Road Trip Week, Part 2

I got up at 6:30 AM on Thursday. I shaved, showered and got dressed, then headed out to rehab.

She added a few more exercises to my routine, but I got through them okay. One of the new ones was using a EU something or another (Dave and probably Melissa would know the real name). It's like a plastic mitt with an adjustable strap you stick your hand into. The mitt is attached via swivel to a long dowel. The dowel is attached with another swivel to an adjustable (for height, that is) board on the wall.

So, in this exercise, you stand there and do a "Heil Hitler" salute of sorts. She left for a minute and when she came back, she asked if I was doing okay. I said, you Irish people have many talents, but we Germans can do this all day long! All three therapists cracked up!

I was back home by 9:15. At 10:30 AM, I got out the lawn tractor and cut the back yard. It seemed silly though, because the new leaves were falling almost as fast as I mulched the old ones.

I made a can of chicken noodle soup for lunch, reset the alarm for 1:30 (in case I fell asleep) and watched a movie. At 1:30, I got back up, switched from my yard work clothes to some better clothes and gathered up all my medicines.

It's time for another road trip! This time I have to go up to Richmond to see my primary care doctor for my semi-annual checkup. So, once again, I got in the car and hit the road. But, this time I was driving in and out of rain showers.

I got there a bit early, but went right in. I knew there was a problem when the nurse asked if I'd gotten the blood work done. I said, yes, I went in at 7:00 AM on Friday, after getting the prescription in the mail Thursday night. She said, well, they didn't send us the results.

So, they called over to the hospital and I had to wait until they found and faxed the test results. Finally, my doctor came in. She congratulated me on my weight loss, my blood pressure (110/82) and said all the test results were very good. Then she said, wait a minute, did you give them the prescription I wrote out for you? I said well, yeah, they wouldn't probably take one I wrote out myself. She said, well, I don't see the one for your blood glucose test!

So, more waiting while they called back to the hospital. Bad news was they "forgot" to do that one. Good news is that they keep your blood for one week after they draw it (I did not know that) and so could do the test now. The doctor told me it would be at least an hour and did I want to wait? Uh, NO! Just call me tonight with the results, please!

So, I made one pit stop on the way home at the Smoke House for some Hunter Sausages. Then I started the long trip back home in the light rain.

I was moving pretty good (at that time of the day, heading into Detroit, you are going in the reverse direction of the rush hour traffic). That was, until I got past I-75 in Detroit. Just after that, I-94 (which I was on) goes down to three lanes for construction! So, it was stop and go, with huge lines of people trying to get on the freeway, until I finally turned onto I-96. Now, on I-96, you are heading out from the city along with everybody else. It's a lot more traffic and guess what? For about five or six miles, the left lane there was also closed off. Now, it's a 70 MPH speed limit, but until the lane opened back up, I was doing about 40 MPH and hitting the brakes off and on... Very frustrating and nerve-wracking!

I finally got home just before 6:00 PM. I changed my clothes and washed up the inside of the crock pot (it had been soaking overnight). I took out a chunk of sharp cheddar cheese and some more smoked sausage to thaw to make for dinner (not sure just what, yet.)

I talked briefly with Jake who called to see how my doctor visit went and then went in to fill the Blog entry up to date.

I decided I was really beat and hungry, too. So, I went with smoked sausage and sauerkraut (I had another bag of it in the fridge) heated up in a pan. I didn't want to wait for the potatoes to cook this time.

When it was done, I fixed a bowl of it and wandered in to watch TV. But, the rehab, lawn-cutting and long drive had taken its toll and I went to sleep at 9:30 PM. The doctor never called, BTW.

Sometime in the night, I woke up, thinking I heard somebody talking in the house. I just about fell back asleep when I heard the woman who lives in my smoke detectors say, "Warning, battery is low!" I knew she wouldn't be quiet until I addressed her concerns (women!) so I got out of my nice, warm bed, went in the office, took the smoke detector down, pulled out the batteries and set it on the daybed to await the morning...