April 22: daily boring stuff

There's always great postings floating around in my head, which is one of the reasons I lose track of when they actually made it to here....And I picked up extra hours last week, which is great for the bank account but tires me. Again this week, worked a half day today and now the next two days as usual, so I'm already tired. In case it hasn't been mentioned in a while, my normal days are Mon, Weds & Thurs, full days in the office.

I'm still quite tired by the end of the day, drive home, change clothes, put food down for the (very vocal) fuzzy ones and then am on the couch. While it takes less time for me to recover now: 1+ hours instead of 2 hours, that number hasn't gone down in months. So I usually stay on the couch through World News, then get up and am in the kitchen with Jeopardy on in the background, another round of feeding the cats while I get something to eat. Then do a few things around the house, clean up and back to the couch for evening TV (to which I am WAY too addicted!). I always try for bed at 10:30, but rarely make it until closer to 11:30.

After several months I seem to have found a better position for sleeping. There's one wedge, two regular pillows and two rolls of a couple towels. Two more pillows are at the ready as well. Wedge and pillow for head, towel roll under the knees for back and to keep me from sliding down too much. Then other pillow under my left shoulder so that my chest area has less strain on it, then the other towel roll on the right side to keep the elbow from going down too much and pulling at the right shoulder. For months I tried various positions with raising the right shoulder but it often aggravated the right back thoracotomy site. It's quite complicated, and very difficult to get out for bathroom trips. Made even more difficult because Chester likes to settle down and stretch out in-between my legs, and it's amazing how much strength it takes to move an 11 pound cat who is resisting having his comfortable, cradled position changed. Tabitha frequently joins us, although she is content to curl up next to me, or on a pillow. Zerla stays out in the living room and KC seems to change places often. A favorite is on the bath mat in front of the toilet, giving an additional challenge to sleepy, middle-of-the-night trips. It's like a weird form of Twister to go a fairly short distance and not disturb a cat.

Looking for a second car--did I mention that before? I LOVE driving a manual shift, which is what the current car is. But it's just too painful, especially on days after work or when I'm tired. So I'm trying to find a used car with automatic. That should be easy, but since I want a car with all-wheel-drive for safety purposes, it narrows the field. Any EMS person knows that even a fairly minor traffic accident would result in my being a "trauma alert" because of my being on the blood thinner (Coumadin). It's protocol, because even minor internal bleeding can be catastrophic. In Chester and Delaware Counties they tend to call the helicopter for any trauma alert. Which would result in a really big fuss over even a minor injury.

OK, it's after 11:00 pm, so take the bedtime pills (including the dreaded Coumadin) and move a cat or two so I can start the elaborate bed arranging.

Thanks for checking, Laurie