Stressed to the Max, Redux

See how stressed out I am? I totally lost the article I wrote! Somehow in the ‘cut/paste/blog’ transition I routinely follow, it was gone, poof. I could not find a copy of it anywhere. No doubt, it is floating around in cyberspace! I do not usually make those kind of computer mistakes. Now I will try it again!

I have been aware much of my adult life that I am very much like a tiny rowboat in the open ocean of life. Perhaps others have yachts, and still others have ocean liners, I have a rowboat! Any wave rocks my boat, and any large unexpected wave, can toss me out of what little protection that rowboat offers. It does not even have to be one giant wave; it can be a seeming unending series of moderate sized waves, which is what I am going through right now. Below is an account of just ONE of them...

Today I went through the ‘pre-op’ stuff for my April 5th Cystoscopy and Retrograde Pyelogram at UCSD Thornton. I left here at noon, returned at 5:30PM, a long afternoon for me. Indeed, I am wiped out tonight. I had: chest x-ray, ekg, lab work, did insurance stuff, and had an appointment with the anesthesia department. Unless there is a problem with some of this preliminary stuff, I am good to go.

I just had a same-day cystoscopy for biopsies nine months ago, thankfully that time they were negative. Since then I have had some bleeding from an unknown source, so my kidneys need to be checked more thoroughly.

Yes, since I was initially diagnosed with T1-G3 Bladder Cancer on 9.11.2001 (I awoke to this tragedy unfolding on the TV while recovering from the surgery on 9.10.01!), I have had this stuff, plus in-office cystoscopies (and BCG inserted into my bladder) done numerous times.

It is different this time for a couple of reasons. I now have to go to a different hospital (UCSD Thornton – I used to go to UCSD Hillcrest). I will have the same doc, but it is much further away, I am not familiar with it, and I just had a cyber-pal die from bladder cancer 2 months ago. [Stress-my boat is rocking!]

Then there is all the ‘hassle’ of getting there and getting home! UCSD Thornton requires that you have a responsible adult sign you out and take you home (what if I lived on the street?). This is not as easy as it sounds, as none of my friends can transport a power wheelchair, which does not fold up!

UCSD Thornton also states that a ‘shuttle, bus, van, or cab’ are not acceptable forms of transportation; which of course, is the ONLY kind of transportation I have. (Is this a form of discrimination against wheelchair folks? Wish I had the bucks for an ADA lawyer!) [Stress-my boat is rocking even harder!]

Medicare will not pay for any form of routine medical transportation. Private companies charge in the hundreds of dollars, and will NOT come in and sign you out, but meet you at ‘the curb’ as does MTS Access. This leaves the onus of getting to and from surgeries on the patient, or their families, if they even have one.

It also seems to me that if a hospital is going to specify HOW I get home AFTER I am discharged, that they be required to SUPPLY said transit (as do two other hospitals in our area). Otherwise, discharge me and let me worry about myself!

Since I live alone, and have no one who gives a damn, I usually hang around the hospital for a few hours after (scheduling a ‘late’ transit pick-up). I get something to eat in the cafeteria, take something to drink out to the smoking area, checking back in with the surgery/clinic folks, and making sure I am OK before going home alone on MTS Access wheelchair van. This is no longer allowed.

In the last few weeks, I have gone around and around with UCSD Thornton same-day-surgery administration. [Stress-my boat is rocking still harder!] Last week we came up with a solution; I will have a neighbor come sign me out and follow my MTS Access Van back to my apartment.

Since I will be having a ‘spinal’ at 7:30 AM, I will have her arrive at the hospital around noon, and I will schedule TWO MTS Access pick-ups to return home, one about 1PM and another at about 4PM (in case I miss the first). Of course, this will cost me, (I will have to pay for three wheelchair transit rides that day, $4.50 each), and I will have to ‘reimburse’ the neighbor her gas money. [Stress-my boat is rocking still harder!]

Scheduling the wheelchair transit for that day is also problematic. I am to be at the hospital at 6AM, but the first ‘ride’ I can schedule is for 5:15AM, as MTS Access ONLY schedules according to when your local public bus runs! It sounds like enough ‘travel’ time, but there is always the possibility that other ‘riders’ will be on the bus, and will be ‘dropped’ first. I will have to speak to a supervisor about scheduling TWO rides home! [Stress-my boat is now taking on water!]

I cannot keep doing this! It is just too logistically impossible! My options are few, and have my mind whizzing around in circles. (Not to mention the worry about what this next procedure will reveal!) I will either have to change docs and hospitals, quit seeking medical attention for the cancer, or come up with the $500 for a walker (I can walk a few feet on a flat surface) that will fold and go in any car (I am actually saving towards this.).

