Texans Age 50+–Get Your COVID Vaccines This Week!!!

This week, TX announced that starting Monday, March 15th, it would be moving into Phase 1C of the COVID vaccine rollout, which means that all adults age 50-64 are now eligible to receive the vaccine, in addition to those in Phase 1A and 1B.  Hooray!

Photo from dshs.tx.gov

I am 49, and I’m already fully vaccinated (Moderna), because I fell under Phase 1B for underlying health conditions due to the immuno-suppressant medication I’m on for my shoulder.  But my husband actually just turned 50 in January, so he now qualifies under 1C.  He actually registered in December like I did, just to make sure he’d already be on the list whenever he qualified to receive the vaccine, and he was notified on Friday that he is scheduled for the first day of this phase on Monday.  Yippee!  I’m so glad.  So by the end of April, his vaccinations should reach peak efficacy 2 weeks after receiving his second dose.  Then maybe we can start to get out a little more together!

Photo from CityofIrving.org

We still have not returned to in-person church for the last year.  We’ve only attended via Zoom.  I was most at risk until I was fully vaccinated, and we still need my husband to stay healthy, as he is the sole family provider.  Now, we also know that our 16-year old daughter has some form of asthma.  She is using an inhaler in the interim while she awaits pulmonary function testing at the end of the week. Her doctor says it’s likely either intermittent mild asthma or exercise-induced asthma.  This puts her at greater risk, as well, and she has a history of not doing well with viruses, spiking extremely high fevers that land her in emergency care.  So after we receive a definitive diagnosis, she should also qualify to receive the COVID vaccine.  Pediatric COVID vaccines are hard to come by, though.  Our pediatrician’s office says those age 16+ with an underlying health condition qualify for the Moderna vaccine only, but they only have a limited number of doses available, so you have to get on a waiting list.  Sigh.  I can’t sign her up until we have a diagnosis.  This pulmonary function test may only be the beginning of testing, as her problem is intermittent and usually spurred by participation in sports.  I was told the stress test pulmonary function test can only be ordered after a regular PFT has been done and a visit with a pediatric pulmonologist has been completed.  So this could take a while.  Between school and her job, it’s hard to fit in appointments.  We’re doing her appointments this next week during her spring break.  The children’s hospital requires her to go for a drive-thru COVID test on Tuesday and then her pulmonology test on Friday.

So we are still playing it safe.  Even though the governor lifted the mask mandate last week for TX, we still continue to wear ours, to socially distance, and to avoid crowded events.  I long to return to some sort of normalcy.  June will be 4 years since we moved here, and I still have no local friends.  I have no opportunity to get out any more.  I miss the symphony.  I skipped the whole last season because of COVID.  I have no outings or events to look forward to.  At least the weather is beginning to warm up, so I can at least enjoy being outside again.  I really hope conditions continue to improve this year, but they say a 4th wave is on the horizon from the new variants that are more contagious with a public that is relaxing its mitigation practices and is still largely unvaccinated.  Ugh.

Great Recipe to Try!

This week, I had a pound of ground beef I had thawed for lasagna, but then we ended up going out for lasagna, so then I needed to use it for something else. 

I went to the Taste of Home website to search for something new to try and found this wonderful and simple recipe that we absolutely loved!  It was a unique way to enjoy a burger, and it used only a few ingredients that I always have on hand anyway.  It’s a Fajita Burger Wrap!

(Photo credit: Taste of Home website)

The burgers were so thick and moist, and the peppers, onions, and cheese gave it enough extra flavor that it didn’t need any type of condiment at all.  I loved the crispy texture of the wrap after it was browned in the skillet, too.  Perfect!  I always use up extra peppers harvested from the garden by slicing them into strips with strips of white onion and freezing them in vacuum-sealed 1-lb. packages, so I just used those for this recipe instead of buying fresh, and that saved another step and made this a super quick meal.

Give these a try and see for yourself.

REVIEW: Failure Free Reading Home Edition

Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I didn’t have a student in need of reading help, but I was interested in taking a look at this unique program called Failure Free Reading Home Edition.

WHAT IS IT?:

Failure Free Reading Home Edition is an online program that offers children and adults the chance to improve their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills, beginning right where they are. This is achieved through a simple online diagnosis/placement test and a series of interactive activities that enrich your student’s skills beyond their current level.

