Hurrying Up & Waiting

My week isn't turning out how I wanted it to, though last week was similar, so I am not surprised the way it's going.

I am feeling better though.  No more redneck porta-potty here now thank goodness.  I can put more weight on my foot and do a tiny bit of walking(if you can call it that).
I actually got UP the stairs Saturday night to my wonderful bed for the first time since Thursday morning when I butt scooted down the staircase.  It was heavenly to actually get to sleep laying down.....ahhhhhh!
By Sunday afternoon I was able to sort of walk down again and walk back up for bedtime again that evening.  So now I am at least mobile enough to take short trips within the house from room to room if I rest the foot in between.

I also learned that not only can you get a blood clot in a leg from inactivity(like sitting or standing too long in one position), you can also get one from too much activity.  Who would have thunk that?!

I am still on Percocet however and that is what is helping me get through the day and get to sleep at night.  It takes the pain from an unbearable level to a tolerable one.
I have a fairly high pain threshold(demonstrated by having 1 of my babies naturally with NO painkillers at all and having a cavity drilled out and filled with no novocaine once)but being in pain nostop with no relief for days on end isn't my idea of a picnic. After 2 days of that, I break down and beg for it to stop.

I am now worried that this clot problem will keep me from attending a family reunion the weekend after the coming one.  I have my heart set on going to this so I am doing everything they tell me so I can get well enough to go.

The nurses are still coming to the house to draw blood for INR levels as they try to get me to between a 2 and 3 with the Coumadin in my system.  After 4 days of taking either 1, 1.5 or 2 pills I was still only at a 1.19 level so they had me take a quadruple dose(4 pills)last night.  Please pray that the docs get me stabilized at a 2-3 INR level with this drug soon so I don't have to miss the reunion. 8-)

Today is the last day I give myself shots...yippee!  I confess I am not very good as a shot giver, even to myself.  I still say Hubs missed his calling in life as he gives great shot. ;-)

I obviously couldn't keep the dr. appointment they scheduled for me yesterday as I can't walk to nor get INTO the car yet.  So they rescheduled it for tomorrow......and I think that is optimistic at best. lol

I need to get my Meal Plan for the week done too.  But it's hard to do when I can't get into the garage yet to check the freezer to see what I have in it to cook and I can't get to the store to shop yet.
I can send Hubs for a few things at a time but a full list overwhelms him.
Maybe I can get downstairs later after my noon shot and figure something out.

I picked the green beans I could reach yesterday from the deck as I had to be out there to put out the dogs.  There is also broccoli that needs picking today so I'm hoping Hubs will do that for me when he gets home.
I wanted to get to the farm stand this week to get red bell peppers to make pepper relish as the window of opportunity that they will have them and I will have green tomatoes on my plants still is closing.  If I have to pay reg. grocery store prices for those I can't afford to make the relish and I am almost out of it, and the season when I can make it again is a year off. sigh

My September is not going as expected so far.
By now I had hoped to have the remodel finished and the Etsy store opened, as well as getting the eBay stuff back listed again. I only have 14 listings ready for Etsy out of about 200 pieces of fabric to put in that store.  sigh again

As for the remodel....Hubs had to buy new baseboard moulding, as some of what he removed when we went to do the painting can't be reused, plus one of the walls in the rooms is quite bowed and with the carpet up and the hardwood flooring down, the width of the gap between the wall and the edge of the flooring is wider than the old moulding.  So we had to get new baseboard and quarter round pieces as well to extend the mouldings.  Hubs picked it all up(thank goodness we didn't have to order it and wait another 2 weeks for it!)and got it painted over the weekend....I think the quarter round lengths need a second coat though, so he'll do that this weekend.  Then we have to call the guys to schedule them to come back to install all the crown and baseboard mouldings.  It might take one day but probably will go into a second day to finish the job.

