A lot has happened since I last posted anything...starting with the days just before Easter when I was having a hard time standing up and walking. Jeff called an ambulance for me on Good Friday and tried to convince me I needed to go to the hospital, but I resisted...no, make that refused!
Finally on Easter Sunday, I gave in and he called them again and I allowed myself to be taken to the 'only available bed' in the system at...Cobleskill Hospital! I tested positive for Covid twice...once before getting in the ambulance and again in the ER. While in the hospital I was put in an Isolation Room but never treated with any medication for Covid. On Monday, they discontinued my Warfarin and put me on Lovenox, an injectable blood thinner. On Tuesday, I was discharged and sent home with a 'kit' for self-injection and an Rx for Lovenox.
If you remember Monday had been the Easter Blizzard and the ride home in the ambulance took 'the long way around'. We went north of Little Falls, turned west to go around Ilion and head towards Utica, finally turning back east onto the Thruway and going to Little Falls. Then we turned again west on to Rte 5 and back towards my house. Smallsbush Rd was clear and our driveway had a track to follow in but out car was parked besides the house and the ambulance attendants said I had to walk to the porch. With one attendant on each side and a walker, I just walked home. No problem.
I didn't discover until I was getting ready for bed that night that I had been sent home with an Rx for Lovenox but without any Lovenox, so I just took my regular dose of Warfarin that night. Part of my discharge orders included having an INR done ASAP, so I called Herkimer Bassett the next morning and made an appointment for an INR for that afternoon.
I was not popular at Herkimer when I got there and they found out I had been hospitalized due to Covid, but they did do the INR (1.7) and sent me home with another appointment in one week. By then my INR (4.6) was totally out of control and we started a weekly routine that lasted until this past week when it was finally back where it belonged (2.3).
Cobleskill also sent me home with orders for a walker...and a commode which didn't fit around/over our toilet so I never used it. The walker I did use. I had adjusted it to match the walker I was using in the hospital but Sharon, my nurse at Herkimer, agreed with me that it wasn't adjusted properly, so we raised it. I found the walker easy to use...except going into stores that had rugs just inside the doors. I kept tripping over them! This week I started walking without the walker thru the house and from the car to a grocery cart. (I used a grocery cart and walked around Walmart this week for the first time in 2 months! We went in thru the Grocery entrance and I pushed the grocery cart back to the Yarn and back to the check-out before going to sit in the car and wait for Jeff to finish his shopping (Rx's). I was exhausted!!) I've been doing short grocery trips to Hannaford. That's my size store!!
I was lucky enough to be given a large gift of yarn from Maggie, my college friend (and after choosing 20 skeins to keep) I shared the gift with a high school friend who knits for her church. I have more than enough yarn in my stash to keep me knitting for a couple of years!! I've also done a couple of shawls for the shop with some beautiful hand-dyed superwash wools that I received in my Yarn Pal swaps.
I haven't driven a car in over 2 months and am hesitant to start right now. I can't raise my right leg fast enough to get it off the gas and onto the brake for me. I'm just not comfortable with the idea of driving...and the idea of driving over 30 miles one way to the shop is not something I want to do. If I did have Covid, it made my arthritis worse...especially in my arms and shoulders. I have to make up my mind in the next couple of weeks about the shop. Maybe it's time to become a non-worker...just knit and send my sweaters and shawls to Cooperstown. Just the idea of that makes me feel old! Oh, well!!
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