This program is available for just $39.95/month per student, and you can cancel at any time.  This gives you the flexibility to use the product for as short or long a period of time as is necessary to reach your reading goals.

HOW IT WORKS:

When you first log in to the website, you are shown a home screen that gives you the option to Enroll, Diagnose, or Instruct a student, or to view Reports.

First, you want to enroll your student(s).  Since I wasn’t having a student use the program, I enrolled myself as the student.  Once you’ve done this, you can go ahead and find the correct placement for your student by clicking on Diagnose.  In this section, you are asked to read a series of sentences and rate how easy or difficult the wording was for you to read and understand.  You are also asked a series of questions that have you place the correct vocabulary words in the context of the given sentences.

At the end of the assessment, you will be given a diagnosis that reveals a placement level.  It will look something like this.

The next time your student logs in, they will be taken to the home screen to launch their next lesson.  Here you can download some written materials to go along with the online lesson.

In the downloadable materials, you can get an illustrated reader.

You can download the teacher’s manual.

You can also download workbook pages that include written activities like Reading Application, Silent Reading, and Reinforcement Activities.

When the student launches their lesson, it will begin with a short video highlighting the new vocabulary words that will be introduced in that lesson. 

After viewing the video, they can launch the lesson and begin their assignments based on the level where they were placed in the diagnosis assessment.

The first activity involves the program reading aloud a new vocabulary word to the student, followed by its synonyms and definition. Then it uses the word in the context of a sentence.  Then it asks the student to determine if the word is being used in the correct context of a yes or no question.  The student is given immediate feedback as to whether they answered correctly.  Then it repeats the word one more time and spells it out on the screen one letter at a time before proceeding to an empty box where the student is asked to type out the word with the correct spelling.  Again, immediate feedback is given.  The activity repeats with each word in the new word list until completed, saving the student’s work after each word.  When the student completes all of the words, then lesson ends, and a message pops up indicating the student is finished with the lesson and should talk to their teacher before continuing.

The next activity is a unit review.  Here, the student begins by dragging the word to the side to reveal its synonym.  This continues with each word in the word list.

Next, the student is asked to drag the vocabulary word onto its matching synonym from a list of possible synonyms.  This repeats until the word list is completed.

Then the student is asked to drag the word aside to reveal its synonym as well as its definition.  This is repeated until the word list is completed.

Then just like in the previous activity, the student is asked to drag the vocabulary word over to match its synonym and definition, one at a time, until the word list is completed.

The next screen shows all of the vocabulary words being used in correct sentence context as part of a cohesive paragraph.  The student has the option to click on any of the highlighted vocabulary words to be reminded of their synonyms and definitions.  They can also click at the top to have the paragraph read aloud to them.

Next, the student must choose the correct vocabulary word to go into each sentence of the paragraph until the paragraph is complete.

Once the paragraph has been completed, the student is asked a series of comprehension questions about the paragraph to ensure they truly understood the meaning of what was stated.  Immediate feedback is provided.

Once the student has completed this review, they again receive a message that the activity is complete, and they should speak to their teacher before continuing.  Then the student is taken to a Short Answer Q&A.  These questions are answered independently in complete sentences.

After completing this activity, the student again receives the message that the lesson has ended, and they must talk to their teacher before continuing.  This completes the entire lesson, and the student will next move on to a new lesson that begins with the video introducing new vocabulary words.

At any time, the teacher can log in and review a student’s progress, showing how they scored in each lesson.

I actually liked this program a lot.  Personally, I thought it was rather fun to use, and it didn’t take up too much time.  It put the same material in front of the student in various ways for adequate reinforcement of the word list, and it had enough interactivity to keep the student engaged in the material rather than simply having them watch boring instructional videos. 

I have a 13-year old child with ADHD, and he tends to get bored and distracted easily, making it difficult to find an appropriate match to meet his instructional needs.  However, I think a program like this would work well for him.  The lessons aren’t too long, and you could easily separate a lesson from a unit review to split up the work across the course of a couple of school days.  We would probably do the initial lesson one day and the review on a second day, either working on it twice a week to give us a pace of one lesson per week, or on each of our four school days to give us a pace of two lessons per week.  I would feel very comfortable using this program to build and reinforce my son’s vocabulary and improve his reading comprehension.

