Scattered Thoughts . . .

I think I mentioned in a previous blog entry that Sheila will be starting physical therapy but I could be wrong. Neither one of us is thinking all that clearly because our heads are spinning again due to being immersed in hospital visits and thoughts of new problems with Sheila's health  (relatively small problems, however) . In case I haven't written about it before, I suppose I'll write about it now. When we saw Sheila's Oncology Radiologist in early January, the doctor noticed that Sheila still has some significant swelling in the area of her affected breast and her side where they removed the cancer. She then asked Sheila about any pain. Sheila sort of shrugged her shoulders and said something like, "well... nothing that is unexpected after surgery and radiation."  The doctor gave her a questioning look and asked, "what are you referring to as nothing that is unexpected?" She also added that the swelling she is seeing in Sheila is not norma

Back in August, when Sheila was first diagnosed with this latest cancer, she received a lot of love and attention from all her friends, family and co-workers. Visitors and telephone calls were very common during this period and it was all very much appreciated not only by Sheila but by me as well. Besides, we needed some social interaction and, actually, still do very much. The social interaction is a nice break from the seriousness of cancer and we don't get much social interaction since the cancer has returned. Although Sheila had changed jobs a year ago, her old co-workers all got together to provide a card and some much needed cash to help with any of our expenses. That was definitely appreciated by both of us. Thank you, everyone, for that! Around the same time, Sheila's old boss from her old job called to ask what she could do for us. Wilhelmina has always been very thoughtful and a supervisor anyone would want to have on their side so her question came as no surprise

As I wait on a phone call from my doctor's office, I figured I would write about something more lighthearted than all this depressing health nonsense.  In early January, I shot some photos of the grandkids while we were playing "Life Junior". We bought this game for the kids for Christmas and we erroneously expected it to be exactly the same as the original game of "Life" but perhaps simplified and shorter (which sounded good to us!) . It actually is quite a different game than the Life game we played all those decades ago when we were kids.  The game board in the Junior version is physically smaller. Money is always in the single digits and transactions are rather rare (we'll save those constant transactions for Monopoly) . That being said, it still hurts when you need to pay for something and you only have a dollar sitting on your side of the board. Instead of money being the focus of the game, there are stars to collect by accomplishing productive tas

Heading back to Radiation Oncology... she looks as though she is walking with some purpose, doesn't she? I'm very far behind in blog entries as well as being very far behind in accomplishing things that need to be done around the house so it is time to try to put together a few blog entries in an attempt to doing some catching up.  My health over the past couple of months has been rather poor, generally speaking. As a result, I feel as though nothing has been accomplished since before Sheila's cancer diagnosis... so, nothing really has been accomplished since around the time of our time at the lake house last summer... and that's a loonnnngggg time! We had a short break in Sheila's treatment from Thanksgiving until the first week of January. This was a much needed break for both of us but not nearly long enough. Now we are back into hospital visits and medical appointments a couple of times each week. Unfortunately, I'm still exhausted! Sheila feels th

It was time for me to get online and order a few more refills this past weekend. Typically, this is rather painless. I have a lot of prescriptions but I now request everything online and that has made managing these prescriptions a lot easier than in the past. I still make mistakes every now and then but it is far easier to manage.  So, I access the pharmacy website...  throw the main prescription I need into my cart...  go to my cart to pay...  and what do I see? I see this screenshot pictured here! I chuckle to myself and say, "Yeah, right..." I instantly assumed that my insurance company changed their coverage again for this new year and this is the first time I'm requesting this particular refill this new year.  Every couple of years, my doctors need to send in waivers to get coverage for certain medications. I assumed this was the case again.  I called my mail-order pharmacy this morning to see if I need to call my doctor or call my insurance company next. I

It's that time of year again. This is when we head south for our annual train show at the largest train show in the United States.  A few other train shows around the country erroneously  claim to be the largest train show but, when we check the facts, none even come close to this show. This is a show we look forward to all year long.  Unfortunately, I am still exhausted from our past six months of hospital visits followed by a very eventful holiday season. Sheila is understandably exhausted too. She's having difficulty with this latest cancer treatment plan so far and it is cutting into her sleep significantly. Hopefully things will ease up soon since she has ten years of this last stage of cancer treatment. Regardless, we're both looking forward to getting out of town and strolling around the largest train show in the country.  There really isn't anything on my "wish list" for purchases this year so we don't need to attempt to see the entire sho

Actually, the last two weeks of 2017 and the first three weeks (so far) of 2018 have been exceptionally lousy but this is giving me a very uneasy feeling about this new year.  In our case, it seems that things are constantly breaking. If it is not one thing, it is another. Touch this... it breaks. Look at something else... it breaks. Fix something... turn around and there are two other things broken. The list is so long at this point that I can't even remember everything that has broken in the past four weeks! The first two problems I can remember four weeks ago were related to our electrical and our furnace.  Our electronics were all acting a bit odd and quirky. Things were shutting down on their own. Other things weren't working correctly. After a couple of hours of troubleshooting with an electronics tester, I found myself at our circuit-breaker panel with the cover off testing the monster main lines coming into the house (something I'd prefer to avoid) ... the vol

My five year old desktop computer was constantly crashing earlier this month. This old HP computer would suddenly go black... then the HP splash screen would appear... followed by a Windows reboot. This would happen whether I was simply typing email, or working in Photoshop, or working on a video, or even when no programs were opened. I knew that some component was failing.  At around five years old, this computer was already beyond its average life expectancy for a computer workstation. If there is any good news in this story it is that I was already shopping around for a new computer long before this one started to fail. Whenever Sheila and I would window shop, we were always impressed by the Lenovo computers whether they be desktop computers or laptop computers. Actually, Sheila has been drooling over their top-of-the-line Yoga laptop but we decided it would be overkill for reading books, reading magazines and accessing social media. Since her cellphone is a Samsung, we opted