Tom's Diary

Today’s Activities

• Shower.  DONE.
• Cat duty.  DONE.

Log

05:00 AM: I’m up. 

06:00 AM: Upgraded all of my blog sites to WordPress 3.0.1.  No problems encountered.  This software installation was quick and painless. 

06:20 AM: Disabled post revision saving on all blogs.  Details   here.  I’m going back to bed for a little bit.  Back later.

08:50 AM: I’m up again.  Sister Jojo is coming at around 9:30 AM: to take me to the store.

09:50 AM: Leaving now for   shopping.  Back later.

01:30 PM: I’m back home again from   shopping   and have put the groceries away.

01:55 PM: Updated all WordPress plugins currently utilized by my blogs, to the latest versions. 

02:00 PM: Watching CNN’s   Ballot Bowl   this afternoon. 

04:00 PM: Nap time.  Back later.

04:30 PM: Sister Mary Ann is taking me to visit Mom.  I’ll return in about an hour.

05:30 PM: I’m back home again. Mom was very tired and her stomach was unsettled.  So we didn’t stay but fifteen minutes.  I’ll get up to see her mid-week.

06:50 PM: Watched today’s episodes of CBS’s   Face The Nation   and NBC’s   Meet The Press   news shows on the DVR.

07:30 PM: Watched tonight’s episode of   NBC’s Nightly News   news show on the DVR.

08:00 PM: Sister Mary Ann just called to say that she just finished talking to Mom.  Mom feels much better this evening than she did this afternoon.  Apparently the meds they gave her earlier for her stomach are starting to work. 

08:20 PM: Now watching the   Steelers Vs. the Saints   football game with   [Emmy].

11:30 PM: The Steelers lost.  Darn!  Anyway, I’m off to bed.  More tomorrow.  Take care. 

Tom Hesley

Received Mail and Shipments

No deliveries on Sunday.

Related Posts

• Disabling Post Revisions: WordPress 3.0.1
• Shopping Trip: 2010-10-31
• Today’s Diet: 2010-10-31
• Weight Loss: 2010

11:44 AM: We visited Wal Mart and bought the following items:

• Great Value decaffeinated coffee (4 Lbs.).
• Eggland’s Best eggs (1.5 dozen).
• Blueberries (36 Oz.).
• Organic fat free milk (1 gallon).
• Great Value orange juice (1/2 gallon).
• Baby carrots (2 bags).
• Pur water filter (1) (for   [Emmy]).
• Trashbags (8 gallon bags) (1 container).
• Paper coffee filters (1 bag of them).
• General Mills Cheerios cereal (1 large box).
• Pepperidge Farms pumpernickel bread (3 loaves).
• Onions (3 Lbs.).
• Asparagus (1 Lb.).
• Bananas (2.11 Lbs.).

Total cost: $100.57

Grand total: $100.57

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2010-10-31
• Today’s Business: 2011-01-20

I keep this food diary to stay aware of just how many calories I’m eating daily, with the hope that it decreases the likelihood that I’ll overeat.    It seems to work, so here we go with another day…

Today, I consumed the following items:

• Herbal tea throughout the day. 0 calories.
• 09:45 AM: 2 mugs of decaffeinated coffee and half & half.  300 calories.
• 01:00 PM: 3 blueberry pancakes with butter and blueberry syrup.  1000 calories.
• 02:30 PM: 1 multivitamin.  0 calories.
• 03:30 AM: 2 mugs of decaffeinated coffee and half & half.  300 calories.
• 03:30 PM: Roast beef.  400 calories.
• 06:00 PM: Reese’s peanut butter cups (my last Halloween fling).  1000 calories.
• 09:15 PM: 1 bag of popcorn with Parmesan cheese and olive oil.  500 calories.

Total calories: 3500.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Other Food Diary Entries
• Today’s Business: 2010-10-31
• Weight Loss: 2010

I discovered that WordPress was again saving every revision of every post after I upgraded the   Tom’s Views   blog to WordPress 3.0.1, though I had disabled this feature during the last WordPress upgrade.  Click   here   for more details.  But apparently, in this latest version, the automatic retention of these revisions became enabled once more. So I turned off this feature by commenting out line 4404 in the wp-includes/post.php file as follows:

Line 4404 was:

if ( ! WP_POST_REVISIONS )

but now, it’s:

// if ( ! WP_POST_REVISIONS )

Then I deleted all the revisions that had been saved to this point from each blog database by executing the following SQL statement:

DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = ‘revision’;

I then logged out and back into each site’s admin id and verified that the revisions saved thus far no longer appear on the Edit Post screen. The deletion apparently worked.   These instructions have now been verified to work with WordPress 3.0.1.

That’s all.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Deleting WordPress Post Revisions
• Disabling Post Revisions: 2010-02-17
• Disabling Post Revisions: WordPress 2.8.5
• Disabling Post Revisions: WordPress 2.9.1
• Disabling Post Revisions: WordPress 3.0
• Disabling Post Revisions: WordPress 3.0.4
• Today’s Business: 2010-10-31
• WordPress  Software Refresh: 2010-05-08

Today’s Activities

• Shower.  DONE.
• Cat duty.  DONE.

