Covered

Per Doctor Gum Guy, my jaw bone is finally just barely covered up. I am good with that. ST didn't even need to leave the waiting room and campaign on my behalf. The Gum Guy was pleasant and only hurt me once. I think we are glad to be rid of each other. There are no guarantees that I won't get worse, but if I do, I will see someone else. It was a relief to leave there. I am now allowed to eat anything I want, I can whiten my teeth (the rinse I had to use caused a little staining), and I didn't even whine that no, I can't eat anything I want to. It still hurts and I can't chew on that side. But, I can eat things with seeds and nuts with permission now. I have been craving popcorn for months, but have been too afraid to even touch it. Maybe soon! The palate/gum area that wasn't healing well is slowly, slowly getting less inflamed looking. The inside of my mouth will never be the same, but at least now I don't have so many visions of teeth falling out in my sleep or bones collapsing.

In order to keep myself calm before the appointment, I went to our local beauty school and had gel nails put on. It took four hours - students are slow. Try sitting in a hard chair for four hours with sciatica. I was not bored. She covered my nails with gel and left them a bit ragged, but I spent time that night and the next day filing them down nicely and they looked great. They proceeded to lift off by the next night. I am not happy. I am having them redone in an hour. I was under the impression that gels were supposed to be more stable, but maybe I am wrong. At least the school will cover it by redoing. I said I wasn't willing to sit still for another 4 hours, even if my sciatica has moved on. (Sorry to the person who got it next.)

My dogs and I were feeling a bit of a need to walk some place besides here in the condo complex. While we can walk around the pond, it's not a very big one. Late came by Sunday and we took the dogs around the pond, then she and I went to a new outdoors mall near me and I covered her lunch. Happy birthday to Late :-). Later, ST met the poopers and me up at a nearby park and we walked and hiked for hours. I don't know why I don't go there more often. It has hills and fields and woods and a river running through it, complete with a bridge. It's clean, neat, and not overly full with people. Everyone we ran into was friendly, and so were the dogs with them. It was a very pleasant way to cover an early afternoon. The sounds of the woods always make me smile. Next time I should take my camera.

Speaking of sounds - I have been so focused on this vertigo issue that I forget to address the other half of the problem. I am experiencing significant hearing loss in that ear, the right one, the same ear that I just had treated for a middle ear infection. Inner ear fluid, middle ear infection - yuck. Not much pain at all, but plenty of ringing, more than usual, and the inner ear fluid moving around is about to drive me batty. Plan C has been prednisone, but it hasn't helped at all. I think I need to see the next specialist up the medical tree and see if we can get rid of this, or find out if it is an inner ear auto-immune disease (what Rush Limbaugh has). I had to again warn the Vampire that I was a bit queasy from it. He said no worry, he had it covered with a wastebasket. Luckily, again, I did not need it.

The Vampire. The young man came over to our country on a lottery-type visa. I don't really understand immigration all that well. I am better with refugee information due to my former job. He came with nothing but his physical therapy degree and license, which he has not been allowed to use here. He came from Romania, and he knows several other Romanians who came also. He married one of them - they knew each other in school, and re-met here. Isn't that cute? They have moved a few times, and just this last Friday they bought a condo. It's the American Way, and he is happy to be here and I am sure he will end up doing very, very well with his ambition.

Also this week I have decided that maybe I don't need the medication for my restless feet any more. It can cause vertigo, and I decided to give it a rest. Talk about covers - by morning, they were all over the place. My bed looked like I had been wrestling with hogs all night. My legs were worse than they had ever been. I stuck it out, got up 4-5 times and drank a lot of water. The great news is that I woke up way less groggy than I have been lately. I had wondered what was causing that. It's a recent change, but I have been on that medication for almost two years. I was told that the restless legs can be caused by tight Achilles' tendons, and my doctor said I might not need the medication once I got them back to normal. Last night my sleep was more restful than the night before, and I am hoping for tonight to be even better. I have it covered! The medication can actually accelerate the problem, which I wasn't told until I had been on it a few months. *sigh* I was told I had RLS and it was affecting my sleep. The sleep study guy insisted. I guess I was lucky I didn't get into uncontrolled gambling, binge eating, or shopping.

I better get my act together and on the road. My nails are looking pretty crappy right now. If I really think about it, having nails done sounds very stupid, sort of like hanging metal and shiny things on our bodies and painting our faces and hair, but somehow, it's still a relaxing, fun thing to do.

