Steven Harper's Blog, page 25
July 3, 2022
Move #4
Since Darwin and I have been married, we've moved three times. This was Move #4, and both of us swear it's the LAST ONE!
I can't lift very much above my head, or even straight out in front of me (thank you, surgery), and Darwin was driving an hour and a quarter to work and back every day, so we hired a company that would both move and pack. We did pack some stuff beforehand--things we didn't want other people to handle--and I dismantled the various electronics system, but the rest we left to the movers.
I was actually less than impressed.
The moving team did swoop in with five burly guys and set to work. They worked fast, but we later realized they didn't label the boxes well. They just wrote KITCHEN or TOOLS on the boxes and that was pretty much it.
On top of it, we were having trouble with the painters. The painters arrived to start work on Tuesday to redo chunks of the interior of our new house. They said they'd be done by Wednesday evening. Then it was by Thursday morning. Then Thursday evening. Then Friday morning. Then they admitted they wouldn't be done until sometime on Saturday. Probably late afternoon or evening.
This announcement caused some frantic consternation. The movers would arrive long before the painters were done. What the heck were we going to do?
Meanwhile, the movers cheerfully boxed and taped and hauled. They emptied out the condo while Darwin and I tried to figure out what to do. We finally decided I'd go down to Ypsilanti (we were both at the condo in Waterford) to get a better look at the problem while Darwin stayed to supervise the movers and let them into the storage place so they could get that stuff as well.
I drove down to Ypsi, and yeah, the painters were nowhere near done enough. Dropcloths still on the floors, painter's tape everywhere. ("Got one coat left on this room!") Only the basement rec room was done.
Darwin phoned to say the movers were heading down. I told him about the condition of the house and basement. We thought about it and decided that we'd just have the movers put everything into the basement or the garage. What else could we do?
When the movers arrived, that's what we did. It created stacks of boxes in both places. The movers liked the easier job! The furniture was going into the basement anyway--we had new stuff coming on Sunday--but we weren't sure what to do about a place to sleep. The bed was set up, but the house wasn't really habitable yet. In the end, we spent the night at a hotel.
Saturday morning, we hovered around the house while the painters finished up. At =last= they announced they were packing up to leave. Yesterday, I noticed paint dust on everything--windowsills, bathroom counters, the stove. Everywhere. The owner of the company assured us they wiped down all surfaces before they left. Okay, then. But Saturday as they told us they were leaving, I saw no signs that they were going to clean. I mentioned this to Darwin.
"I don't care," he said. "I just want them done and OUT!"
The painters finally left, but the house was indeed covered in work dust. Darwin and I went around with rags and cleaner and cleaned =everything.= It took hours.
And then the Great Unpacking began for us. Though when I say "us," I mean "me." Darwin had to work on Monday (and the rest of the week), so most of the work fell to me. I started with the kitchen.
Once I began, I realized that the painters had kind of done us a favor. Because of them, the interior of the house was clear. No boxes or jumbles of furniture. This was good for my state of mind. Living in a cardboard forest is stressful--I feel like I have to GET IT ALL DONE NOW! But under the current conditions, I just went into the garage, grabbed a box, brought it in, unpacked it, broke the box down, and went out for another box. Meanwhile, the house itself remained clear. I'll remember this the next time we--
NO! NOT MOVING AGAIN!
By the following weekend, nearly everything was unpacked that needed to be. The only stuff left in the garage was stuff that belonged there in the first place. Ditto for the basement store room. They were --still are--a jumbled up mess, but it wasn't anything we had to do right now. Instead, we did stuff like look for throw rugs, bathroom accessories, and other little things the house needed.
But we still had the office ...
[image error] comments
I can't lift very much above my head, or even straight out in front of me (thank you, surgery), and Darwin was driving an hour and a quarter to work and back every day, so we hired a company that would both move and pack. We did pack some stuff beforehand--things we didn't want other people to handle--and I dismantled the various electronics system, but the rest we left to the movers.
I was actually less than impressed.
The moving team did swoop in with five burly guys and set to work. They worked fast, but we later realized they didn't label the boxes well. They just wrote KITCHEN or TOOLS on the boxes and that was pretty much it.
On top of it, we were having trouble with the painters. The painters arrived to start work on Tuesday to redo chunks of the interior of our new house. They said they'd be done by Wednesday evening. Then it was by Thursday morning. Then Thursday evening. Then Friday morning. Then they admitted they wouldn't be done until sometime on Saturday. Probably late afternoon or evening.
This announcement caused some frantic consternation. The movers would arrive long before the painters were done. What the heck were we going to do?
Meanwhile, the movers cheerfully boxed and taped and hauled. They emptied out the condo while Darwin and I tried to figure out what to do. We finally decided I'd go down to Ypsilanti (we were both at the condo in Waterford) to get a better look at the problem while Darwin stayed to supervise the movers and let them into the storage place so they could get that stuff as well.
I drove down to Ypsi, and yeah, the painters were nowhere near done enough. Dropcloths still on the floors, painter's tape everywhere. ("Got one coat left on this room!") Only the basement rec room was done.
Darwin phoned to say the movers were heading down. I told him about the condition of the house and basement. We thought about it and decided that we'd just have the movers put everything into the basement or the garage. What else could we do?
When the movers arrived, that's what we did. It created stacks of boxes in both places. The movers liked the easier job! The furniture was going into the basement anyway--we had new stuff coming on Sunday--but we weren't sure what to do about a place to sleep. The bed was set up, but the house wasn't really habitable yet. In the end, we spent the night at a hotel.
Saturday morning, we hovered around the house while the painters finished up. At =last= they announced they were packing up to leave. Yesterday, I noticed paint dust on everything--windowsills, bathroom counters, the stove. Everywhere. The owner of the company assured us they wiped down all surfaces before they left. Okay, then. But Saturday as they told us they were leaving, I saw no signs that they were going to clean. I mentioned this to Darwin.
"I don't care," he said. "I just want them done and OUT!"
The painters finally left, but the house was indeed covered in work dust. Darwin and I went around with rags and cleaner and cleaned =everything.= It took hours.
And then the Great Unpacking began for us. Though when I say "us," I mean "me." Darwin had to work on Monday (and the rest of the week), so most of the work fell to me. I started with the kitchen.
