January 2024

Crystal Beach Florida

Hard to believe that January is nearly gone.  The "good news" coming out of the month is that we saw our primary doctor, and we both had better results (blood test, etc) than last year.  I still have high blood pressure, Marcia still has high Cholesterol.  With me, it is more a case of "white coat hypertension".  My doctor in Arkansas realized that when he would visit with me for a good 15 minutes and then take a second reading (nurse gave the first upon my arrival) and each and every time it dropped.  Not that I don't have high blood pressure, I do...but not as high as the 'test' says when taken when I first arrive.  At home, my pressure taken by my wrist pressure kit, is normally pretty good, so I took my wrist pressure kit with me just to see if there is a difference and show results I had from the previous 10 days.  There was a difference, the wrist test showed even a higher one than the nurse got...so at least I know my pressure kit is working, perhaps a little on the high side.

Crystal Beach Florida

I will be seeing a Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine specialist in two weeks.  Both of my knees are hurting, with the right knee being the worse.  Hope NOT to have major surgery, but this is my first visit to a Orthopedic Doctor, so let's wait to see what he says.

Pond at the Public Library, full of birds.

Our weather for January has been fairly typical.  We had a low one night in the upper 30's, although where we live it may have only got down to 40 or 41.  Our highs have been in the 70's and low 80's during most days, with just a small number where they were only in the high 50's and into the 60's.  

Wood Stork

Blue Heron

Wood Storks

Great White Egret

So far we have not had any sicknesses to speak of.  A few mornings we were a bit more congested than normal, but it did not amount to anything.

Mom, on the other hand, had another UTI, which is the third or fourth since she had the Antibiotic Infusion treatment back when we were still in California.  The doctor FINALLY has put her on a daily antibiotic pill, and we are hoping that this works.

In 1993 Joe Montana was traded to KC.  Being a 'loyal' Northern California boy, my football teams were the Raiders and the Niners, and among the 'hated' teams were the Rams, the Coyboys, the Steelers and the Chiefs.  This gave me a bit of a dilemma, because mom and dad moved to the Kansas City area in '92 or '93...so I relented and made KC one of my favorite teams.  In 2020 they Both were in Superbowl 54, Kansas City won.  Now they play again in this year's Superbowl, and my heart is with the Niners, but if KC wins, all is good.

 

My Final Blog Post ...

 

WHAT you talking about Dave?  Your FINAL Blog????

 

 

Ok, here is the Story ...

It is my last Blog, but only my last Blog with this older computer.  We bit the bullet and ordered two new laptops, Windows 11, 15.6 display, 1 Terabyte hard drive, 20 Gig Memory, 4 USB slots (2 x USB 2.0 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.2 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.2 Type-C), WifI 5, etc., etc., etc.

They actually came in on Tuesday, by Wednesday I had most of my pictures copied over, by Wednesday night I was loading my 10 year old Photoshop, AND ... that's when my troubles started.  Loading it under the Windows 8 compatibility method FAILED something bad.  Did a restart, and could not get beyond the ASUS logo.  Spent some of Wednesday night, and nearly all of Thursday being the 'Techie' that I am to try and fix it, just to FAIL Miserably.  

You heard the story of how GUYS will keep driving when they are lost and NEVER stop to ask for help???  Well, Techies can be the same way.  The "Driver" will look at a map, the "Techie" will search the web.  By Friday around noon (because ASUS Tech Support does not open until 9 am Pacific Time) I called Amazon.  The nice lady tried to help, then she called ASUS.  The nice guy tried to help, believed me every time I said "Tried that already..." but we tried it again for 'him', and finally agreed that it was not going to be fixed by him over the phone, or by me sitting in front of it.  So I asked about a replacement, instead of sending it into a shop, and he said, "Ask Amazon".  The nice lady was going to call me back, and about a half hour after the two Techies gave up (ASUS guy and me), she did call back.  Told her what he said, and I asked if it was possible to just replace it.  She checked with her boss, came back on the line within 5 minutes and said YES!  Sent me a link for UPS shipping label, sent another link for the replacement computer shipping link so I can follow its path to our door.  Within an hour I dropped the old one off at UPS, and when I checked, the new one was already shipped, coming out of Indiana, will be here Tuesday.

