Woke up and had my cup of coffee while I listened to the HF radio. Talked to Paul for a bit, he’s doing a yard sale to get some cash in hand this morning. I did some poking around and there’s only one small change to my taxes and I can file them.
The Toshiba has been rebuilt and seems to be solid. *I had forgotten how fast it was.
The storms were well south of us so that wasn’t much of a problem today.
Ham, sweet potatoes and veggies were lunch today.
I checked in with the GARS 2M Net, I tried to check in with ARES but I missed the call15
Applied for the Homestead exemption, but it was just an update to the application I sent in October 24.
Tuesday
Woke up this morning around 7 and got onto the 2M repeater with the GARS HAMS. I switched over onto the HF side and checked in with the WW Net too. Had eggs and breakfast sausages for breakfast. We have an orthodontist appointment at 10 and then Longhorn for lunch.
We went to Wally World for some groceries and a few other things this afternoon. We did buy some chicken legs and a package of ground turkey for chili.
We’re disposing of the aluminum (Left) and keeping the Stainless Steel (Right) humidifier chambers for our CPAP machines. We had about six of each kind.
I never got an acknowledgement from Gwinnett county so I reapplied for the homestead exemption about 9PM tonight and it went through. The strange thing is the time/date is GMT and the application has to be submitted by 1 APR 2025. (I don’t think it will let me reapply two times within a year.)
The E-Mail was delivered at 8:48 on 1 April 2025.
Bedtime.
Wednesday
We had scrambled eggs and ham for breakfast this morning. I got onto the HAM radio and checked in on the WW Net while sipping on my coffee. Lunch was salmon, sweet potatoes and veggies. I had a cough most of the day today. Just in case it was caused by my 10 Day old hose, washed four of them and dried them on the dehumidifier. When I logged into Amazon I got this VERY LONG list of items that had changed price. I assume that all the venders added the Trump Tariffs to their existing stock to make a little extra cash. The cost of the Jackery was a little shocking, it almost doubled in price to $800.00.
Church was virtual on Zoom tonight, so we watched the Empire Strikes Back.
Thursday
Up at 6:30 and went back to bed until 7:30. Checked in on the HAM WW Net while eating hard boiled eggs and breakfast sausages. Made a pot of coffee and read some news while sipping on my cup of coffee.
Time to fill the pill trays.
Dinner was in disarray so we went to Longhorn for lunch.
We came home and I mowed the back yard before it rains this weekend.
We went to Kroger for a few things. We have dinner plans for tomorrow so we’ll cook them on Saturday. (We’re also going out on Sunday.)
Again, this morning I had trouble with my feet even though I ate very little after dinner and my Glucose was less than 100. I have not figured out why my toes tingle at night and not during my nap at lunchtime.
Checked in with the HAM guys on the GARS 2M repeater this morning. Then I checked in on the WW Net with my HF radio this morning while sipping my coffee.
Loaded my medicine into the next tray and rotated them.
The CF website is still broken. We cannot reliably get feedback from the children on what they’ve spent their gifts on. The recommended gift is between $20 and $50 and has been for years. With inflation that We exceeded that gift since the pandemic to help the families cope with all the chaos. Now that we’re 2yrs out and we’re having real issues with the letters we’ve decided to reduce the gifts back to pre-COVID amounts.
Took a good long nap and we had chicken legs, sweet potatoes and veggies for lunch. I worked on my E-Mail for several hours to reduce the load on my Toshiba laptop’s Solid-State Drive (SSD) to extend its life as much as possible. I learned my lesson about letting my computer’s SSD get full when her computer failed. I also made a backup of all the Microsoft Outlook PST files on an encrypted thumb drive.
I looked up the SSD for the Toshiba laptop and ordered one, it was similar to the experience with the NUC. Like $20 bucks? My only catch 22 is there is no product key on the surface of the laptop. It’s located in the firmware, I don’t actually know if I can use it to activate WIN 10 Pro. Step one, put the SSD in the laptop and find out.
Turkey sandwich on RYE and creme cheese on a rice cake for dessert while we watched Castle. My left molar is sensitive, I need to pay more attention to it.
Tuesday
Need to stay focused today. Had eggs for breakfast and I’m out of breakfast sausages so I just had Rye toast. Need to get the car emissions done this week and I am down to six days to turn in my Taxes.
CF Sent me a letter back, “they wanted to clarify the gifts and apologize.” The two pill dispensers get to Patty’s tomorrow. I packed everything up for the dog show tomorrow, have to be there by 5:40. (Which means wake-up is at 4:40.)
Made a trip to Wally World for some catch-up groceries. I guy pulls into the neighbor’s driveway and walks the sidewalk East and West of our neighbor’s house. Then gets into his car and drives away. We don’t have Xfinitywifi, but there is one close to use somewhere. (I changed out the Xfinity router that I had to pay a monthly fee for.
WAAY too early tomorrow morning. 4:30 Alarm and leave by 5:15, I am really getting too old for this.
Wednesday – Saturday
It has been a LONG week working the dog show for the GARS HAM club. I had to get up at 4:30 for the last four days. It’s about a 25 minute drive Gwinnett fair grounds. Dog Show – Lake Lanier Cluster Dog Shows It was a bit cool when I get there. Wednesday I wore three layers, shirt, sweatshirt and a jacket under my vest.
I basically parked at one of the entry gates and sifted traffic.
The weather was perfect, sunny with a comfortable breeze.
I was exhausted when I got home so I didn’t do much but get a shower and take a nap.
I did get revive an old laptop with a $20 SSD. I successfully loaded W10 on it, I need to download the Toshiba utilities to protect the battery. (I had forgotten they only charge the battery to 80%, the power supply was very hot!
My son bought a new home, three floors.
Sunday
We have church this morning and it is supposed to storm in the afternoon.
We’re going to get wet traveling to church this morning.
Service went well, we only got a little wet. We did go to Longhorn for lunch and I worked on the Toshiba for several hours updating the drivers. I can buy a used one for $40 if there’s any issues with it. The power supply costs as much as the Toshiba laptop.
Up at 07:30 and made a small pot of coffee. She had cold brew coffee in her french press this morning. Checked in with the HAM guys on the WW Net and ate two boiled eggs with breakfast sausages.
Took our BP and our Glucose, mine was on the high side at 129. But then I had just eaten breakfast too. We both took a shower, and I laid down for a quick nap. We both changed our CPAP hoses and tanks this morning.
I found out the hoses have dates encoded on them a while back.
We’re tossing all of the hoses manufactured in 2020 since we have no way of knowing when we put them in service. (I had previously tossed hoses made before then.) When I was the only one on therapy and I had to use them down range, I kept them pretty long. (Years) Now that we’re both on therapy I’m being a little more particular.
New hoses sent to us can be late 22, 23 and 24 so we’re writing the date we open the package on the hoses from now on. The recommended replacement schedule is every 3 months, and our contracted supplier provides them at that time frame. If we keep working spares, then more than half of them is up to a year old.
If this store wants to charge $10/Lb that’s fine. BUT DON’T HIDE THE 2 DAY OLD BROWN MEAT INSIDE !!!
Back from Wally World with some odds and ends. The beach cart is perfect for bringing in the haul from the store.
