Cop Car's Beat

There are those who put in the time and effort

There are those who put in the time and effort to keep their physical health at optimal level. I've always admired such people, many of whom share large amounts of DNA with me. Unfortunately, although I've fallen into that grouping for months or years at a time during my long life, those months and years are far back in my rearview mirror. Consequently, I am harvesting the crop that I've planted. Within the past few years, each year, I have spent more time in my physicians' offices within each year than previously I had spent in 5-10 years. The past eight days have added to this years' count.

On Sunday, September 3, I spent about three hours working in our yard - mostly pulling grasses and weeds at the edges of the planting area that is closest to our woods. I had much occasion to wrestle with, and be slapped in the face by, walnut tree limbs and leaves. Although I don't recall ever reacting to the juices from walnut trees, I am well aware that many people have responses to such exposure and I wouldn't be surprised that, along with other seasonal allergies that I've developed since turning 80 five and one-half years ago, I might have developed at least a sensitivity. When, on Hunky Husband's birthday, I started developing a rash on the left side of my face, I concluded that such was the case. (HH has always opined that most of my exercise has resulted from my jumping to conclusions. Guilty.)

By Wednesday morning, I had pustules, redness, and heat on that side of my face and left earlobe - a little worse than is shown in the above photo that was taken a couple of days later. By 8am, I was checking in at the front desk to my primary care physician's office - hoping that she could work me into her busy schedule. By 8:30am, I was leaving the building, having seen Dr Alvarado and her having prescribed an antibiotic and a steroid for me. She asked that I let her know on Friday how I was doing. At that time, I reported that it appeared to me that the prescriptions were doing the job. The infection was showing improvement. I did mention in my message that now I was showing bumps along my jawline, from ear-to-ear, down to my upper chest, that seemed like bug bites. They did not seem to be a problem but were a bit itchy on occasion.

By this past Monday, the infection was a thing of the past; however, my neck and chest had been itching like crazy. By 8am, today, I was checking in at the front desk to my primary care physician's office. I had zero wait, this time. When Dr Alvarado walked in, I told her that it seemed I should have a standing appointment with her. "Yes, on Wednesday morning. Be sure to bring coffee!" She looked at the red splotches and pronounced them to be due to histamine reaction. She had a tech come in to give me a shot in the rear and send me home. Today, the itchiness was mostly absent. I did have a bout of it this evening, but it is in abatement now (fingers crossed).

Since I need the exercise, I jump to the conclusion that the walnut trees (or, possibly, weeds and grasses that I have been wrestling) were the starting point for my troubles with my face, and bugs thereon might possibly have been the starting point for my troubles with my neck and chest. I read that bug bites can trigger histamine reactions.

Thank goodness, HH doesn't need a bra

I started my day with a chuckle produced by a blog article - Dementia and Bras (Yep…you read correctly) by Elaine M Eshbaugh, PhD. (I follow her blog and the generic link to it is listed in the right-hand column as the last entry in 4 FUN & ENLIGHTENMENT.)

Why did I chuckle? It reminded me that Hunky Husband and I are escaping some challenges. (I wonder how HH’s dad coped with HH’s mom’s struggles.) Our challenges can be enough, at times.

Yesterday. HH and I spent about an hour trying to get him to tell me which of his old eyeglass frames he found most comfortable. Why do I care? The pair of eyeglasses that he (I assumed) had been wearing daily for the past year has deep gouges in one lens, so I wanted to get those lenses replaced – BTW with the new prescription that HH was given last month.

There was a kink in the process. The scratched lens pair of glasses did not seem, to me, to be the pair of glasses the lenses of which he had had updated just one year ago. Those frames had been fitted with plastic lenses and these appear, to me, to be glass. In addition, I recalled that the optician had said that the frames were "Stetson" frames, but the "daily wear" frames were marked "Luxotica**Niel".

Back story: When HH went to the eye doc a year ago, he bought a new pair of frames with the up-dated prescription. Why? Because the optician at the Grene Vision facility in which his doc is now practicing said they would need to keep his old frames for a couple of weeks while the lenses were made. When the new glasses came in, HH let them take his old frames to fit with up-dated prescription lenses. In daily wear, it turned out that HH disliked the new pair of frames (didn’t like the design on the earpieces, I think), so he wore the old frames with the updated prescription lenses.

