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I am a work in progress. I expect to be walking fully by the end of the month if the flow allows. I have been congested with a chest cold for about a week but it seems to be going away now.
Being at home all the time is a bit strange, I didn't realize how much time I spent in a car. While I don't miss the hospital or rehab, I now have to adjust to solitude. No Jamaican nurse to tease and joke with (and she was very sassy!) I really love people, but you wouldn't know it by all the time I seem to be alone. I also enjoy solitude, to a point. There can be too much of a good thing.
My cat Buster is delighted to have me around after being gone for nearly 45 days. Cats live pretty much always in the present, and they don't always get excited when you return until they smell you. Buster looked at me like "are you real?", then got friendly when he heard my voice. Cats don't hold grudges unless you are mean to them. Never expect them to grovel like a dog in excitement as that would violate the cat dignity code. The squirrel who lives in the tall elm tree outside my living room I caught peaking in the window to see where Buster was. Makes me wonder what these two creatures are saying telepathically to each other. Also the turkeys have returned after an absence of many months. When I left for the hospital it was all brown outside, when I returned it was all a luscious green. This spot is quite lovely in warm weather.
A gentleman from the maintenance crew at the apartment kept Buster fed and watered. I worried about him when my phone wasn't working in the hospital. It seems apples theft detection thought my phone had been stolen given the location that showed up when finally got charged. Sometimes Buster fed himself by knocking the food bag off the counter to the floor, which is the way I found it when I got home. The same man who tended to Buster helps me with taking my trash bags to the dumpster and moving furniture if I need it moved, but he expects to be paid. I do pay him a mutually agreed amount for each task.
The wound care nurse came by Wednesday to look at my legs and the old wounds have not returned. They are going to have some at home physical therapist come by but I don't know when. She also informed me of some Texas resources that are available for home care assistance which are available by dialing 211. Nobody told me about that before I was released.
Another nurse from the insurance company (I always suspect this is more of an in home spying thing) came by to test for detached retina, with his strange little box he had. Basically you sit with sunglasses until your eyes are dilated and look at some dots and a bright flash records an image of your retina. Retinal scans are used in some security systems, mine were recorded at American Airlines when I worked for them at their data center in Tulsa. My eyes seem to be good, but since I am slightly diabetic (less than 150 blood sugar) they checked. Detached retinas, I am told, can be one of the complications diabetics can get. High blood sugar is very destructive to the body. Most of my sugars come from digesting grains or potatoes so I try to eat as little of that as possible.
In the hospital my blood sugar was so low they didn't give me insulin at all. The rehab center tested my blood sugar 5 times a day. I got my fingers poked so many times I can still feel it a times. My fingers and palms shed a couple of layers of skin when I got home but that has ceased. I think it was just the renewal of my hand tissues.
I've tidied up the house from wheelchair level, made accessing what I need much easier. There has been a lot of old paperwork to throw out, work areas to reorganize and laundry to do (one of the more difficult tasks). The bedroom is a work in progress some of it which will have to wait until I am walking again. I have had expenses like chairs to sit in the shower, and assorted "handicap aids". Hopefully these will be temporary but necessary for the moment. Showering remains one of the more difficult things since my bathtub has a very high edge to it.
My work desk is a Home Depot laminated wood work surface with two drawers (very sturdy build and better value than a typical computer desk) which I bought when I still lived in Kingsland. It's got a crank on it which allows me to adjust the height. My dining table is already at the perfect height for a wheelchair. Getting in an out of the kitchen has been a learning experience. My kitchen is small and narrow. It's only a 1 bedroom apartment.
I learned something about those old thermal printer receipts from stores and gas stations, they are covered with endocrine disrupting BPA! BPA is literally what changes color to black when heated. So caution is urged. You may have BPA free drinking water bottles but have you thought about the receipt from the store where you bought it? I sure didn't!
Someone told me about a natural peptide called BPC-157. It's naturally produced in the gut by L. Reuteri bacteria and it greatly speeds the regeneration of muscles, tendons, and many other body parts. BPC-157 was once very common in the 40s and 50s but very few people are carrying L Reuteri bacteria in the guts anymore thanks to antibiotics and toxins in the food supply. I've been taking BPC-157 for about a week and I really noticed it in the strength of my legs. I am noticing the usual arm wounds from the hospital also fading rapidly. The pills are tiny, they are not cheap, and two is the maximum you want to take in the morning before meals. It's completely natural too. Humans make it, just not as much when you get old. Whether the BPC-157 is helping is probably too early to be conclusive, it could also be, as Bashar calls it, "a permission slip" for me to heal myself.
My iPhone battery continues to deteriorate, but I was on Apple Care plan and they are going to give me a new phone to replace it. They no longer service the iPhone 11, but they are making good on the service contract, much to my pleasant surprise! I just can't go to the Apple Store so I have to wait on FEDEX to send me a shipping label and once they receive my old phone I'll get my new phone. Apple really did give some excellent customer service, that few other companies would, so I don't mind plugging them. The shipping label creation thing at FEDEX is a problem but hopefully that gets ironed out soon. I am staying on top of that issue.
I still have bills to pay on the 13th and 15th, my car registration is due for renewal and smog check, (I couldn't do rideshare driving even if I could walk because of the expired document) and I do need groceries too. I don't really have anywhere else to turn at this point, so any assistance would be most helpful. $500-600 should cover it. I am sticker shock each time I order groceries which has to be delivered (a delivery fee charged of course) but at least I am in an area where I can get such services. I have found Sprouts and Randalls to be cheaper than our venerable HEB grocer, which seems to jack up prices compared to the competition on its delivery app. I have hospital and EMS bills too but those are going to have wait.
I love you all, may you all stay healthy and prosper!
Terran
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