Tues-Thursday
It’s been a busy three days. Her computer SSD ran out of write cycles and I didn’t pick up on what was happening until it was too late to recover the operating system. I paid Microcenter to copy the SSD, but all they did was recover the files on a USB disk. (Which is better than not having the data.) What I did loose is the website data in the browser, usernames and passwords. Websites drop cookies that make it easy to get onto them, but it is not something I know how to get from a hard drive.
The second thing that Microcenter did was leave a screw so loose that it fell onto the circuit boards. Worse they mounted the SSD upside down and crushed the memory into the motherboard! It took me an hour to figure out that they mounted the SSD upside down and that’s why the case didn’t go back together.
I spent the better part of Wednesday trying to get one of the three laptops configured with her login credentials and attached to her websites. It was a strange behavior, logging onto the websites would fail even with proper credentials. We spent three hours today trying to get onto Express Scripts and I ended up changing out the laptop with a newer one. (The one I installed was my anchor, it always worked for me.)
The second laptop worked like it should and I put the old laptop on my DMZ network to scan the hard drive with a “Deep Scan”. I don’t expect to find anything, I think there is a corrupted module intercepting the traffic from the browser that’s corrupting the conversation to the host. I know that it’s not located in the user files/directories since I created a new login for her. It is also affecting both Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers. Two pieces of software have modules that are suspect. One is Net Limiter and the other is Wireshark. They sit in between the operating system and the network interface.
I also loaded her pill trays since they ran out on Wednesday.
We got into a disagreement about turkey chili that was on the menu for lunch today. There’s something wrong with the recipe and she’s putting it together from memory. I went on all recipes and found a similar recipe. There were two huge issues, one was she should NOT drain the black beans and two we should use crushed tomatoes. We didn’t have any crushed tomatoes, so we went to Kroger to pick up a few odds and ends.
Friday
We got up and I checked in with the HAM guys on the WW Net while sipping on Dominican coffee I got at Wally World. We took our Glucose and blood pressure and then prepared lunch correctly this time cept for two ingredients. Shredded cheese and scallions, which really makes the meal.
We went to get some cash and then to the dollar store for a card. We dropped by Waffle House for a chocolate waffle, and I had a couple eggs since I didn’t have breakfast this morning. Her Glucose was over 163 when we got home so we both walked up the block and back. When we checked it again it was 170! That’s the first time I’ve ever seen the glucose rise after a walk. We checked it an hour later and it had dropped down to 116.
Watched Hudson and Rex and Castle before bed.
Saturday
Checked in on the WW Net and took my shower. Took our Glucose and her BP, mine was a bit high at 125. Mom’s back in the hospital. Where’s my coffee? Dropped her off at a birthday party for a friend.
Not sure what I am going to do with these two fully functional PC’s. I can load Windows 10Pro or Linux Mint and that would work well with either of these. Intel sold these Intel NUC min PC line to Asus who makes really good motherboards.
Like many other things I’ve liked, I have more than one of them. I bought one, then bought two more, then bought three more. Then I bought three more after we found out about the issue with taking our medications twice a day.
I bought an SSD for a very reasonable price of $20 that will get me back onto these NUC computers. I downloaded the media creator tool and loaded Win10 onto a flash drive to install into the NUC computer. (Took 3 minutes, 900M Bytes per Second!)
An hour later I had rebuilt both of these Intel NUC mini PCs. Intel makes a tool that downloads and installs the correct drivers.
I spent a good while looking for information on how Microsoft is responding to the 65% of us that do not have Win 11 compatible computers. There was also good information on Microsoft Office, they are retiring all versions except 2024 in October.
Sunday
Had a terrible time sleeping last night, AGAIN! The first issue is usually I have a little pain in my back from the Shingles. Then it will be some discomfort in my feet that will get worse over the next hour so after getting to bed. I had 2 hours of sleep by 05:00 this morning an 6 hours before leaving for church today.
We had ham sandwiches for lunch and a nap. I had another ham sandwich for supper with creme cheese on a rice cake. BPs and Glucose were unremarkable.
Up at 7AM helping her with her meds and making coffee. Turned on the HF radio, but I’m not hearing net control at all. I can hear the Bahamas weather report. We took her BP and Glucose. They were both good to go, my glucose numbers are falling into the 100’s. Soaking rain all day, leftover chicken thighs for lunch today.
Spent the morning refilling my spare pill tray, I have one in the dispenser and two in holders waiting. I cut the 500mg acetaminophen in half to make a 2-1/2 hour dose.
We went to Kroger and picked up a few things for beef stew today. The potatoes we had were less than edible because we had gone out to eat so much recently. Mom should be home today. We watched a great Castle episode yesterday where his daughter was kidnapped to trap his father.
Tuesday
Another sleepless night, I don’t know what is going on. I am not very tired and too uncomfortable to get a good night’s sleep. Checked in on the WW net and took our BP and glucose levels this morning.
Mine is around 100 if I’ve not eaten, it does go up to 130 if taken after a meal. It is also
I need to defend my eyes from getting dry today. Also, it might be a good day to mow the back yard, it’s getting pretty tall.
We are refining our day using these pocket Daytimer and punches.
Picked the sticks out of the back yard today and mowed 1/3 on the west side of the lawn. The mower had less grass under it than I had anticipated.
One problem with our economy is that the stock market is driving profit over affordability. In the old days companies would compete with each other over the market share. Today with so few companies in the food market, they now know that we’ll by food at whatever price they set. It makes more money to sell less product at a higher price and that profit is highly desirable for those who own the company’s stock. We are heading into a time where the concentration of money is so great that it will eliminate the middle class. (Like Iran and other countries where you have workers who support those who pay them, and no one is left in the middle anymore.)
Wednesday
Gave a dozen eggs to our neighbor at zero dark thirty. Checked in on the WW net with the HAM radio then took a good nap before heading out to Longhorn’s for lunch.
We sat in our lawn chairs waiting for the mail today on a perfect afternoon.
We had a good day, BP and Glucose numbers were very good with the change in our diets to accommodate her distressed tooth. We have to keep the gums clean and that requires us to STOP eating in between meals.
Church services went well, we scrambled just a little with the rigid schedule of our pill dispensers. If we don’t eat between meals, then the 17:30 meal is a bit early to wait until 06:00 the next morning for the following meal. We run into a bit of trouble with church if the dispenser opens after we’ve left, and we wait to eat at 19:15 alarm. Church is at 19:30, so we have to eat BEFORE 18:50. It also means the testing for Glucose and BP has to occur before we leave for our friend’s house.
Neighbors took our garbage can for us tonight!
Thursday/Friday
I sent a message to Child Fund about missing letters from Jim Jim, we last heard from her in December and we’re supposed to get a letter every month. Nothing showed up in my E-Mail yet so it will be at least Sunday before I get anything from them. *Late Sunday is their Monday morning.
We made Texas Pecan coffee both days as the Dominican Santo Domingo Coffee doesn’t taste normal. Grinding the Texas Pecan whole bean coffee makes an awful noise.
I have two medications that are not performing very well. I separated them early in the week hoping to improve their performance and it has not changed enough. Specifically, my shingles (Gabapentin) postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) has been bothering me enough to prevent me from sleeping in the bed. If I take a bath the pain subsides dramatically for some reason. I’ve also been fighting a yeast infection and a difficult time urinating (Alfuzosin) occasionally.
The original three slots that I created from two to help with my symptoms are.
