Jesus or God….and I tell her I’m glad 🙂 What a whacko.

Anyway, after talking to a few people, I think I have a story close enough to the truth. Turns out I had talked to the guy at least a couple of times. He had a full-sized white van and we talked about van living. I told him if that was my van, I’d be out of here in a flash. He seemed a bit confused, subdued and depressed. At least I was confused by him.

Today I found out he recently had hernia surgery. People thought he had been out of the hospital a week or two. Bev, my old laundry lady, went in to check on him and found him dead. Apparently he had been dead for some time as the place was stinky. Yuck. There are 3 cop cars and the crime scene unit cop here. The dead guy had openly said things like he wished he was dead. There are rumors of pills being taken. What a bummer 😦

One of the office women hurried over to me and said several people had asked if I was the dead body. Nope….I just keep being sick and out-living everybody. It’s amazing I am still alive and kicking! I was thoroughly soaked in sweat from getting dressed, so I sat outdoors a while. Then I made 2 trips back to my apartment to pee in between talking to folks in the foyer. Finally I gave up and came home. I have to go every 10 minutes or so.

It makes me sad that the guy had no one looking in on him or taking care of him after surgery. Sounds like he was a loner.

In MG news….a bunch of people are suddenly discovering that their Medicare Part D plan is not paying for Mestinon 😮  Mestinon, also known as pyridostigmine, is the only FDA approved treatment for myasthenia gravis. The manufacturer has jacked the price up by several hundred percent. My Utah Medicaid plan first tried to deny me IVIg by saying it was not FDA approved for MG. Since myasthenia gravis is a rare disease, it gets little government funding. The FDA is unlikely to do much for us.

Sooooo….while talking about all the politics involved with the ACA, FDA, Medicare, pharmaceutical companies, etc, a woman said “OK pardon my stupidity but who is Paul Ryan and why do I want to contact him? Please educate me”. It freaks me out how clueless and uneducated people are 😮 How do they make up their mind about important stuff if they do not understand the basics of our government? I hear or read Paul Ryan’s name many times a day…..and unfortunately know what a #$%&*! he is when it comes to poor and disabled people.

This chilling book is gaining new favor. Eerily correct for these times 😦

I’m not liking presidential….or pretty much any politics lately. I spend way too much time trying to keep up with the facts about what is going on. Most of it makes me nauseous and heartsick 😦 In turn, that gets me mad….especially mad at the people who don’t take voting seriously…..and the crooks who take advantage of that.

Food was only marginally significant today. I had muesli with yogurt and maple syrup for breakfast, a salad for lunch and a cup of mango kefir for supper. My mouth hurts.

Today feels all-around unsettling.

Gloomy, grumpy day

I think it has been raining all day. I woke up at 5 AM and looked out the window to see a fire truck and ambulance. That must be what woke me. It was 48 degrees out there! Then, later in the morning, I was struggling so much to breathe, that I got back in bed with CPAP and oxygen. I think I slept a couple of hours more.

It must be the cold dampness. Breathing is wicked painful. I keep getting so dizzy that I cannot see or sit up straight. Not my favorite day! The real problem is that despite the salt lamps, the bathroom fan being on and having my window open, my apartment is FULL of cigarette smoke. My new upstairs neighbor has me totally demoralized 😦

Well, I wrote that and decided I should go out and see if my new cellphone was in the mail. No such luck. While I was near the mailboxes, the upstairs neighbor came over to me and asked if she was a good neighbor! As calmly as possible, I told her why she wasn’t, thanks to the smoke and around the clock noise. We both burst into tears. I moved away from her and towards Buster. He took one look at me and asked if my voice worked now. It did for a few sentences 🙂 There has to be an upside to crying….right?

OK….I checked tracking on my phone. It got to West Valley City at 2:59 today. Hopefully I will get it on Monday.

What else can I say about today? It’s a bummer day. Both my mind and body are going down the tubes. I feel more depressed than usual 😦

Here comes winter!

