May 23, 2014
The miracles of modern medicine - I had sinus surgery yesterday and am almost back to normal today.
I have had headaches almost continuously since we returned from our big trip. While I'm no stranger to headaches, by the time they had gone on for three weeks, I knew this was different. A sinus cat scan showed several problems and surgery was scheduled. The surgeon is not convinced the problems he saw were causing all my headaches, but the problems did need to be fixed.
They gave me pain pills after the surgery, but I really felt better than I had for weeks and only took a few. So keep your fingers crossed that this solves most of the problems.
I don't know how this surgery would have been performed years ago, but it's remarkable to me that there are no scars or bruising or much of a recovery period.
When I was a kid, I very much remember cancer being a death sentence. The adults would mention the diagnosis of a friend in hushed tones and there was little that could be done. Today, I know many cancer survivors. I remember taking one of the first polio vaccines - they gave it to us on a sugar cube. And polio was such a threat that I think we got it in a mass inoculation set up in a local school gym. Today, polio is unheard of in this county and very rare in the rest of the world. And transplants - I remember the first heart transplant. The recipient only lived a short time, but it was a miracle and paved the way for many other transplants.
While we have a long way to go on many medical fronts, it's wonderful that we live in a time of such medical progress.
Our last road trip was to an RV boot camp that was being followed by a big RV rally. We had other plans, so we didn't stay for the rally. We did get our rig weighed on Sunday and we are below our weight limit and mostly balanced. Yeah!
The rally that started the next day was going to be huge. Motor homes and trailer rigs were pulling in all day Sunday. I had to move our truck to give someone more maneuvering room. I don't know how many of the 900 sites there were filled but there were a lot of people there.
Coming home, I was reminded of how long we've managed to stretch out spring with our travels. In northern Indiana, there were still some bare trees and the redbuds and dogwoods were still in bloom. We experienced that down south months ago. It's been pleasant.
The trailer is off getting it's own "medical" attention. Last fall when we had the satellite system installed, the installer said that our roof caulking would probably need replacing this spring. So the trailer is in the shop, getting caulked, along with a whole list of things Steve wanted fixed/installed. I have a bit more staining to do on some support blocks for the desk and I've been ordering some things that we'll need in duplicate (measuring spoons, etc) so I"m not moving them from the trailer to the house and back. I still have work to do to make moving back and forth easier.
We've also gotten some work on the house. I finally got plants into the planters out back. When we moved in (23 years ago) the back yard looked like the before of those yard improvement shows. We had two concrete slabs that didn't look like they belonged together; one had been the base of a dog kennel along the back wall of the garage. Zebra landscaping did a wonderful job of tying the areas together, creating planters and steps down to the grass. We still have a ways to go, but with perennials in the planters, we can at least work on other areas.
Steve wanted some roses, so we got some roses. My Dad is a rose lover and had found a brand of roses (Knock Out) that requires much less care than most roses. So the house on Rose Street has more roses.
We're working on planning our next big trip for next winter. We have some shorter trips planned before then, but next winter will start with Disney World and may end up in Alaska!
More on that as plans develop!
Take care,
Deb
Steve and Debbie are amateur radio operators (known as "hams") who are traveling (mostly by RV ) in their retirement.
