Monday August 1st 2022

nursej22, MSN, RN · Aug 1, 2022

Good Morning. The Seattle Museum of Flight describes themselves as "the largest independent, non-profit air and space museum in the world". They have an association with Boeing, in fact, one of their exhibits is the original barn that was part of the first Boeing factory. We have visited many times before. They don't have as many of the original iconic planes that the Smithsonian has, like the Wright Brothers flyer or the the Spirit of St. Louis, but they have reproduced some, and restored the rest. I always see and learn something new. Ds was interested in the SR-71 spy plane, and the Air Force One that Kennedy and LBJ flew on. Many of the docents are former Boeing engineers and or pilots.

I had the CT scan yesterday in preparation for my pacer upgrade; I have an echo next week. The heat is supposed to continue. The air has been getting hazier, with trapped air pollution. I am ready for a good rain, but nothing is in the forecast.

Joe, glad you were able to see the play. My dh forgets his meds about once a week. He pre-pours his, but still somehow just forgets.

Tweety, I am glad you are on the mend. When do you go back to work? Do you have a trip coming up?

Dianah, your onion pie sounds like a quiche. And delicious! We stopped for dinner at a Belgium-style brewery last night. Dh had salmon, ds had cioppino and I had mac n cheese, and an IPA. All was quite good.

I have lots of little tasks to get done today before it gets too hot. Pharmacy, pick the blueberries, sign up for Master Gardener class, vacuum, check in with sis. I'll get started as soon as I finish this wonderful cup of coffee.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Aug 1, 2022

Good morning.

Joe, I'm glad J was feeling up to getting together and that it was just some sort of withdrawal symptoms.

Dianah, hope you pie came out good. Not sure I'd like that. I love onions but it would have to be tempered with something like tomatoes. But I'll eat anything and might like it.

J22, good luck with the pacer upgrade prep.

Stars, I imagine that taking pm meds twice instead of once will take some adjustment.

I return to work on Saturday. I'd already planned on taking Wed. and Thursday off this week to whittle down my PTO which I got a warning it about to max out again. Not doing much.

My next great adventure...I hope is Costa Rica in late November.

For grins I re-tested myself for covid and it turned positive within a minute, never mind the 15. I expected that anyway and not sure why I wasted my time. I'm in the phase of being able to social distance and wear a mask for five days. I feel generally good with some residual coughing.

I spent a good deal of time talking to my father and sister after she arrived last night. She didn't get there until 11:00pm due to some traffic closure on the interstate delaying her three hours. Long story short mom kept falling and is back in the hospital after EMS picked her up multiple times. She kept refusing to go to the hospital and turns out she refused to consent to admission when they wanted to admit her with the broken arm. Hopefully they can address her broken arm and won't discharge her home. I told my sister to talk to case management about rehab/snf placement. My 88 year old father can't handle her alone. I'll get an update later I hope. Getting stuff out of them is like pulling teeth. My father decided that after sending her to the hospital Saturday he didn't need to say anything and my sister called me freaking out when she got home and my mother wasn't there. Parents.

I recalled Amazon and they said to give them 24 to 48 hours more to investigate but won't tell me what they are investigating. I'm wondering if part of the problem is me getting a new phone and ROKU around the same time. I'm not hopeful things will be resolved since they didn't resolve it the first time I called.

I heard July was the hottest on record here. I really didn't notice. Seemed pretty normal hot to me, but apparently north of here in Tampa they've been setting records. Still haven't reached 100 yet, if you can believe that. That will be headline news and event when that does happen.

Editorial Team / Admin · Aug 1, 2022

Hello all!

nursej22, thanks for the tour! Sounds very interesting!

Joe, good you got out to see SOMEthing, and that J was feeling well enough to get out! ?

Tweety, sad to hear about your mom being admitted, and understand a snf might be better for her and your dad. Hope a good one with an opening is nearby. Good on ya, for planning to go to Costa Rica (settling down with popcorn when you send us a travelogue)!

Well, the onion dish I made? I didn't like it as much as I liked the old, microwave onion pie recipe. BUT, I haven't made the onion pie in many, many years. Will have to make it again to see if I like it as much today as I remember. ?

Slept well, I appreciate that. Not much planned today.

Have a good day!

Ado Annie, ASN, RN · Aug 1, 2022

Greetings, everyone! I actually thought I'd posted a little update but it didn't show up. Who knows what I did.

Tweety, we had some issues with Amazon that never really got resolved to Hubs' satisfaction. He says he is done with Amazon (and he used it a lot). I still borrow books in Kindle format from the public library so those go through Amazon. I haven't had any trouble doing that. We initially thought it was just that our prime membership went to auto-renew and had an old debit card number so was refused, but now I don't really know what the issue is/was.

There was a heavy downpour in Chicago when we stopped on the way to Burlington. Amazing to see so much water coming from the sky! ?

Twin B was driving me to the airport Wednesday morning. We stopped for gas and while getting back on the interstate he somehow hit the curb (he was talking and distracted) and we had 2 flat tires. A policeman stopped and called a tow truck for Twin B, then waited for another officer to come wait with Twin B for the tow truck, then drove me to the airport. ?I made it in plenty of time. About $300 later we have 2 new tires on the car.

We were delayed a bit getting out of Chicago so landed in Burlington about 9:45 pm. Then had a 70-mile (that took an hour and a half) drive to Jay Peak. I had looked it up and knew that it was estimated to take that long. I just didn't happen to think about the fact that the hotel was at a ski resort and we would be climbing mountains. The elevation of the hotel is only about 1850 feet but still, having lived in OK and IN I am a flatlander.