Log

09:10 AM: I’m up. 

09:30 AM: Put a beef roast in the crock pot for supper tonight.  

01:00 PM: Talked with [Emmy].  We were just keeping each other company this afternoon. Now, it’s nap time.  I’ll be back later.

02:30 PM: I’m awake again.

03:10 PM: Posted the   Mom’s Status: 2010-10-29   piece.

03:40 PM: Posted the   Weekly Backups: 2010-10-30   piece.

05:15 PM: Watched yesterday’s episode of   The Talk.  This is the first time I’ve seen this show, and my first impression of it is not very flattering.  I’d rate it a 7 out of 10 overall.  Now it’s not a bad show, but not particularly engaging either IMHO.  I think it has too many hosts (five of them), who bend over with knee-slapping laughs that appear too contrived, at the drop of a pin.  But, I’ll check it out a few more times to look for improvements.  After all, it is very new.  So they may just need a few months or seasons to get it right.  This is what replaced the   As The World Turns   soap opera in the 2 to 3 PM: timeslot on CBS. 

10:00 PM: Listened to the second half of tonight’s Penguins hockey game with [Emmy] on the phone.  The Pens won, 3 to 0.

10:15 PM: Bed time.  More tomorrow.  Take care.

Tom Hesley

Received Mail and Shipments

• Promo Only’s Country Radio series; the 2010-12 issue.
• Gas bill.
• Medicare Summary Notice for Mom.
• Evidence of Coverage booklet (Mom’s medical insurance) for 2011.

Related Posts

• Today’s Diet: 2010-10-30
• Weight Loss: 2010

Weekly backups of all my blog sites completed.  The details follow: 

• Databases size: 14.3 MB.  That’s up 100 KB from last week.  The record database size remains  15.2 MB. 
• Total data backed up: 89.9 MB.  That’s down  3800 KB from 93.7 MB last week.  Note that this figure includes all databases, site code, static pages, and log files. The record amount of total data saved in a weekly backup remains at 98.0 MB. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2010-10-30

I keep this food diary to stay aware of just how many calories I’m eating daily, with the hope that it decreases the likelihood that I’ll overeat.    It seems to work, so here we go with another day…

Today, I consumed the following items:

• Herbal tea throughout the day. 0 calories.
• 12:00 PM: 2 mugs of decaffeinated coffee with half & half.  300 calories.
• 03:00 PM: Halloween fruit candy.  800 calories.
• 05:30 PM: Roast beef from the crock pot.  800 calories.
• 06:00 PM: 4 Reese’s peanut butter cups.  840 calories.

Total calories: 2740.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Other Food Diary Entries
• Today’s Business: 2010-10-30
• Weight Loss: 2010

Today’s Activities

• Shower.  DONE.
• Cat duty.  DONE.

Log

07:00 AM: I’m up.

08:00 AM:  Posted the   Tom’s Views –>  Why I Will Vote In 2010   piece.

09:00 AM: Vacuumed the downstairs carpets.

10:30 AM: Sister Mary Ann arrived to further clean up this place.

11:00 AM: Then, sister Jojo came as well, and the two of them picked up where I left off on the house cleaning.

12:00 PM: Leaving with sister Mary Ann on a little   shopping trip   to browse in Gabriel Brothers store for an hour or so until Mom gets here.  We’ll be back here before she arrives.

01:00 PM: We’re back home, and so is Mom.  She got here just minutes before us.  In fact, we saw her coming while still in Altoona, and followed her van the whole way here.  Two physical therapists accompanied her and are going to show us how to help Mom with her transfers from bed to chair, chair to bathroom, chair to easy chair, and so on.

02:30 PM: The therapists and Mom have left here, heading back to the nursing facility.

03:30 PM: Sisters Mary Ann, Jojo, and I sat in the living room, discussing all that we observed today.  We feel that we need more information in order to feel completely comfortable about bringing Mom home again.  So I called her PCP’s office and left several questions with her doctor.  Hopefully, he’ll call me back soon with those answers.

03:45 PM: Sister Mary Ann then drove me to The Meadows for an ice cream cone.  I got just a plain vanilla cone.  But nonetheless, it tasted exquisite to me.  Yum!

04:00 PM: I’m back home again.  I said good bye to sister Mary Ann, who had to leave for her home, to help her kids get ready for a Halloween party tonight.

05:30 PM: Watched today’s episode of   The Young and the Restless   on the DVR.

07:30 PM: Watched yesterday’s and today’s episodes of   Dr. Phil   on the DVR.

09:45 PM: The Penguins just lost to the Flyers, 3 to 2.

11:00 PM: Watched tonight’s episode of CNN’s   AC 360,  that featured Dr. Phil, giving his thoughts on that Arkansas school board vice president’s apology for his Facebook rant directed against gays.  I must agree with Dr. Phil on this one.  The apology offered by no means rang sincere.  In fact, this guy’s original rant was more heartfelt than his apology for it.  Where do people get all this hatred?

