Quarantine and chill and kindness chatty clubhouse: Jump in and join the conversation! All is welcome!

[flyingdumbo127]

Thank you dear Bobbi so much.

 

[Snowysmom]

@flyingdumbo127 So sorry your father is still not feeling well. I hope the pain reliever does help and he feels better soon. I hope your situation improves too.

Good morning. It is 69 here now with temps heading into the mid 70s. Much better than the last couple of days. We are expecting some showers off and on. I hope to get to the lake today before showers come in. Yesterday I went to Market Basket for a few items. That store is always busy. It is the only Market Basket in the area. I am used to living in an area with a choice of 3 or 4 nearby. My friend and I are trying to think of where to go on our annual trip next year. We do not want to fly or do a bus tour. We had enough of bus rides on the shore excursions. That limits where we can go. I don't mind flying somewhere but she does not want to at least for a while. I have to have to think about what is in the New England area that is within a few hours. We have plenty of time to think.

Off to work. Have a good day.

 

[PollyannaMom]

@Snowysmom, what time of year do you want to travel, and how far a drive is acceptable?

 

[flyingdumbo127]

Dear Snowysmom, what about a train ride? There may even be some shorter options such as from LA to San Diego. I'm glad you and your friend are able to plan another trip together. Thank you on my dad.

Thanks to God, I got much more sleep last night. A is a fall risk (she fell and hit her head on Wednesday). A few people told her yesterday not to use the bathroom alone. E, a CNA, sat both inside and outside our room for a lot of her shift yesterday to watch A. E thanked me for get ting her once when she didn't realize A had gotten up.

CNA overnight A brought me fresh water just after midnight. I am not sure anyone has looked in on my roommate A since. A did use the bathroom relatively fast twice during the night. I still clean up after her every time. She does not flush. She also throws toilet paper in the trash. I am so grateful that she only had her overhead light on briefly and has been quiet. What a blessing for us both really. ETA CNA A did look in on my roommate A about ten minutes ago.

Dad, I sure pray, got a healing night sleep. I will first talk to him in an hour or so. He has a very early x-ray appointment that God willing he will either be up to driving himself to or taking a taxi too. He should look into Dial a Ride and similar services just to know how they work.

Dad never did get his as needed pain medication. Ralphs pharmacy (Ralphs is 5 or so minutes away from us) does morning deliveries as I found out later yesterday afternoon. That is good to know. Dad has been taking a muscle relaxer. I just pray it helped him sleep last night. He was really hurting all day :'(

One step always at a time. God, of course, has my dad just fine. I do miss him and if not today sure hope to see him tomorrow.

Thursday hugs and joy to all. I will check back later.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Dear Snowysmom, what about a train ride?

Ooh, good idea!

 

[lynxstch]

Good morning from a still hot, mid 90 degree MD. Despite the radar showing a storm was directly over me yesterday, we didn't get one drop of rain. Now there's no chance of rain today, possibly tomorrow.

I was at Walmart by 8:15 yesterday and the store was almost empty. There was no people standing in the middle of aisles looking aimlessly for what they wanted. I didn't see one Walmart personal shopper doing any orders. I didn't have to wait in line at the Deli, I got a fresh hot rotisserie chicken as it came out of the oven. I love shopping like that. The remodel is finally done as of last week, and the store looks nice, but it's still like a treasure hunt trying to find out where they moved things too. I was done with grocery shopping and all my errands and home by 9:30.

I came home and did laundry, dusted and vacuumed, and then talked to my friend in CO for 3 hours, lol. We never seem to run out of things to say. We're trying to finalize our vacation plans, and since it's too hot to do anything outside, it's a nice diversion.

I texted Summer to ask if they made it to OC okay, but of course, didn't get any answer, not surprising.

Nothing on my to do list today, I may go down to the farmers market just to get out for a little while. I went to the store over the PA line Tuesday, they had fresh Washington State Cherries for $.99 a lb. They were so good, I went back in the afternoon and got another 3 lbs. I may pit some and freeze them for later when I feel like having some.

Have a good day

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Boy that heat was something else the other day! I burned my feet going outside to tend to my plants. DS had to stay here a night when his whole complex lost power - the dogs were happy and slept with him and his other dog. Was glad to have the pool to cool off with, but thankfully it was nice and cool in the house as well.

Lynn that’s an amazing price for cherries! DH loves them and I always buy them but they’re pricey. Last night we treated ourselves to seafood take out and ate it at the beach. It was nice to get out a bit. I’m feeling better every day but still fatigued. Meeting with surgeons about upcoming surgery. DH listened in on a video appt I had yesterday and he said it made him nervous too. There’s a lot to it.

