Day 301, 302 of Sheltering In

Friday, Saturday. Ugh! Friday was paperwork day. All darn day. After dinner I hurt so bad. Saturday I was still hurting so I stayed home and didn’t go to my father-in-law’s to do laundry. With traffic an hour each way, not gonna happen with this knee pain. 

I’m reclining (with my knee elevated) at home reading all day and periodically icing my knee. Nope, not buttercream, reusable ice packs.🤣 I now have 6. If 6 isn’t enough then we have a problem. Reading the news? Nope! I was being good! I just chilled out all day by myself. Not even the kitty cats bothered me! I was reading books on my Kindle. Finished one, started another. 

After 5pm I get a call from Anastasia. (She never calls me. So it must be a big deal if she’s calling me.) Here is a synopsis of the convo:

Lola: Hello.

Anastasia: Where is your son’s phone?

Lola: Either on him or in his room.

Anastasia: Well where is he?

Lola: At his Grandpa’s house.

Anastasia: Where are you?

Lola: Home.

Anastasia: Are you sure he didn’t lose his phone?

Lola: I don’t think so. Why?

Anastasia: Cuz I called him and some foreign guy answered the phone, then he passed it to another foreign guy so I hung up and called you.

Lola: Huh?

Anastasia: I didn’t dial the wrong number. I’m going to try again and I’ll call you back.

Lola: Ok, I’ll run the Where’s My Phone App. 

So I run it, the phone is where my son is, at his Grandpa’s house. I try texting my wife, no reply. I try calling my wife, no answer. I’m starting to get concerned. 

Just as I was about to call my brother-in-law (lives with Grandpa), my phone rings, it’s a call from my son’s phone. It’s my wife. She’s laughing her ash off! Apparently my wife’s brother and father were pranking Anastasia. He answered my son’s phone talking with an accent. Then he passes the phone to their Dad who does the same! Anastasia freaked and called me.

Anastasia eventually calls me back and she’s kinda laughing, but also kinda pissed off because she said she was getting ready to leave the house to go to the “hood” to save them.

 

She thought my son either lost his phone or my wife and son were kidnapped! Kidnapped! 

I don’t think we’ve all laughed that much since before the pandemic! 

For those keeping score:

...If you’re late to Lola’s party...Anastasia is my ex.

...Anastasia originally called my son to see if he got the package that was delivered today (birthday gift).

...My father-in-law and Brother-in-law and Anastasia all know each other from my wedding. I asked Anastasia (and her wife) to attend as photographer because the woman my wife invited (relative of her bff) canceled. My wife’s sister stepped up at the last minute (she was refusing until she found out the original photographer canceled.) So Anastasia was back-up photographer. Yes, it’s all very strange, but that’s how they all know each other.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2021

Day 299-300 of Sheltering In

Wednesday, Thursday. Wednesday I had my knee MRI. I’ve had lots of MRI’s shoulders, back, brain, all of them several times each, but the knee MRI was excruciating. I had to have my left leg absolutely flat. It was an open MRI and my head was right before, but not under it. Holding my leg flat like that with no movement for 2 hours was incredibly painful. I forgot my anxiety meds. I usually skip the morning and then take it an hour before an MRI. I took a 1/2 pill in the morning and was going to take the rest an hour before. Didn’t! Did my usual backwards counting, but it wasn’t helping. I was asked what kind of music I wanted (not that you can hear it much from the machine clanging, and you can’t dance). I chose classic rock. Here are the first few songs I was treated to while getting an MRI of my knee:

     1.) Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme 3 Steps”

     2.) Journey’s “Wheel In The Sky”

