MRI results

My cervical, neck, stenosis is now severe, and oddly enough the MRI in that region picked up more sinus info, I now have a cyst too in my sinuses! What next? The new ENT's office called this morning for an appointment, but not until the beginning of JUNE!
My thoracic region MRI appears stable, with showing the same herniated disc and stenosis caused by it there from a few years ago, but no worse.
The pain management center called me already and I have an appointment in the next few days.
Meanwhile thanks to technology their twelve pages of forms were copied and printed off/ online and have since been filled out and are all set to go with me!
Since there were no new MS lesions in those areas, mine are still all in my brain, it would appear that much of my numbness and spasms can be caused by my neck (cervical stenosis) that is more severe now.
No wonder I have headaches, between that and my chronic sinusitis with cyst now added in, and needing surgical intervention once again. That explains a lot!

Oh well.

PATIENCE SELF!

Yep, I am one of those needing immediate gratification people; for shame!

Lynn Stengel ARNP from my neurologist's office that took care of all this also tried calling me Friday with the results, but on my cell phone number and I had this dumb app that interfered with me answering, so the call was dropped except for the caller ID, which I called right back, but by then the office had closed!
Lynn is even sending me the written report, great ally!
I see my neurologist in June too.

Moving on...

The weather here is hot, hot, hot! Daily nineties!
So as we used to do with very cold weather up north in NJ by hunkering down in our heated homes with backup fireplaces, here in Florida we do that too in our nice cool air-conditioning!
THANK HEAVENS for that!
Summer is early, but this like Arizona's claim to fame is different than our usual summer heat, since we are in fire season so we now have a dry heat! Low humidity! In the summer we have WET HEAT, high humidity? Yep, rainy/hurricane season, yup it starts in just four more weeks, yuck! June first.

Be careful for what you wish for, i.e. rain, that's how Harvey, Irma and Maria happened... no rain dances PLEASE!

Happy good night all!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Aussie's excellent adventure!

So Aussie said to himself, self they cannot make up their minds so I think I will get out of here and set motor boating all by myself! Mom and Dad have shown me many a time how it is done, so why not?

Off I go!

Pretty houses!

                                         Nice boat under that tarp a wee tug style one!

                                        Time to gaze with admiration at the sites.

                                                     Like my selfie?

                                          Somethings just jumped in the water, I am pretty sure!

All in all not a bad few hours of pleasant passage amongst nature!

Happy good night all!

And as Mom always says, next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Changing gears ...

Boating!

Goldie Locks boating!
Gotta go when we can, although when not in too much sickness or mostly in healthy, sort of...preferably when the sun is shining, but not too hot... in daylight, but close to sunset, but never dark...in other words just right!

My mat of wood that we had painted via my design is still holding up well! Tap on the below picture to read the mat larger.

 As you can see our yacht awaits our boarding!


Some projects are to renew and refresh, my shabby chic flower box was just that sort of thingy.
Hubby as usual did the heavy lifting, and mainstay painting the white base, and emptied the wooden box of overly rooted soil and removed the sad dying plants, and delivered the washed down gift from my cousins, yes the very same ones, the retired teachers that had given it to us as a housewarming present nearly twenty years ago! So Hubby had set it aside when he painted the porch and replaced the other objects but left this one for me to decide how to paint it, most of the paint was shadow remnants so I basically had a clean slate, and that enabled me to decide to make it become a glaring bright off color from the rest of our color coordinated stoop! (By adding in the RED!) Those few succulents made it, they are thornless and have been with us for over twenty years,another gift from a neighbor from Punta Gorda, they grow lovely small purple velvet flowers on them; but still no one has been able to tell us its name, even the county extension. They are extremely easy to propagate too, thus the reason why we continue to have them, and they need very little care, an additional bonus!

Happy good night to all!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Tonight's blog will be well thought out and...

may be controversial... that said... here I go...
Our President Trump is not all there, in the thinking department in my opinion, and many other people agree too; I bet.
He states one minute that he doesn't know something about an investigation and then blatantly states his lawyer was taking care of it for him, huh?
Not buying your wife a birthday present is just not cool!
Only a card?
Mr. Billionaire you can do better than that!
No wonder she is Mrs. number three.
His future meeting with Kim Jong Un can become a powder keg, both men have been known to become verbally volatile and then what will us Americans do?
Mr. Trump stated that he is going to walk out if he doesn't like what is happening?
DO NOT GO!
For all things you hold dear, Ivanka, save her and therefore the world in the process I implore you!

I guess Mr. T you are here for a little while longer... try to make things better.
Sadly not many like you.
Apparently, for the specific reason that you rub people the wrong way!

