Author: Doris

Jeremy is recovering from his surgery nicely. I’ve provided post surgical care to hundreds of people – surgeries ranging from appendectomies, cholecystectomies, mastectomies, breast reconstruction, bowel resections, hip replacements, amputations, hysterectomies, prolapse repairs, gastric bypass, Whipples, etc. – but it was something different with Jeremy. I know it was a super simple outpatient procedure, but to see him walk slowly to the car and to be in pain was stressful for me. He’s almost back to 100% – I’d say he’s about 85% today. He had scheduled a sick day for today, but he felt well enough to work. As per my nursing training, I check in on him Q4 hours and ask about the pain and check the incision. Haha.

I do not know what to do with my nursing job. I’m working the fewest shifts I can work and keep the job and I’m reluctant to work more. There are many (paperwork) things I have to do with Edda turning 18 and I need the extra time to do that and also, nursing is hard! I’ve been without a nursing assistance many shifts. I have the best manager and the best charge nurse, but the unit is churning. The pay rate to go travel to another local hospital is well over $100 an hour (compared to my hourly rate of $36), so lots of people are leaving to travel. There are only a handful of us left who are regulars, our floor is filled with travelers paid at said rate of over $100. It’s weird, how this has come to be that there are really no new nurses, just nurses moving around to the highest bidder. And this is the best unit in the hospital. I bet there are other units where there is no regular staff. It makes working there very strange. Obviously I don’t nurse for the money, but the fabric of my job is changing. I wonder what it will be like in a year.

I went to see Nat and Dara who are traveling to Thailand tomorrow! I got to see them before they left and wish them all the blessings xoxoxoxoxo.

Edda went to school for the first time in about a month yesterday. She was very excited (not that you can see it in this photo). We were very excited. We got little videos of her during the day laughing and enjoying herself. I feel like we’ve peaked here in the DC suburbs, testing is much easier to find.

She got these new shoes (from Eliana’s recommendation). They are great! They zip up the side and when I order the extra wide one, they close well over her AFOs.

Jeremy went to have his hernia repaired, also on the same day. The covid test on Monday miraculously resulted on Tuesday – so we had no problem with that. This was at an outpatient center about a mile from the house.

I’ve always admired Jeremy’s veins (he doesn’t like needles, so he never let me practice on him), and the nurse put a nice 18 gauge needle in for the IV. I asked if the nurse complimented his veins and he said yes. lol. I’m not often on the patient side of the nurse/patient interaction. I can see how the discharge paperwork is confusing – when to take the pain meds – and what to do. Jeremy was essentially still out of it when she read the instructions to me, so if you don’t have someone with you who understands, it’s hard to remember everything. Also, I know all the pain meds, and so when she said he got Tylenol here, and oxy then, and then torodol then, I know the dosages and whether they were IV or narcotics or oral, etc. Anyways, they prescribed him Norco (which is also called Vicodin, but somehow they don’t use that name anymore). I had to go to three different pharmacies to procure it because of “supply chain” issues. But he didn’t need it in the end. He was able to sleep on 600 mg of motrin at 9:30 pm and feels much better today.

In December, after Alice’s death, I decided to run outside and run long. I just wanted to be in the woods and away from roads – to clear my head, I quiet lots of internal chatter and turn inwards. I joined the MCRRC winter trails program and have run with them for a few weekends. They are a funny group of people who are like – you can totally run 100 miles at a time. But try 50K first. I just wanted to run in the woods and not pay attention to my pace. I have never really run long, long. I ran a half marathon in 2013 and then never again. I’ve really only trained for 5Ks and 10Ks with my weekend long run averaging about 7 miles. I’ve run 7 miles every Sunday for years (I understand that 7 miles is long too, but after you do it for many years, it just becomes regular). But in December and early Jan, I’ve run 12 miles 3 times – very slowly and walking when I wanted to. Two of the three, I ran with the group. I ran one by myself over Christmas break in New Mexico. It does end up a faster run with fewer stops and less navigation on my own when I run with the group, but I have to talk a lot to people which is both nice (the time passes more quickly) and kind of a lot (sometimes it’s like a very long first date). Usually, the MRCCR runs are on Saturday which is fine, but I worked a hospital shift on Friday and I didn’t want to get up early on Sat, so I ran the published route by myself on Sunday and I finished the 16 mile (!) run on my own. I can’t believe it. It took me about 4 hours – I did stop a lot, but I felt good the entire time. I do like running by myself, I guess even for long periods of time. After the Cherry Blossom, I paused getting weekly workouts from Paul, but now with the new year, we restarted again – hopefully culminating in a marathon to celebrate my 50th birthday later in the year.

