Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

Anyway, back to the loose screw on the towel rod.  (See Monday’s post here.)  

Well . . . a day later (we’re up to last Saturday here) & $50 something bucks shorter (home repairmen husbands & Home Depot will get you every time), Tom got it "fixed." 
But, not before he had worked on it several hours Friday night and
Saturday morning, managed to end up gouging a huge, and I do mean huge,
hole in our master bathroom wall where the upper and lower screws used
to be (in two small separate holes) behind the wall plate, ripped out the plastic loose anchors in the wall, tried to insert really big toggle bolts through the plastic anchor holes, failed (but adding to the hugeness of the holes), bought new, smaller toggle bolts than the
first ones he’d tried Friday night, bought some kind of "shims,"
whatever they are (he didn’t explain that part to me too well), special
washers and a new battery operated screwdriver to work with (seems the
one he had wouldn’t re-charge anymore and who’d a thunk we’d need a new
one so soon in our new house). 

(And, I know it’s still "new," because
our friends last week from Austin said it smelled like a new house to
them, including the smell of paint.  I guess we’ve gotten used to it,
already.)   

Whew!  What a mess and what stress.  And, everyone wonders why I have shingles, which they say is brought on by stress!

But, I did get a new watch battery
for $5 bucks, which took care of the watch problem.  (Although, the
gizmo that made it light up at night when I pressed the button still
doesn’t work – bummer.)

Saturday ended up okay, sort of.  Or so I
thought.  Until I discovered early Sunday morning that the detergent
didn’t release from under the lid in the dishwasher to wash the
dishes.  I was bummed once again.  I went out to the back porch to
console myself, figuring the fresh sunny air would do me good, but
discovered that one of the tan colored plastic panels screwed to the
lower part of the back of our house had broken loose from being screwed
into the concrete too tightly.  I was miffed.  Tom wasn’t.

I
wanted to call our builder.  Tom said not to worry about it. (That was
about the time I knew for sure things were falling apart around me, but
Tom interceded, as he always rationally does.)

I ran the dishwasher again and Tom suggested
going to an afternoon movie to see "Australia."  I was excited and
determined not to let my blood sugar get low as it did the last time we
went to a movie.  Plus, it’s been running really low the past several
days for some unknown reason, and it totally incapacitates me.  I had
to change out my insulin pump site first and, being in a hurry, got it
all screwed up so that it took me about twice as long to do (and pumped
a lot of extra insulin into my system, which is an important detail for you to remember).

You can figure where this
story is going.  Yep.  About 20 minutes into the 3 hour movie (and just
barely into my wonderful buttered popcorn), my sugar crashed so badly
that not only did Tom have to leave the movie to go out to buy me a "big" (movie theater term for
humongous & humongously expensive) "real" Coke, as I call them, but then we had to leave, anyway,
because I was so incoherent and out of it – completely.

I kept trying to tell him (in panicked whispers) that I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, but it was something really bad.  I also didn’t think the "real" Coke was sweet or helping my low blood sugar.  I was sure that he had bought a diet Coke, instead.  Then, I said I had to get out of there.  I couldn’t function, much less walk down all the steps and out of the dark theater.

Tom
bought two more drinks in plastic bottles (at $4.50 a pop) from a machine on the way to the lobby (he meant to buy a "real" Coke for me, but by habit pushed the button for a diet Coke first) to
sit me down because he forgot to grab the Coke by my seat while guiding me out.  (I
was beyond doing anything for myself at all.) 

As I was slowly coming around with Cokes of various kinds everywhere around me (Tom had grabbed his large fountain diet Coke by his seat in the movies, so now we had two) and he added
up our inordinate number of purchases at the most expensive place
around, he figured we were about $35 bucks in the hole and we hadn’t even seen
the movie.  Nor did I feel like staying for the next one, which didn’t
start for another 2 1/2 hours.

He decided to go beg the theater manager for relief, so while I continued to sit there addled, he at least got the price of our tickets back – $5.50 apiece.  About the price of each of the drinks we were collecting.

I finally recovered enough that we could talk a bit.  We didn’t really want to go back home without doing something, yet didn’t feel like going out to the mall or anything, so Tom finally decided to console himself a bit (like he was the one who’d been having all the problems, although I suppose living with me is problem enough) by us going over to Buffalo Wild Wings where he could watch the Washington Redskins (his most hated team) get decimated in their football game on giant screen TVs.  It seems we couldn’t get the game on TV at home.

Meanwhile, "back at the ranch," the dishes were washing in the dishwasher for a third time, but the stupid lid on the soap dispenser still wasn’t working.  So, you can see why, by Monday, I was rather out of sorts.  It was a rough weekend after a painful couple of weeks and more and more things were totally falling apart.

Eventually, though, things began to straighten out.  By late Monday afternoon I found a Frigidaire man to come look at the dishwasher on Wednesday morning since it’s still under warranty, after all.  And not-so-bright me figured out in the meantime (I’m a little slow sometimes, I have to admit) that I could probably get the dishes fairly clean by putting the soap in the tray without putting the lid over it.  It might not dispense at exactly the right time, but was better than no soap on the dishes at all.  Although, Tom figured that after four washes in hot water they were fairly clean, anyway.

Today is Friday and while my pace hasn’t slowed down somehow, things are improving a bit.  The repair guy has to order some main electronic part for the dishwasher (figures) that is going to take seven to 10 working days to come in, but at least I can sort of wash dishes while we wait.  I had two doctors’ appointments yesterday that went well over all.  

The bad news is that I’m still in some pain all the time with the shingles, but it’s a lot better than it was.  It’s apparently going to take several weeks to completely go away, but I still have pain medication to take for it when it gets too bad (about once a day is all I’m taking it now – at night).  The good news is that I saw my kidney doctor and currently have no signs whatsoever of loss of kidney function from being diabetic!

He says there is no longer any protein in my urine, my sodium level is finally in the normal range (it’s been way too low since my heart surgery in 2004), I’m no longer anemic (although I have to take iron meds every day), I’ve lost 27 pounds, and all of my other blood tests and indicators are the very best he’s seen them since I’ve been his patient, which has been over two years.  He was quite impressed and told me whatever I’m doing right now, to keep on doing it! 

Little does he know.  For that matter, little do I know.  I have no clue how all of my functions are doing so well right now according to all my doctors or what I’m doing any differently than I’ve been doing for a long, long time.  I mean, I really don’t feel all that great a lot of the time and have a lot of aches and pains, besides the shingles.  And my catscan last week showed lots of arteriorsclerosis throughout my body (hardening/calcifying of the arteries).  But my kidney doctor says that for someone who’s been diabetic for nearly 39 years, that’s to be expected and that all I can do is do the best I can, which I’m doing, to keep it under control.

I truly believe that it is by the grace of God that I’m even alive, much less functioning as well as I am day by day.  And, that’s how I live.  Day by day, moment by moment.  I do not take any moment in my life for granted.  I live them one at a time under God’s grace and guidance and pray for His power and constant presence in my life in everything I do.  I do not expect anything beyond what He each moment gives me.

So, even when things are falling apart all around me and even in me, I live with hope and joy for better things to come.

Much love to you all today and Cheers & Blessings to each of you who pass this way!  Dee