Random Rants OA - I Have 71 Problems, But This Thread Ain't One

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I bought a new pack of socks at a discount store. After only a couple months all my toes are sticking through the ends of them. :aargh:
 
My favourite sock brand is Dickies but I'm not sure if they'd be durable enough for your job. I think they have a thicker kind. I am not certain if the durability is raised to match.
 
The last time I bought socks was from Primark a year or two back - I got something like fifteen pairs of socks for probably around £25. Only a few of them have decayed by now.
 
My Kami-Cat has an eye infection of some sort, or she injured it somehow. Either way, it's really bad...:(
 
Dickies is the best (in durability) commonly available brand of sock there is. The #1 goes to Darn Tough, but they're also Darn Expensive and Darn Unavailable (locally).
 
Mom had her first Carotid Endarectomy today. The surgeon said the procedure went well, but it took longer than expected. The anesthesia did not take effect until about the time they were expecting the operation to be end.

They don't think she had another stroke or any internal bleeding, but it is too early to tell. She will be spending tonight in the ICU, and probably moving to a regular hospital room tomorrow. Before the procedure the doctor said there was a 99% chance that she would come home tomorrow and otherwise a 99.9% chance of coming home the next day. Afterwards he said she would almost certainly not be ready to go home tomorrow. He said she would probably go home Friday. He did not give odds, but it sounded like he thought there was a more than 1% chance of her staying until Saturday or longer.

It is going to leave a large and very noticeable scar.

The anesthesia also seems to take longer than expected to wear off. When we left she was still very confused, almost like during her second stroke. She still seemed to recognize us and was eventually able to say our first names. She managed to nod or groan in response to a few questions, but mostly ignored anything she was asked.

The only words anyone could understand her saying for the first 4 hours after the procedure was "bathroom." When they tried to help her use the bathroom nothing would come out. They think that the anesthesia was interfering with the muscles around the bladder. Once they put a special catheter in it did not take long to fill the bag with 1200 ml of urine.

After that we made out her saying "I love you" to each us us several times, but most of her mumbling was indecipherable.
 
Got to ride over the hill with a friend tomorrow...so he can use the HOV lane and I can pick up material for this job I booked next week. Figured I'd turn in early, since I've been tired all day. Around 10:30 I said okay, this is about a wrap, and figured I knock out maybe a half dozen moves in my Alpha Centauri game to unwind before bed. Aaaaaaand, it's midnight. :cringe:
 
One more turn
 
My sister said that mom seems the same today as last night, but that one corner of her mouth was drooping more. That made me think that another stroke seems likely, since I doubted anesthesia would last so long. The doctor disagreed though. He said her CT scan shows no stroke or any other complications and that she is recovery from anesthesia slower than usual but that all the symptoms are temporary. He wants to keep her in the ICU for another night though and said she probably will not come until Monday.
 
At work today I messed up trying to back up the truck (into a driveway that runs at a rather steep angle rather than perpendicular to the road) and got the back wheels stuck in the mud. I had to get two people with pickup trucks to tow it back onto the concrete in order to leave.

I wasn't expecting to be at work very long today so I did not pack a lunch, but since I had to wait for a tow I had to stay much longer than expected.

When I got home dad said that he heard my aunt (mom older half sister, who is also my father's younger brother's widow, who had suffered from Parkinson's for almost 20 years and was moved to hospice last week) is not expected to live more than a couple more days. He said I cannot tell mom lest it put her in a mood that hinders her recovery.

On the way to visit mom in the hospital after work I got stuck in the worse traffic I'd ever seen on the road that connects the cul-de-sac where we live to the rest of the town. It took more than half an hour to travel less than a mile. Just a little before the traffic light at the end of the road there were a couple cop cars around a wreck motorcycle.

I was planning to get a burrito at Moe's (the one across the the hospital, so i could park there rather than paying to use the parking deck) as an early dinner since I skipped lunch, but it ended up being at my normal dinner time. The guy who made the burrito barely filled it half as much as usual.

When I got to the hospital the woman at the front desk said mom was still in the ICU, but by the time I got there she was already in a wheelchair ready to be moved to her new room.

She was really upset that they would not let her put her dentures in since it is harder to talk without them. They seemed to think she should only wear them when eating, but I managed to convince them otherwise.

Mom was talking much more clearly today, and was able to stand up a walk a little. They wouldn't let her do so as much as she liked. She did have physical, occupational, and speech language therapy today, and did fine. Frankly she seemed almost back to how she was yesterday.

The most noticeable difference is that her mouth was drooping even more than before. It was nowhere near symmetrical at any point. The doctors insisted it was no stroke, but I remembered this evening that weeks ago he had also mentioned the possibility of damage to the facial nerves.

My internet searches show that facial nerve palsy is a relatively common complication of the surgery, but is usually only temporary.

Mom did ask how her sister was doing a few times. It did not feel right lying to her, so I just said that I have not heard anything from her personally and omitted that dad said my uncle says she does not have long to live.

Mom also kept saying that she was pretty sure someone told her that she died last night and had to be resuscitated, but the nurses are sure that was just a bad dream.
 
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I… well, MC, I think you should talk to your mother's physicians about her sister's impending death. At some point she'll have to be told, unless you want to live in a parody of Good-bye Lenin! or have some random person break the news to her by accident.
 
AOL's driving me crazy.

I kept its free email addresses when I moved to the Philippines because Amazon won't service a Philippines email address. Lately, I've also been using AOL email for Kindle Scout and related correspondence.

Although for years, my "keep me logged in" option has worked, this morning it didn't. AOL demands my password. I pulled out my supersecret book of passwords and went through page after page of entries looking for it. Not there. No worries, if I enter the "I can't remember my password" option, it should automatically email a recover code to my master AOL account. :) Except it didn't. :eek: It directed me to their Help option. I waded through pages and pages of irrelevant blather.
Finally I got to an announcement that AOL's systems are overwhelmed & I should try later. [pissed]
 
Can't you use a hotmail or gmail account for Amazon?
 
On the radio there's an ad using the Alert Ready emergency sound (sounds like this) just to say that you can now get emergency notifications on your phone. It startles me every time. Do they really need to use that noise?
 
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