February 2024 Chit Chat and Check In

[Flagryl]

I'm so glad you on "on it" Huronna and I hope the fluid in one of Joe's ventricles can be taken care of. Please keep us posted. You are such a hostess, kudos to you. We have done that with friends as well.

I have finished putting the hanging files in my top lateral file drawer, now the bottom one is left. I have all these file folders, will try to clean them up and donate them.

Hope to go in tomorrow and get a new iphone and give my old one, iphone 13 mini, to John. His old flip is a pain in the you know what. Hard to manage with so many steps to do the job.

[silk]

Huronna...thinking of you and Joe and hope some light will be shed on his heart ventricle problem .

[Huronna]

Today was the first actual visit with the PT. He is going to come three times a week for four weeks. He kind of wore Joe out LOL, the slug needs pushing.
Going out to lunch with brother and SIL.

[Smilyn]

Good morning all... I hope the challenges everyone meets today are easily met!

Grassy; I Googled EHD issue and found a horrendous disease that inflicts deer populations. I'm sure you don't have that, but it didn't sound like something nice. I am crossing my fingers for your 7 year visit. Very kind of you to be reassuring me at this moment of your own journey.

Huronna; I'm glad things are moving along with Joe and I hope the neurologist gives answers that open doors for improvement. Lainey visited you too, and I recall you two really hit it off. You do embrace the world. I had planned this to be a year of travel and I do have a good friend in Florida I was intending to drive down to see... I'll check my dance card later in the year.

You reminded me of when I was a Captains wife in Arkansas in 1986. Recently promoted Brigadier General Hargrove's wife spoke at a luncheon just before they moved to their next assignment in St Louis. I happened to chat with her in the ladies room before she spoke (very tall woman!) and liked her. She spoke warmly to the wives, and as she closed she extended an invitation: "If you ever get to Scott AFB, come visit me!" As it happened, about a year later, I was coming back from a brief visit to my parent's house in the Detroit area where I had gone to pick up belongings I had left with them, driving our old Dodge cargo van with my English Springer Spaniel for company. Scott AFB was on the way back to Little Rock AFB, so I planned to stay at the temporary officer's quarters (like a motel for officers and their spouses,) but it was full. I tried to sleep in the van but it was very hot, the mosquitoes were awful and the dog and I were uncomfortable. I went to the Officer's Club to see if they could help me get a space for the night and met with the manager. He left the room and I spotted a list of phone numbers under the plastic on his desk. The Hargrove's home phone number was there, and I called it at 10pm. Mrs Hargrove was surprised, but game. She remembered her invitation, and gave me directions to their home. (I bet that phone list got put away the next day.) I ended up sleeping in the guest bedroom of the home of the assistant commander of that base - with the caveat that my dog was not allowed to bark and my van had to be kept behind the quarters. Lady was a good girl, went quick potty (which I cleaned up scrupulously) in their tiny yard, curled up by my bed on a rug, and we were both gone in the morning. It's the only time in my life I came down the stairs and said good morning to a General! The funniest part was that she had alerted the President of the Little Rock AFB Officer's Wive's Club (I served on the Board as Editor of the newsletter at that time - 17 years of Board service overall in a number of jobs). At the next Board meeting a box was passed to me and the President said I could open it before it was mailed. I had no idea what it was. Inside was a small, tastefully ornate, metal plaque beautifully inscribed in calligraphy with the words: "USAF Spouse Milyn King Slept Here". I was confused, but everyone was beaming and laughing. They really did send it. And I was told by a command wife who visited later that she really did hang it over the guest bed. And not as a joke either. Everyone, it seems, even Mrs Hargrove, was impressed that I had taken up the invitation she had extended as a farewell line. Somehow it was seen as a mark of connection between the ranks among the wives; an acknowledgement and acceptance of courtesy on both sides. I have to say it was a comfortable bed and a nice breakfast. Their row house small and very tasteful. A brigadier General is the lowest rank of General; they were both struggling with having gone from very high status (full bird Colonel and commander (top dog) at several assignments to rather low status among their peers (there were many multiple star Generals at Scott at that time) and it's hard to stand out. My rather legendary visit had somehow made them more interesting and approachable. Mrs Hargrove gained points, and thus her husband. And I was just accepting a remembered invitation from a lovely, tall, woman I had chatted with after she checked her teeth in the mirror for any salad bits and pulled up her pantyhose in the bathroom before speaking; lucky to have spotted the number. Clueless; lol.

[Grassy]

Milyn, no, nothing serious. EHD in my case meant External Hard Drive. I have been trying to make tags for The Zone's auction, but I am so overwhelmed with all the stuff on my regular hard drive that I thought maybe moving my Valentine's and Christmas kits over to my External Drive might lessen the stress. However, I was having trouble copying. I finally figured it out, but it took over five hours to copy just what I had from Tiny Turtle. Now I hope that EHD does not crash or break. I only have a 250 GB hard drive in my computer, but it is solid state, so that is good. I just have too many kits for my own darn good.

Loved your story!

How are you doing?

Flagryl, speaking of flip phones, Sid has one and he refuses to give it up. He says he will use flips until they stop making them. All he wants in a cell phone is to talk, dial 911 if needed and text. He still uses paper maps (very handily I might add) and if he needs anything more, he lets me use my phone. He is very weird about his phone. He only wants to talk and text. Nothing more. He has a very fancy camera for pictures, so he doesn't even have a digital camera. I guess he is what you would call Old School ha ha.
Do you like your iPhone? I use Android, so I don't know anything about iPhones except lots of people use them.
I love making files. Setting them up is very calming to me - I think it is the repetition. It's just putting the things into the files that is my downfall. I tend to get behind on that.

