WOW!!

PT today, more stretches and leg strengthening. At the end, he asked to see how fast I could walk to the end of the building. As I was walking faster and faster, it occurred to me, "I wonder if I can run." It's been many years since I've been able to run.

As I neared the end of the walkway, I turned around and started jogging back toward him. At first I felt like Frankenstein, glumping along, unsteady and weaving from side to side--then my steps became more regular and smoother.

The shocked look on his face, as I jogged faster. I'm sure he thought, "this old woman is going to fall and break a hip."

Meanwhile I am yelling, "I can run! I can run!"

When I left there, I walked really fast to my car and there was no pain in my back!

This weekend will be the real test. I will be walking a lot, and standing a lot.

I report back to PT next Wednesday. The way my back feels, I think it may be my last session.

YOWSA. I feel great!

The people that live across the street, moved in about 5 years ago.  They are the ONLY people in this part of the park that have a double lot and set up their home, across both lots, facing the street.  Their son was the park manager at the time.

The fact that they took away my entire view of the service drive and the woods beyond did not endear them to me.  I used to see deer and Sand Cranes and such almost daily--until they obstructed my view.

They were never the friendliest.  Not ones to call out a "Hi" when they see you outside.  I did take them warm chocolate chip cookies the day they moved in and if I see her while I am out, I will walk over and chat for awhile.

Bob and Marilyn, in their mid-70's.  Their younger son (40ish) and his son, Tristan (17) live there.  Bob went out every morning at precisely 8:00 to go into Brighton to have breakfast with friends.  Marilyn went out every other morning to shop at Meijer.  I have never seen any of the men come out to help her carry in groceries.

A few months ago, Bob had an infection in one of the tracts in his gall bladder.  He nearly died.  Then he was in rehab for two weeks.  He came home and was once again into his routine of "breakfast with the boys".

Then I noticed that he was walking with a cane and Marilyn drove him into town every morning.

Then he used a walker and only went to breakfast a couple of times a week.  Last week, I saw her and her son struggle to get Bob out of the car and into a walker with a seat on it and try to get him into the house.

Last weekend, there were a lot of cars parked out in front of their house.   This past Monday, there was a hospital bed brought into their house.

Tuesday, I saw their son out mowing the lawn.  I walked over and asked, "Dad's in bad shape?"

He nodded.

"I noticed you had a lot of visitors and no place for them to park."

"Yeah, my sister was here."

"Well...I just wanted to tell you and you can tell your Mom, anyone of your visitors can use my extra parking space."

He actually smiled.

"You can move one of your cars over, or have anyone park there."

"Thanks.  I will come and knock on your door when we need it."

"Nope.  You don't have to do that.  Just park there whenever you need it.  Night or day--several days--just use it whenever."

"Thanks."

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We all have space to park two cars in our drive/parking pads.  I only have one car.  Maybe having that extra space for them to park, right across the street, will help them out.

Meanwhile, I know what's going on inside that house and it makes me sad.  I especially feel for the teenager.  Coming home from school every day, wondering, when you walk in, if Grandpa is still alive or on his way out.  Is he going to die while you're there?  It's kind of hard to ignore the hospital bed set up in the middle of the living room.

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Yesterday I met Karen in Brighton to go to the round-about mall to find me a pair of shoes for the wedding.  I knew what I wanted.  Comfortable flats in navy blue.  We were going to check out 3-4 stores.

First, because we were right in front of the Kohl's store, we checked there.  Neither one of us likes that store.  Everything is "on sale".  Inflated prices, with a nice sale ticket which is probably the original price anyway.

We walked WAAAAAY back to the shoe department.  Karen picked up a pair of shoes and said, "What about these, Mom?"

I tried them on.  They fit perfectly and felt like comfy slippers.

"They look really nice," Karen said.

"Yeah but...they are black.  I know with my long skirt, they won't show much, but I really want a dark navy blue."

So my resourceful daughter leads me up to the customer service desk, presents the shoe and says, "Can you check to see if there are any shoes like this, in the back?  We need this size only in navy."

Then she tells me to go sit on the bench while she does the run back to the shoe department.

About 20 minutes later she appears.  "They don't have them here, but I had them call the Howell store.  They have them and are going to hold them for us.  Plus, I have a 30% off coupon."

YAY!!!

We get in our cars.  She is going up the expressway and I am going the back way home.  "I'll meet you at your house.  You can hop in my car and we'll drive up to Howell and get them.  Follow me."

"I can't drive on the expressway, Honey."  I said.  "I don't think this car can go 75, without something dropping off."

So off we go and I arrive home before her.  Which makes me kind of worried.  Did she get in an accident or a slow down on the expressway, because there is no way--me driving the back way and through Brighton, that I could have beat her.

