Bank Benefits

Many years ago, back when I would play the board game Monopoly there was a Chance or Community Chest card that said, "Bank Error in Your Favor: Collect ..." some small amount of money. It sort of happened that way in real life.

We refinanced our mortgage a year ago to get a lower rate. I had them take the payments (the amount due plus $100) out of my checking account automatically. I am about to turn 65. Medicare Part B will cost me $88 per month, so I went back to the bank to ask them to drop the extra $100 from my payments so I could use that money to pay Medicare. That was no problem, but they pointed out that with the recent increases in property value, they might be able to reduce the rate on our Line of Credit too.

We aren't using the Line of Credit, but reducing the rate sounded like a good idea. Preliminary estimates showed that I could get a quarter point reduction by raising the limit based on the current value of the house ... and it wouldn't cost anything.

But that qualified both of us for savings accounts at a higher interest rate, especially higher when compared with the interest we get in our checking accounts which, while it exists, is so low as to be almost nothing. Delia took advantage of their offer.

While typing our information into the computer, they hit the wrong key and accidently issued me a new VISA Platinum account ... at a substantially lower rate than my existing VISA Platinum. When I received the card in the mail, I had no idea why it had been issued without my requesting it.

Today I went to the bank to find out why I had a new account. They explained that I had been pre-approved for such an account and an errant keypress must have started the wheels in motion to issue it. I learned that the old variable rate was over 2.5 times as high as the new fixed rate. I got them to transfer my balance to the new account, link the new account to my checking account for overdraft protection, and close out the old account.

One misplacement of a finger on a keyboard, a very minor error, stands to save me a decent amount of money. Such is the power of computers ... for good or evil.

Cast Off

Last Tuesday, when they took my cast off, they discovered that the ulcer caused by the staph infection had healed completely. No new cast would be required.

They also discovered that the cast had been wound too tightly. The skin on my right leg was all wrinkled and bruised black from the excessive pressure.

The doctor was mad. She has been trying for years, ever since she moved to the Wound Control Center, to get people to avoid winding the cast so tightly it causes more damage than it repairs.

That was almost a week ago. The bruise has been healing. Instead of a solid black / indigo / purple color, parts of my leg have lightened up to an angry red and normal flesh color appears over about a quarter of the surface. It doesn't hurt unless I touch it -- as when I'm putting on my support stockings, a process that is sometimes painful even when I'm not sporting a giant bruise on my leg.

I have another appointment for this coming Tuesday. Tomorrow I'm going to call to cancel it. I'm confident my leg will continue to recover without any more help from the Wound Care Center.

Unless a spider bite becomes infected. I was bit / stung again, early this morning, this time on top of my left foot.

Healing Progress

I had just taken my insulin but hadn't started fixing breakfast when my cell phone rang. It was the Wound Care Center, asking me to come in ninety minutes earlier than scheduled. Impossible! It would take me half an hour to drive there and, with insulin freshly injected, I had to eat breakfast first. We compromised on me coming in an hour early, at 10:00. Delia would be unable to accompany me, having just washed her hair and having it all wet.

Last week they gave me a little plastic slipper to wear with the cast. I abandoned it as soon as I determined that my regular footwear would fit over the cast with no problem. I didn't want them to know I wasn't using the equipment they supplied, so I donned the slipper for the drive to the clinic.

I drive an old car. It has stick shift but the slipper was on the right foot, leaving a normally-shod foot for the clutch. The slipper is wide, though, and I was constantly pressing the gas pedal whenever I tried to brake. You use the brake to slow down, the accellerator to speed up. If you press both together, you get mixed results. There wasn't much traffic, but we were suffering our first rainstorm of the season and some of the drivers were skittish. I had to be exceptionally careful to arrive intact.

I arrived at the clinic at precisely the newly scheduled time. I spent most of the next hour waiting because they weren't ready for me.

Last week, the ulcer measured 42 mm. by 20 mm. This morning, it measured 7 mm. by 3 mm. They put me in a new cast anyway, wanting me to heal completely before allowing me to return to normal. The scraping they did wasn't as painful as before, either. I learned that the dark paper they placed directly over the wound was silver foil, to prevent infection, and that the gummy white paste they spread on my leg before starting to wrap is a moisture barrier.

