How is everyone in the current situation? General Chat

Marc - you more than just "over did" it - you went way OTT over-doing it! Trying to demolish a house by yourself. Please do not try to do so much and take things a bit slower. It has exhausted me just by reading your post, so Heaven only knows how much it must be exhausting for you.

It is a pity that your eyes are still light sensitive but at least you now have a spare pair - plus you have the old ones if necessary for doing your construction work to save your new lenses from getting scratched.

As an old biddy who has to wear sunglasses and a peaked hat in winter who looks a prat, I can well sympathise with light sensitivity

Sounds a BIG job Marc.
We self-built our bungalow in the early 70's. We were young and fit then, but it was two years of hard graft!

I have prescription sunglasses for when going out on The Silver Monster, my bifocals have graduated tinted lenses, which are quite dark at the top but fade down to the bifocal line, but my computer spectacles and the ones I keep in the kitchen for mid-distance food prepping and cooking have clear lenses. All have an anti-glare coating.

My glasses have all the gubbins too.

They are varifocals so all in one distance/computer/reading lenses. The also react to the light and darken up to sunglasses, but when it's bright, I swap them over for my bigger polarised sunglasses. Even then I now need the peak on the cap to keep out the rest of the glared. My eyes see straight lines as wonky now so it gets a bit disorientating at times (macular degeneration).

How's the virus situation now? We got the kids back to school on the 8th and the plan is that every 5 weeks we open a little bit more, but with the alarming rise in numbers in Europe, things may be delayed. I can't imagine that foreign holidays will be allowed this year. At least I hope not

I cannot have varifocal lenses Chris due to both eyes being totally different, astigmatic at different angles, and one being long-sighted, one short-sighted and what they used to call a "lazy eye" that does not want to focus a lot of the time. I also need full lenses for the computer and for food prepping or anything else that is mid-distance.

I did have the light sensitive ones for a couple of years but decided I preferred to have graduated tint for normal wear and prescription sunglasses for when I am out.

Supposedly quite good as so many people have been vaccinated - everyone over 16 can have them if they want. I have given up checking numbers and am not even reading our newspapers much, mainly because when I do I am drawn to the comments and tbh the amount of mis-information, screams of the virus being a hoax, anti-vaxxers screaming about it being a conspiracy to reduce populations - all that rubbish - was not doing my BP much good.

Restrictions on a lot of things have been lifted but as none of it affects me I really have not taken much notice. After having been sheltering in my home for over a year now, I feel like I am living in an alternative universe.

I am stuck in a position whereby if I am prepared to take the risk [according to my doctor] - and I have to make the choice whether to take the risk or not - I will be taken by ambulance to a special clinic where there are immunologist/allergist specialists on hand, given the vaccination, kept for four or so hours, and then brought home.

But. I live alone, and even though I have my Epipens of course, plus my emergency button, the knowledge that a severe allergic reaction could occur after I am brought home, makes it - as my doctor said - a risk that I have to decide for myself. The general recommendation however, is still that people with a medical history of severe anaphylactic reactions to any medications should not have the vaccination.

Last time Ram was here he said that his mother, who is 82 or 83 and who also has a similar medical history, has had both vaccinations and was fine. But she does not live alone. On the other hand, Amit's son, who is in the army, is not being vaccinated because of his medical history.

So what do I do? I have no intention of going anywhere even if fully vaccinated. I do not need to as I can get everything I need delivered. And to me, to take the risk after sheltering for so long, means that this last year will have been totally wasted.

I won't be venturing anywhere until three weeks after I have the second injection and then it will only be very carefully.

I know if I get the virus I'm dead as I have breathing problems anyway so it will be very slowly does it for us

We do go for a walk every morning, but to a place with plenty of space and where very few go so it is pretty safe.

We've just yesterday got two weeks of mail delivered as 30 post office staff at our local office have been off. 3 with the virus, the rest having to isolate as they were in contact with them. This thing is a long way from over yet

My sunglasses fell off my head yesterday as I was walking and landed right where my foot was about to hit the ground and I squashed them .

so I had to get a new pair out which I had . They’re actually safety glasses , and made a bit of a spectacle of myself.

Were you wearing them or were they on top of your head? As for your final sentence I have just one thing to say...

​

Yep fell off the top of my head ,
They are the ones from the work safety shop and are about less than 5$ a pair from memory.i like to keep spare pairs about.
They still work and look well and are rated for our Australian Uv suns rays and impact resistant (the glass)
They’re the way to go. No big financial loss.

