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In Which We P, T, and Q
Mar. 28th, 2020 09:58 amFriday was my first real trip out of the house since the shelter-in-place begin. It was for a PT session for my knee, which has been hurting for about a month now, mostly when I squat down (extremely painful!), but sometimes when I walk up and down stairs (somewhat painful!).
Meanwhile, Kimberly's been having arm problems for more than a month, so when it woke her up Thursday night, I encouraged her strongly to talk to her doctor about it, and when she got a PT referral in the early morning, I encouraged her to sign up for that PT as early as possible, on the unlikely chance that she could get a session the same time as I already had one scheduled. Kimberly talked to them a few times over the course of the day, with no luck, but then my phone rang as I was walking through the mud room to head out to the garage to hop in Julie (the Benz). They had an appointment for Kimberly just 15 minutes after mine started!
So, it was back upstairs, and I told Kimberly — who was on a call with Walmart to figure out why her drugs weren't ready and also just barely awake because she'd been napping — that she needed to come with me immediately. She didn't understand why, but grabbed her stuff, and by the time we were in Julie, she got the message that she had a PT right after mine (and soon afterward she found out that the problem at Walmart was because her doctor had spelled her name wrong, and they got that straightened out for her).
Driving into Lihue ... I couldn't tell there was a pandemic. I'd seen some relatively empty streets on my trips just before the shelter-in-place, but Friday afternoon the highway was just as crowded as ... it ever is at that time, which is flowing well, but with a large number of cars.
When we got to the little industrial area between the harbor and airport that contains the PT place, it was as parked up as I'd seen it when I visited once previously, to get the process started for the window tinting for my office (very successful so far, by the by, though there haven't been a lot of hot, sunny days since we got here).
In fact, the only real difference I noticed in traffic was that no one seemed to be driving toward the airport. (But if we'd been heading home around 5, I probably would not have hit rush-hour traffic, because our traffic has let up that much, at least.)
The PT went fine. My trainer, Jason, seemed both nice and knowledgeable.
He did a lot of things that didn't hurt my knee, which was good, because it makes me feel that the injury isn't major. But he was able to find the stress points, and said he thought it was a meniscus injury, which was also my guess. Those are definitely slow to heal, and they can be impossible if they're in an area without bloodflow, but hopefully I've got a normative injury, and it'll be OK, but not until another 1-5 weeks.
Jason also taped up my knee to give it some support in the next few days before the tape comes off. He did it carefully based on where he assessed my injury was hurting, and it seems to have done a shockingly good job for a few pieces of tape. So, that will hopefully not just spare me some pain, but also help me to not aggravate the injury.
Kimberly, meanwhile, got an RSI diagnosis, not her first.
They want to see me once a week and Kimberly twice a week, so we scheduled appointments through April, and did our best to coincide them. I'm wanting to take Kimberly in to her appointments, rather than put her on Paratransit, so unfortunately that means I'll be in Lihue a lot through April, with three trips in one week (on the week that we couldn't coincide our appointments).
So, we'll be shelter in place, and at the PT place.
Unlike on the roads, you could tell there was a plague at the PT place. We were asked to wash our hands before we did our PT, and I heard the therapists constantly washing theirs, presumably after every session.
Mind you, I don't think they've entirely thought it through. For example, we should have been asked to wash our hands before we talked with the receptionist and gave her ID and insurance cards, not after.
But, every thing like that is a statistical step, not an absolute.
After PT, we went to the aforementioned Walmart, and this was a much less pleasant experience.
As I'd expected given our mayor's extremely low limits on the number of people who could be in a store (even with those numbers doubled from his original, entirely idiotic limitations), there was a line leading in to the Walmart. Metal barriers winded through a muddy field, where we stood in the rain. (Fortunately I keep an umbrella in Julie, though unfortunately I forgot that my raincoat is there too.)
It was about a 15 minute wait, in the rain, constantly annoyed by the person behind us who kept invading our six-foot space.
