San Francisco, CA - Back to the Doctor

We went shopping yesterday with our LLBean bags to pack the groceries in. The clerk said ‘bags?’ we said ‘yes’ and he added $.20 to our bill. ‘Oh, wait, we misunderstood your question - we have our own bags’ and he took the $.20 off the bill. OK. But notice that they were going to charge us for grocery bags. I remember when we got $.05 off our bill for each bag we brought in.

My shoulder and elbow were hurting a bit this morning and, since I had taken 1/2 of my pain pill, I laid down on the bed in my usual on-my-back-staring-at-the-ceiling position. If I keep my arms at my sides, the pain slowly goes away. Meanwhile, Gary cleaned the RV. Wow, did he ever do a thorough job. I’m going to have to be sick more often. That central vac kept going for hours. Well, not that long but he kept at it for a while. Of course, I wasn’t in the room so maybe he was letting it just run while he sat down and read the news.

I went back to the orthopedic surgeon today for my follow-up appointment. Of course, I had a whole new problem for him to look at. He checked my arm reflexes, he checked my arm movement, he checked my arm strength and finally said that I seemed to have no bone problems and that he could do nothing for me. Maybe a physical therapist. Hmm. Not what I wanted to hear. Of course, that’s not what anyone wants to hear - we all want a simple answer, a solution that will be painless, complete and short. Not what I heard. At least he was honest and told me that he couldn’t do anything. He gave me the name of the physical therapist connected to his practice but, when I got there, was told that they had no openings. They gave me a list of possibilities in the area with the good ones checked off and I began to call. ‘I am a new patient and need an appointment in the next week.’ Nope - all were booked out at least two weeks or more.

When I called the last checked physical therapist on the list, yes, they had an appointment for me. Then she asked me what my problem area was and told me that they could only work on one problem area at a time since that was all insurance would pay for. Ooh, now, I’ve got to choose either my shoulder or my elbow. Luckily, my knee is improving on its own.

Of course, my first thought was: oh, good, I’ve got an appointment. My second thought was: gee, if everyone else is booked solid for the next few weeks and this place can get me in tomorrow - they must not be very good. Says Nancy ‘always-look-on-the-bright-side’ Ferguson.

Now, it is 10:00 and I haven’t had any pain pills since noon. Pretty good.

Yeah, until I awoke at 3:00 a.m. and had to take 1/2 a pill.