Take a look at what other Crew members have to say about Failure Free Reading Home Edition by clicking the banner below.

Storm Recovery for the Pool

So following the long power outage, we also had a torrential downpour this week that turned our already suffering pool water into literal ditch-water!  Seriously, it was turning green and was full of debris.  On the upside, the water level was extremely low after the big freeze, and the rain gave us a free refill.  However, the water was nasty!  Hubby had to spend a couple of days cleaning the pool, replacing the broken plumbing pipes, and getting the equipment running again.  Once the pump was running for a while, it took care of a lot of the discoloration in the water.  But we discovered more pool damage from the freeze, unfortunately.

The high-end pool heater that we’ve already had rebuilt was heavily damaged.  The freezing water caused a crack in the manifold of the heater.  ARGH!  It’s $2,000 for a new pool heater.  This is the worst news of all.

In addition, the frozen line to our robotic pool cleaner (which we’ve affectionately dubbed “Perkins”) sprung a big leak at one of the snap joints, which is preventing it from moving around and doing its job of cleaning the bottom of the pool.  I went to Leslie’s Pool Supplies today and got the part ($25) and also had them do a pool water test for us to see what we needed to do to recover this nasty water after the pool being down for a couple of weeks.  It actually wasn’t in too bad of shape, surprisingly.  Phosphates were high, which feeds algae.  Calcium hardness was actually low for a change, which can damage pool surfaces and heater equipment.  We have really hard tap water here, so it’s usually the opposite problem.  But the quick fix was a gigantic 25-lb. bucket of calcium at a cost of $50.  We shall see.  Between pumping all the debris through the filter and adding the calcium, the pressure shot way up, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that. 

To get the pool pumping despite the cracked heater, he bypassed the heater altogether for now.  When we get that replaced, no one knows.  But that means no more nights in the spa, which is a shame.  We usually use it at least once every weekend.  And wouldn’t you know I just paid to fill the propane tank right before the big freeze?!?

Eventually, hubby ran out of daylight working on the pool.  He plans to replace that connector on Perkins tomorrow afternoon.  I will probably add some shock to help clear up the pool if the color is still off.  This pool sure has cost us a ton of money over the last 4 years!

Here’s to a better week that hopefully feels a little bit more normal…

The Storm of the Century

I have to say that I would have totally enjoyed the snow and ice that hit Fort Worth this week…it would have reminded me so much of all my years of living in Virginia Beach.  I’ve missed my VA winters!  But this was snowmageddon…not because of the amount of snow, but because the temperature got so low, and TX shut off power! 

My 2 youngest kids went for a walk in the snow that first morning, and then my adult son grabbed my teenage daughter, and they took off for his girlfriend’s house where they had power.  We never saw either one of them again until Friday afternoon, long after we had power again!  They were no help at all with what was to come.  But it was just as well…it was easier to manage the difficult circumstances with just 3 people.

 

The independent TX power grid was on the brink of collapse, so ERCOT, the, energy control board. decided they had to do more than just controlled rolling blackouts…they turned us off and left us that way!  It went out at 2 AM Monday morning, and they didn’t even try to turn it back on until 4:30 PM Wednesday evening.  But it turned out there was a feeder line problem in our neighborhood, and Oncor had to come out and troubleshoot one street at a time.  At around 6:30 PM, the other side of our street got power, but we were still in the dark.  Finally, our power returned at 11:30 PM Wednesday night…after about 70 straight hours of no power.  No power equals no heat, and the low temperature the first night was 3 degrees.  The second night, it got down to –2 degrees…a record low in about 70 years!  The wind chill was –15 degrees!  It was insane.  We were SOOO cold.  Our house inside got down to 41 degrees. 

