Still Around

It has been an interesting period.  About the time I wrote the last post, I was about as miserable as i have ever been, and Janet was about in the same shape.  We still had commitments to go to a time share in Florida which we love, and we had all kinds of other medical things going on.  We went to see the acupuncturist in Savannah and began some of our really crumby adventures. 

On the way to Savannah a truck ahead of us dropped a large piece of steel off the back (as an old railroad man, it looked like a three or four foot piece of rail track).  In spite of my best efforts, I ran over the dang thing with my “drivers side” wheels and knew immediately that we had blown two tires.  I pulled off the road to the center of the expressway, and stopped till I had enough break in traffic to thump across the road when we could be on the shoulder of the road.  I then noticed another car pulling off behind us, and discovered that they too had hit the steel.

I called AAA and waited for about two hours before the tow truck came (I don’t know what happened to the other car, but it was still sitting by the side of the road when we departed.)  The tow truck driver asked where I would like the car towed, and I said, “probably to your shop, I presume you will have tires”.

He replied that tires were not enough, that the front driver’s side wheel had been broken in half and we would need to go somewhere where they could get new wheels as well.  I had him take me to the Savannah Mazda dealer (we were riding in a 2005 Mazda, that we paid too much for)

We got to the Mazda dealership where we discovered that new tires (darn low profile things would be 250 bucks apiece and the wheels would be about the same (we bought cheaper tires than the original Mazda times.)  After missing the acupuncture appointment, by about six PM we were headed home in a rental car (a brand new Mazda)  The ensuing month has been one of the more miserable of my life.

My skeleton is a mess.  I have no rotator cuffs in my shoulders, (repairable with a “reverse shoulder replacement—just the kind of fun a seventy seven –going on seventy eight year old looks forward to).  No discs between the lower four lumbar vertebrae and when my hip started hurting whenever I tried to get out of a chair, I decided that a trip to our handy dandy orthopedist was in line.  I discovered that I now have arthritis in the rest of the spine creating scoliosis  (My hip x-rays were “pristine”) and I have been placed in the hands of a pain management specialist who, after some more tests, is going to shoot my spinal column with “heaven knows what” that will make my spine and hip quit hurting.  A couple of cortisone shots in the shoulders has fixe the shoulders enough that I can put on my shirt by myself, but in large it hasn’t been a fun month.  (They did get the car fixed and realigned after only two  and a half weeks and almost three thousand dollars (Thank Heaven for insurance)

We have committed to go to Washington for the farewell of my grandson who is going on a Mormon Mission to the Ukraine, and too a high school sixtieth reunion and to a family reunion (all of these out west in Washington, Idaho, and Utah)  We have also pre-paid for a cruise and a couple of bonus time share weeks in the next eight months.  I am feeling a little better and Janets thumb replacement is less painful but she is in pain everywhere.  It is really something that shakes us both up when only two months ago, after acupuncture etc,.we both were feeling better than we had felt in a couple of years.

Right now, we are trying to figure out if we can do any of those things.  One shouldn’t commit to things very far in the future when you get to the three score and ten, and more stage.  We are praying about it, checking  airline prices (We have mutually decided that if we tried to drve to these places, we would have to pack our orthopedist and some other doctors in a trailer and haul them with us, to survive.)

I am digging though my historical notes to try to fine something entertaining for my next post.  I think it may involve my son’s new  (well, newish) three legged dog which is a delight, especially if she comes to visit when Roscoe, my daughter’s basset hound is here for a few days.

I will avoid writing about my new kidney doctor, who went almost out of his office window when he discovered that, for my shoulders, I have been taking five hundred milligrams of Naproxen each morning and each night for over twenty years.  OH well, nobody is perfect.