In the meantime...I have been licking my wounds...

There goes my EGO down the drain...

SO, WHAT ELSE HAS BEEN GOING ON THIS PAST MONTH???

We both had our yearly physicals, I mean, "WELLNESS" checkups.  (It is a medicare thing...you don't have physicals, you have wellness checkups.)  We both did pretty good, but my Glucose numbers are crawling slowly higher.  Due to family history, I asked, and she agreed, to let me take the lowest dosage of Metformin.  I also suggested that I monitor my blood as I did with Skruffy.  After February passes, I will send a six week report in to her which shows the tests results, along with a record of what I eat each day and the relationship of when I ate to when I took the test.  Marcia also saw her Urologist, and only has her Neurologist. 

A few weeks ago my cousin Cassie called.  She and Rick were down to visit their son Dr. Aaron Scott (Pediatric Surgeon) and his wife Emily (Senior Vice President with Baycare Health Care System).  Emily has lived in Florida for well over a year now, but Aaron just finished up his resident training at Baylor in Houston and moved here near the end of last year.  We all met (their paternal twins too) at a restaurant located between the two households and had a nice lunch.  Sorry, no pictures.  Hope we do it again when they are down visiting, assuming we are not out RVing.

Finally (I know there is other stuff, but this broken 'techie' can't remember everything anymore), my brother Jim sent me a very short but interesting link of a video of dad's mother and father at the 1951 Rose Bowl.  It might not be interesting to everyone, but to the "Burdicks", this is a gem.

Grandma is the lady in the middle, and Grandpa is following her.  The first lady in front of Grandma is Rose Ida Honeychurch, wife of Ives who took the clip.  This was taken just a few years before I was born, but it is exactly how I remember them.  Grandma passed in 1963, Grandpa in 1967.  I only wish the clip was longer...but having these 15-20 seconds are very precious to me.

April Update - Birthday, Taxes, Doctor, Shots

 

Mom celebrated her 91st birthday this past weekend.  What she wanted the most, other than seeing her most favorite youngest son and his lovely wife...which unfortunately was not in the cards this year, was to have her Assisted Living Facility to lift restrictions due to COVID.  Well, she did get that wish as she can now have visitors, now have the ability to leave and return without quarantine, visit with others living in the facility other than passing them in the halls, and have "outings" where those who want can load up on a small bus and go visit a park, a mall, Walmart, etc. 

My older brother Jim and wife Carol drove out from San Antonio a few weeks ago, parked their small travel trailer in Arny & Sandy's backyard, and stayed at Sister Patti's house.  They visited mom many times, took her down to Elk Grove to visit her Sister Mary, and then visit Aunt Florence (Dad's brother's wife) ... Mom just ate it all up.  Wish we could have been there too Mom...perhaps for number 92!

Of course, April is TAX MAN time.  I did the taxes at the end of March, mailed them out in early April.  We pay quarterly taxes, and this time we overpaid by some $40. Now that I am 65, we will get another small adjustment on our taxes, so our quarterly went down just a bit.

Of course, the first quarter payment is due April 15th...and the first check was some $40 less than the rest will be since we overpaid last year.  Now I could have waited until May 15th this year...but the quarterly tax was still due April 15th, so I just did it all and sent them in.  In 1973 Dad taught me how to do my taxes (my first job was in 1972), and I have done them ever since until I married Marcia ten years ago.  There were some complicated tax issues that required a write off, so we used her CPA for the first six or seven years, and then I started doing them again.  With standard tax write-off, it really is just multiplication, and the new shorter form makes it even that much easier.

Now that I am on Medicare, we don't have to travel to Arkansas for my Doctor's Appointments.  I decided that Marcia's doctor would be a good fit for me, and during her last visit I asked her doctor if she ever takes care of spouses.  Her response was, "Yep, that's why it is called a 'family doctor'.  My visit went real well, although I have a nasty case of White Coat Hypertension...which is when your blood pressure shoots through the roof when at a medical facility.  

