I'm Okay

Sunday Night: I sit in my chair feeling a bit down and in the proverbial dumps. 

You know how it has been going here with me, never mind Sue, or at least you know a lot of it. You know about the shoulder. You know about the urological surgeries and complications of this year. I don't mention my foot often because that is chronic, but it is always present. You also know about the occasional sleep problems, such as on Saturday night when I was awake for the day after only about 3.5 hours.

I admit to having felt a bit sorry for myself as I sat there, a feeling probably exacerbated by extreme fatigue. This plethora of physical limitation sure wasn't my vision for how it would be in only my mid-70s. To be fair, I don't usually wallow like this, for I am not a complainer. But that was how I was feeling then.

As I wrote above, I was sitting in my chair having a bit of a pity party when the hockey game came on. Children were being introduced and coming onto the ice to stand with the players. They were kids who  have been fighting cancer. Little ones and a few older ones.

Touching scene: some of the children in white, standing by the players during the anthem.
Look at the phone lights. How chilling in a good way.

Kids. Cancer. Hoo boy. Eyes leak a little. Get ahold of yourself, AC. You are so darn lucky in comparison.

• Eighth decade of good health: still good overall with just a few little issues to contend with. 
• No cancer or heart disease.
• Have overcome the worst of the year's urology surgeries and subsequent difficulties.
• Shoulder is being attended to in physiotherapy.
• Comfy chair to retreat to when I can't sleep in bed.
• Usually after one bad night, I get sufficient sleep to function moderately well enough.
• Mobile despite the foot impediment.
• For the most part, I retain my marbles although some might debate that assertion.

Also: Sue has had a life of good health and appears to be rebounding,  from recent surgery and fall, albeit slowly.. Kids are doing well enough in life, and grandkids are healthy and vigorous. Both kids and grands are supportive. And I have this little platform in which to express myself.

Overall, life has been good to me, and it still is.

Bonus: My doctor has called to review the XR and US results. I only have one partial tear in the rotator cuff apparatus (my word). Since it is only one tear and only partial, I won't require surgery. 

!!Yippee!!

0 or 2

I took the quiz and scored low, maybe 2 and maybe even 0. However, I am not sure whether a low score is considered to be a win or a loss. I would have set it up to give a point for everything that you have done.

I have done at least 18 of those 20 items. Only #12 and #19 are in question, and while I say I have done them, I’ll let you be the judge from what I have to say, below.

(12) I may not have actually recorded music from radio to cassette, but I have listened to radio-recorded music. Sue’s aunt lived in Detroit and recorded music from a Christian radio station there, and I remember playing her tapes on the front porch of the cottage back in the early 70s. So, is it a point or not a point?

(19) Also, it wasn’t me, but my parents had a set of encyclopedias, the kind where you purchased one volume weekly or maybe monthly at the grocery store. That was in the 50s, but they kept the set possibly into the 70s. 

I haven't personally bought encyclopedias .Early in our marriage, I recall getting quite a sales pitch, but I managed to resist the pitch. After all, I could use the encyclopedias in the school where I taught.

I think those two items, 12 & 19, qualify, so  I score 0, but if you think it's 2, I will accept your judgement.

So which is it: 0 or 2?

Oddly enough, I think 0 would be better than 2.

Considering the age of most fine folk who drop by here, I am guessing that others will have similar scores on the whole list. 

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Since one of the points dealt with encyclopedias, and this quiz was about old things, I am reminded of how I learned to spell the word. Do you recall this from the Mickey Mouse Club?

Disability Cooperation

With one very sore shoulder and one very sore rib cage, this old couple is managing. 

Saturday is washing day, although finishing loads are done on Sunday. It was time to change the sheets, even though I haven’t been using the bed for several weeks. Sue managed to get the old sheets off but needed help getting the clean ones on. It’s not easy with these modern, thick mattresses on king-size beds, but with a little cooperation, we managed.

Sue sorted the laundry appropriately. I dragged the baskets down, and Sue loaded the washer. When it was done, I emptied the washer, filled the dryer, and emptied both. It's a pain for Sue and her ribs, for the washer is top-loaded and deep, and the dryer is front-loaded and extends back forever.

