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Post by berkley on Dec 1, 2022 1:43:11 GMT -5
All condolences for your loss, Codystarbuck.
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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 1, 2022 21:05:46 GMT -5
Hiya, kids. Just got home a few hours ago after spending two days lying on a gurney in a side hallway of Tacoma General Hospital's emergency ward. (It was Hallway 64, to be precise. I wanted to make jokes about "Hallway 64 Revisied" but I knew the young whippersnappers tending to me wouldn't get it.) I ended up at the ER because A) my COVID symptoms were worsening by the hour and B) there was nobody to take care of me who wasn't already sick or had loved ones at home with compromised immune systems who couldn't afford to catch this crap. That remained the situation until this afternoon when I contacted my DSHS caseworker and made arrangements for a substitute caregiver until such time as Kay can come back to work. If she can't... well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. In the meantime, I'm functioning on about 3 hours' sleep over the last 72 houes and I'm on the verge of utter exhaustion so...
Cei-U! I summon the little cups of lime Jell-O!
By the way, if it seems like I'm being a trifle glib about this ordealand its aftershocks, it's only because the news about cody's wife put it all back into its proper perspective.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 2, 2022 8:58:09 GMT -5
My sleep cycle is all messed up. I crashed at around 9:30 and woke up at 4:00 am, to go to the bathroom, snoozed until about 5:30, then couldn't get back to sleep. The cats weren't happy that their mattress was getting up before the sun.
At the hospital, since Sunday night, I had slept on this little two-seat couch, with a wooden table slab between the two seating sections. I tried stretching out on it, but the wood jammed against my ribs too much. I managed about 2 hours sleeping on it, though. I then tried sleeping in a seated position, with my jacket as a pillow (and back cushion) and my feet propped on a chair. That worked okay, though I'd be in an out of sleep, as nurses came in to administer medication or check blood sugar or change the dressing on Barb's arm (from the surgery to relieve a hematoma, from her pick line). Then, on the last night, one of the nurses told me the back rest of the couch actually folded down to provide a mattress, for a mini-bed and got me some bed linens and blanket & pillow. Nobody else ever said a word! Also turned out that the wooden slap was a table that had a release, which allowed you to raise it up, to create a little dining table, between the two seat sections. I had just been using the little desk/counter.
If I hadn't been distracted I probably would have discovered the couch features, on my own. As it was, I had learned to sleep just about anywhere, in the military. As a midshipman, we even slept on our little fold-down desks, in the assigned staterooms (I was on an LST and stayed in the embarked Marine Officer's Staterooms), with a pillow on it. During Marine Week, on my second summer training cruise, we slept outdoors, on the hard ground (no air mattress or even pad), in a sleeping bag, with our M-16 tucked inside (so it couldn't be stolen, in the night, by an enemy infiltrator). I turned on my side, in the night and rolled right on top of the rifle. Hurt like a mother-@#$%^&!
Once I get back to work I should fall back into a steady routine.
The kitties are giving me a lot of therapy, though. One or both has pretty much been by my side or resting on my chest (or crotch), since I got home.
Barb's sister and I picked out a maple wooden urn, with white doves flying upwards, for her ashes. We though it was perfect, as the doves symbolized her being free from the pain of her life. It only took about 5 minutes to zero in on it.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 2, 2022 9:00:57 GMT -5
Hiya, kids. Just got home a few hours ago after spending two days lying on a gurney in a side hallway of Tacoma General Hospital's emergency ward. (It was Hallway 64, to be precise. I wanted to make jokes about "Hallway 64 Revisied" but I knew the young whippersnappers tending to me wouldn't get it.) I ended up at the ER because A) my COVID symptoms were worsening by the hour and B) there was nobody to take care of me who wasn't already sick or had loved ones at home with compromised immune systems who couldn't afford to catch this crap. That remained the situation until this afternoon when I contacted my DSHS caseworker and made arrangements for a substitute caregiver until such time as Kay can come back to work. If she can't... well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. In the meantime, I'm functioning on about 3 hours' sleep over the last 72 houes and I'm on the verge of utter exhaustion so... Cei-U! I summon the little cups of lime Jell-O! By the way, if it seems like I'm being a trifle glib about this ordealand its aftershocks, it's only because the news about cody's wife put it all back into its proper perspective. Hey, I got through things with humor, even at the darkest times. It's a pretty darn good release. I told Barb I wished I could bring in Aja, the younger cat, to curl up next to her and comfort her, but had this image of her attacking all of the tubes and just snickered.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 2, 2022 11:20:04 GMT -5
Hiya, kids. Just got home a few hours ago after spending two days lying on a gurney in a side hallway of Tacoma General Hospital's emergency ward. (It was Hallway 64, to be precise. I wanted to make jokes about "Hallway 64 Revisied" but I knew the young whippersnappers tending to me wouldn't get it.) I ended up at the ER because A) my COVID symptoms were worsening by the hour and B) there was nobody to take care of me who wasn't already sick or had loved ones at home with compromised immune systems who couldn't afford to catch this crap. That remained the situation until this afternoon when I contacted my DSHS caseworker and made arrangements for a substitute caregiver until such time as Kay can come back to work. If she can't... well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. In the meantime, I'm functioning on about 3 hours' sleep over the last 72 houes and I'm on the verge of utter exhaustion so... Cei-U! I summon the little cups of lime Jell-O! By the way, if it seems like I'm being a trifle glib about this ordealand its aftershocks, it's only because the news about cody's wife put it all back into its proper perspective. Hey, I got through things with humor, even at the darkest times. It's a pretty darn good release. I told Barb I wished I could bring in Aja, the younger cat, to curl up next to her and comfort her, but had this image of her attacking all of the tubes and just snickered. Humor can be a huge help. A lot of people look at my family very oddly because we are very irreverent and deal with most things with a lot of dark humor including death. Everyone deals with grief, illness, etc. in their own way. There is no right way to deal with tragedy.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2022 11:24:28 GMT -5
The point about humour is an important one. My late stepfather was an Aston Villa supporter. When he was terminally ill, he said something like, “Please don’t let me buried wearing a rival team’s football kit.” It was in response to an old question we’d asked him about whether he’d ever “defect” to another team. It was an odd thing to hear from a terminally ill person, but i guess it was him trying to be humorous to the end.
