L'chiam

We may not have to go back to the Bankruptcy Court.  Tom (attorney) thinks he can send the judge a copy of the contract and that will suffice.  If not--I did it once and now I know, I can do it again.  That's the best part of challenging myself!

I have Zinnias that are over six foot tall!!!

 I love these flowers.  I did nothing special for them to grow.  I put Round-Up on the soil of the raised bed last fall and this spring, gave it a good deep digging up and coated it with Preen.  A week later, I took my two packets of Burpees seeds, purchased from Wal-Mart.  Dug a small trench back by the shed and sprinkled in the tall variety.  Dug another trench up by the front and put in the short variety.

I sprinkled it down and...that's is all I have done with that garden all summer.  No fertilizer, no watering even.  They get the western sun and when it rains, the rains slides off the shed roof into their flower bed.  Amazing!!!  I shall do this next spring, but I am going to plant a sunflower in the center of the back row--just for fun and to see what happens.

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This morning, the new neighbor's finally had a gas line put in to the back of their home.  All these cold nights and mornings and they have had no heat.  I don't know why their sidewalk and other, single parking pad have not been laid, but when she came home this afternoon, she pulled into the new drive.

We don't expect to see any gardens at this place.  I understand neither one of them is into working outside.
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Dar came over this morning and woke me up.  I was so exhausted from all the stress yesterday, that I was still asleep at 9:00.

She brought back my dress and told me that she had more compliments on Sunday, than she has ever had in her life and how so many said she had "lost weight".  AHA  Will she take the hint that wearing tight clothes makes you look fat and wearing a bit looser clothes, makes you look better?

She didn't seem to have any drama over the weekend of wedding and Yacht Club fiestas.  I can't imagine that from her.  She did say that everyone at the wedding realizes that, at 92, this is probably her Dad's last big "do" and he was dressed in a tux and, "They must have taken a hundred or more pictures of Daddy and I."
<"me" would be the correct pronoun, but I digress>

She took her Daddy home at midnight, both of them spending the night at her brother's home and that the door, which was suppose to be open, was locked and, "I had to crawl through the doggie door to get inside!"

Her brother has a Cocker Spaniel and I cannot imagine Dar getting her wide shoulders and rather wide hips through a door for a Cocker Spaniel, but I laughed at the mental picture I had.  She may have embellished the story a bit?
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There is definitely something wrong with Merle.  They both came down this afternoon.  They had just purchased a second TV to use in their one tiny bedroom as they fight over what to watch on the one in the living room.  Nowadays, no Owner's Manuel is packed with new products.  It is available on-line and since Pearl couldn't figure out how to find it, Merle wondered if I could and then print it out for him.  I did and 90 pages later he had it in his hands and wandered home.

After having cut the cable cable to the Internet last week, Pearl was concerned about what he would do to "screw up the TV hook-up."

"I am worried about him.  This morning, I asked him if he could spread some lineament on my back.  I handed him the bottle.  It has a cap and then a roller-ball thingie--kind of like deodorant."

"Okay."

"He sat behind me for quite a while, it seemed and then he said, 'I don't know how to open this.'  It is just a regular bottle with a cap on it and he didn't know how to unscrew the cap!"

"Oh my gosh!"

"Yesterday, when he got home from work, I fed him lunch and he laid back in his chair and slept until supper time.  I made him supper and he laid back in his chair and slept for another two hours.  When I woke him up to go to bed, he said, 'When are you going to make lunch'.  It was dark outside and he thought he hadn't had lunch and didn't remember eating supper!"

"Oh, Pearl."

"He has always taken care of me and now, I have to take care of him.  How am I going to take care of a senile old man?  I don't like this one bit!"

"Did he find out anything from the sleep study he took last Thursday?  Did he find out how many times he woke up?"

"I don't know."

"When they got him up in the morning, didn't they tell him?"

"He didn't ask, I guess."

"Okay---I gotta tell you this.  You both need to ask more questions when you are at a doctor's office...or in hospital!  This is the difference between you and Merle and Fred and me.  When Fred had his sleep study, when he got home in the morning, he knew how many times he had woken up during the night and if it was within normal ranges or if he needed a bi-pap machine.  They went over the results with him and suggested he get a bi-pap and later that morning, HE called his primary care doc and made an appointment as soon as he could get in.  Fred had the machine by the end of the week."

"Well, we have yo go back to his primary care doctor and he will tell us the results and then we can make a decision."

"But--I think you both need to be more pro-active.  Personally, I think that Merle has Sleep Apnea.  That's why he is so tired and may be why he get confused.  He probably needs a bi-pap and...the sooner the better!  The older we get, the quicker you have to catch these kinds of things."

"We just follow along with whatever the doctor's tell us."

"And you never really know what is going on.  You go from one doctor to the next and have all tests, some you don't even need, and you still...never know what is going on.  Ask them--their findings, their suggestions...get angry and ask his primary care doctor, 'Merle has every test imaginable to man.  You say there is nothing wrong, but...something is wrong!'"

"We wait for them to tell us."

"Merle's primary care guy is the same doc that Fred had.  He's really very good.  He will answer any of your questions.  I know he will."

"I don't think Merle really wants to know."

ARRGGH!!!!!
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Tomorrow I go up the road to the little hospital and have my Mammogram, Bone Density and Chest x-ray.  It's been almost two years.  How did I get the appointments?  I TOLD my doctor I wanted a requisition for ALL of them!  

Quit being sheep!  If you are curious about something and you want a non-invasive test, TELL your doctor.  If you want a Doppler Sonogram on your Carotid Arteries (in your neck), tell your doctor.  He may try and pooh-pooh the idea because he listens to those arteries with his stethoscope, but you TELL him, you want the sonogram!  If you are over 65--Medicare will pay for any of those tests.

When I turned 70, I told my doctor that I wanted: an Echo Cardiogram, and an EKG, an abdominal ultra sound, the Doppler Sonogram on my carotid arteries, a check of my Aortic Artery (checking for an aneurysm), appointment with an ENT guy, the name of a good Dermatologist. a check for PAD done on my legs and ankles, a Mammogram, Bone Density Scan and multi-view chest x-ray, and a full blood draw for everything you usually check and cancer markers.

He said, "Why.  You aren't having any problems."

I said, "Because I am seventy and I want to know that everything inside me is okay."

I got them all, sometimes several of the tests at the same place, at the same time.  

I requested that all the test results be mail to ME and my doctor.  When I went back to him, he said, "See, I told you everything was all right."

I said, "Yes...and now I know for sure."

I can't begin to tell you how relieved and happy I was that I got all those tests done.  The results made me feel like a new woman!!!  To know for sure, that I had no problems with any organs, or arteries or...anything.  

The only test I have never had is a colonoscopy. Isn't that weird?  Me that is so pro-active about my health?  But--there is no colon cancer in my family--no cancer of any kind, actually.  When my sister had her first one, they stretched her colon and she was in pain for a week.  When my cousin had his, they perforated his colon and he was in hospital with intestinal infection for three weeks--so...I guess I just will not take that chance.