Notes from the Home - November 29, 2016

It took a while, but on November 18, I had the MRI that was originally scheduled for November 11th or, depending whom you believe, November 3rd. You see, on October 28th, I had an appointment with Dr. Verson, a neurologist. Among other things, he said it was time for me to have another MRI of the brain and cortex, and that he wanted to see me again in a few weeks. The appointment concluded, he told Russ and me to wait in the examining room and someone would be along to get things arranged.

While we waited, Russ said he wouldn't be available to chauffeur me on November 11th. A moment later, a woman came in to tell me where I needed to go for the MRI and what to expect when I got there. As she was talking, I noticed the paper in her hand, which indicated the appointment was scheduled for November 11th. "This date won't work for me," I told her. "Then, you'll have to call over there and reschedule it."

On Tuesday, November 1st, I called the folks in the imaging department at St. Francis Hospital and explained the problem. "Mr. Harris, what is your birth date?" the woman asked. I told her, and she said, "Mr. Harris, actually, we show your appointment as being on November 3rd, this Thursday. Will that work?" I said, it would, and then called Russ to make sure.

At 10 am on the morning of the third, Russ took me to the hospital. At the desk in the lobby, a woman handed me a clipboard with several forms on it. "Fill these out. Someone will be with you shortly." About the time I finished, someone was with me, and she led Russ and me to the imagining department, where I was given another clipboard and several more forms to fill out. One of the questions on those forms asked if I had a implanted drug infusion thingy. "Yes, a baclofen pump."

Then a woman came by and pushed me into an office. She asked for the forms I had filled out, took a quick look at them, and said, "You know, you will have to have someone restart your pump when you're done here. Do you have someone to do that?" My answer was "No." I told her, Dr. Milton, who manages my pump, is in Atlanta at the Emory Clinic. And, the other time I had an MRI at St. Francis, there was someone here from Medtronics, the company that makes the pump, to make sure it was operating correctly. "We'll have to reschedule your appointment," she said. "Do you have a card for your pump?" she asked. I do, I gave to her, and she went off to call Medtronics. Twenty minutes later, she returned to say the person she needed to talk to was out and wouldn't be back until Monday. "I'll call them next week and see what we can arrange," she told me. With that, Russ and I headed to the parking lot.

Far be it from me to cast aspersions, but I do believe the woman at Dr. Verson's office who put down the wrong date also neglected to tell the people at St. Francis about the pump. You see, Dr. Verson had me get an MRI two or three years ago. That was the first MRI I'd had since the folks at the Cleveland Clinic put the pump in me. I had no idea the MRI might play havoc with the pump until I was sitting in the imaging department's waiting area that day, and a nurse came by to say I might have to stay a while after the MRI was done, because the person from Medtronics, who would make sure the pump was functioning properly, was running a little late. Obviously, someone from the doctor's office told the people at St. Francis about my pump then. Just as obviously, no one bothered to give the hospital that information this time.

On the morning of November 15, Dr. Verson's office called. I assumed the call was to remind me of the follow-up visit with Dr. Verson, scheduled for Friday, November 18. But, no.  The woman said because I had not yet had the MRI, the follow-up visit would have to be rescheduled. Someone from the hospital would call, she said, to reschedule the MRI.

The call from St. Francis came an hour later. The woman said I was to be at the hospital on Friday by eleven o'clock. Russ got me there in a timely manner, and the procedure proceeded without a hitch. It would have been nice, though, if they had kept all the forms I filled out the first time. They didn't, and I had to fill them out again. Like, I have nothing better to do than fill out a bunch of forms. Well, actually, I didn't have anything better to do, but that's not the point.

When the woman operating the MRI tired of looking for my brain, she pulled me out the machine and turned things over to Ed from Medtronics. Ed, who is originally from Maine, said he enjoys the Georgia winters but prefers the Maine summers. "That's how I feel about the weather along the shores of Lake Erie," I told him. From there, the conversation turned to football. We talked about our favorite teams - his is the Patriots; mine is the Steelers - for a few minutes before turning our attention to the Browns for comic relief.

