Who Am I ?

Last Sunday was my Aunt Elaine's 89^th birthday and the was a small clanning in the local area, everybudy met at the “social room” at the condo where she lives. All the relatives in the area were invite but in the end most who attended were immediate family and associated in laws. I of course was from the second tier of relatives,nephews and nieces. Dianne and I went representing my aunt's sister's family. It was great visiting with the cousins some whom I see only every couple of years usually at some family reunion or other family function. At this function my two cousins Tracy and Rhonda came great distances to pay homage to their mother which is great. But as we got to conversations after the hugs and smiles of meeting,I was astonished my cousin Rhonda, a bit older then I mentioned that I had been a quite a hellion along with my older brother—I don't know why this statement startled me so much except I had heard nearly an identically comment earlier in .

My older sister Faye, has been making such statement for years but I always thought that was just Faye. Fay is actually my step sister and she and Irene my sister just older then Faye were always the onces commissioned to babysit me when my parents were dating. Faye gets a little dramatic so I just wrote her descriptions of my youth as older sibling harassment. But now Rhonda's input and other's I am beginning to wonder. Granted when I was just under two I assassinated a family cat by putting it under a tub in the middle of summer. I also killed a robin when I was six or seven with a beanie flipper I had got for my birthday, which I carried great guilt for, even to this day. I also killed small animals in the desert above our home in South Boise, rabbits and “picket pen” gophers. But I was not alone in the serial killing of these rodents—I had the impression I was doing the world a favor—in fact the State government of Idaho paid me 25 cents for every tale I brought in as a bounty and I doubt any of these folks knew of my dark under takings.

So all week I have been perseverating over my frame of mind as a child—was I the monster that I am beginning to believe people felt I was? I mean I did not kill anyone human—I had my share of fights—winning very few but all in all I have done pretty good I think. But still in the back of my mind sometimes I wonder just who am I ?

I don't Have to Like It!!

This last Friday, the first day of my President's Day holiday, Dianne and I had been out somewhere in the van doing something I forget what but we had been in and out of places all and no problems but on returning home and trying to pen my van to deploy my lift the switches failed and the doors would not budge which also means the lift will not either and once again I am trapped by my own equipment. The time is about four thirty in the afternoon and I know from personal experience that many small shop get antsy on the eve of national holidays—especially when the holiday is also a three day weekend, so I whipped out my cell and called my main service provider for my wheelchair lift van. Sure enough, the place was nearly deserted, the owner and the guy I usually work with had already gone for the day and Earl was the only one left in the shop.

“Hi, this is me...how long is someone going to be there?”

“ Nope, everyone I gone nd its just me and I need to be going too.”

“Who' this?”

“This is Earl”

“Well, Earl, I am trapped in my van and I need some help getting out . Well you wait long till I an get out there to seer what's wrong?”

Now the the phone is covered by a hand and some one is dialogging wit someone as I wait for a verdict and finally Earl come back on the phone and says …”There ain't no one here who can help” .

“Come on, I'm trapped in the van and I atleast need out!” more muffled talking and finally Earl returns,

“ OK, I'm coming out and I'll get you out but I don't have any tools just so you know and I'll hav to charge a service call...”

“OK, OK I'll be here”.

I gave earl directions to the house and then settled back to wait. Fortunately, the day was a warmer Springlike day and I was dressed warm enough. Earl finally got arrive and in five minutes the doors were open, the lift deployed and I was safe on the ground. I gratefully dug my wallet out of my backpack and asked how much a service call cost. Earl replied a little sheepish “ will we charge 30.00 for a service call but since I'm off the clock if you have twenty we'll call it good”

“Deal” I said and gave Earl two tens and he was gone and I motored into the house knowing I will have to make another appointment for the shop and see if they can find the problem short of what ever is the problem.

I hate not being able to trust my equipment but the van is old now and these issues are to be expected but I still don't have to like it

From the Inside of the Hurricane!!