Just as I was pondering all this, in she drives.  Gets out with a shoe box in her hand.

"I figured as long as I was flying up the expressway, just to keep on going up to Howell."

Took us less than an hour.  I hate walking all around shopping, so it was a win for me.  Karen has school exams she has to grade this weekend and the wedding next weekend, she doesn't need the whole "hauling Mom around" scenario.

Even then, she offered to haul out my pots from the shed so I can plant annuals.  She offered to vacuum if I needed it.  She took the bedding out of the dryer and turned the mattress and made my bed for me.

I knew when she was born, she was special.  I know that even more today.  What a blessing she is.

======================

This week I have PT Monday and Wednesday.  Hair trim on Tuesday.  Finish up the coordination of how I am going to get to the wedding and home from the reception and the wedding on Saturday.

Because Jennifer's whole family is coming in for the wedding, she decided to have a surprise graduation open house for her oldest, Andrew on Sunday, in Brighton.  Thankfully I can make it there all by myself!!!

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This sounds terrible, but personally?  I can't wait for it all to be over, including PT.

I just want to get back to my quiet, uncomplicated, peaceful way of life.

My PT on this past Monday seemed to really help.  I woke up  Tuesday morning with hardly any pain.  Of course it got a bit worse as I walked through the day, but all in all....I was pretty happy.

Back to the Physiatrist on Wednesday--he checked me out and recommended 4 more weeks of PT AND he prescribed another pack of Prednisone.  I LOVE Prednisone.  While I am on it, I have no pain, no where and my attitude is way up there.  It makes me feel so good.

He said that sometimes the Prednisone, will help for longer than it is taken.  That it knocks out the inflammation and...since he noticed the inflammation is down--he is hoping this might really help.  Back to him in six weeks.  I gotta call and get my PT started back up.

All I want is to be able to walk up that aisle at Maddie's wedding and not be screaming in pain!
=====================
Speaking of Maddie, she graduated Nursing School last week with a 4.0= A.  She is working at a large hospital in this area--the same one Fred was always in, and she has already been hired full-time by them.

How long will that last?  She gets married on May 25th and I figured she'll be pregnant by May 31st.  HAH!  She and her "to-be" are both virgins and in their marriage are not going to ever use any form of birth control.  YIKES!
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Jennifer was in the area, from New Jersey, here on business.  Since that was the case, she and Karen and Maddie took me to supper at Outback.

I haven't seen Jen in nearly a year, still, when we hugged, I noticed she kind of held back.  When Karen hugs me, it is full on with a full kiss on the mouth.  Jen sort of hugs me lightly and an air kiss directed somewhere near my cheek.

Oh well, it is as it is and at least she is cordial and talkative.

That old woman in the back-center is me.  I look like the Wreck of the Hesperes!!  Trying to let my hair grow out a bit for the wedding.  I can't wait until I can get it cut waaaaaaaay short again in June!
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This morning, I woke up at 7:45.  Unheard of for me.  I had a terrific pain in between my shoulder blades, into my left shoulder.  I, of course, assumed I was having a heart attack or AFib, so I clipped my Pulse-Ox on my finger and my heart rate was steady at 61.

It may have been I slept wrong?  Then I had a bout of diarrhea and a lot of burping, so it probably was from the French Onion soup I ate at supper...because after all that, the pain disappeared.  Can gas build up that high in your back?
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I went to the Old School Gal Pals luncheon today.  It's the first time I've been in 5 months.  We had a good chat.  I wasn't really feeling all that well, so was glad to get home.  I sat down in my recliner at 5:00 and woke up at 7:00.

Like the saying, "I guess I really needed the nap."

I promised myself that I would start posting more on here.  I can't believe it's been a whole week.  I blab too much on FB and should save those posts and put them on here instead.
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There has been a lot of rain and consequently a lot of flooding in the Detroit area.  Big cities are covered in concrete so there is nothing to absorb large amounts of rain and it just builds up.  Plus, there is Lake Erie nearby and the St. Clair river.  People love to live on the water, until an easterly wind drives it into their homes.  
===============
Today, it is sunny.  My Tulips have opened up.  The Daffodils are still being daffy.  Orioles, Grosbeak and Red-winged Blackbirds are back at the feeders.  I put my Hummingbird feeder up, but have not seen any.  They usually come rolling around May 15th, but can be earlier.

My lawn is rich and green and covered in beautiful sunny, yellow Dandelion blossoms.  When I was a kid, our house was quite a ways back from the road.  The front lawn went from house to road.  In the spring, that long lawn was covered with Dandelions and my Mother thought it was the most beautiful "garden".  Perhaps that is why I love Dandelions?