Sitting here this morning, I watched the clouds move in and settle low. Because it’s not snowing in the valley…yet…I can see the nearby foothills. They are getting whiter by the minute. I like snow from afar 🙂

Last night was strange. I fell asleep around 10 PM, but had a hard time falling asleep and staying that way. I continued to feel awful from the night and day before. Each time I woke up, I would look at the clock and be bummed that I hadn’t slept all that long. I was glad when one of the times I woke up and it was 7 AM. Too bad I feel like I never slept at all. Is that why they say “no rest for the weary”? I was too tired to sleep well. Then there was the constant noise from upstairs 😦 She repeatedly woke me up. This is feeling like when The Stomper lived above me. The last 2 years were blissful in comparison….very little noise and no smoking. Ahhhhhh…..  The upstairs woman needs a nickname. She has made more noise so far than the guy up there did in 2 plus years.

The missionaries came to see me before church. I cried the whole time. I guess I am officially a basket case. It’s all just too much. I am losing it.

As far as “losing it” in this political climate, I thought Ken’s blog post was a good one.

I know I should be brave and upbeat….instead I am tired and sad 😦 I need to quit crying. My eyeballs dry out and it gives me a monster headache. I have never been so dizzy or had such double vision as tonight. I started thinking….if I really need/want to, I think I can use that $5 cellphone to call 911 even though it isn’t activated. Is that right?

I heard ice hitting the window and went to check local weather online. I must have been a zombie all day. I don’t remember hearing about Winter Storm Blanche. I see it’s going to go all across the country. Have fun, peeps. Geeze…I’m glad I don’t need to go anywhere.

Winter Storm Warning in effect from 2 AM to 11 PM MST Monday.

The National Weather Service in Salt Lake City has issued a Winter Storm Warning for heavy snow, which is in effect from 2 AM to 11 PM MST Monday. 

• Affected area: The Wasatch Front along with the Cache and Wasatch mountain valleys.
• Snow accumulations: 3 to 6 inches along the valley floors of the Wasatch Front as well as the Heber and Park City areas. 6 to 12 inches along the benches of the Wasatch Front as well as the Ogden Valley.
• Timing: periods of moderate to heavy snow will develop early Monday morning and continue into Monday evening before tapering to showers late Monday.
• Impacts: winter driving conditions can be expected across all area roadways Monday. Both the morning and evening commutes will be significantly impacted.

What happened to cheerful Wendy?

Too many negatives, I guess. I am scared and concerned about too many things at once. I am trying to shift my thinking to do what I can and trust God for the rest. There are always tough times….and most of us make it through them.

This morning my heart was beating all wrong. Then my chest felt squashed in pain. Soon my left, lower jaw was having wicked sharp pain. I looked it up and that’s often a heart attack. I found an email address for my heart monitor company and told them my phone was broken, and to please email me if they needed to get in touch. It’s probably like everywhere else, though….no one seems to read or act on anything. At least I did what I could. I’m still alive. I must have burped for a solid hour after the pain. Maybe it was just my guts?

I’m super depressed about my new upstairs neighbors. The cigarette smoke in here is getting unbearable 😦 They also make noise all hours of the day and night. I really miss the dead guy upstairs. He was nice and quiet 🙂 Maybe I can ask him to come haunt them? 😛 We are all supposed to be quiet from 10 PM to 7 AM. I wish they would at least abide by those rules!

All of the political back and forth nastiness has got me down. I thought that sort of hate had vanished years ago. What was I thinking??? I was living in my own little bubble. Sure, I knew there were lots of different opinions…but I did not know there was so much raw hate. How can there be so many people willing to hurt others with violence? Why can’t the world be more like Vermont used to be? We all tried to both tolerate each other and make the world a good place for everyone.

This has been my second rough day in a row….both mentally and physically. Most of my days are feats of endurance, but these are worse than my usual crummy. Without the mental toughness and cheerfulness that I usually have shreds of, I feel flat and dull and well, missing.

Oh, my gosh! Now my blood sugar is 323!!! What the heck is wrong with me??? I am burning up. My head feels like it is about to explode. Oh, oh, my insulin site is all wet and smells like insulin. It must not be going into me.

I took the cannula out. It wasn’t bent. A few seconds later, a bunch of insulin came out of the cannula hole 😦 It’s as I have been suspecting. I am so full of edema that there’s no place for insulin to sink in. Just great. I pulled off all my electrodes and insulin pump stuff and took a shower. Then I painstakingly put my gizmos all back together. I used a needle to shoot up insulin in the least swollen part of me…opposite the hernia on my left side. I also put the new cannula in that general area.