In the afternoon, Shauna was conscripted to decorate the planters in front of the garage for Christmas. In addition to being decorative, the planters also serve the dual function of creating a buffer in front of the garage doors. This will help to keep the snowplow guy from banging into the garage door — not that he seems to do this on properties that don’t keep planters there. He did crack a planter once, so I guess it is good to have that buffer.

In the morning, we managed to get the work area set up for Shauna in the afternoon.

Sue would have trouble decorating the planters by herself this year, and since she doesn’t wish to entrust the job to the male of the house, she asked Shauna to do the honours. Now, Shauna has her own problems with her neck, so we got the planters and decorations onto tables for her, and she went at it.

A composite of the two flower pots. Sha did a good job.
We should have a proper photo of both pots with the garage door closed,
but we didn't get around to it, and then it was dark.

Sue and I have also cooperated to bring a few decorations up from the basement. She chooses, I carry, and once up, she arranges. It won't be as fulsome of a display as in some years, but it will be enough. There are other decorations in the house, but this is the view we will see most often.

When we are not actively watching tv, it will run Christmas scenes until January.

JJ helped by bringing the carousel (behind him) up for us, along with some other items, like our little Christmas tree (not shown here).

Amongst the four of us, we gotter done.

I mean five of us.

Remembering Lou on Remembrance Day

I didn't have family who served in WWII. My uncle spent some time at army camp, but my father wasn't conscripted. He was probably considered to be too old in his late 20s when the war broke out, and 30 in the middle of the conflict.

Sue's dad did serve, however, enlisting at the age of 21. I know that I have posted of him in the past, but I would like to add a little more on this Remembrance Day. 

Louis Milton Morton

At some point, not too long ago, Sue was finally able to obtain her father's war records. Following are some of Lou's army data. It outlines in point form where he was at different times according to what we discern from spotty documents. We wish we knew more.

• July 03 1942 - Enlisted
• December 09 1942 - Qualified to drive a tank 
• October 18 1943 - North Africa
• October 21 1943 - Italy with Central Mediterranean Force
• October 23 - Wounded in action
• November 05 1944 - Wounded in action: bullet wounds to shoulder, chest, arm
• January 10 1944 - Awarded CVS Medal and Clasp
• June 03 1944 - Discharged from hospital
• July  03 1944 - Awarded Good Conduct Badge
• November 29 1944 - Allied Armies Italy
• March 9 1945 - France
• October 08 1645 - UK
• January 01 1946 - Canada
• January 24 1946 - Back in Toronto

In addition to awards mentioned above, he was awarded, the 1939/1945 Red Star, the Italy Star, and the France-Germany Star (left to right, below).

There may have been other medals, as seen in this following photo of various memorabilia, and there are other items elsewhere in the extended family.

The other man in the above image was Sue's grandfather who served in WWI,
including the famous Battle of Vimy Ridge.

We have not forgotten.

Snow and Cuff

It wasn't our first snow, but it was the first one worth noting. It won't stay with us, for all days for the next two weeks will reach above freezing, and I see no more snow on the horizon. Soon enough, however, it will snow again and quite possibly stick for the duration of the winter.

Yesterday Morning from my Den

Thankfully, the car was in the garage overnight, so I didn't have to do any scraping to take it to the shop for the winter tire change, which I had booked at least a month ago. In my heart, I thanked the previous owner of our domicile for building those storage shelves that allow us to clear enough space for our vehicle to squeeze in. The shelves make it possible for us to be one of the few families on the block who actually use the garage for the car.

On the way to the tire shop, I stopped to take this phone photo. Various trees and bushes held some snow, but the shape of this one appealed to me most.

I have told you about the X-Ray report, but the ultrasound report came in yesterday. It is a little more revealing than the X-Ray,

SUPRASPINATUS: Region of hypoechogenicity along the articular surface of the

supraspinatus measuring 0.5 x 0.3 cm. This could represent a small articular

sided partial-thickness tear.

