Vaccines Are Better The Second Time Around

In my last post, I described the “fun” I had getting my first COVID vaccine.  This time I’ll talk about the second shot, which I just received just last week. Fortunately for me, this will be a much less exciting post.

By the way, I should have mentioned this in my last post, but for those keeping score at home, I got the Moderna vaccine.

As I mentioned, there was some HMO I had never heard of running the vaccine center for my first shot.  In the email I got from them confirming my appointment, they advised me that they would automatically schedule me for the second dose when I was due. They would notify me by email when my second appointment was, and they strongly suggested that I keep that appointment, although they said there would be an option to reschedule if absolutely necessary.

They didn’t give me a time frame for notifying me but I sort of assumed I would hear from them fairly soon after getting the first shot. Ha!  For nearly a month, I hadn’t heard back from them, not one word.  According to my vaccine card, I was due for the second vaccine on March 1, exactly four weeks after I got the first one.  But February was about to end and I hadn’t heard a peep out of them.

There was no obvious way to contact them as far as I could tell.  I was thinking if nothing else, I would have to battle my way through the damn county website I had gotten the first appointment on and try to get scheduled that way.  But I dreaded that.

Fortunately, I was saved from that horror by a text I received from Kaiser, my own HMO, in late February.  It said it was time for me to get my COVID vaccine, I was finally eligible!  Yeah, they were now able to service youngsters like me.  They lowered the age just enough to allow me to get shot.  That was great, but I had concerns that the fact that I was looking for the second shot, and the fact that the vaccine had to be Moderna might be problematic. I mean, what if Kaiser was only distributing the Pfizer vaccine?

They gave me a website and I had to do an “e-visit” which basically just had me answer questions about whether or not I had already gotten the first shot and which one it was.  It was clear the software was properly designed to handle folks like me who had gone out-of-network for the first shot.

I can’t say for sure, but it also looked like they could handle either vaccine, at least based on the questions I was asked.  The program determined that I could get the second dose as soon as the week of 3/1 and gave me one of six sites I could make an appointment at, all of them reasonably close to where I live. Two of them were in the same facility I go to for 95% of my medical care, so that was cool.

One of the sites was ridiculously close to me, even closer than the place I usually go. I had no idea there was a Kaiser facility that close to me.  It turned out that location had the earliest open appointments, so I grabbed it, not sure where I would be going.  But it was for March 3, clearly within the window of when I needed to get the second dose. Cool. The appointment clearly said “Moderna—second dose” so it seemed like I was all set.

Although close to me, I was unfamiliar with the specific neighborhood of the address so the week before my appointment I drove over there to see.  It was easy to get to and seemed like a relatively new Kaiser facility, but rather small.  Obviously, this location didn’t off any specialty services, but all I needed was a damn shot.

On the Saturday before the appointment, I finally heard from the HMO that had given me the first shot!  I had an appointment scheduled for the coming Tuesday at 1:40pm (which was the time of my appointment for the first shot).  I was glad in the end they had not forgotten about me but geez, how about a little notice? Just three days before the appointment they tell me?  SMH.

I cancelled that appointment but for backup, I rescheduled it for after I was to get the Kaiser shot. I figured that if something—anything—went wrong with the Kaiser shot, I wanted to be covered to get that second vaccine that week.  I booked it for the day after my Kaiser shot, knowing I would cancel it if everything went smoothly with Kaiser.  I did consider that round two at the same location as my first shot might be less of a hassle. I mean, a month later, the COVID rate had gone down considerably and there would likely be a lot fewer cars online to get tested.  And there might be fewer people getting the vaccine too.  News reports said that shipping delays of the vaccine due to bad weather across the country meant that the huge locations like the one I first went to had to cancel any first shot appointments.  Maybe I’d go over there and see only a handful of cars backed up, and it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as last time.

But no, I rescheduled so I would still have that as a safety option but I wanted to get the second shot inside, not in my car, if at all possible.

On the day of the appointment, I got over there about 40 minutes early and was delighted to see that there was plenty of parking and no line to get in. As soon as I walked in, they handed me a brief form to fill out which was mostly questions that I had already answered online.  When I was done, I went over to register, and some guy plugged me into the computer, confirmed I was in the right place, put some sticker on my form and sent me down the hall to get my shot.

The facility might eventually be medical offices, but for the time being it was set up almost like a DMV—only efficiently run.  Or maybe it looked like the college hall where I voted last year.  As I marched toward the office to go to, I passed a whole bunch of people sitting in small office-type chairs.  I guess there were about 30 chairs and about 20 or so people in them.  But I was told to head straight for a certain office, and when entered there were four desks where nurses were giving folks injections, a bunch of chairs for folks waiting to get shot.  But there was just one person ahead of me.  I didn’t have to wait more than a minute to get called.  The nurse had to fill out a bunch of paperwork, including on my vaccine card, and stuck the needle into me.  And I was vaccinated.

All those chairs and people that I had passed on my way in were the folks that had already had the shot, and they were just waiting 15 minutes to see if they had any immediate bad reactions. So I joined them for 15 minutes, felt fine, and was dismissed.  I got back to my car about 10 minutes before my actual appointment time!  This experience couldn’t have been more different that the first shot.  What an improvement!