Whew! An hour after shooting up 25 ml of Humalog with a syringe, my blood sugar is down to 178. Ordinarily, that would shake me up…but today it sounds great! That means the shot is working. I even feel better 🙂 I’m hungry for supper, too….but I don’t dare eat yet.

So now what do I do about the gosh darned edema? Lasix makes me sick, but I can take Bumex and spironolactone. It has been at least 7 years since I last took diuretics. I haven’t missed them!

Well….tomorrow is another day. Here’s hoping things will be better.

 

I just can’t do it!

I rested for 3 hours after taking a shower. I was still wiped out tired. Only an hour more until the insulin pump trainer gets here. I tried to vacuum. My vacuum is toast. September 6, 2012, I wrote….”Got some good stuff like a Shark vacuum for $6.” I think I got my $6 worth at Deseret Industries thrift store. But that’s a whole new conundrum…most any vacuum I could get now will last longer than I will. I need a new one, but what a waste! It also has to be as lightweight as possible. The shark is at the limit of my strength.

I just vacuumed about a third of my apartment. There’s too much cat litter tracked around to just use the swiffer-like thing. It has to be vacuumed. Even though I had cleaned out the vacuum before putting it away, when it fell out of the closet, a big gob of cat hair and a lot of cat litter came out of the sucking spot. I had to get out the broom and dustpan. It was all way too much for me. My heart was trying to pound out of my chest and the insides of my lungs felt painfully raw. I’m lucky I made it back to my chair without collapsing.

How can I do any of this???? I am overwhelmed at all that needs to be done like laundry, bed, cleaning. And all the learning for the insulin pump! My body and brain seem woefully inadequate for all that must be done. It’s moments like this that I wish I were already dead. I hate feeling helpless 😦 I think I will be glad when hospice help finally kicks in. I’m not very useful sitting here sobbing, still not dressed in real clothes, with the floor not vacuumed. I need a shot of strength and energy. It’s as if I am not even taking steroids 😦 And yes…I checked to make sure I had taken my Medrol.

I stood up to get dressed and both legs gave out underneath me. Thank goodness for my walker! I just barely was able to catch myself and get to my chair. I guess this is the day that heavy-duty feeling sorry for myself happens. It’s one of the grief stages I’m sure I will get all too familiar with 😦 Too bad we can’t just go down the checklist and get it over with. Instead, each stage gets revisited many times. Oh, joy.

A front is coming through. The change in barometric pressure and all things weather related is always a sickness/misery maker. I was excited to drop dead. I am less excited about enduring the indignities before I do. There’s a government study on the angry dying patient.

After talking to the diabetes educator for a couple of hours, I feel better 🙂 Using the insulin pump so far is easier than I thought. Now I just have to learn to adjust to my idiosyncrasies. The woman who taught me is a type 1 diabetic. Olive insisted on breathing her breath, too 🙂

I went out for a ride around a few blocks when she left. That helped adjust my attitude. While the educator was here, there was a knock on my door. It was the delivery guy for my pharmacy. Imagine my surprise when he delivered the denied Xifaxan! Must be the gut whisperer is also an insurance whisperer. The prescription is for 3 courses of 2 weeks each between now and a year later. I will probably start them tomorrow. I hope they help. The gastroparesis is like a cannon ball in my gut.

I was prescribed Xifaxan in August, and got it 19 days later. I wonder how long it will take for hospice to start? Healthcare is as much paper shuffling as it is care. At least most things eventually work out…..right???

I’ve already messed up my infusion set….which is the tubing between the pump and my belly. I tugged on my undergarment and totally forgot about the tubing. I unceremoniously yanked it out 😮 I watched a bunch of Medtronic videos to make sure I was putting it back in right….which means doing everything all over again. It seems to be working….so I passed my first test.

What a day! I have not felt well for any part of it. I have a hard time dealing with uncertainty today. And a really hard time dealing with my worsening myasthenia gravis and wicked painful guts. It takes about 3 words to slam shut my eyelids and about 3 words to render my voice broken for hours.

You know what the highlight of my day was? Watching the diabetes educator stare in total fascination at my belly collage. No trace of pity or horror….just amazement that a person can have that happen. Me, too!!!!