I try not to think about it too hard.

 

 

 

Splendid

Once again I am so busy trying to catch up on others' entries that I forget to do one of my own!

OK, that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Really, I have been just enjoying life. For one thing, there is a button on my programmable thermostat that says, "Return to program" but I think it only lights up at 2:45 am. Luckily, I am an insomniac. I have returned to the program with one click of a button.

Our weather is about perfect. It has been in the 70s, sunny most days, and that is ideal walking weather for beagles. Molly can't get dehydrated, so we tend to walk early or late. Since I don't get up early, we are usually out between 7-9 pm, walking around the pond, going to the creek, and occasionally surprising a momma deer and her little fawn. How lovely is that?

I am planning another trip, of course! I will again descend upon Arizona when it's nice and warm outside. I will be ready to hike like a freak, if I can get Late out of the malls. Also, if I can corral some dog sitters ;-)

Tomorrow is my last visit with the periodontist. I was surprised to have it labeled as the last visit - after all, I am not healed. I have been a wreck about going. I even asked ST to go with me as my advocate because I cannot communicate with the periodontist. Finally I decided to be happy that it's my last visit. If I am not happy with what he says, I can see someone else. I won't see someone else in the same group, but there are plenty of others who can take over if I need further periodontal care. I will be glad to be done with this one. Still, it will be nice to have ST there to help out with the Q & A part of the visit.

My inner ear fluid? Still keeping me well off balance. I had so much vertigo during my massage on Monday that the Vampire was keeping a wastebasket nearby and reminding me he had his shoes off. I figured that made his feet easier to clean, but luckily I held on to my dinner and merely felt like I was being tossed at sea.

I had my usual check up with my Internist, and told him about the inner ear problem. He looked in my ear, noticed amiddle ear infection also (?) and put me on an antibiotic for it, due to the duration of the problems. The next day the ENT finally returned my call regarding Plan B (Allegra) not fixing the inner ear problem.

Now, I am on Plan C - prednisone. I don't care for this fix either, but I am following directions. She said if this doesn't cure me, I have to go see someone who specializes in things like inner ear auto-immune disease. I don't like the sound of that, so I am cheering on every prednisone pill that I don't want to take.

So far, the prednisone seems to be working with the Adderall (for ADD) and the testosterone cream (yeah, that is what I get compounded) and I am about ripping the paint off the walls. It's a nice change from my normal state of chronic fatigue. I still get tired, but in between I have some weird energy. I only have to take the prednisone for 10 days, unless I feel it's starting to work. Then we will make a Plan C2, I guess.

Molly is kindly sharing her bottle of pred with me. She needs it daily, so I am rather familiar with the stuff. It's from a human pharmacy and the correct strength, so it saved me a trip.

The dogs are doing great, loving the weather change, enjoying the walks, having a party every day with the other dogs in the complex. We had a group yesterday of about 6 dogs and 8 people - I got out my camera phone to take some group pictures, but put it on video instead, and took a video, with sound, of the neighbors trying to get their dogs (and mine) lined up together for a group photo. It's incredibly funny!

I am so mean sometimes.

 

 

Cold and wet

The weather out west was incredibly beautiful. Warm, not hot (although hot is fine with me), cooler nights for easy sleeping, sunny, a little overcast off and on but of course no rain (or icky snow). Toss some gorgeous, non-stop beautiful scenery into the picture and I was a happy puppy to be there. Add in a big dollop of seeing some special people in my life during the trip, and even meeting some great new ones. All in all, a travel well worth the time gone from hearth, home, and beagles.

Have I ever been able to go out of town without a hassle over dog sitting? If so, I can't remember. Even when the child still lived with me and I was finally able to convince her that yes, it was her responsibilty as a member of the household to watch the dogs when I was gone, I still worried. She surely would think nothing of forgetting to feed them, or water them, or let them out, or keep things out of reach.

Over time, I have learned to be a little more relaxed about what to expect. I live alone, so any changes in my home are very apparent to me when I return. Some I just don't care about. I hired a new lady this time for half of my trip. I honestly told her that there isn't anything valuable in my house to steal, that my new ceiling fans were the most valuable items in the entire home. OK, so I left out a few things, but she might have had to dig hard for them. Molly is more likely to lead her to the fridge than to my hidden items of value. I didn't worry about theft, other than by my child who only was assigned a couple of hours this trip. That is long enough to find my favorite lipsticks and clothes. It amazes me how I can have a closet so full of clothing, yet if I have one new favorite item in it, she wears it home and I never see it again. I have learned to accept that, although I do wish she would just leave me a list of what she decided she needed to take with her. It makes replacement quicker and easier.