I think the full weight of the economic downturn is finally beginning to hit home here in Utah. Like vultures the issues of the down turn have been circling and swooping down here and there to pick off prey but I am beginning to hear rumbling of the end. Perhaps since I am employed at the State and not the private or private non-profit sectors we have been somewhat insulated—but I must admit with the reductions in funding my project has felt I am becoming more and more aware I definitely am in the cross hairs of the State reduction scope. This morning I heard from an executive director on whose board I sit indicate that one of the other private non-profits, a major player in the this State, with a multi-millon dollar payroll, Washington lobbyists, and an agency which probably does more good for people of low-income then any other project in the State, very well may be going under. It would be difficult for me to believe that a system as huge as this could collapse but, that is the talk—the vultures are swooping.
So, if an organization I have been writing about can fall prey to the economic wolves of the economy hen surly a small State agency such as mine can also feel the sting of death from the funding cut backs. The Executive Director even asked after my situation, almost like he was feeling me out to see how desperate my situation was/is, almost like he had something on his mind maybe a position—but that would be too good to be true. In the next breath he also indicated his organization was also feeling the financial impact of the economy and he was going to inform the board of directors, at today's meeting, that he was going to issue a hiring freeze and that he would be looking for board support. Hiring freeze, that sounds OK to me, at least he is keeping the folk he has and has them working. Many of the project the Board oversees are Federally funded and the Feds are cutting like drunk surgeons and sounds like subsidized housing projects are going to get knifed.
So as Dylon sang, “the times they are a changing” and it has taken a long time for the change to hit this
area as it looks like is about to happen. Like I have said, I am technically by grants through June 30—but after that who know what is going to happen to be. People are beginning to 'circle the wagons', pull in and hunker down ad when for these “winds of change” to pass...as they well and someday life will return to some sort of normalcy. As they always do. I kinda wish I could feel more stressed then I am feeling right now—perhaps as June 30 approaches my feelings will change but now I just watching like from the inside of the hurricane as all Hell is about to break loose.

Spring Cleaning

The past three days have been fantastic Sunshine and warm temps have made the season seem more like Spring then the dead of winter so much so I have felt the urge to Spring Clean. In all honesty I must really say the e-mail which circulated yesterday that the State building boys were going to start making their rounds to make sure all is safe and tidy—well no so much tidy as safe. I have been getting the evil eye from our front desk person for several months to clean up my area but the task has just seemed so over whelming. I have all kinds of excuses why my office is in such disarray all the time: creative mind, disability and I have even used the head injury excuse—that part of my brain which recognized clean and order must have gotten whacked but during the accident. Actually believe that, rather then brain injury I have some sort of developmental disability—the able to recognize “clean and order” part of my brain never quite developed the way it should have because I had this problem clean and order way before my accident, but the accident works. The trouble is the women in my life have seen through this and feel I am just plain lazy or frightened of loosing my independence—so today, motivated by the beautiful weather, outside my window I am trying to put a little clean on the office, my office space.

The problem as I see it is that I have a lot of surface-I don not have a desk per se –the place was sort of designed for an employee in a wheelchair, just not me. I tend to pile things on any surface that I can with the idea I will go back and file it or throw it away or what ever—will days, week then months go by and I never get back to the item and worse I tend to stack new stuff on top of the old stuff and soon I have just piles heaped all over my work space. I need to bring in a hook with one of the rubber coated hook I use with my reachers so I can pull this mess toward me to where I can reach it and dispose of it appropriately. The project is coming alo6ng—the State goons did not show up today so they most likely will tomorrow so first thing, more cleaning!!

Excuse Me While I Hit The Wall

So, I went to the doc a couple of weeks ago and she writes me sripts, for medicines, therapy and a seating evaluation. A seating evaluation is the process in which a physical therapist or an occupational therapist with specialized training in how to best fit a wheelchair, pad and/or seating system to a person with a spinal cord injury. I got a new cushion for the powerchair I am sitting in now a year or two ago and I have not really been pleased with the way I have sat in this chair or my manual chair for that fact.

And, I don't know what is happening but I am having more and more difficulty staying in my chair in fact there are times I think I am going to slide right out of the chair onto the floor! I have also experienced , since I got this new power chair,a couple of years ago,the inability to keep my feet on the foot plate of the chair. The plate is just not big enough to house both of my feet when I have my shoes on. When I complained complained to my durable medical vendor he just shrugged and said that's what the maker had to do in order to place the front castors where they are. So, constantly, though out the day I having to physically try to drag myself back into my powerchair or re-adjust my feet on the footplate, or pik up my foot or try to pick up my foot to set back in the foot plate—many time I actually have my co-workers stop what they are doing and come over and lift my foot back onto the plate. OR the feet themselves are spasming right off the plate and the process starts all over, one way I have combated this problem is to my feet into a wall and if I am lucky the feet will be pushed back onto the foot , and if I am having a spasm, at that precise moment, I will sit there, pressed into the wall until the spasm passes and then be on my way. No bigee, it's just what I do and it basically works although I must admit the whole process is wearing me out—I think it is all the leg lifting is one of the reasons I damaged my A/C joint, but I get by. Dianne has been encouraging me into the next step to contact my rehab folk and get scheduled for the eval, and PT etc,etc. But this morning, at the office, as I was diving my feet into the wall, my boss got visibly angry, once before she got miffed seeing how hard I was coping with the chair and I sort of blew it off—but this morning I figured I had better get busy and start making appointments.

I got hold of Rehab right before lunch and found it is going to be a while before I am going to get an appointment let alone get started on some real P.T. Because the department has lost two of their therapists so everything is backed up—I am just going to have to be patient. Excuse me while I go drive into the wall.