Once the guys are done, then we have to touch-up the paint job and then start filling the room with furniture and figure out WHERE to put it.  Oh, and I have to make the curtains too.
It's always something, right? lol

So that' how life here at Chez Sluggy has been going lately.

What's up at your house?

Sluggy

The Man. The Myth. The Legend.

Now THAT'S an obituary!

See it HERE.

I'll have to leave instructions that whomever ends up penning mine takes a few lessons from this one. 8-)

R.I.P. "Freddie" McCullough.

Big Tittie Sluggy
 

And The Good Times Just Keep Coming Or Don't Needle Me!

If you've noticed I haven't posted much in the last two days except for the giveaway post that went up this morning, which was scheduled ahead, you are correct.

I've been having more fun that any human should be allowed since Thursday morning.
Yah, that last sentence was written with sarcasm just dripping off of it.....

I woke up before 6am with a severe throbbing pain in my left foot.  It must have been bad if it woke me out of a sound sleep, huh?
I tried to get up but putting any weight on the foot just caused me to yell out in pain and fall back onto the bed.
I managed to butt scoot down the stairs and hobble into the den and plant myself in the recliner.

I thought that my painting marathon last weekend had precipitated this bad pain in my foot.  I had noticed that since Monday morning while the pain in my right foot at disappeared over the last few days from being on it pretty much non-stop for 2.5 days painting, the pain/ache in my left foot had gotten a little worse every day.  But when I went to bed Wednesday evening, it was sore but nothing that a good night of being off of it for 8 hours wouldn't make better.
Oh, but how wrong I was.....

After Hubs got ready for work he asked me how I felt and what I wanted him to do.
I knew he couldn't take off work on Thursday as he had vital company meetings he couldn't miss without enduring professional repercussions, so I had him gather some items I'd need over the course of the next few hours to survive without anyone here to fetch stuff for me(like my cane, my pills, a bottle of water and a couple food items)and I hunkered down to get through until he could take me to the doctor or the hospital or an urgent care.  At this point I could walk on the foot if it was absolutely necessary(like to get to the bathroom).

I called the dr. and they could only fit me in at around noon, but there was no way I could drive myself and I had no one available to drive me to the office.
Hubs was able to come home around 2-ish so we headed out to the ER, since the urgent care at the other hospital is by appointment(which is a dumb idea by the way).

After doing the initial intake at the ER, where they gave me a wheelchair, an ex-ray and then a Percocet(which did NOTHING for the pain) I sat for about 2 hours and then they decided to send me upstairs to their Urgent Care(which begins at 5 in the heart hospital facilities)since the ex-ray didn't show a break or sprain in my foot.  The Urgent Care would be able to see me faster I was told.

So we sat in Urgent Care an hour longer before seeing the doctor.  She was stymied by my symptoms and the ex-ray.  The ex-ray showed a small bone chip or spur on the right side of my left foot, by the big toe, but that was not there the pain was radiating from so she couldn't decide what was going on.  She ordered some blood work  and it only showed a slightly raised white cell count(indicating some infection, which is normal for me)and that my Vitamin K level was quite high.  She was going to send me home and just have me wear an ace bandage and give me some more Percocet or take Tylenol(hahaha)and see if it got better.....or not......

Just before she was about to leave me, she suggested we get an ultrasound of my leg, even though nothing hurt in my leg.  That was her last possible suggestion for diagnosing me so we went down for an ultrasound and then they drew blood again to check on some other level of something and then we sat some more.
Finally, after being in the Urgent Care for 4 hours, she sent me back to the ER, because the ultrasound showed I had a DVT in my ankle.....which is a fancy way of saying I had a blood clot in the vein in the back of my ankle for which I needed immediate medical attention.