I feel like you can see the little red spot on my nose from the n95. I switched back to the less comfortable 3M n95 mask work. Somehow if it is less comfortable, I feel like it must be working better. lol. The hospital is as full as it’s ever been with covid patients – as of last week it was back to May 2020 numbers. Though I did not have to take care of any of them.

Jeremy has a simple outpatient hernia surgery scheduled on Wed. They wanted a covid test within three days of the surgery. First, the appointments are impossible to get and second, the turn around time has gotten longer. So I booked an appointment for Sunday (yesterday) two weeks ago, but it got snowed out – Jeremy tried to go in the terrible driving weather to make this appointment but when he got there, it was closed for the weather and then he turned around and had a very nerve wracking drive home. Then we tried to search and search for a testing site today – I did find a county run one that had appointments today – but the turn around time is 3-4 days which would place it after the surgery. I do not know how this is suppose to help anyone with testing so hard and turnaround time so long – so we’ll see if the surgery happens. The reason he is getting hernia surgery after more than 4 years of considering it is because he decided to lift heavy things. And therefore, the hernia is going to get fixed and now we have an enormous squat rack in our bedroom.

I’m reluctantly working on our wills. I’ve been “working” on it for almost a year now. It is like so painful to do. But I can do it! I want to put something in place when Edda is 18 and Vince is not yet ready to “take over”. He’ll be ready, but not right now. Right now, Vince and I are on hold for 2.5 hours trying to open a bank account for him. He doesn’t sense the urgency, but I do. Little steps.

I gave up Instagram and Facebook at about Thanksgiving time last year – the same time I got my new computer and didn’t enter the passwords for the websites and deleting it from my phone. I’ve tried many, many times before failing each time. This time I did it easily because I replaced it with Pokemon Go. Of course, everyone needs a “mindless” thing to do on their phone while waiting, bored, going to sleep or just tired of the world (which I am all the time). I just hated that it was facebook or Instagram, these always made me feel worse, like eating too many potato chips – delicious in the moment, ugh afterwards. I tried giving up Instagram and Facebook without this “mindless” crutch, kind of imploring myself to take those small bits of time to “read a book!” or “learn Spanish!” or whatever, but, really that was not sustainable. I do need a mindless thing that I didn’t mind doing. I got tired of doing tetris-like puzzles all the time which were repetitive. Pokemon Go is perfect in a way. It’s kind of really boring and mindless a lot of the time, but also entertaining. If you don’t cheat the GPS on your phone, you are suppose to walk a lot, so my running helps me level up in the game. It’s self limiting in a way that I like – if I run out of poke balls, I need to go on a walk to get more. I’ve discovered a few people (like 2-3 people) who are intense players who I’d like to get to know better, so there is a social element. I’m in this “battle” with Vince on leveling up, so that is fun. And the game actually is pretty complicated with many different ways to play and 10,000 pokemon to get to know (they all have different traits that perform differently in battle – I honestly have no idea.). And it’s ridiculous – I like telling people I play Pokemon Go. If I like it too much, I will have to give it up sometime. Hopefully not back to Instagram or Facebook.

