03/06/2009 Fri

Finally, the first of my sessions with a trainer at the YWCA. Joe set me up with a female member of his employees. She is very good and I asked her if she was a physical therapist since she can tell in an instant when your legs are not turned correctly or your back is too stiff. She said she was in training to become a physical therapist but that was different than her trainer responsibilities. (She does not have to be as conservative in her expectations as a trainer). Surprisingly, a lot of these exercises are variations on yoga that I took years ago and loved. I had to do a bridge today and hold it for two and a half minutes. That was the exercise I offered one thereapist money to forget about. It must be extraordinarily good for you as it was the first thing she wanted me to do today. But she was careful to ask me to let her know if something was too much right now. Then we did our session where she assessed my strength and was pleasantly surprised to learn I could do everything she asked of me even to levels she would not ask on the first day. She had expected I would have more trouble. I know I am getting stronger. I can now walk up and down steps alternating legs and not ALWAYS holding on to the railing. On Thursday, I walked twice - each time for about 40 minutes round trip. I think I am going to take a break from exercise tomorrow or rather what is now today. I need to clean on the house and catch up on bills, etc. Then we are going to the Carolina-Duke game on Sunday after church and breakfast. There will be a lot of strenuous walking there but Don has told me we will take our time going up and down those hills (almost cliffs really). I am looking forward to the trip and spending a day doing only things I love doing. (I even had a friend of mine tell me she would just come get me if Carolina loses since my company might be in a bad mood for the drive home if there is a loss.) I think even a loss will be somewhat bearable since the season is over enough to know there will be an ACC game and the NCAAs are out there as well. Lots of great basketball this time of year. I am glad we are in the ACC. Don is invited to go to Atlanta but he doesn't have a ticket to the games. I imagine there will be plenty for sale at a price if he wants to go badly enough. My niece and her husband are flying in next Friday to spend an afternoon with me so I will be here in Charlotte. They will then go to Greensboro and spend the rest of the weekend. It is nice to see them every now and then. I should have remembered about the tournament before they booked their flight but maybe they will want to watch if Carolina plays while they are here. I can make do with looking in on the game every now and again and trying to keep up with the score - if Carolina plays while they are with me. Poor little Lauren tried to reschedule the visit but couldn't get a refund on the tickets she had already bought. It made me want to cry that she tried so hard. I just can't let her down and love her and John too much to want them worrying. It was my fault anyway for not thinking hard enough before she booked the flight.

Don finally got the last info he needed for his taxes so that looks like it will work out without an extension being necessary. (Nothing like making your tax prep last months longer than it has to.) I have already sent mine off to the state and the IRS. I don't know why but I seem to get refunds from the federal but owe the state a little almost every year. Same thing this year. (And I found a mistake on the forms that my tax prep person filled out. It turned out to be a mistake in the program used by tax prep people so I think I discovered something pretty big. Did you know tax prep people get programs unavailable to us common folk? Evidently they do!!! There was a mistake in the way it picked up itemized deductions vs standard deduction. I noticed because Don and I spent hours finding proof for all those deductions and it looked like standard deduction was used. But no, the number did not match either itemized or standard so I asked what the number represented. Well, there was not a logical explanation so we re-did the forms which led to redoing the state return as well. I was glad to learn that itemized won out so we didn't spend all that time for naught.)

I am having another sleepless night. I may take an ambien Monday night if I don't get some sleep in the next couple of nights. I still don't see how one can be so very tired and yet be unable to sleep. I was really tired tonight even though I did get an hour nap this afternoon - exercise is a great sedative. Anyway I slept great for about 3 hours and have been awake since then. Time changes tonight and we lose an available hour of sleep. It will not likely matter to me as I usually spend most of the night awake anyway. I don't need to be sedated though when we will need to be at it bright and early on Sunday morning. In order to go to church and eat breakfast before we leave, we really must go to the 8:30 a.m. service. I don't want to sleep late and one of the only times I took ambien to get sleep, I slept for 11 hours - probably a result of the drug plus my own exhaustion. I just don't want to trade one problem for another but I am told that sleep is one of the main healers so I really do need to get it one way or another. Don and I have discussed it and decided that when I am going through a long string of nights without sleep, I should pick a couple of nights during the week when I don't have a morning appointment and take the pill. I also am going to ask a pharmacist about Tylenol p.m. or even other over-the-counter solutions. I tried Benadryl but that didn't seem to do it for me. Hydrocodon (sp?) puts me out but that is dangerous to use for purposes other than extraordinary pain since it contains a high concentration of tylenol and can cause liver damage, I learned. Also, in the hospital, the nurse gave me one and had to wait and watch me take it as she says some people hoard them in order to get the narcotic out and use it to make illicit drugs. (For Heavens sake - not my style or expertise.) Anyway, I'm staying away from that too unless the pain gets dreadful. Don was really suspicious of that one, but every time I go in for another visit to the surgeon, someone is asking if I need some more of those pain pills. I must be one of the few that refuse them as they are always asking if I am sure I don't need them. I'll make do with the Tylenol I can get at the drugstore. The remaining pain is primarily a soreness on the outside of my head, probably aggravated by the fall I took on Dec. 29. I don't have inside-my-head pain or headaches. I wish the sores on my head would make some significant healing progress. I think LeAnn is going to stitch me up this week unless they judge that the healing is finally underway on the skin atop my head. Marlene and I think that it has made progress at long last. I hope so because who knows what LeAnn might think appropriate. She wanted me to go home and wait a couple of days to see what happened after I fell. Right, LeAnn!! There was only bleeding inside my brain. What if I hadn't been awake to let her know in a couple of days. I swear it is one her main jobs to run people off and she has about succeeded with me.

Almost Saturday daylight. We have a birthday party to go to today for a lady in our Sunday School class. It is also Bertha's birthday and Don and I have already handled that one. She is so easy to make happy. She loves to be remembered and deserves it too so we try and make a deal out of it. She lost her husband last year after a long illness and now her sister has had her cancer return. Bertha is pretty resilient but I worry about all the stress that comes down on her. She is now skinny Minnie and wonders why the weight won't stay on. She does go to doctors but then won't keep on her meds. She thinks her cholesterol problem is cured since the cholesterol drug brought her numbers down. I told her it won't stay cured if she doesn't stay on the med but no soap. She is not going to continue taking it.

Ben's blog about getting squirrels out of the churches in this one town was hilarious. I hope you got to view it. I believe his sister sent it to him since he thanks her for it in his blog. And I hope you know that usually his blogs are much more serious but when he does one of his cat stories or squirrel stories, he gets lots of comments since they are so fun. Here's the address for the story if you want to look at it.

http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-things-get-squirrelly-at-church-or.html

Some of you might want to know how Milo is. He has got lots of head congestion again - it appears to be a chronic problem with his little stubbed off nose. Last night he got mad at me for brushing him and hissed at me, then ran to the bathroom with the shower stall and slept in the stall right over the drain. Today there was a bird on the balcony and he raced across the room intent on getting to that bird - and ran right into the glass door. Sometimes I think he is hearing impaired and also has a learning disability. But he is my little boy and I love him even with all his flaws. He does have a stubborn streak and if I let him know I don't like something he is doing, he wants to try it all the more. One of his favorites is to get in front of the computer screen so I can't continue working on the pc. He is IN THE WAY.

Bye to all. I am going to give sleep another try.