Wednesday, February 19, 2025
I Still Mask
Sunday, January 12, 2025
A Day of Whine and Noses
I have personally used up two boxes of 48 Puffs Plus Lotion tissues since Friday, plus a box of Kleenex. I filled a trash bag with them.
Wednesday, January 08, 2025
Sick Again
I wrote on December 29 that we were both sick.
I got better. My husband stayed sick.
Now he is getting better, a little, and I am sick. Again.
I had a teleconference with my doctor, and she put me on a different antibiotic because of another ear infection. I must have a left ear that doesn't drain properly.
At any rate, we are making out as well as we can with both of us feeling poorly. Fortunately, we haven't both been at our worst at the same time.
Unfortunately, my driveway is a sheet of ice and the pickup truck is the only vehicle that can get in and out at the moment, which means that if he takes a turn for the worse, there isn't much I can do as far as fetching medicine or groceries.
He did a grocery parking lot pickup yesterday to ensure we had some food here. Since we are expecting more snow, this may have been a crucial stop. And he was out again today picking up my antibiotic.
This is a nasty something, whatever it is. We have tested negative for Covid, so I guess it's just a bad virus, along with my ear infection.
Sunday, December 29, 2024
That Stinks!
Friday, December 20, 2024
Oh Vertigo!
On Saturday, I woke up with vertigo. It eased up after I sat up. I have had worse.
I had been having pain in my left ear and assumed an ear infection. Since it was the weekend, I couldn't call my doctor, so I tried some home remedies. It seemed to be better Monday and then Tuesday it wasn't. The vertigo was back when I woke up. Fortunately, it eased.
Wednesday, I called for an appointment with my wonderful primary care physician. I was told if I could be there in 30 minutes, the doctor could see me. I had just showered and was in the process of dressing when I made the call, so I threw on the rest of my clothes and drove as quickly as I dared to get to the office. I made it with a little time to spare.
The doctor confirmed an ear infection in my left ear. Otis media, I think they call it.
She prescribed an antibiotic and sent me off with a Merry Christmas hug.
The antibiotic is not one I have taken often and not a favorite. It makes me grouchy. It is also not kind to my stomach.
Since I am sick, I did not feel like I should do the cooking/baking I had planned to do even though I don't think I am contagious and have no fever. Instead, I coached my husband through it, and he made a couple batches of fudge for me.
He did alright, too.
I think he even enjoyed it.
We are mostly ready for Christmas. I have one more thing to wrap and then I am done. I wish I had come up with better gifts for my husband, but it is hard to buy for people when they simply go get what they want.
I have tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday to ready myself for Christmas Eve, which is usually when my family visits. I think everything will be just fine, including my ear.
Wednesday, October 02, 2024
Oopsy Daisy
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Happiness - Day 21
Today I went back to the dentist, having been there on Monday, so she could do her thing to create a crown for a front tooth.
I initially balked at this, because I didn't think the problem needed that kind of solution. I was having what I considered "high sensitivity" in a front tooth. I just wanted a little cement to make it go away. So, Monday she did what she called a "fluoride varnish," which wasn't cement, and it did absolutely nothing for the sensitivity issue I was having.
I called late Tuesday and reported that the fluoride treatment had not helped. This morning the office called me back and said dental assistant said they had a cancelation, and I should come in this afternoon.
When I arrived, I made the dental assistant and the dentist show me all of the X-rays and explain to me like I was 5 why I needed a crown. She said all of the enamel was gone from the back of the tooth and it needed a crown to stop the sensitivity. The tooth had two fillings, one on each side, which I did not realize. I thought it just had one filling. She said the tooth could not handle more filling.
That knowledge made a big difference, so I stopped balking and let her go on and do her dentist work.
It took a very long time and at one point there was smoke coming out of my mouth, but the hard part is done and now there's nothing left but the waiting for the ceramic crown. I have a temporary crown in the meantime, and you can't even tell I had anything done. I can tell, but just to look at me you can't tell a thing.
I am happy that I have a dentist I trust and who is patient and good with me.
______________________
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Closed Eye Hallucinations
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Image by Copilot/Bing |
- Image Burn-In (Afterimage): Not to be confused with CEVs, image burn-in occurs due to bright light and fades away as the retina heals. (Maybe I looked at the sun when I was a kid and my retina never healed? But wouldn't an eye doctor have noticed?)
- Entoptic Phenomena: CEVs exclude phenomena like floaters, wiper ridges, and vitreous movement, highlighting the distinction between controlled hallucinations and involuntary visual experiences. (I have floaters. What I see when I close my eyes is not a floater. It's an image.)
