Furby Wranglings

...And I'm not going to talk about the Election, either.

I am trying to get used to my new phone and the new Shiney-Which-Is-Still-Nameless and set both of them up with bookmarks and passwords and such. Even though the Husband was able to salvage Kaname.

Loki was a sweetie. But now I have to worry about new tires for Riza.

It's always something.

Yes, I'm still alive. Just been very busy for the past two years.... My Older Sister, who was diagnosed with Stage Four Lung cancer is also still alive but had to move to a care facility in May of this year: my Mom, Younger Sister and I spent the entire month of June clearing out her apartment. Not a job for the faint-hearted.

Jethro, our beloved half Chow passed away early 2023, after HIS cancer came back. He was such a happy, active dog, right up to the last day. He went in his sleep. In May of 2023 we started looking for a rescue Chow, and came home from the far side of Iowa with our LabraChow, Loki. He is a handful, but slowly becoming civilized. His training has had numerous interruptions with assorted family crises (meaning I've spent a LOT of weekends out of town helping Mom, Older Sister, etc.).

No new fandoms, haven't had the time or energy. Once in a while I revisit old favorites.

I know rhye is still out there -- anyone else?

Mary

So it's past time for resolutions. Pretty much the same as last year:

1. Actively pursue good health. Thursday I had my Annual Physical, and while the labs weren't back yet so I don't have an A1c reading, Dr. seemed pleased with my almost normal Blood Pressure and slight weight loss, as well as my respiration. Got a flu shot. Told her I'd added cinnamon and chromium picolinate as well as CoQ10 to my daily pills; she approved and suggested more calcium and Vitamin D as well. We are trying to avoid going back to the ridiculously expensive diabetes drug. I have drastically reduced the amount of diet soda I drink and am trying to incorporate more fresh vegetables.

2.Practice patience, particularly with family members.

3.Stay in touch with friends and family. Reach out to my on-line friends more often.

4.Work on my fan-fiction. Seeing "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" 'jossed' the story line for my RGB/The Shadow story, but I plan to continue and call it an Alternate Universe. Also my Yu-Gi-Oh stories need to come out of limbo.

And now: Some not so good stuff.

1. My Older Sister, who I love dearly (even when she is exasperating) and has been my best friend for most of my life, has lung cancer. It's a type that tends to target non-smokers, and thanks to the COVID shut down on non-emergency procedures for the past two years, it had the opportunity to spread. Older Sis started chemo just before Christmas -- not a cure, but it could buy her some time -- and so far she's been handling it well. She has stated that she is NOT 'going quietly into that good night'...

2. We are fairly certain that Jethro has lost his hearing, probably due to that nasty ear infection back in November. Pets, children and spouses are all notorious for 'selective hearing', but its been pretty obvious for the past month that Jethro just isn't hearing us. Poor silly half Chow... we have to be patient and give him extra love and attention.

Work has been crazy, what with the holidays and the January madness that is the ANNUAL CONGREGATIONAL MEETING (next Sunday), plus we've had our share of the latest COVID surge in the area. Husband's co-workers are still idiots, and proud of it ("why should I get the vaccine? I've had COVID; I'm immune now, right?"). *Sigh*

At least our new furnace works! Yays!

Y'know what would really make my month? If Publisher's Clearing House stopped being a tease and actually gave me that $10,000 check on the 31st....

Last week and a half was crammed with bad news: Thanksgiving went all right, had a nice visit/meal with Husband's Aunt. I'd planned to go visit Mom on Saturday, but Riza started acting up about 20 minutes into the trip. It started with the Cruise Control suddenly conking out; I tried a couple times to reset it, but it didn't take. A little later Riza started experiencing odd jerks and surges; my immediate thought was transmission problems (I admit it, I'm paranoid about my cars' transmission systems). While I might have made it to Mom's, I didn't like the idea of driving 90 miles home in the dark under those conditions. So I pulled over at the next exit, stopped the car, turned off the engine and called both Mom and Husband to let them know I was turning around and why. I was very disappointed, because as I told Mom, 'I had a cooler full of Thanksgiving I wanted to share with her'. Oddly enough, there were NO problems during the trip back, which leads me to think (and my Goodyear mechanic to provisionally agree) that it may have been my cruise control still acting up, because I did try to re-set it several times before pulling over and turning off the engine, which would have cancelled any CC commands in the system. My mechanic advised me NOT to take any trips out of town until he could check it out, which will be this coming Wednesday.

One good thing that resulted: Husband took me to see "Ghostbusters-Afterlife" that evening to make up for my disappointment. Great movie! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Cast, Director and Special Effects were all A +....