=================

I am finishing up a genealogy that I started the beginning of April.  It has been so interesting.  Research shows great grandfather's fighting in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.  Being captured by Indians in the French Indian War.  

You can always tell in a genealogy if the father went off to fight.  On the family group page, there will be one or two children born, than a gap of a few years, then six or seven more children born.

I've often wondered why there are no soldiers on my father's side of the family.  I know none of them would have enlisted on their own, but............................I can't remember their dates right now, but maybe they were lucky enough to be either too young or too old to be drafted.

My Daddy was just the right age for WWII, but he got a deferment because of a heart murmur and his father was ill, so he had two farms to take care of.  He wouldn't have wanted to go anyway.

=====================

Did I show you the pillow front for Della's pillow I finished?

I also crocheted and stuffed a dog that looks kind of like their dog.

I think I will give her the dog the next time I see her and wait on the pillow until baby brother is born and I get to see him.

Most people rush in to see the new baby.  I've never done that.  I always talk to the older sibling(s) for awhile and then ask them if I can see their new baby.  There is so much attention given to the baby and I don't want the older child to feel they are kind of overlooked.

================

Now I am working on the worded Baby Boy blanket for the new baby boy--arriving in July, and also started x-stitching the wedding shower gift for my grandson Stephen, who is getting married NEXT June.  I won't be in crunch time for this one!!! (like I was with Maddie's.)

 I'm doing this in blue.  The pattern was free!!

==================

As for physical therapy--after 3 weeks, my back felt good.  But...after the Wednesday treatment, it feels worse than it did when we began.  My last session is Monday and then Wednesday, back to the Physiatrist to see what he'll do next.

I wish he'd give me another week of Prednisone, so I could work on picking up sticks and working in my gardens with no pain, but I am sure he won't.

Time flies when you're having fun....and even when you're not.  

I'm doing physical therapy for my lower back issues.  Not much they can do when stenosis, arthritis, degenerative discs are present, but we will give it the old college try.

The first day was all about stretches, exercises to do at home.  That wasn't getting it, so on the second appointment, with a real "hot spot" on my left lower back, I just asked him if he would press on that spot.  I could feel it was swollen and inflammed.

Man--he got right on it.  Deep tissue massage, using his elbow!  It hurt like heck and I kept forgetting to breathe through the pain.  I got up the next morning and could feel the swollen part was "down" and the deep pain was gone.

So...that's how the last two sessions have gone.  I get on the recumbent bike and pedal for 400 steps--the amount of steps it would take me to get up to the corner, a few stretches, then I show him where the pain is and he gets right on it.

I think PT might help--temporarily anyway.
================
Now for some gossip--I try so hard not to gossip, but sometimes it's just too good to not pass on--at least to my blog buddies anyway.

Dar---you remember Dar right?  Hadn't come to visit in weeks, came over and told me that while she was doing her Dad's bedding, she decided to turn the mattress top to bottom and under the mattress--just like a 16 year old boy, her Dad had hidden pornographic magazines!  Her Dad is 96 years old.

She left them there.

"Did you look at them?" I asked.

"Noooooooo!" she answered.

Then she went on with her dusting and for the heck of it, while she was dusting his TV remote, she turned it on.  Up came the last  channel he had watched.  People having sex.

"That's what you get for that expensive 500 channel cable package you have," I laughed.  "Maybe you need to set up some parental controls."
==============
That evening, Dar and her Dad walked in.

"Can we stay here for awhile?"

"Sure.  What's going on?"

"I have a gas leak.  I've called the gas company and they are on their way.  It was making Daddy and I sick and we both have headaches."

20 minutes later the gas company shows up--wouldn't want to hurry.  It's only a gas leak, which could go off and blow up every trailer on that line!

She went out to talk to them, her Dad stayed in with me.  Knowing his predilection for porn, I felt a little creepy.  He just sat and petted Maggie the cat.
YIKES!  Maybe he has a cat fetish?

Dar was back in about 20 minutes.  Not a gas leak.  The underground sewer line is plugged and it decided to pick her house to back-up.

Come to find out, the "cap" that connects house to sewer line had popped off some how, so for the last couple of weeks, every time they flushed, or any water going down the drain has drained out UNDER HER HOUSE--onto the cement slab below and out onto her lawn!
==========================
Men dressed in Hazmat suits came out to inspect.
Other men came out to flush out the under ground sewer lines.
We don't have city water or sewer.  Our "drains" go into lines underground which eventually drain out into a retention pond that is pumped out and carried away in tanker trucks every month.

Thankfully the park is liable for any expense to get this mess cleaned up.

One of the park maintenance guys stopped by yesterday, just to see if everything was working.  He asked her to turn on the water faucets and see if it drained away correctly.

It did not!