I always thought the apocalypse would involve more running. Running away from zombies. Instead, we are stuck at home and waiting for things. All systems seem down. First, I was unable to open a new Vanguard account over Christmas break on their web site. I would enter all my information and hit return and the website would say – unable to continue, call customer service. Customer service hold was reportedly hours. Fine. They don’t want my money! They’ve had this problem on their web site for months (according to reddit) and no one has been able to fix it. Next, Vince and I were on the phone together for 2.5 hours trying to open a bank account for him – unsuccessful. Next #2, Jeremy spent almost an hour in line at the grocery store to check out. Next #3, I wanted to make a small change to our car insurance which should have originally taken 3 minutes on our phones, but took 3 days and 2 emails. Next #4, again, a small change on my bank account information which should have been able to be done online, and this also takes a 20 min wait on the phone. Next #5, Edda’s prescriptions needed to be filled by Monday afternoon. I put the order through on Saturday for Sunday afternoon pickup. They weren’t filled, I asked when they would be ready. I was told the delivery would be there by 4pm Monday. Six pm Monday, they weren’t ready – the delivery was running late. And then when I went in to pick up an emergency 15 pills for a 3 day supply, we ran into an insurance snafu in which the pharmacist apologized and said that he needs to call the insurance help line during business hours to straighten it out. I’m sure there is more. The apocalypse is a wearing away at your resilience and will – will any of us survive?

We’ve been enjoying cat sitting and dog sitting. They are becoming friends in a very entertaining way. It’s nice to watch an interspecies friendship develop. Emy came in last night from ABQ late last night, spent the night and took Ivy home with her this morning. We are reimplementing masking in the house – so we masked with her.

As last week was the first “normal” week since Alice’s death, it was the first time I’ve had time to myself without her. I probably spent 5 or 6 hours a week walking or talking with Alice during the last year of her life and now that she’s gone, I miss her terribly. I think I (personally) do a lot of preparatory, anticipatory grief (I know this isn’t what a lot of people do – Jeremy, for example – is optimistic, optimistic, optimistic until the known bad thing happens and then he’s a wreak) – I mean, we both knew what was going to inevitably happen – so I kind of prepared myself for it and I didn’t cry the whole time she was in hospice or the night that she passed away (which I can get angry at myself for), and then the holidays were stressful/busy and now I want to “get back to work” or whatever, but I am lost and slightly adrift and morose. And the pandemic is just hindering things – I haven’t invited Mike/Sofi over for dinner, we haven’t gathered her pals around for a service. Am I allowed to? So many neighbors are sick with covid but recovering well, I don’t know what to do.

We’ve also been keeping Edda home from school since we’ve gotten back. I’m not sure what I’m suppose to do about that. The first week was because after care was cancelled and we needed to readjust. The school system promised to publish numbers every night, but they got so high (some schools reaching 10%), they stopped doing that on Jan 7th. They said the threshold for closing was 5% or greater, but over 100 schools blew past that by Jan 6th. They are short staffed. I want Edda (and the rest of us) to stay well until the 19th. That’s when Jeremy has minor outpatient surgery scheduled.

Vince’s school went virtual for a month and they asked kids to stay on campus, but most people went home. So now Vince is in a situation common to the fall of 2020 where he’s in his apartment by himself – though now in his online classes, he knows people on the list, I guess. Now they are trying to reimplement in-person labs only, but this is confuses everyone.

I’m trying to choose hope and optimism. But it’s cold in January and we seem stuck at home. But I saw this full rainbow in the sky over the weekend – so that’s something. And maybe it was an ever so slight double rainbow now that I look at the photo.

