My first week day driving alone!

I start work today at 1 pm. My emotions are many and varied. It’s been a week since training so even the basic stuff, like pre-trip check-off and how to do the online manifest are all but forgotten. But I’m on my own, good and bad.

It cut short my "vacation" but we had a great time Sunday at the Pride Parade and Loring Park afterward. Actually, the parade sucked, but I'm not a big parade guy. The festival afterward was fun and we took our bikes down there so Peggy loved that. I wore my diaper bag vest and they were handing out beads so I fit right in.

I told Peggy it would be like PG-13 Halloween but it was way more tame than that. I kept laughing that I'm gender challenged, so I wasn't sure why this person was getting such applause, other than great abs? 

I promised my "steady girlfriend" I wouldn't write about her but we revised that in my mind to mean I won't write anything derogatory that I wouldn't share with her, or more appropriately sharing things about her that aren't true, or slanted negatively, depending on who I was writing. I say this now because I had a great weekend with her, and have great times with her all the time, both at home and out and about. 

Meanwhile, back in my head:

As for my progress with sleep, I am getting a lot of it. In fact, I became quite used to, or dependent on naps. With the 1:30 to 9:30 shift we’ll have to see how that works out. My caffeine intake is more than at the end of my career with Nissan, and I have to decide how late I’ll be taking my last drink, which will most likely be soda like Diet Coke or Diet Mountain Dew. I'll play it by ear and make sure I'm not tired, not that I'm worried about it. But the naps, a rare thing for me in times past, are something I could get used to. Last night I slept about six hours and that was on top of about two hours of napping yesterday. That is HUGE progress in that arena. 

The money situation is precarious. Two weeks with no pay, (the original scenario if I would have had to wait until they assumed it would take), and I’d have been in rough shape. One week out or work still sucks, and an offer for about ten hours of painting at my girlfriend’s house for $15/hour will help but still cutting it close. I also get to hang a shelf for her, so I'll be diligent and put in some hours and make the financial worries dissipate. They're not going away anytime soon. My car has overdue repairs in the hundreds and I am nowhere on how to tackle the educational loans. All this job is going to do is make ends meet with less stress.

So, how am I feeling? Hell, I’m somewhere between scared and nervous, or is that anxious?  Yeah, that’s the ticket.

I better overcome that anxious feeling quick, and I’m sure I will. I need to be completely safe and alert while driving because one accident that’s my fault and I’m out of a job. And the camera never blinks. It’s like a black box, recording everything but not storing it unless it feels a sudden jarring. Then, it goes back twenty seconds and  records the next twenty seconds.

I started  swimming! Peggy gave me a three day pass and now she's going to sign me up under a friends and family program. In the olden days I was doing 72 lengths (one mile) non-stop with flip turns. I'm trying to remember how long that's been and the best I can recall is that it was before 2001 at least, if not longer. I'm up to half a mile and it will get better. The feeling afterward is not quite the full dose of endorphin's but I know it's coming and it'll be my drug of choice when that kicks in.

Where's my head at today?

I've cut Trazodone out of my regime and that was easy. I didn't sleep well with it anyway, as I'm coming to realize now that I'm off of it. Peggy says her friends who got off of it took as much as three months to get over the need for it, or whatever the terminology.

I cut my Buspirone back to half again, and that seems to be fine as well. It's as if things are all fine as long as nothing rocks the boat. Then, I sense a disturbance in the force, as in a need for my meds, whether it's real or psychosomatic, (see a pattern?), until that blows over. This time it's different. I know I'm going to struggle with my route and I will struggle with the tasks before and after each pick-up and drop-off. But that's going to be fine so no reason to stress out about it.

As for my personal life? I'm going to get through this week and then go into next week. I don't know if I'm off Thursday yet. I also don't know if I can pick up hours on the 4th, which I will definitely do if they're still available. That could save me financially, and that could cut down on that stress.

