Cop Car's Beat

Found myself in a cartoon....

The cartoon was found at Bits and Pieces, who credited "Mike W". BTW: The title of the posting is, "Either this or totally zoned out".

Catching up -

It has been challenging, trying to catch up on everything that has been rather neglected while Hunky Husband and I battled COVID-19; while hosting Elder Brother during his birding tour of Kansas, Texas, and New Mexico; and while adjusting to HH's and my new normal. Our new normal includes some loss of hearing for either of us, loss of visual acuity for me, and a deepening status for HH's dementia - and we are doing well, I think. Not included in all of that is my ongoing attempt to keep up/improve appearances of our rather large yard, impacted not only by my declining ability to spend the time/energy/strength to do my part but by the winter weather of the past couple of years that have contributed winterkill in many of our bushes, nor does it include coping with the deterioration of our electrical fixtures as previously addressed.

 

 

Lawn work & foundation plantings

When our friend sold the lawn care portion of his business (TenderCare Lawn and Landscape Inc) last fall, he retained irrigation system maintenance, meaning that his company is maintaining our irrigation system - prepaid for 2023. The lawn care portion of his business had been sold to TruGreen, but, since TenderCare had sent me to JoJac's for our tree work a decade ago, and since JoJac's is a locally owned business whose work I have always appreciated, I switched the lawn work from TruGreen to JoJac's. Eventually, I will switch the irrigation system maintenance to JoJac's - especially since I want to add a station to the system. I'm a firm believer in "one stop shopping".

JoJac's sent out their chemical/grass supervisor a couple of weeks ago, the result of which is that our lawn that had developed diseased "bald" spots late last summer, has been over-seeded. I don't expect the seeding to do anything until we receive several bouts of rain, or until the irrigation system gets turned on for the season. I won't let TenderCare turn on the system until late April, being quite tired of having to try to protect the backflow valve assembly from freezing and having replaced parts or all of the assembly three times in the past several years.

JoJac's also sent out their landscaping supervisor with whom I am working to establish what they will do to improve two-thirds of the foundation plantings at the front of the house. Improvements are intended to replace dead plants, replace cedar bark mulch with rock beds, and add irrigation to the beds.

Most of the plants at the right side of the house (as one faces the house) had to be removed and replaced because they were receiving too much sun. (I had mentally rotated the house by 90 degrees in doing the planning. Our house faces northwest, NOT northeast!) The chokeberry bushes that I planted there all of those years ago have died - probably from the combined effects of winterkill and old age. Several of the holly plants at the left side of the house have partially winterkilled over the past few years but can probably be saved. I've spent a fair amount of time, myself, trying to save the "good" parts of those hollies and they are starting to look half-way decent again.) 

Health

HH is to see his audiologist next week for his routine maintenance checks and we will speak to her about his COVID-19 hearing loss to see if she thinks he should be tested to re-establish his profile. That was the advice we received from the office of HH's primary care physician.

I OTOH have been referred to HH's otolaryngologist for an evaluation of my hearing loss. I've never been evaluated because my hearing had continued to be very good all of these years - until COVID-19 struck. I'm hoping to be told that a hearing aid for my right ear will improve my hearing to an acceptable level. I hadn't realized how much I was depending upon my hearing to provide situational awareness. It is terrible not being able to identify sounds nor to track them. I have no idea what HH is doing or where he is, and that is immensely important with his dementia. (I know, I know...other people, including HH, have much worse hearing than I now enjoy and here I am bitching!)

Late this month I am scheduled for my annual wellness check with my primary care physician. She's seen me enough in the past 8-12 months that I should think she wouldn't wish to see me again. My normal chat with my nephrologist is scheduled for the 1st of June and my eye refraction date is in July. It'll be interesting to see what COVID-19 has produced in those departments.

Taxes

HH had been doing our joint federal and state taxes since his retirement 29 years ago. Prior to that we had each filed our separate taxes. In 2019, reading the tea leaves of the future, we had a professional (Robert) prepare our joint tax returns and file for us - for Tax Year 2018. Little-by-little, we've established a routine in handling our financial affairs that, by this year, had taken most of the work out of preparing our tax papers package to take to Robert. I took our package to Robert one week ago. He is to call when he is ready for us to sign the tax returns.