IMPRESSION:

1. Potential partial thickness tear of the supraspinatus. As could be further

assessed with MR imaging for confirmation.

Tear, eh? When I look up SUPRASPINATUS, I see that it is part of the rotator cuff group. I don't yet know what the implications might be.

Waiting at the Gate

Findings from my Monday X-Rays were posted yesterday. I don't know exactly what all of the words mean except that I have arthritis and that nothing is broken. It doesn't seem as though I have a major problem although it sure feels like one. My GP, may or may not break it down for me — the report I mean and not my arm although there are times that she might like to do just that.

There is no fracture or suspicious bony lesion. The glenohumeral joint is anatomical. There is some degree of osteoarthritis of the glenohumeral joint which evaluation is suboptimal due to positioning. There is early osteoarthritis of the acromioclavicular joint. The remainder of the visualized bony structures is unremarkable. The soft tissues are unremarkable.

I also had my second physio treatment yesterday, but the therapist hadn't seen the results yet, although it seems as though there will substantive for her to see. She did tape me up to try to reduce pressure  ==>.

I'll wear the tape for a few days and will then see her again next week. I am not expecting a cure but am hoping for enough relief to function better with less pain. It sure would be nice to be able to go to bed again.

Then, the hospital didn't want to let me leave.

You see, we have to pay to exit the hospital parking lot by dropping three bucks in the machine. The gate lifts and off we go. In theory.

We have dollar and two-dollar coins here. The dollar coin came first. It had a loon 'engraved' on it, so we called them loonies. We still call them loonies, but I never look at them and don't even know if they still bear the loon image. When the two-dollar coin came about, we simply called them toonies. Canadians are very imaginative, eh.

I write that to write this about dropping the coins into the gate box. Every toonie that I possessed, and I had three of them, which is one more than I supposedly needed to have the dadblasted gate lift, simply passed through the machine — rattle rattle, clunk at the bottom. Of course, I tried each one more than once. There is an outside possibility that I swore as they continued to be rejected. Fortunately, I also had three loonies which the machine accepted. The gate rose, and I went on my way. But what about next time?

Once released from parking, I proceeded on my way to meet the boys for coffee. I couldn't get them both into one selfie, so here we are with their little heads behind my gigantic noggin. Please notice who has the best cap.

Nick

Bob

Anyway . . .  before I so rudely interrupted myself with my exciting coffee date, I was going to say that the city hospital parking worked much better when we were there on Monday. You get a stub when you enter the lot. When it is time to leave, you pay any way that you wish to pay at a machine inside the hospital. It issues another ticket which you insert as you exit the parking lot to make the gate rise.

I've never had a problem with that system, except for the small fact that the city hospital demands $14 and not just $3. Come to think of it, parking is the most expensive part of going to the hospital. And come to think of it further, it is, in point of fact, the only necessary expense. Yet, being who we are, we still begrudge it.

We are once again masked in hospitals, whether our little one or city big ones. In the waiting room for Sue's visit, we were also partitioned.

A 'glass' barrier between Sue and me.

 

Once again, feel free to praise le chapeau.

Imprecise AC

The phone rang at 7:30 on Monday morning.

It was the dentist. "Are you coming in at 8 or 9 this morning?

Huh? "My appointment is for next Monday."

"No. It's today."

At first, I was pretty sure it was their mistake, but they had me down, and I figured I could manage to get there for 9. It was just a checkup and cleaning, and I'd be out in an hour and would easily be ready to drive Sue to the hospital at 11:15. In a week of a number of appointments, it would be good to put at least one behind me.

It worked out well enough: no cavities or other work to be done (and Sue later got the good news that I mentioned in yesterdays' post).

Upon reflection, and although I had thought otherwise at first, I have since become pretty certain that it had been my mistake. That is because I have the notion that the 6th seems to ring a bell now that I thought about it. The 13th sure does not.

I think that I must have just slipped a down line when I entered it on my Google calendar.

This is the kind of thing that I do in this life of mine with my lack of precision. It's a rather good thing that it was never my job to fly a jumbo jet, or extract all of the instruments from a patient when concluding a surgery..