So, men came in with hoses, attached to powerful jet-like water and put them down the little sewer pipes that are in the lawns between each house.  In the line between her house and the one to the east of her, they found two large cloth rags.  They have spoken to the people who live in that house, but we have no report if they have been fined or just reprimanded.

Still--she had raw sewage on the cement slab under her house and her lawn.  The park maintenance guys are going to have to clean that up and then spread lime under her house and on the lawn to kill any bad buggies.

Can you imagine what viruses and diseases could result from this mess?  It's like we are living in a 3rd world country.

This park is very nice.  Only manufactured coded homes are in here--no old style mobile homes.  Everything is maintained well, with lovely gardens and the like.

But--who knows what old gas lines, water and sewer lines lie just below the surface.
================
Hey--I'm working on an interesting genealogy and I'd better get back to it.

Life is good--at least on the surface.  LOL

I guess I didn't realize how the whole water heater fiasco was affecting me emotionally.  Stress.

The independent plumber who said he'd do it--did not return 4 of my calls when I told him I was ready.

The bottom rusting and leaking--I kept imagining the whole bottom giving way (as the one did right after I moved in here) and having another 40+ gallon flood in my bedroom.

Knowing the floor underneath, holding up all that weight, could collapse and water heater shift downward, snapping off gas and water lines.

Having to dig through piles of clothes to find something to wear.

Biggest worry about the cost.

I lost 7 pounds in one month.
===================
On Wednesday I went up to Home Depot--having researched and found they sell water heater's for manufactured homes.  They had the one I had found on-line and the salesman and I set down to write up the deal.

However--they could find no plumber contractor's who wanted the job.

After a few calls, the salesman bent toward me and said, "Why don't you just get AAA Service to do it?"

Well--duh!  They put in my new furnace 6 years ago and are very highly recommended in this area.

The salesman called them and let me talk to the receptionist.  Good to go.

The receptionist called my "special daughter" and got her credit card number and I was in business.

It was set-up Friday.  I had attached the hose and drained as much as I could so they wouldn't have to spend time on that.

There was 8" of lime sediment in the bottom of that tank and, come to find out, the one I've had for 13 years, was not made for a manufactured home.  The bottom vent wasn't sealed, so a bit of carbon monoxide has leaked out all these years..whenever the furnace came on and pulled air from the rooms.

It took them an extra hour to modify and get it in place.  They didn't charge extra.  The total price was the same as the original quote.  The guys were great.  They let me watch and explained things along the way.
=====================
I left the door on the closet and the water heater open all Friday night to dry out, although the guys tested the floor and it was stable.

Saturday, I closed up the door on the water heater space and hauled all my clothes, that had been lying in piles all over my bedroom floor, back in the closet--spring and summer clothes toward the front.

Then I vacuumed up everything and decided to mop the hallway and kitchen, which hadn't been mopped since before Christmas.  Cleaned up the kitchen.

Today, I can barely walk!!  

I keep forgetting that everything is okay now and even taking my shower this morning, I kept waiting for the hot water to run out.

It's all going to be all right now.

My son's "numbers" are going back up again.  If you have or know someone with cancer, you know the numbers are critical to watch.  However, tests revealed that none of his tumors are growing.  He did have to have a large Melanoma removed under his arm.   7 hours after they removed the stitches, the whole wound reopened and his girlfriend had to rush him back to the hospital.  I feel sorry for his girlfriend.  She is a rather odd duck, and drinks a bit more than I care for, but I'm sure glad he has her there with him.
===================
Wednesday I went to the new Doc.  A Psyiatrist.  Fizz-i-ah-trist.  Never heard of that kind of Doc. He doesn't just use one method to deal with the back pain/shoulder pain/ whatever pain people have.  He has many methods to try.  Oral steroids, steroid injections, physical therapy, traction, manipulation, or referral to a surgeon.

He has started me out on oral steroid and physical therapy.  He knows I've been the whole injections route and don't want to go there again and he knows I will not have surgery.

I was impressed with the young man and his carefulness in starting with the lowest way to help, instead of rushing into something.

Thankfully, even though I can't take anti-inflammatories because of the blood thinner, I can take Prednisone with no ill effects.  Personally, I love Prednisone..it makes me feel so good and gives me energy.  I hope it works the same this time.  
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Saturday-----I just can't believe it.  After taking one day's worth of the steroid, I woke up with no back pain.  Just amazing.

Oh--did I tell you the water heater is leaking?
Oh--did I tell you the plumber, who promised to call Thursday or Friday to set up the install appointment, hasn't called?

Trying to find out when he can get to work before I set up my physical therapy appointments.

I think I will just watch the Master's Golf tourney today and Sunday for forget about the problems of the world!!!!!!