Damn! You would think being on my FOURTH unrelated cancer is bad enough! But, I am bailing as fast as I can, and I am still sinking...

Stressed to the Max

Oops! This article just disappeared, somewhere in copy/paste/blog land, and I didn't have an auto back up! (I do now!).

I will try to replicate it at a later time.

Sorry...

US 3rd Fleet – Naval Base Point Loma

Today I got a small, personal tour of the Naval Base at Point Loma http://www.cnrsw.navy.mil/subase2/index.asp. Now I’ve lived, just a few miles across the peninsula from this base for over two decades, passed by it numerous times, and once, late at night after dinner out with a friend, got stopped by the MP’s, with hands on guns, as we were trying to do a U-turn at the gate. But I’ve never been inside the gate.

I was returning on disabled transit from a doctor’s appointment. Often there are several folks on the bus. So it was this afternoon. After I was picked up, we dropped off a woman in Point Loma, then we went to pick up a person who worked at this base.

Though I was tired, I was entranced. For years, everyone had told me that this was the ‘main’ US submarine base. That it was to blame for all the power brown/black outs we used to have so routinely. That living in proximity with this base was why I could not get good short wave reception. (Indeed the bus driver tried to contact her dispatcher to find the exact location of the pick-up, but the radio wouldn’t work.)

Luckily, for me, the driver had not been there before, so I was driven all over the base, including parking areas, where she would have to turn around. I did not see one nuclear submarine!

Naval Base – Point Loma is a large area of the peninsula that fronts on the Pacific Ocean and the San Diego Bay. The base is located on some steep, scrub brush covered, cliffs and hills from which you get an excellent view of the Pacific.

Since it was a clear afternoon, I even got to see, for the first time ever, far out in the distance, some of the Coronado Islands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronado_Islands a part of the municipality of Tijuana, Baja California. I only wished that we had stopped in one place so I could whip out my binoculars, which I always carry with me. I wanted to see those islands better.

The numerous physical buildings of the base seemed to encompass every style from WW2 on; multi-storied 50’s retro office buildings, old wood style barracks, small outbuildings, all stacked on these small hilly streets and peppered with parking areas.

We found the rider, and left the base. I only wished that we could have driven around longer. I wonder if they give tours; perhaps during ‘Fleet Week’ http://www.fleetweeksandiego.org/ ?

Security did cross my mind however as we were just waved in and allowed to wander all about in the disabled bus.

Do yourself a favor and check out some of the links above; you will enjoy this piece of America! (And there are some terrific pictures!)

Still Another IP

The last one left, citing the high cost of gasoline, and I can't really complain, as she did work for me for 3 months.

A new one just started. At least I didn't have to go very long with no one to help. Still, 3 weeks is a long time to go without the floors being vacuumed...

Perhaps this one will work longer than 3 months, she seems to have made this her 'career' and doesn't seem to be looking for a 'better' job.

The turnover rate is so high, I never even get someone 'trained' before I'm doing it all over again.

Ironing Board

Today when I took out the trash, I found a perfectly good, almost new Ironing Board sitting by the trash bins.

I propped the bottom legs of it on the ‘feet’ of my wheelchair and managed to get it back and into my apartment.

I took off, threw away the cover, and looked it over. It just needed a little wiping off. I will buy a new cover for it if, and when, I ever get an iron again!

Dumpster Diving

I do not actually ‘dive’ into our dumpsters. In nice weather, or on the last of the month, when folks move out, I do like to make the rounds of our dumpsters. I cruise them all from my wheelchair, taking some plastic trash bags and my ‘reacher’ with me. I have even been known to ask a neighbor or passer by to retrieve something, or cart something home for me!

Of course, I contribute to the common good also! Anything that can be of some use to someone I put BESIDE the dumpter, not in! I recently put out several cans of cat food that I found out the hard way that The Sisters will not eat...

I do limit myself to the dumpsters here in the apartment complex, and though I have never counted them, there are a lot as there are 500 apartments here, many occupied by the young and/or affluent. It is amazing the stuff that people toss into the trash!

I have been Dumpster Diving for years; but especially for the last 10 years, as I have gotten poorer and am unable to supply what I need for myself! Heavens, half the contents of my apartment is from the dumpsters! (Then I have a lot of stuff that was just outright given to me by neighbors moving out.)

