Another week almost over. We're sliding headlong into September and a change of season. As I live smack in between the middle Atlantic and New England, I'll probably be dealing with hot, summery weather all through September. I hate the heat. I hate it with a fiery passion. At my age, since I started into my "change of life at around 45, I thought naively, shouldn't I be done with the hot flashes? I asked my Mom when the nutsy hormone bombs and the hot flashes went away for her. She, an extremely self-controlled, practical woman, said, "Well. I'm 71 and I still have them." Aaaaaauuuuugggghhhhh!!! That was 13 years ago! I was 48. I'm 61 now and Mom is 84. I'm afraid to ask her again.
I've hated the heat all my life - really, since I was a little girl. My brother, John, never did well in the heat, either. We get it from our Mom. She told me that she never was one for lying out, basking in the sun, even as a teenager. When she went with her pals to Jones Beach or Riis Park, she always covered up in the sun. That was decades before sunscreen and warnings about skin cancer. She just didn't like the sun shining directly on her - it made her too hot. I have always been right there with her on that. Except that when I got a chance to go down the shore with friends when I was a teen, I went right out in the sun. Several times I had second degree burns, once on 45% of my body. I was the classic dope in the sun. When I got older and smarter, I began to use sunscreen with the highest protection, but now, I am just like my Mom. I just don't go out in the sun. The only little problem with that is that my husband and sons are almost sun worshippers, so as the kids grew up, I almost never went to the beach with them. When we were much younger, when our boys were about 4 and 5, we rented a house down the shore in Barnegat Light in Long Beach Island, or LBI, as it is called. It was much, much less expensive 25 years ago than it is now - that's for sure!! We brought 2 cars and Bill and the boys would go to the beach, while I went shopping or read books. I always made a huge breakfast, because on the middle weekend and during the week, we were never alone. All of my brothers and sisters were welcome, as well as their friends and ours. We always had a full house, which I loved. Some mornings, I'd feed 10 people. Then they all packed and went to the beach. I cleaned up, swept all the sand out of the little house, again, and settled down to read. I read through the shore newspapers that you can pick up for free all over the Island. Then I tucked into the paperback books I brought from home and those I bought while shopping. One 2-week period we had this lovely little house across the street from the bay. So quiet and peaceful. It had a front porch and a bedroom with windows that provided a cross-breeze. During those 2 weeks, I read 27 books. J When my sisters rent houses down in LBI, they rent down at the other end of the Island where there's a bit more to do. Lots of stores and restaurants and closer to the causeway and the highway leading to more places with things to do. We are not in a position right now to rent a house down the shore, but when we can - it will certainly be on the quieter side of the Island. Man! If we won the lottery, I'd have a house in LBI with a flag I could raise that said Party Here!
My parents first took us to LBI nearly 50 years ago. I love it, especially Barnegat Light, more than any other place I've ever been. I haven't gone down the shore this year.
My husband and son are there today with quite a few members of my family.
I'm very happy they're there.
I have been officially disabled since 2000. It took me almost 2 years to get disability. In fact, I had to get a lawyer in order to finally get it. Heh. I am quite a bit overweight still, but I was near 400 pounds back then. The lawyer looked at me and said, "Didn't anybody weigh you??" In his opinion, I should have gotten disability just for being obese! I've been fighting for years for people to realize that, even if I am a fat woman, I suffer from crippling arthritis in my spine and my knees and everywhere else. When I lose enough weight, I can have both my "completely destroyed" knees replaced, if I can afford the damn co-pay. The last bone-guy I saw looked at my x-rays and MRIs and gave me that opinion. My right knee, the "bad" one, was "completely destroyed." That was about a year and a half ago. My left knee is catching up much faster. However, even if I do ever get my knees replaced, I can't get a new spine. I have been taking Oxycodone for 10 years and a pain killer called Fentanyl for the past 5 years. I had a procedure done on my lumbar spine - for Facet Arthropathy. Along with osteoarthritis; degenerative joint disease, the facet nerves at the sides of the vertebrae were also affected. For whatever reason, my spine has a lot of this degenerative joint disease, which leads to chronic pain. It's a big important topic among doctors and surgeons, insurance companies and their damn bean counters and, some people in the government are very interested. As long as I'm concerned, anyone discussing this topic had better either have chronic pain themselves, or they are in close contact with a lot of people who suffer from chronic pain. These people in the medical community and even the government are all up in arms about lots and lots of people becoming addicted to the opioids which seem to be the only thing they can really prescribe for chronic pain that actually almost work. Nothing takes the pain away. I read about one doctor who said that maybe they should just stop prescribing any narcotics and start from scratch. "You know what Doc," I'd like to say to him, "Unless you personally suffer from chronic pain every day of your life, you don't know what the hell you're talking about."