As soon as I got home, I went online to cancel the appointment with the other HMO.

Side-effects, you ask?  Well I did have a pretty bad headache that evening, and also when I woke the next morning. But feeling otherwise fine, I ran some errands in the morning and then took a nap after lunch.  When I woke up from the nap, I was feeling lousy, like I might have a fever.  I did!  It was 100.1°. I was tired but otherwise no other symptoms.  The fever was gone by the time I went to bed and by the next morning I was pretty much 100%.

I sure hope this is the last time I have to blog about COVID.  Please.

Waiting in Line to Get Shot

This happened a month ago, and I’ve been meaning to write it up as a blog post for all that time.  But after spending years doing a lot of writing in the evenings, almost daily, I’ve gotten out of practice. It’s just really hard to force myself to slave over a PC and bang out a post these days. This year-long break from actually living has had a major effect on all my habits, both the good ones and the bad ones.

So in an effort to return to an actual life, I wanted to get the COVID vaccine. You know, so I could start living again. The distribution of the vaccines has been chaotic, to say the least.  Every state has different rules, and then every county within the state has different rules, and I think even some cities have different rules from the counties.  It is disorganized chaos (and that’s the worst kind).

My HMO is Kaiser, one of the biggest.  And they know my medical history. I knew they were going to be administering vaccines, and honestly, naïve as I was, I expected them to contact me the very first day they got the vaccine and demand I come in for a shot.  Hell, I half-expected them to just show up at more door one morning, with a Nurse Ratched type holding a needle and ordering me to drop my pants and bend over. Yes, I knew the shot goes in the arm, not the ass, but go with me here.

I mean I have a ton of co-morbidities.  Overweight.  Over 65. Type 2 Diabetes. Triple bypass survivor. I kind of felt I should be at the very top of the list.

But no, first they had to vaccinate health care workers, then people old enough to consider me a young whippersnapper. In fact, when they opened it up to non-health care workers, they wouldn’t give the shot to anyone under 75.  Old as I am, I am not that old.

But then the county of L.A. lowered the age to 65+.  I qualified.  I expected to get that call from Kaiser. “Come right in, today, Mr. VegasPoker. We have your vaccine right here. Don’t waste a second.”  But no…..Kaiser still was not vaccinating anyone under 75, even though the county said they could.  I guess they didn’t have enough vaccine, and they were saving what they had for the real geezers.

So I waited.  But my friends encouraged me to try to get the shot outside of Kaiser, not to wait.  BTW, these friends live in Ventura County, right next store to L.A. County, and in that county, the lowest age was still 75 for everyone. My friend was really eager to get the shot, but she couldn’t because she lived in the wrong county. Like I said, it’s a crazy system.

My initial assumption was that if I tried to get a shot at non-Kaiser location, they wouldn’t take me, telling me I had to go thru Kaiser. My friend insisted that wasn’t that case, they would shoot anyone who showed up and was old enough. So I tried to book an appointment on one of several government run websites that had vaccine appointments available.

There were many false starts. The website was poorly designed. Instead of just being able to register first for all the possible locations to get the vaccine, you had to pick the location first and then register.  I don’t know how many times I entered a shitload of data on a particular site, just to get to the point where it said “click here to book an appointment” only to find out that that particular site didn’t have any appointments.  And I’d have to start all over.

One site that would have been real convenient said they had appointments for every day in that week.  But when you got to the point of booking it, you could only pick one day, and that day was booked.  I had to back out, enter all the information again, and go to another day.  I did this five times for this site and it turned out that, despite what it said at the front end, there were no appointments available any day that week.  I was just a total waste of time.

Then finally, a month ago now, I tried again. I noticed a location saying it had appointments available that had never had appointments before. It was at a park that I wasn’t that familiar with, but I kinda knew was pretty close to my house.  I broke through all the preliminaries and got to the magical place that said, “book an appointment,” I clicked it and expected to be told they had no appointments. By the way, the date available was this very day, implying I could get the vaccine that same day.  To my astonishment, it said they had an appointment for today….11:40am.  I looked at the clock.  It was then exactly 11:38am. Shit. This place was close but not that close, especially since I wasn’t even dressed.  But I clicked it anyway and saw that 11:40 was just the first appointment available. They had appointments available at 10 minute intervals until about 3:20pm.

Hooray.  By this time I had checked Google maps and found out that this location was a mere seven minutes from my house.  Initially I was going to click on 12:10 but then I thought better of it.  I had no idea how long this would take, I better eat lunch first.  So I made it for 1:40, giving me plenty of time to eat, and find the place. I wasn’t familiar with the area, wasn’t sure where I had to go or where I would be able to park.

This vaccine site was being run by the L.A. Fire Department. After booking the appt, I got an email from some HMO I’d never heard off before confirming my appointment. I guess this was the outfit that was actually administering the shots, since firemen aren’t nurses.