The above is one reason why I have decided to add this aspect of my life of poverty to this blog. (A 61-year-old woman who is on Social Security Disability should not HAVE to do this! And yes, I have too do this to help maintain a ‘quality of life’, it is not a ‘hobby’.)

The other reason I decided to include Dumpster Diving in evvy’s blog is to date and document my ‘finds’. Perhaps someday someone will throw out, or give me a digital camera, and I can actually take, and post, pictures of my finds!

I am so easily thrilled!

I went to Long’s today, with a list, as usual. I am always so broke, I have to pay careful attention to only buying what I need, not something that I may just see, that I like, or want! I am good at this by now.

Today, at Long’s I made a couple of impulsive purchases. (Spent $6 I should not have!). My mistake was in going down the ‘sale’ aisle, a place I studiously avoid because there is ALWAYS something there that I really need and can not afford.

Sure enough, half way down that aisle was a bin with cut-price sale items. There was a package of 12 brightly colored washcloths for $3, and a package of 5 kitchen towels for another $3. Since I had actually seen these items a couple of weeks earlier at twice the price, I grabbed a package of each.

I just could not resist! My own linens (ha!), are far past the ‘rags’ stage. Really most folks would not even use them for rags; they are that old and threadbare.

After I laundered these items, I took the 4 washcloths I had left and placed them in the rag pile. Ditto for about four of my kitchen towels (and it really should have been more!).

I broke one of my own self-imposed rules, and I am glad I did. I was thrilled to have these new linens!

Wanna Take a Ride

This has absolutely nothing to do with the radio broadcast Coast-to-Coast AM or Art Bell.

This has to do with Ethel! Ethel loves to get up on the seat of my walker and let me roll her around the apartment as I go about my tasks!

When they were kittens, they both did this. In fact, when I wanted to keep track of them, I’d dump them both in my walker basket with a toy and roll them around as I went about my daily business.

But now that they are two and a half years old, my walker only holds interest for Ethel. (Lucy still likes to play ‘jungle gym' on it, if I will play with her.). Almost every evening, Ethel will get up on the walker seat as I work on the computer, waiting patiently for her ‘ride’.

Looking at the sweet, patient little face, how can I do anything else but ask, “Do you wanna take a ride?”. Then give her a stroll though the apartment.

Are The Sisters spoiled, or am I well trained? :->

Lisa’s 40th

Today my oldest child, my only daughter, turned forty. Unlike prior years, I did not call and leave a message on her machine. I did not send her a card. I did not send her an email card.

In fact, she just crossed my mind a couple of times during the day. There was none of the usual sadness, depression, weepiness, etc.

I did wonder why, what had changed? I did ponder this ‘inner change’ off and on during the day. It could be a number of things:

I haven’t seen her in 3 years and 3 months now (other than the first xmas when I took her present to where she was working), but I’m used to going years with not only not seeing her, but not knowing where she was, or even if she were alive.

I have accepted the fact, that she makes her choices. She is not the person I raised her to be. That she, like so many others of her ‘generation’ blames me (her mother) for all that has gone wrong in her life, she is not capable of taking responsibility for her own actions.

She remains my daughter, and I love her. Happy Birthday Lisa...

My 'Blogging' Rhythm

I have been blogging for a few years now. And I’m in a rhythm! I have my ‘stride’.

I have found that if I wait for a period of time AFTER an event, emotion, etc before I write about it, I end up with a much better product. It is more complete and smoother. Not so ‘emotional’, or at least not so emotional in a ‘overwhelming’ way.

So for the past year or so, that is what I have been doing. The date you see on an article, is the actual date of occurrence, but it was written from a few days to a couple of weeks later. That gives me time to 'evaluate' the article; do I really want to write about that, would anyone be interested in it? And, if so, what do I really want to say, and how? What slant? How explicit do I want to be about this particular item?

I really give myself the chance to 'think it through'. Often I get a better, fuller perspective of whatever I'm writing about. Not only 'on paper' but inside myself as well.

But, I do not write them 'out of order', skipping about hither and yon. I write and post them in order of date of occurance.

In the spirit of truthfullness that evvy's blog encompasses, I wanted to share my 'technique' as well as let all my readers know.

It works for me!

Dexi Scan

I went today for my once every two years scan for my bone density. (And there were no probs with me being FAT). It was an in and out appointment. And unlike other places, here I sign a ‘consent’ and get an exact duplicate of the ‘report’ that is sent to the doc mailed to me.

Therefore I like this facility, try to have all my 'stuff' done there. Then too, they have past films to compare stuff with...