Squirrel!

So this morning I took Sweet Pea to the yard to perform her a.m. ablutions.  Such a good girl (or needy girl) she quickly took care of business and I called her to the tree.  Now our adorable Sweet Pea is an accomplished escape artist.  We have done everything (everything) to contain the dog in our fenced in back yard.  Nothing worked.  She always found a way out.  Finally in desperation we decided we would have to NEVER let her outside w/o being restrained in some manner.

We have a tree in the center of the yard (it is now our dog tree).  Around the tree we put a chain and secured it with a padlock so we could adjust the slack in the chain according to how fast the tree grew.  To one end of the chair we secured a 25' metal cable encased in plastic.  It has those hooky things on both ends.  One end we hooked to the dog tree; the other to the dog's collar.  This gave some room and she still can reach about 1/2 of the back yard.  We hated doing this but our experience with her let us know we had no other option.  It has worked pretty good, mostly.

But, back to this morning.  The long cable was in a nice circle pattern.  It happens.  I was standing right in the middle of it.  I called Sweet Pea to come ("come tree") and she came up to me and just gingerly gaze over at whatever she was looking at while completely ignoring me.  I reached down to fasten her leash to her collar and unhook the cable.  That's when she saw it... and

SQUIRREL!  She was gone.  The cable snapped against my leg and I doubled over in pain.  I admit freely that I bawled like a little sissy girl.  And then I bawled some more.  Seriously, I was in a lot of pain.  I finally got smart and began praying because I was having a hard time putting any weight on the injured leg.  I asked God to just help me get into the house and He did.  The phone was ringing as I opened the door.  My sister, Phyllis, was calling wanting to catch me before I left for work.  I was still crying and she consoled me and soon I was able to stop blubbering.

When I got off the phone I went to check the leg.  The top layer of skin was off... and a huge red welt remained undrr the skin.  At least I wasn't bleeding.  My leg had a lump (not goose egg, more like ostrich or so it seemed to me) and everything was turning purple.  I just wanted to be able to walk enough to get to work.  That's when I asked for prayer from my FB contacts and got it together and headed off to work.

The day is done.  The prayers supported me and I was able to do my job and by day's end the pain was mostly gone when I stood on my leg.  I am thankful; for prayer support... for a God who hears and mostly because this could have been much worse.  At first I feared the bone could be broken; you know old people's bones break easily.

That's  it.  Not really exciting...  but, you really have to watch out for those squirrels when walking a dog...

This is it... warning.  it is gross.

Me and the Wheelchair

Sunday while visiting with my Mom I managed to get into a wrestling match with her chair; wheelchair, that is! My shoe somehow got caught by the chair and all I could see was me doing a sommersalt over the seat and winding up in some awkward position in the floor from where I would cry out in my most dignified, embarrassed voice "call 911!" As exciting as this image seemed in that second, I determined I'd keep on my feet no matter what. I did while feeling my foot develop some kind of OW!OW!OW! DAMMIT! OW! That hurts! sensation.

I had been moving the chair to get it out of the way; we were headed out to lunch with Mom. I was sure I would have a sore foot but didn't think much more about it. By the time we went to the car after lunch, I was having trouble walking. Jamelah left me in the car and took Mom back to her apartment and got her settled in. When we got home, I pulled off my shoe expecting to see some mangled mess, but nothing different. I took my Sunday afternoon nap and when I woke up I stood up only to find I could not stand any weight on my foot at all. I cried like a sissy little girl then I yelled at Jamelah for help. I had to pee and I wasn't sure I could make it to the bathroom. I sent her to my sister's house to borrow Phyllis's old walker and she brought it back and I was able to hobble in to the bathroom.

Bathrooms are made for getting great ideas and I had one. I remembered the vicadan (I know this is spelled wrong, spellchecker; get over it. I'm not going to look it up. everyone knows what I'm talking about) the dentist had given me when I had a root canal the previous fall. Yes! So, off I went to sleep. That was a good idea. We entertained the idea of heading for the ER but they prefer you to see your primary care doctor so I thought I'd just wait and call the doctor first thing in the morning for an appointment; the pain med was working just fine; no hurry. I still had 1/2 bottle of vicadan left.