You may have heard that there were some huge, mass vaccine centers around town.  Your area may have one of them.  For L.A. County, these were places like Dodger Stadium and the Forum.  These were drive up locations, where you had to wait in your car for possibly hours until you got the shot.  I avoided places like that like the plague.  I had no interest in waiting in my car, moving along inch by inch with my engine running while I got barely closer to the front of line. Ugh.  So I never tried to get an appointment at Dodger Stadium.

All the confirmation told me was to wear a mask, and bring a copy of that email which had the QR code. No other vital information, like where to park, or a more exact location to report to.  There was a specific street address given when I booked the appointment. One thing it did warn—do not arrive early. That was a very specific rule they had.  Show up on time, not early. Don’t get in line early.

Of course, I planned to arrive early and if necessary, just sit in my car until it was time to report in.  I didn’t know how to find the place or where to park.  So I left my house and Google maps found the street address of this place.  Which, of course, didn’t exist.

I was driving on the street where the park was, I mean I could see the park on my left, and even saw a parking lot for it. I almost parked there, but I could see it was a pretty big park and I might be in for a big walk.  So I came to another entrance to the park on the left, but Google maps was telling me to turn right for the address I had put in.  I was glad because I couldn’t have turned left into the park’s entrance.  There was a line of cars a mile long waiting to turn right into the driveway. I saw in front of the driveway a sign that said “COVID Testing.”

Boy was I relieved I didn’t have to get in that line. There must be some other place where they are giving out the vaccines, I was sure of that.  When I was on that street that was leading away from the driveway, Google maps told me I had arrived at my destination.  There was nothing there!

Well not quite nothing.  At almost the exact spot where Google maps told me I had arrived, I saw about three or four people on the sidewalk, sitting under a temporary awning. I figured that was where the shots were being administered.  They were sitting in front of a fence that had what looked to be a little league baseball field behind it, something you’d expect to see as part of a public park.

I wasn’t sure I was right though, so I went to the end of the street and parked on the street. I walked over to the folks under awning.  As I was about to ask, “Is this where I get the vaccine?” I realized I was about to make a fool of myself.  These people were sitting there, enjoying their lunch.  They were clearly not medical professionals distributing vaccines.

Well, I decided to keep walking and go that park driveway, and ask where I should go for the vaccine. By the time I got to the intersection, to cross the street and be on the same side as the driveway, I got a good look at what was going on.  There was not only that big sign that said “COVID testing” but there was a guy there directing traffic, guiding cars into the driveway one at a time as the line moved ever so slowly.  I got across the street and asked the guy where I should go for the vaccine.  He pointed to the seemingly endless line of cars that was backed up down the street, leading into the driveway.  “That’s the line, get in the end of it.”

I was sure he was mistaken.  That was the line for testing.  I wanted the vaccine.  I explained that to him. He shrugged and said, as far as he knew, there was only one line. If I wanted to, I could walk up to where there were people checking the cars in.  So I kept walking, on the driveway, towards the people there. 

It didn’t take long for a woman to come running toward me, waving her arms, apparently telling me to stop.  I did, and she came over to me, what did I want?

I told her I was there for the COVID vaccine, not COVID testing.  Where do I go for that?

She pointed to all the cars. “There is one line for the test and the vaccine.  You have to get in your car and find the back of this line.”

Are you fucking kidding me (I didn’t say that to her, I just thought it)? “I have a 1:40pm appointment, I’ll never get through this line in time (it was now about 1:20pm).”  She said that was fine, they’d keep my appointment.

I said, “The website said nothing about having to be in your car, about having to wait in your car, about even needing a car to get the vaccine.” She apologized for that but said the website is run by the county and they have no control over the information on it.  I needed to get in my car and find the back of this ginormous line and just slowly creep along and wait my turn.

I started walking back to my car, which was quite a bit away.  And I was damn furious.  Yeah, the website is run by the county, but I got an email from the HMO running this thing. Why didn’t it say that I needed a car? I mean, most people in L.A. have cars, but some folks don’t.  Or, what if someone decided to take an Uber because they were worried about the possible side effects of the vaccine, and were worried there’d be a slight chance they couldn’t drive home?  The email should have given that detail—that you would have to be in car and prepare to sit it in for hours while waiting for the vaccine.  At that point some people could have realized that they couldn’t deal with the arrangements at this location and cancelled, and tried to find another site. There is no doubt in my mind, since the website gave no hint of this, that there were people who took a bus there, or walked, or took an Uber, and were shit-out-of luck when they saw how this thing was operating.

I was seriously considering leaving.  Waiting in my car and creeping ever-so-slowly for hours was not what I bargained for.  I thought I was avoiding that by not going to a place like Dodger Stadium.  But, reluctantly, I got in my car and tried to find the end of the line.  First I got to the end of the block and saw that the line turned the corner and I had to make a left turn to find the end of the line.  In my memory at the time, I thought I had to turn left once more to find the end, but that turned out to be incorrect.  I only made one left turn.  But that new street that I was following to find the end of the line seemed endless.  There were many intersections crossed and there were traffic guards keeping the lines straight at the intersections.

I finally found the end of the line and had to make an illegal u-turn in the middle of a fairly well trafficked street to get into the line.  I had no idea how many cars were in front of me but it seemed like a million. I was over two miles from the actual check-in spot, and my pal Woody estimated that there were 250 cars in line. Again, I wondered if it was worth it to do this.  I know if I had known when I made the appointment I was going to have to do this I wouldn’t have made the appointment, I would have tried to find a venue that was run more to my liking.

