Life, Health and a Hell of a lot of other stuff!

 

First off this is not a whiner post and I am OK. Now that is out of the way recently I managed to get a free trip to the local Emergency Room, nothing new to me in the last 4 yrs or so. In 2019 I got myself hospitalized because I was bleeding from the bottom end. I spent 9 days in the hospital with IV’s antibiotics, and heart monitors and then the lovely butt scope and prep which was an adventure. But, the culmination was a diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis.

I had never had this problem before so this was totally new to me. I assumed that I would have a few pills added to my daily regimen and go back to homesteading like usual. That has not been my experience. I started the Youtube Channel in 2018 and was working on the homestead when this new problem popped up. And by August 2019 I was in it.

The first part of the dilemma was dealing with insurance. I quickly reached my Maximum out of pocket the first year so my medicine was free during that time between October and December. Come January 1^st I had to meet the deductible and maximum out of pocket before my insurance would pay. So the medicine I was taking for this one condition was $750 per month. So I met my deductable very quickly. By April I had met my maximum out of pocket again. This is a tough blow for retired folks. Then came the other problems that I didn’t even know were problems until they were.

Now I just didn’t bounce back from this stuff like I had others. I began to wonder if it was my age catching up to me or was it this disease. I started having problems like arthritis in my lower legs and hips. Then I had a major arthritis bout in my right shoulder that caused me an injury. So in 2020 my gastro doctor retired and I got a new doctor. There was a lot going on during that time if you remember. With the changeover of doctors it was hard to get in to see them but they continued my meds and I was just as happy. About this time I had another kidney stone and had to deal with that. Then the arthritis was just getting unbearable, so in Nov of 2020 I had to get a shot in the right Hip, Right Knee and the Right Shoulder. All this while still trying to run a homestead. In December I started physical therapy for the shoulder and that carried over until May of ‘21.

After the physical therapy was not helping the shoulder and the Gastro had determined that the arthritis was not caused by a UC flare I decided to let the orthopedic doctor take a shot at that shoulder. They did the shoulder surgery – again I met my max out of pocket for the year. He also took a biopsy of the arthritis that he removed from my shoulder. He said it did not look like regular arthritis or rheumatoid arthritis. Sure enough the biopsy came back as ‘Reactive Synovial Tissue.’ The medicine I was taking for the UC was causing the arthritis. I stopped taking the Colitis meds and the arthritis in my hips and legs went away within 2 weeks. This was all fine and good but I still had 15 weeks of physical therapy ahead of me for the shoulder.

So for most of 2022 I had physical therapy with my local physical terrorists, not really they were really nice people who just wanted me to get better. But, some days it did not feel that way, no pain no gain. Since I stopped physical therapy I think in September of 22 I have been on a pretty even keel. I didn’t get back full motion to the arm but it is manageably better. The homestead was moving along and I was doing OK. No new meds and I no longer had a gastroenterologist.  Then in late January 2023 I hit a wall. The UC flared again and sent me to the ER. I just need a year to be able to get some projects done on the homestead. Needless to say I now have a new gastro doctor and a new bill at another hospital to fuss with the insurance about. But, at least I have met my max out of pocket again and for the rest of ‘23 the meds and doctor visits are a covered expense.

The new meds I hope will work. They are costly enough and I have to go to the hospital to get an infusion every couple of months – if the insurance approves it. What the hospital billed was mind boggling but what the insurance paid was much less. People without insurance are just supposed to die is all I can figure. I have a tractor shed to build and a Youtube channel to grow. So hopefully this year I can get back to my old self and get on to the next thing!

This has been a much tougher journey than I ever imagined. Everything on the homestead requires a tremendous amount of effort and my tremendous has been broken a few years. I will have to build back up some strength. It is amazing how weak I have become in 3 yrs of light duty.

But my plans for the channel continue. I still need to get the fences done and get sheep or goats and pigs. I want to include geese, ducks, and get chickens back. All that is on hold till I can get some more infrastructure built. Maybe I am just building that for the next owner, like the trees I have planted. I hope my kids will be interested but I doubt it, their lives are so different.

I still want to do stuff. I am not ready to throw in the towel. I really want to do a failure video. I have failed at so many things. I have learned so much from those failures. But this is a topic for another post. I hope this finds you well. We will say a prayer for you and hope you will send one up for us. We are doing fine in the grand scheme of things and I try not to be too tight and griping. I try not to indulge in self pity. But, for true clarity about what has happened on the homestead since we started the channel back in 2018 I thought you would like to know why we were not further along. On a positive note, the recent visit to the doctor, their scales say since coming to the homestead in 2014 I have lost 98 lbs. WOOT! I try every day to take a dose of my own medicine and understand that Homesteading, Like Life, is a Marathon Not a Sprint – Slow Down and Enjoy the Ride. But, sometimes that Medicine is the Hardest pill of all to swallow.      

Be Certain to Visit our Homesteading Channel on Youtube at http://Youtube.com/c/collegehillfarm  as we create and live on a modern homestead like our ancestors before us. Also check out and add your name to follow our weekly blog channel at https://collegehillfarm.blogspot.com so you do not miss our weekly ponderings on the past, present and future and on our Facebook page at  https://www.facebook.com/College-Hill-Farm-295659074295747