My husband built us a makeshift shelter around the fireplace, and that was all we had for warmth.  All of my fish in my kitchen fish tank died the very first night.  So sad!  I’ve had them since we moved here almost 4 years ago.  We had the two living room couches inside our little tent.  We had no idea the power outage was going to last so long.  We ran out of firewood a couple of times and had to resort to trimming trees, picking up uncut logs from downed trees from generous neighbors and chopping them up, and picking up twigs from the yard.  We got so we couldn’t have it burning during the day to ensure we had warmth to sleep by.  I kept water boiling on the propane grill for oatmeal each morning, noodle cups for lunch, and hot beverages to keep us warm inside.  I ran out of propane on the third day and had to go on a hunt for a store that still had propane for sale…everybody and their brother was out trying to buy propane!  Finally found some at Ace Hardware.  We ran down our van battery the first night trying to charge devices overnight.  Hubby started my car parked next to it in the garage to jumpstart it, and a gasket blew out on the car and leaked oil everywhere!  So he pushed my van into the driveway and jumpstarted it with his car.  By the 3rd day when we couldn’t get warm with the fire any more, I spent most of the day sitting in my van with the heater on!  I drove around looking for gasoline, and places were nearly out of gas.  I had to get premium at the Walmart Neighborhood Market.  That’s all they had left. 

Also, the rehabilitation center was closed, so I missed my two physical therapy sessions for my shoulder!  Not good after having surgery to remove scar tissue…not moving it afterwards means more scar tissue can form!  I’d just had my stitches out and needed to remove the sterile strips and wash the incisions on Monday, but we had no way to bathe.  I ended up going to a neighbor’s house on the other side of the neighborhood where they had power to wash on Tuesday night.  Poor hubby and son went from Sunday until Thursday before they could bathe and change clothes! 

  

We had put all of our refrigerator and freezer food outside to keep it cold.  We lost some, but not a lot, so we were smart to keep it outside.  I kept thermometers in the appliances in the garage to monitor the temperature, and those did fine. 

We were on our way to sleep when the power finally came back on.  I popped up screeching with joy and started cleaning up everywhere.  We had broken glass on carpet and things we couldn’t even see to clean up during the week.  I started laundry and ran the dishwasher.  I cleaned out the fridge so it would be ready to restock with food.  I rushed around long enough to wait for hot water so we can could bathe before going to bed, and at about 2:30 AM Thursday morning, we finally got to sleep in our own bed!  It was funny, because our gel mattress topper had frozen solid during the week.  It was as hard as a rock!  We had to thaw it out with an electric blanket before getting into bed.

We only had frozen pipes during the outage in one of the master bathroom sinks.  Steve was able to thaw them out with candles.  When the power came on, we checked outside, and the above ground plumbing to the pool equipment had burst!  Too bad…we just spent $1,000 getting all of that replumbed.  Steve is hoping that he can fix it himself.  We recently canceled our pool maintenance contract, so we no longer get a discount for repairs.  Steve and Holden had tried to keep breaking up the ice in the pool every day to keep it from causing damage to the tile, but it was futile.  The ice had gotten 3 inches thick, and you could walk on it!  We are waiting for the warmer weather to come and melt everything so we can turn on the equipment and see if everything still works, but we won’t be able to keep it on until we get the plumbing fixed.  I’m sure we’ll need lots of chemicals to balance the water chemistry when we finally get it all up and running again!

It was a crazy week.  When things reopened on Thursday, I was able to make up my therapy appointments on Thursday morning and Saturday morning.  That was great.  My shoulder was tighter than we’d hoped it would be 2 weeks after surgery, but definitely something we could work with. 

Even after we got power on, we found out we had to boil water to make it safe.  That got lifted this weekend, so that was a relief.  They said half of TX had a boil water order.  There are so many water main breaks, and water treatment plants had lost power, as well.  People died in burning homes trying to keep themselves warm with unconventional methods, and many people were treated for hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning in their own homes.  There are so many busted pipes and damaged homes.  TX has been declared a federal disaster area.  Folks will definitely need help with the burden of insurance claims and deductibles.  It’s a mess.

I’m so glad things are getting back to normal.  The roads are a little better each day, and with the upcoming warmup, we should melt out pretty quickly.  Back to  typical TX early spring weather next week!

Surgery Recovery, 2nd COVID Vaccine, and Impending Snow

I had two passive physical therapy sessions this week, and it seemed to go well.  I made progress already.  My therapist said he hoped my surgeon would release me early from the sling so I could start actively using my arm and at least getting it swinging while walking.  That was a struggle after the last surgery because it had already become frozen.

