HEALTH AND HOUSE PLANS

 

This will be my second post for January 2021, a far cry from the 31 posts I made in 2020. With this post, I’ll bring you up-to-date on how I’m doing and what I’m planning, with the goal being a return to fiction writing (and solving Hannah’s and Luke’s problems) in February. Again, I don’t know if I’ll write enough to post each day, but that would be my long-term goal.

First my health seems to be improving. I’ve been able to drop one of the new medications and a follow-up ultrasound of my abdomen showed everything in there as being perfectly normal. An earlier exam had indicated my gall bladder wall was thickened. I tried looking that up, and while I have a medical background (decades ago), most of the scientific terminology about thickened gall bladders didn’t provide a clue as to what the problem might be.

When I talked to my cardiologist on January 29^th, he said I’m doing much better than a lot of people who have had the same problem. He was very impressed that I’m walking almost 75% of my hour’s walk and expect to try for 100% come tomorrow. That’s most likely because I was in such good shape when I became ill. He is having me stop one of the medications on February 14^th and the other one on March 14^th. If I don’t suffer any problems as a result, and I don’t expect to, then I won’t have to resume either one of them. He’s also going to order a chest CAT scan for March or April, just to make sure that everything inside my chest that didn’t appear normal has returned to normal. Again, I don’t expect it will show anything abnormal.

Finally, when it comes to good health, let me just say this. If your health is good, keep on doing whatever it is you’re doing to stay healthy. If it’s not so good, then work with your MD to figure out how to make it better than it is. This was the worst bad health experience I’ve ever had and I don’t want to go there ever again. Even the almost year of breast cancer treatment didn’t knock me down the way this did. But I also know that as I age, I just might have another or more bad health times, but I’m going to keep on doing whatever I can to try to avoid such a experiences.

This occurrence also has caused me to re-evaluate other parts of my life. Before 2020 ended, I was asking contractors for bids on restoring/replacing windows in my house. I also scheduled a foundation firm to come and evaluate and provide a bid for fixing the foundation and leveling the house. Since the house is paid for, I figured BECU would be happy to provide me with a home equity loan to pay for these improvements. I was correct about the loan, but have not completed the necessary paperwork to make it official and don’t plan to do so.

After spending an entire weekend by myself, and I think without a single phone call/text, I decided the absolute best answer for me would be to sell the house as is and find something smaller and more suited to an older person. I considered everything I’d have to do to make the improvements and it sounded like a lot of energy and hard work. I also came to the conclusion that the same amount of energy and hard work would be required to move elsewhere. I do have to admit that making that decision makes me very weepy at times. This house holds 52 years of memories and my garden is full of plants that were given to me by folks I love or planted in memory of folks I love. Not to mention John and all the pets are beneath the apple tree.

I contacted both the window and foundation companies and told them I wasn’t going to proceed. I then contacted the real estate agent (Joe) who had come to visit last fall. I told him I wanted to sell the house as is to a buyer who won’t require an inspection. I told him I would give the information and bids provided by the window and foundation companies to potential buyers and would expect to take a hit on the selling price as a result. I’m sure Joe would prefer to have the inspections done, but I do not want to pay for them and the two major problems have been identified. The plan is to list the house come April.

Perhaps I was a bit stupid, but I found a site on the internet and filled out some information. The enter key had barely been hit when I began to receive emails and phone calls about an estate sale. I didn’t realize I would get such quick and multiple responses. The estate sale wouldn’t happen until the end of March, beginning of April if COVID allows. First, I want to have family members come do a walk through and identify what they would like to take out of this house for their own homes. Except for items which have a lot of meaning for me, everything else in the house will be up for sale. The problem with items that have meaning for me is that I can point to almost anything in the house and tell you where I got it and/or who gave it to me. There are going to be some hard decisions when it comes to stuff, let me tell you.

My goal is to have this house sold and be living somewhere else by June 2021. Joe sends me updates on what comes on the market every other day or so. So far, nothing has grabbed me and made me want to shoot an email back, saying, “THIS IS IT.” It’s actually fun to look at the various condos (lots of those) and small homes (not so many) and try to picture myself living there.

The really exciting part of this whole exercise, aside from moving to a totally new place is buying new stuff for the new place. My living room furniture is too large for a smaller place and I’ve lived with it for almost 50 years and replaced the cushions three times. So, the idea of new furniture, towels, dishes, etc., is extremely exciting. I won’t need as much stuff as I already have here, and hopefully the estate sale will have what I don’t want flying out the door to enhance some stranger’s life/home.

The idea of making a new garden is also inviting although it’s not going to have all the plants I’ve been gifted and that I’ve nurtured for who knows how many years. I know I can most likely take starts from plants like my Great Auntie Lola’s fuschia, but the trees and shrubs planted in memory of a loved one will most likely have to remain. When I think of all the lilies I’ve planted, it makes me sad, but the new owners will undoubtedly enjoy and I can purchase and plant new ones.

Another scary part to this life change is the fact I won’t know a soul in the new neighborhood. Living here, I’m the third oldest person with one woman down the street logging in at 96 and another woman up the street about 89 or so I think. The remaining neighbors are all younger than I, some of them a lot younger with small children. While we aren’t in and out of each other’s homes because it’s never been that kind of neighborhood, I still know everyone and everyone knows me.  I’ll be missing that a lot when I’m gone.

