ProfessorTomoe

Be careful with that line of thinking. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Burke led his connections to the development of the atomic bomb.

1:12 p.m. CDT 20170825. Well, so much for the stone bruise pain on my foot being fixed by the spinal injection. I've been going through the web for a couple of hours with my left foot flat on the floor. As each minute passed, the stone bruise pain got worse. There's something physically there, I'm almost 100% certain. Not even the hydrocodone is making the pain go away as long as I put pressure on it. One positive development today: I've been able to bend my broken left big toe down more than just a couple of degrees! I can almost bend it to the same extent that I can bend the rest of my toes. Felt good, too. Imagine needing to pop a knuckle but not being able to do it for months. It was that kind of relief. Now, I just need to be careful not to overexercise it and bring the pain back or re-crack the thing.

I should follow up and say that Hurricane Ike affected our 25th Anniversary plans in 2008. I'd found a wonderful rent house on Bermuda Beach, located on Galveston Island but south of the main tourista spots. Mrs. Prof and I were going to spend a week there. I'd even located all of the grocery stores and other necessary outlets on the island. We were ready to have a hell of a time until Ike came along. Mrs. Prof was out of town on IRS business when Ike rolled in. I was glued to my couch, watching The Weather Channel with gritted teeth, hoping and praying that our beach house would be left alone. Then the pictures started coming in. Ohmydearlord. I'm glad I'd contacted the owner about her refund policy prior to landfall, because we needed it. Here's where the house was located along the beach before Ike hit: and here's what it looked like from above after Ike hit: We have since gone to the reconstructed Bermuda Beach, back in 2013. All that is left of the lady's beach house is a concrete slab. You can't even tell where the utilities were installed.

(Writing so I don't go crazy ...) I've lived through a hit from a hurricane, back in 1971. The storm was Hurricane Fern, a category one storm that made landfall just south of Houston. We were living in Pasadena, TX at the time, and my father was away in Atlanta on "business" (my mother never trusted him, and potentially for good reason). They cancelled school for a day or two, so for me I thought it would be a big holiday. For my mother, though, it was WHYAREN'TYOUASPARANOIDASIAMOMYGODWE'REALLGOINGTODIEGETOUTSIDEANDTAPEUPTHEWINDOWS. Yeah, that part was fun. Putting freaking masking tape on all of the windows so they wouldn't shatter, directed by a freaked out mother with a stepladder. The bit that was a lot of fun was getting to stay up all night. We set up a little quilted camp in the tiny hallway of the house and angled our black & white TV so that we could watch the one station that had committed to stay on the air all night long. They showed old movies and did weather reports, and at times would just cut to their weather radar for a minute or two since they didn't have any commercials to play. I was so overstimulated that I don't think I got a wink of sleep all night. Playing in the high water in front of our house the next day was fun, too. Lord knows how many bacteria and viruses were floating around in it, with us living so close to the Houston Ship Channel. Turns out we really only took a glancing blow, with no structural damage. Still, the winds did hit category 1 speed, and I get to say I lived through a hurricane. A lame one, but a hurricane nonetheless.

1:00 a.m. CDT 20170825. I'm going to have to call the ENT doctor for a refill of my "magic mouthwash." I've been developing a sore throat, having trouble swallowing, my voice is going hoarse on me again, and I'm starting to cough again. If it's not one thing, it's another, as Rosanne Roseannadanna used to say. Tried standing up and petting Loudmouth for an extended period of time tonight. Lower back pain set in after about five minutes. Still hurts on the right side.

The remnants of a slice of Chocolate Suicide Cake, after having finished half of an Italian Sub from a local Italian delivery place. Diet be damned, I need this, even if it hurts to swallow at the moment.

The funeral has been postponed until the middle of or late next week, due to the possibility of hurricane and flooding damage.

I envy you not, good sir. I hope it was productive.

The "PeeDar" (not kidding) unit arrived early. Mrs. Prof is still working and I'm hurting, so we haven't done a sweep yet. I don't know whether or not to post reports or pics here, hidden or not. Maybe no reports. Let's keep this one quiet.