I have accepted that every towel I own will be in a damp pile in my laundry room. Usually it's on the floor, but on occasion it will be on top of the washing machine. Never in it. I don't care about that, either. I have a lot of towels, and it's hard to not leave at least one dry clean one for me to use. Otherwise, I just wash towels right away. No big deal.

The kitchen will not be clean. I do not expect to find that someone took the time to wash off my counters, clean out my sink, and generally return it to the condition I left it. The nieces come in like locusts and eat everything that they like. I don't care - I can get more food. I don't eat much, surely they will find something they don't like and it will still be here when I get home so I can eat. Otherwise, I can go to the store. If desperate, I could stop on the way home from the airport and grab something. As long as they feed the dogs, they are welcome to any food that they can find. I can easily tell what they ate by looking at my countertops and sink, anyway. Further details can be garnered from the floors. Who cares? I clean weekly anyway, and if I am gone for a week, it's time to clean.

I expect to wash my bedding when I get home. I leave out spare clean sheets, just in case, and I am never sure if anyone actually sleeps in my bed as my couch seems to attract younger people as an ideal sleeping surface. Grab a blankie from the dogs and please remove any belts with buckles so the leather doesn't get ripped, OK? So I wash my bedding and the dogs' blankets. I do that every week, too. This time I did remind them that my throw pillows are silk, and perhaps it might be better to grab a bed pillow to drool on. No big deal, though, I can get new throw pillows.

So far, doors have been locked when I get home. No screens have been removed, not after I returned home after being gone one night from my old house. The child had removed the kitchen window screen and it certainly appeared that she and her friends had used that window for an ashtray, leaving ashes along the outside brick. I wasn't happy. She figured it covered "no smoking in the house," since the ashes went outside. I counted to at least 10,000 on that one. Slowly. I counted until my teeth ungritted, then asked that she not ever do that again as a cat or dog could push the window open farther and get loose, a stranger could get in, and certainly mosquitoes were coming in.

The one thing I don't like is my thermostat changed. I have said change the temperature up and down all you want, but please don't re-program it because it takes me forever to do. If you do re-program anyway, let me know so I can fix it before I freeze without warning. Everyone smiles and nods. I never know what temp I will come home to, but by the next cycle it is back to normal (my normal, that is). No big deal.

The dogs get their food, meds, and lots of attention. that is all that matters. I always, always find pee or poop some place. I can't expect anyone to be as vigilant as I am at finding it and cleaning it up - Baby goes without warning when someone leaves the house, probably due to separation anxiety. She will get up and go in the middle of the night, rarely, if no one will get up and let her out. She asks, but not loudly. I shut them in the master suite with me, and they wake me up if they have to go out. If the door is left open, I might find a prize in the morning and I consider it my own fault. Baby has a tiny bladder. She can't help that. They only ask to go out maybe once a year in the middle of the night. I really can't complain.

No matter how many times I ask the nieces to sleep in the bedroom with the dogs and to shut the door, I come home and find them all sleeping on the sofa and love seat. They all look happy, so I don't care.

This time, I came home, 6 am, and found all sleeping on the furniture. I found pee on two of three rugs in the guest bathroom. Those rugs have been in there almost 2 years now, and have not been peed on before. I found poop in the dining room, which isn't easily seen due to the furniture arrangement, but since we know where Baby will go - I assume it had been there for days, but I was the one to find it. Lucky me. More pee was on a throw rug in the kitchen, or someone spilled something. Also, I noticed that Molly had to pee so bad when she saw me that she ran down the basement stairs, then refused to pee outside. No pee at 6 am? I turned on the light to the basement stairs - sure enough, a small lake at the bottom of the stairs on the ceramic tiles. Finally, Molly found a safe place to pee inside! I consider this a good thing.

All this was found before the nieces woke up. They seemed surprised. I wasn't showing anger, I was just doing an assessment of where I had to clean up after the dogs. I know the nieces try hard, but they don't have a dog at home. They love my dogs. I will not complain.

They left after a while, and I was so tired....but I had lunch plans. I went off to lunch, came back, sat down for a while,and realized I was cold. The thermostat showed 69 degrees, and I keep it at 72 during the day. Oh well, I figured, since it goes to 60 at night and they were sleeping in their clothes, maybe they set it up to 69 at night. I was too tired to realize that it should have re-set at 8 am from 60 degrees to 72.

