47 years ago

It was June of 1973. Jenni was 6 months old, our house in Kirkland had finally sold, and we packed up and moved to Port Townsend.  Three days after moving into a house on F Street, I started work at the clinic down on Water as secretary to four doctors. I hadn't worked in ten years but Ruth and Linda were my guardian angels getting me back in the work force.  Within a month, we had problems with the rental manager and the house itself so we moved to another house a couple blocks away.  A much better fit.
It was a big old house with a great view and we lived there for close to two years. In that time, I quit the clinic and opened my own daycare and John decided he needed to raise goats. Oh, the memories.

It's a couple hours later now.  Mary Gaboury came over to visit. My second time having company.

Yesterday my daughter, Mary, had to go into the hospital to have a covid virus test. She's scheduled for a hysterectomy tomorrow and this was a requirement. I told her to write me up about the process as I thought it would be something I could share on my blog. Here's what she said:

A COVID-19 test is required 48-72 hours before surgery. It (obviously) has to come back negative in order to proceed. You're also supposed to self-isolate for seven days prior to the surgery.

I had to make an appointment. And the only way to make an appointment was to have a referral from the doctor.  I arrived at Swedish Issaquah for my 8:50AM test.  A face mask is required.

I parked in the garage and went to the elevators where I was greeted by screeners before being allowed on the elevators.  They verified I had an appt, took my temperature, asked the standard COVID questions (felt sick, fever, cough, been around anyone with...).

I went to the 3rd floor and gave my name and sat down in the lobby.

One woman was ahead of me.  They called her in.  She was back out within about 3-4 minutes.  Then they called me in.

I verified my name and date of birth and proceeded down the hall with an escort.

I was brought to two women fully covered in protective clothing, face guards, gloves, etc. 

I had to walk into a small enclave area, stand on a red line and face the wall that was about 12 inches in front of me.

I was handed tissues and asked to blow my nose, facing the wall.  Then I had to dispose of the tissues in the closed garbage can to my left that opened with a foot pedal. This was to clear my air passages, they said.

I then had to turn around and step back against the wall.  They swabbed both nostrils. They only had to go up in my nostrils about halfway, not several inches like they had been doing earlier. Thank goodness I was done after that.

I was escorted out and the woman called the next person in. This was a total of about 3-4 minutes, so I was able to note they were only pulling in one person at a time.

I am supposed to have results back within 24 hours.

She emailed me this morning that the test came back negative. All good.

I watched a pretty good Neil Young concert on the Pluto channel last night. (via my Roku) Harvest Moon at the Ryman.  Really good too.

I had a pretty hard night of trying to sleep as my sciatica continued to rage.  I went from recliner to bed to other recliner to bed.  Needless to say, I'm plenty tired today. I can't believe it's hanging on like this.  I did do some exercises as shown on youtube but all that did was make my shoulder hurt more.
Sometimes I half wonder if my "new knee" is contributing to the problem.  My hip hurts a lot but it kind of takes turns with the area from my knee to my ankle on the outside of my leg. Such a nuisance and hard on my emotional health to not feel good day after day.  My upper body is waging a fight too.
Allergies I'm thinking. My eyelids itch and feel uncomfortable and every now and again, a slight dizziness sets in. Not enough to make me feel it's vertigo but enough to get my attention and know that something is amiss.  I'm just going to take things easy, use the heating pad, puff on my pot, take pills, and hope that tomorrow is a better day. 

I did manage to get all my little quilt squares pressed and the ends snipped off so tomorrow I'll start sewing everything together.  Need to get in the rock painting mood too. I've got them all painted front and back with white paint and have to decide how I want to decorate.  Plenty of time for that, though. It's not like I have any place special to be.

My genealogy project is waiting in the wings too. Maybe I'll make a quick run to Goodwill and see if I can find a three-ring binder.  I'll think on it. I can maneuver better with my walker so I may end up taking it into the store. Have to do it sooner or later, I suppose.

Have a good Sunday.