Ed’s guardian duties are now taking up most of his time. He is wearing himself out and developed a severe cold. So far I haven’t caught it, but I did get a sinus infection – the kind that makes you smell something all the time. I know it will last at least another 5 days.

Ed has a lot of court dates and gets to wear his uptown suits. The problem is these dates are set by the court at random so Ed never knows when they will happen. A conflict arose with my annual physical. Changing this is a problem and can mean a delay of several months. So Ed called a taxi for me. The appointment usually takes a couple of hours or more, so the plan was for the taxi to leave me at the doctor’s office and Ed to pick me up. After my check-up, I waited about 90 minutes for him to get back to me. I didn’t mind so much. I had my Kindle and I left the waiting room where they have non-stop fans, and sat on the floor in a covered hallway and did ballet stretches. So it wasn’t a total loss.

There was another sudden conflict two days ago when I was scheduled for a cat scan for my spine. I have been experiencing debilitating pain when I lie down so sleeping has become a problem. Probably spinal stenosis, but they need to check it out. Ed was still sick and said could we change it. I was worried enough to lean on him to take me anyway and he did start to feel better, so off we went. The weird thing is that once I am up, the pain disappears in about 20 minutes – then I can stretch, bike, walk, do my teensy jumps – no problem. I am hoping the problem is fixable with, perhaps, traction, special exercises, etc. And the doctor told me to take one Aleve every night at bedtime and this is helping along with pillows that have me sleeping in a semi-sitting position. It does wear off toward morning, but at least I get a solid 5 or more hours out of it. Incidentally I looked up the side effects. Sheesh. I’ll stop taking it as soon as I can.

Ed has a couple of wards who have severe family dysfunction. One ward with dementia did not want to be separated from his wife. The wife also is neurologically compromised. The daughter doesn’t like the ward, her step father, so she contrived to persuade her mother to fly out to California with her and Ed couldn’t stop them because the court is still mired in red tape about whether the wife should also be under his stewardship. Meanwhile, the husband is pining for his wife. Ed also thinks they will realize in short order, what a crisis they will have on their hands as the mother needs big time medical assistance.

Ed thinks that the daughter’s plans are to start divorce proceedings on behalf of her mother and finesse control of the family money. Ed knows there isn’t much of it, but the daughter has big eyes.

Another ward, a war hero, a veteran of the 101st Airborne, is now gravely ill and may not last. He was about to divorce his wife (whose previous two husbands died under mysterious circumstances) when he got worse and couldn’t proceed. His wife was in the habit of force feeding him milkshakes even though he cannot swallow. If he dies while they are still married, she automatically gets his estate. Ed asked the hospital to bar her from seeing him and they said they didn’t have enough staff. So Ed has to chaperone any visitor to his room. He was happy enough to do so for the daughter, and told me he would have to allow the wife also, since they are still married and he cannot appear to be applying favoritism. So he did another trek to the hospital in the same week to watch over the visit. The day after she saw him, Ed learned, the wife went to his house with a moving van (where she had not been living but had keys) and stripped it.

I don’t have any family to be picking over my finances and urging me on to the great beyond. Whoop-de-doo.

xx, Teal