Catching up

Thursday

I took my nephew Caleb out to lunch today at the China Restaurant in Albert Lea.  He planned to go back to college on Saturday, and on Friday, he planned to go out to lunch with his uncle "Lokie," so Thursday was the best day for us.  I hadn't been out to the Chinese restaurant in a very long time, so I was really looking forward to it.  I had the Hunan Triple Delight, which is a somewhat spicy dish that has shrimp and slices of beef and chicken in a brown sauce with mixed vegetables.  I also had a cup of egg drop soup and two crab rangoons.  Everything was slightly too salty for me, but still acceptable.

On the way home, we stopped at Lily's house to get the pizza out of her refrigerator and pick up her poinsettia plant.  She wanted to give both to my mother, but she didn't want the plant and she was afraid the pizza was too old. It was less than a week old.  I would have eaten it, but it had sausage and pepperoni on it, and I don't like meat on pizza.  There was also a recipe for Sweet and Sour Meatloaf there that she wanted me to give to Mary Groth.  After dropping Caleb off at his house, I dropped the recipe off at Mary's house.  I was lucky in that as Paul, Mary's husband, was walking the neighbor's dog (they live in a nice duplex with the principal of the elementary school on the other side).  I just handed him the recipe and drove away.  

In the late afternoon and evening, I talked to Lily and Tammy on the phone.  Tammy was upset as she had had it out with her husband and daughter who were both demanding and disrespectful to her all day.  Both of them expect her to drop everything and rush to them when they can't find something or want food or something.  I couldn't live with someone constantly bawling my name all day for such stupid reasons.

Lily is doing fine.  She went to Texas sure that she'd be putting her trailer up for sale, but now she is leaning towards keeping it.  She loves her church down there and is having fun with her friends at the park she stays at.

Friday

I woke up early and decided to head into Owatonna, primarily to buy food to tempt Stewie to eat.  He was willing to eat some treats that I had on hand, so I bought a bunch of different kinds of treats as well as the sirloin version of Fancy Feast which he has always liked.  I bought a few groceries, nothing spectacular, and some vitamins I am running low on.  I called Caleb  from the parking lot to ask if he would carry in my groceries.  He agreed, but when I got home, he called to say his car's battery was dead.  He'd still carry in my groceries, but I had to go pick him up which I didn't mind.  So, I got him and he carried in my groceries.  I was gone only 15 minutes at most to take him home, but when I got back to my house, Stewart was sitting on top of the bag of Fancy Feast with his head in the orange sized hole he had chewed in the bag, eating right out of the bag.  I was glad he was eating, but irritated that he had chewed a giant hole in the bag, so now the food will not be sealed in and will get stale faster.  Sigh.

I put the groceries away and cleaned a lot of crap out of the refrigerator and tossed it.  I washed up a bunch of dishes and storage containers.  The Schwann's man came in the afternoon, and I bought some frozen cherries and a frozen dinner of meatballs and pasta.  It was a new item and looked good.  The Schwann's man is a very nice guy.  I had a big bag of recycling that I had been sorting out, and he was kind enough to take it outside and throw it in the recycling bin on his way out the door.  

Later in the afternoon  the psychiatrist who had declared me mentally fit to be released from the hospital back in December called.  The letter I had sent to the Patient Experiences department had finally stirred up some attention, and he was selected to call and deal with me.  He claimed that the whole thing started because I was "delirious" after surgery--which is a far cry from being suicidal and homicidal. He claimed my delirium was NOT a result of medication, but instead was a result of a combination of things, including my blood pressure, diabetes, depression, my weakened physical state, and so on.  I told him I didn't believe that.  I am convinced beyond doubt that anything that I did was a result of a medication that poisoned me and caused these ill effects.

When I had multiple trips to the operating room in March and April, I was much weaker, sicker, and more depressed than I was in December.  I was filled with infection, my heart was beating between 150-160 beats a minute all the time, and my blood pressure was so low that the doctors couldn't believe I was still conscious.  Yet, despite the absolutely horrific condition I was in at that time, I came out of the anesthesia rational and clear and able to remember everything.  It is obvious that the only thing different was the medication I was given.  It doesn't make sense that, even though I was better in every way in December, that I would be made irrational and delirious because of being weak and suffering from my long term issues.  And, as Judge Judy says, "If it doesn't make sense, then it isn't true."  

