How is everyone in the current situation? General Chat

Three things.

1 - Marc @who owns who - you need a hug, so here is a virtual one

2 - Gareth @BronsonTheBulldog - please do not let that get the better of you.

3 - Everyone else - I hope you are all OK. I was AWOL yesterday because I was not very well and am now trying to catch up while I feel up to it.

I hope you feel better soon.

Thank you Carole. I am not ill, as such, although the face I see in the mirror would contradict that statement - it is just a combination of the dry cough caused by the BP pills I take [which Olga changed three times to a different type with no success] - the cough mainly starting when I lay down at night but also when I talk much - and these days I rarely see anyone to talk to, just Tikki, so when I do talk I cough - and diabolical hayfever as our lockdown started before Nir had had a chance to spray my yards before the weeds started appearing. So the weeds have not only appeared but are shooting up at a rapid rate.

Unfortunately the back window in my bedroom which is just above my head behind my bed, has yellow rape weeds and grasses growing half way up it outside, and the pollen comes through the trissim and the screens. The grasses are also quite bad outside the side window in that room but that is a smaller window and higher up, so not quite so bad. The windows are open day and night although of course I close the trissim at night, but keeping the windows closed is not really an option.

So coughing on and off all night means not sleeping too well, which plays havoc with my ancient joints, as well as giving me not exactly a sore throat, more sore lower down. My eyes are red and streaming from hayfever and sneezing, my nose is sore from having to continuously blow it, and I am thoroughly fed up with just about everything.

Apart from that, everything is fine B"H !!

I appreciate your sentiments but honestly I am not particularly brave, I just have a job that’s considered essential, if I were to quit I wouldn’t get any unemployment, so I’m stuck. I am like a soldier in that I’m stuck on the front lines with little protection, having been drafted, not a volunteer. Thus left feeling like a pawn.

Thank you both for your well wishes on being careful up on the roof. I first have to tear of the old one and raise a few walls to adjust the tilt. That I’m not concerned about doing on my own. Rebuilding the new roof I want someone around to help and just incase.... If I have help on that part I won’t be as tempted to try something dangerous on my own.

My neighbors son drove past an hour ago to visit his mom. We chatted from a distance for a few minutes. He’s an artist and tattoo artist who’s not able to work now, and as self employed, still trying to get unemployment. I think I will ask him if he’d be interested in some work, when I’m ready. He’s a good kid, early 30’s, I’ve known him since he was 4 or 5.

@Malka, You have my sympathy on the allergies. I don’t have them where I live now, but had horrible allergies where I grew up. I got shots for them as a child, don’t know if they really helped much. My nose would be raw in the spring and the fall too. Sometimes so bad I’d stay home from school. I’m lucky in that where I chose to move doesn’t have those pollens I am allergic too. I do have a sore tooth that I won’t be able to have looked at anytime soon. I’ve been cleaning it by using coconut oil to pull out bacteria and following that with salt and hydrogen peroxide. During the night it really hurt and I pushed and scraped the gum with my fingernail and the combo of it all has brought me some relief, thankfully. I do hope you can get someone to knock down the weeds soon

Brushing out and bathing my dogs has been a good distraction over the past 2 days. It takes a long time to brush out an Akita, especially a squirming little girl, who tries to run away. Their coats are thick and water repellent so it takes some time to just get them wet enough to shampoo, and then a long time to rinse it out. The low flow shower head doesn’t help much either. I do it in the bathtub so they can’t escape. The whole bathroom gets a cleaning afterwards, as they’ve shaken out in there and gotten everything wet, including me.

We go to the Vets in an hour for Heartworm shots. They will come out to the parking lot to get them.

I am getting so fed up with this almost non-stop coughing and my voice is so hoarse that it seemed to frighten Tikva when I got her up this morning. I usually talk and/or sing to her quite a lot during the day but just talking makes me cough and it hurts now.

Just to lighten the mood...

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I hope your cough soon settles Juli, - I suppose you are already taking an antihistamine. If not, phone the doctor, or your knight in orange armour!

The cough is basically a side effect from the BP medication, exacerbated by the worst attack of hay fever ever. And yes, I have been taking prescription antihistamines for years to try and avoid the major allergic reactions that sometimes hit me for no apparent reason. That is why I always have a supply of Prednisone and three Epipens. But I also have some homeopathic sublingual tablets - not helping the cough much but they now seem to be helping my eyes from itching and watering so much, also help stop my nose from dripping.

As for telephoning the doctor - Olga, who was lovely, left and we have a new doctor. I have not seen her as I just telephone Shula, our nurse, when I need a new 'scrip. She speaks to the doctor who then puts a 'scrip for four months on the computer, which can be filled at any pharmacy when my Health Fund card is swiped through. Amit keeps my card and gets my meds for me.

Angonnaminnim - "orange" armour? Shining armour more like, although at the moment it is Home Front Command khaki! Or maybe he is doing his Yello Ninja act again?

Oh dear. I knew he wasn't in yellow any more - thought he was in emergency orange.

No, Home Front Command is IDF so he is in khaki army uniform, with a red sleeveless stab vest thingy with all the walkie-talkie radio and other wotsits all over it!

