What Did You Do Today?

[ChattyLMS]

Well, it sounds like a lot of our fiends have been in sick bay visiting good old Bones McCoy.  Take care of all of yourselves, OK?  I'll surely be saying a prayer for all of you.

[Uncula]

  Yesterday, Aug. 19, I had surgery on my eyelids.  Those of you who know me or have seen me in some of the wonderfest pictures may remember how "baggy" my eyelids were.  So I had some of the skin removed.  My wife always had trouble knowing if I was sleeping or not, now she will know!
     Today I am doing great. My eyes are a little swollen and I have some bruising, but I feel great.  AND...I can see clearly.  In fact, I feel so great that I'm going with my sister to celebrate her one month anniversary of being a "happy ex- smoker".  In fact she found a website on the Net that has helped her.  She told me "They get it!"  So, if you know anyone who would like to quit smoking, have them take a look at www.whyquit.com.
   I hope every one is having as great a day for themselves as I am.
     Uncula

[ChattyLMS]

Hi Uncula!
That's great!  I've never seen your eyelids but I'm glad it made such a difference.  Did your insurance cover it?  Send us some before and after pics when you are all healed up!

[Gasport]

Congratulations on your successful surgery! Nice when something like this provides immediate positive results, especially with something as important as your vision... I know Zacherley was considering having the same thing done to one of his eyes some time ago, but i have a feeling at almost 91 years old, he's decided to just live with it!

[raycastile]

For the last two days, I have been at the Vision Leadership retreat.  This is a program that is supposed to train you to be a leader.  My newspaper spent $600 to send me to this eight-month program.  It meets once a month, and in between we have projects to work on.  OK, got to get back to "class" before I'm late.  Everyone else is walking to the meeting room and I'm dawdling on the computer.

[Elizabeth]

Raymond, this could be very useful for your plans for intergalactic domination.  Are they using The Day the Earth Stood Still type approach, or is this more War of the Worlds style leadership?

[Elizabeth]

I realized with a start today that the Labor Day weekend is creeping up on me, which means summer is starting to wind down... and I found myself looking backwards, wondering where the last couple months went?

Starting right around Monster Bash, life became unpleasantly chaotic this summer.  My mother has been in the hospital twice, resulting in a lot of time visiting (while she was hospitalized) and then taking her to doctor appointments, physical & occupational therapy, running errands, duking it out with medical people, on the phone with insurance companies, etc.-- and working all the mom stuff around my own health issues of late. 

Just when things have settled a bit more with the mom, last week something occurred in the life of a young friend, and that started a cycle involving lawyers, a weekend out of the house running to appointments, hundreds of miles of driving and Monday down at Daley Center in court.  (Happily, all was resolved well.)

Today, as I was taking one of my cats to the vet for a treatment (for a recurring problem that tends to be triggered by stress... hmmm...) I reflected on a line from the recent Dr. Who series... "When disaster comes he's there. He brings a storm in his wake... "  Has Dr. Who been tailing me this summer? 

Today is a wonderfully quiet and peaceful day here, so hopefully the Tardis has departed, and what remains of summer will be less eventful.  Put me down for a big order of BORING, please-- I'd like life to be boring for a while!

Meanwhile... checking in here reveals FIVE pages of unread posts! It's going to take a bit to catch up here.

As August winds down-- how are other folks doing? There have been some folks who mentioned health concerns here over the course of the summer... maybe they can check back to let us know how it's going now!

[Scatter]

Aww, I'm sorry your summer has turned so stressful Liz. I hope your health issues are quickly resolved as well.

Over here, it's been a flurry of activity with the new baby, court stuff with the new baby, and having to still stay with the 2 jobs a lot longer than I had hoped. I'm seriously behind in getting out some things in the mail because of all this. Ah well.............I wouldn't mind a little boredom myself about now.

[BaronLatos35]

This week has been a pre service week for teachers which are chock full of meetings and time to set up your classrooms. So today I had a 3 hour team meeting this morning, individual meetings with other team leaders and then spent the afternoon cleaning and organizing my closets, bulletin boards are up, various administrative tasks completed and crossing off more of my to do list.

Next Monday is the first day of school for the kids.

I love the first day of school.

[Unknown Primate]

Elizabeth, you mentioned some of the folks with health concerns and I was one of them.  Had my cardiolite stress test administered on Aug. 17.  I wasn't feeling very good about it, as I haven't been able to stay consistent with my exercising for several months due to a few setbacks (partially herniated disc in my neck, leg braces malfunctions & fractured ribs).  They wouldn't let me use the treadmill (because of my leg braces) so they zapped me with the juice that speeds up your heart, which, incidently, feels really weird.  So anyway, things seemed to go fairly smooth and my confidence started making a comeback.  Three days later, the nurse called and told me my family doc, my cardiologist & the cardio-doc who gave me the test needed to confer about a WALL MOTION ABNORMALITY (!) they discovered, and would get back to me the following day.  Of course, this got me down again.  I could feel depression setting in and didn't sleep a wink that night.  Truly frustrating.  So, I'm sitting outside in the sun the next day about 2 in the afternoon, bemoaning my fate, when my phone rings...  It's the nurse, and she proceeds to inform me that the abnormality was from my previous heart attack (1998) and everything was fine and they were sorry if they scared me!  Needless to say, I've been thanking a certain something/someone ever since!

