I love this

 

I am so behind

but here goes...

Number five...

A Total Knee Replacement Handbook: How to Self-Advocate for Your Own Health Care and Well-Being, Before and After Surgery by Carolyn Fortuna

This is from a patient's perspective, as opposed to the previous text, which was written by an orthopaedic surgeon and was well-prepared. I'm glad I got one from each viewpoint.  Incidentally, both had very similar recommendations, which I found interesting.

It's sad that I've only read five books in six months. My goal this year is 36. Maybe I can catch up while I'm laid up. I don't know. In the past, I've generally been unable to read in recovery from surgeries, and mostly it's been listening to music in terms of entertainment for me. We'll see. I'm going to try to make a concerted effort to read this year, I think. Stay tuned to see if that ever comes to fruition. I have several books out from the library that sound very interesting, and the librarian said they wouldn't come after me even if I couldn't return them. (I'll have Brenda do it sometime when she comes over to play the game or maybe if she takes me to the doctor). But I feel like a dragon sitting on a hoard of treasure, anyway. :) Oh, and I have an app on my phone counting down to the big event...I'm now 41 days out from surgery. When it's within 30 I can file for FMLA/short-term disability. It's close. It's starting to get real.

I just have to share what my psychiatrist, who is Brazilian, so his first language is Portuguese, not English, said. I told him I was nervous about the procedure and he said, and I quote:

Oh, there's nothing to worry about. We just cut off your knees and put in the prosthesis!

To which I replied:

Dr. X, that does not make me feel better!

At this point he realised, after 40 years of practice, that perhaps he'd said the wrong thing, and went into a personal story meant to soothe where his wife had each knee done and the surgeries had gone very well. I was just glad he had gone from medical school into psychiatry rather than orthopaedics. I do not think that sort of bedside manner would fly. Don't get me wrong, I love my psychiatrist. He manages my meds well and I've gone to him for a long time. But, still...

I told my therapist (who had been very good about telling me, 'oh, there are so many of these done, I'd much rather have a surgery where so many were done a year rather than one every once in awhile') what he said and she was flummoxed. Mind you, they're in the same practice. I'm not sure if she's allowed to share that so long as no personal information of mine gets shared, but I suspect it will get around the office, as these things do. :) 

Sixteen

I'm going to count this even though it's very short.

16. Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper.

It's delightful.

Good information embedded in the humour

You call that social distancing! Now grandma's fallen down the well!

This pretty much describes things perfectly around here

We're up to 169 cases in Kentucky, 4 deaths.  Our governor is taking steps to help flatten the curve, but we are, of course, still part of the upward swing one would expect at the beginning of a pandemic.  Still, we're doing better than a lot of states surrounding us, so that's a positive thing.

Starting tomorrow I have a new work schedule, where we've divided into teams.  My team will work Wednesday through Friday, then Monday and Tuesday, and then the other team will take over for the next span.  At least in doing so, we're spreading people out and halving the exposure to the world outside our homes.  We have options to take the off-days with paid time off if we have it (I do, for about two months of this, anyway, so this is my choice), taking it without pay, or supplementing income by working with other departments in the meantime.  If one of our team members gets the virus, we would all quarantine, leaving the other team able to do essential tasks.

So no one's being laid off or anything.  Those without PTO are also allowed to go into the negative, they just can't take normal PTO until they get back into the positive.  It's a reasonable plan.  I'm not sure if the third option above really helps with limiting exposure, but for those without underlying issues, that may not be such a problem.  However, with mine, I'm going to stay home on days I'm not scheduled.  That's five days (seven with the weekend) at a time that I don't have to take the parking shuttles or anything.  And all of the departments are doing a version of this, worked out with their managers, so that pretty much halves the number of people in the building.  And some are working from home--I just couldn't because of the amount of patient health information I deal with (virtually everything I touch is protected information).

We were scheduled to start this tomorrow, and I was supposed to be at work today, but my car wouldn't start this morning.  I have almost nothing in my bank account (22 cents, to be exact, but hey at least it's positive), so I can't do a thing about it till Thursday.  I don't think it's the battery.  My roadside assistance is in jeopardy due to the tow I had in the fall and then the two to do with the tyres, so I'm afraid to use that.  I was planning on transitioning to AAA, but that's been put off as I'll have to fix the car.  If it isn't one thing, it's another.  I was already looking at fixing the front brakes this weekend. :(

Okay, that's enough for now.  Hope you got a laugh out of the video.  We need things like that to keep us sane during all this.  Take care, and stay well.

I like tiny houses, but you can go too far

Nevermind the fact that Thomas Edison's inventions were not always his own

This is funny!

I do love Latin, but this is funny...

Although keep in mind it's Eddie Izzard and so be prepared for some vulgarity (and not of the Vulgar Latin variety). :)s

Hee hee

Came across this online

And while guns in schools are no laughing matter - whether brought by an active shooter, a student showing off, or a teacher trying to protect - I have to admit this is kind of funny, unless you're a French teacher, perhaps. I do like that the librarian one has a silencer.

But seriously, arming teachers would be a nightmare in terms of insurance, safety, etc. Only people with sufficient training and ability should even handle a gun, ever. And we shouldn't make teachers some sort of warrior. They should stick to what is far more important - teaching, and in the meantime there are certainly other ways to keep guns out of schools and keep students and teachers safe.