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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 2, 2022 21:18:23 GMT -5
Well, so much for the "reliable" new caregiver. She's a no-show for the evening shift and I can't reach her by phone. Now my family is scrambling to get someone here to put me to bed. God DAMN it.
Cei-U! Is some kind of sick of this S#!t...
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2022 21:26:15 GMT -5
Well, so much for the "reliable" new caregiver. She's a no-show for the evening shift and I can't reach her by phone. Now my family is scrambling to get someone here to put me to bed. God DAMN it. Cei-U! Is some kind of sick of this S#!t... That is absolutely horrible, I am so sorry you are going through all of this. I hope this all gets sorted as fast as possible for you.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 3, 2022 4:01:25 GMT -5
Yeah, Cei-U!, what supercat said. God****it!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2022 6:29:57 GMT -5
A friend sent me this (I hadn’t seen it before), it’s “Cliffs in the Moonlight” by Johann Nepomuk Schödlberger (1779-1853):
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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 5, 2022 6:59:27 GMT -5
Well, so much for the "reliable" new caregiver. She's a no-show for the evening shift and I can't reach her by phone. Now my family is scrambling to get someone here to put me to bed. God DAMN it. Cei-U! Is some kind of sick of this S#!t... So, it turned out that Leano, my new caregiver, was a no-show as the result of an honest misunderstanding. She has been here on time ever since, and we've become quite fond of each other in just a few days. But the really good news is that my sister's back surgery went very well and, barring any new complications, she will be returning to work within a few weeks. We've decided, however, that she'll be sharing the job with someone else, possibly Leano, who will work the shorter evening shift and every other weekend. This should work out well for everybody.
Cei-U! I summon the big ol' sigh of relief!
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 5, 2022 11:04:52 GMT -5
Well, so much for the "reliable" new caregiver. She's a no-show for the evening shift and I can't reach her by phone. Now my family is scrambling to get someone here to put me to bed. God DAMN it. Cei-U! Is some kind of sick of this S#!t... So, it turned out that Leano, my new caregiver, was a no-show as the result of an honest misunderstanding. She has been here on time ever since, and we've become quite fond of each other in just a few days. But the really good news is that my sister's back surgery went very well and, barring any new complications, she will be returning to work within a few weeks. We've decided, however, that she'll be sharing the job with someone else, possibly Leano, who will work the shorter evening shift and every other weekend. This should work out well for everybody.
Cei-U! I summon the big ol' sigh of relief!
Well, that is great to hear. Those kind of issues can really stress you out, which is never good for chronic health conditions. You always want to believe the best in people and I always try (emphasis on try) to give people the benefit of the doubt; but, there does seem to be a dearth of commitment in modern society. Glad to see, in this case, it was just a simple mistake.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2022 14:26:28 GMT -5
Well, so much for the "reliable" new caregiver. She's a no-show for the evening shift and I can't reach her by phone. Now my family is scrambling to get someone here to put me to bed. God DAMN it. Cei-U! Is some kind of sick of this S#!t... So, it turned out that Leano, my new caregiver, was a no-show as the result of an honest misunderstanding. She has been here on time ever since, and we've become quite fond of each other in just a few days. But the really good news is that my sister's back surgery went very well and, barring any new complications, she will be returning to work within a few weeks. We've decided, however, that she'll be sharing the job with someone else, possibly Leano, who will work the shorter evening shift and every other weekend. This should work out well for everybody. Cei-U! I summon the big ol' sigh of relief!
Glad to hear things are working out. Life is stressful enough without having to deal with these kind of situations. -M
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2022 20:53:33 GMT -5
Watching Disney's Fantasia for the first time in 20+ years & realizing how foundational it was on my conception of dinosaurs as a kid. The cartoon images of the prehistoric era really shaped my imagination's concept of the era until I learned more as a young adult and adult. I had a lot of dinosaur books and toys as a kid, saw some stuff with dinosaurs in sci-fi movies, etc. but the stuff from Fantasia informed my conception of dinosaurs more than any of it. And this with me having forgotten that section of Fantasia entirely as other sections stood out more in my memory.
-M
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 6, 2022 21:17:13 GMT -5
Watching Disney's Fantasia for the first time in 20+ years & realizing how foundational it was on my conception of dinosaurs as a kid. The cartoon images of the prehistoric era really shaped my imagination's concept of the era until I learned more as a young adult and adult. I had a lot of dinosaur books and toys as a kid, saw some stuff with dinosaurs in sci-fi movies, etc. but the stuff from Fantasia informed my conception of dinosaurs more than any of it. And this with me having forgotten that section of Fantasia entirely as other sections stood out more in my memory. -M I was bummed to find out that hippos did not dance in pink tutus, in the wild.
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