So back down to the ER we go to sit in the hallway on a gurney for another 3+ hours so they can draw more blood and have an ER doc review my chart and they can set me up with drugs/rxs.  It was almost 2am when we got home.
They gave me a shot of morphine in the ER which seemed to take the edge off the pain(thank the lord!)but sent me home with 6 Percocet-a day and a half's worth of pain meds(ugh).  Since Percocet did nothing for the pain in the ER, why do they think it's going to help the next day? 8-(

Blood clots use to land you in the hospital for 7 days with a heparin IV in your arm.  Now they send you home with a prescription for heparin injectables....

Yes, I am now giving myself shots of blood thinner.  I have needles and I know how to use them.....
Lucky, lucky me!!! 8-)

I am also on anti-coagulant therapy(Coumadin)and being monitored by the Anti-Coagulant Management Clinic.
Try saying THAT 10 times real fast!

I am having to have blood drawn and checked every couple of days to monitor/adjust the levels of blood clotting ability in my blood.  Not having enough of the drugs in my system won't help much but having too much could kill me.
How comforting....

Because I can't walk at ALL on my left foot since Friday morning I have nurses coming to the house to draw blood and I get phone calls every day about my levels and how much Coumadin to take that evening.
Between the blood draws(plus the pokes when they couldn't locate a vein)and the heparin shots I've been poked 13 times since Thursday afternoon.

I still can not bear any weight on the left foot so I have been spending my days going from the recliner to my desk chair(which has wheels), which I use to scoot into the kitchen to get my pills or to get to the makeshift Redneck Portable John.....which most people call a 5 gallon white bucket, since I can navigate well enough to get into the bathroom and to the toilet.
I haven't seen my bed or a shower since Thursday morning and miss it so..........sigh

After talking to the case worker for my family doctor I got a new prescription for more Percocet, at double the dosage, which seems to help me get the pain from an 8.5 to about a 2 on scale of 10, at least for a few hours at a time.  It's the only reason I am getting any sleep right now.

I'm hoping to see some progress with the pain in the foot by tomorrow but every medical type person I talk to says getting to where I can walk on that foot may take awhile longer.  At any rate, I have a follow up appointment at the doctor's office on Monday but unless I can walk to the car and into the dr. office and back to the car and into the house by then, it won't be happening.

The medical types seem to feel that the painting marathon precipitated the clot, which is actually good news.
If there is no "event" that they feel caused a DVT the medical types want to keep you on this drug regime for the rest of your natural life, even if you have no history of blood clots.
If they can pinpoint an "event" you are only doomed to all the shots and drugs and pokes and unwanted attention for 6 months.

See? I really am lucky.
8-)

So post something on your blog for me to read or leave a long comment so I have something to do while I sit and can't sleep for the next few days.  I need entertainment and tv is a wasteland this weekend.

Sluggy-the lucky one with a needle and who knows how to use it


 

Week Two of the Giveaway is Now Open

It's Week 2 of the September/Fall Boring Blog Box Giveaway.

 

Here's how it works if you are new here.......

 

I put things in the box(mostly what I have gotten for free or almost free)each week and when the box is filled we draw a winner from all the entries received.

Here is what went into the Box today......2 items to make your joints and eyes feel better, 1 item to make your skin feel better and 1 item to make your eyes purty......

 

 

 

 

1.  a 2 Pack of Oil of Olay Soap-sensitive variety

2.  1 tube of Ben-Gay muscle relief cream

3.  1 Almay Intense i-Color eyeliner/eye make-up pencil--rich mocha color for green eyes

4.  1 bottle of Visine Advanced--Redness & Irritation Relief variety

 

 Over $20 retail worth of HBAs!

 

If this is your first time, please go read all the rules for these Giveaways HERE.  *As always, if you are located outside the US, you CAN enter and win but weight restrictions/shipping costs may mean your prize box will contain less items.*

***Time to enter.....You can enter on this Giveaway post until I close this post to entries.

1 entry per person per day on THIS POST.
Leave your name/email address and a COMMENT on this post.  