 

More on Lighting

My joy at having light in the kitchen was short-lived. At about the time Elder Brother came for a short visit, I discovered that the kitchen overhead fixture provided only a very low-level of flickering light. Fortunately, I had previously scheduled an electrician to come to the house, yesterday, to address a few non-working under-cabinet fluorescent lights. I can't believe what we found when he took the diffuser off of the kitchen overhead fixture: a burned-out fluorescent tube, one of the four new ones that I had installed. Of course, I had not bothered checking, having convinced myself that we had a ballast issue. Duh! BTW: It turns out that, when Joseph tore into the fixture, itself, the fixtures are new enough that no starter is required as had been the case with older installations.

Overhead Fluorescent Fixtures - 4-bulb and 2-bulb, each

As to the under-cabinet fixtures: Joseph determined that, indeed, they needed new ballasts. Of course, Joseph had barely gotten into our house when he tried to convince me to replace the fluorescent fixtures with LEDs. In theory, I agree with him, but at Hunky Husband's and my advanced years, it would not be cost effective. This house includes 18 each 48-inch bulb fixtures, each with two or four bulbs, plus 12 fixtures with some combination of 10-inch and 20-inch bulbs in them. Joseph was impressed that the ballast replacements would be at least $50, each, but I am impressed that fixture and bulb replacements with LEDs would cost thousands of dollars.

Under-Cabinet Fixtures - mixed 10-inch and 20-inch bulbs

The first photo below shows a fixture with one 10-inch and one 20-inch bulb, with the diffuser in place - a working fixture in order to have it lit for the photo. The second (composite) photo shows a similar fixture with the diffuser removed.

 

 

 

 

 

The next photo shows the ballast that needs to be replaced in one of the fixtures.

We await installation of new ballasts in four of the under-cabinet fixtures and in the two overhead fixtures in HH's den. (Joseph could hear the hum of the ballasts that I could not, due to my hearing loss to COVID.) I asked that both ballasts be replaced although Joseph said that only the one nearer the camera is humming with incipient failure.

Enlightening

As mentioned previously, Hunky Husband's dementia can cause him to flip out over astonishingly trivial stuff. Last evening, it was our kitchen light. I've a really bad habit of ignoring trivial things until they reach a crisis or decision point. I'm sure that, had I been paying attention, I would have prevented the total loss of overhead lighting in our kitchen. There are, after all, four fluorescent light bulbs in the fixture - and I do recall a bit of flickering during the time that we've been locked down with COVID-19*. Lazy me. I do something only when I must.

Last evening, when the light failed to light at the flick of the switch, I was disgruntled over having one more thing to take care of, but not otherwise concerned. We do have undercabinet lighting that, mostly, works (one fixture died a few weeks ago - just as we went into COVID-19 lock down). HH OTOH freaked out and went into panic mode. At his normal bedtime, he didn't want to go to sleep...didn't know where to lie down...who should take the first shift sleeping...etc. I inquired as to what the problem was. Well, he feared that we would awaken and have to walk through embers. Eventually, by pointing out our smoke detectors and the fact that we had had burned out bulbs, before, without their having started a fire during the past 23 years in this house, I eased HH's fears enough to get him into bed. The local home improvement store, a Lowe's, would open at 6am and I intended to be there shortly thereafter. (My medical advisor had previously told me that, with proper masking, it would be OK for me to break isolation on the 7th.)

Arriving at Lowe's this morning, I picked up a 12-pack of bulbs. All is well. It took but a few minutes for me to change out the bulbs. We have light in the kitchen and the house did not burn down last night.

 

 

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*  COVID-19 Update - HH and I have both, it seems, suffered some hearing loss. Whether permanently or temporarily is anyone's guess. My own hearing effects wax and wane unpredictably. Originally, I couldn't hear well in either ear and what I did hear in my right ear was severely distorted, leading to disorientation. Dr Alvarado put me on a course of steroids (below) in hopes of lessening the permanent impact. 

