khatru

So I started this on Tuesday, and fell asleep in the middle. Completed it today, with a sucktastic ending. I'd say my life is a farce, but this entire fucking year is a farce. If only it will end.

So, Tuesday, I:

1. Woke up at 5am. Realized I was hungry. Didn't want to get up, ate some sunflower seeds I keep on the bedside table for that purpose.
   
2. Pill alarm woke me at 8. Realized I was hungry and that, despite how tired I felt, was unlikely to fall asleep again.
   
3. Stood up (knees ok), went into hobby room and grabbed an eggroll from the fridge, and while eating it
   
4. turned on kettle
   
5. went to get my morning pills and my mug from my room
   
6. went back to the hobby room to put my mug by the tea and
   
7. realized i was still carrying bag with the other 2 egg rolls in it. Put it back in fridge.
   
8. squeezed yesterday's teabags into rest of yesterday's tea (gasp! Sacrilege! STALE TEA!), put teabags
   into compost bowl, tea into mug.
   
9. Realized still had some gypsy cold care tea left from yesterday, drank it all.
   
10. got out vita tea (last bag - oh right, i ordered more yesterday), gypsy cold care teabag, and stared
    at tea selection. No, don't want more scotch breakfast, no cinnmon stick box, don't want china breakfast, plain no, golden chai no. guess it's constant comment.
    
11. set up the teabags, kettle says 175, my knees aren't going to stand here and stare at it.
    
12. I'm out of egg roll. Stare into fridge, nope, no brain, grab second eggroll.
    
13. Sat down, eating eggroll. Opened 2 bills, notated envelopes, tea kettle goes beep.
    
14. Stood up (knees ok...) Water into teapot, gcc mug, vita mug... no water to warm up tea from yesterday. Nope, no patience for doing the walk into bathroom, get brita, walk into hobby room, fill kettle, walk into bathroom, refill brita, dance. Cold tea it is.
    
15. Sit back down, solitaire while I finished egg roll
    
16. Then thought of writing this down. yay? something vaguely more ?useful?productive?acceptable? than solitaire.
    
17. oh. i oculd have nuked my tea warm. doh.
    
18. right, take pills.
    
19. fuss with email a bit. oh gods, even traditional medicinals is on the pumpkin spice kick.
    
20. (a moment for facepalm. sigh. discord beeps, check it out. bicker about politics for a few sentences)
    
21. finished opening all the mail, sorted bills into 'due by' date.
    
22. Finally, opened ledger (that I had actually brought over to the table, along with the checkbook, yesterday), grabbed the envelopes of coupon pays from tucked into front cover, and make sure I have everything.
    
23. ..... looked at it all, decided I didn't want to stand up again and go find another check register right now. Spent about 2 hours watching Overly Sarcastic Productions videos (dionysus, hermes, don quixote, The Lancer) while playing solitaire. (2 hours ish)
    
24. Took a deep breath and turned back to the bills. Stood up (knees ok?), found a check register in hte bill box in the storage room, grabbed 2 aspirin from my room, Grabbed a different mug of tea.
    
25. Walked around the table to put my tea down after swallowing the aspirin, realize I need the toilet.
    
26. Spent some time in the bathroom playing sudoku while my body did its thing
    
27. did the refill the kettle dance
    
28. killed what might have been a roach on my countertop (FUCK)
    
29. grabbed 2 plums from the fridge and 3 chocolate bars (Nibmor brand,17g bars, one plain dark, one with cherries, one with blueberries) andsat down again to do bills.
    

-----
This was written Wednesday:

So then I actually did the bills, with various thigns on youtube, mostly stuff from Britain about the royalty (Real Royalty, I think, is the name of the channel. It has interesting things, but also very boring things.) I finished all the house bills around 5pm, and then by 7 I felt like I was falling asleep. I told the kids to just bring up dinner when it was ready, and I'd eat it when I woke. I went and laid down, but the activity of dinner being delivered to me didn't wake me. I woke up around 3am, just long enough to see the time. I woke at 4:30ish, ate the food left to me, and don't rememeber falling asleep again but woke at 6:45 for the toilet. Realized I'd never taken my midnight pills, figured the way I was going, the 8am pill alarm would wake me and I'd just take morning pills. I woke up at 11:45am with a headache.