The plot thickens. Over the next several months, in the frequent process of finding glasses that HH had misplaced (which, of course, he thought someone had taken), I would discover that he had three pairs of glasses, rather than just the two pairs with the up-dated prescription…then four pairs.

At this point in time, I know that HH has: 1) his new frames/lenses pair that he purchased one year ago; 2) three old pairs of frames, one of which I assume was updated last year; and two pairs of prescription sunglasses (neither of which has the up-dated lenses in them). As things have evolved, I have no idea which pair of old frames has the updated prescription in them - if any. I'm wondering if there is another pair of frames, somewhere, with the lenses that were updated last year.

As we struggled with having HH pick the frames that he wanted me to have updated, it was frustrating to me, trying to get him to address only the comfort of the frames...ignoring how well he could see through their lenses. He didn't grasp the concept of choosing frames. In the end (and it's difficult to end these discussions with HH because his brain really wants him to pursue them), I decided that I shall have HH wear the frames/lenses that he purchased last year for a couple of weeks. (Eventually, he agreed to do that.)

Today, I shall take all three of his other pairs of glasses to the local Grene Vision optical dispensary (about 3/4 mile from our house) rather than the one in which HH's eye doc practices (up in Wichita) to see if they can tell me which pair, if any, has the prescription from last year in them. If they determine that one pair is that pair, I'll have those lenses updated and have them keep the other two pairs to donate to the Lion's Club which distributes glasses (or, at least the frames) to those who need them.

If the Derby Grene's optician cannot determine which pair is the pair with the updated lenses, or if none of them is the pair, I shall have them evaluate the frames (two are identical as far as I can tell, each marked "Luxotica**Hector) for condition and/or age and have the best pair updated, donating the other two. In the end, having only two pairs of glasses for HH to lose/have taken/become confused over should be a step forward.

Additional excitement will abound if a fifth pair of glasses eventually shows up. Will they be marked "Luxotica**Stetson"?

More catching up -

And the catching up effort resumes. I was under the weather for about 10 days - not helping.

Lawn work & foundation plantings

JoJac’s landscaping team is scheduled to do the work on about 2/3 of the width of our home on May 1 & 2.

Per Bogie’s request, I’ll try to remember to get some photos along the way. I may not have mentioned it, previously, but the “used” camera that I purchased in late 2021 conked out, having provided nearly exactly one years’ service. (That camera was a year-later version of the camera that I had been using since about 2006  which, itself, had conked out.) Never mind.

My iPhone, now my only camera, takes photos that are “good enough” - which is all one can say about my photographic skills, anyway. (I had pitched the Nikon some time ago.) Truthfully, the iPhone is an order of magnitude or twenty better than would be required to match my photographic skills.

HH’s Health

HH saw his audiologist and was given a new hearing test to see how much, if any, his hearing had been impacted by his COVID-19. The answer was, “Who knows?” Although his hearing acuity had not suffered enough to tell, his understanding of the spoken word had deteriorated significantly. “Why is that?” one might ask. The answer would be that he has not, from Day 1 of having hearing aids, deigned to wear them any more than 2-4 hours per day. Some days he wouldn’t wear them at all. Casey gave him a “talking to” about that and, now, he is wearing the aids for at least 8 hours each day. We’re hoping that will help.

CC’s Health

I saw my Primary Care Physician after several days of being under the weather. She had x-rays taken and a couple of other more-or-less routine tests in diagnosing, treating me, and getting me back to what passes as “normal” for an 85-year-old female. My annual "Wellness Exam" and lab work are scheduled for this coming week.

My hearing test showed that my post-COVID-19 hearing acuity differs little from HH’s. Bad news. Our otolaryngologist prescribed an MRI before having the audiologist fit me with hearing aids. Always something to anticipate!

Taxes

As it turned out, we ended up owing the State of Kansas enough more in taxes (than we had had withheld) that we had to pay a small penalty. OTOH, the Feds owe us four times the amount of the deficit owed to the state.

Local family gathering

For personal reasons that shall be unspecified, although quite benign, Elder Brother and I colluded - planning for him to come visit us for St Patrick's Day, and to stay for his 87th birthday, the following day.

