A day in Punta Gorda Florida!

 The morning started with the usual visit to Fishville AKA Fisherman's Village...

Who's that peaking out of the Salty Paws?

Good boy sit at the Village Fish Market for a delish lunch stop with outdoor seating for two legged patrons too!

A Poinciana tree in all its spectacular glory at Ponce Deleon Park.

These ridiculously pretty cycles started at the parks exit...

And this Great Blue heron stands sentry on the fence top of the  entrance/exit there.

More bikes along the way back into the heart of town.

In Punta Gorda proper.

Left for home way before those clouds made good on their threat!

So I called my eye doc...

As most of you know I had a laser surgery treatment with 99 zaps tweaking of my right eye on Tuesday, due to calcification's, opacity, secondary cataract, after cataract surgery two months ago.
Me being me, and quite impatient and since it is still rather blurry and so I called even though it did say that it could take days to see some improvement. 
At first Melissa in the surgery department did tell me that it could be for as long as a week for my blurriness to clear, and that I should basically hang in there...
So you can well imagine my surprise when she called me back within a very short time with a prescription for eye pressure medicine.
No, I do not have Glaucoma, but this medication is for a build up of pressure in the eye, similar to hypertension, most likely caused by using the very necessary steroid medication to heal the eye, that's all.


It is Alphagan P, which  is another expensive medication, over one hundred bucks without insurance, but for me just $40 with insurance, and this is another tiny bottle of eye drops for twice a day! The same amount of times as the steroids. But I was asked to call them back Monday to let them know how it is working...hopefully great!

Moving on...an update that I forgot to tell:

As far as those unanswered questions for my new neuro go... when I called there before my eye doc appointment Tuesday they said I had so many questions to write them all down and they gave me another in person doctor's appointment to see him next week!

Any-who, a storm is lurking nearby with nasty growling thunderous threatening noises and heavy winds...So I guess once again I will say an early goodnight to all and ask you to kindly count all of your blessings and share those overages and we will too!

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

When a billionaire tells you to ask a question what would you do?

Well, friends I got a bit selfish and asked for him to CURE MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS!
Or at least put some of it, his billions, into research; I really thought that was not too much to ask for, ya know?
This incredible Facebook friend had been poking me fairly constantly over the last few months that is online @ Facebook, one hundred times to be exact, since the poke section does keep track.
Thank goodness it's not up to me, to keep track that is...
The concept, or actual poking system, so I've read that it is used to make you alert to what your FB friend has posted on his or her timeline I do believe.
So once they have successfully brought you there you can determine what you have to do in the reasoning of liking or doing nothing or leaving a comment on what has been posted.
And today he, this amazing billionaire, said he wanted us to ask questions, and so I did.

To me, a Jew, ha, it did feel like OMG there is a Santa Claus!
And so I asked him to cure MS; why not? I have nothing to lose, hmm?

Any-who, moving on...
Have any of you signed up again to be on the donotcall.gov list?
I did for us and our phones, years ago and most recently a friend suggested to do it again and so I did, not more than a couple of months ago, for our home and cell phones.
But we are still getting annoying calls, at least five today alone!
Credit card offers, for air-conditioning checking and then some idiot that calls and hangs up when we answer; with somehow out of state area codes!
Crazy!
And another oddity of commercialization via snail expensive mailer...our current cell phone company offering us a deal to go with them and with a $20 cash back if we left our current company!
So I called, and confessed that I thought that they were wasting money that could increase their employees bottom line if they nixed sending ads trying to gain customers from people already utilizing their product!
The young woman on the other end of the line agreed and giggled and made"note" of my comment.

So many companies foolishly don't cross check names and addresses with their current customers.There has to be some way to do it with all this technology, really one would think anyway.

Paper is so costly, and not very green to waste unnecessarily.
Just my opinion; and we all know what that is worth, ha!

On that note of some distinction I do hope, allow me to be the very first to wish you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages and we will too!

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

Fires and storms collide!

Our dry season is running into our wet!
Ahhh, Florida, gotta love her!
Doesn't our wet season know it isn't official until this Sunday?
We seem to be having too many last hurrahs, weather wise. Alligator Alley, the main thoroughfare from Miami to Naples through the Everglades, thus the name, was so severe with brush fires and all that smoke that it had to be shut down for a while just yesterday...Apparently, lightening caused the tinderbox of dry  flora areas to catch!

Now severe thunderstorms with heavy winds are here and would you believe they are threatening this side of the state with hail?
It was in the nineties again today, hail?
Isn't hail made by clusters of ice crystals from way up in the sky's upper atmosphere?