Day-to-day and hour-to-hour my hearing changes. At times the distortion abates, at time it builds. In total, I don't think my hearing sensitivity has ever returned to normal - perhaps 90%, at best. (I can barely tell when my car engine is running, I note, as well as being unable to understand HH or the television when the sound level is at my normal setting. I cannot tell what HH is experiencing but I have noticed that his normal sound level on the television is no longer sufficient for him. He sees his audiologist in a few weeks and will undoubtedly need testing so that the response on his hearing aids may be changed. I have been told that if my effects persist I should return for a follow up session with Dr A next week. She may wish to do some testing.

My vision and sense of taste were both affected, but taste has mostly rebounded. My vision is wonky - mostly in my dominant left eye. Some things I may need to learn to tolerate. It's better than the no-option plan that millions of people had during the early days of COVID-19.

Moving on - literally

A rendering of what the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator could look like; its first flight could be in 2028. Boeing

Moving right along to more normal postings than I've made recently, I give everyone who hasn't already seen it a peek at a concept being developed by NASA and Boeing for future single-aisle, two-engine passenger planes (concept image, above). The aim is to drastically reduce drag (high aspect, thin wing) and improve engine performance to provide fuel efficient and less polluting commercial operations. Some think that braced wings look strange, and they do on such large aircraft, but most pilots have learned to fly in braced-wing aircraft such as the Cessnas that I flew in training - and on which I later worked for my first five years with Cessna (late 1975 - early 1981). The implementation of the wing bracing is a bit different in the proposed configuration. The design is optimized to obtain not only structural integrity from the braces, but lift. (Most modern commercial aircraft are optimized to take advantage of the "incidental" lift provided by non-lift surfaces such as the fuselage.)

I find the concept exciting and entreat you to follow the link to a Popular Science article about it.

I note that I like the placement of the horizontal stabilizer - up out of the turbulence from the engines. In addition, I like the idea of electric propulsion for this aircraft as was reported in an earlier article (link provided in the above-linked article.) It somewhat bothers me to think about the fuel storage requirements for jet engines with no storage space in the wing.

COVID City, a reprise

CAUTION: This narrative chronicles one family's experience and should not be considered advice in anyone's case! I'm an engineer, not a medical professional!

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of having to live with COVID. As previously stated, Hunky Husband first showed symptoms of COVID-19 on 9 January - two days after his annual wellness check. According to the CDC's Isolation and Exposure Tool (that has been re-installed on the CDC website), in the absence of fever (and having used no medications to reduce fever), the person with COVID-19 should be able to break isolation without masking 10 days after first symptoms - 19 January for HH. Note that this presupposes two negative antigen tests at 48-hour intervals. I did not, on the advice of Dr N, give HH further testing. Dr N said that HH could test positive for days/weeks/months without it meaning anything.

By 24 January, I decided that if I was ever going to contract COVID-19 from HH, I should have done it by then - 15 days after first symptoms. At that point, I resumed sleeping with HH (how titillating!) The next day, I started coughing and had a sore throat. I tested negative. On th 26th, I felt worse and had headache, became bilious, and had a "fever". (Two degrees above one's normal is considered a "fever" in us oldsters - my actual temperature once measured 100.1 degrees F for a short period of time.) On 27 January I repeated testing and had a strong positive indication.

At 6:53am, I left a message for Dr A's nurse at our medical clinic, outlining my experience and asking advice. When four hours had passed without a call-back, I started getting pissed.

Note on HH's dementia: He obsesses. Have I told you that? He couldn't keep in mind that I was ill (and he asked, "Where do you think you got it?" completely losing memory of his recent bout with COVID) and he obsessed over feeling powerless to help me. He wanted to take me to the doctor's office, which I would not do without being told to go there. Eventually, HH was really in a tizzy. He wanted to take me to the hospital.

