THe puppy and other things

I have taught my husband's dog, Doxi, to do a couple of things. 

If I say, "kiss", she will stick out her tongue and kiss me.  If I'm not holding her close enough for her to kiss me, and say, "kiss" she still sticks out her tongue.  Cute.

And, I have taught her to sit before she runs to gobble up her kibble or whatever else I have put out for her. 

Now, if I could just teach her how to consistently use her grassy box or to go outside to pee or poop.  She's getting better at bath rooming outdoors, I think, but a few days of no accidents will be very telling.  She has never messed up her night cage.  I just don't want to keep her in that for all day long, but maybe I'll have to.

Regarding my physical therapy for the sciatic nerve.  After a two-week hiatus because of the stomach flu, I went back on Monday and had no problems getting back into it.  In fact, it felt quite good afterwards. 

I still have some twinges, but I have found I can sit in a hard chair and work out the pain.  Do I perhaps move the nerve a bit so that it doesn't hurt me so much?  I don't know.  But my prayer is that the sciatic nerve pain will disappear like it did for five years, and I will be able to walk normally again.

ttfn

Rough week/night

I had the flu.  I don't remember feeling as bad except when I was 16 and had the Asian/Hong Kong flu.  The aches from the fever were really bad.  It was a stomach flu and hung on for several days. 

Then I felt good for two days and FINALLY took down the Christmas tree and put away my snowmen, although with all the snow we've been having the past few days I think I should have left them out. 

Then last night I really felt awful.  I prayed and prayed and prayed for the pain to be taken away and I finally fell asleep. 

I woke up this morning and feeling pretty good, so I can get on with the day which includes cleaning up the mess from dinner last night and getting a load of laundry done. 

I hope to get my valentine cards addressed today -- the ones for the grands which I didn't send last year because I was in rehab and they kept me busy for 18 of the 24 hours each day.

So, I'm about to get to work.  I'll write again soon.

ttfn

Christmas party pictures

I would post pictures if I could figure out how to.  Blogspot has changed the way you load up pictures and since I didn't put them into Picassa, and I don't have them in an URL, I have no idea how to load them into this posting.

Well, my sister is about the only person I know that doesn't have Facebook, where I did post the pictures, and all 70 of them are in an album there.  So, sis, get in touch with your son, who does have Facebook and take a look at the pictures.  Maybe he can figure out how to transfer them to you so you can see them at your leisure.

ttfn

So much fun

Well, after six days, I'm still pain free (except for mild fibro pain).  Last night at the party I was walking around the Clubhouse with no pain at all having a great time with my 14 grandchildren,am my one adopted grandchild, Naomi, and my three children, and another "adopted" child, Tamara.  I had a young lady (another of Tamara's children) take pictures.  She has taken such beautiful pictures for her BLOG that I thought, it would be a good idea to get her to take the pictures of the party.  I will post them when I get them back.

Back to "adopted".  I put the "adopted" in quotes and don't want any of my friends or non-friends to get miffed because my husband and I have 'adopted" Tamara and Naomi.  By "adopted" I mean have brought them into our family and I love them both so very much.

Five years ago when my knees were so bad and after a couple of mild strokes we decided I needed help around the home and for shopping at Krogers.  My bff Nancy recommended Tamara and she's been my personal assistant, friend, shoulder to cry on, daughter,personal shopper, and so on for four whole years plus.  It has been a wonderful relationship for both myself and Alan.  She is not only a friend, but a daughter ("adopted") to us.

But this BLOG is about getting older and coping with it.  Well, last night at the party I coped very well.  My husband and others were praying that my health would be well and it was.  And today is another day of waking up with no pain and walking with no help or noise from my mouth because of the pain.  I'm so glad.

I really am so thankful to my Lord for the respite from pain and we're believing that the pain will be gone for a long, long time. 

ttfn

The end of the year review

This has been a year of change for me.  Since the purpose of this BLOG was to describe getting old and dealing with it, I'm going to review all the elderly changes that occurred this year.

First, I finally, after over 15 years of severe knee pain, decided to go under the knife and get my knees -- both of them -- replace, totally.  Why, I ask myself, didn't I do that sooner?   I now have no pain in either knee and walking is like walking on air, seriously.

There has been one hitch, however.  After my second surgery, the sciatic nerve -- on both sides, started giving me a terrible time and until recently I have been unable to walk hardly at all, which has been a real bummer since the purpose of getting new knees was so I could walk again.

I still have days when I cannot walk at all.  Take this past Sunday for instance.  I was all ready to go to church, starting toward our in-house elevator to go down to the garage, and BAM! I was hit was a pain in the back of the legs (sciatic) that nearly knocked me down.  Then by afternoon I was walking again, and by evening I was not walking or bending or reaching.  Wierd?  No, for me, that's been the norm since April.

The fibromyalgia problems have been few, but when I have an "incident" -- I don't know what else to call the pain -- it hits hard and fast and usually clears up in a day.  My dear cousin, Joan, who hasn't hit elderly yet, has helped me trememdously to deal with this disease. 

God has been very good to Alan.  He is walking and enjoying some of the things he had forgotten, I think.  He wants a dog.  He wants to walk HIS dog.  I sort of want a dog, but I know I can't take care of it at all since I still can't bend over very often, so picking up dog poop would not be a possibility for me. 

I really have to say that God has been very faithful to me as well.  Lately, my dear husband has taken to praying for me when I am in pain.  It works.  The pain is relieved for hours and now days.  Sciatic pain meds are reduced, and I'm not so loopy as when I take pills for everything that's wrong with me.