We didn't have a lot of free time but did drive around in the countryside Thursday afternoon. I bought some maple syrup and maple candies and had them shipped home. Kept expecting to meet Bob Newhart or Larry, Darrell, and Darrell. ? I was looking around at the country and thinking that those were some really green mountains. Then I thought... duh! Ver - mont. Green mountain... The green mountain state. I am really slow sometimes. The high temp was about 80 and while it was pleasant I don't know if I could tolerate living in a place where high Summer is only 80 degrees. And we'll not even talk about 6 months of Winter with loads of snow in a mountainous terrain. Nope. Hubs would probably love it.

By Thursday evening, my social battery was running really low. There was a fancy meal (seafood. Is it weird to have seafood in Vermont?) and socializing but I was just so tired of doing the socializing thing. It was a relief to finally go to bed with my book. More meetings on Friday then dash for the airport.

The woman I drove around with Thursday and hung out at the airport with Friday texted yesterday that she had tested positive for Covid. So I'm being vigilant but don't seem to have any worrisome symptoms. I do have some lower back pain that caused some sleep issues last night. Stars, I sympathize with your gypsies. Hope you've got them under control by now.

I'm a very bad medication-taker. I hope I don't develop any issues that require carefully timed dosing or I'll have to drastically change my approach.

We've actually had a little rain and some cooler temps here in OK (only 91 degrees yesterday, a bit cooler the day before). It won't last but it is nice for the moment.

Twin A thinks he'd like to go back to school and study psychology. He has an associate's degree in digital cinema production.

Oh, Gma stories. Well -- the other day I picked up prescriptions for myself and Twin B. Got home and handed Twin B his med. Gma says "why don't I get anything?". This with the usual impatient waiting at the dining table. She just doesn't seem to understand that it actually takes a few minutes to prepare a meal. As soon as she hears activity in the kitchen, she wants to sit at the table and expect to be served. I promise you she is well fed and not starving.

That onion casserole sounds tasty. Hubs, of course, wouldn't eat it. I like to bake and I like to eat the results. I wish I could easily purchase high-quality baked goods sometimes, too.

Hope all is well with all of you...

Editorial Team / Admin · Aug 1, 2022

Wow, thanks for the rundown, Ado! Vermont sounds beautiful, though I would not prefer 6 mo of Winter/snow, either! That rain sounds like SOMETHING (would love to have some of that here, please!!)! And I hear ya, re: social battery running low. Good you were able to re-charge. Hope the courses/classes/whatever were OK. Ugh! Not one, but TWO flat tires?? Seems when it rains, it pours. And now, back to "regular" life. ?

nursej22, MSN, RN · Aug 1, 2022

Regarding being at a higher altitude: I consider myself to be a flat-lander too, and we really felt the elevation when we were in Yellowstone last year, which is at about 5500 ft. We did live for 5 years in Idaho at 4700 ft elevation, and health care personnel adapted the normals for RBCs and HCT to reflect that. Also, I had to learn to cook with the high elevation directions on many baking mixes and canning. I gave up on making jello: I just couldn't get boiling water hot enough to dissolve the jello.

I just got a call from a risk manager at the hospital to follow up on a complaint I filed about my sis's hospital stay. I feel like I may need to add to it after last week with the spotty follow up about her high potassium and being out of heart failure meds for 6 days. She felt well over the weekend, and is getting a potassium check today.

No Stars In My Eyes · Aug 1, 2022

For some reason I briefly thought it is April Fool's Day, being the FIRST of the month....right date, wrong month. Oh well! Happy August 1st y'all! No jokes or pranks!

Hey Joe. Wish we had plays and stuff around here that don't involve 'going into the city'. I dislike that dreadful city! People used to say how hard it was to get around in Boston, but Charlotte is a big fat mess! Glad J is feeling a bit better.

Gosh, Tweety, what a hullabaloo about your Mom and her broken arm and, the pending (?) hospitalization for it, and possible placement. Since I didn't win any mega-millions, we won't be able to place Nannie anytime soon. *sigh*

j22, hope your scan showed only 'good stuff', and your pacer upgrade and echo go well, too. Hope your sister is 'in the pink' now. // I read yesterday on-line that AMAZON is now wanting to get into healthcare, and has a health insurance company already in mind. Something about that whole idea makes alarm bells go off in my head. Like who wants A-Monopoly-zon???

Ado, Once upon a time I drove a friend from Delaware around through parts of Vermont. He said all the twists and turns and ups and downs made him kind of seasick, and he felt like we were going to go right over into the deep valleys; very scary for him (and not because of my driving!)

I think y'all, ALL need to buy stock in whoever makes Poise pads; Nannie will make you all rich because we get her JUMBO packs of 48 every. single. week. and sometimes more often!

Had a friend once who used to say two things that made me nervous: "I wonder what's next?" (don't ask, because you might just find out!) and "Well now maybe things can get back to normal!" Her 'normal' was nothing to want to get back to, I promise! She used to laugh at me when she said what she said, because I always said "Don't SAY that!" and "Oh NO! NOT your normal!"

The gypsies have quieted down. I'll take my pain meds around 7:30 PM to keep them subdued. Then around 10:30 or 11 PM I will take my 'sleepy time' meds.

It's been hot and humid, but not quite as bad as it has been. Tomorrow we can look forward to hotter temps and more humidity, and no calls for rain.

Toodles!