Another trip around the sun...

  Well well... another new year. Another holiday season come and gone.  Will all the survivors please raise your hands ? lol

  I celebrated my 66th birthday on Sunday (the 6th--66 on the 6th.  hmmm).  Lots of turbulence in this year 2019.  First off, they are dumping me off SS Disability and into the swarming pot of regular old people Social Security. Not much changing there-- same money, same pay date (the one thing I had hoped would change) same Medicare.  Just the IDEA I guess that I am now a senior citizen. People who AREN'T this old say  "OH, it's just a number!!"  People who ARE say-- moan...welcome to the club. Personally, I'm still astonished to have lived this long, as I do not come from a line of long livers. (snort).  At any rate here I am and there you go.  The good news is that since I rolled into SS at age 66, which is full retirement age, I am allowed to earn a sizable income without penalty.  Yay for me. And since I started working part time last August, there's that. So...

  Sunday morning, in preparation for a breakfast potluck, I had a french toast casserole in the oven and accidentally dumped over a Pyrex measuring cup of butter I was melting onto the floor of said oven, causing a 3 alarm fire (not really) but certainly flames and fire and smoke filling up the house. Luckily the first casserole was finished cooking and turned out to be delicious. Second one never got made. Opened all the windows, put dogs outside, got window fan and sucked all the smoke out.  Sigh... Used salt to put out the flames (took a bit) and so the mess of burned caked on salt was left to clean up later in the day (unless of course I just got in my car and started driving, never to return. Then his next wife could clean it up.)  Had a fun day all in all, because who doesn't like a good fire story ??  Got a card from himself which read "The results are in !" with a little mousie doctor on the front. Inside it said  "YOU'RE OLD !!"  Yup. And 2 gifts from friends, one a lovely wax warmer with Honeysuckle scented wax melts and the other this:

Part of a running joke around these parts. lol  I have a refrigerator magnet that says this as well as a gold sign for my front door which reads "The queen of Quite A Lot lives  HERE."

 Got home that evening and after a bit started having some crazy pains in my lower left abdominal quadrant.  Thought maybe I had pulled a muscle or something. Kept hurting worse, I went to bed and laid on a heating pad, which didn't really help, but was comforting. Later started passing blood and got scared. Not a lot. At first.  Told himself that if it wasn't better in the morning I would go to the dr or the ER.  He wondered if I needed to go now, but ever the optimist I said no,  tomorrow would be fine. He muttered something about, yeah, fine if you're not dead, which I cheerfully ignored and went to bed. I woke up in pain and bleeding more  around 5:30 and he was up and getting ready for work. I called off work and went back to bed. At 9 called doc, who wasn't going to be in that day and they told me to go to ER. So off I went, doubled over in pain and sweating and it was all just so stupid.  6 hours and multiple tests later they concluded that I had Acute Diverticulitis, gave me pain pills and a massive antibiotic and sent me home. They wanted to give me pain stuff there, but I told them I had to drive home so, no. Armed with prescriptions I finally left there after 6 PM. When I came back from the CT scan, himself was there waiting. His boss heard him talking on the phone to me (when I was still in the waiting room, after 1:30) and when he hung up said "Was that your wife?" He said yes and the boss was like--hell man--get out of here.  Go down to the hospital !!  So, there he was. I hadn't had anything to eat all day and no coffee, so I had a terrible headache. He was concerned about me driving and I said we're driving to a restaurant right down the hill, I have to eat and have some coffee. lol  After we ate breakfast (for supper--I had a great spinach mushroom and swiss omelet) I convinced him that he could go home and tend the critters and I would stop at the Walcrap and get the prescriptions filled.   Got there and the girl says, it will be a half hour to an hour if you're going to wait.  I looked around and saw 3 people and said--seriously??  I was hurting and she said yeah, sorry. So I hobbled over to a bench and sat. It took them 45 minutes to fill a prescription for 20 hydrocodones for pain and 20 Augmentin (antibiotic) . The generics for these cost me close to a hundred dollars.  I got home, opened the bag and took out the Augmentin (which I had to start that night) and it was a sealed, pre-filled bottle !!!  They didn't even have to COUNT those pills...Grrr.... This world will make you crazy.

  So, I have been off work all week so far, and I was pondering what would happen at work (will they fire me) when they called and said since I had been off 3 days I needed a dr note to come back. I told them it was going to be next Monday before I come back (I am off Sat/Sun). I sent a text message to the MyChart thingy and they texted me back that they could not send that without seeing me. Yesterday I had sent them a message asking for a follow up appt and they said that I had a "hospital generated" appt and that would be fine. I looked and it wasn't until Feb 1st.  The ER doc had been adamant about my being followed up immediately, so I was surprised by this. Plus-- they didn't tell me they had set one up. I called the actual dr office and they set me up for tomorrow at 11 AM.   I am still hurting. Am very tired and weak.  And cranky. The bleeding has stopped but the pain has not.  I am  wrecked. 

  I have never had digestive issues.  My first thought when they told me what was happening was-- OH HELL NO !!  I eat way too much brown rice and kale for this to be going on ! lol  SO who knows?   They (the medical world)  have changed their ideas about what the causes and treatments are for this and  the old stories of seeds and nuts are no longer holding water.  So everything I thought I knew, which admittedly wasn't much,  is incorrect. And so begins a journey of  dealing with what could be a life long learning experience about something I really never wanted to know about.


  I cleaned up a little and laid down a little a few times, and got the Xmas decorations all taken down and put away. Thankfully I didn't get very elaborate with that stuff this year. We had our usual guests for Xmas Eve supper, had a good time and that was about the extent of Christmas here. I'm going to lay down again and then get up and try to run the vacuum after I put a meatloaf in the oven. A basic lightly seasoned meatloaf with some mashed potatoes and gravy  and some stir fried cabbage I think. Himself will be home in a couple of hours. The weather went from high 60's on Monday to high 50's yesterday to mid 30's today.  Might be looking at snow by the weekend. Crazy  weather.  

  Well, there's the 2019 early report from Honeysuckle Hill...a little out of the way place on the prairie where life keeps chugging along and the folks keep trying to move forward and be kind.  as much as they can. lol