I know that a lot of people are struggling financially since the whole economic system sucks right now.  But, we were cutting it close before everything started going downhill for everyone else.  Needless to say, its been hard.  Some months are harder than others.

Sometimes I avoid the phone calls from collectors – they gotta know that caller ID hinders their ability to talk to a real person.  Rarely I answer the calls and basically ask them how to get blood out of a stone.

Sometimes it works out for the better – like my Discover card;  I’ve got a payment plan worked out with their collections department which is a smaller amount than the original monthly bill.  Sometimes, when I do answer the phone, by the time I’m done talking I want to scream.

I know I’m to blame for some of this.  I’ve not been notorious for keeping a beautiful checkbook register… or even keeping a messy checkbook register.  I’m very guilty of relying on my no-where-close-to-perfect checkbook register in my head only, and checking my online banking only once in a while.  Honestly, I used to be pretty good at this game… I rarely had trouble keeping things in the black.  Of course, there used to be a little more money in the account to play with… not oodles, mind you, but enough that a minor miscalculation wouldn’t of pushed me over the edge into the red.

Here recently, I’ve bounced some checks.  Only one was bounced knowingly, sadly.  Most happened because my ‘perfect recall’ of my balance (which is never ‘perfect’, mind you) is less than what is really in the bank – my mind has yet to make the adjustment for the lesser amount of money being deposited, I’ve decided.  Whether or not that is true doesn’t matter to me.

Why did I allow myself to go through this mess for several months before finally breaking out a brand new check register, literally just yesterday, and recommit myself to doing banking the old fashion way… that has worked for most people for eons now.

I’m making sure to collect my receipts from my debit card, and transferring them into my register.  Okay, okay… I’ve only done it once.  But, I’ve only used my debit card once since I’ve turned over this new leaf.

I’m ready to start taking charge of my financial life again.  I’m ready to make sure I know where I’m at every moment of every day with my money.  I’m ready to see the scary numbers dwindle downward, and wait (hopefully somewhat patiently) to see the numbers go up again.

I’m ready to have my phone stop ringing, and not because its been disconnected.

It’ll take a little time to get completely caught up.  Hopefully with my tax return, which is not very big at all, I’ll be able to turn the corner.

If not, I’ll keep chugging away at it.  Its not like the amount of money that is owed just disappears, yanno.  Sadly.

The ceiling fan in our bedroom broke not too long ago.

This was frustrating on several levels.  One being that the ceiling fan was fairly new.  Secondly, the fan is remote controlled.

Remote controls = easier life for Tom and Sheila.

With the remote, Tom can turn the fan on and off throughout the time he’s in bed and regulate his own temperature level.  Mucho easier than having to make Sheila get up several times through the night to adjust the fan levels.

Anyhow – at first we thought maybe just the battery in the remote had died.  So, I went to the grocery store to buy a battery.  But, of course its some crazy type of battery that not just any grocery store would carry… So, I have to stop by another store to find the flipping battery.  Go figure, when I get home and install the new battery, that doesn’t fix the fan.

No.  That would of been waaaay to easy.

So, we sit back and stare at the fan.  I google the fan to see if it has any known issues, with no real luck.  We contemplate the next step.

And we think, and we think… we don’t have the money to replace the fan.  We don’t have the funds to buy any replacement parts.  We don’t even know what to look at to see if it needs to be replaced.

Finally, Tom and I ask TNR to check out the fan and see if he notices any issues with it.  He looks it up and down, without taking it apart, and doesn’t see anything noticeably wrong with it.

He stares at it, and stares at it.  Tom stares.  I stare.

TNR walks over to the wall, and flips the light switch to the ‘on’ position.

Uhm.

Yeah.

Amazingly, the fan works now.  Someone had turned the switch off.  I don’t know who did it… since the fan is worked by remote, we never flip the switch anymore.

Go figure, huh?  We all felt incredibly stupid to the fact that none of us thought to check the switch sooner.

But, at least it was a cheap fix!

I’ve been thinking about how to describe SCI difficulties with bowels without becoming too graphic.  Honestly, I don’t know if there’s a way.  I personally don’t have a problem with being graphic to explain these details.  Yet, I feel that Tom would… and, truly, I wouldn’t blame him at the least.

That being said, I don’t believe I’ll go into the ’step by step’ regarding bowel issues with a SCI.  I’ll just say that there is a routine involving a suppository that must be kept in order to avoid accidents.