Just Give Me the Facts, Mam!

Remember the weekend when I drug myself out to the local Insta-Care to have urine cultured and get drugs needed to wiped out the infection? The PA I saw was young but seemed to know what he was doing. He gave a script for the Ciphor indicating the drug would knock out the infection, he knew that but would still run the culture just to be sure. Well, I got the Ciphor and started the regimen and sure enough I was feeling better in no time. I have very diligently taking the meds, eaten my yogurt and continue to heal. Later yesterday afternoon I got a call from a young voice from Insta-Care indicating they had got the cultures back and the medications proscribed will do the trick and oh, you need to see your urologist soon!!

In my head flags, big red flags started waiving back and forth as I tried to remain calm trying to get more information from the faceless voice over the phone who had just dropped this bomb. The voice artfully dodge the queries--”what is soon?” I said “ as soon as you can”, “am I in imminent Danger?” I asked,” No, just get see my your urologist as soon as you can?. I started to do a minor freak-down but thinking things could not be too bad—only, last month I did a major blood work analysis and I was basically OK with just a few adjustments. So what could be going on? I called Dianne and spoke with the office manager are just about anyone I could corner, who all greed that it was probably nothing.

It was late in the work day—when I finally got calmed down enough begin to think and act a bit more rationally. I wanted the 'doc in a box' to send the result directly to my regular health care professional but I needed to get my PA's fax number and Of course when I was trying know one was answering the phone—they were done for the day, So, I would just have to wait till this morning when folks came back to work. So of course this morning I could not get hold of my medic until after nine o-clock and armed with the fax number I found the Insta-care did not open till 10:00 a.m. I finally got the numbers right an both parties in and open for business. I called the Insta-Care an I got the person who called last night. I asked her to fax over my report to my regular PA and she OK and then she started seeping out information. It seemed the PA who saw me Saturday was concerned that I had me, a male had a UTI !! He is laboring under the idea that males don't regularly get UTI's and felt I needed to get checked out immediately. If she or he had told me this I could informed him that as a person with a spinal cord injury UTI's were quite common among women AND men who are self cathing. He was 'green' to the point he did not know. Hopefully now he does. Still, the reception person or who ever called DeeDee who told them to call me needs to learn how to better convey this information of lack of pertinent information to the consumer—it would greatly assist them in sleeping through the night,.

Just Pee into the Cup

Friday something was different, I was not sure what but something felt odd, by the afternoon I had a dull in the low left quadrant of my back and I was pretty sure I had some kind of infection most likely a kidney infection. My urine out puts had significantly lowered but I was not yet willing to admit such an invent,because doing so would mean I would have to take action which would mean saddling up and going to see a healthcare professional of some type. So I spent the morning in denial and by afternoon I knew something was really wrong. I slept poorly Friday into Saturday and draining just fractions o what I felt I should and needed to be draining. Saturday morning I also noticed my legs beginning their autonomic hyper-flexia dance but w even with my legs spasming I thought to myself, just increase you fluids and I will be just fine but when I cathed that morning and saw blood on the tip of the catheter I knew I had to go somewhere.

I showered,dressed and broke the news to Dianne and told her I was going into to the Insta-Care facility not far from the house. In fact in times past I have actually taken my self to the healthcare provider by myself in my power chair. I thought making the run yesterday as well but the day was cold and very damp and I can never seem to trust my power chair with enough power to make the trips I need to. Dianne drove me to the Insta-Care and the event was good. I got attention and script I needed to know out the infection I was suffering from. But what was really interesting was when I was asked to give a urine sample, I dutifully took the vessel and catheter and headed for the bathroom. I cathed and I drained a much better quantity then I thought I was going to, admittedly the process was very awkward trying to cath and drain the catheter into small cup and not making a mess or spilling the needed liquid knowing if I were to lose this cup of pee I don't know how long it would take me to produce another quantity. But I had my hands full. I had the little plastic cup in one hand and the catheter in the other still embedded up to tip. I had no where to get the cup of pee but on the corner of the sink. But the rip of the sink was rounded but I thought if I was careful,i cut most likely balance the cup, get pull out the cath and get rid of it and return to the cup and delivering the fluid to the nurse waiting patiently outside of the sooe.

I carefully placed the cup on the sink and then turned, retrieved the catheter from my penis and disposed of the medical refuge. I then put 'peter' back in his cave zipped up and went to cup but it was gone. I had not heard anything but definitely the pee was gone! What a pisser!! I figured I was going to have to stat th process all over but was sure I was completely tapped out. But to my amazement there sat the cup at the base ontop of the drain still half full of my infected urine. A miracle, another one of the many I am blessed. I gave the sample to nurse and I knew I would have good results...and I did.