What next, one might ask, now we have a brush fire west of Clewiston threatens homes there, they are evacuating people, this is located west of Lake Okeechobee, the largess hole in our state, but considerably east of us!
CRAZY!

We, once again appear to be getting more noise than action... Hubby just reported we are getting something!

Geez, anticipation is not always something that great when what you are waiting for finally arrives, its here!

Almost a definite given with our rain is the wind that comes just before....Oh goodie our severe storm warning is lifted, what?

It just finally got here!
So to be safe I suppose I will sign off!

Instant laser eye surgery!

Today I had my recent cataract surgery eye tweaked with a very fast laser, but it had to go 99 times to correct the problem...many more than most.
Apparently, I was getting what is called a secondary cataract in my blind for nearly four years right eye that had had cataract surgery just on March 27th  and on the 28th the next day I could see 20/30!
But as far as my sight went over these last two months, sadly downhill, to 20/200, back to legally blind, it was necessary to do a quickie fix, with a medical device called a YAG laser, yytrium aluminum garnet- the elements that energize the laser beam.The whole process takes about two minutes, and I am lucky enough that my doctor had his own laser right in his office.

"What is a secondary cataract?

Although cataracts cannot return once

they are removed, tiny particles or cells

of the original cataract can grow to form

a film on the inside wall of the clear

tissue bag that holds the new lens implant

in place. As these cells grow, the thin,

cellophane-like membrane becomes thick

and cloudy like wax paper. Since this blocks

and blurs light similar to a cataract, it is

often called a secondary cataract. Other

more technical terms for this condition are

posterior capsule opacity or capsule opacity."

 Thanks to this site.
http://odpcli.com/media/file/Secondary_Cataracts.pdf

And so now I am back on the steroids twice a day, i.e. eye drops. I had been down to once a day from the initial 3X a day.
 
All in all I am hopeful this will work, but so far not yet...
I am a bit upset that it hasn't, but it can take days.

Moving on...
Oh well, now you all must realize why again I have been having so many typos!
One eye again was doing the work of two.
And most of my grammatical mistakes can be attributed to where my brain lesions are, right on top and deep inside, so there!
I am sticking my adult tongue out at you again, since I do believe that's a pretty good excuse, hmm?

Any-who, my arms and shoulders too seem to be betraying me with pain and numbness and causing more dropsy situations and this is all due to my severe cervical stenosis also causing as well as my inability to use my legs effectively!

Oh well, such is life someone said to me not too long ago... which I felt was heartless... but that's just me, most think all my problems since NOT fatal are no BIG deal. But we with MS can die from complications or falls or so many other things that everyone of you could too!
To them, no BIG DEAL, but to me yes it is; after all it is my life these days, and no one asks for it...
But to them I say "se la vie".

This is, my blog writing, at times, is quite physically painful to do, but I do it because it makes me feel like I can do something, ya know? I love it, since it does give me a purpose and we all need that... six years, this coming June 25th!

On that slightly upbeat note allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and let me ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share your overages and we will too!

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

Memorial Day

Interesting the way people forget it is a day to memorialize our dead soldiers who fought for our freedoms and made the ultimate sacrifice of their lives.
One of my FB friends who I think the world of, actually started her day by wishing everyone a "Happy Memorial Day Peeps". Is it me or does that make you too cringe a little bit?
She is a joyous soul and loves life and family and all people in general, so I do understand where she comes from... most days.
Although, I am squeamish sometimes too much to my own detriment.
I really don't know why that is; death has always been a touchy topic with most of us, and perhaps her easy breezy attitude to handle each day with happiness is the way we all should.

Personally, I have always admired the Irish with the way they always celebrate the life of the deceased and not harp on their demise by having amazing parties for just such a time.

Jews sit Shiva ("Shiva (Hebrew: שבעה‎) (literally "seven") is the week-long mourning period in Judaism for first-degree relatives: father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, and spouse. The ritual is referred to as "sitting shiva." Immediately after burial, people^[1] assume the halakhic status of "avel" (Hebrew: אבל ; "mourner"). This state lasts for seven days, during which family members traditionally gather in one home (preferably the home of the deceased) and receive visitors. At the funeral, mourners traditionally rend an outer garment, a ritual known as keriah. This garment is worn throughout shiva." thanks to:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_%28Judaism%29) and mourn perhaps too long, but even as a child I did notice that most times of going to my relatives when we lost someone the idea of having family get together was not that much different of a time than when there was a happy occasion, like a holiday or a wedding etc. Sometimes it weirded me out with not getting it if it was a sad or happy time, truly. So as soon as I was old enough, a married woman I opted out to any and all such occasions, that is until my parents died when I was in my thirties, but after that...way too confusing and scary about whether to cry or  laugh, ya know?