Once I began, I realized that the painters had kind of done us a favor. Because of them, the interior of the house was clear. No boxes or jumbles of furniture. This was good for my state of mind. Living in a cardboard forest is stressful--I feel like I have to GET IT ALL DONE NOW! But under the current conditions, I just went into the garage, grabbed a box, brought it in, unpacked it, broke the box down, and went out for another box. Meanwhile, the house itself remained clear. I'll remember this the next time we--
NO! NOT MOVING AGAIN!
By the following weekend, nearly everything was unpacked that needed to be. The only stuff left in the garage was stuff that belonged there in the first place. Ditto for the basement store room. They were --still are--a jumbled up mess, but it wasn't anything we had to do right now. Instead, we did stuff like look for throw rugs, bathroom accessories, and other little things the house needed.
But we still had the office ...
[image error] comments
June 12, 2022
Ka-Zap!
The cats know damned well they aren't allowed on cupboards and counters. We have taught them this with shouts and water bottle squirting. We know they know because on the occasions I've caught Dinah on the kitchen counter, she springs up and bolts from the room before I can even say anything.
You'll notice it doesn't keep her off the counter, though. In fact, I sometimes find little paw prints on the glass stove top in the morning. (Dorah isn't a problem--she's so fat, she can barely jump onto the bed. A counter may as well be the moon.)
This bothers me quite a lot. Cat feet are gross. They dig around in the litter box and are on the floor. I wouldn't want a human's bare feet on my food prep surfaces, let along a cat's. I spend a lot of time cleaning my countertops.
Last week, though, I bought some pet training mats. They're rubbery mats that run the length of the counter or table, with a controller and a battery. They react to touch, and you can set them to beep loudly, to deliver an electric shock (that you can set from "What was that?" to "OH MY GOD THE PAIN!"), or both. Animals who touch the mat learn quickly not to do it again, but of course, they don't associate the discomfort with the mat--they associate it with the place. Soon, they don't enter that space anymore.
I unrolled a set of these on the kitchen counters, the stove, and the dining room table, then set them to give a loud beep and an "ouch!" level shock. Then we went to bed.
Not five minutes later, Darwin and I heard a BEEP! from the kitchen, followed by an instant thump and skittering sounds. I went into the kitchen to have a look. Dora was watching me with mild curiosity from under the table, while Dinah had utterly vanished.
We took to leaving the mats out at night and whenever we left the condo. We didn't hear any more BEEP/thump/skitter noises when we were home. A couple days ago, I decided to test the theory that Dinah wasn't jumping up anymore. I sprinkled flour across the stove top and didn't leave the mats out, then left the condo. When I got back, I saw no cat prints in the flour. I left the flour for the rest of the day and all that night. No cat prints.
I told this to Darwin and wondered aloud if we didn't need to put out the mats anymore.
"We should leave them out a while yet," Darwin said, so we did.
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You'll notice it doesn't keep her off the counter, though. In fact, I sometimes find little paw prints on the glass stove top in the morning. (Dorah isn't a problem--she's so fat, she can barely jump onto the bed. A counter may as well be the moon.)
This bothers me quite a lot. Cat feet are gross. They dig around in the litter box and are on the floor. I wouldn't want a human's bare feet on my food prep surfaces, let along a cat's. I spend a lot of time cleaning my countertops.
Last week, though, I bought some pet training mats. They're rubbery mats that run the length of the counter or table, with a controller and a battery. They react to touch, and you can set them to beep loudly, to deliver an electric shock (that you can set from "What was that?" to "OH MY GOD THE PAIN!"), or both. Animals who touch the mat learn quickly not to do it again, but of course, they don't associate the discomfort with the mat--they associate it with the place. Soon, they don't enter that space anymore.
I unrolled a set of these on the kitchen counters, the stove, and the dining room table, then set them to give a loud beep and an "ouch!" level shock. Then we went to bed.
Not five minutes later, Darwin and I heard a BEEP! from the kitchen, followed by an instant thump and skittering sounds. I went into the kitchen to have a look. Dora was watching me with mild curiosity from under the table, while Dinah had utterly vanished.
We took to leaving the mats out at night and whenever we left the condo. We didn't hear any more BEEP/thump/skitter noises when we were home. A couple days ago, I decided to test the theory that Dinah wasn't jumping up anymore. I sprinkled flour across the stove top and didn't leave the mats out, then left the condo. When I got back, I saw no cat prints in the flour. I left the flour for the rest of the day and all that night. No cat prints.
I told this to Darwin and wondered aloud if we didn't need to put out the mats anymore.
"We should leave them out a while yet," Darwin said, so we did.
That very night just after bedtime, we heard BEEP!/thump/skitter. So while the mats are improving the situation, the problem hasn't been entirely solved yet. We'll keep using them until it is.
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Televisions Are the New Washing Machines
When you moved in the old days (before the 90s), you brought =everything= with you. This included appliances such as the washer, dryer, refrigerator, and stove. Between the time I was born and the time I was 17, we lived in three different houses, and we had our same old stove in all of them, for example, and it was always a challenging hauling these huge, bulky items from one house to another.
Then, in the late 80s and early 90s, people started saying, "Wait. If every house has a fridge and a stove and washer/dryer, why are we moving them around? If everyone just leaves the big stuff behind, we don't have to move any of it!"
And that's what happened. Now it's standard for a real estate agency to list the major appliances that stay with a house.
Are televisions joining that list?
When Darwin and I went on our pre-closing walk-through of our new house, we found, a bit to our surprise, the wall-mounted televisions still in place. Four of them: living room, family room, main bedroom, and guest room. These were good TVs, too. Were the sellers planning to leave them behind, for some reason? I suspected they were, either because they were moving to a smaller place, because they didn't want to go through the messy process of taking them off the walls, or both.
We asked our real estate agent to contact the sellers to ask what was up. A bit later, we got the response: the TVs were staying with the house, if that was all right with us.
It was. We were actually wondering if our TVs would be compatible with the mounting racks at the new place. We ourselves also have only two televisions, and we were also wondering how difficult it would be to take the racks off the walls of rooms we didn't have TVs for without damaging the walls. Leaving the TVs as-is solved a bunch of problems!
It also created a new one. We have a wall-mounted TV of our own in the living room. What would we do with it? We asked our selling agent to contact the buyer of our condo to ask if she would like us to leave it behind for her. The answer was an enthusiastic yes. Problem solved!