11:15 PM: Heading to bed.  Good night, and there’ll be more posted here tomorrow.

Tom Hesley

Received Mail and Shipments

• Misc. pension papers.
• Offer for a home equity line of credit from Citizens Bank.  Not at this time, thanks.
• Balance transfer offer from Capital One bank.  No thanks.  Not now.
• Notice of amount of coverage paid for some services that Mom required while staying at the Pittsburgh hospital.
• Cable + telephone + Internet bill.

Related Posts

• Mom’s Status: 2010-10-29
• Shopping Trip: 2010-10-29
• Today’s Diet: 2010-10-29
• Tom’s Views –>  Why I Will Vote In 2010
• Weight Loss: 2010

12:30 PM: Stopped at Gabriel Brothers for the following:

• Misc. hardware for hanging Christmas lights up outside at home.

Total cost: $3.17

Grand total: $3.17

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2010-10-29
• Today’s Business: 2011-01-14

Summary

Mom came home today for an in-home evaluation of her capabilities.  Essentially she’ll now have to live as a paraplegic, as her legs are virtually useless to her in order to get around the house.  So, the therapists have been focusing on preserving and utilizing her upper body strength for transferring from bed to wheelchair, from wheelchair to easy-chair, and wheelchair to bath facilities.  She did pretty well with all the transfers although she was very tired for much of the visit.  She was unable to transfer to the toilet, because the one we have is too low.  We need to either raise this one five inches or purchase a new one, whose seat is five inches higher off of the floor.  We’ll probably just go with a new commode as the one we have now is nearly forty years old, and so, probably uses more water than necessary by today’s environmental standards.  However, the rest of the transfers were very easy, and the therapists showed my two youngest sisters and myself how to best assist Mom in doing them.  The bathroom is a little small.  So she’ll have to sit with her back to the faucets in the tub.  But that’s easily managed as well.  We’re confident that she’ll be safe living here. 

So far, no signs of MRSA return, but she has been quite sleepy the past couple weeks.  I left a message with her PCP, requesting the results of her last echo and whether he thought that the endocarditis has been cured.  We also would like to have the correct echo done before she comes home. Skin color: notably pale this afternoon.  Fever: none.  Mouth: very dry.  She did not complain of being cold at all today.  She continues in her occupational therapy sessions, to build her upper body strength to compensate for her weakened legs.  But after seeing her perform here yesterday, I’m very optimistic about her returning home.   

Ongoing Objectives

These objectives are on hold. 

• Call Mom’s insurance company and find out what sorts of in-home rehab visits they cover — how many of them over how long of a period.  Sister Mary Ann recommends that we spread these out over the entire coverage period, and not use them all immediately.
• Monitor Mom’s overall pain status.  IN PROGRESS.  Her pain is all but gone, and she no longer takes any pain meds regularly.
• Track the dissipation of Mom’s pelvic hematoma.  IN PROGRESS.   We have to follow up on this one. 
• Locate Mom’s living will.  IN PROGRESS.  Given that Mom has expressed her wishes to both us and the nursing staff and doctors, I’ve deferred this item.  With us nearby to instruct them should a crisis arise, there’s less need for a hard copy of the living will.          

Completed Objectives

Log

01:00 PM: Sisters Jojo and Mary Ann, and myself greeted Mom as she arrived in the Med Van.

• The wasted no time getting to work.  First, she went into the bathroom and tried transferring from the wheelchair to toilet and from wheelchair to bathtub.  No major problems discovered.  But we’ll need to raise the commode so that the seat is an addition five inches above the floor.  It must be as close as possible to the same height as the seat of her wheelchair to make the transfers as easy as possible.
• Two therapists accompanied Mom, and they first practiced various transfer techniques.  Then, once they determined the best ways to move from surface to surface here in our particular environment, we kids got to try helping Mom through some of them.  Not difficult at all, and being that she does not need to stand during any of these movements, coupled with the fact that she’s sitting less than three feet from the floor, we feel that the risk of her falling is acceptably low.
• She still can neither kick nor squeeze her knees together very strongly, nor can she lift herself up with her legs without extensive assistance.  Yet in light of today’s home evaluation, these weaknesses seem like they will not be a major barrier to her returning home.
• She will require a hospital bed if she returns home.  Her regular bed, while certainly big enough, is too low to the ground, and cannot be adjusted for TV viewing or comfortable resting. 
• She was able to transfer to her Lay-Z-Boy recliner, and once there, she waved good-bye to the nurses and playfully suggested that she’d not be returning to the nursing care facility with them. 
• She got to hold her cats, and they still recognized her, though it’s been three months since they last saw her.
• 02:45 PM: The Med Van then returned and we helped get her all loaded back up in it.  Overall, she passed the in-home evaluation.  That is, she will be able to return home.  But we won’t know exactly when, until we work out some logistical issues.  Wonderful!

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2010-10-29
• Today’s Business: 2010-10-30