I thought the first one was funny cuz it was an MRI of my knee. The second one was kinda funny cuz the machine was basically above me. Ok, ok, it’s just me, but I had to find some humor somewhere. They also played “Hotel California” and a Genesis/Phil Collins song I can’t think of. The rest is a blur because I was concentrating on counting backwards, while also breathing in through my nose and slowly out through my mouth. I needed to calm down because the pain was starting to cause my eyes to well up with tears. I fought it, I didn’t cry, didn’t embarrass myself. Thank goodness! I have to go back there in December for my annual brain MRI. I kept having shooting pain down my butt to my ankle. Sciatica. It was bad. I kept trying very slowly to shift my weight off the left side. I’d tense up my left butt cheek, then the right. I was doing this super slow, making sure my knee didn’t move. This alleviated the pain only slightly. I did call out to ask for a break but he didn’t hear me, or ignored me. The very second he started to say we were done I bent my knee. I was still under the machine, not much room, but damn! It felt good to bend it even though I couldn’t fully bend it until the table was moved back. The tech helped me get to a sitting position. My foot was completely numb. I held onto my walker and had to keep stomping my foot on the floor to get some feeling back. Normally when I’m done with an MRI I fly outta there as fast as I can. I sat there, still doing the anti-anxiety breathing. The tech lowered the table all the way because I had told him how I injured myself at my brain MRI getting off the table. He could tell I was distressed and in pain. He waited patiently and walked alongside me and walked me to the waiting room where I waited for my MRI CD. When I got to the car (which took forever, even though it was parked in front of the door), I got in very slowly. My wife could tell I was really hurting. I asked if she had any drugs on her. Painkillers! Not street drugs. She didn’t. I told her about how when I was in the machine, struggling with the pain I thought about having her drive me to Walgreens and get one of those ice packs that you snap and it freezes up and a bottle of booze. 🤷🏻‍♀️ We were far from home and were doing errands afterwards since we were out. We wouldn’t be home for 2 hours. I sucked it up and we skipped Walgreens and finished our errands. At the grocery my wife pointed out that my drink of choice was on sale. 🥃 Jack Daniels. I had Christmas money in my wallet, took out a twenty and gave it to her to pay for it. I took out some singles too since it was $19.99 + tax. I haven’t seen the price that low in a long time.

While I was getting ready to leave for my MRI, my daughter was first in line to get the Moderna vaccine. They were giving the shots in the community room of the apartment building where my daughter will be moving into. She got a tour and was over the moon! She just could not stop talking about it, though she did to give me an update on her items that were stolen while she was on home visit. She has a lock on her bedroom door, but all residents had to pack up all but 1 week of clothing because they were treating for bedbugs. All other belongings, even wall art, was put in bags in the basement. Apparently 1 or more people went shopping. These are just some of the items missing:

Nebulizer (machine for asthma treatments, cost me over $100 because someone broke her previous machine. I’m not paying for another. Either they do it or I call the Office of the Inspector General and file a complaint.)

Several boxed DVD sets, a bunch of DVD movies she borrowed from her brother and me.

Her Bible. (Who steals a Bible? Apparently they never heard of the 7th commandment. I told my daughter to have a random conversation at medication time the next morning. Something like “my Bible is missing. That’s stealing. The 7th commandment says “Thou shall not steal”. The person who took it broke a commandment. If that person puts my Bible on the dining room table some time today, I won’t tell staff about it and I won’t talk about it again.” Apparently the guilty party doesn’t care about the 10 commandments.)

About a dozen stuffed animals given to her by special people in her life. One of them she used to snuggle with when she’d had a bad day.

Cubs hoodie that isn’t a common design. We are thinking a staff member or maintenance person took it because if a housemate wore it, it would be obvious it was my daughter’s.

My daughter is working with the team lead to get these items replaced and a check for $100 to reimburse me for all the canned food and beverages I bought for her that were gone. I’m not holding my breath waiting for this. It took weeks to get reimbursed for the Nike duffle bag that was destroyed due to a rodent problem that was not promptly addressed. That bag was not cheap. The Nebulizer needs to be replaced right away. From the sound of her, my daughter may be starting to have bronchitis again, so she will definitely need it because Nebulizer treatments are better than inhaler treatments.

I can’t get in to see the orthopedic doctor until the 25th. The report from the MRI place was sent to him and my primary care doctor. I’m hoping my primary care doctor sends me a message in My Chart or calls me to let me know what’s up with my knee. If I tore ligaments I don’t want to make it worse.

Time to get some fresh ice packs from the freezer.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2021

Day 293-298 of Sheltering In

If you want to skip over what I’ve been seeing and hearing about current events, scroll down 3 paragraphs or so.

