Mixed Blessings and Assorted Cursings

[captainsblog]

This is the new normal. Which is to say, it's totally



Since about the middle of last week, I've been mostly home, at the Buffalo office for decreasing chunks of workdays, and as of tomorrow,  even less. My work output has been a couple of settlement agreements, a few followups on potential clients, but mostly postponements of things.  I did get and cleared one corporate client's check to me, and that meant bills, office and personal,  will be taken care of through the first few days of April. 

And we have enough toilet paper.

It's the uncertainties that are the most annoying. We know it will be like this today, tomorrow, probably the rest of this month, but how much longer beyond that? The closest point-of-reference people seem to have, including me, is the aftermath of 9/11, but that, once the four planes downed and the rest were grounded, was it. A horrific, society-changing it, to be sure, but the members of that society could hold and hug and take comfort in each other.  Now we're six feet apart.  And if that distance sounds familiar,....



After 9/11, it was sport that brought us back, brought us together. Mets in NYPD/NYFD caps and Mike Piazza's homer on the return of the game.  Now, seasons are ending and baseball's may not begin for months.  Stealing signs seems so distant a problem now, just as nobody barely remembers that at the beginning of this month, the biggest problem Wegmans customers had was not being able to get a plastic bag.

That store has been the flashpoint of customer frustration but also a beacon of reason through it all.  On Eleanor's last workday last week, these turned up at all of the registers:



She's also learned two more things this weekend: by tomorrow, all registers should have plexiglas shields installed between the grimy customers  credit card terminals and  the scales; and the company is issuing a $2/hour raise for all hours worked this month and next, retroactive to March 1st.  I'm expecting they will list that on next year's W-2 as "combat pay."  Given that, the likely $2,400 bribe from Washington, the already-announced 90-day extension of Tax Day (which in my case is always Pay Day) and the likelihood I will be very busy once this more-or-less settles down, I think we'll be okay financially.

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I seem to also be okay medically, but my that's been a long strange trip over the past few days.

When we last visited this weirdness, I'd been CT-scanned with inconclusive results. THAT resulted in a new appointment for an ultrasound, which took place first thing last Wednesday.  It took a lot longer than the in-and-out of the ride through the big donut hole;  my only frame of reference for these things were the couple we had of Emily back in the day, so of course I had to ask the tech if I should expect a boy or a girl.

Her: Well, which do you want?

Me: Well, how about twins? At least they'll have each other to play with.

In the end, that's how it turned out. They confirmed one cyst on the liver and another on the kidney (yes, singular- don't ask). I've since named them Harold and Maude, in honor of having just seen the former actor in a weird old Wes Anderson movie Eleanor took out from the library (which is now ours through the end of next month, since they've shut down all the branches and extended due dates to April 30). But after talking with the docs after the results came in on Friday, neither seemed troublesome enough to warrant further immediate imaging, nor did the one slightly abnormal marker from the bloodwork. We agreed on a wait-and-see course for three months, unless things got worse....

Which, of course, they promptly did.

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After I got this good news, I decided to get off my arse and walk part of the way to my office at 5.  About a mile, I'd guess. Took it easy, nothing aggravating whatever this thing is- until I got into said office, bent over next to my desk to retrieve the power cord for my work laptop (lawyers are thus far deemed non-essential, so I will be working from home). Soon as I stepped into a lunge of sorts to grab the AC end of the cord from the strip, the pain briefly went to 11. Walked back to the car okay, but by the time I got home from errands, what with five up-and-downs in and out of my car, I could barely stand. Got very little sleep that night. I waited to see if it got better during the day, but when it didn't, I knew there was a Doc-in-a-Box in my future. Perfect timing, huh?

At least I didn't have to face a long line of Weekend Warriors recovering from their Friday night beer league hockey games.  The place was almost empty.  Within an hour, I'd been triaged, seen, reviewed,.... and told they couldn't diagnose or prescribe anything, but since an abdominal complaint was present, I would need possible further imaging or consultation at my Friendly Neighborhood Emergency Room.

After a quick stop home and only my third brief consumption of food in almost 24 hours, I was doing the drill all over again at Millard Suburban.  Their ER was also nearly deserted.  I signed in just as Cheeto was giving his daily virus update (note: he's wearing a blue tie instead of his usually Garanimal red one, probably because that's considered too Chinese now).

Triage nurse: Hypertensive?

Me: Borderline. On meds for it.... and if you want it to go down even more, turn that idiot’s news conference off.

I was quickly dispatched to one of the three (out of five) empty rooms in the eight-pod ER suite, and waited.  Everyone was kind, thorough if a little on edge from all the shit in the outside world.  Their only addition to my lab portfolio was a fresh pee sample. Eventually, the on-call doc came in, and concluded it had nothing to do with Harold or Maude, nothing indicating infection, and probably my best course was to go home, get some much needed rest, take some Tylenol for the pain and melatonin for the sleeplessness, and see how it goes.

In other words: no good drugs, but also no admission.

I didn't last long at home after that, my appetite was still down, but once I took some Ibuprofen (sorry, doc), things drastically improved. I slept as well as I have all week, woke with virtually no pain, and even managed our regular Sunday road trip for dog walkies (along a path, social-distanced from our two- and four-legged friends). It's been fine since.  His theory, apparently confirmed, is that it was some kind of muscle pull from the AC cord incident, and that this common sense medicine would do it.

Cross your fingers and your sciatic nerves.  Now the only mysteries are (a) is this the answer long term, and (b) how much of my $2250 high-deductible deductible did it cost for me to find this out?

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Some other odd notes from this Long Strange Trip:

- WellNow, the latest branding of the Doc in a Box, still has a K-cup coffee maker in the waiting room. Next to it,  a slurpee machine. And in their behind the waiting area “lounge,” there’s a Ms. PacMan video game from 1980. Maybe all I needed was a power pill.  When I reported these findings home, there ensued the following exchange:

Eleanor: I can't believe there was a K-cup coffee machine at WellNow. Shoulda been removed long ago.

Me: Not the slurpee machine, though. That shit’ll kill anything on contact.

- Oddly, once they left me to wait for two hours for a resident to do the initial check on me, I was on a comfy bed in a nice warm room and was almost tempted to try napping. I was just afraid they’d see me and call in a crash cart.

- Eleanor also seemed worried last night about whether my lack of appetite was a sign of depression or anxiety over the whole virus thing. I replied, Pro tip: when I'm anxious or depressed, I eat MORE.  And just to confirm this, when we went for walkies this morning, I was perfectly hungry and stopped for my usual Sunday repast at the Timmy's drive through (it's still open). I'd planned to pay for the guy behind me, but when he started bitching at the squawkbox about their limited availability of donuts, I changed my mind and just left the cashier with a BOGO donut coupon for him to use that I never will.

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Did some of my usual weekend errands today. Cleaned round the office area at home; entered all my time for the previous week (karma: despite All This, my recorded hours for the month matched exactly what they'd been for the same period a year ago); and downloaded a bunch of music I'd bought to support musician friends who are struggling through these gig-less times. 

Tonight, we finish watching a documentary about The Who I remember seeing in college. And then a week of Even Less Normal begins.