Monday, February 21, 2011

Growing Up Deaf Update 4

Jamie and I were talking about the mumps when she was writing Mumps Can Lead to Deafness. I mention in Growing Up Deaf Part 1 and Part 5 about the diagnosis and how I lost my hearing. But she gave me a historical aspect that I had to check.

I have a paper from my doctor back then that my dad was "trying to locate record of MMR." I don't think it was ever found.

According to the Measles Vaccine Questions and Answers page, the mumps vaccine wasn't available til 1967. Neither was the MMR vaccine til 1971.

Seems I wasn't vaccinated in time. I'll find out the story sometime, somehow.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Funny Moment 6: Popcorn!

Some years ago, I was out at a computer show and was at the food counter to pick up a drink. A security guard was just leaving with some popcorn.

I couldn't resist.

"Ah, popcorn instead of donuts..."

I wonder what would happen if someone gave a bag of bagels to some cops.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Post-surgery Knees - Part 5

Whoa... It's been a few months since I last posted. Been a little busy with an online class and some other things.

I'm improving more here and there, though still using a store's electric scooter. One scooter I used ran out of power halfway through my shopping. I managed to walk to the front of the store to get a cart, take it back to the scooter, transfer the items and finish up my shopping. That was a little easier than I thought. One of these days, I'll do a quick bit of grocery shopping without the scooter.

A few weeks ago, the local area had about an inch of dry snow. I had to see if I could do it. After a little bundling up, I spent 30 minutes shoveling a path through the driveway and sidewalk without help. I had to stop once to rest. Then recently, we had a snowstorm which dumped about a few inches of snow. I managed to get half the driveway done, with Jamie taking finishing the rest. I did it again that morning to get the rest of the snowfall, again getting half the driveway done.

There was also this ASL dinner I went to between surgeries. I went back out there and had to stop a couple times to rest a bit. Getting my tray with food up the steps was a little difficult, but I made it, something I wasn't able to do last time I was there.

I'm getting there in terms of my endurance. It'll take time, though. Let's see how much of the lawn I can mow this summer.