When is medical intervention a losing proposition?

There are all sorts of machines and pills that can make our lives continue against all odds. At what point is enough…enough? I have had my life saved countless times thanks to antibiotics, blood transfusions, surgeries, hospitalizations, various machines to keep me breathing, etc. A lot of technology has gotten me to 60 years old.

Now what? I’m definitely feeling the diminishing returns. The “fixes” are getting to be as bad as what needs fixing. Steroids and I have always had a love/hate relationship. They enabled me to keep farming longer than I should have. They let me travel, they kept me swallowing and breathing. Now they still keep me going…but just barely. And wow!….do they ever mess up my blood sugar!

More and more, I spend my life trying to lower my blood sugar for most of the day, only to go too low at night. It’s not just the numbers…it’s what the numbers mean. My heart is taking a pounding. It beats all wrong a significant part of the day. All the ups and downs affect every part of my being. I can go between laughing and crying pretty quick. Insulin is a hormone. Feels like nothing in me is regulated right. I have always been complicated medically. Now it feels a heck of a lot worse with all the autoimmune diseases, the hernia, diabetes, allergies, etc, etc.

I have been thinking a lot about how far it’s worth it to go to prolong my life. I think I was in my 30’s the first time I up and quit all my meds. The docs had me on about 30 different things. Instead of getting worse, I got better. I then only added back a couple of meds. I’ve done this several times since then.

I am resisting learning more about the insulin pump. I’m sure it’s partly fear of change and the complexity of it all…but I also wonder when it’s prudent to just give up? When does it all become too much? Why does someone like Stephen Hawking keep going? Would he be less excited about existence if his mind was going, too?

My doc’s bad day at the office rubbed off on me. I was taken aback by his resignation to death and disease….but I “get it” more each day. I have been fighting a valiant fight for decades. I am wearing out. It’s seeming more and more like an endless round of doc appointments, pharmacy trips and deliveries, appointments for new machines….and all that for less and less function…..and fewer and fewer times of feeling well. Part of me wants to scream enough already!!! I am worn out physically and mentally! Leave me alone!

My quality of life is diminishing. I feel guilty for all the things I cannot do anymore and guilty that I can still do some things when I am not doing all. Going to the picnic up the canyon, going to church for sacrament and visiting the temple for a dinner and session are good examples. Yes, I was able to go. Yes, I was glad I was able….but the aftermath was awful. I’m not anxious to repeat any of those things and feel guilty that it’s just not in me anymore. What my head and heart want is not backed up by my body.

I wrote that, and then a BYU Devotional came on. It was speaking to me. Go to the website and click on Trust in the Lord’s Plan by Sister Robin Dunlop. Choose watching it, reading it or listening, like in the example above.

Trusting in the Lord’s plan is how I have gotten this far. I need to keep trusting that if I do my part, what’s supposed to happen, will happen. I don’t understand a lot of things.

Just when I thought I was getting calmer, Rhett calls…or someone with his phone…and then hangs up. I know he gets visitors on Sunday. I sobbed for an hour. One more reason that life sucks. I only talked to him that first day we reconnected. I hate unfinished business 😦 It has taken me a month to chill out after our last conversations.

I have not let go of the anger and hurt as well as I thought I had. I was the one in the hospital, getting my third operation in a month when my husband took off with his relatives. No one contacted me, no one answered their phones, no one visited me in the hospital, neither my husband or his relatives cared if I lived or died. I was all alone until Heather and the kids showed up. I’d like to know how in the twisted Wyatt world that the failure of our marriage was my fault? I spent weeks and weeks with Rhett in hospitals all over the country…when he had the open ulcer on his leg and often had MRSA or gangrene. I slept in a chair in the hospital or in my RV in the parking lot most of the time. Yes, I’m still hurt. I’ve done my share of stupid things in life, but I hope I was never that willfully mean. Just saying this probably makes me the ogre. It’s hard to be me. I’m getting tired of it 😦

I suppose the answer is to keep doing what got me this far. Pray, read scriptures, watch BYU TV and go to church or the temple when I am able. I am very, very weary.