Reyes checked where I said a spider had bit me last Thursday evening, just above the cast in back of the knee. I had been applying hydrocortosone cream since the bite and it had healed completely, leaving no evidence of the damage. We had a brief discussion of what kind of spider it might have been. I doubt it was a black widdow. We get lots of those non-web-spinning hunting spiders, and I suspect one of them got me. Reyes told me that the hydrocortosone was exactly the right treatment to use for the problem.

We went over my blood chemistry, which was nearly perfect. My blood sugars have crept up and my A1C (blood sugar average for up to the last month) was 6.5, considerably higher than the 6.1 just two weeks previously.

It had started to rain. I had to cross a large puddle to get to my car. My clean new cast got soaked on the bottom. With rain actively falling, some drivers became crazy, either slowing down too much or speeding up unsafely. The car has no heating or cooling because all of the ducting has deteriorated. I had to drive with the window down to keep the windshield from fogging up. I was even more cautious than before. I had no problems arriving safely.

I'm not suffering much pain, despite the necessary scraping of the wound. I'm not going to convey that fact to my family, though. The doctors have told me that I should always keep my leg elevated, but it's hard to do so if they don't think I'm suffering.

Leg in Cast

I'm not supposed to be sitting here at the computer. I'm supposed to keep my leg elevated at least as high as my heart.

Early Monday morning, Delia took me to the Wound Care Clinic in La Jolla. We left early in case we had any problems finding the place. I had a written set of directions given me when I called them a week before, but it was our first visit there. Delia doesn't listen to me when I tell her anything about driving, so she completely ignored me when I told her to turn into the hospital complex. There was, however, another hospital complex we got onto by turning at the next street.

I knew we were at the wrong place. I couldn't convince Delia. She stopped repeatedly to ask directions from strangers, none of whom had heard of the Wound Care Clinic (WCC). I finally got her to turn around and return to the main road, then go back to the entry I had originally told her about (and then she insisted I had said nothing as we originally passed that street, having previously ignored me). Once inside the correct complex, we found the place with no difficulty. Once there, I realized I had been there once previously, with one of the kids, probably Cathy, to visit a medical office in a nearby building.

In fairly short order, we got the volumes of paper work out of the way and Ursula, my case supervisor, took a look at my legs and feet. She measured the blood pressure in each arm and each leg, the arms running 170/60 and the legs 178/63. She used an ultrasound probe to get doppler readings of the pulse in my feet, instead of trying to listen with the usual stethescope. Measurements done, she smeared Lidocaine on the wound and we all waited for Dr. Rayan.

He never showed up, having gotten himself into an unexpectedly difficult surgery.

With a curette, Ursula scraped all of the dead material off of the wound. Despite the local anesthesia, it was painful (I metabolize local anesthesia so fast it is practically useless on me, as several dentists have learned over the years and even more refused to admit). Ursula dumped on more Lidocaine, assuring me the doctor would remove even more stuff from the wound.

Eventually a redhead who identified herself as Ray or Reyes showed up, a replacement for the missing doctor. She did indeed remove more stuff from the wound, at a considerable cost to me in pain, and told Ursula to put a soft cast on it, from my toes to my knee. The cast had five layers, the fourth of which was something like a sticky Ace Bandage, which the outer layer protected. That seemed a little much for a two inch ulcer resulting from a staph infection. Reyes prescribed Vicodin for me, to control the pain, then sent me to the laboratory for a large quantity of blood (six tubes) and some urine.

I'm not sure I like the Vicodin any more than the Tylenol-3, which contains codeine, because I still feel the pain. That is, the Tylenol part reduces the pain for a while but when the pain comes back, it no longer matters. You can feel it, just as before, but your body doesn't react to it. Even in the moderate amounts I was taking, I felt drugged and constipated and had difficulty waking up the morning after taking it. Others in my Thoracic Park group have made similar observations, so it isn't just me.

Reyes did say I could resume my walking, so long as I elevated my leg afterward. She also said I should resume taking my Actos, to control my blood sugar, which Dr. J had me stop for fear of swelling keeping the wound from healing. Having not taken the Actos for over a week, it was as harsh as ever on my intestines. I am still not comfortable after eating ... for hours and hours.

I return to the Wound Care Center next Tuesday for examination and, probably, more torture and a new cast.