The process that Tom and I go through has been nicknamed ‘Red Circle Night’ because I mark the scheduled days on the calendar with a red circle.  We also call it ‘Program’.

The act of ‘Red Circle Night’ is not enjoyable for Tom in any way.  He hates it.  With all of his being.  Actually, I don’t like it either.

I recall when Tom was in rehab down in Columbia, when the need came about for me to learn how to manage Tom’s program, I literally cried.  I was so upset that I was going to have to take on this task, knowing that Tom’s (and my) dignity was going to have to be set aside during these time periods.

Tom’s program lasts two hours on the nights we have it scheduled.  Its not a hands on process throughout those two hours.  Its a lot of timed intervals, watching the clock, and waiting.

We’ve just decided to change our previous schedule.  We used to do this process every third night.  Now we’ve decided to give a set schedule of Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday a whirl and see how it works out.

Not that you’re super interested, but I’ll keep you posted.

Not being a quadriplegic, I can’t honestly say, but I would assume the worst part of a spinal cord injury would be the lack of bowel and bladder control.

I feel that if these two functions could be returned to those with a SCI, their quality of life would increase dramatically.

Without going into too many details, for Tom’s privacy, I will say that these two functions basically control his life.

Lets touch on bladder issues today. (Not that we’ve had any major bladder issues recently, mind you.)

We’ve been through multiple catheter issues, some that actually involve having to make a trip to the ER.  I don’t blame those in the medical community for thinking that we’re crazy when we call an ambulance if Tom’s catheter isn’t working correctly.  Very few people realize that, although the catheter issue itself isn’t life threatening, the reactions that Tom’s body has to the catheter not functioning could be very harmful.

Autonomic Dysreflexia, or AD, is something that most quadriplegics hope they never encounter.  The quick and simple analogy I use to explain AD is something like this:

Ya know when ya stub your toe, and it hurts?  When stubbing your toe, a signal goes up your leg, through the spinal cord, to your brain.  Your brain says, ‘way to go, slick, and cuz you’re stupid enough to stub your toe, I’m gunna send this signal back down there to make you realize you’re an idiot’.  When the signal goes back down to your toe, it quickly stops off at the heart and tells it to pump harder to get blood down to the stubbed toe – cuz as far as it knows, the toe has been cut off and it needs to heal pronto.  The signal finishes its trip down to the toe and you holler out in pain.  The blood makes it down to the toe, realizes it doesn’t really need to get there so quickly, and slows back down to normal.

Tom’s spinal cord is damaged, remember?  So, if Tom stubs his toe, the message makes it to his brain, but the message is in German and Tom’s brain doesn’t understand German.  Tom’s brain kinda freaks out.  It knows from the urgency of the German speak that there is a problem, but the brain isn’t quite sure where its at… or how bad it is.  So, the brain sends out messages to several areas below Tom’s injury level, hoping that it finds the spot that the German toe was trying to address.  The signal stops at the heart also, and tells the heart to get beating cuz there’s a problem somewhere.  Heart rate goes up.  Blood pressure goes up.  As soon as the signal finally gets to the toe, the brain reacts and slows down the heart again – since the toe isn’t missing or anything. Problem eventually solved.

Now, imagine your full bladder. You know, the one where you dance around until you get to the bathroom? Now, imagine the line to the bathroom is soooo long that you’re just not gunna be able to make it there. But, there is no other option available to relieve yourself. You’re miserable, right? If you hold it in too long, your blood pressure will actually rise because its trying to clue your body in, telling it that there’s a biiiig problem and you need to fix it now.

If Tom’s biiiiig problem doesn’t get fixed promptly, his blood pressure rises too. But, Tom’s blood pressure doesn’t have the same ‘mellow out’ switch that our bodies have – its been damaged from the SCI. Until whatever the situation is that made Tom’s blood pressure rise is resolved, his BP can continue to rise.

It is plausible to have a heart attack or stroke from high blood pressure.

Do you see the crazy issue here?

If Tom’s catheter is messed up so badly that we have to go to the ER, we are going because the situation needs to be resolved as quickly as possible so Tom’s blood pressure doesn’t start shooting through the roof, putting him at risk for a stroke or heart attack. All this could happen just because he couldn’t tinkle… strange, huh?