"It's been twenty minutes," Ed said, looking at his watch. "Let's see how the pump is doing." He pulled a sensor and something about the size of an I-Phone out of his case. "Where's your pump?" he asked. I showed him. He put the sensor on it, stared at the display on the device in his hand, and said, "The pump is doing everything it's supposed to. You're good to go." And with Russ pushing, I went.

Now I must wait until December 27 to find out what is going on with my brain, assuming they found it. I know I often have a hard time finding it.

That's Me

3 Word Wednesday:

Lackadaisical, Harebrained, Idiotic

That’s Me

Alas, I’m lackadaisical

With a head full of thoughts harebrained.

An idiotic spectacle,

This guy so lackadaisical

I’d surely flunk a physical,

And claim body and mind are strained.

That’s me. I’m lackadaisical

With a head full of thoughts harebrained. 

Sad Day

Sad Day

Trump wins? Seems far-fetched,

Gamy racist, sexist oaf

Halting the American dream.

Notes from the Home - October 23, 2016

What is a man to complain about when he can't complain about the weather? If the folks at Weather.Com are right, I'll need to find something. A quick look at their prognostications indicates that the low tonight (Saturday, Oct. 22) will be 42, tomorrow's high 80, and the chance of precipitation is 0. That is also the forecast - more or less - until November 4th. For the next not-quite two weeks, we can expect, say the folks at Weather.Com, highs in the low 80s, lows in the 50s, and no more than a 10-percent chance of rain until the first Friday in
November.

*                    *                    *

Georgia was coming in from her walk, as I was going out for my "walk." We talked about the almost-too-good-to-believe weather. She said fall was her favorite season and asked what mine is. I've always looked forward to spring more than fall. 

But fall is gaining fast. It has to do with the weather.  Along the banks of Lake Erie, where winter is winter, and the cold is unrelenting, the snow has to be shoveled almost daily, and TV shows are interrupted nightly by winter weather advisories, there really is nothing so rare as a day in spring. At least it seems that way when the forecast for St. Patrick's Day is another 2-to-4 inches of snow.

On the banks of the Chattahoochee River, however, where from the middle of May until early October, the weather folks tell us daily the high will be in the mid-90s and the low in the low-to-mid -70s, a crisp fall day is heaven. Not that spring isn't welcome here, but fall brings more relief, at least to a Yankee like me.

Once we dispensed with the weather, Georgia told me about the best vacation she ever had.

"Years ago, my husband and I bought a camping trailer, and we went up to Dahlonega [a town in north Georgia; it is the site of America's first gold rush]. Well, we were almost there when we got lost. We figured we were going in the right direction, and we were on a main road, so we decided to follow it until we saw a sign or something. Then the road went down to two lanes, and a few miles later, it went down to one. With the trailer, we couldn't turn around, so we kept going, hoping to find a place where we could turn around and go back.

"I spotted two tall posts. It was like they were the gateway to something. We went through and soon realized we were on top of a mountain. You could see for miles, and the view was beautiful. We took it all in before we started looking around for the way out. We saw a guy and asked him for directions. The guy said he worked there - the mountain was a garbage dump. We told him we felt stupid for getting lost like we did. He said, 'Don't worry about it. I've given directions out of here to eight other people today.'"

Georgia also told me about the pet skunk she had when she was in high school. It was the best pet she ever had. "And she was smart, too. Sometimes she followed me to school. There I was, and the skunk was right behind me. On those days, our principal kept the skunk in a cardboard box until it was time for me to go home."

Outside My Window

The view from my window is not majestic, but it is pretty on a sunny fall morning.

And, the shadows make a pattern on the porch.

Notes from the Home - October 15, 2016

I don't learn something new every day, but I did learn something new this week. On Monday, October 11, I posted a "Notes from the Home" diatribe that dealt with Brenda the Ill-Mannered Server, and Alice's Son the The Apparently Deaf Late Night TV Viewer. Tuesday morning, as I wandered through the parking lots, Amy, who is also a server, stopped on her way to the employee parking lot.

"How you doing?" she asked.

"OK, I guess. Haven't been getting much sleep, lately."

"I know. I read it," she said, giggling as she drove on.

