I don't remember Thursday or most of Friday. My lower back went out, so I couldn't sit at all, and could barely stand. The nerves that work the lower belly were apparently afflicted, so I had horrible cramps if I stayed upright too long, and was pretty constantly nauseous. It wasn't just the lower back, I had pain just above and just below the shoulder blades, where the old injuries are, but they alone wouldn't have knocked me out. There may have been something else going on; I had muscle pain everywhere, and I may have had a slight fever. I did manage to drive the van down to the mailbox every day. Very strange. I don't remember doing it, but ... the mail and newspaper are here ... and I couldn't possibly have walked that far.
Everything is fine today. I finished Skeletons on the Zahara while I was flattened. It did get better about halfway through. The characters became more dimensional. Perhaps less strictly true to the original journals, though. I guess sometimes it's necessary to sacrifice truth for the story.
Dad Kolb called while I was writing this. He's trying to get his telephone and address lists corrected. He sounded very confused. (He had been very sharp when I talked with him on Father's Day.) It took almost 15 minutes for him to write down and read back the phone number correctly - and HE called ME! (Apparently after a few wrong numbers - when he got me, he wasn't sure it was me.) Carolyn and I have corrected his lists several times over the past five years, and he is still using the old list we thought we'd destroyed. Carolyn has moved since the old list, and Marybeth and I have had our RD boxes changed to street addresses and our area codes changed. It's very frustrating that he keeps finding the old list, but can't find the new - and we put it everywhere! I suspect that he does find the new list and rejects it because it "doesn't look right". Alzheimer's tells him the old familiar addresses are the right ones, so he keeps searching until he finds them. Luckily, my local PO people have been kind enough to deliver his mail to me regardless of how it's addressed (which is amazing because it's sorted right down to the carrier level in a monster sorting center God knows where! Plus he always leaves the last digit off the zip code). He has 24-hour home aides now, and I don't understand why the women don't help him more with phone calls and addresses. (On the other hand, I do know him, so maybe I do understand.)
Thursday I ate nothing - just diet iced tea, water, sugar-free fruit juice, and asprin. Friday I had 1/4 cup of creamed spinach and 1/4 cup pureed cauliflower (from Tuesday's doggie-bag). Saturday, I had 1/2 a baked potato, two peanut butter crackers, and about 1.5 cups of coffee ice cream, but the ice cream doesn't count because when I brushed my teeth that evening it ...um... left me. Nothing yet today - I'm just not hungry (or maybe I'm just afraid my food will reject me again). And yet, when I step on the scale, I haven't lost an ounce! That used to be the one good thing that would have come out of an illness - a flat belly that would stay flat for a week or two.
Well, after several days in bed, I am in great need of a nice long bubble bath, with book. The CD "In the Garden of Souls" is 62 minutes long, so I'll put that on and soak for an hour.
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