Elena 
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1.
This week I entered the new world of Physical Therapy. I went twice for my arthritic knee. The idea is to strengthen and stretch the muscles around the knee so that it will work like it’s supposed to without pain.
Mostly, I was impressed. The physical therapist took a lot of time with me taking measurements and assessing knee function. Then I spent about an hour working out with the athletic trainer. Both seem to think that I can fully recover from this, but the therapist didn’t seem to think it would be a quick fix. However, I am very motivated to work on things on my own at home and she encouraged this.
What is discouaraging is that the insurance plan we pay close to $1000 a month for through Mr. Pete’s work doesn’t cover physical therapy. So I have to cough up $200 just for last week’s two sessions and then $75 a session after that. This makes me even more motivated to improve and graduate from PT.
If things don’t improve completely, I may consider a steroid injection to the knee, but I have to investigate the pros and cons of that more completely before I decide to go ahead. That’s my job as a health care consumer!
2.
I had my first rehearsal for my April concert with the harpsichordist. After our first run-through of Rutter’s Antique, she said, “It wasn’t terrible!”
Ugh… every little place where I usually have trouble- gave me trouble yesterday.
I told Mr. Pete that I might want to experiment with taking a drink of something alcoholic before I do this performance. He said, “It’s going to be hard to explain to the kids how you became a lush in your 60s!”
Keeping in mind that I’m not in my 60s yet, I think I can still experiment a little before then.
Anyway, here’s one version of the last part of the Antique – it’s not easy.
3.
I had to debone 8 chicken thighs and a couple of chicken legs for my General Science Class last week. They couldn’t be cooked- they had to be raw and consequently there was as lot of tough tissue and periostoeum still attached to them.
A couple of the kids were very squeemish and didn’t even want to touch their bones. (Rosie was one of those) A few of the other kids though were holding them and poking them and asking me if what this or that was. A couple of the bones had really good articular cartilage (which of course, is of particular interest to me lately!)
It was just interesting to me to see the wide variety of reactions to this particular experiment. At the end of class, each kid was given a jar filled with vinegar to put their bone in. They are supposed to examine it every day to observe how the minerals in the bone leach into the vinegar and make the bone more flexible.
Big blog post on what we covered coming up next week.
4.
I have this app on my phone called ibotta (as in I bought a cookie, I bought a coffee, I bought a magazine etc.) I haven’t used it much at all but it kept sending me notifications that some of my friends had purchased something and saved a little money. So I approached one of those friends at co-op last week and asked her about it. She showed me how it worked on her smart phone and told me that she usually made just enough each month to pay for her Netflix bill. The money went right into her Paypal account. So that was all the motivation I needed to take that little app more seriously.
You can sign up for it here and earn $10 your first month. If you go through that link, I get a little bit too! Happy shopping.
5.
I might be starting a new job in a few months (another reason to hope my knee gets back into shape). Let’s just say, I know the owners really well. I haven’t worked a food-related job for almost 40 years, but I think this one is going to be fun. The food looks great doesn’t it?
6.
My non-medical philosophy student had to watch an intubation for class this week. He is an ethical philosophy major and has to appear in the hospital every week for ethics clinicals. I guess they want him to see some of these procedures since a professional ethicist has to make decisions about them.
It’s so funny – much like some of my reluctant jr. high students in science class, these philosophy students aren’t really interested in the nitty gritty of health care that they are being exposed to. In fact, I think it unnerves them a little. Certainly Noah will be happy to never witness another one if he doesn’t have to. But I can remember when my son the paramedic was learning this stuff and he was just fascinated by it! I’m just making note of the difference.
7. Freebie this week – 5 Biggest Mistakes parents make Homeschooling High School.