I have a Color Doctor wrist blood pressure monitor.  I take it a few times each week.  Last week all my scores were in the Green or Yellow.  The day before my exam they were Yellow and Red.  Of course, Red is bad.  At the Doctor's Office it was high...would have been in the Red on my monitor.  After I got home from the appointment and sat down, I took it within the hour...and it was in the Yellow, almost Green.  Go figure.  Just took it right now and it was 125 over 70...yellow but nearly in the green.

Since it was my first visit with her, she could not order blood tests until after my appointment.  Knowing that blood work would be needed, I did not eat that morning, and during my visit she ordered the test, and after seeing her I walked next door (same building...literally next door to her office) and had my blood drawn.

Do you see the bruise? (Yes, that is Indy in the upper background being a little nosy puppy.)  Well, there is a small amount of bruising today, but not much at all.  Test results came back, and well...I am alive.  The test is broken down into four categories, and they tested the following:

Hematology
WBC, RBC, HGB, HCT, MCV, MCH, MCHC, RDW, PLT, MPV, Segs, Lymphs, Mono, Eos, Baso, Neutrophil Abs, Lymph Abs, Monocyte Abs, Eosinophil Abs

General Chem
Sodium, Potassium, Chloride, Carbon Dioxide, Glucose, BUN, Creatinine, BUN/Creat, Calcium, Total Protein, Albumin, Globulin, Alb/Glob, Total Bili, Alk Phos, ALT, AST, Anion Gap, eGFR

Lipids
Triglyceride, Cholesterol, HDL, LDL Calc, Risk Ratio, Lipid Interp

Special Chem
PSA YR, TSH 3rd Gen, Vitamin D 25 OH

ALL were within range except for...MCH, which was at 32.6 pg (High) and the range is suppose to be 26.0 pg - 32.0 pg.  This essentially is saying that I don't have enough vitamin B12 or folic acid...so I will add B12 to my morning assortment of vitamins and pills.  Of course, I do have high blood pressure, and she kept me on the same medications that I have been on.  FYI, my Cholesterol is 152, my PSA is .6 and for the first time my Vitamin D is at 32, just over the low in the low to high range...so I will continue to that a Vitamin D3 pill every day, and my glucose is within range, but the high end of the range.

Finally, today I got my first Pfizer COVID Vaccine shot.  And, after much contemplation and research, Marcia has decided to get the Vaccine too, and her first shot will be tomorrow.  We use Walgreens, and when I registered yesterday, I had eight or nine different time slots to choose from.  Today when I signed her up, all of the time slots were open.  They schedule three or four people for each time slot. Open time slots (those not taken when the day starts) are given to the younger crowd via an email to the next people on the waiting list, so nothing goes to waste.  I was out and in within 45 minutes, and that was with a 10-15 minute 'hang around' time period after the shot to be sure all is well before you leave.  And yes, out and in is what I said...it means "Out the door of the condo, drive there, register, get shot, hang around, drive back, into the condo again".  Walgreens throughout the country is administering around 1 million shots per week.  I figured that if I waited out the rush to get the shot, it would be easy...and it was.

Florida has averaged just over 50 deaths per day for the month of April...compared to 155 deaths per day for January and February.  Florida's first COVID death was early March of last year.  Four hundred days later, we have lost nearly 35,100 to COVID.  That is 88 people a day for 400 days. The bottom line is, the vaccine is working.  Although masks are still required in some counties, most do not require them ALTHOUGH, individual establishments can require them within their place of business.  I do most of our shopping at Winn-Dixie, which is just down the street.  It requires masks, but around 10% of the people don't have a mask on...they just treat them like anyone who has a mask is treated.  At Sam's Club, you must wear one, and they will give you one if you don't have one, but they will give exceptions for health reasons....99% of the people in Sam's have masks on, but about 10% don't wear them over their nose or let it fall to their chin.  I have never seen a customer say anything to another customer about their masks.  I have seen them say something to someone who cuts into a line because of the gap that the 6 feet limit makes...that is just rude...everyone knows about the 6 foot rule by now.  At least he didn't hit me.  😀

Has A Month REALLY Gone By?