Now the doctor that did your physical Pres. apparently had a bad scale for weighing you, since your weight number he gave and your appearance do not jive. In my opinion, again.
Also was psychological testing done?
I think not.
As with gun control, heads of state left with any weaponry at their fingertips should be well mentally analyzed, tested, to verify their stability before giving them the keys, so to speak, to the bombs!
Not only should the general population be tested, but all military, all law enforcement, and anyone with the ability to kill must be made sure that is only their very last resort when all other possibilities have been exhausted, and that their judgement is of that quality!
Not allowing them the ability to do as they feel when angered, hairpin turns or willy nilly!
GOOD GRIEF!
Control yourselves people!
Anger is as nasty as violent forms of mental illness can be if left to fester and you end up acting irrationally!

And that is why I fear the guy in the White House... he IS NO COOL DUDE, HE IS A HAIR TRIGGER WAITING TO GO OFF, in my opinion!

We need restraint, common sense and the ability to negotiate with people with that like minds/ temperament, not the ones that are so similarly volatile to our President, unfortunately. In my opinion.
I implore you to think before you TWEET and talk and do and everything else; you are a piece of work that needs to work on himself, so please do that!
All in my opinion of course.
Don't get me wrong Mr. T we, none of us are perfect and we are all works in progress, but you have too many people to think about, like all AMERICANS, so be cautious with all that you do on our behalf.
Respect your counsel, when you find decent ears to talk to, keep them, do not fire them.
Speak with your predecessors and listen to them, learn from them.
After all they all had two terms due to how they worked for all of us!
Do not forget you are in our employ, you are therefore an American employee for and by the people so hear us!
That is all of us!
Not just who voted for you, which I did not!
But that doesn't mean I don't want you to be a good president, I do. I want you to listen to all Americans, even the media! Since many of them are Americans too!

Happy good night all!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Even after a medical test we try to make life a bit better!

I had my two MRIs this morning without the injectable dye. Lynn ARNP had decided no dye would be necessary. Probably because of all the toxicity of what is already in me causing problems that we had discussed.That said though, I have not had a problem with it before, but she felt they could see the lesions if active MS or damaged of more herniations and narrowing from my stenosis, and DDD, that I have had for years in my neck and chest areas, cervical and thoracic, any additional caused by that fall! Comparing with last years PICS done at the other MRI place, although my neuro has the pictures and the dx from the radiologist in my file.
I should hear something, probably by Monday.

Moving on... as in the title... Hubby and Aussie alongside the outdoor seating enjoying some shade outside the restaurant called Hurricane Charley's!

 The view from there on the Harborwalk from Gilchrist Park.

 The actual seating in that Tikki Hut looking area, but we did not eat there today, we have had many fine meals there previously. Instead we picked up two burritos supremes and a nacho with cheese from Taco Bell and ate over at the pavilion at the park where we found that weird, but adorable strawberry rock! And yes, we did post it to the proper Facebook site that we belong to too! In our travels we found gas for $2.65.9 a gallon so we filled our half gone tank.

Happy good night all!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Update: Aussie is all better!

Correction: I misspoke on the mural that I stated was on the old courthouse actually it was on the old town hall! Forgive?

After nearly eight years...

of being on my injectable MS medication Copaxone I am going off of it as of this Friday.
Lynn ARNP in my neuro Dr. Montoya's office and I discussed what I have been having going on.
From the peripheral neuropathy, numbness, that stays for the last few years at my injection sites, to nightly itching and hyperhidrosis (my internal thermostat is broken) all might very well be associated with side effects from my MS medication, even after all these years.
So I am trying this experiment with being monitored. It should take as little as right away to be out of my system to six weeks.
Any problems, I am to call, as always.

My other issue is with my fall of March 21 st, last month, that I have been feeling badly ever since; I will be getting two MRIs tomorrow, cervical and thoracic where the pain is most prevalent. I will probably end up in pain management.

Many of these problems have been the cause of my inability to gain a good night's sleep!

As far as the left eye orbit bruising goes, it appears that is most likely due to my left sinus again that did appear as a problem on my brain MRI in January; although, I had thought they were telling me about my old info about my previous issue that I had surgically fixed a few years back, but no this is it again, chronic! Lynn offered antibiotics, but I said that many don't work anymore.
So a new ENT was called and sent info to contact me for an appointment.The one that did my surgery, Dr. Moss, originally has since retired.
Oh well... if ONLY!
WELL that is!

Always something...
For the last couple of days Aussie's tummy issue has returned, although he eats normally, plays normally too. It might be all those foreign "all natural" homemade treats he consumed at the Earth Day Festival, who knows, but it started just after.
I suppose we still must be very careful with what Aussie eats, including his tasting of EVERYTHING outside!
So until the last minute we are not sure about his class tonight.

Always something, hmm?
Still looking for happy daily!

Happy good night all!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Airing dirty laundry!