Multi vitamin, Potassium, Omeprazole
Aspirin, Alfuzosin
Gabapentin, Norvasc, Lisinopril
I created one more time slot (Now 4) to these medications. I cannot separate these pills to less than three hours without buying/using three more dispensers.
Multi vitamin, Potassium, Gabapentin (To be taken separately)
Aspirin, Alfuzosin, Omeprazole (To be taken separately)
Lisinopril, Norvasc
Gabapentin, Tylenol
We totally messed up lunch on Friday. She wanted sweet and regular potatoes plus mixed veggies. We had three steamers running at the same time. I was watching Bernie Sanders make a speech that was a total fabrication while the water ran out on the mixed veggies. When I smelled the burnt pan I pulled it off the stove and then the potatoes started burning. While I was dealing with both of those the mixed vegetables started burning. We gave up and put soapy water in all the pans and went to Longhorn’s for lunch. Dinner was a Ham on Rye sandwich our regular meal. The problem with eating at 7 is that my glucose is too high at bedtime. Boo!
Saturday
Checked in with the HAM guys and looked up the storm progress, it is not even in Alabama yet LOL.
My shingles is bothering me this morning, I took a hot bath and then a nap. I felt good enough to help with lunch which turned out terrific. Ham, Sweet potatoes and mixed vegetables. We went to Publix and spent way too much money on just a few things before the storm arrives.
I moved the cars up the driveway in case our yard floods.
Well, it looks like the storms have arrived. The interesting thing is that they petered out when they got to Atlanta. We did not get much in the way of wind, rain or lightning last night. The storm was a bust.
Sunday
This young man came to the door this morning just after 7:30 saying he was being chased, and his phone was dead. Indeed, the other camera had his running down the street until he got to our house.
He was also looking down the street where he came from in earnest.
I was fast asleep from having stayed up all last night with the storm. Further when she woke me up, I had to get some clothes on before I could address the situation. By the time I got my pants on and got the wireless house phone he had walked back the way he came.
We’ve had a lot of people come to our door. None of them said that they were being chased. He was respectful of our door and never entered the home even after asking us not to close the door. (I was trying to get dressed on the other side.) We discussed protocol and from now on we’re going to lock the screen door with the window down. That way when we open the front door, we’re not exposed to whomever is on our porch. (They cannot open the screen door.) We can safely discuss the situation through the screen. Also, if the person at the door needs a phone, we can hand them the house wireless phone. (NOT our cell phones.)
Went to Longhorn after church since we spent so much time on the chaos this morning. Service went well and feedback was not an issue today.
Slept for THREE hours after getting home from Longhorn’s, I guess I was tired!
My glucose numbers were less than 100 for the last couple of days.
Spent a couple of hours putting my pills in my three dispensers tonight.
Cleaned four more hoses individually tonight. (I could not find these connections to do it all at once.)
We got up around 7:30 and I cranked up my HF radio to meet the HAM guys on the WW Net while I drank some coffee. Adjusted the alarm times on the pill dispensers so they are a better fit for our routines.
Her box of clothes from Amazon arrived and the pants were just a little on the large side. She loved the socks. Cod fish for lunch with mixed vegetables and sweet potatoes. We took a nap, and I went out for a much-needed haircut. Back home we walked up the block and back to get in some exercise now that her foot is better. We both made a sandwich and settled down for an episode of Castle.
Tuesday
I was in pain this morning, so I wrapped myself in two electric blankets that helped enough to go to bed. Worked on documenting our new pill schedule, I woke up late and she got lost on what she was supposed to be doing. Checked in on the WW net and sipped on a cup of coffee. No breakfast cept the bowl of cereal I had at 3AM this morning.
We had an endodontist appointment today at 10:40 and that ended the retreatment for the root canal that failed saving tooth #30. We went to Longhorn for lunch afterwards then home for a much-needed nap. I worked on the screen door for several hours tonight. The front door is sagging and taking the screen door with it. I’ve replaced that door several times and had it replaced once. They didn’t do a very good job and now it looks like the casing is failing.
Turkey on Rye with a couple rice cakes with creme cheese for dessert while we watched Castle. Her BP has settled down and it looks like the high BP is behind us!
Wednesday (Stormy)
It’s midnight and I am waiting on the storm front to arrive. The major appliances are off and the UPS units have clicked a couple of times since I got up about an hour ago.
We managed to get 2 boxes (with four bags each) of bad coffee from Amazon. They don’t smell very good, and they don’t even smell the same from bag to bag. Wally World has Santo Domingo coffee, we’ll get some tomorrow to try. According to Google Foo, Dominican Coffee has suffered from poor crops *Rust and imported coffee to meet production. EWE! Apparently, the whole bean coffee might still be Dominican, which may account for the significant price increase. Our son has latched on to a Texas Pecan flavored whole bean coffee which she likes too.
Thursday
Had eggs for breakfast with sausage links while I checked in on the HAM WW Net. Spent a large portion of the day filling the spare trays of the three dispensers we are using with our medicine. I sent a list to Emory and didn’t get a response. Her BP has been normal for several days! My GERD has been pretty bad tonight, not sure why. I ended up taking my Prilosec early to tame my stomach down a little. My mom fell and ended up in the hospital. I don’t know what that’s all about either.
Friday
Woke up late this morning and she had already eaten breakfast. To my utter surprise, she did not take her morning meds. We had to take them after she ate breakfast today. I had put her meds in my dispenser yesterday, so that didn’t help either. Seasoned chicken thighs for lunch today with sweet potatoes and frozen Normandy veggies. Dentist visit went ok, she was extremely nervous, so I held her hand this afternoon while the dentist cleaned her teeth. Her gums have receded further than mine so we’re trying to get a plan together before the bacteria gets a foothold again. Plan is to arrive first thing on Saturday.
Bought a bag of Great Value potato chips expecting them to be comparable to Lays.
Like EWE, not sure what the green ones were but I toss the bag in the garbage.
Saturday
Mom fell yesterday and was taken to the hospital. She is still there, and they are monitoring her heart, although I don’t know exactly what her situation is.
Called the dentist right after I checked in on the WW Net on my HAM radio. The recommendation was non-Alcohol mouthwash, electric toothbrush with very soft bristles, using a water pic and flossing around the sides of the tooth.
Longhorn chicken salad for lunch, we met a lady that had a sign that read “Need diapers, have two kids”. We gave her $100, she stood out there for another 30 minutes then disappeared. The police don’t tolerate pan handlers around the AMC theater, they’ll arrest them and take their money. (It’s illegal in Gwinnett Co.)
My schedule sheets in my Daytimer needs to be redone, I need to add all the dispenser times and adjust our eating schedule too. It has come to pass that our medicine needs to be taken on a schedule. We both took our meds by the handful in the morning and then again at night. Now I have three dispenser times, and she has five with her eight medications.
All of this would have been a nightmare without these dispensers. She has two of the newer ones so that her medication doesn’t move out of reach, and I have a slightly older one. It would cost over $130 to get a third newer one that has the red overdue LEDs for myself. They helped us solve a problem of high blood pressure events in the evenings!
I worked on my Daytimer schedule for about an hour. I fold it in half, punch holes in it and put it into my binder.
