July 9, 2019 – Serendipity Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

STRAINS? NO BIG DEAL, RIGHT? – Marilyn Armstrong

RDP Tuesday: STRAIN

“Oh,” said the doctor on television. “It’s just a strain. Nothing to worry about.”

I always laugh, without much mirth when I hear that and you hear it often. If a bone isn’t broken, if a head hasn’t been bashed in and no one had a heart attack or a brain aneurysm, it’s “No big deal.”

It’s official. The doctor on television said so and we all nod like good little viewers.

Strains, sprains, and pulls are harder to heal than breaks. Bones usually heal, but cartilage, tendons, ligaments, muscles may heal and then again, maybe not. All those stretchy pieces are in places that can’t be conveniently set. Ribs. Chest walls. Joints. Knees, hips, backs, groins. Ankles, feet, hands. Spines.

You can’t wrap these human parts in plaster or whatever they are using these days because the parts to which they are attached have to move. You break a small bone in your foot — common among hikers, skaters, skiers, runners — and while you can put a boot on the foot or a brace on the knee, you can’t lock it in place. It has to move because there are attached things that need to move.

Your chest needs to move because you need air. When I was just out of the hospital, I asked how long it would take my sternum to heal.

“Three months,” they said.

Five months later I asked, “Really, how long before my chest heals?”

“Six months,” they assured me.

Five years later, it has not healed. The truth is, you can’t make it heal. There’s no magical medical voodoo that will make anything heal. Bones usually heal — but not always. Those stretchy bits are even less cooperative.

Anatomy. Knee Joint Cross Section Showing the major pieces which make the knee joint. I had the meniscus removed years ago. That was nothing. A bandaid!

When I tore all the ligaments and tendons on my left knee — just about 50 years ago — they wrapped me in plaster from thigh to ankle. I was young and everything healed except the anterior Crucis ligament — which has remained torn. Only surgery will fix it and the surgery doesn’t always work. It was considered a 50-50 bet when I was in my 20s and I turned down the option.

Maybe they’ve improved how they do it now, but since they can’t make my chest heal, I’m betting it’s the same story now. They just work with different equipment. They won’t fix the stretched ligaments in my right shoulder. Healing is slow at my age. So I don’t get repaired. I am told I have to be more careful.

Exactly how careful can I be beyond how careful I already am? All it takes is a shoe catching on a rug, a damp spot on the floor, a dog underfoot, or getting tangled in my own feet. Garry fell trying to put on his pants and all I did was hit a slightly damp patch on the linoleum floor. We weren’t trying to climb mountains or run the marathon.

Design of the shoulder (Garry had this surgery)

Strains may not kill you, but they sure can limit you. It took me years to remember to not fully extend my right arm or it would dislocate and more years to remember to put my feet down carefully so my knee wouldn’t slide out from under me. One error, one little fall, and you are back where you were. It is extremely frustrating, not to mention painful. But really, the pain is less of a problem than the aggravation. There nothing you can do but let that piece of you rest until it decides to feel better.

I often believe we haven’t been strung together with sturdy enough materials. I know I could use a major restringing!

BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK – Marilyn Armstrong

Bi-Weekly Photo Challenge: Black

I remember the year that dark brown was the new black and another year when orange was the new black. Personally, I’ve always thought black was the new black and more than half the clothing I own is black.

In Israel, a co-worker asked me if I was secretly a nun because I wore so much black. In a country that hot, black wasn’t a popular color, but I came from New York where black was always the most fashionable color for dressing up … with other dark colors close behind.

Why? Well first of all, if like me, you tend to wind up wearing your lunch, black hides everything. I used to own a lot of white blouses and one by one, they got a sufficient number of tomato-based stains on them to become officially wearable only at home with the dogs for company.

Almost all of these pictures were taken by Garry with a couple of exceptions, as noted.

Photo, Garry Armstrong

Photo: Garry Armstrong

Photo: Garry Armstrong

Photo: Garry Armstrong –

Photo: Garry Armstrong

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Selfie with a mirror

Photo: Deb Stone

I had one fatal encounter while wearing a white silk blouse — oh what a beauty it was, too — involving dipping one breast directly into the pasta bowl. It wasn’t a great fashion moment, but it sure did make everyone laugh!

