Chicken Cordon Bleu...

My cousins wife called me this morning to see if I wanted to meet her at the theater to watch The Dark Knight again and then go to Mobo's for sushi, today was the first day I ever went to Mobo's and did not order sushi and I was not disappointed.  I ordered one of those Japanese boxes and they put a little bit of everything in there.

When I came home my house smell wonderful, Heather was cooking in the kitchen.  She is going to be very busy at work until Monday so she was making a bunch of dishes to hold me over, she is always so thoughtful.  Tonight for dinner she made Chicken Cordon Blue, zucchini and green beans and roasted red potatoes and for dessert she'd made cheese, Apple and onion wraps.  She also made some beef stew, sauce or raviolis and sausage, chicken salad, a couple of her great wraps... so much stuff I cannot remember.

Pretty much yesterday and today I was playing phone tag with Dr. Martinalli trying to get some pills for Brodie.  I finally got hold of her just that I went to bed so she is going to leave them at the front desk so I can pick them up tomorrow morning.

Wound care Center...

Sunday was a real relaxing day, I was exhausted.  My body is not used to staying up in the chair 14 to 16 hours a day but I would and will do it again if given the opportunity.

Yesterday was my first appointment at the wound care Center and everybody was so nice and so knowledgeable.  I always dread when I have to transfer out of my chair for any reason but they really knew what they were doing.  They gave me some new ideas and some new products and the prescription for a Roho seat cushion because the doctor did not like the J2 deep cushion that I have on my chair now.  I also had some blisters around my SP tube probably because of rubbing and my scoliosis brace so he gave me some skin barrier pads to try.  I got home and Heather brought over some vegetable crapes with a cream sauce and made some brown rice and some guacamole, it sure was delicious.

Today after I got up I had Susanna take my van to get washed, it had not been washed since I moved here and I was embarrassed to let anybody see it.  When I lived in San Jose I got it washed about every two weeks to a month, it sure looks good would it is clean.  I remember the first time I took it to get cleaned they put ArmorAll on the floor and I slid around in the van for about a week before we could wash it off... it's kind of funny NOW.  Heather came back over and made some killer tacos, black beans, salsa and some more guacamole.  She's going to be busy at work for a while so she's coming back over tomorrow to make some chicken Cordon Bleu, stew, chicken salad and enough salad to get me through the week, I feel so spoiled eating all of this fantastic food AND I'm losing weight.

I noticed when I got up this morning that Brodie's bed was soaked so I called the vet and they're going to put her back on her not leaking pill.  They had to move her urethra because whenever she would urinate and stand back up the urine would get caught in her thighs and burn and inch because of her muscular pitbull thighs.  After a while she started leaking so they gave her some pills but took her off because the leaking stopped, here we go again.  They put her on some antibiotics because of itching and that's when she seems to be the most so hopefully it's a temporary thing.

Old friends and reminiscing...

Elaine and Sue got here early Thursday and it was SO great to see them both.  We spent most of the afternoon reminiscing about our 10 years together working at Xicor, Elaine was my boss and Sue worked in payroll.  I started out as the custodian and loved my job but after about two years everyone kept bugging me to apply for the mail coordinator job, I didn't want to because there was a schedule and it seemed like a lot more responsibility.  I also filled in for the receptionist when they would call in sick and I did some of their brakes and lunches.  There was three buildings, two of them two-story so people would often ask me to go by stores and pick up office supplies for them since it was right around the corner from the mail room.  After the mail coordinator found another job and I filled in for a couple of months while they were trying to find somebody, I found out later they were trying to find anyone, I decided to take the position.  It actually was a really fun job, it was kind of a glorified people visiting job that I got paid for.  I would go to the post office in the morning in the company truck and pickup buckets of mail, usually anywhere from six to sixteen, bring it back, sort it and then deliver it it.  I really started to enjoy it and could see myself doing it until I retire...obviously that didn't happen.  We all went out to dinner, Chinese food, and then Elaine and Sue taught us how to play this new game that I think they called 31 and we had a blast.