 

West Nile Virus and assorted life events

There were only 5 reported cases of WNV in Utah in 2012. As far as I know, I am not one of the statistics. Many of us with positive WNV tests end up not being reported. For me, that has been a big mystery. For the whole country in 2012, there were 5,674 documented cases. The most the CDC reported was in 2003. I’m in the second highest crop. I’m sure there were a heck of a lot more people with WNV than that. In 2014 there were about 40 eagles in Utah that died from WNV. Why aren’t there statistics showing more people getting the virus?

Every once in a while, in the groups, we talk about who’s on the official list and who’s not. Being on or off seems random. One thing that’s for sure….all of us on the support groups HATE being sick with all these strange, varied and confusing symptoms. The problems seem to be cyclical. In the beginning, the cycles happened a matter of days apart…then weeks, then months….and sometimes it’s as if we are getting WNV all over again. People sometimes get tested while in a flare, and the virus is at it again…not a new infection, but a reactivation. WNV can hide in the bladder and other parts of the body.

When I put up the picture of the asteroid or meteorite, what I had actually been looking for was a pic of the space junk that hit Rick in Northern Exposure…one of my old favorite TV shows. I had been thinking that with my luck, I would be like Rick. The pics I found online didn’t mean much if you had not seen the show. Then, last night on the news, they showed space junk burning up over Utah. I was blown away that I had just thought about it….and here it comes.

Another nasty air day here. I am totally snot lockered. My nose has swollen shut. I am a mouth breather today. Chest hurts. Lungs are not amused. Same old, same old, along with a wicked bad headache. I need to go get more kleenexes, but it was way too hot out there today….official high 102.

The white skin bumps from sunscreen are not going away 😦 I look funny. This is today’s arm picture. I contacted the “Honest” sun screen company, but all they did was want the lot # and pictures. They offered no advice or help.

I made another big pot of beef stew. This time it was a pound of beef, 4 large potatoes, a pound of carrots, an onion and a half, a ziplock of fresh green beans, a bunch of chopped Swiss chard, a bit more than half a pound of mushrooms, cream of mushroom soup, a can of diced tomatoes and seasonings. I only ate a tiny kid bowl full. It was good….but my guts aren’t. My highlight of the day was Hawaiian ice mixed with a little raspberry syrup. I could not even bear to eat fruit 😮

I made the mistake of looking at the latest crime report map. One of the scary guys here is listed as a violent sex offender. It says he was in jail a number of years for it. I almost wish I didn’t know my spidey sense was correct. And speaking of emergency calls, there was that red car from the fire department here today. Every other time they have come here, it was because someone died. An ambulance left here in slow motion when that car left. Creepy.

For Pioneer Day there were 5 ambulances here. I think I got the right gossip about who they were all for….2 visits for a woman with bleeding varicose veins that wouldn’t stop bleeding, a broken leg for a woman who had just healed from joint replacements, a woman who was recently given 3 months to live because of cancer and the woman with a broken leg who they thought was having a stroke. Out of 80 apartments, that’s a lot of emergencies. I’m sure there are visits all the time that I never see.

A man I know came to my window last night and told me about some of the police visits for theft, drugs and who knows what else. As he was standing there, he looked down and found drug paraphernalia under my window! 😮 What the heck?!?!?!?! Do they sit there and shoot up or throw it there?

Yup….just loving life downtown in the valley…with poisoned air and lots of creepy people….and no IVIg for Wendy. Sigh….

Just before it was going to get dark, I went to Smith’s and Trader Joe’s. I needed kleenexes and was looking for fruit syrups. At both stores, they were playing sappy love songs. It was all I could do not to sob in the store. How did I manage to spend so much of my life in unusual and unstable relationships? Most women marry men who love them and they have children and families together. Somehow I managed to screw all that up. I kept seeing loving couples shopping together while listening to love songs. Yup…made me blue. Very, very blue. It would be nice to be part of a relationship in my old age. I totally blew it…..

A frightful day!

I called the cancer hospital and got an appointment for a port flush. They said be there in an hour. I left right away. Just as I got to the library, TRAX went past. I figured I had plenty of time and sat in the shade of the library and messed with the wheelchair controls. I figured the best way to get on the train would be with the seat upright and the feet all the way down. I should have realized something was up when the chair scraped going up to the platform. I sat next to one of the handicap symbols because when the train stops, it’s roughly supposed to line up with a train door that has a ramp button.

