Pandemic Report
The latest CDC weekly stats:
Latest daily from Worldometer:
There is ongoing concern over worsening statistics, enough to cause some school closures in Kentucky and Texas. I've seen some warnings for people at risk to consider masking again in social contexts. There are a number of references to a release of updated mRNA boosters in mid-September.
Other Notes
Blog viewership slumped off over the past week. In part, I was in the hospital for part of the week writing the blog on a Chromebook. There's still a shot at reaching the 1K monthly target but at minimum, we're likely to exceed last month's total.
I've only been in a hospital a few times (thank God). I had a minor procedure scheduled for Tuesday. Originally, I expected more of an outpatient procedure with a companion escorting me home, but my doctor/surgeon more recently said that he wanted me to stay overnight for observation and pain management. I think the repair ended up more complicated than expected. There were a couple of things that needed to be arranged for home recovery, one still unresolved. At some point Wednesday with almost no feedback from the bureaucracy. I had taken 2 days off from work but now I had to extend it. It looked like the same thing was going to happen Thursday when the surgeon's daughter (who works for him) said I was going to be discharged with a temporary workaround. I was not used to basically 3 days of bed rest. Among other things, I used hospital WIFI to compose late week posts using my Chromebook. There were some idiosyncrasies in Blogger; I normally preview the post before publishing it but I couldn't figure out how to pan down the preview. Those 2 published posts do appear differently with right-margin content following the post.
Weird stuff. I had brought along an older power bank that stopped working. So, I ended up using my UBS port on my Chromebook to charge my cellphone.
I'm sure readers have worse annoying incidents related to hospital stays, but a few are annoying enough to list here:
- Usually on days of procedures, you fast since midnight. So sometime after mid-afternoon Tuesday I got to order a late lunch room service from the hospital cafeteria. In my case the diet is calorie and carb restricted. So, I ordered something like a chicken salad on whole wheat, a side salad, coffee and Jello. Shortly after I got moved to my shared room. It turns out the service stops at 6:30 pm. So, my nurse suggested I order dinner; I said I recently ate, and she said something like no worries, we can warm it in the microwave. So, I called up room service, which refused to take an order saying I already had dinner. So, my nurse ended up having her assistant get me a turkey sandwich and Jello, but I was irritated at the encounter.
- I was ambulatory after 3 days on my back, but slower than usual. The nurses made it sound like transport would probably wheel me out to my car in a parking strip. Nope. I ended up getting dumped off at some emergency entrance back exit, and I didn't know how to get to parking from there. I went back in and sort of recognized the emergency room registration. I was trying to get directions to the regular hospital entrance when I got rebuked for jumping my place in line. I eventually found my car but I ended up walking a lot more than expected.
- I had been assured I had my pain pill prescription forwarded, so I drove to the pharmacy, not home. Only to find no prescription at the pharmacy. I bought some Tylenol in the interim. I called the surgeon the next morning. He points fingers at the hospital saying it was sent to the pharmacy on record. The hospital has the right pharmacy on file. Nobody can find the prescription. I just want closure on a replacement prescription. At some point in the pharmacy's voice mail system: they finally see the order and say it should be available sometime Saturday. Later online I saw notice of some kind of price check delay. Saturday morning, I called and was told they had to send it through the system again. I'm told it will be done in 15 minutes. Then I got a call from them asking me why I need pain pills for their records. Eventually the prescription is released. and I find out I've spent 2 days chasing a 2-day supply of pills