Next summer, Reyes says, I am not to remove my support hose for relief from the heat.

New Leg Problems

The skin on my legs just above my feet is very delicate. I can't use tape there because it would pull the skin off, leaving a hole that would develop into a sore.

During the summer I had no protection on my legs because I wanted to keep as cool as possible in the heat. I brushed against the lids of some cardboard boxes, scraping holes in my leg. Most of them just scabbed over and started to heal. One cluster of three became infected six days ago. They doubled in size overnight and merged into one big sore the following night.

Fortunately I already had an appointment set up with Dr. G. He took my temperature (98.8), took a culture sample, prescribed an antibiotic and sent me to my dermatologist, Dr. B. When I saw Dr. B the following morning, he took another culture sample, prescribed a different antibiotic and set up an appointment for me with the Wound Care Center in La Jolla.

There are wound care centers at Grossmont (part of La Mesa, near where I live), at Mercy and in La Jolla. The one at Grossmont is understaffed and is turning patients away ... or giving appointments four months in the future, which amounts to the same thing. I know nothing about the one at Mercy. The one in La Jolla has an excellent reputation and was able to give me an appointment in just ten days from last Friday, seven days from today.

Dr. G called me on the phone yesterday (Sunday) afternoon to tell me that the preliminary results of his culture were that I have a simple staph infection. He told me to stay on the medicine Dr. B prescribed until they learned more.

Today I had an appointment with Dr. J, my diabetes specialist. Delia drove me, so I wouldn't have the strain of driving my car and so she could meet the doctor. She and Dr. J got along very well, both being interested in my welfare, but Dr. J warned Delia that nagging me about my health was her special right and Delia wasn't to nag too.

I've been ordered to give up walking with my Mall-Walking group. When the sore heals, I'm to do exercise in a swimming pool, not by walking. For the next few weeks, until the sore heals, I'm to keep off of my feet with my feet either elevated or at the same level as my heart.

Dr. J very pointedly informed me that if she has to order my foot chopped off, I'll be in a wheelchair for eight months before they can even consider getting me a prosthesis, which we are unlikely to find. I weigh too much for an artificial leg to be very workable.

Delia lapped it up as if the thought of me being stuck in a wheelchair was sweet. On the way home she outlined ways she was going to control my diet (by doing all the grocery shopping and throwing out my "junk" foods).

I suppose I'm not supposed to be sitting here at my computer, either.

Thunderstorm

We had a aurprise thunderstorm yesterday.

Unpredicted, warm, moist air moved in from Mexico. The first sign of anything unusual was thunder in the afternoon. When I took some trash out, I was hit by half a dozen drops of rain. I thought that was the end of it.

Distant lightning continued through the afternoon, but we rarely saw it. We heard the thunder, though. By evening we were able to see the flashes of light.

The arthritis in my back started giving me problems early in the afternoon, even before we heard the first thunder. It kept me awake until, at 2:00 this morning, I heard a brief, heavy rainfall. Shortly after the rain hit, I was able to fall asleep.

My alarm went off at 6:00. As I was sitting on the edge of my bed, wondering if I would be able to go walking, we heard heavy rain start in. It again lasted only a short time, perhaps ten minutes, but I reset the alarm and went back to getting some much-needed sleep.

When I got up, at 8:00, the ground was dry and the sky was clearing.

Knifing at Work

Yesterday, Delia forgot to bring bottled water in with her when she went to work. When she got a chance to take a break, about 13:00, she headed for her car to get a couple of bottles. As she entered the parking lot, she saw a man with a knife attacking two women.

Delia promptly returned to the store, screaming for Security. In moments there were security guards, and then police, at the disturbance. They were soon followed by ambulances.

The man with the knife was taken away by police.

Nothing appeared on the television news. No mention of the problem appeared in this morning's newspaper.

Various Topics

Derek's Visit

Derek was home briefly. We were able to visit with him -- a little bit -- although his visit was for the purpose of singing at the wedding of one of his long-time friends here. He set aside one single day to become reacquanted with us -- and I was too ill to go with him, Delia was preparing a party and Cathy was away -- so Derek spent a good deal of that last day either alone or with his friends. He went to a rugby game and a Padres baseball game.

Photos from the time of his visit are available on my Web site, Am0 (follow the top link on the left side of the page, the one called "Recent Photos").