In my mind it is for the living anyways, funerals, and some people are not as sorrowful as one might think for their loss. Other times with being here in Florida I have made acquaintances that I did care about and sadly a few have passed on, but they had people that were much closer than I was ever to them to take care of that situation, which after my parents died and I felt gypped, since in my mind they left our lives way too soon... my heart was truly only broken for them and still is.
Who in their right mind would have the need to do that over and over again, seriously?

Caring hurts, and respect for all the decent unselfish dead that died for no right or true to your way of thinking reasoning is well in my realm of thoughts and devastates me like any other feeling being.
Maybe that is just it, not wanting to get close due to the inevitable for us all, but trying so hard to deny that part of life which is what it really is, isn't it?

Our youngest when he was a flippant way too cavalier attitude teen, used to say, "you are born, you live, and then you die, get over it!" He had lost two friends while in high school...I suppose his way of coping, heaven knows I was no help with that sadly.
But thankfully he became a more caring person or maybe not, since he  is our estranged son...although successful in his own life.

Any-who, ironically I made a promise to myself not to  make friends with older people when we moved to Florida after my both parents had died and  a few of their friends up in NJ, but I broke that promise when we moved to this coast, where we first moved to, most of our neighbors were seniors, while we were still in our forties! Then I began to volunteer with the Arthritis Foundation and had classes from self help to being an Aquasize teacher with the mean age of my students being seventy-five, as well as a co-president of that support group, no youngins there!
Sure they were going to die, but so could I. Death horrifically comes to all ages, our losses of friends started in school, from illness or accident, and of course our war, Viet Nam...
Maudlin, sorry, but as everyone says, a part of life!
Why are people so cheery when they say it, ever notice that? CREEPY!

Odd and a bit hypocritical of me, since I was an avid voracious reader of Poe and King...I suppose I do know the difference that is pretend and this reality, another no-brainer! (That's me all over the place, the one with no brain or wee...lesions, ya know?)

In conclusion how we handle the loss of a loved one is a personal thing, except in the matter of OUR SOLDIERS, what they did was for the love of all of us and our freedoms to remain etc...and so lest us never ever forget that or them!

For all of you please try to have a good night and count those very precious blessings and share those overages with you know who and we will too!
      
And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Stay-cation?

A word that has come to mean, not taking one, i.e. VACATION and staying at home, but visiting places of interest nearby, huh? And everyone should get to know their area!

Well, in our case it is a NO-brainer, since we are fortunate enough to live in VACATION LAND!
Although, we have a pool and a boat, dock which means we have a short boat-ride to the harbor, five minutes, for fishing, swimming, shelling, or eating waterside etc., but we also are in not too shabby traveling distance from the amusement parks that the world comes to see! Disney and Universal, three hours, Busch, Weeki Wachee only an hour and a half away, the Florida Keys five hours plus, yep this state is big and full of fun stuff to do!

Who am I fooling, I'm house bound?
BUT I was fortunate enough to do all of those things many times before I could not!

I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in spite of my limitations, since we have a convention center, fisherman village shops and restaurants, arts center, historic village, and cultural center with theater, with a few museums to boot! Restaurants from every land/nationality, and all this within my ten miles radius! Not to mention shopping from fancy to thrift.

Just call me lucky, not to mention a beach front park with tennis courts, swimming pool besides the sandy beach, with a boat launch and dock, and boccie ball courts, basket ball court, volley ball court and  playground and pavilions and shuffleboard, not too far away as well as numerous golf courses if I were so incline; all with a boat-ride, five minutes or car drive away, by just a few blocks!

I do better in air-conditioning these days, unless in a cool pool of water... its been an unusually warm nineties for this time of year, these last several weeks... YES! Even for FLORIDA, now we are usually in the eighties, the nineties have been in all the nearly twenty-eight years we have lived here in August, not unlike good ole NJ! Global warming I suspect.

This hurricane season, which starts June first and goes to November thirtieth, we are supposed to be having a slightly lower chance of hurricanes, but we are all reminded that it ONLY TAKES ONE to do the devastation, Andrew, Charley, Katrina and Sandy, to name a few...NOT GOOD!
Although with el nino  2014 this article in news at National Geographic explains how it will be beneficial to the west coast of the US and also preventing too many storms here on the east coast! Thanks little fellow!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140522-atlantic-el-nino-hurricane-forecast-weather-science/

On that upbeat note, allow me to be the very first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages and we will too!

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