Wednesday June 17 2009

Near Bondurant

Hoback River Near Bondurant

Hoback River Again, It was pretty high.

Highway coming in to Jackson

Edge of Jackson

Tuesday: Got up plenty early to get myself ready. Decided to go without eating because I didn't want to get there and have them tell me I should have been fasting - although I had asked prior and they said I didn't need to fast. Then I sat down at the desk and guess what! 850 emails downloaded into the laptop. That's for about two weeks. So somebody didn't listen to me about not writing to that address anymore. !!

Bonnie arrived about 8:30 and, leaving the laptop downloading messages, we drove to Jackson. I enjoyed the trip today so much. As usual it was a beautiful drive, this time through the greenness of springtime and off and on rain showers. Nothing major. We were able to have visiting time. Got to Oncology about 10 minutes early. They took me right in for blood work tests, and thankfully they only had to stick me once. I guess most of my veins are wanting to collapse. I learned for the first time that my tumor marker test from 6 weeks ago was 3.2 which is in the normal range. Usually that would indicate that a person had no cancer, but we know from the scans that is not true. A VERY good sign anyway. And they took another tumor marker today which I'll learn the result in a few days.

We had enough time to go to KMart for some shopping before lunch and got that done. Ate lunch at the Virginian nearby and got out to Wilson for the doctor appointment before 1 PM. That also went very well. Dr. Meno said he couldn't be happier with how I was doing. He says my liver is normal size, not enlarged. See what all you guys are doing with good thoughts and prayers? You can't believe all the blessings you have brought in my life and how thankful I am. Dr. Meno said I must be doing something right. I'm sure he meant spiritually and I told him about you all and that we are trying. Also he told me to go ahead and eat more vegetables and let the nurses monitor the coumadin. It would be better to eat a healthy diet with lots of vegetables instead of cutting so many of them out to keep the tests level.

Next on to Smiths and I was grateful to shop in a nice grocery store again. But by the end of being there I was pooping out and Bonnie didn't have as much to get as me, so I was done. Can go to Ridley's on Friday for anything I need then. We each grabbed one of the big muffins I'd gotten for a snack, and drove on home. THANK YOU FOR DRIVING ME AND THE FUN DAY OUT BONNIE.

Weatherwise, all l we'd really been in all day were a few sprinkles. I sorted out the groceries at the Arrowhead house, some for there and some for the ranch, and then drove on home and got the rest put away here. The ranch is stocked up for Joe being here alone while Betty, Nancy and I got to the Arrowhead house for a week. He may come and be there with us yet, but now he says he'll stay at the ranch. Even though I've told him about going to Round Hill Retreat for six days after Betty and Nancy leave, it hasn't dawned on him that I'll be gone from here for about two weeks between the two things.

Wednesday: It started raining last evening again just as I was driving in and rained most of the night and all day so far, sometimes really pouring down. Joe told me a couple of days ago that the water was way up in the hole where the pressure tanks sit (I won't explain that, its too long right now) and 4" over where it used to run into the well casing - which he since cemented up. He said it's only been that high one other time - not to be confused with often being able to run into the casing each spring. It does mean the ground water table is very high right now.

So I asked him about the basement under the house where the water heater is, and see that he's checking that. It always needs to be pumped out in the spring when the irrigation water is on, but will this year for sure, probably every day for a while.

A very slow start to the morning. Except that when I woke up at 6 A.M I was VERY angry to find out that all the subscription channels on the TV had disappeared. I just went right to the phone and called tech support, knowing Joe would want to watch news or something. Pressed "4" for tech support. Got my payment account instead. It took 10 minutes for the girl to transfer me to the right place - their system was off, I was told. She and I got pretty fed up with each other real quick until she finally decided to get rid of me to someone else. Have to admit I was still so groggy from just waking up she probably wondered what I was on.

Then it took more than half an hour, but they got it straightened out. Their people had not recorded our new dish smart card properly although when I did it two weeks ago it was supposed to have been done then. As a matter of fact the receiver at the Arrowhead house is doing the same thing I realize now, and I'll have to go through this again there. Will it all ever end. (BTW I don't believe I've mentioned that the toilet off the mud room at Arrowhead is running all the time so has been turned off, something wrong with the doo dads inside the tank).

It was good to lay back down for a while since it felt like I didn't have enough rest after the long day yesterday. After getting up sat a long time with my breakfast and tea. Joe is fixing a corner of the kitchen counter which has come loose. There is stuff all over the counters and when I saw that I wondered how many days I'll have to look at that. But he's working on it. I guess he just wants to be doing something. Yesterday he did work on the utility room faucet and it's back together, but the pan is still sitting under the drain. Hope its really fixed.

This afternoon I got another bedroom cleaned, finish on the wood floor etc. We are going to Sheral and Dick's for dinner tonight and looking forward to that. She said they would have a roast.

I stuck a picture of Judi and I with her high school friend Mary onto Monday's blog. Judi also had one of them on her blog. Rollie took the pictures for us.

Happy Girl

I finally found a piece of foam at KMart yesterday for a new bed for Raven so she has one at each house. Its' actually an egg crate mattress pad which I folded up and covered with a couple of old throw rugs. She went right on to it and loves her bed. It was easy to tell she has been missing that. When we went back to Pinedale last week she went right in the bedroom and curled up on her bed and stayed there, would hardly come when we called her. She said "Thanks Mom!" She's snoring away now.