Wednesday was a late night due to watching the news about the Capitol. Every night is a late night for me due to chronic pain, insomnia, and the knee/leg injury. I’m used to it. But this was different because of the events of the day. Since that day I have seen videos online of someone who likely is a member of the tin hat brigade. One in particular went on for a long time and was repetitive. Military planes are in the air...as he spoke. Marshall Law is going to be invoked in the next few days. Not likely, wouldn’t someone have seen at least one of these planes? Yes, I’m a geek...a former accountant...I took notes and then Googled to find out what likelihood any of what he was saying was true. For starters, inconsistencies in the timing of when he was told the information. Fear mongering aplenty. He advised to prep for any event that may happen. Enough food, gas, cash for a minimum of 2 weeks, to a month. I’m good, but I don’t do cash. I just need to fill a gas can for the generator and I’ll be good. I should be doing that now for use of the snowblower and the generator in case of ice storms bringing down power lines (not China hacking into the electrical grid~where do they get this stuff from?) Allegedly 🍊 is moving from military base to military base, (like a chess piece one article said) because he is afraid of getting caught 🤷🏻‍♀️ Dunno. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. Allegedly secret forces were dressed as BLM and Antifa and confiscated the democratic members of Congress’s laptops. Allegedly these laptops have secrets on them that will take down 🤷🏻‍♀️those members of Congress. Allegedly all this stuff has been loaded onto Wikileaks. These laptops allegedly contain Hillary’s emails (hasn’t that ship sailed? What would disclosing them now do?) Other laptops have details about pedophiles in government office. This isn’t a 3rd world country, I would think the laptops would be protected against hacking, would be heavily encrypted, etc. The speech 🍊gave about a smooth transition of power is being translated to mean a smooth transition to 🍊’s 2nd term with a new cabinet. 

My wife’s friend HAD to talk to her today. More of the above. She also called Vice President Pence Judas and went on a long diatribe pointing out/connecting the dots between Bible prophecy and current events. I’ve read the “Left Behind” series, so I’m familiar with its take on “end times”. 

All of the things being “allegedly” leaked to the media, or the media refused to cover make me think 3 things:

     1.) It’s all true.

     2.) Parts of it are true, but not to the extent of the stories.

     3.) None of its true and its all in 🍊’s head and he’s got his staff and the military believing his every word and going along with it all until...until I don’t know what. All the conspiracies, all the military, 🍊having to keep moving to avoid 🍊 being....what? Captured? Is this a game of Capture The Flag?

My daughter is getting the Moderna Vaccine Wednesday. They are making it an event of sorts at the New Apartments! My daughter is so excited! I think the excitement is blocking her usual fear of shots. We have no idea if this means occupancy will be soon. (Gosh I hope so! I’m tired of being a storage facility. Had I known this would drag out this long I wouldn’t have been so overzealous in getting/saving for her furniture and stuff.) 

Wednesday I am finally getting my knee MRI. Gee, only a month and 4 days since the injury. I hope it works out because I’m tired of playing the in network/out of network game with every provider my insurance has referred me to. A rep I spoke with today is going to call the facility that the insurance specifically sent me an approval letter for and she’s going to remove them from the system, after a supposedly terse reprimand for the rudeness of the staff when I called. Unfortunately I can’t get to see the orthopedic doctor until the 25th. I’m hoping my primary care doctor can get a report and let me know a little of what’s going on. I started PT Monday. M had wanted me to use the push bike. I declined because right now if I move wrong I have piercing sciatica, not to mention extreme muscle cramps. I had visions of yet another PT injury. I think it’s prudent to wait until my doctors, therapists, and I know exactly what is going on with my knee/leg before I do anything too ambitious. I’m perfectly willing to do just about anything other than the push bike. Oh, and definitely no sideways skipping. Wtfork? 3 people were doing that while I was there. Obviously they are near graduation/near the end of their recovery. I had an excruciating deep tissue massage behind my knee where the Baker’s Cyst is, along the sides and the outside of my thigh, where the muscles/tendons/ligaments feel like they’re being stretched much too far and just a touch or the wrong position/movement sends me nearly into tears. I said nearly. I’ve been going to this PT place for 4 years, I know the staff, no way am I going to embarrass myself. 

Stay safe everyone.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2021