I've now eaten the last eggroll, 2 plums, 2 cheese sticks. and most of my morning pills. I"ve found more evidence of the squirrel visiting the bathroom (that is apparently no longer visiting the rest of the house, unless it's pushing the door closed again behind it (which doesn't latch, alas)), and even tho I'm sitting in direct sunlight in the hobby room, I can't get warm. So I'm off to my bedroomden again, to wrap up in sweaterrobe and sit in the cradle office chair. maybe it will help alleviate the too-cool+headache and I might even wake up.

-----

To end: I didn't fall asleep. I think I took a migraine pill at some point earlier, tho I don't recall. Younger Kid showed up about 2:30 pm, to grab the bills and mail them. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to ask for for 4pm food, so I let him go off to do that. I also took the other migraine med about this time. Shortly after, I finally thought of something from the convenience store, called his phone, but he was home already (and hadn't told me. :( ) So I asked for 1 grilled cheeze sandwich and some tomato soup, in which I had Too Many Crackers. And took my pills.

I don't even know what I've done this evening. I've poked at mail a bit, I read twitter a little, I watched a couple of Overly Sarcastic vids, Dinner was brought up around 9pm. Ate half of it, put the rest in the fridge, and shortly after 11pm I was using a plastic toothpick around the base of my teeth and popped a filling out.

So now I shouldn't eat anything before seeing a dentist, which means tomorrow is going to be LOVELY. I also need to make an appointment to go to a bank and get a form ?authorized? not notarized, it has to be a bank thing, I don't get it, but it's what I was told was needed by some ?investment? thing that my (deceased in 2004) mother had money in my name in, and I thought I had put it in my name but maybe this is another? The person on the phone (last week or so) told me they couldn't tell me how much it was, but that it was under the limit of having the bank do the thing with it, which is 100k. Which is useful knowledge, and also slightly disappointing. I mean, one frequently imagines that suddenly found accounts are worth bajillions of cash, right?

Sending this off, might record my adventures tomorrow. Whee.

I must say, the ambient election dread is not playing well with my 'the last quarter of the year is shit'.

Right now I'm in a lot of pain - physical pain. I don't know why. My right knee won't straighten completely - it feels like my hamstring is strung-bow-tight. My thigh, about 3-5 inches above the knee, hurts when I stand and walk on it, along with my knee feeling swollen. Most of the skin area around the knee is tender to the touch, tho if I'm not touching it, not standing on it, not putting pressure on it either by pressing my foot to the floor or otherwise levering teh knee, it doesn't hurt. I used the Embeda two days in a row, and then couldn't wake up yesterday, and possibly the day before? I've lost track... and today I'm awake, and in slightly less pain, and also started using a crutch on my left side, as a sort of cane. It's helping in some ways, but makes things more difficult in others. I finally had enough brain to use the patient portal and send a message to my nominal Primary Care Physician to see what I should do. I expect to hear back tomorrow at some point. It was actually 3 messages, because I recounted what's happened, I recounted the various pieces of my issues that may be relevant, I recounted what meds I'd recently been taken off of (they have hte list of what I'm on), and I expressed a path of action that might get this figured out. But I don't know how to make anything happen in these times of telehealth (doesn't work for physical exam/xray/etc) and 'if you don't have trouble breathing, just get in the back of the line'.

And what I miss is the way Otter would just... pick things up. He'd make sure dinner happened, he'd come up and try to find out if there was something he could do, he'd listen. I could ask 'rub bengay on it' and he'd figure out where the bengay is and when done make sure it was somewhere sensible, and not give body-language that made it seem like this is an imposition. That he was uncomfortable with me needing help.

He'd come up and check on me and give me a hug at random. I still find myself waiting for his footsteps coming into the house, cause then I'd get a hug.

