Dashing Through the Snow

It’s been an evening chock full of surprises.

It started around 4:15pm when my husband called saying his truck died.  We are currently having a cold snap in our area and his diesel truck isn’t liking it one bit.  It is cold enough that his fuel gelled and the truck wouldn’t stay running.

Traffic was slow as we’d gotten over 8 inches of snow in the past 24 hours and the roads were slippery.  I finally made it to his location in Eden Prairie around 5pm.  I drove him to a Holiday gas station, The Home Depot, and Bobby and Steve’s Auto World before he found the additives he needed to (hopefully) get his truck running.  

He poured the additives in and started it up.  It ran for a couple minutes and then died.  He kept trying but it wouldn’t stay running.  He finally called Bobby and Steve’s to see if he could get a tow, but they said they didn’t have anyone available, and work orders were piled up.

He had a little more of the additives left and decided to pull out the fuel filter and dump it all straight in.  (He was doing all this in -11ºF weather and then jumping into my car to warm up.)  Huzzah!  That finally worked and the truck stayed running!  He drove around the parking lot a bit and then pulled out onto the road.  A few blocks away was the entrance to the freeway.  I was following along behind him and knew something was up when he wasn’t accelerating past 35mph on the freeway.

He pulled off at the next exit and told me it wouldn’t go any faster.  He mapped out a route to avoid freeways and we took off again, down Shady Oak Road to Highway 7, to West Lake Street, without encountering much trouble.  

West Lake was very busy.  Shortly after crossing Hennepin Avenue, we had to stop for a light at Bryant Avenue.  Unfortunately, the truck chose that moment to die and refuse to start.  The right lane was partially blocked by a parked car.  We had a line of traffic behind us, including a city bus.  My husband kept trying and trying to start his truck.  

Just then, because there wasn’t enough going on already, lights started flashing and sirens started blaring a few blocks behind us.  An ambulance.  Well, of course, there was an ambulance!  There was nothing we could do but sit in the left lane with our flashers on.  The parked car left and the bus and remaining traffic pulled off to the side.  The ambulance had to go around us to the left into the oncoming traffic lane.  

The truck finally started and we zipped around the corner and parked, where the truck promptly died again.  After more struggles, he got it to fire up and we headed toward West 31st street.  The truck died at the light before we could turn on 31st.  Again we had a string of cars behind us.  The guy behind me got out and yelled if we were waiting for something specific.  I informed him that the truck wouldn’t start.  So that string of cars navigated around us on the left side (oncoming traffic lane) and went through the red light to get out of the way.  

Finally, my husband decided enough was enough.  He had me pull my car up in front of his truck and hooked up a tow strap between our vehicles.  Away we went, my 6-cylinder SUV pulling his 1-ton F350 Super Duty.  Since it was slippery and my car really wasn’t made to pull that kind of weight, it took a bit to get going at intersections.  One nimrod decided I was just going too slowly through the intersection and turned right in front of me when I was halfway through.  Thankfully, I didn’t hit him.

Slowly but surely we made it all the way home.  He had managed to keep it idling about halfway there, so I pulled over on our block, he unhitched the vehicles, and we were both able to pull into the driveway unassisted.  Almost 4 hours exactly, getting home around 8:10pm.

I had no desire to make supper when we got home, so I ordered Door Dash.  Then I remembered the 8+ inches of snow out front, so I slapped my coat and mittens back on to go outside and do a quick shovel of the deck/front walk.

I was almost done when I heard, then saw, one of our neighbors walking around the block.  “Oh good!”, she said, “I’m glad to see you shoveling.  It’s hard walking in the snow.”

“Well”, I said, “I’m not doing it all tonight.”  (Thinking to myself – In the dark, when it’s 11º below zero, the wind has started blowing, the snow only stopped falling earlier today, and we just had a 4-hour ordeal getting the truck home.)

She walked past and then had to drive her point home again, “Everyone else has already shoveled”, spreading her arms to encompass the whole block.  I’m honestly surprised she couldn’t hear my rolling eyeballs as they scraped the back of my skull.  It was pretty loud.

Shortly after that, my supper arrived and I laughed out loud.  The delivery person delivered my meal ON HIS BICYCLE!  I would have given him a second tip if I had had extra cash on me!  He was bundled up in winter gear and navigated the snow-covered roads like a pro.  I watched his little flashing red taillight as he rode away.

I love Minnesota!

 

The Camera that Thought it was a Slinky

 

I had a bit of a mishap this evening.  

I had been taking some pictures and set my camera and flash down at the top of the stairs.  I set it down on something soft thinking I would be protecting it from the floor, but apparently, it wasn't a very stable surface.

Just like a scene out of a cartoon, the camera fell over and started bouncing down the stairs.  It looked like it would stop after a couple, but no!  It continued bouncing down nine steps to the landing.  It had to stop now, right?  Nope.  It somehow defied the laws of physics and went around the corner and down four more steps to the basement floor.

At this point, I was lying down at the top of the stairs and thought that I would just lie there for a bit and cry a little.  Tears didn't come, so I figured I needed to get up and go view the carnage.  I slowly made my way to the landing and was afraid of what I would see when I looked around the corner.  It was actually much better than I thought it would be.  

Most of my flash was no longer connected to my camera.  As you can see from the image above, the flash was ripped off the base with the screws still attached to the flash.  The camera and lens were a little scuffed but appeared to be undamaged.  Even the lens hood was still attached!