Mona, Dad likely needs an MRI to see exactly what’s going on in his back so they can then fix it. What happens when a disk is herniated is that the usual soft material that’s inside the disc leaks out and turns hard, and presses on a nerve (or nerves; aka ‘pinched nerve’). Almost no amount of medication will give full relief of the pain it causes to the back and going down the leg (sciatica). It can get very miserable and not only that, but it can cause permanent damage to the nerve if not treated promptly. (Foot drop - I had a friend whose husband wouldn’t get treatment and they wound up calling him “The Old Gray Mare” because he wound up having to drag his foot along when the never deteriorated. You don’t want that to happen.) Once they see where the issue is they can go in and inject a steroid right into the space to give him some welcome relief. Sometimes it takes two treatments, and they don’t always last forever.

DH slipped on stairs and ruptured some discs in his back and we went through this process of getting shots for years. It was scary how much pain he was in and he doesn’t like to take medications, but the ones they did prescribe didn’t help anyway. Finally, after he reached his max on shots, he wound up having a minimally invasive surgery where they went in and actually trimmed out the material that was pressing on his nerve, and he had almost instant relief. (Wished we had done it earlier.) That lasted for many years but he’s now back to having steroid shots again, as this “disease” (lumbar or degenerative disc disease) tends to be progressive, ie it can keep happening to other discs as we age. Just normal things day to day like lifting laundry baskets and moving things can cause a disc rupture, often when you least expect it. You mentioned an XRay dept, I don’t know if an XRay will show enough of what they need to know to actually treat this, but maybe. Usually they do the steroid injection under fluoroscopy for accuracy (along with the MRI) but there may be places that do it without that, not sure. The doctors who do the injections are very skilled and can often tell exactly where the problem is just by symptoms and manipulating the foot on the affected side, etc. Please show this to your Dad. Relief is available but it will probably involve this type of steroid injection. If it keeps happening over and over then look into the minimally invasive discectomy. Hope this helps.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/16912-degenerative-disk-disease





Snowysmom what about Cape Cod? There is a train that goes from South Station to the Cape, and you could Uber from there, get a rental, or they might have shuttles too. A quiet beach somewhere sounds simple and restful.

Glad to see everyone else posting and doing well. Enjoy this Thursday everyone!

 

[Snowysmom]

We usually travel in May. My friend does not want to sit in a vehicle like a bus or a train for a trip. We are looking at 3, maybe 4 hours away at the most. Bar Harbor is 5 hours and too far for me to drive. If she would get on a plane I could look into some places on the East Coast but she does not want to do so. Also it would have to be not alot of walking, mostly relaxing, and quiet. I am thinking of just going to North Conway area again and doing the Cog Railway as it is a short ride up the mountain and then you can walk as much or as little as you want. Not sure what else. I usually let her rest while I walk around more. Or maybe some place else in NH or ME closer to home. Neither one of us really care for the Cape. We are more north people. LOL!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

We usually travel in May. My friend does not want to sit in a vehicle like a bus or a train for a trip. We are looking at 3, maybe 4 hours away at the most. Bar Harbor is 5 hours and too far for me to drive. If she would get on a plane I could look into some places on the East Coast but she does not want to do so. Also it would have to be not alot of walking, mostly relaxing, and quiet. I am thinking of just going to North Conway area again and doing the Cog Railway as it is a short ride up the mountain and then you can walk as much or as little as you want. Not sure what else. I usually let her rest while I walk around more. Or maybe some place else in NH or ME closer to home. Neither one of us really care for the Cape. We are more north people. LOL!

I used to be too, lol, being originally from the north shore. But the Cape has some nice spots, too, I lived there for a while, as well (met DH there). The train ride from South Station is I think only about an hour and a half. Plymouth is really nice, too. When there recently I’d seen that a small cruise ship now stops there. People were walking to eat and explore and then heading back to their ship. Last summer they were widening the channels in the harbor for that. North Conway is somewhere you always like, though, tried and true.

https://capeflyer.com/reservations-tickets/capeflyer-trainpricing-routes/

 

[PollyannaMom]

We usually travel in May. My friend does not want to sit in a vehicle like a bus or a train for a trip. We are looking at 3, maybe 4 hours away at the most. Bar Harbor is 5 hours and too far for me to drive...Also it would have to be not a lot of walking, mostly relaxing, and quiet. I am thinking of just going to North Conway area again and doing the Cog Railway as it is a short ride up the mountain and then you can walk as much or as little as you want.

North Conway is definitely good. We did a ropes course at Cranmore when we were there, but I'm sure there is tamer stuff too.

We also did a short trip once to Newport, RI and Mystic, CT. It was in the fall, but I expect that would be pretty in the spring too. And the Mystic Aquarium is small enough to not be a lot of walking.

The main one I was going to suggest if it came in under your drive time is Lake George, NY. It's about 3.5 hours from Boston, so it should work OK for your criteria. We stopped one year on our way back from visiting family in western NY, and we wished we'd had more time! - https://www.visitlakegeorge.com/

 

[flyingdumbo127]

Thanks again everyone. I will update later. Wish I could accompany you and your friend, Snowysmom