Funny how the genesis of this blog has changed over the nearly ten years that I have been writing here. June 25, 2008 was the day of its inception.
I am not as carefree with my expressing of all my opinions as I once was when I used to be more blatant and not thinking of ramifications from my words... but now I do know.
The pen is mightier than the sword, an oldie but a goodie and that the pen (keyboard keys) should be wielded with forethought.
Whew!
Am I growing up or what?
Sure life aggravates and creates moments of joy and wonderment too!
And no, I am not going to turn into a Pollyanna, nope, no way!

Of course life can be good, but not that great happens too often too.
That can be attributed to one's own health, or consumer affairs, governmental issues, and our families! Nothing is perfect! After all this is LIFE!
Looking for happy daily, can be quite a trial of errors and benevolence, albeit futal at times, but worth the effort.
As anything worth your while/wile should be, ha.

I wrote under all of this and then deleted a long essay about my cousin and his wife, with way too much detail of what had transpired, but I have used restraint instead.. They are retired NJ teachers that have been living here in Florida eighteen years now. We have seemed to reconcile our estrangement, after bumping into one another on two different occasions.

So far we hugged when last in contact to seal the deal, and my cousin called today to invite us to multiple places, which was very thoughtful, but unfortunately hard to do these days with Aussie in training and my heat issues, but we left that door open for the future.
He also let us know they would be going away on vacation soon in state.
Yes, we have islands here too!
Where we too have been many times and enjoyed as well.
THEY KEYS!
But now, these days another place to try to go to in cooler weather for us.

Another true confession...

A rather odd mistake I made a couple of weeks ago I have no idea why I did it except without thinking it through thoroughly I had sent a picture to my old friend for over forty-years that we had had a falling out twice and have been estranges since 2004, a picture of a street that had her father's name on it. Why there was no good reason, and then Aussie's PIC was sent too and then that was it, we both stopped! She had responded to the pics, but then we both did nothing.
Not meant to be.
Such is life.

Que sera sera! (whatever will be will be!)

Happy good night all!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

I love Beall's Outlet!

I was determined to get the right fit in my jeans, not my genes, got it? Well, I guess those too, but not at Beall's, maybe at Ancestry.com that I also belong to, ha.
Any-who, did you know that baggy clothes just make you look fatter, as do too tight clothes! Although, on very thin people they exaggerate their thinness.

I know.

And so to alleviate that problem having the right fit is preferable.
No, I will not be so brave to say what size I am in, but in spite of me not being able to go on that extremely high protein diet, due to my CKD, chronic kidney disease. I have gone down a couple of sizes, three sofar.
And that is okay!

I suppose it is taking a bit longer to lose, but I guess I still can.
Certain clothing brands most of us ladies know run true to form, but some don't, so if one is too large try the next size down, and that is what I did do! I was lucky they did run true to size.
Voila!
The perfect fit for now to get me through the summer.
I like capri length slacks, so that is what I get; especially now with my chair.
They are stylish still, classic really, and so I bought three pairs in neutral colors.
For me, since I am always casual I bought dark navy denim, a slightly lighter shade of denim and black. Okay, black can be jazzed up a bit for not as casual.
I know most will think they are not very summery, but with the right blouses that I do have they can be transformed!
These were $42 apiece slacks with zippers and buttons, but Beall's sells them at a sharp discount of $16.99, plus Mondays are an additional 15% off, so nearly three for the cost of one!
No, they are never seconds, they are always first quality products!
See why I love Bealls Outlet!
Over the years I have found some of my cutest outfits there and at the thrift shops I also love to frequent, but these days they are not all ADA accessible as they could/should be sadly.
So many I have had to back out of for fear of demolishing their shelves!

And then we went over to the Winn Dixie in the same Promenades Mall on Mondays is now selling rotisserie chickens for just $3.99 each, so we took two, one for the fridge and one for the freezer!
Always handy to make this or that from, including quickie chicken noodle soup, they had the no-egg noodles also bogo and so I got those too/two.

All in all a simple accomplishing morning.

Below PICS are Spring-ing up our yards! Actually, summer temps here!Arbor was one Hubby made from scraps replacing a bought one that rotted out it had our grape vine on it alongside the house from the side courtyard to the back yard, so Hubby gave it another painting, trimmed the grape vine and moved it up front where Aussie is less likely to get to the grapes that are toxic for dogs!

 Pond in backyard and water lillies in the pond below. Gardenia tree is also in full bloom with pushing from some coffee grounds, one in the backyard and one in the front yard, that is Gardenia bushes.

Happy good night to all!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Earth Day Festival in Englewood Florida!

 Music was great, and recyclable too, ha!

 Kids treating Aussie and making him work for them by doing tricks.

 Amber the chicken and the milking goat are thanks to 4-H.

 Aussie loved the extra long tube!

 And even the kiddie pool!

 Agility course and doggy pool are thanks to below: Plus so many doggy treats for Aussie!

 Blossom the possum asleep in the cage below.

 Only spent a couple of hours there, but they were well spent and very pleasant.

Happy good night to all!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!