Sunday
Got up around 8AM and I was still a little groggy. I think I did a late check-in on the WW net though. No breakfast this morning as we headed for church services. This is the first time we were in person for many weeks now. We decided to eat at Longhorn even though we had chicken in the refrigerator that we both had forgotten about. Although it’s a pretty expensive meal, Longhorn salad was very good and my Glucose showed less than 100.
Posted the sermon to the website and took a good long nap before eating our traditional ham sandwich on rye bread while watching TV.
Off to bed, have not heard from Florida about mom.
Been a busy morning, got onto the WW Net and hear my uncle check in on the net as well. Talked to Paul for a little while about our computers for a little bit.
We filled her spare pill trays this morning and set her timer to 3x per day (Just like mine).
I ordered two more dispensers, just the tray is $20 so why not get all of it for $15
The attic is warm enough to maintain the temp of the home. We went down for our afternoon nap before we cooked Turkey Chili for dinner.
It’s a VERY NICE day outside, the sunny side of the home is 75 degrees. We didn’t get to go outside very much today, we’ve lost our bottles of sunscreen.
Even the attic fans got some exercise today.
Tuesday (Doc)
Heart doctor today so we’re up at 6AM. We ate breakfast at McDonald’s on the way home. The doc was “Unconcerned” about her BP and that threw us. We’ve spent so much time collecting BP readings over the last week. Boo
We ended up eating lunch at Longhorn’s and then home for our afternoon nap. We are still working on building a schedule so that we can be more productive. Having her out front with her requests takes up the entire day. We spend a good while trying to figure out clothes for her. Her stomach and hips are about the same size at 43 inches. She is also looking for summer shoes, but not tennis shoes. She also does not do things she finds difficult, like writing down things I ask her.
Supper was turkey on Rye bread with a few rice cakes and creme cheese while we watch Castle. I did find the sunscreen today, so walking is back on the table.
Wednesday (Church)
We had a great morning and got a lot done. Cooked Salmon for dinner and that turned out pretty well. (The veggies were a little mushy.) We drove the VAN to a used clothing store to look for some pants. The were usual sizes that are waay too small for her. We ended up looking online for Plus sizes and ordered a couple pants.
Church services went ok, but she didn’t get the E-Mail containing the link for the service for some reason.
I chatted with the same guy on my HF radio at 1AM that I did the day before. We talked until we both had to go to bed.
Thursday
We took our BP and Glucose this morning, these are my readings according to the time of day. I printed the reports and dropped them off at the doctor’s office. We do not know if the information warrants a doc visit, but we are sure he will.
Shower and get dressed, we’ve got a lot to do today.
I waited too long to cut them back. (They were already budding.)
I did cut them back anyway risking the bush.
Had to use a rake to carry the thorny branches.
Looks much better, unless the bush dies.
Salmon on Rye for dinner, we watched several episodes of Castle. Doc did not call us back today, I really thought he would. Left the garage door open tonight, it’s just a bit of luck that I found it. Nocturnal animals would love to make a home in a warm garage, cept maybe for all the noise in there.
Friday
Had scrambled eggs and breakfast sausages for breakfast. Checked into the WW Net with the HAM radio guys this morning. Spent an hour looking for women’s socks that we bought at Burlington Coat Factory to no avail, even used image search?
Spent an hour trying to get a check reissued that I didn’t cash. I have a feeling that I should have called the agent. Oops. They are sending a letter to verify I am the recipient.
I got two more used ones from EBAY and one of them was an “E” serial #!!! (Which saves me $150 bucks to buy one that has a dose overdue Red Light.)
With three doses per day and nine days per dispenser we need six of them to give us a 30 day supply in hand. (Did I mention I saved $120 getting these last two at $15)
Saturday
Checked in on the WW Net, 40M band is long. I didn’t hear most of the participants on the net this morning. We ate lunch at Longhorn and went to watch the grandkids at soccer practice. We were pretty tired after being up all day, a good long nap felt great. Her blood pressure is still high, so we played a game of scrabble.
She won.
Headed to bed.
Sunday
Had a terrible night, my feet started hurting after I laid down. I soaked them in warm water and that helped. My shingles also reared its ugly head even though I took medication for it earlier. I took 250mg of acetaminophen to reduce the pain and watched some TV, I wasn’t good for much else this morning. I did eat a bowl of cereal to settle my stomach. It took another 500mg before I was comfortable enough to get some sleep. When she woke up I took a hot shower and that helped too.
2 hard boiled eggs and coffee for breakfast while I checked in with the HAM guys on the WW Net. We ended up running to the doc in a box, but they were packed. The nearest fire station had just left the barn and the next one was empty when we got there. We ended up going to Longhorn for lunch. We stopped by the fire station on the way home and they checked her BP. They also gave us some good advice on what to do next. Our best bet is to gather documentation that provides a story, then the doctor might see the point we’re trying to present to him.
We spent a couple of hours looking up each medication and what is the best time to take it. We ended up using two dispensers with eight dispensing times to separate her medications to see if she improves. If we’d used one dispenser and were late taking the pills, they would be out of reach under the lid.
Had four eggs, breakfast sausages, rye toast with orange juice for breakfast.
We did a bit of planning and went to the shoe repair shop to fix her boot that the zipper ripped out on Sunday. The zipper got mangled trying to zip up boots that are just a bit too tight. I found two pair of this style in size 8 boots on EBAY, we’ll have to wait to see if they fit her. I thought for a while that the cuff of the boot rolled up to keep her warm in tall snow.
We went to Burlington Coat Factory to find some pants for her. After picking up a couple of prospects we headed to Longhorn in Suwanee for lunch. We had our usual strawberry chicken salad for lunch then headed home for a nap. I called in a prescription, and they said it would be ready at 18:00. I did pick up some 200 glucose test strips that were 30% off. (I’ve not seen them cheaper than CVS prices on Amazon which is strange considering CVS is waay high on a lot of things. They ARE cheaper on EBAY though.)
Checked in with the GARS Net on 2Meter repeater tonight. (It’s a good test of the equipment.)
Her BP is 150 ish and her HR is about 100 tonight, so we’re planning on resting. Her Glucose is also about 150 after having three Arnold Palmers for lunch. My BP was also like 138/74 tonight and I take BP medication to keep it from getting too high.
I added 1/2 500mg Wally World acetaminophen pill to MY evening pills. 250mg acetaminophen seems to take care of our needs in most cases. It’s also really easy to keep up with the dosing with a 90-minute pill dispenser/timer.
Tuesday
My fight or flight response is preventing me from getting any rest this morning. I ended up taking a nice hot bath to calm it down. Checked in on the HAM WW Net this morning while eating fried eggs and breakfast sausages. I am working up some new pages for our Daytimer procedure books, and it will be a work in progress.
I made 4 eggs, breakfast sausages and Rye toast for breakfast. She then asked if she could have the same for her. I gave her my plate and made another round for me. It was a strange happening, I asked her what she had and she said a bowl of cereal. (Her normal breakfast.) If she wants eggs the fastest way is to use the hard boiled egg cooker. Odd.
We went to BN and the removed all the attachments and then took pictures of all of her teeth for the next round of braces. They said I did a good job if cutting down the brace #20 so that it didn’t hang over her missing tooth gum.
We went to Longhorn again today. My Glucose was just over a 100 for like the third time today. Apparently, the strawberry salad at LH is a pretty good meal for seniors.
