Welcome to the Rat Race!

Things have been rather hectic the last week or so. It actually dates back to my last doctor’s appointment in early May. Nothing I did gave me relief from the pain in my back that I get whenever I spend more than 5 or 10 minutes doing a task that requires standing or walking. He prescribed a very strong pain medication, and faxed the perscription to my perscription company.

It was that same week that my hot water heater went out – well, it started leaking. It was still working, but a leaking hot water heater is not to be tolerated. A neighbor, who does most of my plumbing work, got a new hot water heater and installed it. This was on Thursday. He lit the pilot light, and fired up the heater. It lit up for a few seconds, then went out. After trying for some time to make it work, he found out that it was a factory fault – in a sealed compartment. GE was to call me and make an appointement – they would come out with a new hot water heater and install it. When they finally called me, they said they didn’t have a rep in the area, so I should have my plumber do the work, and they would reimburse him. Well, he doesn’t do much plumbing work any more (I’m one of his few plumbing customers), and he runs a tourist trap, where he and his wife were running a seminar that weekend, so it was out of the question for him to get back to me until Monday. So no hot water before Monday. Ray came Monday morning and took out the tank, to get the replacement. He had to go to Oil City, and cut a lot of red tape, and did double duty by doing some personal shopping while there. By evening I had hot water again.

But to continue with the story about the medications – Monday morning, my perscription came in the mail. It was one of those “take one or two tablets every 6 hours as needed for pain.” Well, in the doctor’s office, he said take two, etc. So I took two. This was about 11:00 am. Around noon I ate lunch. Shortly after, I started feeling weak and a little dizzy. Then my stomach started acting up. I grabbed the sheet that came with the medication, and read the side effects. It included all of the above. I called the doctor. He said, “Cut the medication to 1 tablet, and take every 4 hours.” Just shortly after that, I experienced another of the side-effects – vomiting. Loss of appetite was another. As I told several people, I not only lost my appetite, I lost my lunch. I slept all afternoon. After Ray came back & reinstalled the hot water heater, I went back to bed, and slept out most of the evening.

I ended up just taking the medication twice a day. Oddly enough, it still affected my appetite, to the point that I lost about 12 pounds in 6 weeks. I’ll take that side-effect any day of the week. Unfortunately, it seems to have worn off, and I’m gaining a little back.

OK, now fast forward to a week ago Monday. I did my laundry as usual, and was able to hang the clothes out. However, I was having just a little more pain than usual in my hips.

On Tuesday, our “hen party” was scheduled. That’s a bunch of us ladies who went to high school together. That was also my grocery day. I went to Brookville early, cashed a couple of checks, then went to the BiLo to get my vitamin D perscription filled. There was still a little time before the dinner, so I went up to my sister’s in Roseville and shot the breeze with her for a while. Then over to the Country Club for lunch. I was sure I couldn’t eat the whole meal that I ordered, because of the effects of the medication. I didn’t eat all of it (I’m usually a clean-plate person) but most of it, with no apparent ill affects. Then, by the time I got out of there, my stomach was started to get a little queasy. I drove over to Clarion to the Walmart for my regular grocery shopping. On the whole trip, my stomach was in pain. I started pushing the cart around, and in a very short time, the pain dissipated. The weather outside was rather warm, but they had the air conditioning going in the Walmart. So, now, I am pushing my cart around the nice, cool Walmart – and sweating like crazy!

By the time I headed for home, all my symptoms were pretty well gone. But I still had some pain in my hips.

Now we’re to Wednesday morning. I turned on my computer, and did some other things while waiting for it to boot up. I came back to a blue screen with a few messages on it, the most significant being “No Boot Device.” I restarted it several times, with no luck. I went to setup, and it appeared that one of the disk devices didn’t exist. I called Dell. After the tech had me try several things, it was concluded that the system didn’t recognize my hard drive. It could be either a cable, or the drive itself. The computer was still in warranty (and in-home warranty, at that!), so Dell made arrangements to have a tech come out and do whatever needed to be done. That took a while to get all straightened out since I’m out in the boonies, and I didn’t get the problem fixed until late Friday. Unfortunately, it was the disk, not the cable – and I lost everything, except what I had backed up, which was precious little. I lost absolutely all my documents. I had pictures backed up to September 2007; most of the pictures I lost were scanned in (so I still have the originals) or, if digital, the ones that were any good were posted on the internet and I can retrieve them from there. I still have some software I have to download.

One thing I lost – I had an ancient piece of software with which to record recipes. I had copied everything from an old diskette, and downloaded some software to convert them to a usable format. I’m pretty sure I have since thrown away all my old diskettes. I was usually able to read them, but I couldn’t reformat them, because of their age. Some of the recipes I still have somewhere from another source. Some I never tried – they were that type of “I’d like to try that some day.”

Now, while all the rest of this is going on, the pain in my hips is getting worse, and I can barely hobble around. I had ordered some plastic clogs from a mailorder house to wear outside in the mornings, because the grass is always quite wet. They arrived in the mail this past Monday. They don’t fit quite right. They are a little large in the back, but they put pressure on my big toes. What was amazing was that as I walked around in them, the pain in my hips eased. I suspect it something to do with the composition of the soles – thick, spongy plastic. They didn’t completely eliminate the pain, though. The next day, I was thinking, now the doc said that I could still use my OC pain medication (naproxen sodium) in addition to the prescription meds. I decided that I’d try taking one of them in the middle of the day, and maybe it would help a little. I have done so for the last three days, and it has virtually eliminated the hip pain. Now, if I could only get rid of the back pain . . .

Now, for the “monthly features” – first of all, the Magnaclam calendar:
Magnacalendar Images - July

And birthdays:
July 15 – my great-niece Qavah
July 21 – my daughter Karen
July 25 - my brother-in-law Phil
July 30 – my granddaughter Annie

Just fixed that last entry - Annie is definitely not my daughter!

Hey, family, I lost my birthdays list when my computer crashed, so I’d appreciate any of you helping me out with getting them back. I have at least the month & day for all those that I have posted here throughout the past year, but if possible, I’d like to have the year, too. I’d like to have a comprehensive list of all the birthdates in our family, and there are some whose birthdays I have never had – or at least, never had recorded.