Howdy. Been a long time.
It’s been a long time since I rock-and-rolled
It’s been a long time since I did the Stroll
Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back
Let me get it back, baby, where I come from
– – “Rock and Roll”, Led Zeppelin (1971)
The guys (Jimmy Page and company,) wrote “Rock and Roll” in response to some ignorant critic who lambasted Led Zeppelin III saying that the album was not real rock and roll. Funny how that works as the song is kind of their eponymous creation.
Anyways…
It has been a long time and I wanted to give a quick update as to what’s been happening.
Before we get into all that, need to give a shout out to Anthony Curran and Brian Shea. Long story short, right about the time we were having all that rain a few weeks ago, our sump pump decided to stop working. Had a few inches of water in the basement. Right after Anthony cleaned up the first mess, we got more rain. Thankfully Brian was able to come over and realize that there was nothing wrong with the pump; only that the electrical cord had been frayed. Some electrical tape and a couple wire nut connectors and we were back in business.
As fate would have it, the water got high enough to get into the furnace filter. That in turn got the furnace’s blower motor control board a little wet. Thankfully Brian keeps a gas powered leaf blower in his vehicle. So by the time he left there was very little water left in the basement and the furnace was running.
Many thanks guys. Please know you are appreciated.
What else is happening?
For those new here, I have a few open wounds. So every Monday Suzie and I tromp-off to wound care. Sometime back in November we’re sitting in the wound care office and the nurse takes my blood pressure. It’s something like 227/142. Naturally, the wound care doctor declines to poke around in the wounds that day and suggests we go over to the emergency room to find out what’s going on.
Ugh.
The plan was simple: because of my condition, I don’t experience pain the same way normal people do. What I do experience is something called autonomic dysreflexia which is a fancy term meaning that my body knows something is wrong and so it reacts. Usually by raising the blood pressure. In order to (try and) figure out what was going on, we needed a chest x-ray and an abdominal CT. Just to recap, I still have a kidney stone and we needed to see what it was up to.
We knew that my primary care physician could order these tests and I could go to radiology later in the week. But that would’ve taken days. The plan was to go through the emergency room and get this done in a few hours.
The Good
Resurrection has a brand-new emergency department. Nice reception area. Spacious triage rooms. Lots of soft lighting (it’s very calming.) And the waiting area is quite spacious with, naturally, all brand-new furniture.
The Bad
Actually, it wasn’t that bad. Yes, it took longer than “a few hours.”
And yes, there was an “incident” where some belligerent fellow accosted the staff members. Security was called. I actually don’t have many details. As part of the expansion, they have more rooms – so no one is in the hallway – and the acoustics don’t carry like in the old place. Nevertheless, I always find such events bittersweet. I feel bad for the staff; no nurse deserves to get punched in the face. But it is entertaining.
The Silly
After about an hour hanging out in the lobby, some friendly staff member came out to show us back. I’m checking out the new space as we roll on. Not really paying attention to where we are going – as I was thinking about how the department was set up in “pods” which appears to be the preferred medical architecture nowadays – we roll into a nice size room with a glass sliding door and all of the equipment one might expect in such a place. Suzie backs the wheelchair into the room next to the bed at which point the technician very politely says, “Okay, you just need to hop up in bed here.”
Every. Damn. Time.
In the end they ran their tests, came up with nothing, and sent me home.
I’m now on a low dose of blood pressure meds but no one really knows why.
I guess that’s it for now.
Enjoy the football and be well.
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