Wow, my last post was right after Christmas...that was nearly a month ago.  Just haven't had much to blog about I guess.  We have been enjoying fairly mild temps, with a few nights down into the low 40's and perhaps high 30's, but at least into the 50's, and typically the 60's, and some days in the 70's during the afternoon hours.  

Marcia had her first Doctor's appointment earlier this week, and low and behold, to the Doctor's surprise, her Cholesterol has dropped from around 320 two years ago, to 220 this year.  They have wanted to put her on a 'Statin' drug for the past four years...she has always said "NO!"  Then she names person after person, most relatives, who were on 'Statins' and they are all dead now.  She feels the 'Statin's' mask the issue, it does not correct it.  Well, her weight came down another few pounds, and sticking to the low carb diet, and a little less Bacon and Sausage and more Veggies and now Fruit, there has been no change in anything she has been doing.  The Doctor was more than pleased at all of Marcia's numbers.  

While there, I talked to the Doctor about becoming my primary doctor now that I am on Medicare and not 'chained' to Arkansas Doctors any more through my retirement insurance.  She said "Sure...I am a Family Doctor, and have lots of family members that are in my care."  However, the first appointment for a new patient is late April, so we will be here in Florida probably until my youngest son's 'Wedding Ceremony' in July up in Ohio.  They did get married last July, but not with anyone there.  Like many others, they have decided to hold a one-year 'Wedding Ceremony' on the anniversary date.  After that, we will make our way back to California, route unknown at this time.

I wanted to share a couple of videos of Indy watching TV.  Above is a one minute video of her watching an SPCA commercial.  Notice how intent she is watching this commercial, and at the end how she gets up on her hind legs to get a 'closer look'.  This behavior is very typical of her every day.

This second video is her watching a similar commercial, but this time she goes back behind the TV looking for the animals she saw on the screen.  This too is a common occurrence.

Here is Indy in the need of a hair cut.

Mission accomplished.  She was so good in letting me cut her hair, and I think it turned out real well.  Of course, after her hair cut she KNOWS she gets a special treat...her favorite, although she only gets maybe one per week, a hot dog...normally 1/4 or so at a time but today she got a half of one.  After yesterday's hair cut, she came in through the sliding glass window (I cut her out on our covered patio area) and she runs to the kitchen.  When I get there, I open the fridge door and she nearly jumps inside it.  The girl LOVES her hot dogs.

A trip to the dog park is a real treat for her.  In fact, we can't even say "D Park" anymore because she KNOWS that means Dog Park.  When I take her to the Library, I have to say "The Book Place".  She gets SO EXCITED to go to either place, but the Dog Park is her most favorite.

I get her over to the dog park at least once per week, and to the library (which is 1/4 of a mile away) about four times per week.  Above are four pictures which represent a few of the visits over the past month.  One time she was essentially alone, but today she was one of eight or nine dogs in the small dog park, and she had a blast.  Last week I pulled in, took a long way around the parking lot, and parked a bit further away than normal...I wanted to see how long it would take for her to know where we were.  After I parked she got on my lap and I rolled down my window so she would look out there instead of the front window.  She looked, smelled, looked, whined, turned her head and saw the dog park...I could barely contain her as she wiggled and squirmed begging to get out and over to the park.  Yep, she LOVES the Dog Park.

No promises, but I will try to do better, and I will 'try' to clean up the good camera, charge it, and hunt down some Florida pictures.

Brrrr…Our Second Round of Winter

Home at Holiday / Tarpon Springs area

When we arrived back in Florida on January 5th, just two weeks ago, it was COLD.  It lasted two nights…a little longer in the central part of the state where they have to run sprinklers on the Strawberries to keep them from freezing…the layer of ice is better than straight freezing weather.  The good news, the cold makes the Strawberries sweeter…the bad news, they are not on our diet yet.