 

Since, at that point, I had tried every way I knew to get a real person on the clinic's phone and since it was getting about closing time for the practice, I called our pharmacy, Derby Drug that is in the same building. Nearly all of the people at the pharmacy have dealt with HH and me enough to know who we are. Alexa answered. "Is the clinic next door to you open today?" Alexa said, "Yes". I explained the situation to her. "Let me do some checking with them for you. I'll call you back." When she got back to me, Alexa said that Dr A's nurse had already left for the day, but that she was advised to have me go to their associated urgent care clinic that is in the same building - open 4pm-10pm. HH and I hustled ourselves and our double masks out to the urgent care clinic.

The wait was for an hour, but the nurse practitioner (AP RN) Halsey and her assistant took good care of us. Nurse H sent prescriptions to our pharmacy, and we left. 

Well, the pharmacy didn't stock what Nurse H had prescribed - Ritonavir Nirmatrelvir, one of the components of Paxlovid. (Ritonavir-Boosted Nirmatrelvir is Paxlovid. Nirmatrelvir Ritonavir, has a known interaction with statin drugs, one of which I take.) The only place in the area that seemed to stock Ritonavir Nirmatrelvir, alone, would be a 40- or 50-mile round trip for pickup. At 6:03pm, having been sent home by Mercedes while she and Nurse H worked it all out, I received a phone call from her. Nurse H had prescribed a different antiviral, Molnupiravir, which Mercedes had on hand. If I wished to pick up my prescriptions she would remain there until I arrived - the pharmacy was technically closed at 6:00pm. I thanked Mercedes but told her that I would be there at 9:00am, the 28th - today, when the pharmacy opened.

All is well. I have taken my first dose of each prescription and, I'm sure, will be feeling chipper and well by tomorrow. Ah, yes, wishful thinking. Don't rain on my parade. 

 

 

I've progressed from the coughing stage to the sneezing and runny nose stage. It makes it hard to cook, but that's where frozen meals come in. One meal that is supposed to feed one person is more than enough for the both of us. As retirees (HH for over 28 years, and I for nearly 19 years), we are just happy to be alive.

 

As I had told Nurse Hadley, I am just happy that HH and I had escaped contracting COVID-19 until we had been able to acquire five preventive shots, each. Had we gone through COVID-19 three years ago, we would perhaps be dead, now. (Nurse H said that she wasn't allowed to say that, but I am not bound by any board.)

 

COVID City (last update 1/23/2023)

Interesting things abound when it comes to my testing Hunky Husband and me for COVID-19. First, when I picked up the Paxlovid and Prednisone for HH, the pharmacy also gave me four boxes of home test kits for HH. They alerted me to the fact that the kits had an expiry date that had passed, but that the effective date had been extended by six months. (The extension of such test kit expiry dates may be checked online. The last kits for which I checked had NOT been extended, so I pitched them.)

The first photo shows the difference in expiration dates as marked on the box and as marked on the little packets that contain the vials of reagent. (I barely got the date on the box in the photo - at the very top edge.) The second photo shows the contents of one box, each box containing two kits.

 

 

I gave each of us a test on Monday per the tool that had been on the CDC website (which was taken down!) - the results shown, below. HH's result is shown in the upper part of the photo; mine, in the lower.

The instructions with each kit caution that a minimum amount of reagent is required to obtain valid testing. As it turns out, each vial of reagent was short - I assume from having been on the shelf too long. Thus, for each test I had to use the contents of two vials of reagent. We have pieces and parts left over. Most of the pieces and parts that were left over from the first four boxes of test kits are shown in the next photo. Anyone want spare parts?

By the way, HH is still testing positive, today - weakly, but positive. I did not bother taking another test, myself, as I am asymptomatic. According to the CDC tool (no longer available), I need to test a few days after my last known exposure.

The pharmacy checked and were able to give me another set of test kits, in my name, without charge to me. Like the first batch of tests, the expiration dates on the boxes do not match the expiration dates on the packets with the vials of reagent. It may come down to buying more kits, but we won't starve because we have to pay for the kits!

Which reminds me to share with you that HH is already groaning over taxes. I keep telling him that it's not a big deal since we now have Robert, of H&R Block, do our taxes, but it's just the idea, I guess. I downloaded most of our Form 1099s this morning. I wasn't sleeping and what else should I be doing at 3am??

ADDITION of 1/20/2023 - No steak for us!