And of course, once I was in that traffic line, I was pretty well stuck.  It would be hard to bail at that point. I mean I couldn’t pull out of the line.  I would have had to stay put for awhile, had the cars behind me honk at me, until I had enough room to pull out.

But I stayed.  At least it was a decent day out, not too hot, so there was a lesser chance of any car overheating than there might have been.  That would have been a nightmare.  Especially if the car had been mine, or literally any car in front of me. I didn’t like idling all that time but it would have been insane to turn the engine off and restart it probably 100 times or more if I had decided to do that.

I was really glad, that without proper warning, I had eaten my lunch first, since I probably would have died from low blood sugar if I hadn’t.  Also glad I went to the bathroom the last thing before leaving my house. And glad I had taken a bottle of water with me in the car.  But as I moved along at a glacial pace, I started to worry that I might just be gulping that water too fast.  I wasn’t worried about running out—I was worried about filling up my bladder too fast.  Of course, there was no way to take any kind of a bathroom break once you got in that line.

Then I thought about the people in line who were waiting for the COVID test. And I assumed that most of the people in the line were there for that. Because all you hear about is how the vaccine is in limited supply and there are so few shots available.  I assumed that 95% of the line was for testing and how ridiculous was it that the few of us who there for shots (and had dutifully made our appointments as we were told to do) had to be in the same line. It made no sense.

So, those people who were waiting to get tested were….well, sick.  I mean they were having COVID symptoms, that’s why there were waiting to get tested, right (I suppose some felt fine, and were either getting tested as a requirement to return to work or because they had been exposed to a COVID-positive person)? So how great must it have been to wait in their car in that obscenely long line while they were ill, possibly extremely ill?  What if they suddenly had trouble breathing (the most common really bad symptom of the disease)?  How would that work?  I mean, it might not be stalled car that held up the line….it might have been a passed out driver that did it!

And then another thought.  What else is a symptom of COVID?  How about diarrhea?  I mean whenever you a screened for COVID before they let you enter a place that does screening, one of the questions they always ask you is, do you have diarrhea? So imagine having that symptom and being stuck in your car in that line, waiting to get tested?  How exactly would that work?  I mean I know how it would work and it wouldn’t be pretty.  Or smell good.

Most of the time, the line of cars was hugging the curb. But occasionally there were (legally) parked cars we had to go around, thus venturing out into the street, a main road in that neighborhood. I pitied anyone parked there who had to leave before the line of cars was gone.

What a fustercluck!  And after spending all my adult life dealing with L.A. traffic, I was now in the worst traffic jam of my life.  And what was that bullshit about not arriving early for your appointment?  The times obviously meant nothing.  I wished I hadn’t waited the extra 10 minutes I did before getting there. The sooner the better for this absurdity.

I don’t know what the right way to do this was.  But I was sure the way they were doing it was the worst possible way. But finally, I crept forward, turned a corner, and eventually—after over two hours in my car, in line, I could see the entrance to the park. And after a 2:20 hour wait, I got to the point where a human being came over to my car window and asked to see my appointment email and screened me.  Cars getting the vaccine went straight, cars getting tested turned left. It seemed that there were a lot more people getting shots than I had ever imaged.  My 1:40 appointment (it was now after 4pm) was not mine exclusively, obviously, but just a window.  I followed a trail, found another line to get in (inside the park, at least) and waited some more. I got screened several more times, I got asked the same questions about half a dozen times, but finally got in a queue (one of six) where I could see at the end of which people were getting shot as they sat in their vehicles.

The one question that seemed dumb was which arm I wanted the needle in.  Did I have a choice? I mean for me it’s always the left, although since I broke my right arm a case could be made that my left arm is now the strongest and I should get it in the right arm. But I said left because, well, I was not supposed to get out of the car and the nurse was clearly going to shoot me through the driver’s side window.  How would that work, if I told them my right arm?  Would I have to contort myself to make my right arm available?  Would the nurse go around to the passenger side and reach over to shoot me?  I never found out.

So I got my shot. And they gave me a card, making it official that I got my first shot. It was blank, at least as to my name.  I could have filled in anyone’s name as having gotten the first shot.

Now the email said I would be monitored by a medical professional for 15 minutes after getting the shot in case I had any side effects.  That was quite an exaggeration.  Instead I was told to drive my car to a dirt “parking” area and just wait in my car 10 minutes and if I felt ok, drive off into the sunset.  So I did.  That area was jammed with cars and I ended up getting stuck in a ditch trying to get out of the way of other cars waiting. Fortunately, although I couldn’t go any further forward, I was able to back out of the ditch, turn my car around without hitting another car, and wait.  I had to drive through some shrubbery to exit (no kidding).  I left after about 8 minutes because I was afraid I would get blocked from exiting as more cars were coming in to that dirt lot than were leaving.

The way I left, I was surprising close to my neighborhood, and made it home in just a few minutes.  As I pulled into my driveway, I received a text from the HMO running this thing that it was now safe to leave the area, I had waited long enough.  Good to know.