The REAL bad news starts here.

Older sister is in the hospital. Before Thanksgiving she'd finally gone in to get those odd masses in her lungs biopsied. Still don't know what they actually are, other than slightly larger than five years ago. But following the Biopsy procedure, Older Sister was in almost constant pain and occasionally coughing up blood. Mom and Younger Sister basically forced her to the doctor's office Wednesday (after she tried to cancel the follow-up visit 'because she hurt too much') and she was admitted. Several scans later, they discovered fluid not in her lungs, but in the lung cavity. The plan was to transfer her to a larger hospital where they could drain the fluid, and maybe start treatment for whatever is going on with the lungs. But, larger hospital had no beds available, so Friday local hospital did their best to drain the fluid with some success, but Older Sister is still in some pain. Mom is worried, I'm worried, Younger sister is Worried. Maybe by Monday the doctors will have some idea on how to go forward.

Thursday, we heard about college friends: Rafe, who was on the college radio station staff, bookstore frequenter, Friday night D & D player, and one of the founding members of our local SCA chapter, and his 2nd wife were apparently murdered by her adult son sometime over the Thanksgiving weekend. One of their local friends had asked the county sheriff to do a welfare check, and the bodies were discovered Wednesday. I actually was not that close to Rafe (Husband barely knew him outside the SCA), but he was one of the core members of the group I tended to hang out with in college; Bree, Emtae and Cobett had all reconnected with him over Facebook in the last five years or so and would occasionally share news with the rest of us. We had supper with Bree Friday night and reminisced about the college days; she plans to go to the services on December 18th.

From Bree we heard details about our friend Julie, who is in the hospital in St. Louis with seizures. About 10 years ago she'd had surgery to remove a tumor from an optic nerve, with the immediate result of seizures (they had to go in through her brain) and blindness. Eventually she regained vision in one eye, and the seizures were under control, and for the past five years or so she'd been doing really well. From what we were told, the doctors were trying to reduce one or more of her meds to alleviate some unwanted side effects. Poor Julie! Her husband (another college friend) has been a rock of support. It just isn't fair that they have to go through this again!

Aaannnnd, closer to home: Cobett's general health has deteriorated to the point where he is actively considering going into Assisted Living Care.

Can we start the month over??? This is too much for the beginning of December!!!

At least Jethro's ear infection has finally cleared up.... and I thought Bel was fussy about the daily ear drops!

Okay, little bit of back story first: back in March when Husband dropped his workplace insurance in favor of Medicare and I had to got through the state's insurance market for health coverage, my main concern was finding a company and policy that would fit my limited budget yet still do a decent job covering my various medications. I thought I'd found it -- except for two little details: a) a crazy high deductible, which I figured I could live with because aside from the diabetes and high blood pressure which was (at the time) getting better controlled, I am generally a pretty healthy individual, and b) one of my meds (while technically covered) turned out to be equally crazy high priced under this coverage -- as in, a three-months supply through the preferred mail order pharmacy would cost the equivalent of one month of my take home pay......After a discussion with my doctor and discovering that entire drug family was out of my budget, we decided to simply drop that medication and up the dosage on two other meds to see if that might take up the slack. My July A1c was slightly improved, so we figured it would be okay.

Except, my most recent A1c was not so good: so my doctor decided to prescribe and order a new medication, which I discovered after the fact Friday afternoon, is, again, a stupidly expensive medication which would cost me the equivalent of a month's take home pay for a three months' supply!!! I immediately called the doctor's office (of course it was after hours) and left a message to the effect that said medication was unacceptable due to price and that she needed to rescind the prescription a.s.a.p. I then called the on-line pharmacy company and after FINALLY getting a hold of an actual person explained that as the patient I refused to accept that medication due to financial concerns and asked them to PLEASE CANCEL
the order. I was assured that it would be taken care of, but as of this morning the pharmacy website still lists it as current, but on hold pending authorization.

Grrrrrrrr. Tomorrow morning I will call my doctor again. I don't know what else I can do.

---oh, in case anyone cares, Husband is now in week two of Physical Therapy -- both his doctor and the PT are very pleased with his progress, but he still has to use the scooter and avoid putting weight on his ankle.

Back in mid-July Husband tripped over a loading pallet at work, wrenching his left ankle. There were some pretty spectacular bruises on the ankle, as well as assorted other scrapes and such, but he was still able to walk around with it (limp, rather) and other than some discomfort when putting on and wearing his work boots, we figured it would be okay. Ice packs on the ankle and heat on the calf muscles, plus new cushioned sole inserts in the work boots seemed to work, mostly....