Between those two appointments, I went for my 2nd dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday.  The county sent me half an hour away this time, and I had to drive in my sling.  Thankfully, they let me park in the ADA parking lot, so I didn’t have to maneuver the big parking garage with one hand to steer.  The line of vehicles was very long, and the standing line inside was very long, too.  It was a smooth operation, though, and it went off without a hitch.  I was observed for 30 minutes in case of adverse reaction, and then I was free to go.  I felt fine until about bedtime, and then I had body aches like I was coming down with the flu.  I felt a little flushed, and my temp had gone up by 1.2 degrees.  I went to bed and had terrible chills and sweated right through my clothes.  My husband said I thrashed around in the bed all night and knocked over my water in the bed 3 times!  He ended up working from home the next day because he said he needed to sleep in!  LOL.  My arm was a little sore at the injection site, but not painful like the first shot.  I continued feeling bad with body aches the following day, but by Thursday, I felt just fine like nothing had happened.  In any case, I’m thankful and relieved to be fully vaccinated, and I know I’ve got two more weeks before I’ll reach maximum protection with a 94.1% efficacy rate.

I had my post-op appointment with my surgeon on Thursday.  I had to reschedule to the afternoon due to really bad icing overnight that had caused a 133-vehicle pileup on I-20 just outside of the downtown area, which is where my orthopedic office is located.  Thankfully, I made it in the same day.

 

Dr. Dolce was very pleased with how the incisions looked and with the passive range of my arm.  He had the nurse remove my stitches, so now I have to keep steri-strips on until Monday, and then I’m good.  He said I could go ahead and ditch the sling unless I’m gonna be in the car or need to rest my shoulder as the day wears on.  He said I was cleared to switch to active therapy this next week, and he gave me two stretches I can start doing to increase my range of motion.  Both the therapist and the surgeon said that my shoulder blade is still engaging too soon when moving my arm forward, but they both agreed that it has improved a lot from how it was before surgery.

He also went over my surgery photos with me.  They put me out of the outpatient surgery center so quickly that he said he missed seeing us afterwards to let us know how it went, so we talked about it at my appointment.  He said I had an incredible amount of scar tissue from my previous surgery…it was everywhere and was thick…and then he showed me how inflammatory tissue was growing attached on top of the scar tissue.  And the labrum, which originally had lots of small tears and was debrided during the first surgery, also had lots of scar tissue and inflammatory tissue on it.  It was a hot mess!  Even my new bursa (the previous one was removed during the 1st surgery) was already inflamed!  So I truly was chronically inflamed, and since scar tissue does not disappear on its own, it means I would never have gotten better without surgery, and it makes me feel better about my decision to go ahead with the second surgery.  I feel vindicated for all the struggles I’ve had for the last 15 months!  He said they removed all the scar tissue and inflammatory tissue and cleaned things up and then freed up the joint capsule so they could manipulate my arm through full range of motion during surgery.  He said it looked good when they were done.

Dr. Dolce wants me to continue taking Aleve twice a day for another month to help with inflammation.  He wants me to come back and see him again in 6 weeks.  All should be healed by then.

The wrench in the plan is that we have two back-to-back winter storms moving in this week that are expected to bring record-breaking low temperatures and significant snowfall for North Texas.  Icing is expected tonight, switching to snow all day Sunday into the wee hours of Monday.  A second storm front is expected to bring even more snow on Tuesday/Wednesday, and temperatures are not expected to rise above freezing until Friday afternoon! 

All that snow and ice in an area that can go many years without any snow at all means bad roads, accidents, and things shutting down.  I would not be surprised at all if both of my physical therapy appointments this week get canceled!  That’s not good at all.

Meanwhile, I’m going to sit back and enjoy the snow.  Wind chills are expected to be as low as –15 degrees F!  This reminds me of VA winter weather, and I can’t say I’m sorry to see it.  I’ve missed my snow!

I’ll leave you with a picture of the lovely acrylic paint-by-number painting I just completed today.  I love the cute little fox!

Stay safe and warm, and enjoy your Valentine’s weekend! <3

Shoulder Surgery #2

So I had my second left shoulder surgery yesterday…arthroscopic capsular release with limited debridement and manipulation under anesthesia. They called me in the morning and asked me to come in two hours earlier than my scheduled time because the surgeon needed to rearrange the order of his surgeries, so I scrambled to get ready and head up there.  I was glad to be going sooner, though.  Sitting around and waiting to go is the worst!  I had enough anxiety already.

