How Do You Feel

With my hands. That's what my dad would say when I asked him. I said it myself this morning. The verdict on my shoulder is that I have most likely torn the rotator cuff and will need surgery. I will need an MRI first to confirm the diagnosis.

So, while I wait for my insurance that is supposed to start next month, I have a new regimen for pain control. I took the Flexeril last night to relax all those muscles that are tight and painful. I slept pretty good, but my shoulder was aching when I woke. Stands to reason, since the drug is no longer in my system. But, He Who Cares, was amazed that I did not feel all better. I took a pill, I did not have surgery. Nothing has been fixed. So, no, I don't feel better.

Coffee has tempered my attitude. I confess that I am not really pleasant in the morning until I have that first cup. Then I carefully counted my pills to make certain I will have enough until the insurance arrives. I count things. I calculate. I worry. I wonder if I should withhold the blessed relief contained in that bottle ..... anticipating that the proof of insurance may not arrive before I run out. Then I wonder if I will damage my liver or kidneys with the Tylenol and the Ibuprofen I am swallowing.

I took the Tramadol, throwing caution to the winds. I am tired of the pain and want to feel normal again. I did not realize just how miserable I was until I took that first dose.

I now sit here sipping my coffee with an ice pack on my shoulder and wait for the pain to ease. I wonder what people did before they could diagnose and repair this particular injury. Like I wonder about how they washed clothes in the winter when all they had was a creek and a rock. He Who Cares says I wonder about too many things ........ is this just a nice way to tell me I talk too much?

Watching TV

Eight degrees here. Just heard the weather forecaster say it would be 15 by noon and maybe 18 by lunch time ....... I am confused. I thought noon was lunch time.

Watching too much TV. Nothing else to do. No, that is wrong. Plenty to do, if only all my joints were moving. I see an ad for a new show. Hollywood Hillbillies, I think. The matriarch of the family is negotiating the purchase of a vehicle and says she will throw in an IUD to sweeten the deal. Her daughter corrects her, saying, "No Mama, you mean IOU." The exchange caught my attention and made me wonder where she would obtain this IUD and what she thought the car salesman would do with it. Southern accent, wonder which state will become synonymous with her particular brand of ignorance.

Just scoped out HGTV and DIY to see what I have in store today. Kitchen Cousins or Property Virgins. I may just end up watching LMN today. So many choices, too much time to fill ........

Woe Is Me

I give up. I made an appointment for my shoulder. Trying to avoid going to the "doctor" that I dislike so much, I have been waiting patiently for my O'Bama insurance card to arrive. But, I find myself unable to escape the constant pain. Sitting, standing, or lying down I can't seem to get into a position that is without pain. Miserable describes me perfectly.

I fiddle around and manage to accomplish a few things, but nothing significant. I want to be doing something, anything. I have treated myself to a Rehab Addict marathon today. I just love her! She doesn't smash perfectly good stuff to renovate. And .... she saves everything and finds new uses for the stuff. The bad part about watching this she is that it motivates me to do stuff. And I can't.

Time for more Ibuprofen. Woe is me, woe is me. I am not a good patient.

Snow, Sunshine and Paint

I don't know why I even watch the news. It is depressing. Mainly we want to see the weather forecast. But, it is rarely accurate. Supposed to be  40 degree day with balmy winds. Okay, they got the wind right, but the swirling snow I see out the window tells me it is not 40 degrees out there. The snow is sticking, which also indicates it is not warming up.

Whatever. Can't do anything about it. With February fast approaching, I decided to do a major cleaning in the store. I pulled all the accumulation of things that have been stuffed into the storage closet. You know all that stuff you push behind doors when you are cleaning and hiding clutter. There was an unbelievable pile of stuff when I finished.

He Who is a pack rat refuses to part with electronics. Don't know why. If the phone battery dies, he will come home with a brand new system. Never the same brand. I found Samsung, GE and AT&T. Phone chargers, handsets and tons of power supply cords. I put all this stuff on the table for him to peruse. Like last call at the bar, I told him he did not have to get rid of it ....... but it can't stay here.

A lot of stuff remains on the table and there is a pile to go to Goodwill and the dumpster is getting full. The storage closet is organized and labeled. My friend, the taxidermist, has many talents. She was bored and came to see me and worked for two days! I will confess that she had more energy than I did. She was like a tornado of ideas and I was the naysayer. My shoulder was on fire, but we pulled the fabric from the walls of the reception desk and replaced it with burlap. My fabric had license plates on it. Sherry, the stuffer of dead animals, proclaimed the fabric to be too busy. I liked it, but a kid had plucked at it, trying to get a license plate off (while his father encouraged him) and it was time for a change. 

She is going to trim the area out for me. She wants to paint all the walls and get rid of all my chotchkies, my stuff collected over the years. The horseshoes we found on the grounds as we cleaned up different areas, my cigar boxes that belonged to my Grandpop, the leaking Emu egg ( a treasure of He Who), and my collection of wooden spools. She thinks I have too much stuff displayed and the eye has nowhere to land.

She could be right about about all that, but I am old and set in my ways and not easily persuaded. Painting the entire store with my bum shoulder does not sound like a good idea to me. It does need to be painted and you know it is when you start cleaning and you spruce up one thing ...... makes the rest look bad and the project snow balls out of control. Can't let that happen with my achy shoulder.

I am going to paint some of my fixtures and get them ready for summer ........ but, I would rather be sewing.

Remission

My dad is 83. The older I get, the younger his age seems to be. Like all children, no matter how old, we take for granted that our parents will always be there.

Although I lost my mother 13 years ago, having my dad means I am still a child. Last March he was diagnosed with cancer. He was optimistic as he met with doctors specializing his care in Atlanta. Daddy's glass has always been half full, preferring to see the good, as opposed to the bad. He met all the challenges of the cancer head-on. The chemo weakened him and the radiation make him lose his appetite.

