When we went to Dr. Jefferson on Monday, he removed James' foley catheter and we thought he was going to do a cytoscopy (urethral scan) as well as a void test. However, Dr. Jefferson has decided all this trouble is caused by nerve damage stemming from 20 years of diabetes; since it is uncomfortable for James and also a UTI vector, a long-time foley was not acceptable. He has been put on intermittent catherization, which means he has to manually empty his bladder three to four times a day. Unfortunately due to his back problems and mobility issues, he can't actually do it himself. Guess what! Yes, a new skill in my "nursing career." I got a chance to do it once, and then we got sent home with red rubber caths and lubrication. What fun.

(I told Dr. Jefferson: "Oh, like Airplane Guy." "Airplane Guy" is what we call the dude who advertises urinary catheters on whatever side channel it is, how he's happy he can now fly his airplane again with his cath.)

The rest of the week was a little more cheerful, especially as September 1 rolled around so that it's meteorological autumn finally!

On Thursday we did our monthly drive to Canton to eat at Uncle Maddio's (yes, one guy still running the entire show!) and Books-a-Million. To my surprise, I came out with no books, but I did find one for Emma. Then on the way back we stopped at BJs and stocked up on fruit cups and other items to get us through mostly payless October. This week we also hit Nam Dae Mun for the first time in months since Publix didn't have any slivered almonds for my oatmeal.

Saturday we bounced: Sam's Club to Costco to Best Buy in search of a television. Since James is retiring, I'm hoping he won't be spending all his time locked in front of his computer screen anymore. So I told him that as a birthday/retirement gift I would get him a new TV for downstairs. Combined with the Amazon Fire Stick we got as a Christmas gift, it would make good entertainment while he's modeling. Well, turned out neither Sam's nor Costco carries under 40 inch TVs anymore! (Funny, they were there a few months ago.) So we went to Best Buy, but the TV we picked out was cheaper at Target! So off we went up Cobb Parkway and got the TV, which I spent all afternoon setting up. It's a Roku TV, so not only did I tune in all the local channels, but all the Roku channels he'd be interested in. Or rather I had to tune out the ones he wouldn't be interested in, which took a while, since the darn thing loaded about 300 channels. (I'd be willing to bet James will be watching the Caught in Providence channel, since he watches Judge Caprio every chance he gets.) I also had to log in on all the other services we get, like Netflix, Acorn, etc. before I could carry it downstairs and actually plug it in. (It's better to tune it in upstairs, where the Leaf antenna gets the most channels. But this television seems to be stronger at picking up signals and he's getting most of the locals downstairs, except for GPB which we can't get upstairs anyway and what I call "the God Squad," all the local religious channels.)

But...that's done.

Labels: books, electronics, food, health, illness, seasons, shopping, television

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:25:00 PM

Comments: Post a Comment