Sunday morning we came out at about 11 or so to go somewhere... Open the garage door... Nikki says "Hun, Where's the Van?"
"Huh?"
"Where did you park the van?"
"Um....." < Did I park out front? Where the hell is it? >
We're looking at an empty space in the driveway where we had parked the night before.
It's now Tuesday, and while we suspected the crew of Overhaulin' for the length of time it took to say "Who the hell would want to trick out a vehicle the owner doesn't even like?", it's pretty obvious by now the thing was stolen.

Yup, I guess someone likes cripplevans a hell of a lot more than I do. Or maybe it's the $30K worth of adaptive equipment in it, I don't know, but that was the story I heard today. Went into Chico Medical to get some stuff, and one of the girls says "Oh No Shit? That's the 4th one!" Apparently the cops found one of the other ones stripped of the lift and driven into the Sacramento river. So next time Mike Sherman hooks a Whopper it might just be my van.

I had a bunch of crap in it I brought down from Quincy too- My Rotax 583 (the 97 horsepower version of this engine), a Valentine 1 radar detector, a couple sets of sheets and a cover for my bed (they're custom made, and spendy) a bunch of books.... A pound of Riley's Blue, a small floor jack, tire iron, and electric air pump for the changin' of tires, an 800 watt inverter, my Beret, the cripple placard.... All kinds of stuff.

So now I'm drivin' a 2004 Monte Carlo. Nice car, and fast... Disadvantage is I have to take the chair apart and haul it across myself into the passenger's seat... It's kind of a bitch. But I have wheels so I can't complain too much. So that happened Sunday. Monday we got a rental (insurance provides) but no hand controls, so I had to add Nik to my insurance so she could drive it.
Went to "Prompt Care" because I've noticed a problem with my leg.... Remember that puss I found under a scab, and the small pile I subsequently squeezed out? It's still infected, 'cept it's "walled itself off" (My Doc's phone description) and is spreading into the surrounding tissue. It's like I have a quarter implanted under the skin- A round hard spot like that.
So Prompt Care Doc told me to put hot packs on it which would draw it up to the surface where he could drain it, install a wick, and let it heal. So I got some re-usable hot-packs and I've been hotpackin' it.

Remember when I slashed the hell out of my finger last week? Imagine yourself skinnin' carrots. Now switch your finger and the carrot. That's what the cut looks like. Well, anyway, it's infected too. Puss gooin' out everywhere, all red and swollen...The Prompt Care Doc didn't think that was too exciting either, and ended up giving me some .... kind of anti-biotic and sent me home. I'm s'posed to come back when the thing in my leg gets mushy in the middle.

So today I took Nik to the airport... Well, she took me to be precice, but she left for Baltimore and I came back in the 'carlo with hand controls. Worked out well since Chico didn't have any but Sac did, and we were goin' there anyway.
When I returned I went and got a new placard from the DMV and came home.

The finger was really botherin' me, so I cut all the stitches (5 of 'em) opened the cut, and found that about 1/4th of an inch of skin on the "flap" had died, so I cut it off. Squeezed out all the puss I could get, and squeezed back in (through a little needle-less "heroin size" syringe I use to give Herbie his meds) about 5 cc's of betadine. I let that run around in there and drain, wrapped it, and I'm gonna keep the other eye on it till I go see the wound care girls Thursday. Damn I mide-as-well just get a weekly appointment there permanently.

Monday morning the owner of the neighboring house showed up to trim the bushes on his side of the fence. Apparently my passion vines are / were touching his bushes and that pissed him off, so he ripped all of them off the wall. I'd tacked that plastic bird-net along the wall so they could grow, and if I had to I could easily take it down. So I go out there and at first i thought the wind had done it... Then he comes around the corner and says "Hey I wanna talk to you!" Apparently not only were the tops of the vines touching his bushes, but they've sent up runners on his side of the fence. (Big friggin' deal, I'm thinking... Things grow. Deal with it...) Then he went on to snarl about how they were "climbing all over his bushes"... As if 4 or 5 runners are "all over"... but anyway.. So I said "Hey next time, why don't you come over and talk to me before you tear things down? This is my side of the fence you know, and as far as I know I can do anything I want with it. Now you've created all kinds of work for me that I really don't have the time to do..." "Well I can cut them outta there for you" He says. "No thanks, You've done enough." I said. "Next time however, ASK ME, Ok? I'd do it for you.."

