The Howdygram 2: I spent most of the day today feeling itchy, achy, raspy, gaspy, lousy, crappy, creepy and pissed.

I didn’t write a Howdygram post on Saturday due to poor health. Or rather, poorer than usual health, as I spent most of the day feeling itchy, achy, raspy, gaspy, lousy, crappy, creepy and pissed. Also feverish. Saturday night wasn’t much better, and Sunday wasn’t either. As a matter of fact, after I took my breakfast-time meds this morning I apparently fell back asleep until Sam purposely woke me up at 5 p.m. because he was getting nervous. So I ate a quick meal (leftover canned beef with a bunch of nice canned whole potatoes) and a pair of Popsicles for dessert, took more pills and decided I should make an effort to catch up with a nice juicy Howdygram post.

So here’s what’s going on with my health, in useful little subtitled paragraphs.

ANOTHER URINARY TRACT INFECTION. The hospice sent over an R.N. yesterday, and she called the hospice physician to request another round of antibiotics, which arrived last night at midnight. (Yes, the hospice pharmacy apparently delivers 24 hours a day.) These are different than last time, but we’ll know in a few days if they work or not. (Call me a pessimist on this one. They never work.)

BURNING, PEELING, BLEEDING SKIN on the back of my left thigh. It’s revolting. Sam keeps me covered with barrier cream but it gets “cakey” when it dries, I itch it off and my skin starts to bleed like gunshot wounds. The pain is atrocious.

OPEN WOUNDS. The aforementioned barrier cream acts like “adhesive” where my catheter cord is concerned, and when the cord accidentally gets glued to my thigh I wind up with an open, bleeding cut. Again, the pain is atrocious. And right now I’m dealing with ALL of this.

CHEST CONGESTION. I’ve been “rattling” for several days already, but the only medication I really need is an occasional extra dose of Lasix, the high-powered diuretic I already take to help keep my body free of fluid. Unfortunately, I ran out of Lasix this morning! I was supposed to request several prescription refills on August 31 — Amitriptyline, Lasix and liquid Morphine — but completely forgot because I’ve been bedridden for the last few days and missed the reminder note on my computer desk. So I crossed my fingers and texted the hospice administrator a little while ago … and she just wrote back. I’ll get my medication refills delivered tomorrow (even though it’s a national holiday) and she’s waiting to hear back from the doctor about the extra dose of Lasix. Apparently he may prescribe something stronger altogether. (Please stay tuned.)

TREMORS. My fingers and hands shake so badly sometimes I can’t hold a cup or a spoon, and it’s completely impossible to hold something as tiny as a pill. This is frustrating, weird as hell, aggravating and annoying ... and it makes me look and feel like a decrepit old lady. I think the shaking has something to do with my dose of Gabapentin, which I take for diabetic neuropathy pain. I had been on 2,700mg a day but recently (about two months ago) cut back to 1,800mg … entirely by mistake. (Don’t ask.) I’ve studied about Gabapentin online, however, and the tremors are supposed to wear off eventually.

Let’s hear a gigantic “WOW” from everybody within the sound of my keyboard ... know what we got in the mail yesterday? A $762 check from MetLife Dental representing reimbursement for my out-of-network claim from January for seven extractions and a lower denture. For months Sam and I battled the cretins at MetLife Dental nonstop, trying to find out the status of this claim, and right up until we completely gave up (about a week ago) and walked away they had been denying my claim due to insufficient information and missing procedure codes. WHAT A PILE OF DUNG. MetLife Dental obviously had been processing my claim all along, and Sam and I even consider $762 to be a substantial reimbursement if you consider that my dental plan had a $1,000 annual maximum. Thank you to the generous buffoons at MetLife Dental!

Allow me to introduce you to tonight’s FREE FONTS … five fascinating display fonts and one text font (“Plusquam”) in eight weights with coordinating italics and some beautiful alternate capital letters. My favorites here, however, are “Tippy Tappy Type,” “Benji” and “Spooky.” I’m also extremely intrigued by “Fruitos” due to its gorgeous automatic letter combinations. Download links will appear below the graphic.

Tippy Tappy Type • Benji • Innocent Scribbler • Fruitos • Plusquam • Spooky

I think I’ll entertain myself with the last 45 minutes of a thoroughly wretched movie. Sam and I have been trying to finish THE STORY OF DR. WASSELL (1944) starring Gary Cooper, but it’s so awful we can’t sit through it for more than 20 minutes at a time.

The Story of Dr. Wassell is a 2½-hour Cecil B. deMille Technicolor “masterpiece” with an atrocious story, atrocious characters, atrocious dialog, atrocious sets and atrocious direction. In a word, the movie is COMPLETELY ATROCIOUS. And as for Gary Cooper … I’ll never understand how he had so much success in Hollywood. He SUCKED as an actor … wooden, silly, inarticulate, sputtering, unappealing and seemed to play every role just like that “aw shucks” cornball from Sergeant York (1941). As Dr. Corydon Wassell, Cooper’s most-repeated line of dialog is “Good gravy!” … when he isn’t doing his ridiculous wild animal imitations. (Seriously.) Apparently deMille latched onto the plot of this movie from one of President Roosevelt’s famous radio “fireside chats,” the story of an obscure Navy doctor who helps 12 hospital patients escape the Japanese during WWII. (Big fucking deal.) The Howdygram awards The Story of Dr. Wassell with our ★ one-star rating. I’d give it a “zero” if I could, but I figure all the money that deMille blew on Technicolor was probably worth something ... right?

Laraine Day and Gary Cooper ham it up in “The Story of Dr. Wassell.” Meh.

And here’s a shot of one of the nurses from the movie, a local girl from Java named (don’t laugh) “Three Martinis.” Apparently nurses were encouraged to dance for the patients and to wear sarongs and ridiculous bonnets with bows.