- Blue-Sky Sprites: CEVs are unrelated to bluefield entoptia, which involves leukocytes migrating through retinal blood vessels. (Perhaps this is a reference to that white line I see in the sky when I look up with my eyes open?)
- Physical Retinal Stimulation: CEVs are independent of visual noise caused by physical retinal stimulation, such as pressure phosphenes, which result from mechanical stimuli. (I think that refers to the weird things you see if you push on your eyeballs.)
Friday, March 01, 2024
My Voice Is Back
At some point around the first of this week, the last of the rasp that I'd been living with as an excuse for a larynx for well over a month went away.
Poof. Like magic.
Except it was a long time going, and my voice became a little stronger every day as the cold or virus or whatever it was finally began to clear my system.
The first thing I did when my voice was back was pick up my guitar and sing a song. Songs are good.
***
The issue at the bank over my name magically went away after my husband dropped off copies of our Real ID and complained to someone there. We signed the papers we needed to sign and took care of business and everything's lovely. But still. WTH was that all about?
***
Like most of the nation's population who live in a house, our house rose in value. There's been a housing shortage for a good while now, since about 2018, I suppose. The county did it's every four-year reassessment and the average increase in real estate value was about 40%. Some properties went way up, like over 100%. They were probably undervalued to begin with.
To see the whining on the Facebook, and then to hear the whining at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, you would think that these people had all been lined up against a wall to be shot. In the first place, the county supervisors have net set the tax rate for the upcoming fiscal year. Until they do that, and I guarantee it will not be the same rate as it now, there is no way to know what anyone will be paying in taxes. Do I expect mine to be more? Yes. Am I complaining about it? No. It makes my bottom line look better.
So many people seem to think they should not pay taxes at all. They think they are some gift to humanity and the ground upon which they trod is sacred and blessed, or some such BS. I think it is a privilege to be alive, and paying taxes is what I do for that honor. Do I like everything my taxes support? No. Do I agree with everything the government does? No. But these people are mean.
They demean the supervisors when they speak to them. They are ill-mannered, noisy, confrontational, and bullish. I never saw much of this kind of demeanor at meetings until after 2016. And then it grew progressively worse and after the George Floyd riots, it really hit its stride. Some of the people talk to the supervisors like they are not even human.
I wouldn't talk to a dog the way some of these people talk to the supervisors. What is wrong with them? Who taught these people manners? And these aren't all folks I grew up with - no. The vast majority moved in here in the 1990s and think that gives them some right to overstep societal boundaries. My family was here during the American Revolution. They haven't a thing on me. But you don't see me acting like some know-it-all buffoon at a Board meeting.
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
The Games They Play
Monday, January 29, 2024
Oh, Pooh!
Thursday, January 25, 2024
Where'd This Come From?
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
A Really Rotten Day
Yesterday, which was Tuesday, I saw my chiropractor to see if she could help me with my painful jaw. (See Monday's post here.)
I did feel better after seeing her. She put my mid-back back in place, and worked on my lower back where my hips and pelvis were out. I wouldn't let her touch my face because she can be a bit rough and I wasn't up to the pain. However, her ministrations helped, and I was hopeful.
This morning, I was in a lot of pain when I woke up. It wasn't radiating down my back like the day before, but it was instead mostly all focused on my face.
When I swallowed, I noticed pain. If I chewed, at all, there was pain. I immediately put heat on my neck and shoulders as the chiropractor had instructed.
The pain continued.
I showered. Sometimes, a hot shower helps, but not this time. I was still in pain. I finally called my husband. "You're going to have to take me to the ER or somewhere, I can't tolerate this," I told him. I was in tears, the pain was so strong. This was about 9:15 a.m.
He came home and I suggested he call the dentist office. I'd tried to get her to see me Monday but she'd suggested I go to the ER and I didn't want to do that. For unknown yet very frustrating reasons, I always get better healthcare when my husband steps in. So, he called, and this time the dentist came on the phone to talk to him, and then I talked to her. She said she would call around and see if an oral surgeon could see me, so someone would call me back.
Apparently, the oral surgeons weren't available (there aren't that many in the area anyway), so the dental office called back and said the dentist would see me at 11 a.m.
My husband insisted on taking me. "I have to take care of my sweetie pie," he said. He is so sweet.
I knew, though, that he had many other things he'd wanted to do today as he'd told me a long list of chores the night before. I felt bad about taking up his time.
My dentist is a very nice and kind woman, and I have nothing but praise and respect for her. She took an X-ray which showed that my jaw wasn't dislocated, which was a relief to me because I was afraid that was what had happened. That means, though, that my pain is a soft-tissue issue of some sort.