My eldest comes up to check and hug sometimes. Usually in concert with asking about something, or telling me something that's wrong. If I ask for physical help, this is who is possibly more competent, and yet the more likely that I'll get "uncomfortable, imposition, i really don't want to be dealing with this" vibes from.

My youngest doesn't give me these vibes. I'm more likely to get a joke, or a wry comment, "why is the hair on top of your head more grey than the hair that was cut shortshort due to the psoriasis?" "Um. I dunno." So they're the one that I'm asking for things like 'rub the brush on my back to get rid of the psoriasis scales' and 'put the goop on my back' and are more likely to not seem like it's a problem when I search for a word.

ANd yet... both of them wait till I ask for something - sometimes more than once - before they'll take action on something. Tonight I was asked over discord about what I wanted for dinner, and I responded. Apparently Eldest didn't see a notification. ANd hadn't checked back, thinking that odd. In 2+ hours. Until I said something again. Mind you, youngest is on that discord, and hadn't said anything either, hadn't noticed the time passing. And I'm trying not to be bitchy about things cause I've *been* bitchy, and been called out on it, in a way that makes it feel that my comments about having perennial housemates into my future feels very very much that what I have are housemates. Oblivious, detached housemates. Who will only help with any problem I have if I ask, and ask ahead of time, and don't have any expectations of being even acknowledged, never mind helped. Never mind, "hey ma, you said you were hurting, do you need anything right now before I get busy with something for the next three hours?"

There is no one who acts as tho their priority is me (after themself). There's no one who takes action on things that need solving, without me noticing and pointing it out, and even stating the solution to the problem. If I say, 'this is one solution, there may be others' things don't happen.

I'm so tired of this.

Yesterday, I

1. Ended up... at this point I can't recall if I was awake all night, or just woke up hella early. I think the former, because I was up and in WoW when C came up to make sure I was up.
   
2. Discussed with C the thought of leaving about an hour early for my doctorville visits and going to the bank Otter had accounts in to close them out, that's also the bank that has our mortgage.
   
3. Also took my morning pills despite not having food.
   
4. Went to the bank and was seen relatively immediately. However, it took on the order of 45 minutes for the Customer Service banker to research what needed to be done to a) turn a joint account into a solo account, and b) turn a solo account into an estate account. This involved filling out 2 L8 forms, one for each account. (Then why is there room for more things in the space to list items? o.O) We left with the first done, and the second waiting for me to get the estate tax number, leaving only 15 minutes to get to doctorville (which takes about 20).
   
5. Got to Doctorville not that late, which also didn't matter much as the first visit was to give blood to be analyzed for my endocrinologist visit on the 22nd, and wasn't time critical. The intake person was sympathetic to my dubious insurance status, and offered to simply bill it as if I was still under the same insurance..
   
6. (Right now, I realize that I *was* up all night, because I had been required to fast for the blood work, and so wanted to be awake to make sure I had food right up until I couldn't, so I wouldn't be cranky/whiny at the point where I was needing food.)
   
7. Was poked for blood which only hurt a little bit, and only needed one poke. yay! C had, indeed, recalled to have food available, and I got down the elevator to the next floor before I was overcome with FOOD NOW and sat in the hallway to wolf down the cheese and crackers.
   
8. Went to allergy office and registered there, completely surprised by them not asking for insurance info (which is usually asked for at every intake) or copay.
   
9. Talked to office assistant and accepted condolences; doctor, who gave the shot, and assured me that, while Doctorville did not take *new* patients with medicaid, they did accept it as 'changed circumstance' for established patients, and that he personally would be happy to see me to administer the shots without charge, as long as the shots were paid for by medicaid, which he expected would be.
   
10. Talked to office staff to make next appointment, where I was told they already had the next shot in hand, and would be happy to get "samples" from the company to use on me until insurance was settled.
    
11. Had lunch at the Doctorville Cafeteria while I waited the requisite time to ensure I wasn't having a negative reaction to the shot. (Yes, every time. It's weird that way.)
    
12. Acquired the estate tax number while at lunch, taking advantage of Doctorville's wifi and having the internet in my pocket.
    
