I finally heard from Rich, after close to 2 months now. He's had a rough summer so far. Before we left, he'd gotten stung by a vinegaroon, a kind of nasty scorpion found in the Arizona desert. Some call it a spider scorpion. What it lacks in size it makes up for in venom. The wound looked ugly, but Rich insisted he was OK. He's got full medical coverage and the hospital is close so we weren't worried. Not too much.
What Rich hasn't got is communication. No phone, no functioning computer at the moment though it worked when we left. His phones always get stolen, just like his bicycles. His computer was a donation, the "if you can fix it it's yours" kind. He could, at least for a while. But he wasn't answering my emails.
I left two voicemails on the one phone I knew belonged to a friend of his, asking if/when he heard from Rich to please have him contact me. That happened tonight. On the friend's phone.
Shortly after we headed north, the wound got infected, enough for Rich to go to the ER. He managed to contact the local Posse and get transportation there. After a couple days in air conditioning, getting food and IV antibiotics, he was released to go home. His leg was better... until it wasn't again. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. It was formally diagnosed as MRSA on his second stay. The first time in they'd only gotten as far as a staph infection. You know, like what the "S" in MRSA stands for. The second time they didn't quite kill it. Third? Maybe.
At the moment he's surviving, though he has two non-functioning bikes. (The good one got stolen while he was in the hospital. The cops have the security camera footage of it happening, for what good that does.) He's handy enough to fix them, at least as much as he can without an income. Both have slow-leak tires. He can go a ways, pump, go, pump. Tiring work in Phoenix summer temperatures. And hard anyway with a semi-healed leg. He needs to take the journey to replace his missing EBT card so he can go get groceries. There is a branch 2 1//2 miles away, where he hopes they can replace it. Last time he checked on his friend's computer the balance hadn't changed, so it's lost, not stolen and used. Worst case he has to head in to Phoenix, close to downtown, and talk to that head office. Then locate a food shelf too, as we both suspect the replacement card won't be handed out instantly. We could be pleasantly surprised. Or not.
His first ER visit was the same day I asked a friend to stop by and if he was there, remind him from me that the weeds needed to come out of the yard. We'd gotten the annual summer complaint letter from the Home Owners Association, with it's threat of fine if their deadline wasn't met. That was complicated by them sending it to the house there, it getting forwarded up north, and its arrival here being 10 days after the letter's date. She talked to him, and a few days later nothing had happened. I know because another letter arrived. We didn't know he'd left just after she had, to go to the hospital. Because why would we? So I hired getting the job done. It wound up costing less than the fine.
Anger simmered.
We didn't know about the subsequent ER visits/hospital stays either. We just knew that now there was yet another letter with a different complaint. This time I spent over a week trying to get ahold of the HOA's staffer to find out exactly what was the offending violation, since it was pretty generic and hadn't been the case when we left. When she finally called back, gave me the information in a pretty vague way, I negotiated with her for more time since communication was difficult and I would have to mail a letter which was expected to take another 5 days to get there. That would run out this weekend. But he finally called, which was great, since among other things I hadn't actually written that letter yet. But we had that discussion tonight, Rich and I. So he knows. And promised to fix it as soon as he got home from his friend's. I happen to be a little less pissed off than I've been for a few weeks now. Trust the promise? Uhhhh....
Let's hope, for a variety of reasons, that his MRSA is at bay for a good long time. If that sounds pessimistic, it's because the one other person I know who's had it has been battling it for almost two decades now. Every time something new comes up health wise for her, MRSA winds up being a part of it. Somehow even with her history they never get around to treating her MRSA until the stuff that doesn't work has been tried a couple of times. I also doubt Rich's ability to fight it off on his own. He's had minor health issues ever since getting a couple brown recluse spider bites on one of his visits to help out local homeless friends.
Arizona has not been kind.
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