Day 277 – Pills and Projects

In the last week, Jeff managed to goof up his pills twice.  On Saturday evening, when his pill box should have had two evening pills left for the week, he had no Saturday pills left at all.  However, his Wednesday evening box still had two.  He thinks he missed the Wednesday evening pills altogether and then took evening pills twice on Friday night!  The evening pills are only prophylactic anti-viral and anti-fungal so it was probably no big deal.  We both laughed about it but vowed to pay attention to what he takes each morning.  It might cause a problem to goof up his Prednisone doses.

Jeff has successfully tapered to 20 mg of Prednisone per day.  He will stay on that dosage until he sees Dr. Porter again in a couple of weeks.  Dr. Porter had said that side effects will diminish at 20 mg so, hopefully, Jeff will have relief soon from the cramping in his fingers, weak leg muscles, puffy face, gargantuan appetite, etc.  He has been tired lately but I don’t know whether that is due to the Prednisone.

On Monday morning, Jeff carried his latest project downstairs to the shop in case the podiatrist caused him too much pain to carry it down after his appointment.  Dr. Schnitzer had previously instructed Jeff to trim his nails straight across but the “baby,” ingrown big toenail required careful trimming on an angle.  Dr. Schnitzer is a kidney transplant patient so the two of them compared war stories.  Dr. Schnitzer was very concerned about Jeff’s condition and suggested he look up Cushing’s Syndrome, a risk of long-term steroid use.  Jeff wondered whether he was suggesting Jeff should allow his GVHD to run amok.  Jeff called me at work with a report on the visit, “I paid $25 to have two toenails trimmed.”  At least they don’t hurt.

Jeff’s truck was in the shop for several days for some warranty repairs on the transmission.  We were doing some car-sharing. I car-pooled with a co-worker for a couple of days so he could have my car.  Keith and I were driving home from Rider one night when I asked him to call his dad.  I knew Jeff was preparing homemade pizzas and that he hadn’t had a car to run out for ingredients.  Keith asked his dad whether he needed us to stop for supplies.  No.  Jeff had everything we needed.  Keith hung up the phone as we turned onto our street. 

As we neared our house, I told Keith that Dad did our laundry and noticed that my pants needed to be hemmed.  He took care of those pants right away!  I would have kept a pile of mending to take care of when there were several things to repair.  I related a conversation Jeff and I had had.  I remarked that Jeff was a better homemaker than I ever was when I was working part-time.  Jeff had been nice enough to say, “You were taking care of children, too, though.”  I told Keith that his dad was always the kind of guy who would fix something as soon as he sees the need.  I pulled into the driveway and pushed the remote to open the garage door.  As if on cue, Jeff’s wheelbarrow came into view behind the garage door, occupying the space where the truck is usually parked.  It was disassembled, the tub inverted on sawhorses and freshly painted.  Keith said, “Like a wheelbarrow, for example?”

That impulse to fix things sometimes wanes mid-project.  We have about 40 bathroom floor tiles which have been marked with X’s.  They have been that way for about a week and we have gotten sort of used to the look which is reminiscent of chicken footprints.  The marked tiles are, I am told, going to be replaced.  I have faith that they will be, someday. 

Yesterday Kerry & Theresa had settlement on their new house.  They presented Jeff with a key.  I wonder which projects will appeal to Jeff first – our floor tiles or something at the new house.  We’ll see!