Can You Hear Me Now?

I got my poop in a group the past couple days, and I’m feeling much better because of it. And by that I mean, my apartment is generally tidy and my office is in order. Not 100%, but it’s close. At least I can work in here without looking at the mess and thinking about all the filing and organizing I need to do. That is just stressful! I only have one pile of papers beside me that are annoying me. My photos are out of the way too, all boxed up and not taking up room on my desk. I should have this room 100% by the end of the weekend. Then the trick is to keep it that way.

I’m still doing my morning stretches, and yesterday afternoon I met with therapists at “Living Well with a Chronic Condition”. I hope I benefit from being a part of this group. Not just physically, either. My neighbour goes too, and the people there helped him get his apartment rent subsidized. They looked after all the paperwork and stuff for him. They are well connected, so I hope they can do the same for me. I’ll hit them up with that request one day, after they get to know and like me

Oh, I forgot to mention, that neighbour finally came by and paid me back the $10 I loaned him many months ago. Now that his rent is subsidized, I guess he’s got the cash! He paid it back to me just before Christmas, and gave me a box of chocolates as well. Eeek! I almost tossed them in with the cat poop to prevent me from sneaking any, but instead I gave them to the first friend that dropped by to get them out of here.

I was assessed by various people for TWO HOURS, and I still haven’t completed my “initial assessment”. I need to go back on the 19th for that. I’ll need my walker because this part involves me walking for 6 minutes while they watch me. I ride my scooter over there because it is close, so I’m not sure how I will get my walker over (it’s a little too far for me to walk it at this point, I think, plus they don’t want me tired when I get there!). My neighbour has a contraption on the back of his scooter that allows him to hook his walker on. I called the medical supply place I use this afternoon to ask about one. They said they had to get it made, and it would probably cost me about $175 including delivery/installation. I said to go ahead, because I simply need it - I’ll need to bring my own walker every time I go to this place now. No guarantees I’ll have it by the 19th, but they’re going to try.

Anyway, after all my assessments are done, it will still be about a month before I will get into the actual exercise/education part of the program. I guess there is 8 weeks of education and exercises (they want me in their balance program, 2X/week, and even though most of the education is about COPD and living with a respiratory condition, they want me to attend) and then you can continue going for maintenance. I think you can choose your days and times according to the schedule I saw up on the wall, and it’s a supervised group exercise class for people with all kinds of physical conditions. I had no idea there was a gymnasium nearby in the community centre, full of various exercise bikes and equipment (including the Nu-Step I want!) that was open 5 days/week for people in my situation. I can’t believe it took me this long to find out. I’ve only been asking about it and wishing there was for years…

You know what bugs me? When you’re on hold with Access Calgary for 20 minutes, and when they finally pick up, they accidently cut you off and you have to call back and be on hold for another 20 minutes. I’m just sayin’.

Today was sort of a hellish day. I worked at Troy’s and nothing about him or anyone there is hellish, but Simply Accounting can be. I was installing the upgrade for 2007. Of course the computer freezes up while I’m doing that and yells things at me like “you don’t have enough disk space, blah blah blah”. I finally got control of that situation, and went to look for the 2007 payroll update, but that hasn’t arrived yet. Hm. So I called Simply to find out if I could download it from their site or something. I was on hold for about half an hour, and when customer service finally picked up, I told them the situation and their response was “we sent them out Dec. 22″. Maybe so, but I don’t have it, and I need to run payroll today. She told me to hold on a sec while she put me through to a tech. I sat there on hold for 40 minutes and finally a guy came on the line. It took him 30 seconds to tell me where on the website to go, and what info I needed to input. I said “that was easy… why couldn’t the first person I talked to tell me that? I don’t think I needed to hold for 40 minutes for that information”. Argh. Troy really needs to get a handsfree phone for his desk. I wasn’t able to do much work, trying to cradle a cordless handset in my neck.

So at this point, I am behind in my day. It just got worse as I needed to download and print new 2007 tax forms, and Adobe wasn’t working. Then Troy called from his accountant’s office where they were going over his year end, and his accountant had some questions for me. Set me back another hour. Then Mel informs me she needs her ROE for her maternity leave done today, because next Friday is her last day (already?!?) and I don’t normally come in again until the end of the month. I ended up not getting even half of what I needed to get done today and not even taking a break to eat. I am now going back next week again to catch up. WAH! I’ve got something on my agenda every day next week, including Saturday. That’s too busy for me! I need my-putter-around-doing-nothing-rest-days.

Last night my mom and Bob came by. We ordered in Chinese food, and Pita helped herself when I was done: