TDetroit’s ramblings and nonsense

… for the dishwasher.

It’s not ded yet, but getting closer.  I started to notice something wrong when the dishes on the top rack were not coming clean.  After a bit of inspection, I found the top sprayer to not be working.  This led me to try and understand, over a few days, how that thingy works.  Eventually, I took the DW out of teh cabinet.

It was when I took it out of the cabinet that I found the bigger problem.  The water in line has a bad connection.  It is very rusty and I think touching it will break it.  Water haas been spraying from a hole there and hitting the cabinet.  There is "almost" a hole in teh side of my cabinet.  If I hadn’t pulled the DW out, the problem would hae eventually been a disaster.

I still don’t know how to fix the upper sprayer arm.  there is no water getting to the nosel.  and the water only trickles into the DW from the inlet.  It should spray. 

It looks like I’ll be dishwasher shopping today.  Unless there is a miracle.  so prayers for the DW and if not a miracle, then a moment of silence…

My doc appointment is next week.  he always has me go to the lab and give blood a week before so that he has the results for the appointment.  so I went this morning.  Last night I fasted.  no food after 8 pm.  Guess what?  there was no cholesterol test this time.  I didn’t have to fast.  so all that hungry was totally unnecessary.  Aaaaghhh!!! I didn’t sleep well because I was hungry and now I am very tired.  sleepy and kranky.  dayyyum!

My doc appointment is next week.  he always has me go to the lab and give blood a week before so that he has the results for the appointment.  so I went this morning. 

Last night I fasted.  no food after 8 pm.  Guess what?  there was no cholesterol test this time.  I didn’t have to fast.  so all that hungry was totally unnecessary.  Aaaaghhh!!!

I didn’t sleep well because I was hungry and now I am very tired.  sleepy and kranky.  dayyyum!

My doc appointment is next week.  he always has me go to the lab and give blood a week before so that he has the results for the appointment.  so I went this morning. 

Last night I fasted.  no food after 8 pm.  Guess what?  there was no cholesterol test this time.  I didn’t have to fast.  so all that hungry was totally unnecessary.  Aaaaghhh!!!

I didn’t sleep well because I was hungry and now I am very tired.  sleepy and kranky.  dayyyum!

we had those big storms come through here on Saturday night.  the power went out.  on Sunday it was out, and I thought, "this is as a good a time as any to rearrange the living room."  so I got to work lifting couches and table and in general getting a great workout by working in 90 degree and humid heat.  (no AC in this house, there only 10-15 unbearable days per year, so it isn’t worth the money)

Well, I called DTE and they said there would be power until Monday.  that’s when I called a bugout and headed for the girlfriend’s house for the night.  Dog in back seat, I arrived at her place and her AC - which really did feel great.  Dog got car sick not once but twice.  I hope she gets over it soon, very difficult to take her places.

Anyway, I got home yesterday and finished rewiring the cable box.  then the power came on.  I thought I’ll watch some TV while I put the room back together.  Guess what.  Internet works, phone works, no TV.  all of it AT&T.  called the tech support, after an hour of disruption to my day, there will be a tech here today - Tuesday.

So last night, I had no TV.  Just like Little House on the Prarie.  I wonder what they did when cable went out.  I imagine they played on facebook or something.  I mean what else is there to do.  Likely the kids all grabbed their cell phone and got arthritis sending texts to each other from across the room.

Do you think ma and pa went into that back room under the kids room and made some noise?

Great!  Another problem.

My mother in law is staying here this week to help me with the kids while I transition to the new firm.  she heard a noise at 5 am.  Kind of a wining noise she said.  I thought it was my water softener.

she called me a little later and told me we had no water.  so I told her where to find the repairman’s number for the softener.  He came over and told her it was not the softener, but he turned it off to protect it.

So I told her how to find the well driller’s number.  He came over.  It turns out the saddle came unseated and I’ve been pumping water into the swamp via underground railroad for a few months.  In the spring there would have been a sink hole in the yard.  He dug up the yard and fixed the problem.  the well was flooded with dirt, so he had to pull the pump and clean it.  Then he bleached the well and here we are - no water for 2 days, a garden hose running in the frozen night to empty the bleach, and $865 poorer.

tomorrow, we have to run the hose for a few more hours until there is no longer a bleach smell.  then run it a little longer.  then maybe thursday we can drink the water.

We could drink it now, but bleach makes you have diarhea.  no one wants that.

hmmm.  they put bleach in white flour.   hmmmm

Yesterday was one of those days.  It was a very sad day because of 2 events.

The first was the dedication of the new church.  Actually we tookk the old church and built and addition to become the new church, so same building just a lot bigger.  Anyway, a Catholic Dedication Mass is a big deal, there are lot of Priests and a Bishop.  We actually take the 2 hours - which never happens in a Catholic Mass.

It would seem a happy event, but Audrey was not there with me, at least not how I had hoped all this time.  When we moved here, we expirimented with a few parishes before SHE found this one.  She did a great job of finding a church for our family.  She made us go to the fundraisers so we could help raise money for the construction, and she watched as it was being built.  By the time we got to her funeral, people could walk through the nearly completed construction, and a lot of the items from the old church had already been moved to the new.