My final concern has to do with the doggies and cat. I can make sure wherever I move allows for pets. Taking Karma and Kaizer with me won’t be difficult, but the cat Zooey, is another matter. I rarely see her and then it’s usually in the rafters of the garage. She has refused to come in since K&K were brought home. I leave the laundry room door ajar so she can come in and eat which is how I know she’s still around…the food and water disappear. I’m not sure how I would go about catching her up and if she’d even stay in the new place. 

So, this is what my spring is going to look like. Spiffing up the house so potential buyers won’t think I’m a total slob; looking at potential new homes; trying not to be too weepy about this big change; curating all the stuff that’s in this house and who knows what else this may entail. January has flown by, at least for me, so it seems like I’ve got a lot to get done by June. Wish me luck.

HERE I GO AGAIN???

 

Well, I guess the first question that comes to mind is, “Have you missed me???” And, please, I hope y’all know I’ve missed you!!! As you all know, I came home from the hospital on Christmas Eve with a slew of MD appointments for follow up. For almost a week, I felt pretty good and tried very hard to not overdo.

On New Year’s Day, I had chills in the afternoon and when I took my temperature, it was 100.7. My chest also began to feel a bit tight and come Sunday, I did an online chat with a doctor. Arrangements were made for me to have another chest x-ray before seeing a doctor Monday morning.

I’d just had a chest x-ray on 12/31 and everything looked fine. The x-ray technician told me Monday morning that one’s heart and lungs can change in the blink of an eye. The Monday x-ray showed I had developed some fluid in my left lung, but not to the extent it had been in the hospital. So, the MD changed my prescription for Ibuprofen to Indomethacin. By the end of last week, the majority of the symptoms had disappeared, and as of today, Friday, 1/15, I am trying to be optimistic and work toward getting back to where I was at the beginning of December.

I’ve talked to or met with via video conference my regular MD and the pulmonologist. I had to have lab work done again Thursday, but am hoping all the numbers have returned to normal so I can stop getting poked every week. My last appointment is a phone call with the cardiologist at the end of the month. At that point, maybe he’ll take me off some of the meds they prescribed and order another CAT scan for some time in March or April to make sure everything in my chest has returned to normal. I’ll be quite happy to go back to utilizing Kaiser a couple times a year, if that, rather than an almost weekly or even daily check-back.

None of the doctors have been able to identify how my problem came to be. Apparently, I developed inflammation in my chest (Did you know they can do a blood test to identify the amount of inflammation???...I didn’t until this happened.) which led to an increase of fluid in the pericardium and my left lung. It’s amazing how much it hurt to breath deeply because of the amount of fluid in both locations. It was also amazing how swiftly my breathing began to return to normal once the fluid had been drained, especially from the pericardium. It’s also amazing how weak I became during this whole episode because I was unable to walk or exercise for more than a month. I wonder how bad it would have been if I hadn’t been as healthy as I was when it all began?

Now, I’m working to regain my strength and stamina. So far this week, I‘ve managed to do my exercises each day. I’ve also walked all around my cul-de-sacs each day a minimum of twice when the rain let up and three times yesterday and today and haven’t felt too terribly exhausted or out of breath. As my son says, “baby steps, ma, baby steps.” Right now, my Fitbit says I’ve walked almost 4,000 steps today. That’s a bit more than half of what I used to step during the hour I walked with my neighbor in the morning. I’m hoping I can return to that hour’s walk beginning Monday.

I lost my appetite during this whole thing, but it finally seems to be returning. I was eating, but nothing tasted all that good, and when I tried to think of something I could order in or make myself, nothing sounded good enough to expend the effort to either get it or make it. So far this week, I’ve made myself something for dinner each night that sounded and tasted great. I even had take-out on Wednesday with a great friend, and we practiced safe contact with masks and distancing from each other at the dining room table…about six feet apart. I’m also hoping to have take-out again today with another friend with whom I’ll also practice social distancing.

I haven’t yet had the energy or imagination to return to posting something on my blog since the end of December. I’m hoping that with this post, I can begin to return to writing. Poor Hannah and Luke have been hanging out there wondering what’s in store for each other for far too long. I’m going to have to go back and read what developed before I can move them forward. I’ve also been playing around with another book idea about someone named Charlie Something…not much imagined so far beyond her name and where I think I want her to go.

I’ve missed writing and posting and hearing back whatever anyone wants to respond. One individual pointed out I only had about four (4) people who were reading my posts, but I think there are more of you who do read, but don’t post a “like” or a comment. And that’s just fine because in most cases, I’m writing for my own enjoyment rather than to receive approbation from the readers. I also found it amazing how lack of energy steals any creative ideas right out of my head. I would have thought that all that laying around and doing nothing would lead to a lot of creativity, but, nope, it didn’t one single little bit. I found that rather disappointing and look at all those days as wasted days and opportunities, although my body was in the process of healing itself and that’s most likely where all the energy, creative or otherwise, went.

For now, I’m not promising to have a blog post each and every day. I don’t have a 2021 goal of posting something every day. I’ll post whatever I manage to create at any given point whether it does happen every day or once a week. Meanwhile, I’m wishing y’all an extremely happy and HEALTHY 2021. I’m also hoping we all can get vaccinated in the very near future.