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"I'm not in the way. I'm all the way over to the side of the desk. You can even work on the noisy thing with out me being in the way. I don't care if this is where you put your boring tea." - Explorer the Cat.

"The Red Dot. Must get the Red Dot!" - Explorer to Cat.

I got some good news yesterday from the Optical place. I won't have to be blind for a week! The guy fixed my frames, cleaned up my lenses (but left the scratches in place), then took a $400 order for new lenses. He said I could wear what I've got, scratches and all, until the new lenses come in, at which point he'd swap them out in about a 15 minute operation. It's still going to take a week to get them, so I'm taking a sabbatical from Facebook and a few other places for that time (it's hard enough to see through the scratches). However, I'll be online here in at least some capacity. They might put in some artificial discs, depending on what the situation is. I think it's more likely that they'll remove bone, though.

"I'll get that out in a while. She does love chasing her red dot" - The Human.

"Gonna try and freak The Human out by staring at a spot on the floor for a while. Then jump up and land on it. Then act like nothing was going on." - Explorer the Cat

I just got bad news (not really bad, but possibly bad). My kidney function went down (to 54 from 59), not up with the latest blood test. So, I'm still restricted to 2 cups of tea a day. She also wants me to increase my fluid intake. That might be tricky. Looking for a local consult to talk to a specialist about it.

Here's what I looked like after getting treated in the ER. Note the scratches on the right eyeglass lens.

* sigh * As if I needed anything else to happen to me. I spent Saturday afternoon in a Level 1 trauma ER. Why? Because I slipped on black ice on my backyard patio and landed on my face, and because the paramedics who responded freaked out because I take Eliquis (a blood thinner). Allow me to explain. We had a hard freeze Saturday night. During the day, I heard water running outside, so i put on my shoes, grabbed my cane, and stepped out back to investigate. I didn't make it one step out on the concrete patio before I lost my footing and started falling face first. I landed on 1) my right knee, 2) my right wrist, 3) the 4th and 5th fingers of my hands, and 4) the right side of my face. I drew blood from each location. My glasses cushioned my fall - they wound up bent and scratched all to hell. I'm going to have to have them replaced, so as of Monday I'm going to be offline for a week or so, most likely. I wasn't able to get up on my own, so I called out for help a few times. No response. I gave up on that, forced myself up on my injured hands and knees, and crawled over the threshold and back inside. There I collapsed for a while, then dragged myself on the floor to my cell phone where I called 911 (actually, I had Google call 911 for me - I couldn't focus on the number pad through my screwed up glasses). Five EMS personnel showed up and argued with me about going to the hospital. They were insistent that I go, saying that I might have a cranial hemorrhage worst case. I gave in and went. I was kind of glad I did, because once the adrenaline wore off, the pain kicked in. I was given fentanyl, but it didn't help. They eventually gave me a milligram of Dilaudid, which did help. They took X-rays of my knee, lower leg, and hands, and did CT scans of my shoulders, neck, and head. All came back negative for new damage (of course, they showed what my other doctors had been reporting - bad knee, bad spine, etc.). So, with that, they cleaned up and dressed my wounds and discharged me to a pissed off Mrs. Prof. I am now banned from going outside without supervision.