Both the camera and flash still turn on and work.  I won't know if every feature works until I put the camera through its paces.  My husband thinks he might be able to fix the flash, otherwise, I will have to find a new one.

Never a dull moment in my world.

Cooties, be gone!

 December 2021 was a very significant month for me.

For most of 2021, I was having "feminine problems."  This wasn't particularly unusual for me, so I figured it would resolve itself in a couple months and everything would be copacetic again.  But time flew faster than I realized and suddenly it was month 7 with no resolution to my problem.  

In November, I went in for a check-up and explained my feminine woes to my doctor.  She prescribed a 10-day dose of meds to halt my monthly menace in its tracks.  Guess what, it didn't work.  

Next, I was referred for an ultrasound.  Had that on December 10th.  That was unpleasant; but informative.  Apparently, the lining (endometrium) in my baby pouch (uterus) was incredibly thick – twice as thick as would be needed for a baby.

Now things started to snowball.  The ultrasound led to a biopsy on December 15th.  The biopsy was extremely unpleasant.  The pathologist thought it looked suspiciously like cancer, but wasn't sure.  C-A-N-C-E-R?  But I didn't even feel sick!  I personally don't like the capital C-word, especially when applied to me.  So to keep my cool, my husband and I decided to call it Cooties instead.  I did a lot of Googling, and it sure sounded like I had Cooties.  But I was determined to wait until I knew for sure.

December 23, I had a visit with a GYN oncologist.  I always prefer honesty, so she laid it out for me – I had a 50-50 chance of having endometrial cancer.  She asked if I wanted to wait to have surgery.  Wait?  Wait for what?  I surely wasn't going to have a baby at my age.  Get those Cooties out! (I had told her about naming them "Cooties" and she thought that was funny.)

Then the snowball started to roll even faster.  Had a video visit with the anesthesia team on December 24th.  Had a Covid test and stress test on December 27th.

Then boom!  Surgery on December 29th.  Had to be at the hospital before the buttcrack of dawn.  I'm not a morning person, so that was a feat, in and of itself.  It took a couple of hours to get everything ready.  Things seemed to be more hectic, than in times past, with short-staffing and all.  But finally, I got to take a nice long nap while the surgeons did what they needed to do.

I was grateful that I had agreed to an abdominal block to delay pain.  I felt well enough to go home same-day.  There was no way I wanted to stay overnight in the hospital if I could help it!  Pain management turned out to be easy all during recovery.  What a relief!  

I love the way technology has evolved over the years.  These days, I can log on and read all the clinical notes from my surgery.  Fascinating stuff, those notes.  They used an "EndoCatch bag" to retrieve my big, grumpy baby pouch.  EndoCatch bag?  What? So I used "the Googles" to look that up and had quite a good giggle.  It looks like something you would use to scoop guppies out of a fish tank.  Or in this case, scooping Cooties.

From my childhood, I remember my mom telling me that they tried for many years (12) to have a baby.  When she finally did get pregnant, she wasn't sure so she went to see the doctor.  The doctor jokingly told her that she was either having a tumor or a baby.  Which would she prefer?  Well, in my case, it was a tumor and it was almost the size of a softball!  Yikes!  Stupid Cooties!

The good news is that the Cooties were localized to the baby pouch.  No further procedures are needed.  I am grateful to the Lord and to the surgeons that everything was handled quickly and without complication.

Bye-bye, Cooties!  Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Stress Test

A week and a half ago, I had my first stress test.  

When I arrived, I wasn’t sure if I would be having a physical test or a chemical one.  Chemical test, as it turned out. 

First, they had me get changed into not one, but two comfy hospital gowns in the Covid-19 virus pattern that I have come to love.  Every time I mention the virus pattern to nurses these days,  they always say that they had never thought of it that way.  Well, of course, not.  That’s what I’m there for!

Next, for fun, they shot me up with some radioactive dye.  I asked if I would glow in the dark afterward and they said no.  I was very disappointed.  I had never seen a radioactive Sharps container before, but it made sense.  

Then things got better.  They gave me cookies and water!  Score!  (First, they wanted to give me pop, but I don’t drink pop, so they gave me water instead.) So I spent the next half hour in a quiet little room with food and drink and a book on my phone to read.  BEST MEDICAL APPOINTMENT, EVER! 

After lounging and stuffing my face, they took me in for some preliminary scans.  I got to lie down and relax.  (This appointment is getting better and better!)

After the scans, another tech came and took me to the stress test room.  I got to lie down again.  (Yesssssss!)  But then things took a turn.  They tried to warn me what the chemicals would feel like, but that was nothing compared to the real thing.  Now I know why they buttered me up with cookies!  It felt like I couldn’t breathe!   They assured me that I could and should breathe – slow and deep breaths.  Slow and deep?  Slow and deep?!?  When it felt like I was being buried alive with several tons of hot earth on my chest?  Still, I (mostly) calmly voiced the fact that I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like it AT ALL.  They didn’t take pity on me but did say that it would all be over soon.  Yeah, when my heart EXPLODED, it would be over.  Harumph. 

True to their word, it was, indeed, a very short test.  Then I went back to the scanning room and got to lie down again.  After that, more cookies, water and quiet time!  The cookies almost made up for the torture.  Almost.