Up at 7:30 and helped her with zipping up her boots. I also peeled the aluminum foil from her medicine pack for her foot.
The pill tray is working out great, I turned off the audio alarm since Alexa goes off at 9:15 anyways.
Turning on the fan increased the run time of the heater at 17 degrees outside. It didn’t change the target temperature of the supply air, but the differential dropped by about 7 degrees. The thermostat cycles at 15 minutes and run time is determined by heat requested.
With all the doors closed, the small bedrooms stay pretty warm. There’s only one supply vent to the living room. (That’s why it is so cold.) It is mostly heated/cooled by the return air of the other rooms.
With 17 degree temperatures the interesting tidbit is that the Master bedroom is by far the longest duct in our home. The temp is mitigated using four small heaters to keep the room above 72 degrees. The Master bedroom supply is significantly different compared to the small bedroom next to the air handler.
Chicken breasts for lunch after the Trump Inauguration with veggies. I tried cooking them in the microwave and they were comparable to the steamed ones. We went to the doctor to talk about our Glucose levels, and he was not concerned about an A1C of 6.3. So, we’ll keep checking and he’ll get back with us about the bloodwork.
We had a sandwich and watched the news for a little while. Then one show of Castle and we were done for the day.
Tuesday
It’s about 20 degrees outside and the heater has been running about 45% of the time. It never got above 31 degrees outside today. We didn’t get much accomplished before going to the Doctor at 3 PM. Dinner was Salmon with veggies served on warmed plates out of the oven. Doctor prescribed a medication to help her with her A1C which was 6.6. We have to cut the pills in half and that left two sharp edges on them.
But we put them in the carousel for tomorrow morning.
I had ordered another dispenser for me, but cancelled the $180 order once I saw one for $25 on EBAY. They also make a Bluetooth model, I was wondering if that would be more secure than attaching it to my network???
Wednesday
Baby it’s COLD outside this morning.
She ran a load of clothes, but I reminded her that the temp is only 15 degrees outside. Running the dryer at these temps puts a large load on the grid.
We laid them out on the bed to dry for an hour or so. We finished them off in the dryer, took maybe 5 minutes.
We took our Glucose at 9AM, hers was 126 and mine was 116. She took her first pill this morning so I am curious what the readings will be tomorrow.
Our street is covered in ice this morning, we’re staying put.
It’s amazing how quickly the heater responds to the outside temperature.
Took a GOOD LONG nap and I am trying to get organized. I ordered another pill dispenser, but I am thinking I should order two. That way we always have 14 days of pills in those trays!
Got to get ready for church services tonight and a doctor appointment tomorrow.
Thursday
Doc appointment first thing in the morning, we sipped on a cup of coffee while the car warmed up and melted the ice on the windows. Traffic was lighter than expected and the office visit went well. We purchased McDonalds for breakfast on the way home. We gathered our insulated bags and headed off to Wally World for staples we were seriously low on. (The ice storm disrupted our Tuesday trip.) Wally World was a little busier than expected, but it didn’t take very long. We put the frigerated food away and laid down for a quick nap before heading out to lunch at Longhorn’s #2. Back home we unloaded the staples out of the car and did some house chores like washing our CPAP masks and other parts. (I still need to wash our hoses and that’s a chore!)
Friday
Up at 7AM because we forgot to turn off the alarms we used yesterday. The pill dispenser batteries died last night, and it didn’t rotate to the morning slot this morning.
I apparently didn’t read the directions where it says to keep it plugged in in a USB-C power source. We don’t use standard USB wall chargers and cables for charging here in our homestead. Instead, we use DC-DC converters that can use a single 18V wall charger for the Echo Show to power five or six devices. They also allow the power source to be a very large distance from the pill dispenser. (The voltage drop is no longer a factor.)
My glucose was 126 and hers was over 200 even with the medicine this morning.
My firewalls (Both of them) were upgrading their firmware today, that took down the cascaded firewall I was using temporarily until I moved the network devices from it. Both the FortiGate 60D’s I was using are now powered but retired and the third is in a box. If I need more networks (Unlikely) I’ll setup V-LANs on a network switch. I caused a bit of trouble by setting up a VLAN on a switch port and ended up disabling the switchport itself while deleting the VLAN. I have one switchport and the DMZ ports left on the FortiGate 60F on Comcast.
I spent an hour or so adding the additional checks and tasks to my daily routine in my personal Daytimer. (Her procedure book has a similar page.)
There was too much to remember every day between both of us.
We had fish and veggies for lunch. Went to ALDI’s for a few things including meat for suppers. You just cannot purchase a lot of items at a time there. The checkout counters are maybe 4 feet. Bring your own bags and have a quarter to get the cart with. A very pregnant woman let us in line in front of her. It was one of those strange moments where she clearly had the need to get out of the store. But she chose to follow us through the checkout line instead. I don’t know if we followed her whether we’d had the opportunity to pay her bill. But her pregnancy gave her the power to place herself in the line wherever she chose to be. We rewarded her with $20 gift as we left the store. When I offered to take her cart back to the store we found out that it made her day because she had lost her job.
Ham sandwich for supper with some potato chips with Catchup to munch on while we watched TV.
My 7 Day average is 115, 14 day is 115, 30 day is 118
Her 7 Day average is 165, 14 day is 162, 30 day is 144
We received more supplies today. EBAY has them for about half the price of Amazon.
The three pill dispensers I ordered from EBAY are delayed until tomorrow.
Her left thumb was bothering her tonight. It’s something that was mentioned at our last doctor visit, but that visit was generally BOTH hands. Tonight, it was only the knuckle of the LEFT thumb that was bothering her. It also seemed to me to be damage to the knuckle as it significantly hurt her to bend it sideways. It didn’t hurt the other thumb or my two thumbs. We ARE getting beyond/past having the tingling fingers bother her.
Saturday
Up about 7:30 and checked into the WW net with the HAM radio guys. Drank a couple of cups of coffee while I shopped around for another humidifier from Amazon. We lost one of our gold filters for the coffee maker, so I had to buy a couple more of them.
The pill dispensers that I should have received on Friday arrived today. I also found out why they were so cheap on EBAY. (They are OLD) Kathy’s spare is at least four years old, both of mine are at least two years old. Kathy’s is current because we spent $180.00 on it. The dispensers have the ability to upgrade the firmware, but all of them displays that no upgrade is available. Norton AV refused my attempt to open their website. Next step is to use a Raspberry Pi to open the website and determine what support they provide for these devices. $180 is a hefty price tag for a product that the company is an LLC held by a holding company so that they would have a USA footprint.
It is a vulnerability to have devices on your network that do not have their security updates. I eventually put them on their own wireless using a VPN off our network, that way I do not have to worry about them.
All set, for the month.
We didn’t have our usual meal for lunch, so we snacked a little more than usual today.
My glucose was 127 and hers was 142
I am almost believing that her memory has gotten better over the last couple of weeks. Her tingling fingers is also gone. She still cannot answer how many nickels are in a dollar. 10?
Sunday
Up very early this morning, updating a laptop for use at today’s service. Researching how to protect my network devices from these pill dispensers. The latest idea is to attach these pill dispensers to the “Guest” network on my routers. (Which they don’t seem to have anymore.) My glucose is 134, so maybe I’ll go light on breakfast. Shower time….
Church services and lunch went very well, I had a good time. Dinner amounted to ham sandwiches and other items that would be served at a business lunch. I slept for HOURS after getting home from church services. We brought home a whole tray of vegetables and dip, which ended up getting eaten for our Supper meal.
My Glucose was 107 hers was 96 tonight after eating veggies with dip.