Hunky Husband was severely disappointed, this morning, to learn that we are not through with testing. He can't keep it in mind that he must have two negative tests before we break his isolation and I must have two negative tests after the last positive test that HH has. I promised him that if he got a negative test this morning I would pick us up a steak and we would celebrate. ("I'm not hungry!" said he.) HH's test is at the top in the next photo while mine is at the bottom. (I had taken my test before HH arose, this morning.) I noticed that each test of this set of test kits, although dated the same as kits in the previous set, includes a sufficient quantity of reagent in one vial - barely.

I think that HH's viral load is asymptotically approaching zero. Aaargh! He'll never get there! If he hasn't tested negative by the time he sees his physician on Monday, I'll ask if we should have him tested for real - not just an at-home test.

ADDITION of 1/23/2023 - Surprise

It was a surprise to me when HH started coughing, again, Saturday afternoon and continued throughout the night. Even more surprising was his test result on Sunday morning (photo, below). Testing is, again, showing strongly positive for HH.

HH had scheduled an appointment with his primary care physician for this morning - to check for permanent damage to his heart. While online, early this morning, I ran across an article in Scientific American concerning "Paxlovid Rebound" which, to my own satisfaction at least described HH's situation perfectly. Regardless, we did keep the appointment with Dr N.

• Dr Niederee says that testing beyond 10 days after first positive test is a waste of time and resources – CDC has changed their recommendations. (The CDC tool that I had been using as guidance had been taken down from their web site a few days ago, as mentioned above.)
• Those who contract COVID-19 can test positive for weeks/months or a year.
• HH’s heart and lungs passed muster. He will notice that his endurance is less, but he should push himself just a little bit in exercising. Continue Vitamin B & Zinc for about a month.
• I should stop testing myself unless I become symptomatic.
• No follow-up appointment required. He'll see HH in a year for his annual wellness check.

I asked about canceling the neurological appointment (Dr N had referred HH in response to my question about suitability of Leqembi for HH, and the consultant wasn't available until 5/1/2023.) Dr N was all for that. “Let [HH]’s body tell you his needs.” I’m not sure what that means, but I will cancel the neurological appointment (Leqembi isn’t yet available, anyway, as it turns out).

Yesterday introduced more excitement into our lives.

Routinely, Hunky Husband sneezes a lot (a bout of fewer than 7 sneezes doesn't count!) and coughs a moderate amount. He always ascribes the coughing to the nearly-40 years that he spent polluting his lungs with cigarette smoke - unfiltered Lucky Strikes, no less. Monday night was different. He coughed - a bunch! Since Elder Brother is coming down off of a horrid cold, I accepted it when, in the middle of Monday night, HH complained that he was coming down with a cold. 

 

During Tuesday, HH coughed, but not enough to get my attention. Came Tuesday night, the barrage of coughs hit, again. In the morning, I hunted up our thermometers and took HH's temperature - 98 degrees F. As his temperature had been 98.3 degrees at the doctor's office on Saturday, that seemed normal. However, I did some research on COVID-19 symptoms, having had them slide out of my mind during the past couple of years, and discovered that if a person is fully vaccinated, s/he is unlikely to run a fever upon contracting COVID-19. I gave HH a home test. Immediately, the second line showed up - strongly - so (don't ask me why) I took a test, myself. Negative.

I called HH's primary care physician's (Dr N's) office, leaving his test status and vital numbers - 98 degrees, 152/87, 107 bpm, 90% oxygenation. In about 4.5 hours (well...the COVID-19 wasn't going anywhere!) she called back to say that Dr N wished to see HH and transferred me to the person who would make an appointment. HH saw his physician at about 5pm. The result is that he was given prescriptions for Paxlovid and a steroid. Fortunately, when I picked up the prescriptions for HH (after taking HH home I returned to the pharmacy's drive-up window), the pharmacist's assistant thought to ask me if Dr N had given us instructions on HH's taking the pills. No, he had not - Dr N had merely told us what he was prescribing, and that Vitamin D and Zinc might be helpful. Upshot: HH has three horse-dose-sized pills to take morning and evening plus two large round pills to take with the morning dose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Per the suggestion at the Pharmacy, I gave one of the steroid pills to HH last evening before bed and started HH's 5-day regimen this morning. Little did I know what a struggle it would be to get the pills into HH. It took at least 20 minutes to convince him to take them. Having grown up helping at his dad's pharmacy and having taken one year of pharmacy school, HH doesn't trust me when it comes to medications. Oh, no. It's OK that I advise/do for him when it comes to finances, but not medications. He read and re-read the instructions printed on the box/blister cards/vial, muttering about how it didn't make sense and was ridiculous. His dementia just wasn't letting the message get through to him. Thirty minutes after he (finally) took the pills, HH came in to charm me with his apology. Even (or, especially) with his dementia, HH recognizes when he has been difficult and apologizes for it. He takes after his dad that way! 

