LIFE: The last few days have been interesting. Nothing bad happened and Kathy is actually doing pretty well considering she is in hospice. She is still able to let me know if she is comfortable; or not. Wet or not. She can open wide. And stick out her tongue for me to clean it. She has had a recurring bloodshot eye that we tried some eye drops on, but plain water seems to work better. I was getting all kinds of homeopathic advice from nurses, aides and “Dr. Google”. Honey, salt water, warm milk and boric acid are all mentioned as well as cold tea bags. For now water is helping.
These are all “medium” pull-up briefs. Kathy needs the large size in this brand.
More wrong underwear
I thought Miguel, our case manager at NaviCare (Kathy’s insurance) had straightened all of this out with the supplier. There seems to be a glitch in underwear-land. The latest incorrect shipment was on my porch on Wednesday. I sent the above photo and a photo of the packing slip to Navicare. In the photo, even the boxes marked “L” are filled with Mediums. They are just way too tight on Kathy’s thighs; like a tourniquet.
Returning them to the supplier is “more expensive” than discarding them. That is what I was told, at least. “Used” supplies can’t be resold via MediCare, even if they are unopened. I took one carton of them to the Salvation Army. I wanted to make sure that they will accept them as a donation before I drag them down there or call for the truck. I told Miguel I had more than enough for the next month. Miguel had joked that I should open up an underwear store on eBay. I tried to run a pair through the shredder to see if I could recycle them as paper. (That was a bad idea, by the way).
The Little Snowblower That Couldn’t
We had a small snowstorm on that Saturday. I finally got to fire up the snowblower for the very first time. It only snowed about 7 or 8 inches, but it might as well have been wet concrete: Very wet, very heavy snow. The little old snowblower barely had enough power to spit it up on itself.
Then it stalled. When I attempted to restart it the rope broke. I moved the car down at the hardware store to get it out of the way. I was hoping Billy, our plow guy would drive by and clean the parking spot. But before long Pat arrived to take care of Kathy. I was planning to go back out and shovel. My next door neighbor, Brad arrived with his big snowblower. My parking spot was clear in a few minutes. It was very nice of him. My other neighbor across the street, Butch helped out his neighbor too. One of the great things about small town life.
Saturday is also dump day in Hampden. Despite being an extreme recycler (and re-user) I end up with about 70 pounds of trash every week. A lot of the heaviest stuff is wet disposable briefs and pads. I tried to recycle some of Kathy’s empty food bags, but they are vinyl or some sort of soft plastic. (I received a lecture.) I had enough time to go get the car, bring the recycling and trash to the dump, pick up some food at the Village Store and fill up the car gas tank.
By the time I got home another shipment of underwear was on the porch. But at least these were the right size.