Now I'm starting to wonder if this is becoming commonplace. Lots and lots of people mount their TVs these days to save on floor space and mimic the movie theater experience. Are people leaving their TVs, along with their major appliances, behind now?
Hmmm....
[image error] comments
Then, in the late 80s and early 90s, people started saying, "Wait. If every house has a fridge and a stove and washer/dryer, why are we moving them around? If everyone just leaves the big stuff behind, we don't have to move any of it!"
And that's what happened. Now it's standard for a real estate agency to list the major appliances that stay with a house.
Are televisions joining that list?
When Darwin and I went on our pre-closing walk-through of our new house, we found, a bit to our surprise, the wall-mounted televisions still in place. Four of them: living room, family room, main bedroom, and guest room. These were good TVs, too. Were the sellers planning to leave them behind, for some reason? I suspected they were, either because they were moving to a smaller place, because they didn't want to go through the messy process of taking them off the walls, or both.
We asked our real estate agent to contact the sellers to ask what was up. A bit later, we got the response: the TVs were staying with the house, if that was all right with us.
It was. We were actually wondering if our TVs would be compatible with the mounting racks at the new place. We ourselves also have only two televisions, and we were also wondering how difficult it would be to take the racks off the walls of rooms we didn't have TVs for without damaging the walls. Leaving the TVs as-is solved a bunch of problems!
It also created a new one. We have a wall-mounted TV of our own in the living room. What would we do with it? We asked our selling agent to contact the buyer of our condo to ask if she would like us to leave it behind for her. The answer was an enthusiastic yes. Problem solved!
Now I'm starting to wonder if this is becoming commonplace. Lots and lots of people mount their TVs these days to save on floor space and mimic the movie theater experience. Are people leaving their TVs, along with their major appliances, behind now?
Hmmm....
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So Much Moving
We close on the new house on Monday.
I'm looking forward to living in Ypsilanti Township again. The house is in a perfect location, literally the boundary of rural and urban. It's a ten-minute drive into town, a fifteen-minute drive to a hospital (important for us), and five minutes from stores, restaurants, drug stores, and other amenities. It also overlooks a big section of forest and farmlands so I can ride my bike in the country without having to put it on a bike rack and driving twenty minutes. This last is extremely important to me.
I also have a lot of friends in Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor. And three of our four sons live there. It's going to be great!
We just have to move first.
This move is going to be a little more expensive than normal because I can't do much. My shoulder isn't up to anything involving heavy lifting or repetitive movement. So we're hiring out.
The movers are going to pack us as well as move us, so that's one headache taken care of (though Darwin says he wants to pack up a bunch of stuff anyway). But there's been a flurry of other activity.
--Hiring a painter to redo the interior
--Hiring a cleaning company to clean All The Things (cupboards, drawers, baseboards, windows, toilets, showers, and on and on)
--Hiring a company to recarpet the finished areas of the basement
--Finding new medical people: endocrinologist, joint specialist, urologist, general practitioner, dentist, optometrist. This continues to be a major undertaking, with so much time on the phone. All of them want to perform a "get to know you" examination, so it creates a LOT of medical appointments.
--Sorting out the stuff in the storage unit. This took hours. Many of the boxes had popped open or squashed and the contents had to be reboxed. We also gritted our teeth and threw out all kinds of stuff. Camping equipment (no one wants a used tent, and we ain't tent camping anymore), cooking stuff and dishes I never use, books I know I'll never read again, and holiday decorations. The last was really hard. Some of the holiday stuff I've had for decades, and it feels like I should give them to the boys or something. But the boys are uninterested in holiday heirlooms, and these days, Darwin and I are empty-nesters who have embraced minimalism for holiday decorating. Better to throw the unused ones out now than move them again.
--Buying furniture for the office and the living room (the current living room furniture will go to the family room in the basement)
--Arranging for a specialized company to move the exercise equipment
--Changing over utilities and Internet
We're also changing credit unions. Our current credit union has fallen into a state of poor service, many computer outages, and account lockouts on weekends. We've had enough, and will be transferring our accounts to a larger, more stable credit union in Ann Arbor. This is quite a lot of work, too.
Right now, we have a little lull in all the things, and it feels strange, like I should be doing something. It's a hard feeling to give up.
[image error] comments
I'm looking forward to living in Ypsilanti Township again. The house is in a perfect location, literally the boundary of rural and urban. It's a ten-minute drive into town, a fifteen-minute drive to a hospital (important for us), and five minutes from stores, restaurants, drug stores, and other amenities. It also overlooks a big section of forest and farmlands so I can ride my bike in the country without having to put it on a bike rack and driving twenty minutes. This last is extremely important to me.
I also have a lot of friends in Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor. And three of our four sons live there. It's going to be great!
We just have to move first.
This move is going to be a little more expensive than normal because I can't do much. My shoulder isn't up to anything involving heavy lifting or repetitive movement. So we're hiring out.
The movers are going to pack us as well as move us, so that's one headache taken care of (though Darwin says he wants to pack up a bunch of stuff anyway). But there's been a flurry of other activity.
--Hiring a painter to redo the interior
--Hiring a cleaning company to clean All The Things (cupboards, drawers, baseboards, windows, toilets, showers, and on and on)
--Hiring a company to recarpet the finished areas of the basement
--Finding new medical people: endocrinologist, joint specialist, urologist, general practitioner, dentist, optometrist. This continues to be a major undertaking, with so much time on the phone. All of them want to perform a "get to know you" examination, so it creates a LOT of medical appointments.
--Sorting out the stuff in the storage unit. This took hours. Many of the boxes had popped open or squashed and the contents had to be reboxed. We also gritted our teeth and threw out all kinds of stuff. Camping equipment (no one wants a used tent, and we ain't tent camping anymore), cooking stuff and dishes I never use, books I know I'll never read again, and holiday decorations. The last was really hard. Some of the holiday stuff I've had for decades, and it feels like I should give them to the boys or something. But the boys are uninterested in holiday heirlooms, and these days, Darwin and I are empty-nesters who have embraced minimalism for holiday decorating. Better to throw the unused ones out now than move them again.
--Buying furniture for the office and the living room (the current living room furniture will go to the family room in the basement)
--Arranging for a specialized company to move the exercise equipment
--Changing over utilities and Internet
We're also changing credit unions. Our current credit union has fallen into a state of poor service, many computer outages, and account lockouts on weekends. We've had enough, and will be transferring our accounts to a larger, more stable credit union in Ann Arbor. This is quite a lot of work, too.