We made it back from ABQ fine. Vince had more trouble getting back to Davis. His flight got rerouted through LA and then that flight was delayed and then he had to take a really expensive UBER home very late at night (or in the morning). We made a mistake and scheduled everyone to fly on Monday, Jan 3 – when both kids had school! I don’t know what we were doing. UCDavis said the first week was going to be virtual before the break, so Vince did his first day at airports and made 2.5 of his three classes. They just announced last night that the first four weeks are converted to virtual which made Vince (and us) groan. We’ve been keeping Edda home from school – not really because I want to keep her free from illness, but to let her teachers have an easier student load (one of her three teachers is already out with covid). The public schools are having lots of call-outs, about 10% of the bus routes didn’t run this week. Every school is hovering around the 5-10% of the population out because of covid.

We came home to two pets requiring pet sitting. Ivy (Emy’s cat) and Scarlett (Ben’s dog). They are entertaining us as only pandemic pets can. They, I think, are becoming friends! Not like close, close friends who snuggle with each other. But they will tolerate being 2 feet apart and will cross paths without too much angst. Ivy usually hides under some low furniture, but at times, he will come out and hang out with Jeremy at work.

Scarlett is such a goofy dog. Goofy and good natured. Wants to be everyone’s friend.

Nat gave Edda this pullover sweatshirt for Edda for Christmas. Usually I don’t like pullover items for Edda because I think they are hard to put on and take off. But somehow, this sweatshirt seemed perfect for Edda – it’s from the Teen line at the Gap. So I slipped it on her earlier this week. She also got new AFO (foot braces) which are incredibly hard to put on and take off. This is difficult for diaper changes as we like the pull up kind and pants need to come on/off to use them and this usually includes taking on/off the shoes and braces. But then I remembered that I have a pair of Adidas track pants that have zippers along the side of the leg which allows them to be put on over shoes and I realized that this is Edda’s new teenage look. Honestly, I really like this style for Edda. We’ve been keeping her in too young of a look for too long.

There was a lot of biking. Jeremy, Seth and Emy (who eventually got a bike seat and pedals from Seth – but ended up getting 3 (!) flats over the course of the week) biked together and separately. Jeremy is KOM (king of the mountain) on a Strava segment that only 8 people have done – so hopefully he will keep it a while. Jeremy also went up a “famous” mountain race course in which he placed in the bottom 20% which never happens (he’s almost always top 10% (?)). It’s because it is the course of a “famous” race, but apparently not many amateurs travel to this remote spot to do the course. Anyways, I guess it’ll remind Jeremy that he is not a professional bike rider no matter how much he wants to be. Seth both bike and ran. I only ran. I have no bike, but all this bike talk over the vacation made me feel like buying a bike for myself.

There was hiking both locally and around the Renouf Ranch. Andy and Rita showed up for a few days in the middle there.

We also saw Hawk’s family.

The Swedes left for Chicago on the 30th and the vacation became a little quieter. We puzzled (but did not finish despite our best efforts).

We said goodbye to Seth and Emy on the 2nd when we headed to ABQ for our flight and they headed to ABQ to stay with Seth’s family for another week.

Noteworthy #1: I’m friends with Felix – my nephew-in-law. Felix can be a lot, but he’s a boy after my own heart. A techie in a family of historians.

Noteworthy #2: Edda and Vince, my beloveds, thank you for being such great travelers and such good sports. Letting us drag you here and there and making you sleep in a tent and/or outside and shower in unfamiliar places. Esp. Vince who is straddling the place between child and grownup and who doesn’t have to spend winter vacation in a rural spot with very little cell service with his crazy, crazy family. You both have my whole heart and all my love.

Sorry, now it’s going to get all jumbled. We went on a hike to find hot springs which was fun and weird and cold and hot all at the same time.

Look at all of us skinny dipping. The hot springs were fun. Getting out of the hot springs was very, very cold.

There were many hikes on this trip. Edda went on two. The first one was this bridge hike which seemed pretty paved.

But Edda ended up being carried in her wheelchair over some rough patches. Edda loved it.

At night, we played games – this cracker game with musical flutes with Bob conducting which was very fun. And then a very vulgar game called Joking Hazard which wasn’t a very good game, but we were laughing so much watching Bob say very vulgar things.