I had no side-effects from the first shot. All told, the ordeal lasted around three hours.  And I was exhausted, mostly from mental fatigue.  Who knew that waiting in line in your car could be so exhausting?

Now you can read my report on my second shot, see here.

What is the Sound of One Hand Washing?

                                                Part 4 of 4 

Surprise!  I decided to finish my broken arm story after all.  It seems I felt a little bit more like writing after getting some things off my chest in my previous rant post. As for the future, who the hell knows.  It seems that Herr Newsom has just posted re-opening guidelines that pretty much guarantee California stays shutdown for the next 75 years.  So no promises about future content.  Enjoy this one while you can (or if you can). 

Part 3 is here. 

So I had to wait for an orderly to come wheel me out.  First we stopped by check-out so I could pay for the E.R. visit.  I dunno, but somehow I got my debit card out of my wallet.  Note: I used a debit card cuz I knew I wouldn't be able to sign my name on a credit card receipt, but I could use my left hand to tap in my PIN number.  Then he wheeled me to the 24-hour pharmacy in the hospital.

It was kind of funny….they had all these chairs for people to sit while waiting, and three out of every four chairs were taped off with yellow tape.  Social distancing, you see.  Fortunately it wasn't crowded.  I just stayed in my wheelchair anyway.  It took awhile but they finally had my drugs for me.  Then I had to wait for a pharmacist to "consult" with me.  Then, they wanted me to sign some kind of waiver since they were giving me narcotics.  But I couldn't sign to get the drugs for my broken arm because…..I had a broken arm.  The pharmacist signed for me.  I guess that is ok. 

Then we headed to the exit and I tried to request a Lyft with my one good hand.  That was not easy to do.  And then there is the address for where the Lyft is to pick me up.  This is always problematic at Kaiser.  It is a big place, it has several addresses, and I never know for sure where to tell them to show up.  I was sure I told Lyft the right place, but then I got the notice my ride was there and I didn't see the Lyft vehicle.  

Now I should mention that it had taken so long for me to see the doc a second time and then wait for the orderly to pick me up and get my drugs, etc, that it was now dark.  I had really wanted to get home in the light.  Damn. 

Although I didn't feel it was necessary, the orderly insisted on staying with me until he could actually put me in the car.

Since I couldn't see the Lyft car that was supposedly there, I knew I had to try to reach him.  Ordinarily, I would have just texted him with further instructions, but one-handed that was not really something I could do.  So I actually had to call him. Using your cell phone to make an actual telephone call, who'da thunk it? 

I got thru to him and I told him where I was.  I told him that he had to come in the circle (actually a semi-circle) at the hospital front entrance.  Could he see that?  He didn't sound like the sharpest tool in the shed.  He grunted, "I don't know," and then he disconnected.  I could only hope he'd show up in a minute or two.  He did not.  So I tried to call him again.  This time I got voice mail.  I left a message, but I called again.  It sounded like someone picked up but there was no voice on the other end, finally it disconnected again. 

According to the Lyft app, there was no ride pending.  So I had to start over and request another ride.  I guess I described my location better, or maybe this guy was just smarter than the other guy because he actually found me.  The orderly helped me into the car and we headed finally headed home. 

I'm not sure exactly when, but at some point in the evening I received a notice from Lyft that I was being charged $5 for a no-show, as if it was my fault the first driver didn't pick me up.  I was pissed, but I had more important things to worry about.  Note:  I never did complain to Lyft to get that charged removed.  I figured I would have had to have complained in a text or an email and it was way too much effort to bother for the lousy five bucks. 

The Lyft driver took me home.  In my haste to go to the ER hours earlier, I had neglected to take an activator for the giant gate that encloses my townhome complex.  I did have a key to the gate that you can walk thru, but I couldn't open the gate so the Lyft car could drive through.  And opening the big heavy "people gate" in my condition was no fun at all.  But I somehow managed to do it, and hobbled to my unit.  I was able to walk, but it did hurt to walk, my leg was still bothering me quite a bit. 

Now I came to the front of my house, in the dark.  And there was all my stuff from the grocery delivery that I had scheduled that day, which hopefully you all remember.  He had followed my instructions perfectly and set everything up against my front door. 

Which made it almost impossible to get my key in the lock to open the door.  Especially with only one hand.  Especially in the dark.   Actually the first problem was finding the right key.  I have three keys on my key chain that are the same design, only one of which opens my front door (like most people, I have several keys on my key chain that I have no idea what lock they open). Of course I could use the flashlight on my cell phone. But with only good hand, I have no idea how I used the flashlight on my cell phone and held onto the key chain.  I had to use the process of elimination to test the three keys that had the right design to see which one was the right key for the lock. In the dark, it was almost impossible to put each key in the lock!  My voice notes don't relate how I used the flashlight and the key chain one-handed but somehow after much time and effort, I found the right key. 

As I mentioned earlier, the lock is all the way over on the right side, fairly high up.  In the dark, it would always be a challenge getting the key in there.  But now, I had to reach over and try not to trip and break my neck on my groceries (which by the way, were awfully difficult to move out of the way with only one arm).  It took me forever but I finally did it, then I had to get in the house (in the dark), climbing over the groceries.  It was quite an ordeal.  