Fast forward to the last week of August -- Husband's limp(hobble) had become worse (honestly, until then, it had seemed to be getting better!), and he called his doctor for an appointment. X-rays ensued, followed by some grim hilarity.... Husband had been walking (more or less) with TWO broken ankle bones for the past month and a half! Doctor told us that if Husband had come in when it first happened, there would have been surgery.... but miracle of miracles! the broken bones had not only started healing, but healing almost perfectly! He put the leg/foot in a cast and told him to stay off it for the next two weeks, even wrote him a script for one of those knee-scooters (rental).

Unfortunately, Husband probably won't be able to get Worker's Comp, because: A)He didn't report it right away (when it first happened), and B) The Doctor's note said he could return to 'light' duty the next day... despite the fact we spent the next day trying to acquire the scooter. So Husband had to use a week of vacation time to cover the days between the doctor visit and the day after Labor Day.... Keeping in mind that Husband's job generally involves a lot of standing, walking, bending over....

And the scooter, while helpful, is awkward and not very maneuverable, and not particularly easy to put in and take out of a car's back seat, even with two good feet, let alone with one in a cast that he's NOT SUPPOSED TO PUT WEIGHT ON.

We're managing, though. He has a follow-up appointment on Tuesday with Doctor; hopefully he'll come out with a walking cast.

For quite a while (like maybe the past year!) I'd had this problem with the computer here at home: every so often, with increasing frequency, it would abruptly shut off while I was using it. It wasn't an internet problem, as the modem lights were all still bright and blinky. My original thought was that the tower unit was overheating, so Husband vacuumed the vents and things went along okay for a while -- but then it started doing it again. The frustrating thing was that sometimes Kaname would run for HOURS; I'd even leave to do laundry, or a set up a load of dishes, or run a quick errand downtown, and come back and she'd still be running behind the screen saver. Other times she'd suddenly shut down after 15-20 minutes, and if I tried to restart she'd shut down again even faster (kinda why I thought it might be an overheating problem).

Anyway, Husband got tired of my complaining, and went out and got a new hard drive. Plan being to copy the settings, book marks, saved passwords, etc. onto a stick drive and transfer them to the new unit... like that's ever worked for us in the past (see my rant from 2006? when ex-stepson-in-law failed to save my files the last time we had a hard drive crash). So last night I spent half an hour carefully writing down all my important websites and their passwords (health insurance, credit cards, LJ and DW, Amazon account, etc.) Most of my bookmarks are easy enough to find again; and there are no fan fiction files on Kaname any more to worry about. I've spent this morning putting things into the new system -- talk about deja vu, since I had to do much the same thing at work earlier this year!!!

Urgh! every stupid browser website these days needs a password!

July 2nd -- Brandon and his cohorts from J.L.Brady showed up at roughly 7:30 a.m. I took Jethro for a loonng walk around the neighborhood to give them the chance to get the furnace/boiler unit up the ramp and into the basement without getting barked at. We returned to the house approximately 45 minutes later to discover a) the truck with the furnace unit hadn't arrived yet, and b) there was a problem with the water shut off valve -- in that it wouldn't shut off. They had to call the village water department for someone to come out and locate the water main and main shut off (they had to dig a small hole in our front yard). Jethro and I sat out on the front porch for another half hour, while the water was turned off, the furnace/boiler arrived, and transported to the basement; then poor Jethro was blocked in the kitchen while I went to work, and Husband supervised (he'd taken the day off). Most of the installation work was finished by 2 o'clock p.m., but the piping and valve work from the furnace to the oil tank was finished up a week later (July 7). It DOES work! Hurrah! Now we get to double down on paying off the loan...

Last month, when Riza was in the shop and I had to take the bus to work, I packed myself a bento lunch of cucumber chicken in plum sauce and mixed rice w/quinoa, and mashed sweet potato with dates, walnuts and cream cheese. The sweet potato was long, and had sprouted at one end; I cut it in half, boiled the clean half and plopped the sprouting piece in a wide-mouthed pickle jar, where it continued to sprout and put out some pretty healthy vegetation. The same evening the furnace was finished, I took that sprouting sweet potato and buried it in a nice sized planter on the back porch....it looked nice and healthy.... this morning I discovered that my sweet potato plant had been vandalized --- the leafy greens were chewed off and scattered around the deck, and the actual potato part totally missing! DANGED Squirrels!!!!!! The squirrels and the rabbits are why I can't have a vegetable garden anymore....

I hope the varmints get hemlock poisoning.....

(No, not really, but I was pretty steamed this morning!)