13. Texted with R while at lunch regarding the fact that we'd run out of oil, again, what the oil company said about when they could get to us, and what we could do in the meantime.
    
14. Hit Doctorville's art for Ingress making it the appropriate color again. By this time, I was starting to feel achy, my tummy being more and more gassy, and generally unhappy.
    
15. Went back to bank to set up estate account. The person I'd worked with before was busy with a long task, so I was seen to by someone else, who had to research how to do what I was asking to be done, because apparently the change to the joint account wasn't being reflected in the system yet, she didn't realize my name was not the same as my husband's, she couldn't figure out how to convert the solo checking account to an estate account, and took a while to decided it would just be closed and an estate account opened, and then had problems doing that because, as I overheard her on the phone to her guide, the correct buttons weren't showing up when she was trying to create an account. This took over an hour, all told.
    
16. Decided not to go to the optician to get the one pair of glasses that have come in, despite the fact that it's the pair where they put the old lenses into a plastic frame to hold me over, and they've been making me crazy, and instead
    
17. Came home and went directly to bed, taking one of my higher end pain killers instead of my usual one, it now being pill time, and generally being in large amounts of pain and aggravation. Yes, the shots often make me feel out of sorts, and eventually (like, hours later) uncopeful, but I don't recall deep ache over most of my right side being a symptom before. Also, tummy was massively more unhappy, and I don't think I ate anything.
    

I ate a little bit of dinner when it happened (chinese delivery, roast pork w/snow peas, carrots, and ?bok choy? without any gravy) and went back to bed. Around midnight I had some toast to take my pills with, and a little later a microwaved potato with a pile of shred cheese, and then went to bed again. I woke up around 8am, to the alarm I've finally programmed on my phone, feeling still a little achy but much improved. I ate some food, had my pills, read a little bit of the latest(?) Liaden book, and am now downstairs as of around 11am to deal with the day.

Also, on the 10th, I called up att customer service and did a one-time payment by phone to make sure it was paid before the due date of the 11th for service cutoff. Interestingly enough, the letter I was sent said "pay by the 11th" and the phone service said "pay by the 10th".

So far today, I

• Cleaned out the main teapot, and made tea
  
• Opened all of the mail from the past two days, sorting into trash, shred, records, and bills.
  
• Ignored a phone call, and then listened to the message, it being the paindoc's office saying the forms for DMV about the handicapped parking placards were ready to be picked up.
  
• Ate the lovely lunch that R made for me.
  
• Called the old trash company, and was put on hold.
  
• While on hold, Addressed envelopes to send out the L8 forms from the bank yesterday, stuffed them, sealed and stamped, now waiting for being mailed.
  
• While on hold, Sent email to Otter's company's HR person, regarding absence of communication from life insurance company or COBRA management company, asking if she can find out if they've sent me anything, or give me a contact more direct than hitting up the web.
  
• After 35 minutes on hold, Talked to Adrian who gave me the final payment number, and told me that since there is a suspension of service due to being unable to pay, he could not actually cancel my account, and I will have to call back AGAIN to cancel the account after the payment is received and posted. *headdesk*
  
• Called up oil company to see what arrangements could be made about paying other than having it automagically put on the credit card (which explains a lot about why the credit card is so loaded). Talked to Ruby, the credit manager. Put a reminder on my calendar to call in May about getting on the monthly budget plan, and to talk about getting on the price lock plan.
  
• Sent email again to Otter's HR person: We had wanted to find out when we had maxed out our out-of-pocket expenses, and had needlessly continued paying copays, so that we could go have an argument with our healthcare providers regarding that money, and hopefully get it repurposed to cover any uncovered costs. Otter seemed to think he had to go through HR, and I asked if that was true, or if I got to wade through United Healthcare's phone tree to find the info.
  
• Tried to look up on the web if the ingredients of Macuhealth interfered with Synthroid. Was only able to find those ingredients in combination with multivitamins, which is usually in combination with minerals, which do interfere with Synthroid, so was unable to conclude anything useful. Meh. (trying to figure out how to apportion out pills across the timeslots.)
  