I have no idea how the surgery went.  My husband wasn’t allowed in the patient recovery area due to COVID restrictions, and my surgeon never made it out to talk to either one of us.  I guess I’ll get the rundown at my post-op appt on Thursday.

When I got home, though, I noticed that my right wrist was really painful.  I knew the nurse had placed the IV in the back of my right hand, so I asked my husband to remove whatever dressing was on my hand.  When he pushed up my sleeve, we discovered my entire wrist was completely wrapped up repeatedly with an ace bandage and gauze.  Once he got it all removed, my wrist was swollen and painful on both sides, and we could see about 8 different needle marks along my wrist bone and hand!  Holy cow!  I”m guessing that either the IV failed during surgery and they had a hard time securing a new location, or they had trouble drawing blood for my platelet-rich plasma injection that I was getting during surgery.  I’m guessing it was the IV.  Nurses always struggle to get a good IV on me.  I was surprised she got it on the first try, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it failed.  It’s happened so many times before.  At my last surgery, it was delayed over an hour because it took that long just to get the IV placed.

Everything was going well in terms of pain management.  I had a nerve block with an infusion pump that was supposed to last 3 days.  I had that before.  That’s all I use for pain…just some limited numbing to take the edge off.  I am not a fan of narcotic pain meds and refuse to take them.  I made it through last time without them and planned to do the same with this surgery.  But then today, just 24 hours after surgery, the tubing pulled out of the valve and wouldn’t go back in without leaking.  So the numbing medication was just leaking all over me and not going into my neck.  The Surgicare center failed to put the anesthesiologist’s information on my discharge papers, so I had no way to reach him.  I called the infusion pump company since the papers said to call them with any problems with the pump.  They said I shouldn’t re-insert the tube in case of contamination, and that I should shut it off until I could contact the anesthesiologist.  They said they had not been provided with his info, either, so they told me to call Surgicare.  I called, but they were closed until Monday.  Ugh!  They specifically told me not to call the surgeon, but he was the only person with contact info on my discharge papers, so I called his after hours service.  They tried 3 or 4 times to reach him and left messages, but he wasn’t answering.  After a couple of hours, he finally called me back.  He apologized that his phone had died and was charging in another room.  He told me to try reinserting the tube but said that if it didn’t work and continued leaking, then we should abandon it and remove the catheter.  So we tried, but it leaked all over me, so we had to give it up!  He said only the anesthesiologist could fix or replace the whole thing, and no one knew how to reach him, so he suggested I abandon it and switch to narcotic pain meds so soon after surgery.  I asked him if I could take Aleve.  He told me to take 2 and still take the Norco if I needed it.  I took two Aleve and decided to try toughing it out with just my ice machine for relief tonight.  I figured if I can make it through tonight, it should start to get better.  The 2nd night after surgery was the most intense pain last time, so if I can make it to tomorrow, I should be good.  It doesn’t hurt nearly as intensely as the previous surgery, so I think I’ll be okay.

What a mess!  Tomorrow, we have to remove the surgical dressing, place a fresh dressing, and cover it with waterproof bandaids.  After that, I can get help with showering and washing my hair.  I’ve just had it braided out of the way since I left for surgery yesterday.  It’s so icky to not be able to wash it! 

Monday, I will start physical therapy.  Tuesday, I get my 2nd Moderna COVID vaccine.  Wednesday, I have physical therapy again and have to take my daughter to her pediatrician to be tested for exercise-induced asthma.  Thursday, I see my surgeon for my post-op appt.  I’ll be in a sling for 2 weeks and will continue therapy for 6 weeks.  It’s supposed to be all healed after 6 weeks.  We shall see!  I really hope this works, because this surgery is costing me another $4,000-$5,000.  I had to pay $3,125 yesterday just for the facility fee.  Thank goodness for Care Credit!  I’ll be able to pay it out over 24 months interest-free.  I still had a year left to pay on my 1st surgery, but I paid it off on Thursday so I could have a manageable monthly payment.

Wish me luck!