My Only Regret While Waiting to Work:
I didn't get down to see my mother. I had to go to the food bank Monday morning so going last weekend was out. Then I got the call yesterday afternoon so that wasn't in the plans anymore. My mother's arms are so weak she'll be in the halfway house for some time to come. She's not dying but she could give up the will to live, as many do, if she is weak and pushed too hard to get back in shape. I was going to shift my trip down there to the 4th and bring Peggy, staying at my brother Dwight's in Lincoln. Oh well...

11:34 am:
I took another half of a Buspirone. I leave for work in an hour. Sure, it's stressful and normal people without anxiety drugs would feel the anxiety, but why on the first day? Too late, I swallowed it. 

The Morning After:
I thought it went well, and after several hours I had confidence I'd be able to actually pull it off. At one point they went over a new route and for the life of me I wasn't able to remember "I-35 to Hawthorne to 26th west." I said it over and over and hey, I did remember it. 

My new schedule hasn't been what I had hoped. I woke at 5:00 with diarrhea. I hope it's something I ate and not my nerves telling me something. Can't a man just have diarrhea without wondering the source of one's affliction on so many levels?  What did I eat?

My Second Day:
Talk about a steep learning curve, or is it a shallow one? Which way means I caught on quick? It could have been an easier scheduled route, and that I figured out the 24 hour clock, but either way it was easier. I forget things, like the word "manifest" instead of scheduled route but those will come.

Then I picked up a guy in a wheelchair. He moved his chair using the movement of his head only. It was as if a set of headphones were hovering over each ear. I got him on the lift and he mumbled to have me shut it off while the lift rises. Then we got him on the bus and I forgot to make sure there was a belt extender, so put his belt on improperly, and with apologies all round. I drove him downtown on I-35E, and stayed on the right side, which was the bumpiest road in Minnesota, meaning the bumps were magnified in the back of the bus. I apologized to him again. "Sorry, that road was bad. I should have chosen another route."

"They're all bad," he said. Was he being literal or just saying what his life was like?

I picked up my second passenger because I don't know if they are customers or clients. Then it was her and me taking the first passenger to his place. "Take seventh," he said. Only I didn't hear him. I asked the woman, who was what we term ambulatory, had to repeat what he said. Between my hearing issues and the bus noise, and him being in the back of the bus, along with his difficulty talking, she was a great help.

"Eventually turn right," he said. I heard that as I followed the GPS into the left turn lane.

"He said to turn right," she said.

"I think he meant eventually," I said, trying to be sensitive to the fact that he was right there and I didn't want to discuss him like he wasn't.

"He said to turn right," she repeated.

"You meant eventually, right?" I asked him, seeing him in the rear view mirror. He hardly has enough neck muscles to keep his head elevated, let alone kept from bouncing all over during the bumpy route. I wanted this ride to end. And I didn't have the belt fastened with the shoulder strap in the proper place, so I certainly didn't want to get in and accident or even stop suddenly, meaning the camera would come on, possibly showing my improper seat belt usage.

But I wasn't stressed out by it all.

"I've lived there five years," he said. "I know how to get home." Had he lived in that particular place for five years, and lesser places, or in the homes with family as care givers before then, or was he not needing this five years earlier? How do I find out things like this? Do I ask them? "So, what brings you in the chair?" Inquiring minds want to know, and I'm not being glib.

I delivered him to the entrance, thanked him, apologized for the rough ride again, and got back on the bus.

"Thanks for helping," I told my other passenger. "That was rough, huh?"

"Yes," she said. "That is so sad."

Is it sad? Is there a positive side to that? Is he a grandfather and able to watch his grandchildren grow up? Was he hit by a drunk driver? Is he suffering from MS and this was slow in coming and only going to get worse? Inquiring minds want to know.

Day Three:
I picked up a guy in a wheelchair, and his friend with a walker. Young guys, and seemed to be good friends. Then I picked up a woman who was also in a wheelchair but was blind. She had a PCA (personal care assistant) who might have been her daughter because she didn't help much. I let her off first. Then I almost said to the others, "You think you have it bad and then pick up somebody like that. I'm keeping my mouth shut so far. Good thing, huh?