So between the van being stolen, various infected parts, and an asshole next door owner (he lives elsewhere & rents the place to a couple lazy-assed engineers or something.. When we moved in they drank beer and watched us carry stuff in. "If you need help ask him" one says, pointing at the other... Then they dissapeared.. Anyway..) I haven't been havin' the best last couple of days.

Oh! I almost forgot.. As if all that shit wasn't enough, I woke up thismornin', went to get into the chair, and the cusion felt weird. "What the hell?" I wonder, as I'm not awake really and it's still dark... Hopped into the thing anyway and went in the bathroom.. Sure enough, it was flat. It's a ROHO, and full of air. I'd had a Jay 2 cusion since I left Craig, but with the atrophy of my ass the bones are closer to the surface... I got a pressure test a few months ago, and the J2 was creating a couple "hot-spots" (Danger Will Robertson!!) The ROHO showed NO hotspots. So I went with it. It's MUCH more fragile than the J though...
So as soon as I'd had a sip of coffee, I called my OWCP rep. She says she works from 6 to 4.30 M-Th, but wasn't at her desk at 6.30 thismorning. No matter, I left a message stating what happened, and that I needed immediate authorisation to purchase a new one. This one *may* be repaired, but it has to be sent to the factory. Chico Medical's takin' care of that for me. I ordered another cusion today as well, authorized or not.Hopefully I'll have the OK by the time it gets here.
So I heard nothing from OWCP all day, so I'm going to call tomorrow morning and ask what's up. The phone message there also states "Please be advised I have 3 days in which to reply, so please do not leave duplicate messages.." Well, news flash kids, I'm going to leave at least one message a day untill I hear back. Sure, I have an old J2 on the chair right now, but I JUST got over a pressure sore on my ass, I really don't want a 'nother one. Had to move the Craig re-eval to December because they wouldn't touch me while I had a sore... Would just be my luck to get another one now.

So if you don't hear from me for awhile, it's prolly because a meteor struck me or something. Which reminds me, we almost died on the way to the airport today. WE're going down the 70, through a bunch of construction just past Yuba-City. Those big-assed belly-dump gravel trucks? You know the ones that have no bumper on the back, just a kindof pointy triangle like thing? Well, I had commented that if someone rear-ended one of those trucks that trinagle thingy would prolly come right through the windshield and mash the occupant's heads.
Well, we're doin' about 70, bigrig in front of us, another beside, and a SUV crawlin' up our ass. One of those gravel trucks was crossing the highway (it's divided there)and apparently couldn't turn into the N lane so he stopped in the median. About 2 or 3 feet of his trailer was hanging into southbound traffic, fast lane. The bigrig in front of us saw it, tried to swerve right but that lane was taken. I watched that triangle thingy on the graveltruck rip a line down the side of the bigrig. We're next, here it comes, and nowhere to go. Nik managed to get over far enough that it didn't decapitate the car, which was very lucky as the whole thing took less than 2 secconds to happen. She reacted the right way, or she would be dead right now for sure, and I would prolly be missing the left side of my chest and shoulder. That triangle thing would have come right up over the hood and peeled the car like a sardene can.
She was shakin' for about a half an hour.
On the way back when I passed that spot there were CHP's all over and a wrecker was loading a little S-10 size pick-up. The front driver's side up to the door was Gone. $20 says the same thing happened to him as almost happened to us, as that's where those trucks enter the highway.

So, what the hell is gonna happen to me next? I dunno, but I hope it's all over. I need no more infections, broken things, theft, or near death expierences, thanks.