This week I want to hear about whether you take advantage of the cheaper prices of seasonal vegetable harvest in late Summer/early Fall by stocking up on fresh produce to perverse(can, freeze or dehydrate)it for later eating in the colder months?  If you do what do you like to preserve and using which method?  And what veggies do you get for the best prices in September and what region of the country(and which country if not the US)do you live in?
In August and September here in PA I can my homegrown tomatoes and some years I buy additional from a local farm by the bushel to can if I get ambitious.  I often can my own pepper relish if I can get red bell peppers for a good price and I have enough green tomatoes left in September on my plants to make a batch of relish.  I will buy extra of the red bell peppers to also freeze peppers for use in the winter when the prices of peppers get high.
 

 

You can come directly to this blog post or find it through the link on the right side bar to leave 1 comment per day.  The current Giveaway Post will be linked right at the top of the side bar.

Please NOTE--You MUST be a follower to enter the Giveaway.  If you aren't one, just click on the "Follow" button on the right hand side of my blog to become a follower.

There are 2 ways to get 2 EXTRA entries on this and each new Giveaway Post besides the daily comment.......

1. Put my blog on your blog's Blogroll.  Leave an extra comment for this entry on THIS POST with the URL of your blog so I can go check it out. **If I'm already on your Blogroll, say so in an extra entry comment once each week of this giveaway.

2.  Blog about this Giveaway on your blog with a link to this post.  Leave an extra comment for this entry on THIS POST with a link to your blog post so I can go view it.  You can do this extra entry once each week of this giveaway.

 

Two more weeks/posts after this and the box will be full and ready to pick a winner.

Any questions?  Just email me.

Happy Entering!! 

Sluggy

Of Feet, Floors, Flora & Furniture

Not to moan again but I can hardly put weight on my left foot today so I am heading back to bed shortly and taking a pill for the pain as the last one I took this am is wearing off.  First to feed and put out the doggies though.

I got the garden eggplants breaded and cooked this morning, so I just have to throw them together with some mozzarella and sauce later and bake it off and we will have achieved eggplant parmesan.
Rah.

Yesterday our beagle, Cherry, had surgery.  She has had a large fatty tumor on her side by her hind leg and it started impeding her movement last week so we had it taken off.  The vet also removed a much smaller fatty growth on the opposite hip/side and a new growth on her tale at it's base.  The tale tumor concerned the vet(might be cancerous)so we had him send that one off for biopsy.
But Cherry is home and being her old silly self again.......

And there goes another $589 we weren't expecting to shell out this month.  Sigh.

Yesterday was beastly hot here so I was/am glad that the new a/c system is working again....yah!!

I spent a good part of yesterday out on the back deck painting 8 long strips of crown molding.  I was trying to get that finished before Gary the handyman showed up to install it.  I got 2 coats on it all and Gary never showed up....figures. lol

But the floor guys were back yesterday(Tuesday) and they finished laying the new bamboo floor in the dining/living rooms.....

And the finished product.....

Now we have to get new baseboard moldings, paint them and wait for the floor guys to come back to install that(as well as the crown moldings laying on the floor).
I also have to touch up spots on the new paint job where the flooring guys marked up the wall(about 18" from the floor)while laying the floor. ugh.

I also picked a nice mess o' beans yesterday from the garden.....

I added this to the mess o' maters, more beans, broccoli and eggplants I picked last weekend.....

The broccoli has already been made into soup and most of the maters have been peeled and cooked down so I will can them tonight after dinner.  I also need to blanch and freezer a lot of the green beans as well.
The tomato crop this year has been phenomenal!  The plants haven't grown leggy and tall but have been heavy with fruit.  No blight this year and the rainfall has been even enough through the season that we don't have many of those split tomatoes you get when the rainfall is uneven throughout the Summer.  Our neighbor has commented on how much we have grown on the plants and is angling for some freebies since he never does well with his maters.  He's a great guy so we'll have Hubs walk some over to him tonight while I finish up canning/freezing what I need to do.