That was the last time I wore a white silk anything, not counting my wedding dress. I didn’t eat anything at my wedding, not because I wasn’t hungry but because the photographers — video and still — owned us for the day. I tried to set some food aside for later, but my cousin got hungry and ate it. There was no food left on the table because we invited 90 people and 120 showed up.

The primary problem I have with all my black clothing is I can’t find anything in my closet. It has a light, but everything looks the same. Even clothing that isn’t black is dark — dark red, deep blue, denim — and half the things I want to wear, I can’t find. They are there. I know they are. But they are all lost amidst the other dark items closeted there.

Moreover, I can’t resist a nice pair of black pants. Because they go with everything. Blouses? I can wear many colors as long as they aren’t pastels (which look really awful on me) and if the pants are black or denim or navy, all will be well. When I was working, not having to match tops to weird color bottoms was the difference between getting out the door in time to arrive before someone missed me … and not.

I got rid of about a quarter of my wardrobe recently, but it doesn’t seem to have helped. I think I need to lose at least another 50% to make it work. Between one thing and another, clearing out my closet is not at the top of my agenda this year.

BUT WHAT HAPPENS IF THE FAX IS BROKEN? – Marilyn Armstrong

In case you haven’t noticed, doctor’s offices rely heavily on faxes to get prescriptions to the pharmacy. Although that has always left me a bit twitchy — personally, fax machines and I get along about as well as my printer and I get along, which is to say, not well — I have come to assume they know what they are doing.

I know, for example, that my doctor’s office is very good about getting prescriptions done quickly. If I call in the morning, the pharmacy usually has the script ready to pick up in an hour or two. Considering I pretty much left my last two doctors because they couldn’t seem to get a prescription ready inside of a week, I consider this amazing.

Since two important prescriptions were canceled last week due to unavailability and we are planning to be away on vacation next week, I’ve been trying really hard to get all this stuff worked out. There really isn’t anything crazier than realizing your script ran out and you’re miles from your pharmacy.

I got the prescription worked out for the pain medication over the weekend. Not only did I get a prescription, but it works a lot better than the previous one. I actually wake up in the morning feeling like I can move. Not very fast at the moment because my left knee is pretty dodgy, but the rest of me feels almost like … well … normal. I didn’t think it was possible!

As for the Adderall gone missing, it’s all CVS’s fault. Through some accident — I’m serious about this, so laugh all you want — they ordered ALL the Adderall. All of it. So if you don’t shop at CVS — I don’t because I can go to Hannaford and get a prescription immediately — while it’s always a half an hour wait on a long line at CVS. For just about anything.

But honest to god, that’s what the doctor’s office told me. So all the smaller pharmacies are completely out until the next order. You think maybe CVS did it on purpose?

Eventually, we got this worked out. I’m getting double strength pills and I just have to split them. I already split some of my BP meds, so it’s no big deal … but I had a lot of weird mental issues about CVS ordering ALL the Adderall from the manufacturer. They must have tons of it. Literally tons.

The problem with my regular doctor was far more peculiar. I called, said the medication had worked gangbusters and I was really happy with the replacement and they said they would ship the fax over immediately.

But the pharmacy didn’t have the fax. I called again — both doctor and pharmacy — and the doctor’s office sent another fax and Hannaford didn’t get it.

Because, as it turns out, the fax machine was broken.

Some of the ladies who work in the front office are not tech savvy. They manage to deal with computers, but they always look emotionally and mentally strained. They are sure — always — that something is going to blow up.

I’m very patient with them. They are nice women and work hard. Not everyone does well with electronics, even very smart people. I can do almost anything with a computer but put me in front of a printer or fax machine and my brain dies.

Their fax machine was broken. That’s why Hannaford didn’t get the fax.

Apparently, they didn’t know anything was wrong until they started getting calls from all the pharmacies in the area that prescription faxes hadn’t arrived. Putting two and two together, they got at least 22. Most of the pharmacies agreed to take the orders by phone — just this once. I guess now they are going to have to (gasp) buy a new machine. Hook it up. Convince it to connect. It’s probably wireless and will only work when it feels like it.

Just like my printer.

So I spent almost all day on the phone because the fax machine in the doctor’s office is broken and they didn’t know it. Apparently, the people at the pharmacy worked through the problem with them.

And meanwhile, my glasses are ready to be picked up tomorrow! Yay! Are things finally beginning to run a little more smoothly? Will we make it to vacation alive? Tune in!