We both took a good long nap and the shoe guy never called about her boots. I did buy two pairs of size 8 boots of the same manufacturer and style used yesterday. They won’t be here until next week sometime. According to her she’s had them since before we dated. They are in excellent shape like she hasn’t worn them much. We’re only wearing them now because of her Plantar fasciitis.
My glucose ranges are not too bad, I need to cut back on the coffee.
Wednesday (Endodontist)
COLD morning this morning, going to be even colder tomorrow.
We had a large breakfast fried eggs and sausage with a bit of coffee. We took her blood pressure several times and it was not very high. (That’s a relief) She wore her o2 monitor and it showed that she was calm throughout the root canal.
We went to Longhorn (Again) for lunch and I allowed a bit of Cheese cake for dessert.
Back home for a much needed nap. Sandwiches for dinner and a couple of rice cakes with creme cheese on it.
Church services went well, but we were pretty tired.
I didn’t sleep very well, but my CPAP machine reported it did not have many events.
Thursday (Boot repair)
Picked up her repaired boots today, she’s really happy!
Got pretty cold this morning, we left some eggs on the porch for the neighbor. We’re pretty sure they didn’t spoil, LOL.
Light breakfast today, just a cup of coffee. We need to make a run to the grocery store. We ended up going to Publix and picking up most of the groceries then drove to Longhorn for lunch. We stopped by Aldi’s and got some meat after we had a bit of a nap. It’s pretty COLD outside even at 4PM with the wind upon us.
Rye bread sandwiches and rice cakes with creme cheese for dessert. We’re taking her blood pressure twice a day until we see the doctor.
Friday
Checked in with the HAM guys on the WW Net and tried my best to find out who keeps calling me about buying my home. Georgia Local Home Buyers is not a business name so there’s no one to complain too.
Two pairs of her favorite boots arrived today. They are a 1/2 size larger than the ones we had fixed this week. They should be just a bit easier to get on. (Except as it turns out, they are still new and will have to be broke-in LOL.)
We managed to get sick on something we ate or drank today. We both felt ill this afternoon, so it wasn’t the coffee. I didn’t feel ill until after we ate lunch which was chicken breasts from Aldi’s. It had a March use by date, and we brought it home in 30 degree weather. No idea, but she did not hold onto her lunch. My fingers are tingling, and my tinnitus is ringing. She laid down for a nap while I worked on raising the humidity above 30.
She slept with her new boots on LOL.
It’s about 6PM and my sour stomach has subsided. She is feeling better after emptying her stomach into the porcelain bowl. I managed to eat a ham sandwich on rye and have a few rice cakes with creme cheese on them. We both took our evening pills and then set down to take her blood pressure. The last few days we’ve done this the first reading is around 150/75, then after holding on to her for a minute or so it drops down to 135/72. Tonight was the first night that didn’t happen, she was afraid that I would get sick being so close to her. Her blood pressure didn’t drop tonight when I held her. The doctor was wondering why all the BP checks in the office were normal, but the ones from home are high. Our family is not as close as it once was, Trump politics have divided us. I heard someone say that family is more important than money, then proceeded to prove that wasn’t true over the next two years.
Saturday-Sunday
We had eggs for breakfast Saturday, and we were tossing around what to do about dinner since we wanted to go to Wally World for a few odds and ends. We ended up going to Longhorns for lunch and we saw our third familiar face while we were there.
I reorganized my pill dispensers to a 3x per day, that was a bit harder than I anticipated. We have ONE dispenser that is on a timer and the other four are just containers for the pill trays. When the tray in the timer dispenser gets empty we swap out from the spares to refill it. We move the 2nd spare into the spares and the empty tray goes into 2nd spare to get refilled at our next convenience. Like the 2x trays, we have 28 days worth of medicine IN HAND. After I did mine, we did hers on Monday so that we both are taking pills together 3X per day.
We watched Castle while eating rice cakes with creme cheese and then headed to bed.
Up early, had to bathe this morning. WW Net starts in 50 minutes, so I am checking my E-Mail and drying off. Fortinet has been sending me E-Mails for a couple of weeks so I checked my firewalls for any misconfiguration. The only thing I found was there was not a firewall policy to block private address from reaching out across the ISP connection. I added policies for all my networks this morning to prevent that from happening. (Normally their gateways prevent private addresses, but we are only using their gateways as media converters.)
Lunch was COD the frozen fish and veggies.
Dinner was a bowl of soup and crackers while we watched Castle. I worked on my network for a little while and then bed.
Tuesday
Dr. Appointment at 9AM so we’re grabbing breakfast and heading out the door this morning. Then we found out it was raining, ewe! We got to the doctor’s office on time and they checked her arms and hands. Turns out that she has carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands. (Which causes tingling and weak fingers.) The doctor said to purchase a brace to wear in the evenings and while sleeping. We got to longhorn too early to eat so we went home for a nap. We went to Longhorn for lunch and then back home for another nap. We changed her pillow from the CPAP pillow last night and seems to be sleeping better. Morning headaches seem to be an issue of late and they can be caused by low oxygen when sleeping, especially for CPAP users. The oxygen sensor also indicates an reading in the mid 80’s at night. (I had to change the alarm for her since it vibrates my finger at 90.)
I found out while we were watching Castle tonight that her right foot is bothering her again. She’ll need to wear a compression sock and put a cold pack on it to lower the swelling. I also had to start a new medications document to keep track of how much she took and when. (Most of this will be on the pill dispenser’s log.) She took one 500mg Advil at 6:40 so she can only take one more until 9PM. (There’s only one more available in the dispensers anyway.) We put a cold pack inside a T-Shirt for about 15 minutes tonight, then she had to put her braces back in. That’s another variable, she cannot take Advil on an empty stomach. (We may need to take both pills at once before she goes to bed.)
We also created a sheet to tabulate her pains and what meds have been taken for it.
Wednesday
Did not sleep well, neither did she. My shingles is acting up and my kidneys seem to be unhappy. Her heel of right foot is swollen, her braces are tight, and she has had headaches most every night/morning. She is taking Tylenol for her headaches and Ibuprofen for her foot and wrists.
We went to Longhorn’s on Swanee Road for lunch, because it was closest to the Orthodontist. Lunch was just fried chicken bites that we shared and two side salads. It was a very cheap meal at 15 bucks. We arrived at the Orthodontist about 30 minutes early and that worked out well for them too. They took a bite CT scan and we paid them 300 bucks then headed home. They gave us another prescription Amoxicillin, but this one was for 875mg. We’ll have enough Antibiotics to last until our next appointment.
The 875mg Amoxicillin (Pink Pills) are HUGE! I loaded them into the tray and switched out her spares tonight. (We’ll reload her spares tray when we are awake.)
We were both too exhausted to participate in in the group session tonight, that makes two weeks in a row.
We got our SEVENTH pill dispenser today, it has a serial number of C on it. It is the only one that the seal was broken before I got it.
Thursday
No coffee this morning, I’ve had too much caffeine which has been seriously affecting my sleep. Checked in on the WW Net and then sat on JS8 waiting for Paul. We chatted for a little while this morning. I’ve had back pain for about a week at night that suggested it was my kidneys, so I got a UTI test yesterday.
The left one was from last night and the right one was this morning. I called the doctor’s office and they asked me to drop off a sample. I’ve not heard back from them yet.