At least we and some of our friends were able to share the evening with him.

Back Pain

My back has become very fragile. Sunday, the day we had our party, I must have twisted or strained it. I was in severe pain all day long. Delia and I took Derek to the airport very early (for us) the next day. Lack of sleep combined with the pain to leave me feeling miserable.

I took a couple of pain killers: Flexoril and Darvocet. I had used the Darvocet previously with no ill effects, but this was my first experience with Flexoril, a tiny red pill. It seemed to be helping, as I got a full night of sleep. I wasn't rested, though, and was in a fog all day Tuesday. I didn't get much sleep or rest last night, either.

Except for doing laundry for Delia and myself, I didn't get anything done the last three days.

Yard Work

A Samoan came by, knocked on the door when only Delia and Cathy were there and offered to clean up our front yard for $20. Delia was hesitant but Cathy insisted it was too good a deal to pass up. They hired him.

He did well enough on the front yard that when he offered to clean around the rest of the house for $130, Delia agreed. Then the problems started.

He did the first part of the job, not very much, on a Thursday evening. He said he would finish everything the following day. But none of us would be there on Friday, so I told him not to come back until Monday or Wednesday. I had gotten home from my class Friday afternoon when he showed up and started working. One of the first things he did was to take an axe to our macadamia tree and hack up the bottom two thirds, leaving only the stuff I wanted removed, mostly dead wood, at the top.

Once more we asked him not to return before Monday. He came back the next day, Saturday, and went through the motions without accomplishing very much.

Then he started hounding Delia for the money, either part or the whole amount. He wasn't finished and the quality of his work deteriorated, but he wanted enough to buy himself a bottle (he admitted he had a drinking problem). He became surly and started to break things when we weren't looking.

He never really finished. Delia paid him off to get rid of him. Then she hired somebody else to finish up the work.

The new crew, usually four men, cleaned up a lot of what was left and hauled most of it off. Then they disappeared. They haven't finished, so we haven't made our final payment to them. We don't know when they'll get around to returning to finish up the little that needs to be done.

Writing

I haven't been doing much. Most of my computers are screwed up to some extent, so I've been experimenting with writing programs, trying to find one that works well enough for my needs, rather than writing anything.

I had been using Word Perfect on my XP system. The XP died due to Spyware and it seems that the malicious programs ate the system backup files, too. I completely reinstalled everything on the computer. I wasn't able to get some of the programs I had been using to install again (including Word Perfect) and some of the programs I was able to install no longer work.

I started trying word processing programs on my Linux systems. They all claim to be improvements on Word, a program I gave up on years ago. None of the programs I've tried work particularly well, none have adequate documentation and all of them are a pain in the ass to get anything done in.

I've developed a test for these programs. I'll write something with the headers I need, print a copy, save the file, restore the file to memory and print a new copy. Usually, the two printed copies are different, making the program useless to me. For the last three weeks, I haven't written anything for my class.

Dream Cats

I recently had a dream about the house being attacked by lions.

It started with Rocky, Cathy's little dog, barking frantically at something outside. When he gets excited, he often takes off when I open the door, so I was very careful not to allow him to get past me while I checked. What I saw in the front yard was a male African lion and five female lions, all adult. Two of the females were lying down just inside the block wall in front. The remaining four cats were walking around until Rocky caught their attention. Three lionesses jumped up on the roof over the master bedroom and started trying to dig through. The big lion started toward the front door.

I shut and locked the front door. Then I told Delia to lock herself in our bedroom, spray lots of perfume around and remain quiet. I told Cathy to lock Rocky and herself in the bathroom, light all of the candles there, spray any perfume she could find on Rocky, then call 911 to report we had six lions in front of the house.

I had planned to light a couple of sticks of incense, to further confuse any scents the cats might pick up. Before I could do so, though, the lion broke down the front door and two of the lionesses jumped down from the attic. Actually, the first one fell down when the attic access door gave way under her weight.

I had no place to go, so I sat down in one of the living room chairs, the one I watch television from. The lion came over and sniffed my leg while one lioness checked out the kitchen and the other poked her head in the two open bedrooms. The lion started rubbing against my chair, like smaller cats do when they want to be petted. I slowly reached up and started to pet him. He settled down on the floor next to my chair in a position for me to scratch his left ear.