"Read what?" I wondered. Amy didn't know anything about the blog; I didn't think she did, anyway. She never mentioned it if she did, not even one smart-ass comment about a blog post, ever. "Maybe she's just being a smart ass today," I thought. After all, Amy is a good-natured smart ass every day.

A half-hour later, as I was squandering another day, Alisha, the activity director called to ask if I would proofread a few things for her. I couldn't pass up a chance to be useful, and five minutes later I was in her office. Five minutes after that, Annie, the activities assistant, walked in.

"Tom, there you are. Your ears must be burning."

"Uh?"

"Everybody is talking about you,"

"Why?"

"The stuff you wrote about Brenda."

Annie correctly interpreted my dazed and confused countenance. The folks in charge here at the old folks home have subscribed to a service which looks for any mention of this establishment on the Internet, she explained. When something is found, the link is emailed to every manager and every employee.

Suddenly, I was a celebrity, and everyone was reading my blog. Well, not everyone, but more people than usual. According to the information Blogspot provides, a piece titled "Trite On," which I posted in August 2010, has the most pageviews, eighty-eight, of the over three hundred items I've posted. In less than a week, the saga of the server has racked up eighty-three pageviews.

I would not have posted that screed had I known the entire staff would be invited to read it. The day before I started writing, I'd talked to Orwin, Brenda's supervisor, about the incident. But, the essay did get Roger, the general manager, involved. Brenda still works here. I've avoided her, but word is, she's more considerate, more pleasant, and less demeaning than she was.

No one is upset with me. I was talking to a few of the servers today, and told them I felt like I'd made an ugly scene. I'd prefer to be a little more discrete. "But it had to be done," one of them told me. "When we tell them about her, they think we're just being mean."

At least one resident thinks Brenda is easier to put up with now. Tony stopped me in the hall, Thursday. Normally, he's loud and jovial, but that day he was more subdued. "Tom, I didn't read what you wrote . . . but thank you . . . thank you."

*                    *                    *

I noticed on Facebook today that Cathy and Linda, my erstwhile sisters-in-laws, are in Rome, looking forward to touring St. Peter's and the Colosseum. That brings back of the day Nancy and I set out on the same itinerary one day in late December 2007. We never made it to the Colosseum.

Our tour of the Vatican went smoothly. Because I was in a wheelchair, Nancy and I got to see more of Vatican than the others in our tour group. The route of the regular tour wasn't completely wheelchair accessible, and Nancy and I got to go down several hallways filled with sculptures and paintings that the other folks never saw.

The trouble began when it was time to leave the Vatican. I forget what it was, but there was something to see on the way out. Unfortunately, that way out wasn't wheelchair accessible. Our bus driver told Nancy and me how to get out and told us where to wait at a particular corner, and he would pick us up there. It might be a few minutes, though, because everyone else had to get back to the bus first. 

We waited on the corner for an hour. The bus never appeared, and we decided our only option was to walk back to the hotel. OK, Nancy would walk and push the wheelchair, I'd ride in comfort. 

Finding our way back wasn't difficult. All we had to do was find the right road, and once we did, it was a straight shot. The road, however, was like the road we told our kids we walked to school on: five miles long and uphill the whole way. There was so much traffic that at times, we moved faster that the cars. 

Along the way, a man jumped out of a car and helped Nancy push me for a short distance. Then he kissed Nancy on both cheeks before getting back in the car. He left us in front of what looked to be a hospital. He must have thought that was where we were headed. That would explain the weird looks he gave us when we passed the car he was in, which was caught in traffic.

It took two hours, but we finally made it back to the hotel, much to the amazement of everyone. The next day, we headed to Assisi. Back in Paris, on the first day of our tour, Franco, the tour guide, told Nancy and me, I would have to stay in the bus while everyone else toured Assisi. To get to Assisi, one had to go up a long, steep hill, and Franco didn't think Nancy would be able to get me up the hill. After hearing about our adventurous trip from the Vatican to the hotel, he thought she might be able to get me up the hill. She did.

Notes from the Home - October 9, 2016

"Life is good at Covenant Woods." That is what the folks who run Covenant Woods say about the place, anyway. For the last four-and-a-half years, I have been in agreement - on occasions,  even hearty agreement - with that motto. Not so, this last week.

