March 3, 2020 Tuesday

Much of Monday was spent doing the mundane things that are necessary to living ones life. A trip to the see a lady to get the new version of my Medicare card and thence onto the dump. From dumping the household garbage I returned home. I did some laundry, cleaned the kitchen, brought in some fire wood, released the dogs to chase the geese and a dozen other small chores. I really did not get much done in the way of house lowering except that I located the four missing screw jacks.

The snow slides off the roof continued this morning and I didn’t want to be caught under one of them. These mini-avalanches weigh several hundred pounds and I know that there are chunks of ice in them. I cleared one out of the shoveled path to the storage container that weighed most of ten pounds. I just figured that it was better to wait until Tuesday to get back to lowering the house. The temps will be dropping and the wet snow on the roof will freeze to the roof again. I have no aspirations to be lying in the snow and under the snow. And most certainly not while unconscious, concussed and bleeding profusely from a head wound. I am most especially careful since I am here alone from 9:30 Am until 5:30-6:00 PM. No one drops by to visit and the only neighbor is a hundred yards away is a recluse who rarely leaves his home. For all practical purposes I am alone. Though I always keep my phone with me. However, if I were unconscious that would be of no use.

Miss Suzy, my late wife’s Yorkshire terrier, had one of her seizures last night. It started at about 8:30 and ended about 1:30 AM. I’m her human now. I held her while Summer administered an injection that is supposed to shorten the event but does not seem to do so. She has very rapid breathing, stiff limbs and any effort to stand ends in falling over. I have to sit and keep her in my lap as she has fallen off the bed once when I thought that moving to the bedroom was a good idea. I was surprised that she didn’t break something as the fall is almost three feet. I got to put my head on the pillow at 2:15 after taking my meds, setting up the morning coffee and brushing my teeth. This contributed to my lack of interest in lowering the house almost as much as the prospect of dying frozen and bleeding in the snow. I was just plain old tired.

Here are some photos from the front of the house where I am raising the house off the pilings in preparation of lowering it to a level position.

Got up this morning to find it snowing. There was no forecast of snow. Yet here it is in big fluffy flakes. The temp was up to 14F by 9:30 AM. I was still drinking coffee and contemplating what to do about breaking my fast whilst listening to Rush. The snow got worse and was blowing. The definition of a blizzard, I guess. Watching it made me wish that I had found a snow blower last Friday.

After 48 ounces of coffee and a couple of slices of buttered toast w/grape jelly, I decided it was time to get to work. Before I go to work every day I check my blood pressure. This morning it was 194/104. The high pressure gave me a start and I decided that I wouldn’t be going out to work after all. I spent the entire day sitting in my recliner and check my BP every hour or so. About 10:00 this evening I decided to go to the Emergency Room. I preparing to leave I went into my bedroom to take my meds including my blood pressure med. As I was taking the meds, I was reading the labels. Of the ones I took not one of them was my blood pressure med. That’s when I remembered that I had a few left in the bottle and had tossed the empty. What I didn’t do was get the new bottle off the shelf and put in with my meds. It appears that I may have gone 5-6 days without taking the BP med. I’m chalking this up to either stupid or too many irons in the fire. After another half hour of vacillating, I decided that another trip to the Emergency Room was in order. Blood pressure had gone up to 219/119

Got back home at 3:30 AM. Made a peanut butter/jelly and went to bed. Tomorrow is another day, so they say.