Right now, we have a little lull in all the things, and it feels strange, like I should be doing something. It's a hard feeling to give up.
[image error] comments
Darwin and Living Science Fiction
The company that makes Darwin's insulin pods is coming out with an update straight out of an SF novel.
Right now, Darwin wears an insulin pod and a blood sugar sensor. The sensor communicates with an app on his phone. The pod connects to its own little doohicky that =looks= like a cell phone. The sensor has different alarms that let us know when his sugar goes too high or too low. Darwin also inputs his sugar score into the pod doohicky, and it figures out how much insulin he needs, then doses him with it.
The system is way, way better than finger sticks to get sugar levels and individual insulin shots with a syringe. But it does take constant monitoring, and Darwin never, ever gets a break from it. When you're dieting or on an exercise program, you can say, "I'm on vacation this week, so I'm not counting calories and I'm not going to worry about exercise." With Type 1 diabetes, you can't do that. It must be managed every hour of every day, and it wears.
Enter the new system.
This new version of the insulin pod is able to communicate directly with the sugar sensor, so it can figure out how much insulin Darwin needs all on its own. It also uses artificial intelligence to find patterns in his sugar levels so it can actually ANTICIPATE Darwin's levels and administer (or withdraw) insulin before the actual reading comes in. The doctor said patients in the trials kept their sugar levels at optimum for 100% of the time!
Wow.
No more monitoring. No more alarms. No more counting carbs. This is essentially an artificial pancreas straight out of science fiction.
He gets the new pods some time after we move, and then he has to learn how to use them. Once that starts--freedom!
[image error] comments
Right now, Darwin wears an insulin pod and a blood sugar sensor. The sensor communicates with an app on his phone. The pod connects to its own little doohicky that =looks= like a cell phone. The sensor has different alarms that let us know when his sugar goes too high or too low. Darwin also inputs his sugar score into the pod doohicky, and it figures out how much insulin he needs, then doses him with it.
The system is way, way better than finger sticks to get sugar levels and individual insulin shots with a syringe. But it does take constant monitoring, and Darwin never, ever gets a break from it. When you're dieting or on an exercise program, you can say, "I'm on vacation this week, so I'm not counting calories and I'm not going to worry about exercise." With Type 1 diabetes, you can't do that. It must be managed every hour of every day, and it wears.
Enter the new system.
This new version of the insulin pod is able to communicate directly with the sugar sensor, so it can figure out how much insulin Darwin needs all on its own. It also uses artificial intelligence to find patterns in his sugar levels so it can actually ANTICIPATE Darwin's levels and administer (or withdraw) insulin before the actual reading comes in. The doctor said patients in the trials kept their sugar levels at optimum for 100% of the time!
Wow.
No more monitoring. No more alarms. No more counting carbs. This is essentially an artificial pancreas straight out of science fiction.
He gets the new pods some time after we move, and then he has to learn how to use them. Once that starts--freedom!
[image error] comments
June 1, 2022
Stoplight Encounter
So I'm on my way back from the store with the car windows down and my phone playing music on shuffle. At a stoplight "We Don't Talk About Bruno" starts up. We get to one of the choruses ("We don't talk about Bruno") and from the car next to me comes a loud, "No, no, no, no!"
I shouted back, "We don't talk about Bruno!"
The light changed, and we all drove away.
[image error] comments
I shouted back, "We don't talk about Bruno!"
The light changed, and we all drove away.
[image error] comments
Darwin and the Insulin Emergency
Rather than inject himself with insulin, Darwin wears an insulin pod. It's the upgraded version of an insulin pump, a small oval stuck to his side or his arm that titrates insulin. Each pod lasts about three days. Then it has to be replaced. They're expensive, though, and our insurance company doesn't enjoy paying for them. They refuse to let Darwin have more than a few weeks' supply, and they refuse to let him have a few extras, in case something happens.
As it did.
Darwin attached his last pod on a Thursday night. He has a standing order from a company called ADS. They send him more pods automatically every month. But his new pods hadn't arrived yet, and he was uneasy. So he called them Friday morning from work to see where they were. The ADS rep assured him that the pods were shipped and would arrive by Saturday. All right, then.
But at 4:00 he got an email from ADS. Oopsie! MESSA, our insurance company, wasn't authorizing the charge for the pods, so they hadn't been mailed yet.
No pods means no insulin for Darwin, and this will kill him in short order.
In a near panic, we called MESSA. The rep there said nothing was being held up on their end. Everything should be fine. This touched off more back-and-forth, and the clock was ticking down to 5:00, when everything closes down. ADS continued to maintain that MESSA wasn't authorizing payment, and MESSA continued to assert they were. Finally, one MESSA rep said, "Oh. Oops! Blue Cross [MESSA's underwriter] doesn't work with ADS anymore. That's the problem. MESSA authorized payment, but BC won't process it."
It was now 4:57. Darwin went ballistic. MESSA and BC should have alerted him to this change weeks ago so he could track down another pharmacy that carries the pods, and their negligence could mean his death. I'm not exaggerating, here. He snarled at the rep that they had better find a solution to this RIGHT NOW, and he wasn't hanging up until he had one, even if it took until midnight.
The rep, who was almost tearful at this point, got on the line with Blue Cross. Between them, they conjured up a list of pharmacies that they swore carried the pods. All Darwin needed to do was get a scrip from his doctor on Monday, drive over to the local pharmacy, and he would have pods.
This, of course, meant that Darwin would have to stay home from work and give up sick time because of their negligence. He was furious--and scared. His pod expired Monday evening. If there was a mistake anywhere along the line, he was in danger.
There was a mistake.
On Monday, Darwin called each of the pharmacies on the list--Walgreens, Rite Aid, CVS, Kroger. None of them carried the pods, despite the assurances of Blue Cross.
Now both frightened and furious, Darwin went back to MESSA and did more yelling. How dare they endanger his life this way? They were still searching for a solution when I got home from work. Darwin had been dealing with this ALL DAY.
Now =I= was starting to panic. The last time Darwin had gone without insulin for a day, he passed out and I had to call an ambulance for him. He spent three days in ICU.