My fasting glucose was 107 this morning, boy am I hungry. No breakfast today, dinner was COD fish and veggies. We need to make a grocery run today, we’ve got a doctor’s appointment again tomorrow.
Back from Wally World, we were getting low on staples. I called CF and we adjusted all the gifts to a point where they will all be in the monthly rollup together. Sending a gift in the last week of the month has a high risk of being delayed 30 more days. No visibility of the gifts made in November was possible from the associate that I talked too. She also told me that it was unrealistic to have a thank you letter in 60 days after the gift arrives in country. We’ve been giving gifts for more than 20 years, if the gift passes 60 days something went wrong. We also talked about the duplicate letters, that conversation also had inconsistencies of best practices.
It was an eventful evening her heart rate got up pretty high and erratic for about 20 minutes.
Friday
Didn’t sleep well last night, it could be from the 1/2 bag of potato chips I snacked on last night. I cut up some more of the 500mg acetaminophen tablets to get 250mg tablets for the pill dispensers. So far, we both get good results with the smaller 250mg tablet of Acetaminophen.
Picked up some flowers for the wife at a gas station tent. Their gig was to sell “Made to Order” flowers. I originally thought it would be just buckets of premade flowers. It took them better than 20 minutes to put this bouquet together.
Her heart was throwing PVCs for a short while after she got up from her nap.
I checked my glucose and ran a report on the last 14 days.
Saturday (Light Rain)
Up at 7AM, looked for KK4SAC and didn’t see him. Bands are bad, I can’t hear half of the stations this morning. Had Mexican corn tamales that our neighbor shared for breakfast.
Baked chicken legs for lunch, we forgot the veggies. We took another nap after we cleaned up the kitchen. I researched hoses and ways to combine CPAP hoses so that I could clean four of them at one time. What I ended up doing was taking four masks apart and using the hose connectors.
Braces on her wrists Tonight for the Carpel tunnel.
It’s a process to wash out these CPAP hoses. The idea is to run warm soapy water through them with enough water to clean them. I connected four hoses end to end and ran soapy water through them by siphoning water from a large storage tub.
Then I connected the end to the shower hose to rinse them. Last step is to run the shower to rinse the outsides off. (Oh, it’s a good idea to take the rubber seal out of the shower hose first LOL.)
I take the hoses outside and sling the majority of the water out the ends of the hose. The last thing I needed to do is run air through the hoses to dry them. For years I just let them dry hanging over the coat rack. Now I put a fan under the coat rack since only one end is facing down.
Sunday
I have toe fungus issues. I also have the typical cracking heels of someone with diabetes. The cracks in my heels will get infected if I don’t wear shoes/socks. If I wear shoes/socks then the moisture builds up on my toes and makes the toe fungus unmanageable. I’ve tried flip-flops, but they are uncomfortable to wear in small quarters. Socks do not last very long when worn as shoes either, but that’s ok.
In the past I have cut up socks to use for other purposes. The toe portion works very well for spot cleaning and wiping the dew off the car windows. I wear the heel portion over my testicles to keep them dry against my legs. (My dad and I share an issue with yeast infections of our groin.)
The heel portion I use on my testicles rides down from my ankle and cannot be used on my feet.
If I cut the entire toe portion off, the sock again rides back toward the heel. The solution seems to be to leave a portion of the sock between the big toe to hold the sock in place. That makes the socks Left/Right and I’ll need to dedicate an entire drawer to these specialized sock fragments.
No word from the doctor on my urine sample. I have seriously cut back on coffee to help with sleeping through the night. My Sucrose has been just over 100 for several days now. Hard to believe that my coffee affected my sugar levels that much.
I did a bit of research on acetaminophen. Acetaminophen is quickly metabolized in our bodies and has a short half life (time it takes to metabolize 50% of the drug) of two to three hours. https://walrus.com/
The Ibuprofen and the Hydro codons knocked her pain down enough that she slept pretty soundly this morning. I checked in on the WW Net and had 4 eggs, sausage and a slice of rye toast for breakfast.
Her cheek is noticeably swollen this morning. We called our dentist, and they said we’ve not been seen for more than a year, so we called Braces Now and it went to voice mail. We drove to Braces now and they were at a different location today. Worse the only person that showed up said that they were not dentists, but orthodontics. (*I assumed that was a specialty of dentistry.) We called our normal dentist office back and made an appointment for 10AM. I dropped her off and I headed home.
She called me about an hour later and I drove back to the dentist office. It’s now long past the time she was supposed to take her pain pills, and she was pretty miserable. The shock was that they cannot use the normal injection to relieve the pain if the tooth is abscessed. I held onto my wife as she screamed in pain while they pried her back molar out of the jawbone. (I was crying myself.)
Back home we’re trying to treat the hole in her jaw while getting back on schedule with her medications. We have one more tooth to be removed on Wednesday. I will have to look over the paperwork thoroughly, but I assume that the responsibility for her teeth was hers with her dentist and NOT braces now. (The assumption I made was that she was under their care, we paid them almost $6,000.00 just to have two teeth pried from her mouth today. (Implants will probably cost another $6,000.00.)
There is a very large lump on the side of her cheek. (Larger than the one above) that has me concerned for her health. We’ve both been under a dental surgeon and she could extract a tooth in about 20 minutes with almost no pain.
CF Philippines sent me a status of Josephine’s gifts saying they’ve been sent to the Local Partner. (They are still pretty late at 65 days.) The plan going forward is to withhold gifts without letters at three, that will save all of us a lot of time.
Tuesday (30 Hours to go)
She’s in a lot of pain this morning. We changed the Amoxicillin to 3x per day which is every 8 hours. She has 6 Codon’s left which will get her till the extraction of #30 tomorrow. (Both lower molars on her right side will be gone.)
7AM, 2x Ibuprofen and back to bed for a little while. 10AM is the next pill. I sent a message to Fortinet asking them why all the marketing E-mails are being sent to me.
I am running out of gas, needed a nap… We were very particular about her pills all day today and she’s almost free of pain. (It hurts to push against the cheek) We’ll take a 800 Ibuprofen before going to the dentist tomorrow.
Got a message from LiveFine about our pill dispensers. The E-Mail looks like it just wanted to verify our purchase (Under warranty and under customer service agreement.) There are a lot of discrepancies with this product. It looks like a value added product where someone can put their name on it and market it as their own. Which means the manufacturer is not interested in marketing the product themselves. In the current environment we have no idea who is selling product retail from inside camarketing.inc. There’s no way to hold anyone accountable for any failure of this medical device. (Which is crazy inside the USA.)
Wednesday
We’ve both taken a shower and I checked in on the WW Net as we get ready for the dentist this morning.
Dentist went ok, we left there with more questions than we had answers. We were given a referral to an orthodontist to try and save the tooth. The long story is that she could not guarantee that the pain shot would work and we’d be in the same situation we were on Monday. We called the Orthodontist and made an appointment for next Wednesday. That’s 7 days from now and we have enough antibiotics for 6 days.
My next problem is that keeping track of these four medications is proving to be difficult. Depending on the last pill taken and the current dose to be taken, changes when the next pill is taken.
Ibuprofen can be taken at 1:30 intervals, half of a tylenol can also be taken at 1:30 intervals, Codon’s at 6:00 intervals, and Amoxicillin at 12:00 intervals. So all of the pills can be divided into 3 hour intervals. What ended up happening is that we occasionally took them at a 4:30 interval. Then you end up with a piece of paper that looks like this.
