Better living through chemicals.....

 7:03 am - Tuesday - March 11th - TWW - 42° F, humidity 39%, wind 7 mph out of the southeast.....cloudy today with a forecast high of 59° F.  The view this morning.....

.....on this date in 2013 TLE and I were at 'The Distillery' in Savannah, GA.....

.....having some brews.  The tapper was broken so we were diving into the 22 ouncers....lol!

When last I left off TLE and I were about to be on our way into Kingman to the ER at Kingman Regional Medical Center (KRMC).  We left around 9:50 am, and arrived at the ER right at 11 am (located at Stockton Hill Road and I-40 in Kingman).  We've driven by KRMC virtually every time we've been in Kingman as most everything we need is on that road (US Bank, Home Depot, Cracker Barrel, the car wash, AutoZone, Tractor Supply, the laundromat, Safeway, Frys', etc.), but I never imagined myself actually needing their services.  Nevertheless, when one is of a certain age one never knows when one might need to visit a hospital, or an ER.  It's been a few years since I've been in a hospital, and many years since I visited an ER.  My experience has been that visiting any ER will be a multi hour affair, but I get ahead of myself.

We easily found a parking spot within 50 feet of the ER entrance, and within a few minutes had checked in, given over all my information, and called in to have an XRAY taken of my left shoulder.  If you will remember, I thought I might have a partial dislocation, however, the XRAYs quickly revealed that was not the case.    I was hoping it was dislocated, because that is a simple fix, right?  Instead the doctor (Dr. Oakie) said I would need an MRI to determine if there was a tear in the rotator cuff as the XRAYs would not reveal that....doh!

At any rate, within an hour from the time we arrived at the ER we were on our way out the ER door, and on our way over to the local pharmacy.....as TLE says....."Better living through chemicals"....lol....to get two prescriptions filled.  A muscle relaxer and an anti inflammatory/pain killer, and there was a lot of pain to kill.  I must mention that before we left the ER the doctor did give me an injection into the shoulder to begin to lessen the pain, and an oral muscle relaxer.

We were in and out of the pharmacy (Community Pharmacy....part of KRMC) within 20 minutes, and on our way across the street to the local In 'N Out Burger....how handy is that?  I ordered my usual #2 COMBO (Cheeseburger, fries and medium drink), and went outside to secure an alfresco table.....

.....while TLE waited inside for our order (we were #26).  During that time my shoulder began to feel so much better, and my range of motion improved dramatically.  Yes, indeed, better living through chemicals!

After lunch we had a few more errands to attend to before returning to TWW.  One involved a stop at Home Depot to pick up an order I had placed last Friday.  I've discovered that ABS pipe really needs to be buried, and not subject to the heating and cooling of each day.  Why?  Well, apparently, ABS pipe will expand and contract when left exposed to the elements....doh!  Our 45' section contracts about 1.5 inches when the heat of the day is past, which pulls the mechanical rubber coupling off the Thetford sewer connection on the Newell.  When ABS is buried 2' underground it does not expand and contract as the temperature never changes.  To fix this problem I ordered six 10' sections of Schedule 40 PVC pipe....

....along with 7 mechanical rubber couplings.  I'm not going to glue the PVC together as we will be dismantling it when we leave in April.  That way we can repurpose it next winter if the need arises.  When we return next winter we'll dig the necessary 2' deep trench for the black ABS, and bury it, so it will get used, eventually.

We didn't get home until almost 4 pm, but I was feeling wonderful, compared to the prior 3 days.  TLE did the driving on the way home as one of the side effects of the anti inflammatory/pain killer is drowsiness.  My condition continued to improve as the evening wore on, and I slept very well for the first time since the injury.  On Wednesday we'll drive into Flagstaff where I have an appointment at an orthopedist to get an MRI, so the resolution of my injury is still another day away, but in the mean time my life has improved dramatically.

Thanks for stopping by!