Darwin had insulin in the refrigerator--he just had no way to inject it. Syringes and needles are a prescription item, you see, because the USA is horrified at the idea that drug addicts might buy them over the counter. (Notice this restriction never seems to stop addicts. It just hurts everyone else.) His doctor promised to send over a scrip for needles to tide Darwin over.
The scrip never arrived. We had another round of "No, we sent it" and "No, we never got it" bullshit, and then the doctor's office closed. No scrip, no pods, no needles.
No insulin.
Darwin's pod expired that night and deactivated itself. His insulin supply ended.
On Tuesday, he HAD to go to work. He ate very little and avoided all carbs--proteins only. His glucose monitor reported his sugar levels to an app that I can see on my own phone, so I was watching him all day. He was steady, around 200 (100 is optimal, 400 is considered dangerous).
The needle scrip still didn't show up, and we also spent enormous amounts of time on the phone, trying to find someone who carried the fucking pods. How hard could it be?
At last, the tearful MESSA rep discovered that Amazon carries them. Darwin quickly registered with their pharmacy, sent them his scrip, and waited for confirmation.
Meanwhile, his sugar started to climb. 250. 300. 375. Darwin exercised on our machines for a bit, and that brought it down a ways, but the moment he stopped, his sugar climbed again. 380. 400. Now the app just said HIGH, and gave steady alarms. I could smell the ketones on Darwin's breath, which meant he was in 700s or 800s or higher. He was now closing in on 24 hours without insulin.
He started to feel sick, and we were getting more desperate.
Amazon emailed Darwin. They had accepted his scrip and could ship the pods. They'd arrive in three days.
Three days. Let that sink in.
Then Darwin remembered he had some needles stashed somewhere in our storage closet. He'd kept them from the time he transitioned over to the pods. We dug around for them and couldn't find them. Then I remembered we had brought several boxes to our storage unit. Maybe they were over there.
Darwin's sugar alarms kept blaring, and he was feeling worse. I was afraid he was getting close to 1000.
At the storage unit, we shuffled boxes around and--ha!--found the right one. Darwin snatched the needles out and we sped back home, where he lined up a big shot of insulin, his first in more than a day.
His sugar didn't drop. It stayed way, way high, and Darwin reached the point where he couldn't stand up. I was thinking it was time for the hospital, but Darwin said they wouldn't do anything but observe him. I was fine with that, but Darwin still refused. I watched him sleep, checking every so often to make sure he wasn't actually unconscious.
At last--at LAST--his sugar dropped below 400. Then down to 300, and into the 200s. But Darwin was still weak and nauseated. High blood sugar hits you hard and fast, and recovery isn't instantaneous. I was pretty shaky myself.
He was too sick to go work the next day. He was sick on Thursday, too. Friday, he was still tired, but feeling well enough to work. I called to check on him several times, and by late afternoon, he said he felt normal.
Three days later, the pods arrived. With enormous relief, Darwin attached one to his arm and linked it to his glucose sensor.
We've since learned that Meijer carries the pods, and they're just up the road, but we're going to stick with Amazon. With Amazon, it won't matter where we've moved, and like it or not, Amazon has mastered shipping and subscriptions.
And now things are back to normal.
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As it did.
Darwin attached his last pod on a Thursday night. He has a standing order from a company called ADS. They send him more pods automatically every month. But his new pods hadn't arrived yet, and he was uneasy. So he called them Friday morning from work to see where they were. The ADS rep assured him that the pods were shipped and would arrive by Saturday. All right, then.
But at 4:00 he got an email from ADS. Oopsie! MESSA, our insurance company, wasn't authorizing the charge for the pods, so they hadn't been mailed yet.
No pods means no insulin for Darwin, and this will kill him in short order.
In a near panic, we called MESSA. The rep there said nothing was being held up on their end. Everything should be fine. This touched off more back-and-forth, and the clock was ticking down to 5:00, when everything closes down. ADS continued to maintain that MESSA wasn't authorizing payment, and MESSA continued to assert they were. Finally, one MESSA rep said, "Oh. Oops! Blue Cross [MESSA's underwriter] doesn't work with ADS anymore. That's the problem. MESSA authorized payment, but BC won't process it."
It was now 4:57. Darwin went ballistic. MESSA and BC should have alerted him to this change weeks ago so he could track down another pharmacy that carries the pods, and their negligence could mean his death. I'm not exaggerating, here. He snarled at the rep that they had better find a solution to this RIGHT NOW, and he wasn't hanging up until he had one, even if it took until midnight.
The rep, who was almost tearful at this point, got on the line with Blue Cross. Between them, they conjured up a list of pharmacies that they swore carried the pods. All Darwin needed to do was get a scrip from his doctor on Monday, drive over to the local pharmacy, and he would have pods.
This, of course, meant that Darwin would have to stay home from work and give up sick time because of their negligence. He was furious--and scared. His pod expired Monday evening. If there was a mistake anywhere along the line, he was in danger.
There was a mistake.
On Monday, Darwin called each of the pharmacies on the list--Walgreens, Rite Aid, CVS, Kroger. None of them carried the pods, despite the assurances of Blue Cross.
Now both frightened and furious, Darwin went back to MESSA and did more yelling. How dare they endanger his life this way? They were still searching for a solution when I got home from work. Darwin had been dealing with this ALL DAY.
Now =I= was starting to panic. The last time Darwin had gone without insulin for a day, he passed out and I had to call an ambulance for him. He spent three days in ICU.
Darwin had insulin in the refrigerator--he just had no way to inject it. Syringes and needles are a prescription item, you see, because the USA is horrified at the idea that drug addicts might buy them over the counter. (Notice this restriction never seems to stop addicts. It just hurts everyone else.) His doctor promised to send over a scrip for needles to tide Darwin over.
The scrip never arrived. We had another round of "No, we sent it" and "No, we never got it" bullshit, and then the doctor's office closed. No scrip, no pods, no needles.
No insulin.
Darwin's pod expired that night and deactivated itself. His insulin supply ended.
On Tuesday, he HAD to go to work. He ate very little and avoided all carbs--proteins only. His glucose monitor reported his sugar levels to an app that I can see on my own phone, so I was watching him all day. He was steady, around 200 (100 is optimal, 400 is considered dangerous).
The needle scrip still didn't show up, and we also spent enormous amounts of time on the phone, trying to find someone who carried the fucking pods. How hard could it be?