@Malka, I have help, my friend has been doing the harder part of the demolition. Demolition is over 90% complete. He is out of town for a week plus so I will try and take a load a day to the dump, but not tomorrow. I took 3 days off as suggested and just cleaned up some plywood and redwood 2x4’s that are worth repurposing, today, my first day back at it. The redwood is much nicer than what you can buy now in the lumber yard. I took out the old nails and screws, thought this wasn’t that physical of a job, but I’m pretty much tired and was a little light headed again afterwards. I dislike having limitations on what I can do and since I’m not working now I need something to keep me busy, but obviously need to be careful how much I do. I don’t want this to linger. I am actually supposed to push myself and then back off if I do too much, I'm just struggling to find the right balance. I was quite pleased with how much I’d been able to do and so was the physical therapist. She was impressed that I was able to work up on the 2nd story roof taking off the shingles and plywood without it bringing on any of my symptoms. It is nervy working that high up, especially close to the edges, but that had nothing to do with the concussion. I was pleased I was able to do this too. I will try 3 hours a day with a break halfway for a few days and see how I do with that

Thank you for your well wishes Andrew. Break a bone, tear a ligament, there are general time lines for recovery, but a traumatic brain injury is a whole different ballgame. I guess mine was more severe than I’d like to think it was and I have no idea how long I was unconscious. This project has gotten me excited, and I’ve needed that, but I guess I went a little to strong to start. Will have to ease my way back in. Before all this I could work 50+ hours a week. Now I can’t even do 5 hours a day. I need to work more on my patience and less on the project, lol

@who owns who - just be careful please Marc. Whether you dislike having limitations or not, please do not try to do too much at once. Especially if you are going onto roofs. You scare me with just the thought of being high up as I am terrified of heights!

I have just realised that for the first time that I can remember, I will not be able to vote tomorrow. It will be the 4th general election in just a couple of years, and if we do not get a single block government yet again I dread to think what will happen.

Yes, do take care Marc. I would try to have somebody with you when you are working at roof height.
Not Nannying, just saying what I would do.

The roof is long gone, all that’s left is a few walls on the bottom story, and the ceiling above is gone too. Thank you both for your concern. I’m concerned too as it’s been 80 days since my injury. Obviously pretty severe to still be having issues and have symptoms come back after not working more than 5 hours a day. I have been a little slack on doing all my PT exercises at home, but I will be doing them now, maybe split into 3 half hour sessions. I do not want this to linger. The Physical therapist said it’s just a setback and I need to modify what I’m doing. I’m still supposed to push myself some and monitor my symptoms. I rate symptoms on scale of 1-10 before doing something, and if they go up 2 points I stop and wait for a return to baseline.

My old glasses are not worth wearing anymore, they are severely damaged and make my eyes strain.

a bit like a 2 horse race that’s been run 4 times at this point that election by the sounds of it .

I hear there’s accusations afoot and people want bibi gone already .
He hasn’t budged yet a bit like a tick.

Well we are supposed to wear masks up here for now , as of yesterday it started .
For the First time since this began .

Had a couple good walks here today with the dogs ,
The pup got to try some fresh rabbit , so now he knows what those things he occasionally sees and gets wind of are , and taste like .
The older girl has caught a couple before ,
they ate half of the fresh rabbit each they found today crunching it down in a very short time .(delicious fur bones and all)

A tractor with a slasher had been through and cut the grass , and the rabbit may have frozen on the spot rather than run as they sometimes do , I’m guessing .
So we happened upon it laying there and made good use of it .

when we then went to look for rabbits in the grass as we usually do , the pup seemed to have a better understanding and keenness after that .
Mostly we investigate the rabbits to keep their minds busy and make them have an interesting life .
These dogs need and love that kind of thing .
Some of that grass is over 10 ft high easy . So it’s mostly a curiosity sniff.

Starting tomorrow, April 1st, people 50 and older are eligible to be vaccinated in California, which includes me. Starting April 15 everyone over 16 is eligible. They haven’t even done all the people currently eligible and wanting to be vaccinated. This is stupid and all about the optics. There are multiple different places you can try and sign up, instead of just one. There is no way they can set up appointments for everyone between the ages of 50-65 in 15 days, so it’s just going to get increasingly harder to get an appointment. They only book so many at a time.

I just pulled up one site and it says “currently we don’t have enough vaccine supply for everyone who wants one”..

So why keep opening up to larger groups when they can’t even fill the current need

So I was finally able to get an appointment for a vaccination next Monday.