It's good to be home.  Yesterday was my last official doctor visit to give one last blood sample.  They say I am done, for now.  I am taking a range of pills, I've been blood-tested at an alarming rate.  But they now say I am good to go, just about.  They are still going to fiddle around with my coumadin/warfarin, but the heart "problem" has been resolved - i.e., there's nothing to do, no infection, and the hole has been there all my life.  Well, that still leaves me with a confused mental picture in the present time.  And I still have a vision loss on the right side.  They cheerfully tell me that these things will clear up.  I hope so, so I can drive again and think properly again.

My daughter and son-in-law came yesterday to pick me up for the doctor visit, and I was prepared this time, with some extra money which I got from the bank.  They wouldn't accept cash payment, so I offered to buy lunch and this they accepted.  We went to the restaurant where I used to work, Wolfe's Family Restaurant, and there we got a very nice meal, which we all enjoyed.  The weather has been gray, raining, and coldish, so that made the day memorable.  It still is like that today.  And today, I finally figured out (again) how to read voice mail messages off my phone (on the computer).  Ohhh, what a whiz I am! 

In other efforts, I was not very successful.  I got out of the hospital on Tuesday, and I was trying to make sure that a bill got paid on time.  I mailed it out on Thursday, and it was due on the following Tuesday.  I hoped it would have arrived on time, but these things are very uncertain nowadays.  I called and also went on-line to find if my payment had arrived, but there was no verification.  So I assumed it had not arrived.  I spent all day Tuesday, the day it was due, making another on-line payment (at a snail's pace, to be sure).  I finally got a payment in by 4:30 p.m. (my time).  Of course, it was later, their time, after 5:00 p.m.  Not only do I still not know if they ever received my mailed payment, they didn't bother to do anything at all, except punish me for being slow with my payment on the computer!  To the tune of $39.00!  And I still haven't been able to get verification of that payment.  Or the payment I mailed in!  I guess they are a little SLOW getting back to me.  Except for their late fee charge, that is.  We are talking about Chase here, but I suppose they are all like this.  I am holding a demand for more money to be sent to them at once!  That's the only thing that we can be certain of.  Oh, if only I knew who to call, what to say....!!!

The good news is that the "elves" are abating, and today, I have figured out (again) how to hear my phone messages on the computer.  Just keep doing things over and over again, until they are fixed and set in the new circuitry of my brain.  The old circuitry still does not work.  My mind and my eyes are somewhat better, and persistence is the answer.  I made chicken soup today and something is clawing at my consciousness, but I can't bring it into awareness.  So on I go, taking a long time to get this typed, and other things done, but eventually the tasks will be formed anew in my mind.      

I remember what it was.  The wonderful work of Barack Obama goes on, even while I am wallowing around in this valley.  He makes sense to me!  The guys who are so worried about the money being spent on the people's business - where were they when it was all going to hell under the Bush years?  When truth in accounting didn't exist?  When honored traditions were left to rot by the wayside?  Yes, Obama's speec was an ON time for me last night, and I am so grateful we have him on the job.