To top it off, I met with my cool Hungarian ortho/pain management doctor (she's awesome) and a top notch orthopedist who goes by Cap'n Hook (he has a hook hand).  He says he & I are going to be seeing a lot of each other until he can rig up the best hardware & leather my banged up underpins can handle!  Plus, I've lost a few more pounds and I've started exercising again!  The FranKONGstein Monster will be back!  For now, anyway.

Hope everyone else is well!

[Scatter]

Elizabeth, you mentioned some of the folks with health concerns and I was one of them.  Had my cardiolite stress test administered on Aug. 17.  I wasn't feeling very good about it, as I haven't been able to stay consistent with my exercising for several months due to a few setbacks (partially herniated disc in my neck, leg braces malfunctions & fractured ribs).  They wouldn't let me use the treadmill (because of my leg braces) so they zapped me with the juice that speeds up your heart, which, incidently, feels really weird.  So anyway, things seemed to go fairly smooth and my confidence started making a comeback.  Three days later, the nurse called and told me my family doc, my cardiologist & the cardio-doc who gave me the test needed to confer about a WALL MOTION ABNORMALITY (!) they discovered, and would get back to me the following day.  Of course, this got me down again.  I could feel depression setting in and didn't sleep a wink that night.  Truly frustrating.  So, I'm sitting outside in the sun the next day about 2 in the afternoon, bemoaning my fate, when my phone rings...  It's the nurse, and she proceeds to inform me that the abnormality was from my previous heart attack (1998) and everything was fine and they were sorry if they scared me!  Needless to say, I've been thanking a certain something/someone ever since!

To top it off, I met with my cool Hungarian ortho/pain management doctor (she's awesome) and a top notch orthopedist who goes by Cap'n Hook (he has a hook hand).  He says he & I are going to be seeing a lot of each other until he can rig up the best hardware & leather my banged up underpins can handle!  Plus, I've lost a few more pounds and I've started exercising again!  The FranKONGstein Monster will be back!  For now, anyway.

Hope everyone else is well!

THE BEST news I've heard in ages MonkeyBoy!! Prayer and (completely hetero) love from you buddy Scatter!!

[Dr.Teufel Geist]

Good to hear Mark, glad your doing better.

[Unknown Primate]

Thanks, you sentimental ghost physician & incorrigible chimpanzee!

[Elizabeth]

Here is hoping Uncula is continuing to heal up from his eyelid surgery, and checks in soon!

Baron, you are not the only one loving the first day of school-- all those parents out there are sending you happy thoughts as well!

Unknown Primate, I am so very, very glad to hear you've got some good health care professionals on your side there! That makes (and I speak from personal experience here) SUCH a difference! It brings real peace of mind, to know you have someone truly giving thought to your case, and it makes you feel like you have someone in your corner rooting for you and keeping an eye on things.  I've only ever had the treadmill stress test, but both my mom and mom-in-law have had those nuclear stress tests, and told me they are NOT fun... glad you have that behind you, and the doctors got useful information from the test! And WAY TO GO on losing those pounds there-- it all adds up and every bit makes you healthier and, ultimately, happier!

Let us know what happens with the braces, and how Dr. Hook does with the tweaking.  My mom got a new leg brace this year, which they had to recut, and BOY has that made a difference for her.  I hope Dr. Hook gets you hooked up with something better fitting soon!

[Scatter]

Here is hoping Uncula is continuing to heal up from his eyelid surgery, and checks in soon!

Baron, you are not the only one loving the first day of school-- all those parents out there are sending you happy thoughts as well!

Unknown Primate, I am so very, very glad to hear you've got some good health care professionals on your side there! That makes (and I speak from personal experience here) SUCH a difference! It brings real peace of mind, to know you have someone truly giving thought to your case, and it makes you feel like you have someone in your corner rooting for you and keeping an eye on things.  I've only ever had the treadmill stress test, but both my mom and mom-in-law have had those nuclear stress tests, and told me they are NOT fun... glad you have that behind you, and the doctors got useful information from the test! And WAY TO GO on losing those pounds there-- it all adds up and every bit makes you healthier and, ultimately, happier!

Let us know what happens with the braces, and how Dr. Hook does with the tweaking.  My mom got a new leg brace this year, which they had to recut, and BOY has that made a difference for her.  I hope Dr. Hook gets you hooked up with something better fitting soon!

There's nothing wrong with the Primate. He only goes through all that stuff because he likes the rectal exam.