Then I had to turn on the A/C, the lights, my PC (which I didn't really need to do) and then figure out how I was gonna get my damn groceries inside. 

Well, most of the groceries were spoiled.  All the frozen stuff was long since thawed out.  But it didn't matter, as you might remember, my shopper had made all substitutions on my frozen meals and didn't pick one that I would eat (like with the Lyft charge, I never complained about the lost money there). He didn't make any of my requested substitutions.  Some refrigerated stuff (like salad), I stuck in the fridge hoping it wasn't ruined (actually a lot of it was still usable).  There was little non-perishable stuff because I had cancelled that.  

Oh, and there was a 24 pack of bottled water sitting on my porch.  There was no way I could move that inside.  I just left it on my porch for days (weeks), until I started bringing it inside one bottle at a time.  Initially I couldn't even bend over to get a bottle at a time because for the first week, it hurt like hell (in my leg) to bend down to reach the floor.  So for a week, when I dropped something, it stayed dropped. 

One thing I really felt like I needed to do was….wash my hands.  I had been at the germ-infested hospital for hours and what do they always tell you…wash your hands when you've been out. 

But I couldn't wash my hands because one of them was bound useless by my side.  I was looking at who knew how many weeks before I could properly wash my hands.  I figured I was sure to die of COVID. 

What is the sound of one hand washing?  In the coming days, I somehow managed to master the art of washing my left hand one-handed, without any help from my right hand.  

I had gone way too long without eating (or taking my meds) so I somehow ate.  There was no way I was capable of figuring out how to prepare a meal so I ate some stuff that I could just open the box and stuff in my face, no cooking involved.  

I made the mistake of lying down on my couch to eat and watch TV.  Like most of my house, either intentionally or by happenstance, the couch is set up for a right handed person.  I once had the brilliant idea of putting a big coffee table in front of the couch.  Although I was able to climb into the couch, the coffee table made it well-nigh impossible to get off the couch.  I am not exaggerating, with my right arm being useless, it took me at least 20 minutes to get off the couch. 

I didn't make that mistake again, I didn't get back on that couch for another month, until I had better use of my arm.  I watched TV from my chair and also I did a lot of TV watching from my desk, on the PC.  When I wanted to lie down and watch TV, I had to use my tablet.  The trouble with that was that it was difficult to hold the tablet comfortably since I couldn't use my right hand. 

I had the hospital gown on for two or three days, until I finally figured out I could slip it off without taking off my immobilizer.  I had to kinda/sort put it back on whenever I ventured out to pick up my mail.  Very awkward. 

And of course I couldn't shower.  I mean I didn't think there was any way I could get the immobilizer back on if I took it off.  Now I did hear from Orthopedics the next day, setting up a telephone visit with an Orthopedist for a week from the accident.  A telephone visit?  How would that work? 

By the time of that e-visit, I was really ripe.  I mean, I couldn't stand being around myself, I smelled so bad.  So I was actually glad I didn't have an in-person visit with the doc—I was sure that no Lyft driver would let me in their car! 

The e-visit turned into a video visit when the doc heard me say that I couldn't shower and that I didn't think I had the immobilizer on right.  Remember, they left my arm at my side because I screamed when they tried to put it on my chest.  He looked at it and explained to me how it should look, and insisted I would be able to put it back on if I took off (and explained how).  By this time I tested the arm and I could actually get it across my chest without screaming in agony. The doc also told me I could take a shower (even if it wasn't easy to wash under either arm—at least I could get some water under there). 

By the time I had my first real visit the following week, I no longer stunk.  And much to my surprise, I was actual able to get dressed enough to go out and go to the doc.  I had to wear a button down dress shirt with my sweat pants, so it was another weird look (also getting socks on and off was a challenge too). 

I had a devil of a time learning to use a fork left-handed, and brushing my teeth left-handed, but I got better as I went along.  I found meals I could make and it was a lot of boring, monotonous stuff. 

As I write this now, I am much better but still not near 100%.  The doc says that I will never be able to lift my right arm completely over my head straight up in the air.  I am still in Physical Therapy.  I go in every other week, and I do my exercises every day.  But I am still in a fair amount of pain (depending on what I am doing) and I don't have the range of motion I want.  I can't put my right arm behind my back, for example. 

People have been suggesting I go to Vegas.  But honestly, I am in no shape to pack and unpack for a Vegas trip.  It'll be awhile. 

And that's about it.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

"At Least I'm Wearing Underwear"

Broken Arm, part 3 (of who knows how many parts)

Part 2 is here.

So I was taken to a small examination/hospital room.  Someone helped me off with most of my clothes and put on one of those awesome hospital gowns.  Eventually a nurse came in to take some information.  Everyone had a mask of course (including me, still) but this nurse had the most elaborate mask of anyone I saw.  I think she could have gone scuba diving in it.

She ask me about my meds and what happened and all that fun stuff. She hooked me up to a blood pressure monitor and an oxygen monitor.  And then she left, saying that the "doctor will be right in."  Ha!