To accommodate all these different times I had to use two dispensers, since they can only do 8 alarms. The two pain med trays are staggered by 1:30 so that one of the two trays can be used at any given time. The Amoxicillin was just put into her regular 12hr dispenser. (We had to take them at 8 hours for two days, that was tough.)
Or four pill trays that look like this. If we take the pills from these trays, we’ll not have to worry about taking them too often.
I exchanged callsigns with a station in Canada and California tonight using ONE Watt of signal! (That’s AMAZING)
Thursday
I heard back from Ignacio Customer Support Agent for Live Fine, he said “You should be fine, you should have any issue with the unit”. Ok, unit is singular and I was asking about the five other devices. How about risk to my network? I know that these units reach out to AWS over an encrypted channel.
I checked in on the WW Net while sipping on my coffee. I do have one tooth that is sensitive after I’ve aggressively flossed it yesterday. Lunch was ham with veggies served on warmed plates thanks to a gift we received over Christmas.
The pill dispensers can only do 9 dispenses a day so I have to use two dispensers for 16 doses. I thought it better to use alternate times versus morning and evening for pain management since there’s always a dose available. But the dispensers prevent more than three doses in a short amount of time. (When a dispenser moves you could have the previous dose, the current dose and the dose in the 2nd dispenser available to the patient.) That still would not exceed the maximum dose of either medication.
We’re trying to determine the minimum amount of pain medication and that’s been a little more difficult than I had anticipated. She didn’t take any medication for 5 hours and then she complained that her mouth hurt for the next three hours while taking the maximum (Incremental 90Minute) dose for Ibuprofen and Tylenol. She passed up her 6PM dose and took the 9PM dose with some pain present. I’ve pulled the Ibuprofen from every other slot in Meds 2 to reduce the dose just a little. I also changed both timers from 90 min to 2 Hr. increments to space out the medication a little more.
For the first hour the dispenser flashes blue requesting to take pills. After that it flashes red for an hour letting us know that we’re late.
Friday
Checked in with the HAM radio guys on the WW Net while sipping on my coffee. She again stretched out her pain meds past 5 hours this morning so we may be on the other side of all this pain meds. I wanted to get rid of Blue Focus before the next Insurance renewal. I’ve got three days left, the 10th is Monday.
My Glucose is still within range, albeit barely for pre-diabetes.
Hers has come back down to a normal range for us with the meds.
We went to get some cash and then to the eye doc to repair her glasses. Then we had a great lunch with our friends in downtown Lawrenceville. Back home for a good nap and some TV time. We made our coffee for tomorrow then went to bed a bit early tonight. Her pain meds are on a 4-hour timer for the next two days. She’ll have access to two 1/2 doses at any time. I thought about collapsing the regiment into just one timer but that might be a little premature. It’s no trouble to let these two dispensers run.
Acetaminophen comes in three dosages, 100mg for kids, 325mg for adults and extra strength 500mg for adults. Cutting a 500mg in half results in two ~250mg tablets. It’s actually pretty hard to cut them exactly in half even with a pill cutter. It’s far easier for me to cut them with the dog nail clippers where I have more control over the process. If she has a headache 250mg has been sufficient thus far. It’s not good for her to take Ibuprofen at all, let alone take an 800mg tablet.
Saturday
Her feet are swollen, and it is hard to get her boots on. The assumption is all the salt that was in the Mexican food we had for lunch yesterday.
We had scrambled eggs and breakfast sausages for breakfast. My shoulders are a little sore and that’s a distraction from getting a head start on what I have to do today. Time to go through my morning list.
Our current chores list, it’s growing!
I’m staggering my 20mg omeprazole to reduce the efficacy to 15mg. Now when my stomach gets a little overactive, I just take a small sip of baking soda water for immediate relief. She’s taking 40mg / per day which is a huge pill and a lot of medicine.
I bought a new license for the new FortiGate, it should get here on Monday. The licenses grant me updates which are vital to a secure network.
Helped her do a little housework this morning from both of our lists.
I cut the end of the Invisalign tray off for the tooth she had extracted on Monday. We have one more tray in the series, but we haven’t worn them for more than a week with all the drama. With the crowding the doctors were pushing #30 towards the back so we don’t really need the back of the tray. They were pretty tight tonight, and she had to take Tylenol so that she could get some sleep.
Most of the thank you letters from our Child Fund children are at the edge of being overdue. Normally Mariel responds within 30 days, it’s strange that Her’s is this far behind. The gifts were sent in November, delivered to the in-country team in December and they should have gotten them about the middle of the month. The child has two months (Dec+Jan) to send a thank you letter back to us. Roughly Feb 15th all of those legs of the gift+letter have expired at 74 days, we’re at 69 days for all of them.
Vacuumed the house today and we’re washing her masks. (She changes them every other day.)
Our neighbors brought over some food wrapped in corn husks. Apparently it is a Mexican delicacy to wrap corn meal in a moistened corn husk.
Sunday
Had to change the dispensers back to 8 doses per day. With the braces in place, she needed Tylenol more often than I had planned. (Ibuprofen would need her to take out her braces and wait 30 minutes to put them back in.)
Checked in with the HAM radio guys on the WW Net and talked to Paul for a good long while. We had scrambled eggs for breakfast with sausages.
Church service went well, we went to CVS and picked up a prescription for Amoxicillin that will carry us through the procedure on Wednesday. The question is that the Dentist prescribed 3PPD and the original prescription was for 2PPD that ends tomorrow morning. We did 3PPD for a couple days after the extraction and then dropped back down to 2PPD. I mistakenly read the dentist prescription as 2 pills, not 21 pills. LOL.
Up very early this morning trying to figure out the inflation for our gifts. It actually looks better than I had anticipated for all that’s happened since 2015 when we started our 2nd round of sponsorships. The conversion rate is better, but the cost of living has gone up some. I was surprised that the cost of rice hasn’t changed significantly. The 2nd surprise was that 80% of households have a smart phone which provides them Internet and emergency communications.
Took a shower and checked in on the WW Net using my HAM radio. We have a doc appointment today and it’s raining.
Doc appointment was very quick and traffic both ways was not really bad either. We’ve setup the stove to bake chicken breasts with mixed vegetables at 12:00.
I setup an Access Point on one of my laptops and used it to collect the traffic from the pill dispenser. It reaches out to a few places, none of them are in China. Amazon Web Services appear to host the server side of its network. It reaches out to a college in UT for the time server. The traffic is TLS encrypted so there’s nothing to be gained there.
Baked chicken breasts (From Aldi) with fried mixed vegetables was delicious lunch. We heated the plates in the oven and kept the chicken warm on the serving tray we got for Christmas.
I think that I’m doing ok, it still could use some improvement.
This is why we went to the doctor the other day. Picked up a prescription after I took a good long nap. My body has gotten flipped around and I stay awake at night and sleep soundly during the day.
Ham sandwich for supper with potato chips with catchup dip. Met up with the 2M Net on my gifted radio from Uncle Paul.
Tuesday
Woke about 7:30, but the WW Net was too crowded for me to get onto it this morning. I heard uncle Paul though. He called me afterwards and asked if I had ever heard of COVID toes?