At last, the tearful MESSA rep discovered that Amazon carries them. Darwin quickly registered with their pharmacy, sent them his scrip, and waited for confirmation.
Meanwhile, his sugar started to climb. 250. 300. 375. Darwin exercised on our machines for a bit, and that brought it down a ways, but the moment he stopped, his sugar climbed again. 380. 400. Now the app just said HIGH, and gave steady alarms. I could smell the ketones on Darwin's breath, which meant he was in 700s or 800s or higher. He was now closing in on 24 hours without insulin.
He started to feel sick, and we were getting more desperate.
Amazon emailed Darwin. They had accepted his scrip and could ship the pods. They'd arrive in three days.
Three days. Let that sink in.
Then Darwin remembered he had some needles stashed somewhere in our storage closet. He'd kept them from the time he transitioned over to the pods. We dug around for them and couldn't find them. Then I remembered we had brought several boxes to our storage unit. Maybe they were over there.
Darwin's sugar alarms kept blaring, and he was feeling worse. I was afraid he was getting close to 1000.
At the storage unit, we shuffled boxes around and--ha!--found the right one. Darwin snatched the needles out and we sped back home, where he lined up a big shot of insulin, his first in more than a day.
His sugar didn't drop. It stayed way, way high, and Darwin reached the point where he couldn't stand up. I was thinking it was time for the hospital, but Darwin said they wouldn't do anything but observe him. I was fine with that, but Darwin still refused. I watched him sleep, checking every so often to make sure he wasn't actually unconscious.
At last--at LAST--his sugar dropped below 400. Then down to 300, and into the 200s. But Darwin was still weak and nauseated. High blood sugar hits you hard and fast, and recovery isn't instantaneous. I was pretty shaky myself.
He was too sick to go work the next day. He was sick on Thursday, too. Friday, he was still tired, but feeling well enough to work. I called to check on him several times, and by late afternoon, he said he felt normal.
Three days later, the pods arrived. With enormous relief, Darwin attached one to his arm and linked it to his glucose sensor.
We've since learned that Meijer carries the pods, and they're just up the road, but we're going to stick with Amazon. With Amazon, it won't matter where we've moved, and like it or not, Amazon has mastered shipping and subscriptions.
And now things are back to normal.
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May 31, 2022
Shoulder Surgery 20 (Peaks and Valleys)
I've avoided this topic for a while, partly because it's difficult to handle and partly because I've been dratted busy. But I need to catch up.
Last time I wrote, I'd been searching for a pain specialist to see if anything else could be done. I finally found one and went in to consult with him. The doctor, who was startlingly good-looking in an Abercrombie & Fitch kind of way, basically told me there wasn't much he could do. When I told him the meds I had didn't take the pain away; they only made me high enough that I didn't care, he laughed a little and said that's basically how all painkillers work. He did prescribe a topical agent, a hyped-up version of Aspercreme. I tried it as directed, but it didn't seem to help.
By now, my shoulder ached or actively hurt a lot, nearly continuously. I was supposed to have a regular follow-up appointment with the surgeon in several weeks, but I moved it up so I could talk to him about it.
When I arrived at the doctor's office for that meeting, a numb lassitude came over me. I sat in the waiting room with my head hanging. I didn't have the energy even to look at my phone. I recognized it as a heavier version of the shutdown that always came over me when I went in for physical therapy and a reaction to the shitty treatment that the anesthesiologist and the nurses gave me.
The nurse called me in, and I trudged into the examination room. I tried to shake off the lassitude so I could concentrate, but ... not so easy. I muttered one-word answers to her questions and waited for the doctor to show up. He breezed into the room as he always does and I managed to rouse myself enough to explain to him that I was still in enough pain to keep me awake at night, and that I had to take heavy-duty painkillers two or three times a week.
He ran an examination (push this way, pull that way, move this other way), and said I shouldn't be in pain, so he wanted an MRI. It was either that, or make an incision for a camera to look around. Naturally, I opted for the MRI. The doctor told me not to do further physical therapy and to avoid using my arm at home for at least a week, then resume "gentle" exercise.
I scheduled the MRI. Their next appointment was almost two weeks away, and afterward, it would be another four days before an appointment with the doctor to evaluate it. That was a long time to wait to find out if I would need more surgery. There was no way I'd let anyone at that clinic touch me again. If the doctor recommended more surgery, I would quickly find someone else. I was only staying at this place because I was moving soon and I didn't want to transfer my care twice in a short time. But more surgery from this place? Not in a hundred thousand years.
Later at home, I realized I had no idea what the doctor meant by "gentle exercise." Easy, no-strain lifting? A little strain? Stretching? Could I run? I had no idea. What one person sees as "gentle," another sees as "heavy." To me, a "gentle" run would be 40 minutes at level four on my treadmill, but to someone who doesn't jog, that would be "heavy." I finally elected to do just stretching exercises, nothing more.
The MRI appointment finally arrived, and the four days afterward dragged. I became more and more afraid I was going to need more surgery. I was even trying to figure out when would be the best time--before school started or after? Where would I find a surgeon? How would I handle the pain?
At last, the next doctor's appointment arrived. The same lassitude settled on me as I walked through the door. It was like walking through mud. Once again, the doctor breezed into the exam room and said he'd seen the MRI. "It's hard to tell for absolute certain from an MRI," he said, "but there's nothing in there that makes me say you need more surgery."
Relief washed away some of the lassitude, and this let me wake up enough to ask more pointed questions:
"Why does it still hurt so much?" It's just that way for some people. Did I need a scrip for more meds? I did not.
"When will the pain stop?" It can take up to a year to fully recover from the surgery.
"What do I do from here?" Continue gentle exercise only.
"What does 'gentle exercise' mean?" (This was the key one, and I wrote it down so I'd remember to ask it. That's depression for you.) Lifting no more than 10 pounds in front and aside. No restrictions on bicep lifting. Absolutely no overhead lifting whatsoever. Stretching is good.
"How long will it take to restore my full range of motion? I can move my arm up behind my back a lot farther than most people, but I'm hyper-flexive, and I'm nowhere near where I was pre-surgery." It can take up to a year to recover.
Okay, then.
