John had an annual medical physical scheduled for Tuesday at 2 P.M. and then the return drive from Cle Elum. We might have gone for a short physical therapy walk up the driveway but with him on his return he brought the infamous Valley wind – from the northwest and off the snow covered Cascade Mountains. When he got home the temperature was 63o F and an hour later it was 53o F with sustained wind at 37 mph and gusts to 46 mph. He (John) bundled up and went out to give the horses hay.
We didn’t go for the short walk up the driveway as on previous days, and that was fine with me. Monday’s trip was a bit much. The first 40 yards of the driveway is up a slight grade, not much, but noticeable. I didn’t take the walker and so used John as support but that meant I didn’t have a place to sit and rest as we went. While I can walk, fast and far are not part of the descriptors – slow and exhausting fit. In the Rehab physical terror room they monitor my heart rate and when it passes 85 bpm we stop, it drops, and we start again. I tried to mimic this routine but without a continuous monitor I was going just be my sensing my heart rate. I made it to the road (about 100 yards) and back. That was enough to do me for two days. I was saved by the cold west wind today.
Much of my time these two days was taken with routine and not so routine computer chores. I wasted a lot of time repairing access to Safari on my university account. First, before finding out I had been denied access because of more than 3 attempts to get to my account with the wrong password, I took the advice of the Help Desk and deleted Windows Explorer 8 from my system, added Vers. 7, and then had to download and install all new XP security updates. What a pain. When that didn’t help I then learned of the 3-bad-tries-and-you-are-blocked rule. I did NOT have to go through all the other at all and I’m back to having an old version of Explorer installed too. Bummer.
Much of the rest of Monday was spent learning again how to put a web page out on my site – I use a server in Texas. I wanted to upload information John collected and photographed for the weather station and include air photos taken by a friend. I was busy for several hours getting the package “just right” and going back and forth with a couple of friends on the procedure – including clickable thumbnails to link to the large image files. Soon this info will join over 1,000 others in a weather station atlas for the country. http://www.surfacestations.org/
We had a call from the doctor’s office that my insurance provider approved the out-patient physical therapy from the place where I was. I only have till March 31, to complete those. It will also require a co-pay of $25 / visit. Once I am more sure of myself and things I should be doing, it might be cheaper to join a health club for a few months. We’ll see.