OK, so I am taking part in two daily anonymous online surveys. The Weizmann Institute researchers are collaborating with health authorities to constantly map the spread of Corona virus and to protect everyone by helping them predict and locate Corona hot-spots as well as reach infected people faster, by evaluating how many people in the area have developed Corona symptoms.

They are both tick boxes questionnaires, one being about the person's physical health, the other more about mental health, how a person is feeling about certain things. Not really much use when symptoms of severe hay fever fit into most of the tick boxes on the physical health questionnaire, but it does pick up on certain ones and a few more questions pop up. Both are absolutely anonymous, so I am not sure how they can do any predictions regarding hot-spot areas although the first one does ask age, gender, and which town you live in. I just put "on a Moshav" so I am just down as "78 year old female on a moshav" although I am sure they can check my IP address to know where I live but am not particularly bothered about that.

Anyhow, the first survey asks you to take your temperature each day, so there was I this morning with a thermometer stuck under my tongue, when one of the girls from the macolet came down the path to ask if I needed anything. Luckily I saw her so hurriedly put the thing down hoping she had not noticed, as the last thing I want is for stories to go around that I am ill!

It has been so quiet on here for the last couple of days - I do hope everyone is OK.

@CaroleC - how is Eddie's eye? Any signs of improvement yet?

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Not much.


I had an emailed conversation with his vet this morning. She thinks that as it is not responding, he is going to need to have corneal debridement and his third eyelid stitching across to promote healing. However, as he is comfortable, she says that it can wait until things are back to a 'new' normal.
She says to discontinue his antibiotic drops, and just continue with the lubricant products - over the counter Blink eye drops, (which seem to contain more sodium hyaluronate than other dry eye drops), and Viscotears. These are the things that have been the most successful at keeping him comfortable. She also says to continue holding off his sulfasalazine - or just to give a low dose if it becomes necessary.
I have half a salad drawerful of part-used and unused eye drops and gels in my fridge, perhaps I will need some of them after his op., - not the ones that he was allergic to of course.
I think if anything was going to work, I'm sure it would have done so by now. He has been such a good boy, but he won't look quite as pretty as we hoped when we take his birthday photo next week! It is disappointing, but as for Eddie, he says he is, 'Not bovvered'.

Poor Eddie. I'm glad he's comfortable though Carole.

Blimey this total isolation lark is blooming boring. I'm sure they've thrown more hours in the day than before the virus came to visit.

Rosie is still getting her exercise albeit in the garden. I think she'll be over the moon when we can get out for a proper walk though.

Ah well, needs must

You are not wrong about isolation being boring Chris - I am getting desperate for someone to talk to who will answer more than just a . I honestly do not know how I would cope without Tikki but I really do need another human being with whom to have a conversation. [Not sure if I have worded that correctly]

I had a mad craving for ice-cream this afternoon but what with the usual Friday rush at the macolet before it closed early for Shabbat, I could hardly telephone Hai to send me some over. Also really fancied some cheese and onion crisps...

It's the walks I'm missing more than anything. That and our coffee at Mcd's, not really for the coffee, but we tend to meet up with a lot of folk we've come to know there.

I know what you mean about conversation. Of course, I have my hubby, but it's not the same as the daily natter with friends outside the home.

All the little things we usually take for granted. I wonder how long it will be before we ever take anything for granted again

I desperately need to keep up what fitness I have. I have breathing problems and an arthritic hip, and have been told that at my age I am unlikely to be offered surgery, so I can't risk losing muscle if I'm going to be able keep running round those show rings - when they do come back. I saw that a show scheduled for mid August had been cancelled this week. This is my justification for my mile and a half dog walks each day. If I choose my routes and times, I don't meet many people, and I don't let the hounds run free, just in case.
Shopping is weird experience though. It is like learning a new game, and having to remember the rules. Only one person per family admitted, examine items with your eyes only before choosing, and not to get too close to anyone else. Nobody seems to chat any more, so I end up talking to myself likes batty old lady. Yes agreed, I am one.
I miss my shows, my friends, and pub grub!
Edited to say, - and same day vet's appointments for non emergencies!

I am not being pessimistic but I doubt it will be in my lifetime.

@CaroleC - how is a person supposed to choose vegetables and fruit - assuming they are being sold loose and not in packs, if you can only look at them and not touch them? Or even compare packets and/or tins if you cannot pick them up to check ingredients and/or nutritional value?

For example, I have no problem asking Hai to send me six bananas or four avocados because he knows the size and degree of ripeness that I like in both, but how can I ask for tomatoes? I know what I want when I look at them but it is almost impossible to describe exactly what it is I do want. Same with size of aubergines and other vegetables. Buying online, much as I do not like the waste in packaging I am having to get what I want in packs, not loose, because the contents in packs shown on Shufersal's website are exactly what they show and it give me an idea of how many items in each pack. Loose I would have to say how many kilos and how do I know how many, say, tomatoes, there are in a kilo?

Anyhow, if you are a batty old lady, then join the club! I am now not only talking to Tikki but to all sorts of inanimate objects, such as going to the refrigerator and asking it what I have opened it for...... apologising to things when I bump into them......apart from the usual going into a room and then asking it if it knows what I had gone in there for.

I dunno - maybe I was always batty but am only just realising it?