I brought her Rosary and Wedding rings with me so she could be there in some physical way.  It brought tears to my eyes that she didn’t get to sit in the new pews and take eucharist from a Bishop.  She is very religious.

Afterward, I had to represent her at a funeral for a man I never met.  Dan was diagnosed with the same cancer roughly 2 months after Audrey.  They went to chemo together, same treatment.  Dan is a Pastor at a local church and he helped her with religion as they sat next to each other in those luxury chairs (i’ll tell chemo patients have some aswesome chairs). 

Audrey had a rubber band bracelt with a scripture on it.  2 Corinthians 12:9  and the words "Live Weak".  After she passed, I saw pictures of her and started looking for things.  I found it in my den.  How it got there I don’t know.  She never came home and she was wearing it in the hospital.  It was covered in and oily substance, likely vasoline or something.  I washed it and now I wear it.

I only met Lynette a couple of times.  Dan was in the room right across the hall from Audrey, she was there for her last time, he was there for his warning shot - when the liver goes haywire but they fix it and send you home to wait for it to do it again (that will be your last time).  Lynette introduced herself to me as we were in the hall.  On the cancer ward, everyone is family, there are no strangers.  A couple weeks after Audrey went home, Lynette found the phone number and called me to ask houw Audrey was doing.  I asked her for her phone number and told her to give my number to someone to call when Dan passed.

I got the call a few days ago and went to his website.  The funeral visitation was to be at the church where he is Pastor.  When I finally made it to Lynette and the kids, I noticed they were all wearing the same bracelet.  I asked, "Did Dan give Audrey this?"  Lynette said yes.  One more mystery of My Love is solved.  No, it does not feel better.  It just feels…

I went to the casket and all I could think was to say Thank you for taking care of my wife, Audrey.  I walked out barely keeping myself together and in the car I broke down.  It was the ending of a chapter, and now I have to start reading the next painful one.

Thank You Dan, I can’t say it enough.

Michel

I am picking up anergy and lifting a bit heavier now.  Actually did 2 sets of 10 at 225 on the squat rack.  Real good form, all the way level.  It felt great.

The meds were killing me.  First there was the screw up with ativan (my fault) which was like not taking anything.  So we upped the dose and returned to xanax - a wonderful drug with a sleepy side effect.  Then the shrink said I needed to tell the doc to increase my dose of lexapro because i was still too depressed.  Well, lexapro helps benzos work better, the the xanax was kicking my ass and had my pinned to the couch.

Went in to the doc the other day for a 4 week progress report.  I told him it ws kicking my ass.  He didn’t like what he had to do - i can tell, I am a master salesman.  He decided to try an older drug, it works - and he left the word hanging, he wanted to say, "but…"

if it is older than xanax and ativan, then why do we have the latter ones.  easy, it must clearly have a bad side effect.  what could that be?  I’ll bet it is the most addictive benzo.  that’s why he doesn’t like it.  but, no sleepy.  I am doing pushups like a mad man.  getting stuff done. etc.

I guess we can deal with the addiction when it happens.

that’s the update from Detroit

I got all messed up with my medications.  Because they knock me out, I have to plan ahead.  Push an hour here, delay and hour there.  I have to think 3 days ahead and plan for the best schedule.  I take one every 8 hours unless I am sleeping the night.  There’s the problem.  I sleep through the pill time and then wake up and can’t sleep.  So now I am taking one 4 hours late and I am totally shifted.

Weekends are not what they used to be.  There used to be another adult here.  We could plan.  I will go to the gym, when I get back you go shopping.  Now, it’s I’d like to go to the gym and do the shopping, but who will be here to stop the kids from fighting.

I wish winter would end.  We are snapping at each other over everything.  We are all locked in here and bothering each other. 

I am getting some muscle back.  I posted new pics the other day.  I’ve lost a lot of size.  Sucks.  170 again this morning.  Can’t break out of this cycle.  In fact.  I am going to stop typing now and go make an omelette….

It was the worst day of my life until this past December 15th. 

I had to go work at a place I absolutely hate.  It is a horrible deplorable place.  she called later to ask when I would get there, and I told her 6:30.  It was cold and I ran across the hospital parking deck.  She was no longer in the emergency room where I left her the night before.

When I walked in, she said the Doctor will be here in a minute.  He walked in instantly, he turned to me and said, "Hi, I am Dr. Aslam".  Then his phone rang, he looked at it and said he’d been waiting for that call all day.  He excused himself from the room

She looked at me and said, "It’s cancer."  I was sitting in a chair.  I became paralyzed.  She said, "it’s colon cancer, and it’s in 80% of my liver and it’s in my lungs."  I knew that was bad.  She kept talking to me, it took some time before I could get up and go sit on the bed with her.

The Dr came in and explained that there could be no operation because what he would have to take out, she could not survive the operation.  He said we would start chemo right away, and that he hoped she would be his patient for a long time, but he didn’t know how long that would be.

It doesn’t hit you right away, infact it didn’t hit me until she was gone.  Sure, I was sad for the whole year, and worried about her and fretted over her and made it the best year of her life.  But, that day was just confusion and lot’s her great perfect hugs and the two of laying in the hospital bed trying to not let the other one know how sad we were.