August chitchat

[agate]

August already and there are ads urging people to get back-to-school supplies. Back to school? The summer's only half over for most school calendars.

We're having a major event here in this building this weekend. Every now and then this kind of thing happens. A woman who has been here many years (she moved in shortly before I did, 17 years ago) has had a stroke and is now in another facility with more care, probably a nursing home. So her apartment with most of her belongings is standing open this weekend as her helper presides over an "open house" where residents can wander in and help themselves to this unfortunate woman's possessions.

She has stiff person syndrome, a rare and very crippling disorder. She's been pretty much confined to bed all of this time, going out occasionally on a gurney to appointments. She had a laptop she was using and was ordering groceries from Amazon. The helper has been with her for more than 17 years. Such people--who last that long--are few and far between.

That's what's new around here. I'm still perking along and hope others are as well.

[jingle]

Nothing cheerful or helpful ... I just saw an alarming site - nothing personal or close. I was in Walmart and saw a woman my age or a bit younger wearing the cutest sweater. I told her how nice that was and we chatted for a few minutes. Later when I was checking out she and husband were checking out in the next aisle. Suddenly she passed out and was on the floor. Lots of confusion. noise and upset. A bit later I checked out, headed home and met an ambulance coming down the street - no siren, no speed. I wonder if it was headed for Walmart. I wonder why no siren. I am home, safe, just fine, but I sure am upset. Sorry for writing this --- thanks for listening.

[agate]

That must have been upsetting--and let's hope that help was on the way for her.

A while back my next-door neighbor, a woman of 90+ who had always seemed to be in good shape, died right in front of me. She was hale and hearty and looking as if she was about to greet me as she was coming down the hall with a friend of hers. She was riding a tricycle type of vehicle she sometimes used, and the friend was standing there with her. But suddenly she just died. . The friend called 911 and the paramedics came quickly, CPR was tried but she was gone. Maybe cardiac arrest? Anyway she was one of the nicest people here and I miss her.

[Prot]

Slow to post here. Weather cooler which is good. Still waiting to hear from Oxford re the ablation. Less worried about it than stopping apixiban, a few days before and after.

[agate]

^{Sorry I haven't addressed the matter of the ablation or the apixiban. The last several days have been stressful for me, what with a podiatrist who decided to do something to my toes that caused a ghastly pain (but at least it didn't last long), followed by a summons to this building's office to sign the new rental agreement, including the news of a hefty rent increase that I had been dreading (but at least it wasn't as bad as I'd feared), on top of a summons to have phone interviews (two of them) with the State of Oregon about assistance I receive through them. Since all of this affects my income mightily, I have been busy dealing with paperwork and arithmetic lately.}

There is also the matter of the cataract surgery that has now faded into the background because the insurance company failed to reach an agreement with the eye clinic and so I no longer have any coverage. There will be no cataract surgery after all, at least for now, and from now on I'll be paying for all of my eye care myself. I could change doctors but that's just not a good idea right now since I just changed doctors--after 16 years with one, who has been practicing in a much more remote location recently and just making himself less and less available. I'm not up to another doctor change just now. Maybe eventually the insurance matter will be settled more favorably, and I can think about cataract surgery again. Meanwhile I'm getting along so long as I don't try to do anything requiring good eyesight, like recognizing people when I see them coming, or even seeing them at all sometimes. People lurking in the shade are quite a surprise to me when I finally realize they're there. Small print I can make out with the help of magnifying devices or just by whipping off the glasses and holding the printed material up close to my eyes. Who needs cataract surgery?

I might actually be on my way to glaucoma, however, and am going to have the eye pressure checked again in a few months. My mother may or may not have had glaucoma, and it seems to run in families. She was treated for it for many years, with quite a rigid eyedrops schedule, and then suddenly it was decided that she didn't have glaucoma after all. Go figure.

If glaucoma looks as if it's on the menu for me, I'll probably think about getting that cataract surgery any way I can.

Something odd has gone on with the fonts in this post but maybe it will straighten itself out. Sorry to have rambled on, all about Me.

[Prot]

Was talking about my lateness in joining this thread. You've had a lot to deal with. My issues/problems are minor in comparison.

[agate]

Thank you for the kind comment. Somehow that very short-term but extreme pain during the podiatrist session wore me down to the point where it was harder than usual to put up with a lot of detailed paperwork plus phone calls--and the worry involved in any interactions that affect my income for the coming year.

Since I moved to this state in October, the paperwork connected with keeping me afloat financially all piles up every year at about this time. It often extends into September but this year the worst of it may be over.

[Prot]

I had my toes done by the foot specialist,this morning. She comes every 3 months. Is it just me, or is the internet a lot less active than it use to be? At least forum's wise it is. I was sad to hear that Dolly Parton had passed away. She was a good singer, and even better person.

[agate]

You have your toenails trimmed too? Maybe I haven't had enough experience with this procedure but in the few years I've been having these toe-tending appointments, I've never had anything nearly as painful as what was done to me the other day. The podiatrist muttered something about an ingrown toenail but no more information was forthcoming. Maybe some toenail procedures really are that painful sometimes--but it was new to me.

I don't know much about the Internet's activity level except for the few little corners of it that I routinely look at. Message boards as well as Facebook seem much less active than some years back.

I was just noticing that the "user" named BTRSSFeedBot in the thread entitled MS RSS Feeds at the top of the page for this MS forum hasn't posted anything in about 4 years. One wonders what happened to BTRSSFeed because the posts were informative, I thought. I was under the impression that it would automatically post relevant material here, and it was doing that for a while.

[Prot]

Yes,trimmed too. My toenails had been badly neglected for several years.

[agate]

---

Yes, I'd been taking my toenails for granted--but when it got too hard to reach them or even to see what was going on with them, I made my way to a podiatrist. Also, they no longer grow in the dependable way they once did--and those trims make a huge difference, even in the way I walk.

[Prot]

A pet peeve . Website 'improvements' that actually make things worse. Ditto offline 'improvements'.

[agate]

I second that. Is Cloudflare really necessary for online security checking, I wonder? Websites seem to be outdoing each other in an effort to add more methods of safeguarding our online security.

And what about Websites that have a free version but you find out while using it that you really need to have the "premium" version for which you will pay a monthly fee (and for "convenience," you just sign up for automatic deduction of that fee from your credit card)?