Phillip Sherwood

Today was spent visiting our nations’ capitol and some of the surrounding museums while the temperature rose to near record highs of 102 degrees for this area. The metal rims on my wheelchair got so hot that they blistered my left fingers. I always learn something new when I play tourist in the own backyard I grew up in. The biggest difference now is that when I go downtown, it is rare to hear English spoken as a persons’ primary language. The ethnic diversity of this area is nice when it comes to wanting to branch out and taste different types of foods. After a quick tour of the capitol building, my mother, two nephews and a friend of my nephew and I went to see the new Indian museum to be followed by the Air & Space museum. Everything was not only wheelchair accessible but also wheelchair friendly.

While using one of the restrooms reserved for a family to do a self-catheterization, I was horrified to see I was filling the bag with thick blood clots and obviously bloody urine. The frequency and severity of this has been increasing over the past two months but I felt before going any further I pop into the ER near where my mother lives and get checked out. Fate would have it that when it was time to provide a urine specimen to the doctor, all was clear as a bell. The blood and urine tests came back negative for an infection of any kind so the doctor believed it is a complication from the high dosage of blood thinners I’m taking but recommended to me I make an appointment with my urologist when I get home.

I brought my cat Jack with me and he is having a ball exploring all the new surroundings in my mother’s hose that dwarfs mine in comparison. Tomorrow we’re heading to the beach in Ocean City, MD where I always went as a child growing up here in Maryland. Jack gets to go too. The other day we all went to the Kennedy Center to see the play Mary Poppins and truthfully I was very impressed. I can’t say I really enjoyed the fact that it was a musical but the theatrical stage effects were very impressive. Yesterday we went to the Cunningham Falls State Park and its strange experience to be in a public place that was so regimented and strictly controlled. I’ve also been enjoying the reaping of the benefits of my home automation system from here and am glad to note it’s working as advertised.