When I went to bed, I noticed it said 72 degrees still, where I had put it earlier. It should have said 65 or 60, more likely 60, since it was around 1 am. I dropped it to 60 degrees, assuming it would go up to 72 at 8 am, as programmed. When I got up this morning, the actual temp in the house was 66 degrees, and it was still set at 60. Much too cold for me!

So, today I have to clean my entire house, wash all my towels, steam areas of the carpeting, wash all hard surface flooring with a machine, scrub the kitchen raw, wash several loads of my own clothes, and re-program the thermostat, which will take me probably an hour itself.

I still love to travel. I just might need a security box for my thermostat :-)

Weather at home? It rained all the way from the airport. It was in the 60s yesterday, but I missed most of it. It was very windy. We had severe thunderstorms in the evening, including some impressive pea-sized hail. It's still raining, the grass is over-soaked as a result, and it's 43 degrees. The high for today is 45 degrees, and we are expecting some snow tonight and tomorrow.

Welcome home.

 

Rocks

Five of my pairs of shoes are flip flops, which are very easy to stick into little corners in luggage - otherwise I probably would have taken three pair total. As far as my clothing went, I have managed to stay clothed in public, and I guess that is all that counts!

Here are some of my pictures. I really didn't take a lot. I get awestruck in the mountains and forget to grab my camera. No picture can really grasp the beauty.

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Sliders

As I was doing my Pre-Travel Freak Mode Dance, I had to try on all the summer clothes I had dragged up from my basement. It's a good thing I didn't trust them to still fit. Many of them simply fell off me when I tried them on. That is all I needed - Hey, let's go for a walk on The Strip now that we are in Las Vegas - and can I borrow your suspenders? I dubbed them Slider Clothes and put them right back into the basement. Losing weight is a great thing, but it does have repercussions.

Packing was not a pretty sight. I finally took my sleeping pill for the night and went into a sedative/hypnotic state and packed whatever seemed right. At best, it was entertaining the next day to see what I had packed and thought would be appropriate.

Anyone want to make a guess as to what they got me on this time at the airport? I had 3 ounces of Absinthe in my baggie. Nope, they were not interested in that. That is a good thing, since it is legal. No, this time the stateement was, and I kid you not, "Ma'am, we were checking out your paperback book." What, you never saw one before?? No I don't say that, I tell them thank you and would you like to hit me again, please, sir?

Flights so far have been rather uneventful, other than my suspicious library book. The trip has been great. The weather out west is generally something to be relied upon, as long as I remember that once the sun goes down, the temps drop very fast. I did get caught outside in the dark walking just when the wind decided to kick up, but all was well in the long run.

I left ST behind at the airport to return home and I came on to Scottsdale, AZ to visit a friend to have some special girlie time. ST asked for lots and lots of pictures, but I had to explain that it wasn't _that_ kind of girlie time. He got over it.

My dog sitter search became quite frantic when the nice girl I thought I had all lined up was eliminated from my trusted dog sitter list. It was quite hairy for a while, but I managed to hook up with a lovely retired tax assessor who asked questions and took notes. What more could I hope for? The dogs loved her and I felt confident. The nieces will fill in the rest of the time, other than the one afternoon the child was assigned to cover.

Just to rub it in, I texted her a picture of the half-sized Eiffel Tower at Paris in Las Vegas. I haven't heard from the child since.

The first day I put on my brand new, unbroken in Rocket Dog flip flops and took off walking for 10 miles. My feet expired at 8 miles, but I dug in and made it back. I ended up in the pool area with my feet happily in the hot tub while I sat and read for a while. Ever see a blood blister on a toe? Not very pretty. The next day wiser thoughts prevailed and I wore a brand new pair of Birkenstock sandals for 11 miles. No problem. Well, unless you consider some basic aches and pains to be abnormal. I don't! They generally pass by the following day.

I might end up with some pictures to post, but so far I don't have any that would be approrpriate. Maybe I can snag some tomorrow at Sedona. If I can't, that means I left my camera behind.

As far as the walking I did last week on one orthotic because I rushed out of the house without paying attention to what I was doing, my foot is fine. It was a little painful for a few hours, and that was pretty much the end of that. I hope not to make that same mistake again.

I packed six pairs of shoes. I only carry a carry on bag and a pilot bag. I can shove my purse into the carry on. I am good. I am very good.