Here's the big problem: Kimberly has a bad foot. She can't really stand on it due to nerve damage. Here's the other problem: the fascist Kauai mayor's order suggests that people from the same family shouldn't be within six feet of each other when out in "public spaces" (although if that applies to all situations, or just exercises and dog-walking, isn't clear, because his order is a mess). So Kimberly tried to stay away from me for the first few minutes, but then had to spend the rest leaning on me, as I held her and the umbrella up.
When we got into the store, we asked what the accommodations were for someone with disabilities like Kimberly, because obviously she shouldn't have to stand in line. And, they had absolutely no idea what we were talking about. None. It was like we were speaking German. No, Martian. So apparently the ADA is not the law of the land, but just something that gets tossed aside when the going gets tough.
Technically, Walmart Lihue is who was likely violating the ADA by not making accommodations in their queueing setup. But the ultimate person responsible is that same mayor of Kauai, who put the extremely low limitations on who could be in the stores, and didn't give any thought to how it would affect disabled and older patrons. But he doesn't seem to give much thought to anything: he just does things, and they sometimes work out, but often not. (And Walmart obviously hasn't issued any directive either, and also should.)
And the Walmart was empty. I would guess it falls into the 50,000+ square foot category, which means that 100 people can be in it at a time. But if so, it made it obvious how ridiculously low that number is. Because the store was a ghost town. Yes, we occasionally had to get by someone because we were both in the same aisle, but most of the time you could look and see no one else in any direction. (I actually wonder if there were only 50 people in the store, because perhaps the store didn't realize that the mayor had been forced to update his directive within a day of making it, moving the big stores from a 50-person limit to 100.)
It somewhat bugged me that the people in the store who we occasionally had to pass were totally oblivious to where they were in relation to other people, especially if they were standing looking at something.
No line to pick up Kimberly's drugs. No line for checkout.
(My dad later asked me if we were rushed through the store in any way, and the answer was "no". We could have wandered the store all day, taking up our valuable two spaces.)
We picked up some fast food while in Lihue (and vowed not to do this *every* time we do PT, as we'll be there two to three times a week through April) and then headed home.
And the streets were still relatively full (though moving). If there was one other notable difference, it was fewer people turning in and out of the Tree Tunnel leading to Koloa (which makes sense, as that's the last major tourist destination on the south side of the island, and the tourists are likely largely gone now, as Hawaiian Airlines has stopped almost all mainland flights).
We had two more Kauai cases revealed last night, and they unfortunately displayed the same troubling xenophobia that I've been seeing on the island.
The one case was a visitor who was here over the last weekend, and fell ill while here. Yeah, kinda irresponsible to fly out here during an epidemic, especially since he was here from New York. And, super irresponsible that he flew back AFTER being tested for COVID-19 (but before the test came in).
But the other was a local who flew back here after falling ill. Also, super irresponsible, and that was the irresponsibility that impacts us most directly.
So of course the comments on that article about the two new cases was full of people bitching about visitors and saying that the hotels all need to be closed. Even though it was the local who pretty knowingly brought COVID-19 back to the island.
(Overall, the vast majority of COVID-19 cases on the islands have been from locals returning home; only on Kauai are most of our cases from visitors, and even then that's 4 or 5 out of 7. But if you looked at the xenophobic local reaction, you'd think every single case is from a visitor, and none at all from locals.)
A nice coda to the annoyance of the early evening: I was awaken at about 4am by a weird booming outside, followed by our devices' emergency warnings going off from the living room.
The warning was for a flash flood, and the booming was thunder. There was an absolutely amazing lightning storm going on outside. Most of it was sheet lightning, far in the distance (probably over the horizon, on the ocean), but I saw an occasional blinding bolt. And it was constant. Just a few seconds between each distinct flash.
It was so beautiful. I watched it from the bedroom from a bit, then Kimberly and I went out to the lanai, and watched the sky flash and flash and flash like a disco ball. There was almost no rain, just the sky lighting up again and again.
I remember the occasional lightning storm when I visited my grandparents back in St. Louis in the '80s. I hadn't seen anything like it since, as the Bay Area's thunderstorms were occasional and minor.