We drove to the skin doctor, and he gave me a lesson on using the skin treatment he gave me last year. We didn’t get outta there until 11:30 so we didn’t have time to make dinner. Longhorn provided a delicious strawberry salad. We took a good long nap after that and then wrote Mariel a letter. We needed a few things at Wally World and her foot was still bothering her. I stopped by our friends house and picked up a book that she left there on Sunday. Wally World on Rockbridge Road did not have any Diet Coke or Normandy frozen vegetables. Boo!
Back home with a ham sandwich for supper and a few potato chips while we watched Castle. I guess I had too many of them or it was dipping them in Catchup because my Glucose was high…
Took my Glucose and it was 159 so I took a walk to lower it to 106. When I checked it 2 hours later it was back up to 150. Took a nice warm bath and it was down to 117. ADA recommends that we take our readings TWO hours after a meal or just before a meal (Fasting). The readings above are AFTER eating potato chips dipped in catchup, so I am not terribly concerned about them. Also, I found out today that the warning reading after a meal is 180 mg/dL. She eats little meals all day long so getting a fasting reading will have to be taken before breakfast.
Wednesday
Woke at 07:30 and easily checked in on the WW Net this morning. Had my cup of coffee with two hard boiled eggs and breakfast sausages. Wrote a letter to Josephine in PH to let her know we’ve changed our support. Took my morning pills and checked in with my sweetie on our plans for lunch.
Very Low voltage (24V@6W) wires to power our electric blankets. If the power goes out, we can run them on battery. (The house is wired for 24VDC.)
She purged and organized our pantry this morning.
Both of our Glucose were 117 right before lunch which was left over Chicken breasts and mixed vegetables. We’ve set an additional alarm for 3:30PM to capture an “After Eating” Glucose reading.
My glucose was 107 before supper, which was ham sandwich on rye bread. Silver needs two front tires, and blue has four good ones and a spare.
The 16 lug nuts on Silver need to be moved to Blue.
The four tires on Blue need to be moved to Silver.
Thursday
Up at 7AM and made her eggs for breakfast. She had already eaten cereal. When I mentioned eggs to her this morning, she brightened up and wanted some. It’s going to rain today which will hamper moving the tires between the cars. I guess I can move the lugs first without moving the tires since there are five lugs on the rim. It will cost $700 to fix the radiator on Blue. another 1,400 for the antilock brakes and the door seals are all gone.
The rain is to the west of us, and I should have good weather to move the tires around today. Went to Aldi for plus up groceries and meat. They really are just tossing things in the cart without looking at it. (Cept the eggs, they did separate those.)
Firestone wanted $400 for a pair of tires and a front-end alignment. I knew that I had at least 4 good tires on Blue to replace some of them.
The wear on Silver’s front tire looks perfect, especially considering I hadn’t rotated them. I honestly do not agree with Firestone that Silver needs a front-end alignment! (He just wanted to run up a billing?) It is just barely at the wear bars. The sides are worn because it’s a front tire or maybe that the pressure was a little low. The wear on the left side is possibly caused from tight turns where the vehicle weight has shifted off the tire during a turn. It does have a very small turning radius!
Lugs, sometime in Silver’s past she lost all of her lug nuts. (I assume that they took the tires from the vehicle while it was in California.) The lug nuts on Silver were 21mm and the 19mm lug wrench in the vehicle spare tire didn’t fit them. Today’s plan was to change out the 21mm lugs on Silver and use those to secure tires to the Blue Focus. Take the 19mm lugs from Blue and secure the good tires from Blue onto Silver. Starting with the repaired tire from Silver I kept walking lugs and tires until all the lug nuts from Blue were on Silver and all the lug nuts on Silver were on Blue.
Battery changeout, almost worked as planned LOL.
The first thing I did was put battery boxes on both cars to keep the stored computer data while the battery was out. Then I pulled both batteries and swapped them. The battery in Blue is less than a year old and the battery in Silver is 2007 version. When I turned on the ignition on Blue the radio had been reset. (Boo!) The 4A fuse to the battery box, blew meaning that I shorted the positive terminal of the battery during the installation of the battery in Blue. Silver did retain the settings, the stations in the radio were still there and the dashcam was still running. I even read the diagnostics from the computer and all the closed loops were “Ready”.
Watched Castle while we ate a ham sandwich on Rye bread. We had rice cakes with creme cheese for dessert.
Friday
Woke up around 7AM and checked for Paul on 10M using Reception report website. I lowered my power to 10W, and no one came back. I tried 20W and got a good signal report this morning.
This couch has not been cleared for at least 4 years.
Other than a box of recycling and tools, you can see the floor.
Had a salmon sandwich on rye and a few potato chips for lunch. She went out with a friend and had a great time. She loved all the work on the living room.
Her tooth started hurting so we were trying to figure out what’s going on when we looked at the clock. It’s 5:30 on a Friday, our options are rapidly diminishing. The decision was to go to a Doc in the Box and get some antibiotics for her tooth. When I tapped on the tooth with a pick she said that hurt… They gave us some Amoxicillin and sent us home. We had some stuff the dentist made me buy to reduce the infection and she took the first antibiotic. It was a simple task to add the antibiotics to the dispensers, the prescription was 2x a day.
Saturday
My feet were both bothering me at 1AM so I looked up diabetes and tingling feet. It talked about Glucose levels far higher than either of us, so I am not sure that’s a factor. I did put on some padded socks “Muck Lucks” and sprayed them with antifungal spray. It seems walking around in bare feet is undesirable for a good night’s sleep.
I didn’t hear Net Control and most of the relays this morning. I assume that the skip is long making communication with nearby stations difficult. I did hear Paul though, he sounded pretty good. I checked in using full power 90W with the difficulty reaching each other.
My Glucose is pretty consistent, unlike hers. Her tooth/braces were tolerable this morning after taking 2x 500mg Tylenol. She’s taken her 2nd antibiotic pill with her other pills this morning. We MUST follow the Invisalign procedures to make sure we get this infection under control, or she could lose her molar. (That means follow her procedure book, and not just what she can remember.)
Lunch was salmon, veggies and sweet potatoes excellent! 30 minutes to clean up the kitchen… Time to brush, floss and rinse before putting her trays back in. I surely get tired after eating a large meal!
She has an abscessed molar that we’ll have to get looked at. Best guess is that the Invisalign braces trapped some food against her gums over the last year.
It is going to be a very long wait, people have kids so sick they are hurling chunks. We left soon after that with a prescription for Hydro Codon’s that we can’t fill until tomorrow.
Sunday
She is still miserable this morning, the pharmacy doesn’t open until 11 AM. I checked in with WW Net and I heard Paul this morning. He called me a little later and I let him know about her situation. I plan on going there about 10:40 this morning. I cooked 5 eggs, sausage and a piece of rye toast for breakfast.
Beautiful clear day today, it’s been nice for several days this week.
Dropped off her prescription and they said it would take an hour, AKA 12 Noon. As luck would have it, it was actually ready. I stopped by BK for lunch on the way home. She took the first round of meds, and we headed down for a nap.
We spent the entire evening trying to find anything that would lessen the pain to no avail. Her 2nd pill was taken a bit early at 5 so that the third pill would be at 11PM instead of Midnight. 11PM went very well, she took 400mg of Ibuprofen and soundly took a nap until 11PM alarm. She may wake up and need another 2x 200mg before 5 tomorrow morning.