CUPCAKES FOR ME

All things considered I think I had a pretty good 60^th birthday. I had massive contacts on my Facebook account, snail mail letters and cards and even a call from Josh Pederson who used to manage the local 211 information line which was really a shock. The kid is now manager of a 211 type agency somewhere in Virginia. The shown yesterday but the day started off extremely chilly but I bussed in enjoying the secrete of the day. I really was not expecting much since they had taken me to lunch earlier in the week but after I had my coffee, checked mail and returned calls staff came bearing gifts and cupcakes—I got some gag gifts(always to be expected) and some valuable gifts always unexpected. I got a $60.00 dollar gift certificate to an Asian place Dianne and I love to frequent. This should be good for at least two sets of meals for both of us or a major family outing—either way dining at the Shang-Hi will be fun.

Yesterday was the Council's annual meeting so I was ,really, thee only staff in the office for the most part of the day I was in the office. Amy was here part of the day in fact she sent me home mid afternoon to see if there was anything I could do to help since there seemed to be a tension in the air suggestion part of the Murray family was coming over for dinner. Even though I did leave early from the office everything in the house seemed to be in order by the time I got home.

Dinner was takeout from Hoppers, a local brew-pub which has a definite elitists leaning an dinner consisted of small loaves of bread and fishes (sounds familiar) more specifically the fish turned out to be salmon and Alaskan Cod aka FISH AND CHIPS. Dinner also consisted of assorted vegetables, garlic smashed potatoes and small hard crusted loaves of bread. Of course the last course was the mandatory cake and ice cream. Gabe baked a wonderful chocolate cake and there was also very vanilla ice cream..

The evening was cold but there was much laughing and eating and let's not for get gifting. My brother Ross sent me a 10 dollar bill with a card, 20.00 dollar gift cert to B@N. Dianne had gotten rubber mats for the danger zones I create transferring to trying to transfer to and fro from my wheelchairs. So, I made out very well. But the night was cold and dark and mom's are pregnant, dads are tired and kid still had homework and reading to do before they go to bed and soon it was just Dianne and I, alone again naturally.

Frank, my staff brother here at work gave me a gag gift you know, a singing book, candles which cannot be blown out, a bottle you touch and it boils up a flouted glass system and more but more important then any of his other gifts was a gift his wife, Sonja sent it: cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes with fudge frosting which were and are wonderful. Staff have eaten a few and they are great. Now, I have them sitting in the back of the office getting older, aging and I figure they should be ready for dunking my Monday morning...

They Say It's Your Birthday

It's my birthday and today I am going home early and that is that!

Reuben Reuben I've Been Thinking...

We're a small office. Really, just five of us who inhabit this office space in downtown Salt lake—so it's intimate and cozy most of the time. There has been times with different staff over the years when the atmosphere has been somewhat terse or testy but for the most part the current staff get along very well. We usually recognize someone's birthday with a meal of that person's choosing usually somewhere near by where can get to without resorting to burning carbon based fuels. My birthday is actually tomorrow, February second, GroundHogs Day. But we decided to celebrate my day yesterday because on the day of my birthday a major event, for people with disabilities , is going down up at the State Capitol and most of the Council staff will be there and since the event is a box lunch event—no time for a birthday lunch tomorrow, and today one of the key staff members is out of town, teaching at a neighboring air base so Monday was the only day during this week, my birthday week.

Our office is fortunate to have a major out door mall just a block or so away, will with in rolling or walking distance and besides a fine foo court the Mall hosts a number of good establishments where one can get a good hot meal---for price. When I was first asked which establishment I wanted to eat at I naturally defaulted to McGraths where they serve fine fish and chips and other offerings from the sea. But with the revelation of the past couple of weeks I decided to change our meal destination to Applebees based on my need for more healthy food choices now an for the rest of my life. Not that Applebees is now the Mecca of healthy food Applebees does offer some entrees which are less greasy.

Everyone in the office made it over to the restaurant at 11:45, We lost one participant when our office manager went home to some mysterious disorder. I hated to see her go but better she then me and then it was four. The meal went well, we talked and joked and flirted with the aspects of death which face each of us in the relative near future. The four who made it to lunch yesterday are baby boomers, some of us are more hammered then others but all four of us have been under the anvil more then we would have liked. But, it is surprising at how well we get along. We, for the most part, love old time rock and roll, programs which help folks with disabilities especially developmental disabilities. We see ourselves as part of the State system but a part from the State system in may ways we believe the State is the cross people with disabilities and their families have to bare. We actively to bring change and bring about better options for the people we serve. We're not necessarily the “good guys” we just get caught doing good things more then the legislature. Oh and by the way I had the Reuben Sandwich which delicious and deadly...