Close calls but no falls!

 I haven't figured out what steps/movements are to blame for the latest near fall  but I am glad I'm not on the floor trying to get up.  So it is back to teeny tiny steps until I feel secure again, while I do exercises to strengthen my muscle-that is on top-of my thigh. I would have fallen if it was weak like before all the therapy.  The in home therapist is coming today for the last time, then it will be back to exercises again along with three times a week outpatient-therapy.  

I am pondering packing the big knitting board up.  But  I  know it will mean  I will never use it again.  All that would change would be the amount of of table space that I would fill with yet more "stuff"  No, better to leave it set up.  After  using an air can to blow off the lint!     

I had a weird scare last night, around 9:00 when I was asleep.  I felt someone/something brush my foot in bed.  I screamed for C, of course he didn't come with his earphones on.  No cats in the room (door closed) and I grabbed my walker and scrambled to the hall.  I have no idea what I was thinking, when I have the cell phone in my walker, C checked out my bed, and of course nothing was found.  I slept with the light on for the rest of the night.  I know there is an area of the brain that shuts down when you sleep so that you don't do whatever you are dreaming.  This is not explaining my fear, but similar to it.  I don't believe in "gooly and ghosties and long legged beasties and things that go bump in the night" but I can understand why more credulous people would think the paranormal was to blame.

I bought snap fastening envelopes, to make looking through cross stitch projects easier; they will come today, or probably tomorrow.  Now I need to put the envelopes in some sort of box/crate so that they stand up, like in a file drawer.  As it is I have to rummage through  dozens of projects,  some with labels that have rubbed off, grrr.  There are three parts to a project:  pattern, floss, and blank evenweave fabric to begin.  I need to sort the floss, I have the entire set of DMC floss, but some of it is dedicated to other projects.  Still, a single skein of floss is 56 cents.  Where it catches you is patterns that call for 75 or more different colors.   It is easy to get them scrambled, too, once the bands are removed.  You would think I could count to 10 by now.  Cheesh!

OK, no more falls in the last 2 weeks

Hello, to anyone that likes to hear my tales of woe,  and for the rest of you too.  I have tripped two or three times as I navigate this bedroom, but jerked my right leg back into support at the last moment, so no falls.  Knock on wood.

So today C helped me organize and put things away so that I will never see them ever again.  In the process we found things I have actually looked for and then given up, so there is some sort of balance going on.  Included are my exercises from home health, my little journal, the main part of my deals with Carvana, my colored pencils, all the winter wear like scarves, hats, gloves, in every color under the sun, and on and on.  I commandeered one drawer that will hold unstarted cross stitch projects, but not the begun ones that are stalled for now.  I had no idea there were so many patterns + kits + floss already organized in snap folders, waiting only for beginning.  This is a pattern I recognize where I am full of enthusiasm at first, and then bored as I work on it, whatever the type of craft.  Kiln? Check.  Knitting machine? Check. Sewing machine? Check.  Drawing material? Check.  I am my own worst enemy  at finishing things.  Or maybe I'll just start another project, a sampler?  I have just the one, should work up quickly...

Did I tell you about the mice?  I saw one last week, darting across the floor, so we set out a trap and bait, but the next night I saw three (or more, they run so quickly) so we set a bunch of traps and more bait poison , and I have only seen one, last night.  Where did the dying mice go?  Beats me.   None of the traps were triggered.  The bait diminished every night, except last night.  The old fat cat was in here about an hour ago (and watched so she won't eat mouse bait)  But she was interested in the knitting chair, and managed to get under and out too, but the place she mainly favored was the front right side, where I saw one mouse yesterday.  So we aren't finished yet... Thank god it isn't rats.

We found a whole slew of candles, the good ones from Yankee Candles, and there is one burning now, keeps the mousy smell away.  It is cinnamon scented.  I have the rest on an empty shelf in plain sight, and I won't run out anytime soon.  

I got my mail in ballot yesterday for the presidential race, I couldn't cope with going to the poling place, if there were a line, I couldn't stand for very long.  I know I am voting for the loser, the prevailing belief here deals with fossil fuel support, aka coal, and Biden is for clean energy.  So that is that, for the majority of our trivial number of electoral votes.  A one issue election.

Lunch time, I have run out of topics here anyway.  All of you take care, masks, social distancing, and stay home as much you can, and I'll do the same.  Bye!

Here I go again

 I feel like a broken record, but I fell once again, just inside the door, as I attempted to go from bed to desk chair, a trip I have successfully made dozens of time.  It all happened so quickly I don't know if knee buckling, or a trip was the cause, but once I lay there I thought, damn! What was I going to do in a public place ?!  I hope the exercises strengthen all these bones and muscles...

 A broken record, I know.

The home nurse came Sunday, and told us that Medicare is balking at any more visits because she doesn't  provide any therapy than what I get anyway from the physical therapist.  I see their point, but am reminded I feel  at the mercy of Medicare and my insurance company; if they say, good enough, then that is that.  Never mind what I or the therapist, or the doctor, want me to do in order to master before I am through.  