Wednesday, I joined Mildred, Ethel, and Ruth for dinner. They are delightful ladies, wonderful dinner partners. Brenda was our server. She is seldom delightful, and she very often falls well short of pleasant.

After taking our orders, Brenda returned with three salads: one each for Mildred, Ethel and me. "May I have a salad?" Ruth asked. "You didn't order a salad," Brenda told her in the manner of an angry, impatient mother speaking to her recalcitrant three-year-old. A month or two ago, she spoke in the same demeaning tone to Anna. That night, when Brenda stopped to pickup some dirty dishes off our table, Ethel, who was too full to finish her dinner, asked for a to-go box. When Brenda returned with the requested box, Anna said, "Oh, can I have one, too?" "Why didn't you ask when I was here?" Brenda demanded in her demeaning, disrespectful manner. Ruth, who is ninety-six and doesn't hear well, said, "Huh?" Then Brenda repeated her question in the same tone of voice as she had asked it the first time.

Back to Wednesday: While she was distributing the plates with our dinners, Brenda got snippy with Ethel. Unable to keep my tongue, I told Brenda that she shouldn't speak to the residents in that manner. Brenda put her arm around Ethel and said, "You know I love you . . . blah . . . blah . . . blah . . ." When Brenda headed back to the kitchen, Ethel shook my hand and said, "Good job, Tom."

A few minutes later, Brenda was back and announced she was taking orders for dessert. "I'd like some butter pecan ice cream," I said. "You are still eating, sir. I'm taking dessert orders from those people who have finished eating." It was true, I was working on the last few bites. Ethel was too, but Brenda took her order. When Brenda returned with the desserts, she said, "What would you like for dessert, sir?" "Butter pecan ice cream." "I'm sorry, sir, we're out of butter pecan." I was tempted to look around to see if another server might be in the area, just to verify that there was no butter pecan. But it was Wednesday, and Mayfield Dairy delivers the ice cream on Thursdays. I know, because the yellow truck goes by my window every Thursday morning. So I asked for strawberry ice cream, instead.

Strange, isn't it. Brenda, who was so put out over having to go back and get a salad for Ruth, went out of her way to make sure she had to make a second trip in order to get my dessert. You don't suppose she was playing games, do you?

Alice is my new next-door neighbor. She moved into Leila's old apartment two weeks ago. With her long, thick, bleach-blond hair and her choice of clothing, Alice looks like someone out of a picture taken at Woodstock. That's not the problem.

When Leila lived here, I never heard her television. Since Alice arrived, I hear the television in that apartment quite a lot. Friday night, as I was getting ready to go to bed about ten o'clock, Alice's TV was very loud, and I could hear the voice of a man speaking louder than the TV. I called the desk, and someone came down to ask them to quiet down. I never heard the guy's voice again, but the TV volume remained the same until one o'clock in the morning.

Alice's TV was on Saturday night, but not nearly as loud, and I had no trouble sleeping. But Sunday . . . I took a hydroxyzine, hoping it would help me sleep. It did, eventually. I could hear Alice's TV when I got into bed. It sounded as if she was watching the Trump-Clinton debate. The night of the first debate, her TV went off about the time the debate was scheduled to end.

Not Sunday. The TV stayed on, and the volume never declined by even so much as a decibel. Around eleven o'clock, Richie, who is my other next-door neighbor turned on his TV. What a racket. Until nearly one-thirty in the morning, I was unable to sleep; Alice's TV to the right of me, and Richie's to the left. Once the TVs went off, about one-thirty, I slept until nearly eight o'clock Monday morning.

At noon, I saw Alice in the hall and asked her to turn the TV down at night. "That's my son. You'll have to tell him," she said. I told her it wasn't my job, but I could ask Roger to handle it. "Who's Roger?" she asked. I told her he is the general manager. "Go ahead," she said. I didn't tell Roger, but I did tell Teresa, who was working at the front desk, to give a heads-up to the person working security tonight. Teresa left him a note, and she left a note for Kerri, the business manager. According to Teresa, in cases like this, Kerri writes a note to the offending party to remind them to think about the comfort of others. Only time will tell.