The General Chat Thread (2023)

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I saw the orthopedic surgeon earlier this week, and was FINALLY cleared to start physio!

I had my first appointment today - got assessed, stretched, ultrasounded, even zapped with electricity! The therapist said my left side is much weaker than the right (surprise) and my range of motion is pretty limited, but I’m doing better than she expected for 4 months in a boot/cast.

I have exercises to do, and then I’ll be seeing them twice a week for the next few weeks. I hope I can go back to walking normally soon! I’m supposed to start weaning out of the boot.

Great news Herbaceous. My progress with the broken leg is hampered by my lower back which is now taking all the strain when hobbling about on the walking frame. Yesterday my back went into spasm every time I moved. Its a bit better today after resting.

The main thing is to take it slowly and steadily I think. And keep up any exercises they give you to do. Its easy to slip on that...
 
Great news Herbaceous. My progress with the broken leg is hampered by my lower back which is now taking all the strain when hobbling about on the walking frame. Yesterday my back went into spasm every time I moved. Its a bit better today after resting.

The main thing is to take it slowly and steadily I think. And keep up any exercises they give you to do. Its easy to slip on that...
Don’t rush too much with a broken femur, they can take a long time to heal. My brother broke his when he was a kid, and it was a full year before he was able to go back to martial arts (although he did heal fully and has no long-term effects).

I am trying really hard to keep up with the exercises. Luckily they can almost all be done sitting in front of the tv. There’s a few stretches with a resistance band, and then I need to use my ankle to draw the alphabet in the air - but I sometimes just spell out swear words. Keeps me amused!
 
We managed to avoid it here in Kent. We had a brief hailstorm this afternoon, but maybe tomorrow the place will look like a Xmas card scene....
 
I finally broke down and had to turn the air-conditioning back on. I turned the downstairs system (where my bedroom is) on last night, so I could sleep, but turned it off in the morning. Just now, I finally had to turn the upstairs system (where my office is) on.

Of course, this means that Mother Nature is setting us up for a brutal winter storm in the near future. It will be severe, with frigid temperatures, wind, snow, ice and possibly even some power outages. I don't trust Texas Governot Abbott's assurances that our power grid has been fixed since the deadly Big Freeze two years ago.

CD
 
I finally broke down and had to turn the air-conditioning back on. I turned the downstairs system (where my bedroom is) on last night, so I could sleep, but turned it off in the morning. Just now, I finally had to turn the upstairs system (where my office is) on.

Of course, this means that Mother Nature is setting us up for a brutal winter storm in the near future. It will be severe, with frigid temperatures, wind, snow, ice and possibly even some power outages. I don't trust Texas Governot Abbott's assurances that our power grid has been fixed since the deadly Big Freeze two years ago.

CD
Here they are fixing our road after the last heavy rain storm destroyed it. Their immediate repair was to stick up signs that said 'part road closed" which in reality dropped the road from 2 lanes to single lane without passing places.

Guess what we're due tomorrow and for most of next week? There's no prizes for a correct answer!
 
I had a nasty cold before Christmas, that morphed into pneumonia for New Years, and now we are getting pounded with juniper tree (AKA: Mountain Cedar) pollen. It is blowing in from the South on strong Southerly winds. The sky to the South of me had a brownish tint today from pollen. I'm wearing a mask whenever I go outside.

Even people who brag about not having allergies react to this type of juniper pollen.

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I've never understood why some people get very defensive if you suggest that their sniffles might be allergies. "I DO NOT HAVE ALLERGIES!!!!!"

CD
 
A couple of things going on. First, I ordered pink lights for our Christmas Valentine’s tree, and when they arrived…they were blue!

I called the company, they found the mistake (transposed digit on item number), so they told me to keep the blue ones and are sending me the pink ones as well.

Second, I was making tea using my Keurig (just squirting hot water over a teabag) when the outlet started smoking something fierce.

Unplugged that, found the bottom of the machine melted and pulled the outlet from the wall and found part of the receptacle melted as well, and one of the wires charred, so now I’ve got to do that.

This is our second Keurig, I’ve never liked them, I was the only one who used it, so I’m not replacing it. I’m a full-time kettle boy now.

Last, when I cut my thumb last, back in October, I ended up going to the care clinic my employer provides, because I couldn’t get it bandaged up right.

I got the bill for that the following month, $60US, which seemed a little high, considering I was well into my paid-up deductible phase, so I checked with my insurance and found they’d already paid $48, and I just owed $12. That’s more like it.

Called the billing department, told them what insurance said, and they asked me to send a screenshot of the claim from the insurance company and they’d take care of it and send me a corrected bill.

December, new bill arrived…$60. I called them back, and they (surprisingly) had a record of my last call, told me not to worry about it, they’d get it corrected and send me a new bill for the right amount.

Got the bill today…$60! :mad:

I called for a third time, just went to voicemail, so now I’ve got to try tomorrow morning.

I got those lights, though, so I got that going for me.
 
Here they are fixing our road after the last heavy rain storm destroyed it. Their immediate repair was to stick up signs that said 'part road closed" which in reality dropped the road from 2 lanes to single lane without passing places.

Guess what we're due tomorrow and for most of next week? There's no prizes for a correct answer!
I'm just catching the edge of the storm at the moment.

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One of those times when you're better off without windscreen wipers at all!

I've just driven through the start of it which was hail. It's as black as night over Canberra and I'm going to get very wet because I posted my waterproof back to Arc'teryx for repair on Monday and don't expect to see it again for 6-8 weeks. I'm also in sandals and a a t-shirt because it was warm and sunny at home.
 
I'm just catching the edge of the storm at the moment.

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One of those times when you're better off without windscreen wipers at all!

I've just driven through the start of it which was hail. It's as black as night over Canberra and I'm going to get very wet because I posted my waterproof back to Arc'teryx for repair on Monday and don't expect to see it again for 6-8 weeks. I'm also in sandals and a a t-shirt because it was warm and sunny at home.
I don't know how you stand living there to be honest, all that extreme weather would put me off so much!
 
Well, today went smoothly at the consultants. I've got an operation date and all is set. My other hip needs replacing as well, so a date has been set in March. This gives me 6½ months to recover from it before we fly back to the UK. Originally I was aiming for the op in October but changing our flights to a cheaper time of year to fly to the UK means I need to reconsider when I have the hip replaced. It's not far off being as bad as the other one was and I'm struggling to stand up off the sides in the evenings as it is. On the X-ray it's a bad as the other was when that was replaced. My consultant was simply waiting for he to be ready to have it replaced.

He's is also writing to the hospital concerned to request that they are exceptionally careful with my food this time around after I needed to use both epipens last time I was there. I need that hospital for the ICU bed for after my operation but he has said he is happy for me to transfer around the corner to the other (non-icu) hospital he uses for rehab once I'm over the first week after the op. That other hospital caters for vegans, the ICU hospital doesn't. There is literally no vegan box to tick for meal requirements! (When away from home I'm a dietry vegan as opposed to a vegetarian whose allergic to dairy which is technically what I am at home, though I don't do honey because it's too sweet for me. )
 
I called for a third time, just went to voicemail, so now I’ve got to try tomorrow morning.
Called again this morning, and they’ve assured me they have the $48 payment from the insurance company, it’s just taking it a long time to get applied, but when I get the next bill, it should be for $12, not $60.

We shall see…
 
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