It was again quite awhile for before the doctor came in.  She finally showed up, she asked me a bunch of questions like what happened, where does it hurt, etc.  I described my pain and my fall and she gave me what I thought was a rather cursory examination. I mean she touched me but not as much as I would have expected.  She said that someone would come by to take me for X-rays of both my arm and leg. She left.

But she did come back to ask me about my pain—did I want something for it?  I said yes, rather emphatically. At first she was going to give me Norco (oral) but then she decided I needed something that worked faster, because when they were going to be taking X-rays, they'd have to move my arm and it would be quite painful.  Oh boy, something to look forward to. Spoiler: It ended up taking so long to get into X-ray that there was no need to give me morphine just because it worked faster.

So she sent a nurse in to give me a shot of morphine.  That would of course make me drowsy but that wouldn't be a problem, I wasn't driving anyway.  But she didn't warn me that it would make my stomach a bit queasy.  In fact, I did feel nauseated on and off a little while I was there through the afternoon. And in fact when I woke up (at home) the next morning, having taken the Norco she prescribed for me the night before, I did throw up a little bit. 

Anyway, now there was nothing to do but wait.  And wait.  And wait.  I really had no idea that it would take so long to get taken to X-ray, but it did.  By this time, all my worldly possessions, my pants, my shirts, my t-shirt, my keys, my wallet and my phone were in that plastic hospital bag they had given me earlier.  And that bag was on a chair that I couldn't reach.  There was a TV in the vicinity but I couldn't reach it to even turn it on.  And I didn't have any water and hadn't been offered any.

So there was nothing to do but just lie there in pain and wait, and stare off into the distance.  There was also no call button in case I needed anything (like assistance in turning on the TV, or getting my phone).  They had the curtain to my little room closed.  The only thing I could have done was shouted at the top of my lungs to try to get someone's attention if I did need help. 

I stayed silent, but after it had been more than an hour since I'd last seen anyone (the nurse who gave me the shot) I was seriously considering shouting to find out what was going on (and maybe ask for some water).  But I waited.  I did that thing where you stare at the clock on the wall and say to yourself, "Well, when it gets to be 15 minutes to, I'll start yelling."  Then that time comes and goes and you say, "when it gets to 10 minutes to.."  Well I dunno how many times I let it slide but I can tell you I really was about two minutes away from screaming when an orderly finally showed up to get me X-rayed.  It had been close to 90-minutes since I'd been in that room before they came.

It was a welcome trip for a couple of reasons.  One I was bored and ready to get going, and two, that little room was really hot. The mask was making me even warmer and sometimes I was having trouble breathing through it.  I admit I had to lower the mask every now and then so I could breathe. The trip through the hospital to the X-ray department was nice and cool.

There were a bunch of techs helping with the X-rays.  I was on the wrong kind of gurney (whatever that meant) so they had to have several people actually lift me from that gurney to the table where I needed to be for the X-rays.  That was fun (but probably even less fun for the orderlies who had to lift me up)..

And the Doc did not lie.  It was quite painful as they moved me so they could take the proper X-rays. Hell, when they lifted me from the gurney to the X-ray table it hurt pretty much all over, especially in the arm and leg.  Morphine can only do so much.  They took pics of my leg and my arm and moving the arm for them was sometimes excruciating. 

The first person moving me around actually needed help from a senior tech to make sure I was in the proper position for the X-rays to come out right.  But eventually they got what they needed (or so I thought) and they took me back to my room.  Note, from what I learned during my hospital stay for my heart problem in 2016, I knew to insist that I take the bag with my wallet and phone with me to the X-ray room).

When I got back to my room, the orderly was about to reconnect me to the blood pressure and oxygen monitors when I stopped him.  "Before you do that, can I go the restroom first real quick?"

I should have known this outside his purview.  "Let me get the nurse."  So I had to wait in the bed, unhooked up, until the orderly got the nurse.

Well, it was a different nurse than the one who had cross-examined me when I first got to the room.  It made a difference.  She asked if I wanted a urinal.  I said no, I could walk to the restroom.  She said, "Are you sure….you're here because you fell, what if you fall again?"  Sigh. I knew I could make it to the restroom, it wasn't that far.  I said I couldn't relieve myself lying in the bed.  She said she would put the back of the bed up.  OK, I relented.  Between the drugs and the pain I was not interested in arguing with her.  As she went to get the urinal, I realized the problem was that she didn't know I had been perfectly fine until I tripped and fell.  She probably thought I was some old guy who had trouble keeping his balance in general.  I mean my leg did feel lousy but I could definitely walk a little bit on my own.

Well she brought in the urinal and raised the bed.  But she didn't raise it enough.  It was very difficult for me to go, especially cuz I was also trying hard not to piss myself, or the bed, or my underwear.  Naturally, just as the flow started, I was startled by the doctor showing up.  Well she was more embarrassed than I was but you never want to interrupt someone in the middle of taking a piss. She said "excuse me" and disappeared.

I was pretty sure I wasn't done but I couldn't get anything more to come out (TMI?), so I closed up and then I had nothing to do with this damn urinal with my urine in it but just hold it!  I couldn't reach anything to put it on and I didn't want to risk spilling it, for obvious reasons.

