Category Archives: Bad Days

Never Again…

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It’s been a rough week. Physically and mentally. Draining. Not that busy mind you, but for my pain-laden body it’s been a bit too much.

On Tuesday, I had a curbside order to pick up and they must’ve had troubles that day because after I checked in, I had to wait for 20 minutes before they even acknowledged I was there. Then it was another 10 minutes before my groceries came out. No big deal really. I know shit happens. It’s just the waiting. I’ve never been good at waiting. On the way home I must have got behind every slow driver in the county! Good grief. I’m sure most of those people think it’s safer to drive slow – FOR THEM maybe, but not for other drivers. Other drivers, like me, will sometimes get impatient and pass in the wrong places. I have passed where it is not advisable but I only pass if can see far enough ahead that there is no oncoming traffic. I just hate getting behind someone doing 25-30 in a 55!! Anyway, I finally made it home only to have to unload the groceries I just picked up. Now my knees were killing me.

Wednesday began with me trying to figure out how I was going to get Alice to the vet for her yearly check-up and vaccinations without her hiding from me. Last month, she knew something was up because the carrier was out and she saw that I was getting ready to go somewhere. She hid under my bed so I took Jack to the vet instead. No big deal, but she had to go eventually. So, in order to trick her, I wore my sweatpants and I didn’t style my hair. Boy, did I feel like a slob! The carrier has been sitting out since last month so she was used to seeing it. She didn’t have a clue what was going on and she came right to me and I picked her up and put her in the carrier. Of course, she put up a little bit of a fight but I got her in there! She weighs 16 lbs. now and Dr. Missy gave her the dewormer I brought because I could never get pills down her throat. She would always gag them back up. Too expensive to waste them! I was able to deworm Jack and BobCat with no trouble. Anyway, that was the end of that but by the time I got home, I was exhausted.

Thursday was by far, the MOST aggravating day of the week! Dad and I had our appointment at the Health Department for the newest COVID-19 vaccine. That went pretty smoothly but then Dad saw the sign that read “Get Your Shingles Vaccine Today” and we both needed to get the shingles vaccine so I inquired at the window and a nurse took our insurance cards so we could set up an appointment, but my insurance won’t cover it and they are out of the state-provided vaccine (that would be free for me) so I have to go somewhere else. Dad has an appointment next month because his insurance covers the vaccine. After an hour of waiting and being informed of this and that, we were finally done and left. That’s when the fun started. Ha. I decided I wanted to pop into Walmart to pick up ONE thing and get some cash back. I haven’t been to Walmart in a couple of years! And maybe only twice since COVID-19 began. Luckily they had scooters available and I grabbed one with 100% power, if you can believe that! But the POS kept stopping as I was moving along. Do you know how irritating that is? Then as I was headed to the front of the store, some guy walked out in front of me as if I wasn’t even there! He didn’t even acknowledge what he did. I should have just ran into him instead of being the “nice guy” and stopping abruptly. After picking up more things than I really wanted, I was ready to check out and Dad was tired as hell. Check-out went smoothly. Afterward, we headed out the door but the fucking scooter decided to STOP again just as I was going through the doors. I had people behind me wanting out the door but the scooter wouldn’t budge. I was furious! And then to make me nearly come unhinged, a Walmart employee yells at me very loudly, “You have to use the controls!” I just about lost my shit! I yelled back, “I AM using the controls! How the hell do you think I got to this point? You moron!” I know. It was rude of me but geez, do these people think that disabled people are stupid or something? He could have assisted me since he was aware that I was having a problem but no, he just yelled at me. I was so painfully aware of people behind me wanting out the door and I was extremely frustrated. I told Dad to give me a push to see if the damn scooter would move and it still wouldn’t budge. Somehow, I did get out of the door and to the edge of the parking lot. I knew that if I tried to cross the lot to get to the car it was just going to stop again and I didn’t want to be stranded in the middle of the parking lot waiting to be run over! I asked Dad to grab the shopping basket that someone abandoned parked to my right. I got off of the scooter, loaded my stuff into the shopping basket, and Dad pushed the cart while I hobbled on my crutches to the car. I hope to never HAVE to go inside a Walmart again as long as I live!

I am so worn out today and in pain, too. My arm is sore as hell from the COVID-19 vaccine. I can barely walk and I still had to fix lunch. I also have laundry and other chores to do but you know what? It can all just sit and wait until I feel like doing it. On the bright side, I managed to finish my latest grandbaby’s baby blanket so I can send it home with my son today when he’s done working on the new house. I actually finished the blanket last night but I had to wash and dry it before giving it away! I’m adding a couple photos to this post. I don’t know how good they are since the lighting is shit in my house. The colors are Light Sage, Blue Spruce, Gray Mist, and Antique White, and are much brighter than the photos show! The lower left-hand corner looks a bit wonky but I just didn’t have it spread out properly.

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A Long Post About Procrastination, Being Sick, and Me Not Knowing Anything Because I’m A Woman! Ugh!

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Well, I was on an 18-day streak until yesterday. I just didn’t have time to write, but there’s a perfectly good explanation for that.