The train was late. They kept changing the sign. When it pulls up, it’s so a column is right where I need to get on the train. I was able to push the button by going at a diagonal. I repositioned and got half way up the ramp. Those stupid prongs that stick down dug firmly into the ramp. The door closed and the ramp was trying to retract. I could not move forward or backward. Can you say scared shitless????

I panicked. I angled the chair at a diagonal and was able to move just enough to get away from the side of the car as it zoomed off. Then I sat there and cried. That shook me up big time. I had 10 minutes to cry before the next train came, since that one had been late. Usually they are 15 minutes apart.

With the footrests in the down position, the stupid prongs are only about an inch from the ground!

I readjusted the wheelchair so the footrests were up and the back tipped back. I checked, and that made the prongs further from the ground. It was scary going up the ramp, but I had more room next time. Ironically, when we got to the end of the line at the U, my door stopped right smack dab in front of a column. Since the train would not move for maybe 10 minutes, I took my time and went painfully slow so I could get around the column while only falling off the ramp a little.

It’s a long way from the TRAX stop to Huntsman cancer center. The very last door I have to go through to get to the hospital elevators has no handicap access opener. It’s really hard for me to open and get through. It’s a darn heavy door. So I get to the BMT/Multiple Myeloma clinic and no matter how slow and careful I was, I could not get through the door. The prong things would hit the door stop framing in the door. I ripped one side half off and apologized profusely. After a few minutes I got through, only to find out they had moved the registration area. The infusion scheduler took pity on me and registered me. Then I had to go out and wait in the hallway.

Some absolute idiot has re-arranged the furniture in the hallway. The way the new registration area is set up, my wheelchair could not get in there, either. I asked the woman closest to the main thoroughfare if she knew who to talk to about there being no handicap access button. She gave me a name and number to call.

Got off the train and went to Tj’s and Smith’s. Cottage cheese was on sale for $1 each and I splurged on a 19 cent banana. It was at that point that I remembered I wanted a haircut. Duh! Good thing I had the food in an insulated bag.

This is from Google Earth. I follow the thin diagonal striped ramp from parking lot to sidewalk. As you can see, if someone backs up onto the sidewalk in the handicap space, that leaves little room on the sidewalk between cars and building.

If you thought the TRAX incident was scary….you ain’t heard nuthin’ yet! It’s a short hop across the Smith’s parking lot to Cafe Rio. I go up their curb cut, around the outside of their restaurant and to Great Clips. It’s almost always a PITA because tables and chairs block the sidewalk. Well, some idiot had a pick-up truck backed into the handicap spot so far that I could not go up the curb cut and pass between the truck’s hitch and the café. I asked a guy going in to find the owners. I doubt he even tried. So I just sat there, until 4 Utah highway patrolmen came out of the restaurant. They decided it was easier to dismantle the truck than find the owner. The biggest cop knocked on the hitch, pulled the pin and took it right off the truck 🙂 Even then, I just barely squeaked by.

A few feet further was a lone table and chairs in a place I have never seen one before. I could not get past. I came up near the chair, held on and backed up. And promptly fell part way off a very tall curb. I have no idea how come the chair did not flip. Just then, a young couple came along, picked up me and the chair, and put me back on the sidewalk. Then I squeaked by several people at tables who had to move out of my way. I had no strength left and was shaking like crazy. I struggled with the door. A nice customer jumped up and let me in. Whew! What a community effort to get a haircut!

Turns out that guy and I were done with our haircuts at the same time. He opened the door again and ran interference for me. He pushed in all the empty chairs, turned the corner and moved the offending chair at the rogue table. By then, the pick up was gone.

Then I wheeled it home. I had left both windows wide open to air out the place and bake out the mold. It was 101 degrees! I closed the windows, turned up the A/C and it’s still 99 degrees at 8 PM.

After that, I’m afraid to go anywhere for a while! There are a lot more loves and hates about my power chair. Maybe another time. I am wiped out!

Oh…on a sad note about going home. Today it was announced in the MG groups that 2 women have died. One of them was young, with kids still at home. We often had a lot of the same stuff wrong. In these situations, I always wonder why I am still alive and they aren’t. So sad 😦