I spent a chunk of time yesterday while resting from painting the molding and sitting in the a/c house looking at area rugs online.   I have one for the living room but I need to pick up one for the dining room but after viewing about 5,600 rugs my eyes started glazing over.  I didn't see anything that I loved that was a reasonable price but then again, I am not really sure what I want in that space yet.
So the search for the perfect dining room rug continues.....

Speaking of dining rooms......Salvation Army showed up with their truck this morning at 8:20am to take away my oak dining room table/chairs and buffet.  It was time to let it go and move on.  I admit I was sad to see it go(though I did want it gone)as I bought that set in 1988.  The top of that table still didn't have a single scratch on it after 25 years, 3 kids, and a heluva lot of Holiday meals.
The style fit into our first home well but it was never really "my style" and I am anxious to find something that is a better reflection of my tastes.  I hope someone finds many more years of enjoyment with it.

Off to feed pooches now and rest my foot.

Sluggy

This Week on The Dining Table

The "Better Late Than Never" Edition......

Tomatoes from the Garden, as far as the eye can see........

 Here's what was planned last week--

Sunday--Hot Dogs on rolls(leftover), homemade Pickles
Monday--London Broil sandwiches with mushrooms and onions, Salad
Tuesday--BLT Sandwiches(garden tomatoes)
Wednesday--Leftover London Broil & Green Bean stirfry
Thursday--Eggplant Parmesan, Caprese Salad
Friday--Tacos, Corn
Saturday--leftovers or Fend for Yourself Night

And here's what actually got eaten--

Sunday--Hot Dogs on rolls(leftover), homemade Pickles
Monday--London Broil sandwiches with mushrooms and onions, Salad
Tuesday--BLT sandwiches(garden tomatoes)
Wednesday--? what Hubs ate, I didn't eat-too tired.went to bed early
Thursday--Chinese take-out
Friday--leftover Chinese take-out with leftover green beans
Saturday--chili dogs on rolls, Me BLT sandwich and bagged spinach salad w/strawberries

So Wed., Thur., and Fri. meals are moved yet again to this coming week

  

As for food spending last week.....I spent $76.03 on groceries at 2 stores. 

As for food waste, we had to throw out a small amount of watermelon that got mealy and old.

  

Leftovers going into this week? Still 1/2 a loaf of homemade bread, a hunk of London broil, a  butt load of green beans and tomatoes from the garden and 4 cups of broccoli florets.

Here's this week's meal plan---
 

Sunday--Hamburgers, Green Beans, Roasted Potatoes and Onions
Monday--Cheddar Broccoli Soup(garden broccoli)
Tuesday--Tacos (I  had leftover roasted potatoes and onions instead.)
Wednesday--Eggplant Parmesan(sauce using garden tomatoes), Caprese Salad, Garlic Bread(leftover bread)
Thursday--Roasted Chicken, Carrots, Onions, Stuffing
Friday--London Broil/Green Beans Stir fry, Rice
Saturday--Fish fry, Beets, Coleslaw

On the shopping list......fresh mozzarella, maybe fish(have to check the bowels of the freezer compartment), cabbage(for coleslaw), milk.  If I buy fish it will be a 3lb. bag and run $20 so we'll have more than we need for this week.  Fresh Mozz is $6.99 lb., milk $2.00 and cabbage about $2 a head.  We have apples I bought last week and canned fruit so I'll pass on fresh fruit this week and I'll pass on deli meat for lunches-I have leftover soup, some bacon for a BLT left and I can use leftover chicken from Thursday's dinner for Friday's lunch.    Groceries should run about $40 this week.

That's what's appearing on the kitchen table this week here at Chez Sluggy. 
  

 What's getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Sluggy

And One More Thing I Forgot.....

Last week also sucked a little bit too in the financial arena.
Hub's car's "check engine" light went on and long story short, after 2 trips into the auto repair shop over the course of the week, Hubs has a new sensor, a new catalytic converter and our bank account is $600+ more bare.

Sad face.

Sluggy