Many, many months ago I told Dad that we needed to get the brakes on the car looked at because when it’s coming to a stop, you can feel the brakes jerking. I know nothing about it but it was like it would catch and then slip, catch and then slip, until the car finally stopped. Now, I have had the brakes go out on me back in 2008 at an intersection and it was scary as hell! I didn’t especially want that to happen again! Anyway, I kept telling him, week after week, for months that this needed to be taken care of before it got worse. Months and months before that I was reminding him that the car was due for an oil change, according to the sticker they put in the window. If procrastination was a sport, Dad would get a gold medal.

He finally decided to make an appointment. Well, that was last week and they changed the oil and wiper blades as we requested but the brakes were so messed up that we had to bring the car back in…yesterday morning at 8 a.m. Which meant we had to get up at 6 a.m. to be ready to leave by 7 a.m. I am not much of a morning person, especially that early!

So, we sat there in the Ford place and while sitting there I started feeling really crappy. I had been having sinus issues for a week or so but yesterday, it turned into more. More on that later. They finally finished the car around 2 p.m. They replaced the wiper fluid mechanism that was damaged during a hail storm a few months back and there was an issue with the fuel injectors and some other shit I know nothing about. Anyway, the cost of everything that had to be done was $2,273!! The brakes are what did it. I asked Dad if perhaps if they had been looked at months ago, would it not have cost so much? He agreed, and then to my surprise, he admitted that it was his own damn fault.

This whole “cost too much money” episode reminds me of several times in the past when Dad procrastinated to the point that it cost him more in the end to fix the problem. Like the slow leak under the kitchen sink… I told him I thought it was the porcelain sink rusting around the drain. Of course, being a woman I don’t know a Goddam thing and he said that just because there’s rust doesn’t mean it’s leaking. Duh, right?

Ok, fast forward, the leak got worse and it became obvious that the leak was indeed due to the rust around the drain because we could now see the damn hole! It cost him over $400 to replace the sink, the plumbing, and the bottom of the cabinet underneath the sink. He and my son did the work so there were no labor costs involved. That was a long time ago so you can imagine the cost these days! Another time, and this will blow your freaking mind, we had a small hairline crack in the bottom of our fiberglass tub/shower unit. I told Dad we needed to find some kind of glue or epoxy or something before the crack got worse. In Walmart, I happened to find a glue made especially for fiberglass tubs. It was $10 and Dad said, “That’s too much money for glue and it probably won’t work anyway.” Okay….so let’s not do anything at all, right? Well, that’s what we did and that crack turned into a little dime-sized hole. Then it grew into a 3-inch hole!

Dad told us all (my kids were not yet out on their own) to just straddle the hole when we take a shower. Holy crap! What about all the water draining out of that 3-inch hole and going under the tub? I don’t even remember how long we showered like that but it was a long time before Dad decided to replace the tub. He also had to replace the flooring under the tub, for obvious reasons. That whole project cost him around $700 and it was he and my son doing the work. That was back in the 90s, so that’s cheap compared to what it would cost now! But that glue would have been a cheaper solution if used right away! About a year after he replaced the tub/shower unit, it got a tiny crack in the bottom AGAIN! I told him it was probably caused by not being level but of course, what the fuck do I know? Anyway, I went out and got that damn glue that cost a little more than it did when I pointed it out to him before, and I brought it home. I followed the instructions and sealed that crack! It’s been years now and it hasn’t changed. No leaks.

Back to the Ford place now. By the time we left, I was exhausted and felt like “pounded pig shit” as we say in my house. We stopped for some Mexican food because we hadn’t eaten all day but I didn’t enjoy it at all. I just wanted to sleep because I felt so awful. Dad just got over the worst part a couple of days prior from the same thing and now I had it. When we got home, I fed my furbabies, changed my clothes, and hit my lift chair. I tried to sleep but I had the chills. I was so cold! For 2 hours I tried to sleep it off but I never did get warm enough to sleep. I tried to work on my jigsaw puzzle later but I just couldn’t concentrate. My head was throbbing. I ached from head to foot, especially my shoulders from tensing up while I was trying to get warm, I think. I laid back down in my chair and took my temperature. It was 103.4 – no wonder I was feeling so crappy! I finally got my fever down to normal around 10pm but I still had that damn headache! I got to thinking it was probably from caffeine withdrawal because I hadn’t had but a glass of iced tea with lunch. I didn’t dare drink any coffee before we left the house or even on the drive. My bladder isn’t very cooperative these days.

So here I sit with coffee in hand, hoping the caffeine takes the headache away! It has helped but I still feel like crap. Dad says he has a sore throat and that he’s on the mend and I’m glad for that because he’s 86 years old and doesn’t need to end up in the hospital. I don’t want to be in the hospital, either but I’ll be back to normal, whatever that is, in a few days.

What the Literal F*ck Just Happened?

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It has been a long and grueling week and I’m done with it. Turns out that the family I thought I had for moral support, just took a huge dump on me. I’m a strong person otherwise I wouldn’t be here right now, but even strong people need someone to talk to on occasion. I have been accused of several things but the one thing that hurt me the most was being accused of bullying Dad. I will never forgive them for that. It was uncalled for and came from a place of not knowing what the fuck they were talking about. 