I told him how I wasn't sleeping well, how I am having nightmares every night, how I cry every day, how I feel like my mind is still not right.  I am still having trouble reading because things don't "stick" after I read.  I told him about the anxiety attacks and how I have cancelled all the appointments I had at the Clinic because the thought--just the THOUGHT--of returning to that place fills me with anxiety, makes me vomit, makes me cry.  I told him I felt that I had full bore PTSD as a result of my experiences there and how I do not trust any of them.  I said, "Those people put me through such hell that now I feel like I may actually belong in Genrose--they have made me feel like I am going crazy."  

He conceded that their actions were questionable and that they did not treat me with the compassion that they should have.  Yet, he insisted their behavior was based on concern for me. I said, "How is insisting that I was unfit to be free to pursue my life and claiming I was "unsafe" without telling me WHY they believed I was a threat to myself and others being "concerned" for me?"  NO ONE told me I was delirious.  Why was that information concealed from me?  If I was no longer delirious, what would it have hurt to tell me that had happened?  I told him that, emotionally, I felt like I had awakened naked in a dark alley, covered in blood and bruises with no idea what had happened to me.  I cried a lot.  I told him several people had advised me to get a lawyer and sue, but "I have no interest in suing anyone.  I just do not want to feel this way any more.  I want to know how to FIX this. How are you people going to FIX the damage you have done to me?"

His big solution was to go to my primary physician.  Now what the hell is she going to do?  She isn't a mental health professional.  Her big solution was to put me on anti-depressants.  I am not interested in anti-depressants.  They didn't help before.  They won't help now.  All they did was give me a raft of side effects including constant shaking in my hands and a feeling inside my head like worms crawling through my brain.  When she suggested other anti depressants which I had not taken before, I know people who had been on each of them, and every one of them had massive weight gains with them.  I mean, 100 lbs and more.  I am not interested in that!

We talked for over an hour.  I felt like he listened to me, but I don't think he accepted responsibility on behalf of the clinic other than to say, "We could have handled your situation better.  I am sorry you feel this way."

In the end, he told me he'd probably call me again in a few days.

We will see what happens.  

I will catch up on Saturday and Sunday later.  I have to go right now.  
 

Catching Up Continued

Saturday

When I got up this morning, I discovered that Stewie had dug the bag of cat treats out from under the pile of recycling and other stuff I had hidden it under, chewed open the bag, and chewed open each one of the several bags of treats I had bought yesterday.  He had pawed a bunch of the treats--almost enough to fill a quart ziplock bag.  So I had to clean up the horrific mess he had left and put all the treat bags in  plastic container that is meant to hold cereal to keep him from making a mess of everything again.  

I am thankful that he is eating, but I don't see why he had to open every single bag of treats. Little ass.

I am going to take it as an indication that he is feeling much better--if he is well enough to  be a little asshole, he must be feeling much better.

Some time ago, I bought an "electric broom" from one of the zillions of catalogs that come to my house.  I had charged up the battery a while ago, and I used it to "sweep" (more like vacuum) the dining room and half of the kitchen.  It ran out of juice before I finished the kitchen, so I swept the rest of the kitchen with the regular broom and dust pan.  My knees can't take standing up and doing this stuff, so I sat on my desk chair that has wheels and rolled around on it as I swept the areas.  When I was done, I plugged the battery back in and let it charge up again.  

I also washed two loads of laundry.  They weren't huge loads of laundry this week, so they didn't take as long to fold when they were clean.  

My aunt called me on Friday night and told me she was in a tornado warning.  In her trailer park, there is no storm shelter.  I think that is horrible.  The man who owns the park is extremely wealthy.  I don't know why he hasn't put a storm shelter in that park to keep his people safe.  She was sitting in the shower in her trailer holding her cat.  If a tornado had actually struck the trailer, it would have squashed it like an aluminum pop can with her and the cat inside it.  She said it was shaking terribly in the wind and I could actually hear the hail pummeling the outside of the trailer, and she was terrified.  I stayed on the phone with her, keeping her relatively calm until  the storm passed by her.  I  watched the weather channel till the tornado warning moved east of her location and kept her updated on what they were saying about her area.  Thank goodness there was no further tornadic activity in her area.  But there were tornadoes everywhere close by her to the east and north.  

As I talked to my aunt or watched TV in the evening, I worked on my Christmas table runner.  I got a lot done on it.