Short day, but I'm done, as I'm dozing off again. Wheee. Stupid sleep cycles. I wanted to do stuff this evening.

To Do Monday 15th (so that the checks mailed earlier this week have a chance to reach them):

• Find notes re: calling credit union branch manager directly about making an appointment to close/change accounts
  
• Call Credit Union, make appointment for showing them stuff. FIND L8 FORM!!!!! fuck. (note: Can be downloaded from http://www.sussex.nj.us/documents/surrogate/itl8.pdf )
  
• Find notes re: talking to various companies/entities about adjusting late fees etc wrt extensions.
  
• Call PSEG, ask for late fee to be removed? Check what needs to happen to be considered up to date?
  
• dammit, there was something else and it just fled my mind. Had to do with other things on those notes.
  

To Do SOON!

• Cannot do until make payment! Waiting on Life Insurance. Call Mortgage, ask for late fee to be removed.
  
• Find the mazda car title. (R found the other two)
  
• Fill out forms for 401k
  
• Call number at town hall about making appt to talk to folks about putting house/bills in my name only. (look for business card. Catbag? DeathCertEnvelope?
  

To Do Later

• Read in detail, and evaluate, life insurance mail from credit union BY JAN 25
  
• read in detail, evaluate, car/home insurance offer from AAA
  
• JANUARY 16th: Go to SocSec office and deal with death stuff.
  
• JANUARY 23rd: Call old trash service AGAIN adn make sure account is CANCELLED.
  
• Get onto Otter's computer and look for the file he left me.
  
• Deposit checks received (2017-12-22: 1 to date.)
  
• Figure out what to do about cpap machines (company emailed back, saying donate or whatever) (in process)
  
• Find out wtf to do about the argument with the insurance and the roof
  
• DO NOT LOSE PRINTED FILLED OUT FORMS BEFORE DEATH CERT SHOWS UP!!!!!

Things I need:

• Container for current month bills before they are paid. R picked up a mail sorter thingie.
  
• Container for medical records current year, bills and other
  
• Container for paid bills, current year.
  
• Container for record keeping, current year
  
• Container for medical records specifically for past years.
  
• Containers for record-keeping for past years, to hold paid bills and record keeping.
  
• Container for tax info papers for current year
  
• Container for tax info papers bundled by year for past years.
  
• Container for my frustration and sanity.
  

I would put this behind a cut, but I'm not sure how to do this on DW off the top of my head, and I want to stop researching how to do this and just put it down. If you want to tl;dr, scroll down to the line of asterisks.

So, circa 5 years ago now, I think, (i'd look it up in my doctor's patient portal, but I can't remember my password ...) I fell on my stairs in my house, and basically torqued or crunched both hips, both knees, and most of the muscles around them. It took me circa 10 days to be able to do the stairs out of the house so I could go to a doctor. I was 99% sure nothign was broken, especially after the house-call chiro came and checked me out.

At the doctor's office, they xrayed hips and knees, and went all pearl clutching over the fact that I have no cartilage left in my knees. I commented that that's odd, cause my knees don't bother me at all. In fact, I have had this pain in my hip for over a decade now. Oh, there's nothing at all wrong with your hips, your hips are fine, but OMG YOU HAVE NO CARTILAGE IN YOUR KNEES!!!!!!!!eleventyone

I went to see an orthopedist. Supposedly, Otter made an appointment to see a hip orthopedist. (There is another minor rant about over-specialization in orthopedics...) The ortho I saw started the appointment with, "There is nothing I can do for your knees." "Ok. But what about my hip?" "There is nothing I can do for your knees." "I hear you, and understand that. My hip hurts a lot, often." "There is nothing I can do for your knees." .... Seriously, this is verbatim. I kept looking at the other people in the room to see if maybe I was the one not talking english... I finally said, "Ok, what can't you do for my knees?" "Well, I can't give you a shot, and I can't give you (I can't recall), and I can't give you surgery, because you have lymphedema." "Yes, well, 90% of that is due to the fact that I've been sleeping sitting up for 3 weeks and my body is swollen due to trauma." "Right, I can't do anything for your knees."