Seems that certain family members have forgotten about all of the help and moral support they received from me over the years. When I need nothing from them except a little understanding and support in return, I get shit on and told that all I do is whine and complain. Let me see them go through what I go through without complaining or even occasionally whining. I always thought that with family, I’d have a safe place to vent; to express my concerns, my anger, my fears, and to complain without being shit on, regardless. Boy, was I wrong.

Apparently, I am refusing help because I won’t move to another state and start all over. Like I’m supposed to do what they say?? Dad doesn’t want to move. I sure as hell am not going to leave him behind! Shitting on me is sure not going to convince me to move – as if they’d be there for me even then. Ha!

More shit hit the fan than I care to share, because God Forbid, I might be whining! Insert eye roll here.  

Misery

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my current situation. There’s one word to accurately describe how I feel. Miserable.

I have never been so miserable in all of my life. I’ve been through some rough times: emotionally, mentally, and physically rough. From childhood to adulthood, and beyond, I have had some serious situations arise. I have dealt with some traumatic issues and come through them all. I suppose I’ll come through this, too. But when? I don’t see much improvement until the new house is finished.

The issues at the moment are dealing with an elderly father 24/7 and my own pain and mobility issues. Dad is 86 years old and sometimes reminds me of a toddler. One day he likes something and the next day, he doesn’t. Or the other way around. He has to have his chocolate drink at lunchtime and if I give him prune juice instead (because he’s bitching about being constipated) he gets his briefs in a knot. He sometimes wants something and when I order it, he loses it or never uses it because he doesn’t remember why he would want that. He watches the news all day long so I sit in the kitchen at my laptop. I can’t stand to hear the news all damn day! When he lets me find something else to watch, he bitches and moans at my choice, and rolls his eyes repeatedly. His usual bedtime is 10pm. However, recently he has been staying up until sometimes midnight! That’s about the time I start getting ready for bed so I have no time to destress, unwind and watch tv without hearing him bitch the entire time. I need that time, even though it’s just 2 hours, to clear my head and not be completely focused on what he’s doing and where he’s at (because he tends to fall). At least when he goes to bed, I know where he is and that he’s not going to fall down! So, when he stays up late, I’m agitated. I go to bed agitated and wake up agitated. I sleep in my power chair in the living room (if I can sleep at all) because I can’t sleep in my bed. I am trying to save money to get an adjustable bed so that I can at least be in my room and semi-comfortable.

On top of all of the agitation of dealing with an aging father, and pain and mobility issues that make everything difficult for me to do, the house is literally falling apart. A couple of weeks ago, the ceiling in the bathroom fell in. It just got so wet from all the leaks in there that it couldn’t take the weight.  It was just yesterday that my son was able to come over and cover the roof and hopefully, it will be ok until he can do more work. The house is crumbling. It’s very stressful and need I say uncomfortable?

It’s very easy to slip into depression and never come out of it. I am miserably uncomfortable. I’ve always been a pretty positive person. I used humor to get through the rough shit in my life but it’s hard to find humor in the situation at hand. I get tired of people telling me to be more positive as if that’s going to improve the situation. Sorry, but even if I were the most positive person in the world, it wouldn’t change anything. I am as positive as anyone would be in this situation! In fact, I think I’m more positive than someone else would be if they had to deal with the same issues, so forgive me if I sound like a bitch when I snap…and I will snap sooner or later.

Signing off for now before I have an aneurysm…

aunt-debbie

What’s Eating Aunt Debbie?

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Well, let me tell you. PAIN.

Last week, I called in my prescription medications. I was waiting for my NP to approve one script that had no more refills and then I was going to call Walmart and have them ship my meds as I normally do.

Stupid me didn’t realize I was nearly out of my pain medication! That was late Friday. I started to panic because we were expecting snow on Saturday. I couldn’t go out and pick up my meds in person because I didn’t know how much snow we would actually get. I called Walmart yesterday to have them ship; they will go out today.

I had 2 pain pills left, one to be taken every 12 hours. So, I’ve had to ration. I took one Saturday night and my pain level wasn’t too bad. I saved my last one for tonight. I only took Tylenol Arthritis last night and my pain level is UP. With any luck, FedEx will come tomorrow! Usually, they’re pretty quick.

Then, I began to panic again because my daughter mentioned MLK Day and wondered if FedEx would even run today! I googled it and apparently, FedEx and UPS both will run, while the USPS observes the holiday.

The sun is out, trying to melt the snow and the road looks pretty good, but I’d probably get stuck in the yard if I tried to get the car out. (We don’t have a traditional driveway.) It’s 44 degrees at the moment but it seems much colder when there’s snow on the ground.

Wish me luck. I can’t function well with no pain meds to dull the pain.

P.S. Don’t think that I am an addict because I am not. There’s a difference between addiction and dependency. I am dependent on pain meds to be able to function. There is no euphoria involved. I have to make that clarification because “a friend” had accused me of being a drug addict some time ago. That person is no longer in my circle.