A Sheriff's car drove up and parked in front of the wall. Seeing nothing more than the open front door, he jumped over the wall. He landed on one of the cats. The two lionesses quickly killed him and began to eat. The three animals from inside the house joined them, leaving one lion in the attic.

Without getting up, I used the house phone to call 911 and report what had happened. In a short time, a number of police cars and a S.W.A.T. van parked in front. This time, armed and armored, they brought the cats down.

One of the armored riflemen came into the house. I told him there was still a cat in the attic. He got two others to join him. They were starting down the hallway when Rocky started barking again. The remaining lioness stuck her head out of the access door to see what was making the noise. All three riflemen started shooting. The cat fell to the carpet below. The assault was over.

Delia and Cathy were safe, as was Rocky. The house and car were full of bullet holes. There was a large hole in the roof and the front door was shattered. Cleanup started. Investigators measured and photographed everything. I called the insurance company to report what had happened.

In my dream, as happens so often in the real world, they told me that my policy didn't cover this kind of damages.

At this point, a real cat let out a scream that woke me from my sleep. There are a number of feral cats in the area that sometimes scream, especially at night. This one just happened to have really bad timing. The catcall came at a moment that caused to dream to be deeply imprinted on my memory.

Anniversary Celebration

Once I finished my taxes and got them in the mail yesterday, I felt totally wiped out. Taking a nap is increasingly difficult, but I tried both yesterday and today. The first time I tried today, my nap was interrupted by a phone call from Delia and the arrival of a big package, which drove Rocky up the wall. I broke off my nap after only 22 minutes in order to bring in the package and calm the dog.

The second attempt, I set the timer for two hours and my slumbers were interrupted four times before I finally gave up.

The phone stopped ringing when I got up.

One of the callers had been Cathy, asking if we should go have dinner together to celebrate the occassion. I told her to call her mother and set something up, that I would be willing to go along with anything the two of them decided. A few minutes later, Delia called to ask where we should go. I told her I would go anyplace she and Cathy decided on.

They decided to go Thai. But while we detoured to get gasoline, Cathy consulted her coupon book and found coupons for two places in La Mesa that sounded good, the Tamerind (Thai) and European Bistro (East European). We decided to try the latter.

European Bistro is divided into three parts, partly the result of recent expansion: a deli, a sushi bar and the restaurant. The steaks were Russian style, we were warned, with lots of fat in them. Disregarding this warning, Delia selected the Steak Italia No [as it was printed on the menu]. She was immediately unhappy with her selection and continued unhappy despite attempts to view the brighter side of things. Cathy ordered a mustard-marinated steak, which she enjoyed but consumed rapidly, remaining hungry. I ordered a salad and some potato dumplings.

The salad was a mix of chicken breast meat, straw mushrooms and other, mostly unidentifiable, stuff, with a sauce of sour cream and vinegar. It came in a bowl with a serving spoon, so I took about a third and offered the remainder to Delia and Cathy. Neither took much. I found the salad to be very tasty, so I took a bit more and repeated my offer to the others. Having tasted it, Cathy was ready to pounce on what I left, leaving only a small part for Delia. Sharing the salad that way worked out very well and I will plan on sharing a salad the next time we come.

My dumplings had a thick skin, like unfried potstickers. The filling was a mixture of potatoes, meat and spices, all ground to a fine texture. The small bowl of sour cream that came with it was the perfect accompaniment. I'll have to use sour cream the next time I fix ravioli.

Having enjoyed my meal, I asked if they had expresso, the perfect way to end a good meal. They had Turkish coffee instead. They served the boiling-hot brew in a standard sized coffee cup instead of anything smaller. With a touch of sweetener, it was the perfect way to end a good meal.

I had a glass of good single-malt Scotch when we got home.

Then Cathy gave us a present, the contents of the package that arrived to end my first nap: a Roomba robot. We plugged in the battery and turned it loose in the living room. It was not so loud as to interfere with television viewing. Rocky, while nervous at first, quickly accepted the strange newcomer, neither barking at it nor running away. It got trapped under the sofa for a while but eventually worked its way out after cleaning under both sides. It seemed to hit just about everywhere in the living room before Cathy shut it off to see how well it had cleaned.

Derek forgot to call to wish his mother a happy anniversary.