Being a good cook and a generous person, Dudette volunteered to bake a birthday cake for her uncle, which offer I gladly accepted. The local tribe gathered for Dudette’s delicious cake, and Tillamook’s Old Fashioned Vanilla ice cream on the appointed day. The next day, EB started his drive home, taking an extra day to do more birding in the Great Bend KS area.

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.

 

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.

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! 

Understanding Different Types of Dementia

The NIH suggested sharing their chart, below. The link to the information was contained in an email that Hunky Husband had received and shared with me. He is on distribution for information (concerning dementia) from a few different sites. The text is more readable when one clicks on the image to enbiggen. 

Review of the week - 10/23/2022

HVAC - serviced for winter operations - A couple of days later I noticed that the outside air-conditioner unit is sitting atilt and that it had walked itself off of one side of the vibration damping pad - which was, itself, tilted. I was able to horse the unit back onto the pad, but tomorrow, I shall call to have the service company return to correct the installation.

Irrigation System - water blown out of the system & turned off at the main for the winter - A couple of days before the service guy was scheduled to be here, we endured 25-degree (F) temperature for 8-10 hours, necessitating that I pack the backflow stop valve to protect it from freezing. As the temperature hung around longer, I started running the irrigation system for a few minutes every 40-50 minutes.

Hand Watering - Not from lack of the irrigation system, which doesn't extend that far because of the floodplain, I started the every-three-weeks watering of the newish trees in the far back yard, Saturday. (We are still in severe drought.) I got most of it done, but it was so hot out that I was suffering. I turned off the water and came in to cool down. By the time we went to bed, I was feeling better.

Hunky Husband caught me -

HH, who had always been one who ran and worked out with his weights, since being diagnosed with dementia, has been sloughing off the aerobic exercise. He still works out with his weights, but it has been a challenge to get him out for aerobic exercise, at all. A couple of weeks ago, I asked HH if he would use our (manual) treadmill more often if it was moved out of my den and downstairs into the basement. He answered, "Yes", so I got busy making that move. 

The 1st photo shows the treadmill as we assembled it in my den back in early 2020.

I thought it an easy thing to get the treadmill downstairs. It isn't as if it weighed hundreds of pounds with a big, bulky motor. It weighs about 50 pounds. However, it has become another challenge to have HH and me to work together in moving heavy/bulky items - mostly because we are each, in our own way, wobblier than ever and HH doesn't hear well enough for me to be able to provide input to him in real time. HH had no faith that we were capable of moving the treadmill and, with his obsessive concern, it became clear to me that the easiest way would be for me to move the treadmill by myself - which put HH into a tither. I folded up the treadmill and moved it into the dining room awaiting inspiration on the safest way to approach the problem and how to do it at a time when HH wouldn't be around to fret.

The next photo shows the basement stairs down which the treadmill needed to be moved.

This morning, I had waited long enough (about one week). Since I normally arise at about 5am and HH normally arises at about 8am, I jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, and got to it. It turned out to be even easier than I had posited - except - when I had but two more steps to go down, HH showed up at the top of the steps. Fortunately, seeing my methodology (which had me above the machine and easing down one step at a time on my bottom) and that I was so nearly finished, HH took it in good graces and laughed with me over the whole deal. The next photo shows the treadmill as it is now in a temporary position in the basement. The only parts of the machine making contact with the steps were the two legs, one of which is visible in the photo. Each leg has a roller which allowed me to roll the machine forward (in its walking surface upward position, my holding onto the hand holds) to the edge of each step, easing the machine down the one step before I eased myself down one step.

You will understand why it is in a temporary position when I show you (next photo) all the stuff that must be removed in HH's exercise room before the treadmill can be moved to its "forever" home.

HH has spent much time during the past couple of years trying to weed out the papers, books, office supplies, and other stuff that he no longer needs to keep. The boxes at the left edge of the above photo are filled with books for disposal. I have permission to dispose, also, of the radio and audio equipment in the photo, but HH must assess the contents of the boxes at the center of the photo. (In the past couple of days, I have carried three boxes of VHS tapes and his TV/tape player unit, that had last been turned on about 10 years ago, out to my car for disposal. The radio/electronics will join them.)