On Friday we decided to go to the movies to see mamma Mia.  I thought it was a good movie.  I am not much for musicals and I heard that it was a shame to cast Pierce Bronson in a a single role but in my opinion I did okay, I loved the parts where he did the deep voice singing.  After the movie I want to take them to Mobo's or sushi but it was closed to get ready for dinner.  I was trying to act like I knew my way around Santa Cruz so I took them a long way around to Mobo's, when I stepped outside the theater if you were to look straight you could see the restaurant.  We came back and got something to eat and they decided to go to the boardwalk and walk around and listen to Blue Oyster Cult, Every Friday They Have Two Performances of a free Concert.  Elaine invited somebody else that used to work at Xicor named Kelly and she brought her daughter and her daughter's friend.  I got along really well with Kelly and come to find out she lives in Watsonville, about 10 minutes away, so we plan on getting together and doing something.  Everybody was getting cold and tired so I decided to call it a day and come back here.  About 1:30 a.m. I heard Elaine and Sue screaming, apparently my uncle came over after his poker game to say hello... my uncle almost always comes over at the end of the day so we can catch up on daily activities.

On Saturday everybody woke up late so we just kind of hung around and did some more reminiscing.  My uncle came over and we followed him back to this house and he made us egg and bacon sandwiches and then we decided to come back over here and play 31 again until dinner.  My aunt made a killer dinner, pork chops with sauerkraut that we put over mashed potatoes, a wedge salad, asparagus and grilled mushrooms... that is on top of the fruit and vegetable trays that she made us to snack on while we are playing cards.  After dinner Elaine and Sue took off and I came home to go to bed, I was exhausted but have the greatest time.

When we were on the boardwalk one of the patrol officers asked me if I would mind taking my service dog to the office to get a tag put on her identifying her as a service animal.  They told me that they are having a problem because they are no longer allowed to make people prove that their animal is a service animal and they are having to give these tags to anyone that asks for them.  Apparently now you can take any animal with you and claim that it is a service animal.

While I was rolling down the boardwalk, where only service animals are allowed, I came upon a couple twice with a pit bull (my service dog is part pit bull so I have no problem with pits) as soon as the pit saw my service animal he crouched down, ready to attack.  When we walked by he lunged barking and growling and the owners were laughing.

I agree that sometimes it is not easy to produce the certificate.  I hang one on the back of my head rest, one in the side pocket of my wheelchair and I have one in my backpack.

Everybody of course absolutely love my newhouse, I am so proud of it.  I think I love it more every day and I cannot wait to show it off to everybody, it is perfect in every way.

The Dark Knight

Actually I guess in life just in general it helps a lot if you have a sense of humor.

Of course when Heather was here on Sunday we were talking about food and I mentioned that I LOVE twice baked potatoes and my mom loves Chiken Cordon Blue so guess what we are having her dinner tomorrow night??  She keeps telling me to think of things that I have a craving for to e-mail them to her but I have no idea how to top the ideas that she already has.

Heather made this awesome Spinach, Apple and raisin salad with an unbelievable dressing and my uncle brought over some chicken soup that he had made so I had it made for dinner.

Hopefully we are on the road to solving Brodie's itchy but problem.  Now that I'm settled in I can take her to Petsmart once a month and then have them immediately put on her advantix and we'll going to try changing her diet and see if any of that helps.

After Brodie's appointment Cassie and I went to Longs to get a couple of things and I decided to go to the movies to see The Dark Knight, it was a great movie but for some reason whenever there is a distraction in the movie theater I lose my concentration on the movie.  About halfway through this movie a guy came in with a huge backpack, a large soda and a large popcorn which he proceeded to drop all over the floor because he had way too much stuff in his hands.  As he sat down next to me, of course, I noticed that he hadn't turned his iPod off and I could hear music.  After a while he jumped up from his chair and started frantically looking around and apparently he couldn't find what he was looking for so he decided to take a cigarette lighter out of his backpack and use it as a flashlight.  After a minute or so of this he decided to go out to the lobby and bring back somebody who had a flashlight.  Luckily they finally found what I was looking for, it looked and sounded like a box full of marbles, maybe it was his candy?  There was two guys sitting in front of us all the way to the right and one of them got up and came over and asked me if we were OK and asked what the guy was doing, I told him we were fine and he was just looking for something.  I thought that was very sweet of the guy to come and see if we were OK, nothing like that would have ever happened in San Jose.  Luckily my aunt and my mom want to go see it because of course I was paying attention to all of the commotion and lost track of where the movie was, I don't know if that's a dyslexic thing or just a being nosy thing.

Claudia came over and cut my hair and gave me a manicure, I really love the way she cuts my hair.  We decided to all get together next Saturday and go out to dinner and come back here and play Cribbage, I LOVE that game... and I LOVE food.

Stuck in the bathroom...

