The State of Me ~ and a couple of pictures
Because our heat pump is still frozen up, the heat/cooling man said to put it on emergency heat to let it thaw, so he can come work on it Friday (tomorrow). Well, that doesn't provide much heat at all, and yesterday I was in 61 degree cold all day. This, along with having no aide and no motorized chair, has put undue stress on my muscles and joints, especially my arthritic hip. I hurt all day. Early this morning around 3AM, Bear woke up and found me in excruciating pain in my knees and shoulder. It was like the worst possible toothache in each joint, and then, adding fire to that.
Bear put lidoderm patches on my knees and helped me get comfortable on my right side, and I finally fell asleep again. It was a rough, rough night. This morning he woke me at 7AM to get me ready for the day before he left for school (this adds a lot of stress to his morning, sadly), and saw how much intense pain I was in and said he would call in to work. I hate that because he has very few sick days left. He got it all arranged, got me a pain pill, and got me settled to sleep some more, which I did -- painfree, at last.
Bear called the motorized chair place (The Scooter Store) to see when they would come fix my chair, as "next week" was promised last week. The woman, Mary, said that they had to order a motor (without even seeing it?!) and have to wait for that to come in before they come. She said it would be AT LEAST next week before they could be here. Monday, my aide, Ellen, sees the orthopedic doctor to see if she can go back to work or not (with cast on her arm). I desperately hope so, but have the feeling the doc won't agree to it. Just a gut feeling that I hope is wrong.
Talked to my daughter, Adie, today and learned that she is also in horrible pain, but has no pain meds any more. The doctor won't refill them without seeing her, and she has to pay $40 up front in order to do that, and without a JOB it is difficult to do! She is still having symptoms that look like MS and desperately needs an MRI to rule it out or to discover it, one or the other. She has no hope of health care, and social security won't approve disability because she doens't have enough doctor's documentation of problems -- because she has no INCOME to see the doctors! It is a horrible Catch 22.
On an upside, I started working on Emmie's quilt again and am making good headway. Won't be long and it will be ready for Bear to put on the quilting machine to quilt -- And speaking of that, I have a couple of pictures I want to include here of him working at the machine. It is a big industrial sewing machine on wheels, basically, that he moves around on the quilt. Instead of pushing fabric through the sewing machine, the sewing machine is moved around on the fabric. All skill, mostly hand to eye coordination.
Don't forget to click on the pictures to make them enlarged for better viewing.
Here, he is seated so he can pick out some stitches that were wrong. Quilters call that "frogging" -- because you have to "rip it, rip it". I know, bad joke. This is a quilt he was quilting for a customer.
Close up... Notice the pattern on the table. That's what he has to guide the sewing machine to follow.
Bear put lidoderm patches on my knees and helped me get comfortable on my right side, and I finally fell asleep again. It was a rough, rough night. This morning he woke me at 7AM to get me ready for the day before he left for school (this adds a lot of stress to his morning, sadly), and saw how much intense pain I was in and said he would call in to work. I hate that because he has very few sick days left. He got it all arranged, got me a pain pill, and got me settled to sleep some more, which I did -- painfree, at last.
Bear called the motorized chair place (The Scooter Store) to see when they would come fix my chair, as "next week" was promised last week. The woman, Mary, said that they had to order a motor (without even seeing it?!) and have to wait for that to come in before they come. She said it would be AT LEAST next week before they could be here. Monday, my aide, Ellen, sees the orthopedic doctor to see if she can go back to work or not (with cast on her arm). I desperately hope so, but have the feeling the doc won't agree to it. Just a gut feeling that I hope is wrong.
Talked to my daughter, Adie, today and learned that she is also in horrible pain, but has no pain meds any more. The doctor won't refill them without seeing her, and she has to pay $40 up front in order to do that, and without a JOB it is difficult to do! She is still having symptoms that look like MS and desperately needs an MRI to rule it out or to discover it, one or the other. She has no hope of health care, and social security won't approve disability because she doens't have enough doctor's documentation of problems -- because she has no INCOME to see the doctors! It is a horrible Catch 22.
On an upside, I started working on Emmie's quilt again and am making good headway. Won't be long and it will be ready for Bear to put on the quilting machine to quilt -- And speaking of that, I have a couple of pictures I want to include here of him working at the machine. It is a big industrial sewing machine on wheels, basically, that he moves around on the quilt. Instead of pushing fabric through the sewing machine, the sewing machine is moved around on the fabric. All skill, mostly hand to eye coordination.
Don't forget to click on the pictures to make them enlarged for better viewing.
Here, he is seated so he can pick out some stitches that were wrong. Quilters call that "frogging" -- because you have to "rip it, rip it". I know, bad joke. This is a quilt he was quilting for a customer.
Close up... Notice the pattern on the table. That's what he has to guide the sewing machine to follow.