Now, something good did come of this, because he asked why I hadn't ever had any therapy for the lymphedema, and I said, because I didn't know that existed? And I went and did research, because THERE WAS NOTHING HE COULD DO FOR MY KNEES and found out where it was, and got a referral from my regular doctor because the orthopedist could do nothing for my knees.

Shortly after that, my regular doctor balked at renewing my pain meds, despite the fact that she had covered for my previous doctor, and renewed these same meds, any number of times over the previous 3 years. I must find a pain management specialist to give me these meds! Well, the pain management specialist in the group all but fled screaming like a little baby when I said the word Fibromyalgia. (there's more to that story too) It took us most of a year of arguing with the insurance company for us to find a pain management specialist who would deal with fibro that was within an hour's drive. Who, in the 12-18 months she saw me (before she kicked me out of her practice because I really do need actual drugs to manage the pain, as opposed to whatever counts as 'conservative measures') actually ordered an MRI of my hip to see what might be the pain. Oh, and of my lower back, because there was NEW PAIN that hadn't existed before the fall, that $authorities were saying couldn't be there, oh, and the pain I identified as being in my hip couldn't be in my hip because of where I said it was. (the pain only showed up when I moved my leg....) Lo and behold, I have a bursitis in my hip (that's how the current doc phrased it) and some degeneration but not all that much (Cue: "Your hips are fine, BUT YOU HAVE NO CARTILAGE IN YOUR KNEES OMG!!!!!") and I have a stenosis in my lower back, and the pain I have in my lower back is right along the nerves that are stenosed (i made that one up) and, in fact, seems to match up with the numb spot on my skin that only showed up after I fell.

Current pain doc is chill, and content to work with me and (within what he won't get audited for) give me what I want. He mentioned a steroid shot for my hip, which I hemmed and hawed about for a few months, and finally told him to go ahead and poke the insurance company. Starting this calendar year, I was all, "shot?" and he always had a (tolerably reasonable if annoying) reason why not. Recently it was that the edema had gotten bad enough that he really couldn't, and it didn't go away the most recent time I stopped the Mobic. So I was getting the edema treated, and then he would have it next time, and next time I had cold symptoms and....

So last time I saw him, he asked about my knees (since he wasn't going to do anything for my hip yet). And told me to make an appt to get them MRId and he'd see if insurance would be ok with both knees. (Cause, ya know, I'm using them both...) I had the MRI on the 5th, and it was the most delightful hour+ I've ever spent with one leg in the air (at a time, half hour for each plus fussing), being squished which upset my hips (remember my bursitisized hip?) and my shoulders (which I haven't mentioned, cause this is a story about my legs, but they're not happy either from being on crutches for 12 weeks back when I fell so many years ago...) and took the CDs immediately (yay!) and had the paindoc visit today.

Paindoc isn't used to looking at knees, he's spends more time with spines. So we waited for the musculoskeletal radiologist's report to be faxed over (circa 60 minutes). We looked at the pretty pictures, and his vague 'don't quote me' opinion was confirmed.

*****************************************************************************************************

To wit: All the menisci in both knees are torn. One is described as being 'macerated'. There is some arthritic growth behind each patella. The ACL on my right leg is torn. There may be a bony growth/"bone spur" in one knee (I don't recall which one). There's still some distance between the bones, due to the mangled menisci. Surgery for any of these, up to and including joint replacement, is not an option unless I shed lots of weight. And possibly not then, due to the lymphedema.

And, I finally got the shot in my hip. I don't know how long the needle was, cause I didn't look. I commented that the needle he was attaching to the syringe looked short, and he said it was only to get the meds into the syringe. It doesn't hurt - so far.

But that's why I decided to have sashimi tonight. And I had an ice cream cone, too, cause that happens with shots.

Next up: deciding if we can *afford* me to go low carb, since that's the only diet change that ever had any actual effect on my weight.