This past Wednesday night it got cold again…down to 30 degrees.  I actually wore long pants to church Wednesday night!  (Yes mom, LONG PANTS!).  Sunday morning it was around 48 degrees, and our Pastor walked up and said, “You do know it is winter here, right?”  I proudly told him that I didn’t move to Florida to wear long pants!  He laughed.  Last night it was around 34 degrees, and tonight it will probably stay in the 40’s.  I think Winter is over here in Florida…at least for me, as I sit here without shoes or socks on, in short pants, and no shirt.  Yes, it is 47 out there right now (as shown in picture above)…

Marcia has complete three doctor exams now, with two more to go.  Good news, the Ear, Throat and Nose doctor said she doesn’t need to come back until she feels she needs something.  They have been monitoring nodules on her thyroid, which have not changed in over 3 years…so that is good.  The bad news…the Neurologist she has been seeing has retired, so we have to break in another one.  Good news, her primary doctor found us one who will see Marcia early next month.  That is wonderful because last time it took us months to get into see one until we finally hunted one down ourselves.  Unfortunately, he too retired a few years ago, and she was lucky to find a Neurologist who had treated her many years ago before he took off due to cancer.  This past December he decided to retire for good.  We hope he can travel and relax a bit…he is a good guy.  So only two more appointments, and two special exams….bone density and the dreaded press machine.  Looks like she will all be finished by early March.

Well…time to feed a little puppy dog.  Until next time….

Doctor's A-OK, Dinner with friends, Elk City Oklahoma

Saw the doctor on Thursday, he was happy that I had lost more weight, and said all looked good.  Told him that I may not see him again until the fall of 2018, but I made an appointment for Spring of 2018 just in case we are in the area again.  Asked him the signs I needed to know if I lose so much weight that my blood pressure meds need to be reduced.  He said, "If you are in the 120's over 70's, and you stand and feel light headed, then reduce by 1/2 a pill."  Let's hope I get there before I see him again.  

Wednesday night we were going have dinner with Jana and Mike.  Jana worked with me in Pine Bluff at the Library...I hired right around 20 years ago now.  Her and Mike got married shortly after Marcia and I got married.  We love seeing them, and with the storm that passed through Wednesday, we had to postpone the dinner until Thursday.  Only thing bad was it was too short at just two hours long...but Skruffy needed to be fed.  First time we ate at Olive Garden since being on our diet, and we were surprised to find five or six things on their menu that we could enjoy with slight changes in the sides that come with the meal.  It was sure good, both the food and especially the company.

My intent was to drive as far as Shawnee, Oklahoma…but when I got there, I decided to keep on driving.  Ended up in Elk Creek, which is about 50 miles from Texas.  It will make tomorrow’s drive a mere 165 miles.  Can’t go much further than that because we will be there for two days as we explore Palo Duro Canyon State Park.  Looking forward to that…

2 Days, Nearly Ready…Alaska Here We Come

Packing is SO MUCH FUN!!!!

I packed up the car over the weekend...the scooter, ladder and generator exhaust extension pipe all fit in the back, along with a few smaller things.  The middle area has the RV levelers, some dog treats and medicines, and eventually a small suitcase of extra clothes.  Today we packed much of the kitchen stuff into the RV, tomorrow it is clothing and bathroom stuff.  Wednesday it is the Refrigerator and anything else we need to take.

So much to take, so little room…but this year will be better than last year.  After owning our motorhome for two seasons, about 18 months by the time we got back home, we knew what we did not have to take, and added just a few items that we wanted to take.  

We have been working on our check list for a few weeks now.  Cleaned the carpet (well, got it as clean as it is going to get at this point…), cleaned the vents (don’t they always seem dirty?), and got rid of some of the unneeded “stuff”.

Changed the Oil in the HHR

Changed the Oil in the Motorhome

Changed the fuel filter in Motorhome

Checked all other fluids

Checked tire pressure, and tire pressure system.



My doctor appointment was in Arkansas back in
December.  Just got a refill on medications, and my next refill will be in Anchorage.

Marcia saw all of her doctors, I think it was five of them.  Today we fought with getting a drug filled which we last filled in December…and low and behold, Medicare decided not to include this drug anymore.  So we have a substitute, which is never fun to have to test to see if there will be side affects while you travel.

And yes, even got our taxes done … perfect quarterly payments this time because we over by only $22. 