I understand that they're not super common here, but getting to see them every once in a while is another reason I'm happy to be here.
And after our mid-night spectacle, Kimberly and I slept a bit past 8 this morning. Late!
Meanwhile, Kimberly's been having arm problems for more than a month, so when it woke her up Thursday night, I encouraged her strongly to talk to her doctor about it, and when she got a PT referral in the early morning, I encouraged her to sign up for that PT as early as possible, on the unlikely chance that she could get a session the same time as I already had one scheduled. Kimberly talked to them a few times over the course of the day, with no luck, but then my phone rang as I was walking through the mud room to head out to the garage to hop in Julie (the Benz). They had an appointment for Kimberly just 15 minutes after mine started!
So, it was back upstairs, and I told Kimberly — who was on a call with Walmart to figure out why her drugs weren't ready and also just barely awake because she'd been napping — that she needed to come with me immediately. She didn't understand why, but grabbed her stuff, and by the time we were in Julie, she got the message that she had a PT right after mine (and soon afterward she found out that the problem at Walmart was because her doctor had spelled her name wrong, and they got that straightened out for her).
Driving into Lihue ... I couldn't tell there was a pandemic. I'd seen some relatively empty streets on my trips just before the shelter-in-place, but Friday afternoon the highway was just as crowded as ... it ever is at that time, which is flowing well, but with a large number of cars.
When we got to the little industrial area between the harbor and airport that contains the PT place, it was as parked up as I'd seen it when I visited once previously, to get the process started for the window tinting for my office (very successful so far, by the by, though there haven't been a lot of hot, sunny days since we got here).
In fact, the only real difference I noticed in traffic was that no one seemed to be driving toward the airport. (But if we'd been heading home around 5, I probably would not have hit rush-hour traffic, because our traffic has let up that much, at least.)
The PT went fine. My trainer, Jason, seemed both nice and knowledgeable.
He did a lot of things that didn't hurt my knee, which was good, because it makes me feel that the injury isn't major. But he was able to find the stress points, and said he thought it was a meniscus injury, which was also my guess. Those are definitely slow to heal, and they can be impossible if they're in an area without bloodflow, but hopefully I've got a normative injury, and it'll be OK, but not until another 1-5 weeks.
Jason also taped up my knee to give it some support in the next few days before the tape comes off. He did it carefully based on where he assessed my injury was hurting, and it seems to have done a shockingly good job for a few pieces of tape. So, that will hopefully not just spare me some pain, but also help me to not aggravate the injury.
Kimberly, meanwhile, got an RSI diagnosis, not her first.
They want to see me once a week and Kimberly twice a week, so we scheduled appointments through April, and did our best to coincide them. I'm wanting to take Kimberly in to her appointments, rather than put her on Paratransit, so unfortunately that means I'll be in Lihue a lot through April, with three trips in one week (on the week that we couldn't coincide our appointments).
So, we'll be shelter in place, and at the PT place.
Unlike on the roads, you could tell there was a plague at the PT place. We were asked to wash our hands before we did our PT, and I heard the therapists constantly washing theirs, presumably after every session.
Mind you, I don't think they've entirely thought it through. For example, we should have been asked to wash our hands before we talked with the receptionist and gave her ID and insurance cards, not after.
But, every thing like that is a statistical step, not an absolute.
After PT, we went to the aforementioned Walmart, and this was a much less pleasant experience.
As I'd expected given our mayor's extremely low limits on the number of people who could be in a store (even with those numbers doubled from his original, entirely idiotic limitations), there was a line leading in to the Walmart. Metal barriers winded through a muddy field, where we stood in the rain. (Fortunately I keep an umbrella in Julie, though unfortunately I forgot that my raincoat is there too.)
It was about a 15 minute wait, in the rain, constantly annoyed by the person behind us who kept invading our six-foot space.
Here's the big problem: Kimberly has a bad foot. She can't really stand on it due to nerve damage. Here's the other problem: the fascist Kauai mayor's order suggests that people from the same family shouldn't be within six feet of each other when out in "public spaces" (although if that applies to all situations, or just exercises and dog-walking, isn't clear, because his order is a mess). So Kimberly tried to stay away from me for the first few minutes, but then had to spend the rest leaning on me, as I held her and the umbrella up.
