Monday, February 20, 2017

An update



I did have my session with the Lithotriptor and it looks like the kidney stone was busted up into small pieces which have passed. The process was painless as I was sedated and didn’t feel a thing. No pain or effects from the process. Now to keep up my liquid intake regimen to avoid this in the future.

We have had a lot of rain over the last week, in fact over 6 inches locally on the coast and much, much more in the mountains which is where it is needed to fill the lake where our water comes from. We had another 1.2 inches overnight. All is welcome even with the weather related problems it cause. Some roads have been closed, trees are down, and the airport was closed overnight on Saturday because of runway flooding.

As to our phone and internet problem – I got a recorded message on Saturday afternoon saying that “the scheduled repair would not take place until the 23rd of February.” That was 3 whole weeks from the time we lost phone service. I called Frontier and was told “That is what it is.”

So, I visited the local cable company office on Monday and set up an appointment to have a full bundle of services, phone, internet, and TV, installed on Wednesday. When I returned home I received a phone call from the cable company asking if it would be OK to do the installation on Tuesday morning. OK, now that is service.

The installation was done on Tuesday but a few problems came up. Mainly, our cabling in the house is 50 years old and all needs to be replaced. That is a major job. One that I need to talk to the cable company about. In the mean time, we do have phone, internet, and TV but some of it needs to be fine tuned yet. All in good time.

When the cable is replaced, I want to move some of the outlets in a few rooms to shorten the cable runs. When this house was built the cable was installed in every room with no real thought as to where the TV’s would be placed.

I have spent the last 3 days changing the email addresses for all of our on-line accounts to the new email address. That is not a small job as many accounts require a 2 step process to make changes while others require that they make the changes themselves.

I decided to add a few photos from our cruise to hawaii.

 Sunset as we leave Kauai.

Banyon tree at Lahina on Maui. Multiple trunks but all one tree.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

It is heck getting old.


On December 29th I was admitted to the Emergency room of the local hospital with severe kidney stone pain. After a CT scan, an IV, and pain meds, I was released after 4 hours. The stone bothered me over the weekend but I was not in severe pain as I had been. We were scheduled to depart on another cruise to Hawaii with friends on January 4th. This trip was surely in jeopardy as I also had an appointment with a Urologist on the morning of the 4th. Her recommendation was to cancel the trip but in the end she left the decision up to me. Before I left the clinic she had me get an x-ray so they could track the stone.

Needless to say, I did make the cruise but about the time the ship left the dock in Los Angeles I was having second doubts about my decision as I was having mild kidney pain. This pain occurred a few more times over the next few days but then quit completely for the remainder of the cruise and has not recurred since.

However, I did have a scheduled appointment with my Urologist when I returned from the trip and her suggestion was to have the stone removed as soon as possible. Her comment was “You have had this stone long enough so lets get rid of it”.

I am scheduled for a session with a Lithotriptor on Thursday of this week to “pound” the stone out of me with sound waves. In the mean time I have had multiple doctor visits, lab work, etc in preparation for the procedure.

As a result of all this medical stuff we canceled our annual winter trip to Arizona for this year. We hated to miss seeing all of our friends but I need to get this taken care of.
The other reason to get it done is because Clyda has knee replacement surgery scheduled for February 23rd and I need to be ready to take care of her. This surgery is to replace the device she had installed about a year and a half ago. The device is perfect but she is unstable on her feet as the ligaments for that leg are stretched. The only way to compensate is to put in a new device with less movement sideways. Unfortunate, but it has to be done.

There is no traveling in our near future until Clyda is back on her feet and stable.

On another note: We are having RAIN. Not a lot, but enough to make a difference in the drought we hope. Of course, much more is needed to overcome all those years when we had little rain. The lake (our main water source) has come up some but is still has a long way to go before it spills over the dam. I doubt it will happen this year.