Tomorrow – we’ll attempt a socially acceptable post regarding bowels…

I gotta lot of crap.

Tons, I tell you.

Can I get rid of any of it?

No. (That’s the simple answer.)

So, I finally thought of an idea to help create a little extra space in my tiny little world.

Okay, I didn’t think up the idea. Otherwise, I’d be a millionaire. No, instead, I helped the inventor become a millionaire by buying this:

vacuum bag sucker thingee that makes things smaller to store

to make these easier to store:

heavy thick blankets that we love but take up too much room

and these too:

even more blankets, cuz we need 132091238 of them

So, you gotta cram your blankets into the bags, and then ya gotta find the hole, like so:

the hole to suck out all the air in the bag

And, then this happens:

you are now witnessing the sucking action

Finally, it ends up like this:

airless sucked bags - mucho smaller-o

Which, makes Sheila’s small little world a little more spacier. Okay, notsomuch. But, it did help with some of the storage issues I was having.

Final product?

130123098123 sucked up blankets

Now I wanna put everything into vacuum bags and suck all the air out!! Its entertaining, I promise you!

PS – Sponsored post? Really? Not at all. Not enough people read this blog for someone to pay me to post about this crap!

I got stuffs to do. I even made myself a list, cuz I’m all sorts of forgettable…

That came out wrong.

I’m leaving it anyway.

I just wanted to drop a quick note to let y’all know that the van is not in our custody yet. We’re still ironing out the final details. But, the van is ours.

I’m trying to figure out a reasonable price to ask on our old van. The poor thing is not a pretty sight. But, we have put a chunk of change into that thing, and we’d like to recoup some of it. I realize the thing has depreciated. I’ve checked Kelly’s Bluebook, but it doesn’t take into consideration the handicap modifications.

See my dilemma? Oh well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Anyone wanna buy a not pretty, not horribly user friendly, well-loved van for… oh, … say the amount that we’re paying on the new van?

No?

Geez. Ya don’t have to be so quick about spitting out that ‘no’.

I’ve been looking at vans online for a while now.  You know, just to see what was out there in the world… and dream of winning the million dollar lottery, which would be amazing considering I don’t play the lottery.

Anyhow.  One of the largest concerns about the purchase of a new van is the overall clearance of the vehicle, in regards to the door we’d use to get Tom inside and the interior head room.  If these two things are not available in the options we can afford, it is pointless to invest money in it.

So, while cruising through the world wide web of wheelchair accessible vans, I find one that looks promising.  Yet, a lot of these dealers do not list the measurements of the accessible area.  I find this quite frustrating, really.  I can’t look at a photo and know for certain that Tom’s big ol’ head chair will fit through the door.

I emailed one company, asking for measurements. You know, like, weeeeeeks ago.  To the point that I had written off the possibility of this van still being on the market, let alone actually being contacted by the company.

Today, though, for some reason, I suddenly get 3 emails from this company, and a phone call.  All within an hours time, mind you.

Hm.

Did the dude just get back from vacation?  Did his boss just tell him that he has to sell his quota of vehicles this month or he gets the boot?  I dunno.

The phone call is kinda weird.  You can tell this man is working on several things at once, trying to get caught up from the holidays.  Poor guy.  He’s a little scattered.  Its late… after dinner… before he even calls anyhow.

He starts chatting me up about this great 2008 minivan on the lot that he’s sure that Tom’s chair will be able to fit into… blah blah blah.  I interrupt the guy, “Unless its at least under $20,000, you might as well save your breath.”

Of course, he immediately changes gears, “Well, I’ve got this ‘95 on the lot, raised roof, dropped floor, new lift… ”

I’m kind of tuning him out.  I mean, I’m interested… but, uhm… Yeah, I gots no monies.

It listed at a little less than $19,000.  My ears perk up a little.  Not that I have any money saved (minus the lovely donations that have acumulated that I am greatly thankful for, mind you).

$19,000 is a number that I can understand and respect.  Its still high, don’t get me wrong.  But, the monthly payment would be less than my mortgage payment.  So, its a step in the right direction.

I went ahead and applied for their financing.  I doubt I’ll qualify for the amount of the van.  We’re not rolling in the dough over here… at all.

But, I’m making steps.

Maybe someone will make an effort to meet me half way… or 2/3 of the way… or you know, at least take a step in our direction!