She could see that I had facial swelling, and that worried her. She was afraid that it would swell down into my throat or even up into my brain. She insisted I go to the emergency room.
We left her office at 11:30, and after a quick stop in Food Lion to grab my husband a sandwich and me a six pack of Boost (which is about all I've had to eat for several days, TMJ is a great weight loss program), by noon we were at a satellite ER, Lewis Gale Bonsack. (If I'm going to report this, I may as well report where I went.) We had heard good things about this place, so I was expecting a good experience.
I guess those folks went somewhere else.
The parking lot looked relatively empty. I thought that was a good sign.
We clocked in at the self-check-in kiosk (a new experience for me) and waited in the outer waiting area for about 15 minutes. There was 1 person ahead of me and another came in afterwards. Of course, it was lunch time and that is never a good time to attempt something like this, but it was what it was.
The nurse called my name, and we went back and she took initial information about what was wrong. I told her exactly what my dentist had said and her concerns, and also noted that X-rays indicated no rotten teeth causing the swelling. Even when it hurts, I try to brush my teeth, though I may not do such a great job at it when the pain is this bad. In spite of many cavities from those teenage years of braces, my teeth (knock wood) are in fairly good shape.
After that, the nurse took us to two chairs in a hallway. There were rooms everywhere, but I guess they had people in them? Or maybe the facility just didn't want to pay the light bill? I don't know, but we sat in the hallway for well over an hour before a doctor came by.
While we waited on him, a young woman came in without a mask (everyone else was masked), and said she had a sore throat. She was placed in the hallway, too, about 20 feet away from us. This made me very nervous.
Finally, the doctor, an aging gentleman who did not look like a happy camper, glanced at me, asked me to remove my mask there in the hallway, and then said he didn't see any swelling. He looked down my throat and said everything looked fine to him. He acted like he didn't believe I was in pain. (I suspect he thought I was after pain pills, although I never asked for them, nor did I want any.) He suggested a CT scan. I said I could not do the one with the dye. I didn't realize there are two kinds of dye, the kind you drink and the kind you insert through a vein, but apparently however you go, you have to have the dye.
I haven't had a CT scan in 10 years, but I remember being sick from the scan. But I had to drink something then, and he said there was nothing to drink for a CT of the face. He didn't mention any other kind of dye.
So, when over an hour later the nurse came up to insert an IV so she could start inserting the dye in me, I stopped her. We were sitting in a hallway, for heaven's sake, and a not very sanitary one at that, what with sore throat girl sitting over there, and I have terrible veins. The last time I had a CT scan, it took someone 11 tries to get a vein. My primary care physician tries not to take blood from me because I am what the medical professionals call "a hard stick." She considers it a win if the nurses actually manage to get blood out of me.
So, I declined the CT scan. The nurse went and got the doctor, who said he was just looking to see if there was something inside causing a problem. I said I'd come back if things worsened.
This was probably a mistake. If so, that is on me, but by this time we'd been there for 3 hours. I was tired, hungry, in pain, and not up to sitting there another 3 hours to get a CT scan. So, we paid the insurance co-pay and left with nothing to show for the day but the dentist's X-ray.
However, I am happy to note that as the day wore on, after I'd showered and taken a muscle relaxer, the pain in my jaw had eased. It wasn't gone, but it was better by the time I saw the dentist. (Maybe the relief at seeing the dentist helped, who knows.) I still could not chew well or open my mouth very wide, but I felt better than I did. Since I had improved, I felt like it was ok to turn down the CT scan. (Besides, my husband was getting madder by the minute at how long things were taking when we weren't seeing a lot of people coming in and out, and he didn't like being in a hallway.)
The facility is modern, but I don't know why we were in a hallway and not in a room. If something that was built in 2021 is so overloaded that people have to sit in the hallway, somebody did poor planning.
So now I am home writing this, with ice on my jaw and heat on my shoulders. If there is swelling in my face, then it needs ice. I will ice it for 15 minutes every hour tonight and see what the morning brings. Soft tissue injuries take time to heal, so hopefully by the weekend I will see noticeable improvement.
If not, I can always go back to the ER and do it all over again.
By the way, we sat there so long that I was able to start a little song, to the tune of that old 70s song called Smokin' in the Boys Room.
Thinkin' it's a drag
Waitin' on a doc
Well it just ain't my bag.
Will they call out my name?
Will it be soon?
Or will I be sitting here
Until next June?
Sittin in the ER.
Doctor turn that TV
Off of Fox News*
'Cause everyone news that the ER is the place for the blues.
One more time!
*They did not have a TV in the hallway. They had one in the outer waiting room but it was on the Lifetime channel.