I called as regularly as possible and he told me not to worry, he was "fine". Always assuring me that I did not need to make a trip to see him. He knows how hectic it is here. In August I called him and my heart broke when I heard his voice. All optimism gone, resignation and despair had taken over. His macular degeneration was progressing and reading had become almost impossible. He loves to read. He said to me, "I can't even read the newspaper, what's the use of anything?"

I called my children and cried in my own despair. My son, the image of my dad, made flight arrangements and I was able to spend almost two days with him before I rushed back in time for Labor Day. I would like to believe that just being able to see me made him better, my ego being what it is, but he was almost back to his old self when I left.

He was all set to have the shrunken tumor that was wrapped around his esophagus removed and obediently went for his routine PET scan only to find that the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes. Surgery was cancelled and a new regimen of chemo was started. This time, he is not as sick as before. He is tired and has to rest a lot, but he feels pretty good. I can always tell how he feels by the tone of Mama's voice when she answers the phone.

I am just not ready to lose my dad. Many prayers have held him up. More than he will ever know. He called last night with the results of his last PET scan. Remission. He is in remission and I am so thankful.

Jealousy

Monday, again. Monday mornings, sometimes it just turns out that way ......

Everybody knows about my left shoulder incident that simply refuses to heal, despite the fact that I have promised never to drag anything with that arm again while driving the golf cart. Promise! The pain will subside and I will forget not to reach backward ........ and will find myself clutching my arm to my chest and moving with great care.

I have been favoring my left side since (seems like forever) July. Last night I was laughing at an aerial view of a church with a broken water main. From the sky, the building is shaped like a symbol of manhood ....  and the water is spraying form one end, while at the other end there is a grouping of what looks like umbrellas ........ big round ones.
I got up to show it to He Who was doing taxes and needed a laugh. I bent slightly down and my back grabbed me on the right side, pulling me back to an upright position.

It is my lower back. I am now wondering if my right side was jealous of all the attention to my left side and sought revenge. Or maybe God was teaching me a lesson for having a dirty mind? Sorry, it was funny!!

So, Monday finds me unable to get into a comfortable position. Seems like everything hurts. I have Cujo snuggled close to my right hip, radiating heat to my back. I tried using him as a heating pad to my left shoulder. Even though he is only about 8 lbs., he was still too heavy. The good thing about Cujo is that you don't have to plug him in or re-heat him. He is a constant source of heat. Not too hot, not to cold ...... just right.

I need to make a grocery run and pick up prescriptions, but I doubt Cujo would be allowed in the stores, even though he is my service dog today. I could just saunter in the store with him draped over my left shoulder like a fox collar on a coat. I could be featured on "The People of Walmart".

Nimble Fingers

My "new' machine became my old machine today. I put her back together carefully and unplugged all her wires. I felt sad as I lifted her and carried outside the safety of the sewing lair and set her on the table in the store. Goodbye, my faithful Kenmore, you served me well.

The new Brother arrived yesterday and I spent the afternoon reading all about the features. By evening my mind was boggled. Most of the instructions ended with "using unauthorized parts can cause damage to your machine" and pictures of the correct way to do something as opposed to the illustration of the wrong way. Under the wrong way illustration were the familiar warnings "doing this can cause damage to your machine". I went to bed with a headache and a sense of foreboding about my newest machine.

This morning, after coffee and putting away the instruction manual, I headed in to set up the Brother. I got all her wires connected and there she sat in the place of glory. So many stickers adorned her casing I was distracted. A "STOP, we can help ......." advising the new owner not to try to return the machine to the store. This warning was on the box, just inside the box and on every little bag containing parts. I peeled that sticker from the machine and tossed it. In doing this I sealed a solemn oath to never, ever try to return this machine to Amazon.

I consider myself to be of above average intelligence, especially when it comes to interacting with a sewing machine. I knew every nook and cranny of my Kenmore and was not intimidated when it came to taking her apart and reassembling her. No, this has nothing to do with the fact that the machine died. I think it has more to do with all the miles I put on the motor.

So, here I sat in front of my new Brother with all the stickers adorning her body. Illustrations demonstrating the threading, the bobbin winding, the insertion of the bobbin and changing the needle are all on the stickers. But, wait, there is also an LCD screen on which to access the individual steps involved in all these actions. I was able to fill the bobbin and thread the machine with no problem. Then I discovered the new feature I had been looking forward to checking out.

My Brother has a built in needle threader!! This so exciting. I can't seem to perform this with my bifocals on .... or off. My current method involved the tweezers from my serger and a tiny magnifying glass that I found on some toenail clippers at the Dollar Tree.

I finished three garments today, broke two needles and replaced them. I discovered some features I am not all that fond of. There is a "safety" feature that locks the machine when something goes wrong. The first needle to break was the one the machine came with. It hit the seam and bent. It wasn't even a thick seam, like those on jeans. It was just velour.

The LCD display announced the broken needle and the machine locked the needle holder in the "down" position and even bounced a couple of times, hammering it in that position. I could not help imagining my finger trapped there. I changed the needle, using the "authorized" needles that accompanied the machine. The second one to break hit a straight pin.

My Kenmore always stopped with the needle in the "up" position, always ready to pull your seam away and clip the threads. This one ends with the needle in the "down" position. There is a button to push to bring it up. I will have to get used to that. I also need to locate my small needle nose pliers that were "borrowed" by He Who borrows and never returns. Just in case my fingers get in the way of that needle.

It might be awhile before I can sit and sew mindlessly while listening to an audio book. My fingers are not familiar with all the buttons and switches yet. I am still missing my old Kenmore.