If it doesn't rain, trees need to be watered.

We've been in drought conditions since early last summer, so I've been having to water the trees that I've planted/had planted within the past five years. Normally, I've tried to water them deeply, once each month. I did not get it done in December - mostly because the hoses were frozen up and I'm not hale enough to carry 20-30 gallons to each of the dozen trees. (In writing that sentence, I just realized there is a cluster of very small trees in the front yard that I'm ignoring. Shoot!) Monday and Tuesday, I watered the trees and the roses in the bed that I try to keep for Hunky Husband.

The following photo shows, in the foreground, the tree stump that I had saved last fall when the tree guys were here. I had thought it a good place to feed the squirrels. They agreed, but I've not had to feed them at all. They gather black walnuts from the ground near the woods, taking them up on the tree stump "table" to shell and eat them.

In the background of the photo appear six of the trees that I watered.

The second photo shows a scattering of black walnuts - the little black balls on the ground. I did absolutely no gathering up of the nuts, this year, making it somewhat hazardous to walk in our far back yard. Things are tough all over. I can no longer keep up with the yard work.

Summary of the Week

Get-together Fizzled

We had planned to have a family get-together, today - Pizza Friday on a Saturday. Alas, it is not to be. The first to bow out was Elder Brother who was intelligent enough to have been spooked by the weather forecasts for Colorado. He would have been driving through areas that received over 12"of snow getting here, and possible blizzard conditions are forecast for his expected trek homeward. Next to bow out was Wonderful GrandDaughter and her boys, for possible exposure to COVID-19 (they are thoughtful enough not to wish to kill us old, old folks off by passing it along.) It is possible that Dudette and WichiDude may drop in to see us today or tomorrow, but we are all playing it by ear.

No, I do not play the guitar. The above graphic is just what I happened to pick up.

Flapper Valve

Something that could have happened while Elder Brother would have been staying with us involved the guest bathroom. Yesterday, the flapper valve in the toilet tank gave up the ghost. Fortunately, I am in the habit of keeping at least one new flapper valve on hand and was able to replace the dead flapper without having to make a run to the plumbing supply store in Wichita.

C-17 Jigsaw Puzzle

On Tuesday, Hunky Husband inserted the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle that The Chef had sent him. Completing the sky was just plain drudgery.

Down the Drain

People sometimes toast, informally, by saying, "Down the hatch!" This past week I finished the job of sending Hunky Husband's old store of wine "down the drain". For the past two or three years, I've been trying to off-load HH's stash of wine and liquor, for free, to anyone who wanted it. To no avail. I know, I know, good old wine is worth money. None of these wines was anything special to start with. The wines are now all gone, excepting one bottle of Riesling from 2011 that I am drinking - a couple of ounces per day. (With my floppy heart valve(s), my physician doesn't wish me to drink alcohol - with which all of my physicians have agreed since about 1985.)

Although I know the conditions under which the wines have been stored since we moved here in late 1999, I don't know the conditions under which the wines were stored for the first 10-20 years of their lives. The corks proved to be badly deteriorated. Most crumbled at the touch of a corkscrew, only one (vintage 1985) having been extracted whole. The 2011 Riesling cork came out in two pieces. BTW: A cherry wine from Denmark (vintage early 1980s) smelled wonderful.

There are but a few more bottles of liquor to be dumped.

A Shirt that I Like