Comedy of Errors

Anyone who follows this here blog regularly, if there is anyone at all — and there appears to be at least one out there in vast cyberspace — knows I throw a lotta stuff up here.
Not as much as previously, when I was blogging something most every day, now perhaps only one or two blogs per week.
They also know my wife has cancer.
She probably will not survive. We are now on the hospice road. She has a while, or perhaps only a few weeks — or days.
As such I no longer have time to blog something every day.
Stuff goes unblogged, like the fact my Quicken Essentials is so insane about printing checks.
Everything has to be done just so, and there’s no manual. I’ve had to deduce it by trial-and-error.
So far out of six tries, I’ve successfully printed three checks.
And one of those checks had written and figure amounts a penny different, a strange conundrum I’ve never had happen over many years of using my previous Quicken software.
I blogged about that.
It requires a test-print of every check to see if I should hand-write.
I fixed that erroneous printed check manually; initialing my change.
So far I’ve had to hand-write three checks of six.
You can’t reprint an edited check — or so it seems.
So why not use my old Quicken software?
Long story.
Apple Computer did a so-called “Security-Update” that trashed my ancient Quicken’s check-printing function.
As you can see, that got blogged too.
So what happens is I often blog something while I consume breakfast, and it may not get keyed in for a day or two.
I hand-write my blogs directly in pencil onto a yellow legal-pad for keying in later.
Rarely do I blog directly into my computer, although I have.
Every month I do a Monthly Calendar-Report.
It’s huge; I have seven calendars.
Which may seem ridiculous, but they’re not really calendars.
What they are is wall-art that changes every month.
For the past couple days I’ve been working on my May Calendar-Report.
My first calendar-entry is keyed in, and I keyed in the second calendar last night.
My third and fourth calendar-entries are written, but not keyed in yet.
Yesterday (Friday, April 13, 2012), was a medical appointment at Wilmot Cancer Center (“will-MOTT;” as in “Mott’s applesauce”) at Strong Hospital in Rochester.
Strong Hospital is a 40-50 minute trip, and we hope it’s our last medical appointment at Wilmot.
We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, about 20 miles southeast of Rochester.
Our medical appointments have often involved driving in NASCAR rush-hour.
My wife is weak, and has the be pushed around in a wheelchair.
Wheelchair gotten (Strong has wheelchairs), I shoved stuff into the pouch on the rear of the wheelchair.
I had brought along three magazines, printouts of the first May calendar-entry, and my legal-pad.
The idea was -a) reading-material while we wait, and -b) proof what I had done, and work on my May calendar-report.
As usual, the one-hour medical appointment ballooned into well over three hours.
I never read anything, no magazines. All I did was work on my May calendar report, and field e-mail on my SmartPhone.
First was canceling a treatment blood-test hospice won’t authorize — that was in the Infusion Center.
Next was downstairs to the Breast-Cancer Center for a Palliative-Care appointment.
Then it was back upstairs for our final Wilmot medical appointment. We said our goodbyes — her oncologist was in San Francisco. So all we had was his nurse-practitioner.
Her oncologist was worried his being away looked like he was just walking away.
We don’t see it that way. I told them they did okay.
I then wheeled my wife to the first-floor entrance of the parking-garage, where she’d wait for me in the wheelchair.
I drove around, and my wife got in the car. I inadvertently left my magazines, my printouts, and my legal-pad in the pouch on the rear of the wheelchair.
We drove all the way home, where I discovered my magazines, the printouts, and legal-pad were all missing.
Of course; they were in the back pouch of the wheelchair.
Horror-of-horrors!
Only the first calendar-entry was in this laptop; with the other stuff missing I’d have to rewrite all I had already written.
Plus three magazines were vaporized; not a great tragedy.
I got on the phone and called Strong Hospital.
I got a machine of course.
I had a stroke almost 19 years ago, and as a result phonecalls ain’t easy.
Around-and-around we went.
First “security,” then “lost-and-found.”
“Please hold, your call is important to us; it will be answered in the order it was received.”
I left a message at “lost-and-found.”
Finally I got referred to the information-kiosk in the hospital-lobby.
They were befuddled I was calling them, and tried to refer me somewhere else.
“But this is where I got referred; you may have my missing stuff.”
A girl went out into the parking-garage, the wheelchair was still there, and retrieved my stuff from the back pouch.
“Three magazines, a legal-pad, and two 8&1/2 by 11 printouts?”
Back to Strong Hospital, my stuff would be waiting in the lobby.
Another long trip; and about all I could think was “I guess I could field complete boners on my own,” despite being stroke-addled.

• “Strong Hospital” is a large hospital in the southern part of Rochester.