How to get absolutely insane blood sugar readings on a blood stick

I was dreaming a vivid dream of a group of five waifs in a hospital with a traditional Celtic harp, something you might see on the Hallmark channel, and I came awake suddenly. It was after 1 pm, so I thought I should probably go ahead and eat something. I poured some soda into a glass and took the bag from Kroger with the bread, peanut butter, and no-sugar-added spreadable fruit inside and took it over to the computer, at which time I discovered the lid of the fruit had popped off and it had oozed into the bag and over the other things. I got a few sticky places on my hand, but didn't think much about it, made the sandwich, set everything else aside to deal with later, and went to take my blood sugar. It read 'HI'. It never reads 'HI'. I've been 460 before in real life, but this seemed very odd. Then I took it again and in a different finger and it it said '467'. But I didn't feel high. So I washed my hands, changed the lancet, and retook it. '177', a little high, but I hadn't taken any insulin yet today, either, and I'd had that one no-sugar-added Klondike bar. It sounded much more correct. So I'm getting ready to take all of my meds, and it doesn't look like I'm heading for a sugar coma. Lesson of the day: always wash your hands before taking a glucose reading. :)

My goodness, this is so true...

Thanks to YKWIA, who showed me this, and a bunch of other videos about the sad death of intellectual freedom and critical thinking on campuses.

Sorry I didn't post last night

I didn't get home till 12:30 or 1 am, having gotten A from work and before that I was over at YKWIA's helping him with various things until time to go pick up A. I was so terribly tired. I woke up late this morning (had to be over to pick up my friends for an appointment), but they're there now and I have a little time for myself. I should be working on the house, or cooking a quick meal, but instead i had a banana and popcorn for lunch and I'm on the computer just for fun this time.

On Facebook I found a post on a Twitter account that is truly hilarious. Medieval Reactions takes art from hundreds of years ago and pairs them with modern interpretations. Here's more about them in the article I read, along with some of their posts. My favourite is 'When your mate uses fabric softener', even (or maybe because) it's a little blasphemous. Be sure to check them out. I definitely went ahead and followed them.

I've shared this before, but you can never have too much of a good thing

I don't know if it's because I'm a vegetarian (well, pescetarian, really, I do eat fish), or if I just have a perverse sense of humour, but this song never fails to put me in a better mood (although the cow is a he with an udder in the video, which makes me wonder about their grasp on science). :) Okay, let's all sing along:

'We will fight for bovine freedom
and hold our large heads high.
We will run free with the buffalo, or die--
Cows with guns.'

And on that note, good night.

:)

One bit of fun during last night's power outage: I reached into my bedside drawer,  pulled out what I thought was a pen light, and got up to go to the bathroom, but instead it was an insulin pen.  Not very illuminating.  At least it wasn't the pepper spray.

For YKWIA

Okay, I plan to be cremated

so this just will not be possible, BUT...it's very tempting. Hee hee. True story: Years ago my great-grandfather, who'd been a tobacco auctioneer, died. My father, an engineer, really wanted to set up an electric eye at the graveside and have a recording of my great-grandfather auctioneering play if someone tripped it, scaring them half to death. I guess the apple didn't fall too far from the tree.

I laughed out loud when I read this

and it captures the ignorance bred by hatred so well. While the current anti-Islamic/anti-Muslim climate is alarming, people need to reminded of the good aspects of Islam and Middle Eastern culture. For example, a good deal of the ancient Greek classics, including much of Aristotle, were preserved in the East and translated into Arabic, before finding their way to Europe through Spain and other channels during the 12th-century Renaissance, and we still study such philosophers as Avicenna and Averroes in philosophy classes today. Christianity has a troubled history of intolerance of its own; I don't judge all Christians by that. There should be no throwing of stones in the name of religion regardless of the parties targeted or doing the destruction. We need to learn to work and live together despite our differences, as we are all human, and all share a home on Mother Earth.



You can follow this link to see various replies back and forth.

If you're not aware of what this was in response to, read: Schoolwork about Islam triggers backlash in Virginia county

A Virginia county closed all of its schools Friday because of intense backlash over a class assignment about Islam, with some parents alleging that their children were being subjected to Muslim indoctrination and educators emphasizing the importance of exposing U.S. students to the world’s fastest-growing religion.

A high school geography teacher in rural Augusta County asked students to try their hand at writing the shahada, an Islamic declaration of faith, in Arabic calligraphy. The task, community reaction to it, and a sudden influx of outrage from around the country — including angry emails, phone calls and threats to put the teacher’s head on a stake — led the school district to close rather than risk disruption or violence.

The county, in the Shenandoah valley west of Charlottesville, is the latest to wrestle with how Islam should be portrayed in the classroom and how students should learn about it. It’s a subject that has become increasingly fraught as concerns about Islamophobia have grown alongside fears of extremist violence and terrorism.

Yep...

Between a child's sense of adventure and everything from 'Tarzan' to 'Gilligan's Island' to Indiana Jones, this really seemed the case. And I am still waiting for the flying cars from 'The Jetsons'.