Morning came and I began the calls to the doctor's office (Dr. Burkhardt is an orthopedic surgeon who did both my knees and few other odd jobs on me. He and I are on a first name basis now.) Seriously, the soonest they could get me in was 3:30 on Thursday. My foot could be broken but I would have to wait until Thursday to get an appointment. I told them I was not picky I'd be completely happy to see the PA. I just needed to get my foot xrayed to see if I had broken it. Well, she explained to me again: the soonest they would have someone in the office to approve the order for an xray would be Thursday afternoon at 3:30. If I wanted an xray before then, I'd have to go to xpress care or see my primary care doctor. "Thanks" hmmmmmmmmmmm. I made the appointment. I called my Primary care doctor. She would see me at 3:30 Monday afternoon. If they had a cancellation they would give me a call to come in sooner.

Dr. Johnson and her staff were extremely sweet to me and mentioned the word "stubborn" a couple times especially when she asked me how I had gotten to her office and I looked at her rather perplexed and said "I drove, I didn't walk!" I had not taken any vicodan all day just so I could drive and I figured that I'd have to drive myself to Marshall and get xrayed after she got through with me because that's how that works. The Albion clinic would be closed by the time I got out my appt with her.

All true except going in for the xray part. She did not give me a slip for an xray: she sent me straight to ... you guessed it ... the ER! and told me not to get someone else to drive me there. Luckily my nephew had stopped over and was helping with "stuff" before his ISOM class at New Hope, so he drove me to the ER and abandoned me there (not really). Jamelah would stop for me on her way home from work in Battle Creek.

I explained how I had lost the match with my mom's chair to the staff at the hospital. For some reason they found me slightly amusing and took really good care of me. After the xrays were completed the doctor told me I had been wrong. The chair did not win; my foot did. I was a bit confused by this and he laughed and said "your foot won; not the chair. Fortunately for you, there are no broken bones, just bad bruising. It should heal quickly and you'll be fine." Yea! and with a new script of vicadan (however you spell it; no one can spell it right when taking the stuff. I'll look it up later). Jamelah had arrive by then. She hadn't had supper so we headed through Wendy's drive thru and I got a Frosty. Wouldn't you say I deserved one by this time?

My foot hurts and I'm trying to get back up to my regular speed quickly. I have to work Thursday. I don't have time to gimp about. But, it looks like I will be "gimpy" for a while now. Just thankful that my foot won and not the chair.

The Old Woman & the I-Pod

My daughter gave me her I-Pod when she purchased a new I-phone Simply because she used the phone for everything including her music and didn't use
I-pod any more. My computer had become problematic and a technician had installed a new operating system which left the I-tunes she had loaded on it inoperable. I asked her to put it on my new operating system but she explained to me how these work and the fact that she could not install it but just so many times and she was about out of the ability to do so and had to save her one last installation in case her computer crashed again and she would have to buy a new one. So, anyway, I got the I-Pod so I could listen to I-tunes. Yippee Skippee!

Then today I had a doctor's appointment. I decided I'd take the I-Pod with me since I knew I'd be sitting there a loooonnnnnggggg time. I practiced playing Angry Birds at home to make sure I could actually do it on the device. I could. All was well. I stuck the gadget in my pocket and off I went. Sure enough I had to wait. I pulled out my new toy and opened Angry Birds and was ready for some fun and games. Unfortunately, it was ornery on me. It just would not let me fire my damn bird at the stupid pigs. They kept just plopping down on the ground and another one would jump right up in the sling and I was talking to the stupid birds and trying to figure out why my shooter was being so mean to me. I tried to back out and reload the game and somehow wound up turning on the speaker and some girl starting seranading me at the top of her lungs. Nice of her, but I do not have earbuds on and I'm in the doctor's office. This is not the time for a private concert. Of course I know the right thing to do is to simply turn off the music. So I did.... try. That is. I tried. I kept hitting all the buttons on the screen. I hit the back button, I hit something else. I hit "settings." Nothing there about the volume. I tried turning if off. It kept singing. Seriously. Singing more and more loudly.

And then they called my name. I stuck the stupid, consarned noise maker in my purse hoping everything in it would drown the sound. Got out of my seat and started up the hall to the open door and the waiting nurse. (A new one, a young man named Pat). He said "I believe your phone is ringing," because honestly, the purse did not drown out the sound. "No" I said that is not my phone. I pulled out the naughter device and said, "I can't figure out how to turn it off." He laughed and said, as I handed the obnoxious device to him and he immediately disciplined it and it shut right up. He handed it back to me and I sat it in the corner of my purse. He said "I just hit the pause button. I'll show you how it works when we get in the room." Once we were in the examining room he took it back and gave me a brief lesson on the correct way to control and I-pod. My, I have never learned so much in a doctor's office before. I feel it was time well spent.

Aside from that; I got an excellent report from the doctor. I sure am a fine old woman and becoming more and more technically savvy every day.