My new iPhone (iPhone Xr ) is much improved over the 5c I had before (at least 4 or even 5 years old)  that everyone I called said they couldn't hear me, and that what they did hear was all broken and static-y.  I need a reliable phone, one that when I  need to call C to get me off the floor, works.

The cabinet to hold my TV came and is behind my easy chair.  I won't be able to watch from the chair, but that is my stitching chair anyway.  Still need box, remote, cable extension and so on.  This was N's TV originally, but we disconnected it when N died.  The cabinet has a door and shelves, but they are unusable with the chair in front of it.  The mouse is still at large, tonight the bait goes down.  I hope we can find the corpse before it decays.  Yick.

The Lexus is still at the dealers awaiting new tires, so glad to hear that will be taken care of.  The DOH is finishing the paving on our road all the way around the loop, and the neighbors are all celebrating by driving real fast and tearing up and down in their 4 wheelers.  I hate to report them, but this is a county road and kids and loose dogs are not legit able on it.  Not to mention no helmets.  When we lived in CA the private road there was used in a similar way.  This was back when 3 wheelers were bought and used, and there was a horrific accident that killed the three wheeler driver and traumatized the car driver to where he couldn't drive at all.  Four wheels is marginally safer to tip-over than 3 , but still.  If it was your kid?

I'm making a written list of things I am unable to find, so I can cross them off the list.  Some of them are quite elderly.  I will see how it goes.  I hate to look for things, I'd rather buy another, which isn't possible for a few.  

Just ran out of things to write, so I will stop.  Be sure to appreciate being able to walk, it may not be yours forever.

Bye!

 

Once again I have fallen

 Well, I was thinking, back in June, that I was past the falling over nothing stage, but no.  On June 1st I fell in my bathroom when my left knee collapsed, and my main goal was to not knock my head on the whirlpool bathtub.  So I twisted and when I fell, I broke both ankles.  One was a simple break, but the right ankle was a train wreck, completely broken across and displaced.  I am afraid I screamed when C tried to lift me, and once again we called the fire department.  Once they got me up (but not on my feet) they transported me to the ER by gurney where they xrayed and then admitted me.  The pain was excruciating and I will always remember how exquisite the pain medication felt.  Anyway, surgery with plates and screws, but after a few days the X-rays showed they were not holding my ankle in the right position to heal.  So out to a specialist and a surgery that placed a pin from my heel up into my tibia, leaving me with a fused ankle.  Which also felt good, to not having any movement at all.    All this surgery was followed by a stint in the acute rehab ward, and followed by 10 weeks in a nursing/rehab hospital.  Due to the Covid thing there were no visitors allowed in, they could only talk/semaphore through the glass doors, and therapy twice a day for five days every week.  They didn't let me slack off either, and the exercises helped a lot.  I got home 2 weeks ago, and still cannot climb stairs, so I am relegated to the down stairs (bedroom, laundry, computer room and out via the garage).  I fell in the garage too, stepping over the threshold and tripping on the grate that carries water away from the driveway.  Sigh.  Someone must have heard me poking fun at a handicapped person, and this is my karma come to plague me.

Anyway, I have a good excuse for not updating here; I could not have my Macbook there and risk damage or theft.  I slept almost all the time except for the therapy and meals.  The aides had a shit fit when I passed C my dirty laundry through the door with the code (which I learned from watching others use it), this is the same door that the aides come and  go through all day for their cigarette breaks, but somehow my 30 seconds to open the door was a fearful breach of quarantine.  When they passed along my story, the admin said What!? You go in and out that door?  And that was the end of cigarette breaks outside that door; then they had to go clear up to the front door, using up half their 15 minutes just to get there.  They got over it pretty quickly, but the day I was released the guys were there putting a new alarm on the door.

Trust me on this, my grasp of microbiological handling in isolated facilities is way more thorough than the aides ever got.

My payment for all of this is that I bought a new (to me) car, a Lexus IS 300 which is AWD.  I haven't gotten it just yet.  I bought it from Carvana, and that is because there isn't a Lexus dealership in 60 miles from here.  And I also ordered a new macPhone, my old one is at least 6 years old and every time I would call, there were many many comments on how broken up I was.  I used it daily while I was in the hospital, there were no hard-wired phones at all, so cell phones were all anyone had to call home.  The entire bathroom remodeling is on hold until I don't need to be confined down here, several months I am sure.

It is bedtime now, and I have no more doctor, nurse or therapy visits this week, hurrah.  I have gotten another nosebleed (one in the home and this one here) I have never had them before.  Probably the blood thinners I was on for several weeks.  I am beat today, I saw the specialist doctor and had x rays this morning.  I wanted to find a cell phone store, but in the end, I went with the carrier and got a nice deal too.  

Bye for now...