1:18 p.m. CDT 20170824. Zofran emergency. Mrs. Prof went Sam's Club shopping yesterday and picked up a tub of white queso. My tolerance for this is practically non-existent, but I keep thinking that there's got to be some way I can doctor it to make it acceptable to my stomach. Once again, no joy. Chips, white queso, shredded cheese, sour cream. Dumping syndrome, therefore a Zofran emergency. While I'm trying to recover, my son finally calls. We touch base about what arrangements we know about (none) and what we're going to do (God only knows). I'm guessing my sister will call on her way home from work and give me further details (I hope). On the up side, he tells me he's finally going to pick up his completion certificate today from the local community college. We have waited a long time for anything resembling this to happen.

We *think* they are. There's still the occasional "BACK OFF!" hiss from Loudmouth and sometimes bad behavior from Baker. However, Loudmouth has a new spring toy and he's been playing with it in the presence of Baker, without Baker trying to kill him (or vice versa). If they'd just quit chasing each other so often ... it sounds so scary. Thank you—we do, too. Our goals are a little lower right now, though. We're trying to figure out the peeing problem. I did find one big peeing spot (the guest bathtub), which got washed and enzymed this morning. We've got a blacklight ordered that should get here Friday. It'll help us find the rest of the problem spots.

A couple of new pics. First up, we have Loudmouth and Baker sharing the same bed: Next, we have Loudmouth and his, "Don't touch me" look: Mrs. Prof posted these as she was going to sleep last night. I know, neat trick.

A photo of the grandmother in question. She was 93.

Peruse this Wikipedia document, especially the bit about the Texas Heritage Trails Program.

SECONDED

There were ... issues. Issues that made me look forward to getting up to my grandparents' place and away from my parents (and later, step parent) every summer. You wouldn't want to know the details. Trust me. They last to this day. Here, here. Driving's the only practical mode of transportation anywhere in Texas, unless you've got someone to pick you up on the other end (we do not) or unless you're taking a vacation. Mrs. Prof will have to be behind the wheel, since I still can't drive (due to pain and hydrocodone). Many thanks. It's a massively complicated situation, as I mentioned above. It'll be an uncomfortable situation, no matter what.

I have lost my last remaining grandparent. My paternal grandmother, who was in a nursing home in Houston, died suddenly last night. I found out at about 5am this morning via Facebook message from my sister. After I made several attempts to contact her, she finally called me. She said my grandmother's blood pressure started crashing late last night. She was dead soon afterward. I'm almost 100% certain that the funeral will be held in Austin, because she has a plot next to her husband. So, she'll have to travel from Houston, and my wife and I will have to travel from Dallas. There's also another thing headed in the general direction: Tropical Depression Harvey. Lord only knows when things are going to converge. At least I've been given medical permission to travel, but I know I'll feel like crap all the way there and all the way back. I'm still trying to get over all of this. Please forgive me if I'm somewhat subdued for the next few days.

Exhibit A for the defense against.

4:18 a.m. CDT 20170823. Somewhere around 4am? It must be time for the Prof to be awake, taking his pills, going into the kitchen, and not remembering what he went in there for. Oh. Right. Coffee. /* goes back to the living room, fetches coffee cup, and returns to kitchen */ No protein coffee today. I need the straight stuff. to cut through my allergy phlegm. Tried two twists to my right. Still found back pain. Right twists still cause crunching and back pain as well. If I had to say right now whether or not I'd received any relief, I'd have to say yes, but only about 10% relief. This is the time that the steroids are supposed to begin kicking in—five days after the procedure. I'll have to call the doctor on Monday the 28th to do a post-procedure check-in, and I'm notoriously lousy about what I say during those things. I hate doing them. I either under-describe my symptoms and sound like I don't know a whit about medicine, or I try to sound like a doctor and wind up making a crucial mistake which ruins my credibility with the real doctor. Then, there's the doctor side of the equation: he'll either be in a hurry, forgetful, insensitive, overworked, or something else, depending on the doctor (or the nurse, which introduces an entirely new set of variables into the conversation). IMHO, that's the biggest problem with health care today: communication between the patient's true symptom's and the doctor's brain. This is why medical science should concentrate on developing a real-life Star Trek-type medical scanner, so that this problem can be removed. When you remove the verbal element, you remove another block to effective medical care.

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