SO, what is wrong with me now that I'm going to be 70 in 2013?  Not too much.  It could be worse.
I have normal blood pressure, kept there by that tiny pink pill; no cholesterol problems; weight is down about 40 pounds; the knees work great and I'm climbing and descending much better than I have since the day my son was married (the last time I recall running, or moving quickly, up and down steps); my heart seems to be fine; I have infrequent panic attacks; I droop like I should in all the places we elder people droop; my hair fell out twice due to the epidurals I had this last year and has come back in nice and full and straight; and fibromyalgia, kept under control most of the time. That's about it.  Not bad, eh?

I wonder if I'll live another decade.  I am sure where I'll be when I die so there is no fear to the end of this life.  And I have to admit on the pain-filled days I want to be gone and not have to put up with pain any more, but as the Apostle Paul was known to have an affliction, I, too, have an affliction, and my pain is not as bad as some others I know, so I bear it and move on.

I hear the wind rising and the lights across the street are fading -- the blizzard has arrived.  I shall be ensconsed in my home with my cocoa and later on some soup.  It's that kind of day.

I say to you all, ttfn.

Thanksgiving

I was going to do a Thanksgiving, then and now, BLOG, but decided there are enough Thanksgiving "then" past postings in Runnemede Remembered that I would just opine in my "Fat Lady" BLOG.  First, I want to begin with a short statement, "The Fat Lady is getting thinner, not much, but some."

Now, to Thanksgiving present.

I'm sorry, but this might not be so "happy" as in "Happy Thanksgiving" but nor have the past 10 or so Thanksgivings. 

When I realized about 10 years ago that family Thanksgivings were a thing of the past in my husband's and my life, we tried to take a vacation during that week.  We even went on a Thanksgiving cruise.  The turkey option at dinner was not very good, I'm afraid.  So even that Thanksgiving was sort of blah.  The other years we've not been enjoying a meal with friends and family, and that is not of our choice.  We've just not been invited to participate. 

I don't want anyone to feel sorry for us.  I've felt sorry enough for us except for the vacation years when there was something other than Thanksgiving to occupy my mind. 

I have to insert here that my DIL has invited us to dinner on Thanksgiving on several occasions, but we have been away during those years, and my daughter has invited us to join her and her husband's family, but I really haven't feel comfortable imposing on their Thanksgiving.

This year, a friend who was to be alone on Thanksgiving as were Alan and I, was invited to shared Thanksgiving with us.  I made a turkey dinner with almost all the trimmings.  I didn't make mashed potatoes, but I did make mashed sweet potatoes -- a dish with contains sweet potatoes, maple syrup, butter, and spices. 

I worked for a week slowly and did what I could each day in the approximately four hours of relatively pain free time my body permits, and got it all accomplished.  On the actual DAY I only had to prepare and stuff the turkey, and warm up a few cassarole dishes, and we were set to go.  One thing though, I forgot to salt (or season as the TV chefs call it) the turkey.

Let me tell you, an unseasoned bird isn't very good.  However, the gravy was well seasoned and that helped some.  The left over turkey was saturated with leftover gravy, which I didn't thicken too much so it didn't congeal. 

My friend, Alan, and I had a blessed time.  The food really was good.  And by 4:00 p.m. after our friend left, Alan and I were snoring away, and I didn't get up until the next morning.

I find I'm still sleeping a lot even though my knee surgeries were almost a year ago.  I wonder if maybe the long sleeping times aren't because I'm getting older, and we older folks need more sleep, like babies.  We start out sleeping a long time, then when we're teenagers we sleep a lot, in our twenties through our forties we sleep little, then we gradually add sleep to our daily routine until we are in our dotage at which time, we nod off as soon as we sit in a comfortable chair.

I hope you all had a Happy and blessed Thanksgiving.  I know we did.

ttfn

On the road again

Alan and I have had a wonderful time at Tybee Island, GA.  The weather, even when Sandy was churning up the coast was still not bad.  The waves were magnificent, but we had no rain, just lots of wind.  I guess SHE was saving up the rain/snow for the northern coast. 

I remember the 1962 storm which took out whole towns along the Jersey coast.  The current governor is too young to remember that event, and the POTUS was just a toddler.  The devastation along the coast is reminiscent of that '62 storm.  It's not unusual for Jersey to get one or two of those kinds of storms in a century.

When I was a little over a year old I do remember a hurricane (1944) and daddy got out kerosene lamps and a small kerosene heater and we sat in the kitchen with the gas oven on for heat as well as the kerosene heater.   I really do remember sitting in the kitchen and all of a sudden, "THUMP".  A tree went down, but missed the house.  Then right on the heals of "THUMP" number one, we heard another "THUMP".  Tree number two went down.  That was all we had to lose in the back yard.  Fortunately the wind was blowing away from the house, church, and garage.  That year the Jersey coast was destroyed also. 

But, once again, I digress.

Yes, Alan and I are on the road again.  Our last trip for the year.  We'll be home in a couple of days, and my daughter will have to return to her home.  I hope she's had a blessed time in the condo.

I want to get a time share down here.  They are going for $905 dollars.  Can you imagine?  25 years ago they cost around $10,000.  But Alan says, "No thanks." 

I thought I was dead for a couple of days earlier this week.  I had absolutely no pain whatsoever in my legs or arms or shoulders or neck or anywhere on my body.  But after four days of pain-freeness I was knocked to the ground again.  I'm coming out of it now, I think.  I have been exercising like mad to ward off the charlie-horses that are common to me because of fibromyalgia.  I was hoping I had found a formula to rid myself of the pain, but apparently I didn't.   Well, at least I know I'm not dead yet because there will be no pain in heaven.

God was good to give me a few days of respite.  I pray he will once again bless me with deliverance and freedom from the pain. 

FYI, my knees are feeling great, no pain there.  Now, I'm ready to get to today's morning exercises and stretching which seems to help some.

ttfn