The abusive anesthesiologist and unprofessional, foul-mouthed nurses aside, I still feel like I wasn't fully informed going into this. You hear "non-invasive" and "arthroscopic" and you think "recovery in a few weeks," not "probable agony for weeks that may or may not die down" and "physical therapy for months on end." Knowing this wouldn't have changed the results of the surgery, but it would have changed my mindset. I would have been able to prepare myself mentally for this, change my schedule, ready myself. I never got that chance because the surgeon wasn't very communicative from the outset. He does this all the time, so he knows all this stuff, and why don't I, right? This contributes to me feeling the need to shut down when I go in to the office, and I'm glad I won't be going back soon.
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Last time I wrote, I'd been searching for a pain specialist to see if anything else could be done. I finally found one and went in to consult with him. The doctor, who was startlingly good-looking in an Abercrombie & Fitch kind of way, basically told me there wasn't much he could do. When I told him the meds I had didn't take the pain away; they only made me high enough that I didn't care, he laughed a little and said that's basically how all painkillers work. He did prescribe a topical agent, a hyped-up version of Aspercreme. I tried it as directed, but it didn't seem to help.
By now, my shoulder ached or actively hurt a lot, nearly continuously. I was supposed to have a regular follow-up appointment with the surgeon in several weeks, but I moved it up so I could talk to him about it.
When I arrived at the doctor's office for that meeting, a numb lassitude came over me. I sat in the waiting room with my head hanging. I didn't have the energy even to look at my phone. I recognized it as a heavier version of the shutdown that always came over me when I went in for physical therapy and a reaction to the shitty treatment that the anesthesiologist and the nurses gave me.
The nurse called me in, and I trudged into the examination room. I tried to shake off the lassitude so I could concentrate, but ... not so easy. I muttered one-word answers to her questions and waited for the doctor to show up. He breezed into the room as he always does and I managed to rouse myself enough to explain to him that I was still in enough pain to keep me awake at night, and that I had to take heavy-duty painkillers two or three times a week.
He ran an examination (push this way, pull that way, move this other way), and said I shouldn't be in pain, so he wanted an MRI. It was either that, or make an incision for a camera to look around. Naturally, I opted for the MRI. The doctor told me not to do further physical therapy and to avoid using my arm at home for at least a week, then resume "gentle" exercise.
I scheduled the MRI. Their next appointment was almost two weeks away, and afterward, it would be another four days before an appointment with the doctor to evaluate it. That was a long time to wait to find out if I would need more surgery. There was no way I'd let anyone at that clinic touch me again. If the doctor recommended more surgery, I would quickly find someone else. I was only staying at this place because I was moving soon and I didn't want to transfer my care twice in a short time. But more surgery from this place? Not in a hundred thousand years.
Later at home, I realized I had no idea what the doctor meant by "gentle exercise." Easy, no-strain lifting? A little strain? Stretching? Could I run? I had no idea. What one person sees as "gentle," another sees as "heavy." To me, a "gentle" run would be 40 minutes at level four on my treadmill, but to someone who doesn't jog, that would be "heavy." I finally elected to do just stretching exercises, nothing more.
The MRI appointment finally arrived, and the four days afterward dragged. I became more and more afraid I was going to need more surgery. I was even trying to figure out when would be the best time--before school started or after? Where would I find a surgeon? How would I handle the pain?
At last, the next doctor's appointment arrived. The same lassitude settled on me as I walked through the door. It was like walking through mud. Once again, the doctor breezed into the exam room and said he'd seen the MRI. "It's hard to tell for absolute certain from an MRI," he said, "but there's nothing in there that makes me say you need more surgery."
Relief washed away some of the lassitude, and this let me wake up enough to ask more pointed questions:
"Why does it still hurt so much?" It's just that way for some people. Did I need a scrip for more meds? I did not.
"When will the pain stop?" It can take up to a year to fully recover from the surgery.
"What do I do from here?" Continue gentle exercise only.
"What does 'gentle exercise' mean?" (This was the key one, and I wrote it down so I'd remember to ask it. That's depression for you.) Lifting no more than 10 pounds in front and aside. No restrictions on bicep lifting. Absolutely no overhead lifting whatsoever. Stretching is good.
"How long will it take to restore my full range of motion? I can move my arm up behind my back a lot farther than most people, but I'm hyper-flexive, and I'm nowhere near where I was pre-surgery." It can take up to a year to recover.
Okay, then.
The abusive anesthesiologist and unprofessional, foul-mouthed nurses aside, I still feel like I wasn't fully informed going into this. You hear "non-invasive" and "arthroscopic" and you think "recovery in a few weeks," not "probable agony for weeks that may or may not die down" and "physical therapy for months on end." Knowing this wouldn't have changed the results of the surgery, but it would have changed my mindset. I would have been able to prepare myself mentally for this, change my schedule, ready myself. I never got that chance because the surgeon wasn't very communicative from the outset. He does this all the time, so he knows all this stuff, and why don't I, right? This contributes to me feeling the need to shut down when I go in to the office, and I'm glad I won't be going back soon.
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The Condo Sale Debacle--With Happily Ever After
We put our condominium on the market. Condos sell slower than houses, even in this market, but after a week, we got a good offer. Yay! The buyer was a woman who was a first-time owner, and who currently lived in an apartment.
But then the buyer's mother stepped in. We heard through the realtors that Mom said it was ridiculous to pay 5.5% (the then-going rate) for a mortgage. Mom said she would buy the condo for cash and sell it to her daughter on a land contract to save on the interest. Would we be willing to cancel the daughter's offer and accept the Mom's instead?
We were fine with that. A cash offer? We're in!
A couple weeks later, all the Is and Ts had been crossed and dotted. All agreements and contracts were signed. We just needed a closing date.
Then our realtor called us with the news that Mom and daughter had gotten into a major fight, and now Mom didn't want to buy the condo for Daughter anymore. She was backing out.
The hell?
A great deal of back and forth ensued. Would we be willing to convert the cash offer to a mortgage offer from daughter? No. Why would we give up a cash offer for a mortgage offer, especially if we didn't know if Daughter would pass a credit check? Mom kept trying to drag Daughter into it, and we kept pointing out that Daughter was not officially involved. Mom was the buyer. Her relationship with Daughter, financial or emotional, had no bearing on the contract she had signed.
In the end, she still refused to buy the condo. Fortunately, there was a $5,000 earnest money deposit, which we got to keep. When it came time for us to receive the money, we learned Mom had fired her real estate agency and, it turned out, the agency hadn't properly collected and cashed her EMD--and now she was refusing to pay it. Oops. But not our problem. The agency would have to pay us the money and try to extract it from her on their own.