A sense of humor is a MUST when you have a spinal cord injury.  This morning everything was going great, I was ahead of schedule and it looked like I was going to be on time for my appointment at Rehab Specialist at 10 a.m... wrong.  After I took my bath when I try to come back through the hall way to get dressed the lift broke and I was stuck in the bathroom with just my shower cape on.  I knew that I had seen my shower chair in the garage so I sent Susanna to look for it and she found the shower chair but not the seat, the shower chair is basically no good without the seat.  My mom called Bill from West Coast mobility, luckily he lives not too far from here.  He ended up spending the other Bill, there are two Bills that work there and he fixed it within a matter of minutes.  Didn't want to be in the lift when he got here so I had Susanna bring my wheelchair into the bathroom and she put me in there and covered me up as good as possible.  Needless to say I went back to bed for the day.

Yesterday Heather came over and she ended up making some outrageous enchiladas.  she told me that she wasn't very good at making Spanish rice but I think it was just about the best I ever had, the enchiladas definitely where.  She found some little baby zucchinis and squashs, they were SO cute and tasted great.  It were only about 3 inches tall, I have never seen them before.

Brodie and I went exploring and it seems like I'm comfortable with getting a little further every time.  My uncle was telling me tonight how to get to Costco, Petsmart, Cost Plus and a couple of the theaters in this area.  I wanted to go see The Dark Night or Mamma Mia on Sunday but Heather told me the theaters are a mad house so it would be best to not try it, I'll take Cassidy and go this week.

Brodie has been scratching like crazy so I made her an appointment for tomorrow morning to see if there was anything that they can do.  They gave me some medicated shampoo that I tried on Sunday and I thought it was going to be OK but now I can't tell if it's better or worse.  I upped her Benadryl and she takes omega-3 pills and I just don't know what else I can do, it just breaks my heart to watch her scratching and biting.

Shared Adventures...

Shared Adventures :: A Santa Cruz, CA Nonprofit Organization

When I moved here I switched from Sprint to AT&T so unfortunately I had to describe over the phone what I need it as far as a cell phone... it has never worked before so why did I think it would work this time?  Everything has been so busy around here I haven't been able to find anyone to help me set up my phone so of course by the time I noticed it was the wrong phone I only had two days left to find the corporate AT&T dealer to exchange it, I found when in the Capitola Mall.  I was on the telephone twice that day and went to a singular store here in Santa Cruz to find out what my options were because of course I had no idea where the paperwork got to.  They told me over the telephone that they could not fax or e-mail the information to me so I was panicked.  My aunt Kathy showed up and she was only on the phone about five minutes and they not only e-mail me a copy of the invoice but they were holding a phone or me at the Capitol Mall, how does she do that?  Of course when I got there I think I got the most unfriendly person in Capitola, my problem REALLY seem to be getting on her nerves.  Luckily my every member of the name of the person that she talked to and as soon as I gave her the name she became a little bit more friendly and after a little bit more hassle she exchange the cell phone for me.  When I got it home and try to program in everything that I needed I noticed that there was no USB cable to get the information off of my computer, why was I surprised?  Luckily the cingular store here in Santa Cruz should have the USB cable.

Today was the day on the beach in Santa Cruz with Shared Adventures.  I was really looking forward to going but Cassidy went to San Jose to visit with her grandparents, there will definitely be another one.  It looked like it was going to be cold this morning but it turned out to be a really good day, it is generally foggy here and tell us about noon and then it clears up.  If I have my phone working I would have tried to go by myself but it's still a little nervous about going that far by myself.  I know that in a couple months I will be cruising around by myself with no cares and I cannot wait to get to that point but it does help to have an accessible cell phone.

Monday I finally get to get my new chair fixed, they called me from Watsonville and the parts are in.  The driving mechanism is still not working very good for me on going to find out what their other options are.

New people seeing my " stuff"

Yesterday was a nice relaxing day.  Heather came over and visited with me for a while and made me dinner for a couple of nights because she is going to be very busy at work.  She made Tilapia with avocado and corn on top, it was great.  She also made some rice and spinach with garlic.  She also made some tuna salad and some chicken noodle soup.

Carrie came by for my massage and brought Autumn from across the street to help her turn me, Autumn is an emergency room nurse at Watsonville Hospital.  They are both really good friends with Heather and they were teasing me about having my own private chef... I hate saying that but I love hearing it.

Autumn got me an appointment at the hospital to see a wound care specialist so I can get some advice about how to treat and prevent pressure sores.  Hopefully the doctor can tell me the best mattress for me and give me some positioning tips, I have pretty much tried everything I could think of and asked everybody I've ran into.

I really wanted to keep going to Valley Medical and Moorpark for all of my appointments and treatment but now I just don't know.  Although I know and like everybody there they no longer have a wound care specialist and Watsonville is only about 20 minutes away AND really close to The Wooden Nickel.