When we got into the store, we asked what the accommodations were for someone with disabilities like Kimberly, because obviously she shouldn't have to stand in line. And, they had absolutely no idea what we were talking about. None. It was like we were speaking German. No, Martian. So apparently the ADA is not the law of the land, but just something that gets tossed aside when the going gets tough.
Technically, Walmart Lihue is who was likely violating the ADA by not making accommodations in their queueing setup. But the ultimate person responsible is that same mayor of Kauai, who put the extremely low limitations on who could be in the stores, and didn't give any thought to how it would affect disabled and older patrons. But he doesn't seem to give much thought to anything: he just does things, and they sometimes work out, but often not. (And Walmart obviously hasn't issued any directive either, and also should.)
And the Walmart was empty. I would guess it falls into the 50,000+ square foot category, which means that 100 people can be in it at a time. But if so, it made it obvious how ridiculously low that number is. Because the store was a ghost town. Yes, we occasionally had to get by someone because we were both in the same aisle, but most of the time you could look and see no one else in any direction. (I actually wonder if there were only 50 people in the store, because perhaps the store didn't realize that the mayor had been forced to update his directive within a day of making it, moving the big stores from a 50-person limit to 100.)
It somewhat bugged me that the people in the store who we occasionally had to pass were totally oblivious to where they were in relation to other people, especially if they were standing looking at something.
No line to pick up Kimberly's drugs. No line for checkout.
(My dad later asked me if we were rushed through the store in any way, and the answer was "no". We could have wandered the store all day, taking up our valuable two spaces.)
We picked up some fast food while in Lihue (and vowed not to do this *every* time we do PT, as we'll be there two to three times a week through April) and then headed home.
And the streets were still relatively full (though moving). If there was one other notable difference, it was fewer people turning in and out of the Tree Tunnel leading to Koloa (which makes sense, as that's the last major tourist destination on the south side of the island, and the tourists are likely largely gone now, as Hawaiian Airlines has stopped almost all mainland flights).
We had two more Kauai cases revealed last night, and they unfortunately displayed the same troubling xenophobia that I've been seeing on the island.
The one case was a visitor who was here over the last weekend, and fell ill while here. Yeah, kinda irresponsible to fly out here during an epidemic, especially since he was here from New York. And, super irresponsible that he flew back AFTER being tested for COVID-19 (but before the test came in).
But the other was a local who flew back here after falling ill. Also, super irresponsible, and that was the irresponsibility that impacts us most directly.
So of course the comments on that article about the two new cases was full of people bitching about visitors and saying that the hotels all need to be closed. Even though it was the local who pretty knowingly brought COVID-19 back to the island.
(Overall, the vast majority of COVID-19 cases on the islands have been from locals returning home; only on Kauai are most of our cases from visitors, and even then that's 4 or 5 out of 7. But if you looked at the xenophobic local reaction, you'd think every single case is from a visitor, and none at all from locals.)
A nice coda to the annoyance of the early evening: I was awaken at about 4am by a weird booming outside, followed by our devices' emergency warnings going off from the living room.
The warning was for a flash flood, and the booming was thunder. There was an absolutely amazing lightning storm going on outside. Most of it was sheet lightning, far in the distance (probably over the horizon, on the ocean), but I saw an occasional blinding bolt. And it was constant. Just a few seconds between each distinct flash.
It was so beautiful. I watched it from the bedroom from a bit, then Kimberly and I went out to the lanai, and watched the sky flash and flash and flash like a disco ball. There was almost no rain, just the sky lighting up again and again.
I remember the occasional lightning storm when I visited my grandparents back in St. Louis in the '80s. I hadn't seen anything like it since, as the Bay Area's thunderstorms were occasional and minor.
I understand that they're not super common here, but getting to see them every once in a while is another reason I'm happy to be here.
And after our mid-night spectacle, Kimberly and I slept a bit past 8 this morning. Late!