random thoughts – Day 2,065 (Tuesday) – critters and therapy

Morning turkey visit.

The turkeys were in the front yard this morning and I still get stupidly excited when I see them. The sky was spitting snow which meant it was cold and also a great day to start a new pot of soup. Chopping commenced and soon the kettle was full of cabbage, broccoli, carrots, and onion with olive oil, before being joined by canned diced tomatoes, water, and two packets of onion soup mix. 

Once the soup kettle was going and set to simmer for a couple hours, I got all inspired and hospitable and called to invite Mom for lunch. At noon, Mom and StepDad came over and the three of us lunched. It was fun.

Kiki as a gargoyle.

Kiki has returned to posing like a gargoyle on the arm of the chair after a break of several months. Currently, the two pillows that came with the small couch are parked in the chair because they are too bulky to fit on the couch and allow someone to also sit. It might not be too much longer before Kiki registers a complaint about the inaccessible chair. 

After lunch, I had the long-awaited physical therapy evaluation. The way the whole shoulder/neck mystery has played out so far, I wasn’t even surprised to hear the physical therapist didn’t have the x-rays that were done two weeks ago, even though the practitioner that ordered the x-ray and the PT are all part of the same medical group.

There was a questionnaire before I saw the therapist, and it included a long list of activities with yes and no answer options for existence of pain. Most made sense, but I couldn’t answer a couple. Can I “raise a bag of groceries to waist level?” That roughly equates to setting the groceries on the counter, so okay. That was followed by “raise a bag of groceries overhead.” Seriously? In what situation would that be needed? Can I “throw a ball?” Ummmm, had I known it would be a test question I might have tried it at home. Can I “lift a small suitcase?” Probably. It seems more likely the small suitcase would the thing needing to be lifted overhead, especially on a plane, but, hey, they went with groceries on that one.

In the exam room there were lots of questions, measurements of mobility, and pulling up of my head to take pressure off the neck which felt really good. There was some muscle poking and pressing and I got to use my highly scientific terminology which included “there was just a little rice Krispie pop,” and “my entire arm and hand feel like sparklers.”

The actual physical therapy begins Thursday morning. I left with a sheet of exercises to do at home, which will be pretty easy to remember because four of the five exercises are in the stretch routine we do every Sunday before we dance and I already do them at random during the day. Now I just need to make sure I do two sets of ten once or twice a day (depending upon the exercise).

Dance group was good, even with four or five people missing due to illnesses. It’s officially ick season. The ten of us in attendance worked on three dances and we adjourned on time. Several people wanted to get home to watch Dancing with the Stars. I wanted to get home to eat crackers and the rest of the cranberry and jalapeno dip. Tomorrow, I need to visit the store for more dip and also some chicken because I think the dip would be great mixed with cold chicken in a sandwich on multigrain bread.