I held it with me for who knows how long until a nurse finally showed up to hook me back.  In the meantime I had missed my window of opportunity to actually get a report from the doc as to what was wrong with me.

So that was another 10-15 minutes of time lost before she returned.  She brought with her several bits of bad news.  The main thing was that I had a fractured humerus. That's the bone at the top of the arm that connects to your shoulder. They would have to put an "immobilizer" on me.  She said that around 80% of the time they don't need to do surgery, it heals on its own.  Oh, and my leg was fine.  Then why did it hurt?  Well, it's like a pulled muscle.  No treatment needed, it will get better all by itself.  The issue was my right arm/shoulder.

The other bit of bad news was that the radiologist wanted to take a few more pictures.  He wanted pictures below my knee and also of my shoulder to make sure it wasn't separated.  The ER doc was pretty sure I didn't have a separated shoulder.  She also wasn’t worried about my knee but the radiologist wanted to be sure.

Then she told me what would happen going forward, assuming the additional X-rays didn't have any nasty surprises.  They'd send me home in the immobilizer and refer me to Orthopedics.  I'd hear from them in a day or two, and eventually get an appointment to see an Orthopedist. 

Really?  They weren't having me see an Orthopedist right away, right then and there, when I was already there?  Did that make any sense?  I didn't ask.  I just assumed it had to do with new procedures in place because of COVID-19.  Maybe they didn't even have an Orthopedist around.  Maybe they stayed home now because of fear of getting sick, and came in only on a limited basis.  After all, it was well known that hospitals were not doing "elective" surgeries and procedures any more.  It didn't seem right to me but that's what I get for breaking my damn arm in the middle of a pandemic.  Next time, I should plan it better.

In the meantime, I was to wear the immobilizer and keep my arm still.  But she did say that after a couple of days, I should start moving my arm a little (rotating it a bit) so that I don't get a frozen shoulder.

Well, getting ahead of my story, let me tell you, when I finally spoke to an orthopedist, about a week later, he told me no way should I be moving my arm at that point!  He said something like, "That's why you listen to your orthopedist, not an ER doctor."  I didn't say anything but I certainly wondered why an ER doctor, who would often see people for broken limbs, didn't know not to give such potentially ruinous advice.  By the way, thankfully I had not taken the ER doc's advice, not so much because I thought it was wrong but more because I was in too much discomfort to even try it, figuring it would be safer to have an Orthopedist tell me what to do.

So they came in and put an immobilizer on me.  I guess this is what they do instead of a cast these days (depending on the nature of the injury, I presume). I had no idea what it was supposed to look like when it was done but the last thing they tried to do was place my right arm across my chest (or maybe stomach) and put it in a sleeve that attached to the piece around my chest by velcro.  But when he tried to move my arm up like that, I let out a scream that would wake the dead.  So he left my arm "immobilized" down by my side.  But there was some other piece there that kept me from moving my arm (too much).

But I wasn't done—I had to wait around to be taken back to X-ray.  And waited.  It wasn't as long as the first wait for X-ray but it was good long while.  They took the immobilizer off so they could take X-rays, took a pic of my knee (or below the knee) and sent me back.

After a bit, they said I was ready to be discharged.  Wait, what?  What about the second set of X-rays?  Nothing there, you can go.

Well good to know I didn't have a separated shoulder.  But I wasn't satisfied. I didn't think I'd gotten enough information from the Doc, I wanted to see her again. So I insisted she come by before I would leave.

So more delay.

In the meantime, they had to figure out how to get me home.  There was no way I could lift my arm to get any kind of pull-over shirt on. The nurse had been looking at my t-shirt to see if there was any way she could put it on me, but gave up.  But she did notice my t-shirt was not exactly new, shall we say.  She said something like, "this t-shirt is pretty ratty."  That was kind of needlessly nasty under the circumstances.  I said, "Well, when I got dressed this morning, I didn't know I was going to undress for anybody.  At least I'm wearing underwear."  She laughed and said, "Yeah, that's a good thing."

They had put the immobilizer over my bare skin, but I couldn't be sent home shirtless. They finally realized that I was going to have to go home wearing the hospital gown.  So they took off the immobilizer, put the gown on me, put the immobilizer on over the gown.  I said, "How am I ever going to get this gown off by myself?"  They said I would be able to pull it through the immobilizer and then off my bad arm.  Yeah, right.

I wondered if they were going to charge me for the hospital gown they gave me (they did not).

I waited around for the Doc and she finally came and seemed surprised I wanted to talk to her again.  "You needed to see me again?"

I said I just wanted to make sure I knew what was going on.  "Yeah, yeah, you can be moving the arm a little in a few days, and you'll hear from Orthopedics in a day or two."  I kind of suspected that she wasn't telling me everything, like maybe because they had minimal staff to deal with anything not COVID-19 related. Like she would have Orthopedics give me the bad news.  But that was pure speculation.

In theory I could have walked out of there, but I had to go down to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription.  So they insisted that they have someone wheel me down there, then wheel out of the hospital to wait for my Lyft. 

So let's leave it right there for this chapter, and you can read the conclusion here.