101105 Tuesday

10/11/05 Tuesday
     Well I remember the date this morning without looking in the calendar. That is good. I woke up feeling like I worked all night and wanted to close back my eyes and curl up under the warm blankets. But Cherie had turned on the TV and brought me some Bob coffee, forcing my brain to wake up as I began to listen to the news. She is so cool and that was one of the gentlest wake ups I have had. I wonder if I am fighting something off because of how my head feels.
     Fred called last night and wants to return the shredder he bought yesterday. The phone rang just as I start to write about Fred. It’s Fred. I convinced him to let me look at it before we return it so he’s calling to see if I’m ready to come look at it. “Fred, I have to shower and get moving so I’ll call you when I am done.”
     Sure enough the shredder was just fine, Fred just didn’t understand how to work it and can’t see to read the directions or the one switch. The real problem he had is he didn’t know that the shredder had a switch that activated the motor when you put a piece of paper in it. I showed him how it worked and he evidently was able to shred something but after the paper went through the machine stopped. Hence it is broken. I explained all this and told him that the other shredder that he gave us was the same way and worked fine. He had been plugging and unplugging that shredder for a couple of years when all he had to do was put the paper in.
     With all that done I came up here and started organizing Wayne’s stuff and get out what I would need when I take him to the Zeph Center. I decided I would make copies of these assessments we got from the lawyer and that turned into a big challenge. I scanned and scanned and could not find where they were saved to or anything. Then I run the scanner, faithfully following the directions on the screen, secure in the fact that I will have all four pages together. No and No. Nothing worked but at least I figured out how to save one image at a time and did that painstakingly slow process. I know I had figured all this out before but it’s gone now. It’s is so much fun to  learn the same thing over again like it was the first time you ever saw it.
     At this point I am not to swift. I started that almost two hours ago. Hope I am clear when I take Wayne in. I went ahead and copied the rest of the forms. The lawyer had said he developed these forms himself but one of them was copied right out of a law book because it still had reference and page numbers. He didn’t even have his secretary retype it, just made copies of the copies. One page even still had some former clients name.
     Fred just called again. Now the shredder is broken again. “Maybe we should take it back” he tells me when I walk in. I look at it and immediately see the problem. Fred uses one of those outlet plug ins that give you six plugs for the price of one. The only problem is that the slots where the plug goes in are so close to the edge that Fred had one tang in the outlet and the other exposed along the side of the outlet. With Fred’s blindness he thought he had plugged it in right.
     I explained the problem and plugged the shredder in with confidence that I had saved the day. It didn’t work, the light didn’t come on, and no matter how many times I tried to force paper through and plugged it in to different outlets it wouldn’t work. “Well Fred, I reckon we best be taking this here thing back to the store” I said with resignation. As I began to pack it up I noticed a wee little slot on the bottom of this thing. What was that? I thought and picked it up to look closer. Sure enough it is a safety switch to prevent the shredder from running when it is removed from the basket that catches the shredded paper. I see that the machine could only work if it faced the correct direction and showed Fred how to do it, taking his finger so he could feel the slot and the opening that needs to face forward. I know he can see better with his fingers than his eyes.
     It is time for me to prepare to go to the Zeph Center with Wayne. I need to take my pill early and some aspirin and body ache pills. I am having the ears ringing along with that strange lightheaded feeling where everything feels disconnected. I did eat breakfast so should grab a snack other than the apple crisp that calls me whenever I open the fridge.
     I got Wayne to Zeph and went in with him to see the psych. I told her how I was gathering the medical evidence needed for Wayne’s hearing at social security and asked if she would fill out the assessment of Wayne’s mental status. At first she wasn’t’ sure and when she started looking through the four page assessment she began to ask Wayne questions and filling in the form based on her observations. Many of the questions were identical to some of the verbal tests I have been given such as counting down from 100 by subtracting seven. In the end she completed the assessment and signed it. I asked her to make a copy and put it in his file and she said that was standard procedure.
     I took Wayne out to Kroger after that to get groceries and essentials like toilet paper. Then I took him home. Right now I can’t remember much of the rest of the evening other than I fixed dinner. It was fairly good, smoked sausage and rice with a soup made of whatever I could find in the fridge that either got cooked or tossed.
That’s pretty much it for today.