This they did, and we got the check. Cool!
We put the condo back on the market and two days later, we had another buyer. A better one. So there!
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But then the buyer's mother stepped in. We heard through the realtors that Mom said it was ridiculous to pay 5.5% (the then-going rate) for a mortgage. Mom said she would buy the condo for cash and sell it to her daughter on a land contract to save on the interest. Would we be willing to cancel the daughter's offer and accept the Mom's instead?
We were fine with that. A cash offer? We're in!
A couple weeks later, all the Is and Ts had been crossed and dotted. All agreements and contracts were signed. We just needed a closing date.
Then our realtor called us with the news that Mom and daughter had gotten into a major fight, and now Mom didn't want to buy the condo for Daughter anymore. She was backing out.
The hell?
A great deal of back and forth ensued. Would we be willing to convert the cash offer to a mortgage offer from daughter? No. Why would we give up a cash offer for a mortgage offer, especially if we didn't know if Daughter would pass a credit check? Mom kept trying to drag Daughter into it, and we kept pointing out that Daughter was not officially involved. Mom was the buyer. Her relationship with Daughter, financial or emotional, had no bearing on the contract she had signed.
In the end, she still refused to buy the condo. Fortunately, there was a $5,000 earnest money deposit, which we got to keep. When it came time for us to receive the money, we learned Mom had fired her real estate agency and, it turned out, the agency hadn't properly collected and cashed her EMD--and now she was refusing to pay it. Oops. But not our problem. The agency would have to pay us the money and try to extract it from her on their own.
This they did, and we got the check. Cool!
We put the condo back on the market and two days later, we had another buyer. A better one. So there!
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The Great House Hunt of 2022
With Darwin working in Stockbridge (over an hour away) and me working in Wherever (20 minutes away), it became clear we'd have to move.
Didn't we just do this?
Actually, we're kind of happy to do it. The condo on the lake is beautiful, but the neighbors are bigots. (We've even gotten the "I'm not prejudiced. One of my family members is gay" speech from an HOA member who fought against our Pride flag.) Also, Waterford isn't a nice place to live. We've encountered a fair amount of bigotry and prejudice here, and unless you're spending money, the residents are ... unpleasant to be around. Most of the town supported--and continues to support--Trump. And guns. They love their guns in Waterford.
When we were looking for a place to live, Darwin pointed out a couple of towns that were good location-wise, but also badly conservative. I said, "I'm tired of living in a place where I have to lead the Pride parade. I want to live in a place that has an established gay community, and where I don't have to fight all the time, or worry someone will try to hit me with a brick if I hold my husband's hand in public. I've been the neighborhood LGBT ambassador for decades. I'm done now." And Darwin agreed.
We settled on Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti Township (not the city--Darwin won't live there). It's a 45-minute commute for both of us from there, more or less, and it's much more liberal and accepting than bigoted, trashy Waterford.
We set about house-hunting with Tai Chou, an agent from Ann Arbor. (If you're looking for a house in that area, get hold of him!) Unfortunately, we got caught in the seller's market. Houses were going fast. More than once, we saw a house and put in an offer, only to learn we had five competing offers. One seller said he wanted an escalation clause in every offer; if someone made a higher offer, the clause would automatically put in a offer that was even higher, until all the buyers had reached their limit. We declined to put one in, the house sold anyway. Another house we saw less than two hours after it had officially gone on the market. We told our realtor to put in an offer, and he learned the house already had seven competing offers. In less than two hours.
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Didn't we just do this?
Actually, we're kind of happy to do it. The condo on the lake is beautiful, but the neighbors are bigots. (We've even gotten the "I'm not prejudiced. One of my family members is gay" speech from an HOA member who fought against our Pride flag.) Also, Waterford isn't a nice place to live. We've encountered a fair amount of bigotry and prejudice here, and unless you're spending money, the residents are ... unpleasant to be around. Most of the town supported--and continues to support--Trump. And guns. They love their guns in Waterford.
When we were looking for a place to live, Darwin pointed out a couple of towns that were good location-wise, but also badly conservative. I said, "I'm tired of living in a place where I have to lead the Pride parade. I want to live in a place that has an established gay community, and where I don't have to fight all the time, or worry someone will try to hit me with a brick if I hold my husband's hand in public. I've been the neighborhood LGBT ambassador for decades. I'm done now." And Darwin agreed.
We settled on Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti Township (not the city--Darwin won't live there). It's a 45-minute commute for both of us from there, more or less, and it's much more liberal and accepting than bigoted, trashy Waterford.
We set about house-hunting with Tai Chou, an agent from Ann Arbor. (If you're looking for a house in that area, get hold of him!) Unfortunately, we got caught in the seller's market. Houses were going fast. More than once, we saw a house and put in an offer, only to learn we had five competing offers. One seller said he wanted an escalation clause in every offer; if someone made a higher offer, the clause would automatically put in a offer that was even higher, until all the buyers had reached their limit. We declined to put one in, the house sold anyway. Another house we saw less than two hours after it had officially gone on the market. We told our realtor to put in an offer, and he learned the house already had seven competing offers. In less than two hours.
What's happening, of course, is that corporations and other groups are buying houses as investments. You can buy a house for $300,000, let it sit empty for a year, and re-sell it for $330,000. That's a 10% return on investment, a huge amount. These are where many of the sight-unseen offers are coming from.
Anyway, we finally found a house we liked and for which the seller accepted our offer. It's in Ypsi Township, and the location is wonderful. It's only a 10-minute drive to town, 15 minutes to a hospital. (That's important to us.) It's at the edge of a rural area, so I can ride my bike in the country, away from traffic. It's quite large, actually. Bigger than the condo. I know we were planning to downsize, but after living two years in a smaller space, we discovered we didn't really like it much. I want a garage and a basement for storage. Darwin wants dedicated spaces for work, exercise, and recreation. We both want our own yard, and neither of us wants an HOA ever again. (The house has a neighborhood HOA that mostly exists to maintain the road. We didn't see any rules or regs about what you can do outside your own house.) The en suite bathroom is a wonder. You can fight an entire football team in the shower! So we're happy with this house, even though it's a bit more expensive than the condo.
We close on June 13 and move in on June 18. Woo hoo!
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