Sunday

I was tired, so I slept in for a while on Sunday morning.  When I got up, I cleaned the sink and toilet in the bathroom, used the electric broom to "sweep" the bathroom and the hallway and bedroom.  I sacked up the garbage from bathroom and bedroom and living room then went to the breezeway to get my floor mopping device.  It has a reservoir for soap and water and a thick pad on the bottom that scrubs the floor.  You pull a small lever which sprays soap and water onto  the floor and then you scrub it with the pad. I hadn't planned to do it, but I used the rolling chair again and scrubbed the whole living room well. There were a lot of muddy tracks in the living room from people visiting and not removing their shoes. I scrubbed all that up and the floor looked so lovely and clean and shiny afterwards.  Then I scrubbed the little hallway area between the living room, bathroom, laundry room and bedroom.  Then I scrubbed the bathroom and my bedroom.  There were so many marks on the floor from the bathroom into the bedroom as the cats like to drink from the sink faucet--and they like to paw the sink and get their feet wet while drinking.  Then they hop out of the sink and go into the bedroom, leaving a bunch of little cat footprints where they walk.  I scrubbed that up, then I scrubbed the little step thing that I bought to allow me to get into my bed after I had surgery and had a hard time getting into my high bed.

After that, I tested my blood sugar, filled my pill caddy  for the week, took my pills, and got dressed.   While I was doing that, my niece Cora called and asked if I wanted her to come and clean for me.  At first, I was like, AWWWWW!  because she would have done the sweeping and scrubbing instead of me if she had called earlier.  But I was actually feeling really good about being able to do that cleaning myself.  It's been a long time since I have scrubbed my own floor.  It made me feel so independent and even a little proud that I was able to take care of it myself.  

So, she came over and cleaned for me.  She cleaned the litter boxes, watered the plants, took out the garbage and recycling to the outside bins, swept and scrubbed the breezeway and kitchen, took the garbage bin to the curb, and got my mail from my mailbox at the end of the block.  She also used windex to clean my glass top coffee table and bathroom mirror which was the only thing I didn't do myself in the bathroom, used Orange Glow to polish all my wooden furniture, and vacuumed my area rugs.  She cleaned the appliances and sinks in the kitchen and wiped down the counters, cleaned the cat mats and gave them fresh food, and gave Stewie and Peaches a lot of pets and loving.  

She isn't as good as Cynthia, but she does her best and it is a very acceptable level.

I went through my mail and sorted out the bills I need to pay.  I got another bill from Mayo Clinic--after I pay this month's $300, I will only have $1,002 left to pay from my own pocket.  I am hoping to pay that off in the next two months.  If no unexpected bills come along, I should be able to pay $501 in February and March and be free of that giant pain in the ass.  I am considering calling their billing department as I have been charged nearly $400 each for physical and occupational therapy.  This is bullshit as I was never given one second of therapy while I was in Methodist Hospital.  They never even gave me one of those breathing apparatuses that they ALWAYS make you breathe in when you are in the hospital.  They wanted me to do that at least once every hour when I was in the hospital before.  When I was in Waseca, I had physical and occupational therapy twice a day, every day but Saturday and Sunday.

The only thing that moderately resembled therapy was after they had determined that it was easier to let me go home rather than force me into the psych ward against my will.  Then the doctor came in and was very nasty to me, asking me how I thought I was able to go home when I couldn't take care of myself and had refused even to walk.  I snapped at him, "I NEVER refused to walk.  I said that I wouldn't be walking MUCH because my knees are so bad that walking is extremely painful for me.  NO ONE ASKED ME TO WALK."  Then he snapped back, "ANYONE here would have walked with you if you had asked."  I said, "IT ISN'T MY JOB TO ASK TO WALK."  I was too busy being stressed out and filled with anxiety by the idiots there constantly telling me I was going to Genrose indefinitely. How the fuck am I supposed to think about initiating my own physical therapy when I am in acute mental agony?

Fucking incompetent assholes.

Anyhow...

For lunch I had the rest of my leftover Chinese.  While I was eating it, I discovered a little black flake-looking thing in the food.  My first thought was that it looked like a bug, and I picked it out of the food.  Then I decided that it must be a flake of some kind of herb.  So, I ate the food (but threw the flake into the waste basket).  Later, when I made myself a salad for supper, I saw I had left the Kikoman soy sauce on the counter.  I picked it up to put it back on the shelf and noticed that there were little black lumps all over the glass sides of the container inside the bottle.  I had never noticed that before.  On closer inspection, I realized the black lumps were FRUIT FLIES.  Those little bastards had infested my house a while back.  Apparently they crawled into the bottle via the small holes on either side of the cap and drowned in the soy sauce.  Only God knows how many of them I actually ate without being aware of them.  UGH.

It's always something.

In the evening, I worked on my table runner again.  It's really coming along.

It will be very pretty when it is done.

It snowed quite enthusiastically for a few hours Sunday night, but it didn't amount to much.  I guess the roads were a little slick, but I didn't go anywhere, so it didn't effect me.