As we loaded up some stuff today, and Marcia put her final touches on cleaning counter tops, drawers, sinks, etc., it really sank in that we leave in just two days.  We both are ready to go…but we both will miss our friends and family here in the Palm Harbor, Tarpon Springs area of Florida.  Family and friends await our visit ahead of us, thousands of pictures to take, much to see.  And yes, we do plan to be back in seven months.

First, we have a few miles to travel …

PS: Got the dogs new collars…Alaska, here comes Bubba and Skruffy!!!!

Countdown Adjustment

May 1st has now become April 28th, a Monday.  To be honest, May 1st was just a “goal”, which a few weeks ago I realized that we were going to leave just a little before that.  But first, I wanted to be sure we had everything done here, especially Doctor Appointments.  

Yesterday Marcia met her new primary care doctor, her fourth or fifth one in the past six years.  Seems like every time she gets use to a doctor, they up and leave the area, their practice, or no longer take her insurance.  With one doctor a few years ago with us it was like, “we are glad you no longer take our insurance, we were not coming back to you anyways.”  She tried to get Marcia interested in “healing crystals”, and I am sure would have been more than happy to sell us some, through another person of course.  I think Marcia said something like, “Jesus needs no crystals to heal….”, just to let her know that she could take her voodoo somewhere else.  Upon our return in 2012 we got the notice that they no longer took her insurance.  So last year we broke in another doctor…who while we were gone in 2013 decided to stop her private practice and go to work for the County, at least that is the latest story we were told.  Who knows what the truth was on that.  So before we got back to Florida she had lined up another doctor within the same network….and when we got back in January she made an appointment, with the earliest date being March 11th.  When we got there yesterday, we found out that the other lady in the practice, we will call her Brooke, was going to be her new doctor.  Well, sometimes we play the lottery….and in this case our “lottery doctor” came through!  Dr. Brooke was very nice, very accommodating, and assured us she had no plans to “go away” anytime soon.  We hope we don’t go “bust” on this lottery win…

We have also been tackling the various items on our “to do lists”.  We have a list of items for the condo, and list of items for the RV/Car.  Some of these are easy, some will need to be done by “experts”.  So far, we have conquered most of the “to do ourselves” items, outside of giving the RV a good shine and packing it up to go. 

Monday I flushed out our hot water tank, something that looked like it had not been done for a decade or two.  We are lucky that it is so close to the walk-in shower, and the sand and sediment was pretty thick, that’s for sure.  At first water would not come out except for a slight dribble.  So I turned the water valve, and I opened the pressure valve…both a big mistake.  Finally, after opening and closing the drain valve a few times, water and gunk pour out with a flurry.  After letting it flush out for a good 5 minutes, I closed it up, turned on the hot water power again, and walked away.  About an hour later Marcia goes, “got a leak in here”.  First the high pressure valve, now that the water was hot, was allowing water to flow down to the drain pan, which was full.  A few knocks with my fist fixed that…but the cold water valve was dripping too.  Grrrr….   So I turned off the water, turned off the electricity, and the next day we asked her brother Mike (who is watching Bubba) to look at it.  It turned out to be an easy fix…one I could have done had I thought of it.  Luckily he was in the area doing a house inspection, so he did not care.

Before we leave, we are thinking of having our “patio” enclosed with glass windows instead of the vinyl windows above.  By doing this, the patio can be turned into more living space when we return.  We will get a bid for this on Monday.  We have seen other condos around here that have done this change, and we really like the results.

As for the car and the RV….  Due to the age of the RV, I am going to have all of the heater hoses changed out, and have them look at the transmission fluid/filter and the radiator fluid.  I doubt anything besides the hoses will need to changed, but I’d rather find out now than half way up to or from Alaska.  I also want to seal around the back tire wells and gas cap area where there are some signs of paint cracking.  Then I want to give the entire vehicle a good clean/polish.  I also got some RainX to do the outside windows….from everything I read, the trip up to Alaska and back will be a dirty one, any protection before the dirt and grime will just make it easier when we do find places to wash it down.  As for the car, I am going to have the breaks done.  It went over the 100,000 mark this last year, and the breaks seem to be the only thing which is wrong with it right now.

And now you know what I have been doing for the past hour.