Huronna, how are you and Joe doing? I saw that he got worn out at PT today. I hope the fluid issues resolves quickly.

How are you Silk and Tilly? How are you Margie?

My Oncology visit went great! She said I look better and she even likes my haircut. Also, my test results are markedly better over last year. My blood glucose was 100 points lower. Kidney and liver function are much better over last year. And the best part is I only have to see her three more times. Once I hit my ten-year mark, I get discharged and I am considered to be cancer-free, which is different from where I sit now. Right now I am at NED or No Evidence of Disease, but because I was Stage 3 due to being Node Positive (even though they were micrometasases - 4 to 7 mm in the nodes) I had to go 10 years instead of the usual 5. Ten years appears to be the magical marker for when I will go from NED to cancer-free.

So life around here is pretty darn good.

[Huronna]

MIlyn, many have stayed at my home and I at theirs. Nothing better than "Open house" so remember that!

[Smilyn]

Yes maam, Huronna... I will remember. I hope I get to do the trip I had planned. I spent the holidays thinking and talking about it. I have a number of female friends across the country I have remained in contact with that are aging. I want to see them again. One has gone ahead. I want to catch the others, share hugs, stories, and Blessings in person. I will need to travel a lot to do that, but I looked forward to that; I need some time alone. The farthest is Sitka, Alaska; I would need to leave the Subaru in Seattle and take the ferry to see Susan. I don't know if I can do it now, but I will remember "open house.'

Grassy: Congratulations! That is a big milestone. You're doing really well in so many ways. I had to laugh at how wide of the mark I was on the the EHD thing. I hope it works for you. I have one too - and for the same reason - PSP files were filling up our C drive! Taht was back in 2012, I think. I've had several over the years, this one is huge.

How am I doing? I am in pain. As the hormones leave my body my muscles and joints are screaming louder and getting more rigid every day. Last night was bad, and this process will continue. Everyone has ideas on how to make it better, but they are not hormone specialists and don't truly understand what is happening and the limitations on what I can do about it. My head hurts all the time, it's hard to think, my emotions are unstable, insomnia and sweating have returned. But otherwise I am ok. I understand the process, as painful as it is, and that is something. Painkillers are not a thing I will do except as a rare thing, as kidneys and liver were stressed from Long Haul and will be stressed by surgery etc, so I am looking at other ways of relieving the stiffness and suing topical creams. Tomorrow I will try to get a chiro adjustment, though I may have to give them up due to joint pain and immobility. I have a gift cert for some massages from my birthday and I will schedule one of those. I'm glad you liked that story. It was a fun memory to revisit. I had forgotten about it. It is connected to the tale of the 3 State Dress; and that's one I really should write. Hmmm.

I am leaving good wishes for all on this Leap Year day. It's a day for independent thinking and inventiveness, so let's all do something unusual!

[silk]

Thank you Grassy. I am about the same. I saw a new doctor yesterday whom I liked. Glad that your oncology visit went well
Hi to everyone.

[Flagryl]

That pain management can be a double-edged sword, I admire your fortitude Milyn. Loved your fun story. Grassy, I am so happy for you. You go gryl! John has been the same way about his flip phone but he was intrigued by the ease of managing unwanted emails and messages. He's also interested in Waze since his car is older and it doesn't have a navigation system. He's a paper map kind of guy but he's really fascinated by how efficient navigation systems are. In city traffic, they can reroute you on a dime...for the better! It caught me off guard that the hardest part of the transition to the iPhone was being able to swipe correctly. I had forgotten that aspect. But, he'll manage.

I am embarrassed I had to call upon my neighbor the life flight helicopter pilot to help me finish setting up the universal tv remote control, One for All. I told him I thought a pilot might be able to do this. He said he wasn't sure about that but he'd try. They don't tell you which Samsung code to use per model, they just give you a bunch of them and you have to work your way through them. Well, got it on the second try. All the apps worked EXCEPT Directv so that took some extra effort and my neighbor figured that one out. The interface to combine the tv and the sat/cable into one button did not work but we can toggle it. Anyway, it's working now. And, we played around to figure out how to put the captions on and off. You have to do that for each app, and it's a pain because John doesn't want them with sports but needs them for lots of the PBS British/Scottish shows. Toggle, toggle toggle. You'd think someone could make that seamless, one for all kind of thing.

So, our phones are set up and the universal tv remote is working. And, I've finished one entire lateral file cabinet and have started on the second drawer.

[Huronna]

Everytime I read about TV's a get the shakes. Our TV is one of those old big models, from 2000 and it still works. We have FIOS cable and that's all the stations we need. Joe can barely manage a clicker with an on/off/mute button. He's forever hitting the wrong on. All of our friend every time they are here, bug us about getting a flat screen, but they just don't have any idea what it's like having a person with such a rotton short term memory. I'd actually rather not have a TV at all. In january I talked to Frontier and got out bill reduced from 224 to 150, it was a magical person I talked to. They have all these deals and you just have to get the right person at the right time to get one.
Today was a good day, no instances with Joe and I even took the time to go to the gym. Buy did I feel like a slug.
PT comes again tomorrow and then we have a free weekend, no appts, not visits no nothing, Just the two of us.