I saw a doctor who only works on backs. That's what he told me. I like him a lot. Hell, he's another Yankee fan. He did the facet nerve procedure on my back and there has been much less pain. Later, at a follow-up visit, I asked him if he would look at my "good" knee that was really hurting me. He said, "Oh. I don't do knees." He's a surgeon, for God's sake, but he doesn't do knees - not even to have a look! I have not had a resumption of the truly awful pain I had in my back since then. However, I stay in bed almost all the time - all day long, every single day. My husband can't take the time off work to cart me around. He does everything else in this house. Everything. I hate that he does. - not much gets done, but he takes care of me. I love him for that, but I feel so trapped.
That was what I meant to say as I began this post. Seasons change. My body is changing, what with the medical problems I have. Crippling DJD, diabetes, high blood pressure, diagnosed severe depression, glaucoma and cataracts in both eyes, which makes reading hard, and some coronary artery disease since I had a small heart attack last year. Chronic pain. A mobility scooter so I can go somewhere - anywhere. 2 canes to enable me to walk. When I had the facet nerve procedure I was taking 25 mcg of the narcotic I take for pain. Now I take 200 mcg with the Oxcodone (Percocet) is for what's called breakthrough pain. The Yankee fan Doc told me that every person who suffers from chronic pain finally comes to a place where nothing takes the pain away. Grim, eh?
So my Saturdays are pretty much like the Friday before them. The only thing that changes in my life are happening inside my body. On the outside, one day runs into another. I'm grateful that I live in a place where the seasons do change noticeably. Sometime gloriously.
I do love the fall. Autumn is my favorite season. I feel energized, when I'm outside in cooler weather, like others are by spring, the season on renewal. Fall, the time when things go to sleep, resonates in me. I am happiest and most comfortable when the temperature is 50° during the day and 20° at night.
Although I'm a New Jersey person who happens to love her state, I also love Vermont. (Even though it has NO ocean!) I love the hills and mountains and farms. I love that the whole state seems to celebrate autumn. Bill has promised to take me to Vermont in October. He swears that I'm not a burden. Ha! I know better. I am the world's worst packer. I take everything I might need. The scooter is ungainly and harder and harder for him to move in and out of the car. We have this car that even Donald Duck wouldn't drive!
We'll have to rent a car, which means a station wagon so the scooter will fit. I do have a power chair, a Hoveround, which I use in my kitchen. I don't like it as much as I love my scooter, but I'll use it. If it fits in a car trunk, we'll rent a car. Besides my luggage J, my personal transportation, my bag of medications and my computer, I will be taking my dog, Duffy with us. "The Girls", our 2 cats, Chloe O'Brian and Cleo Bloom, are perfectly happy staying in the house over a weekend. We leave them plenty of food. We have a bubbling water dish for them and they have lots of ventilation. Since they sleep 16 hours a day, they don't require much. Duffy, on the other hand, would pine for us, especially his Lord and Master and best Friend, Bill. I know that Duffy loves me, but I swear, I could lie, bleeding in the middle of the room and Duffy would be right there with me … until he heard Bill coming. Then it would be Bye-Bye, Miss Ellie!
He's a great little dog with a kind of determined walk I call jaunty. On his AKC papers, his name is Constable Hamish Mac Duff, but we call him Duffy. He is our 9th dog. We've been married for almost 33 years. When I married Bill, he realized, God bless him, that my Cairn Terrier, MacTavish, was coming with me as part of a package deal. J He had grown to love her, so he didn't mind. He had never had a pet in his life. Ever. Not even a goldfish that he won at the Parish Carnival. MacTavish was 5 when I married Bill. When she was 10, we thought she needed company, so we got another dog, a wonderful Yellow Lab named Aspen. She perked right up and she lived to the age of 15. Aspen, until he was 12. Since Aspen, we have always had 2 dogs at a time and a couple of cats. In 2006 we had to have our 14 year old Boomer put down and in April of 2007, we had to do the same with our dog, Splinky. I don't like to compare the dogs, because each one of them brought love and loyalty to us. Life would have been unimaginable without them. But Splinky - Splinky the Faithful Dog - Splinky, the Wonder Dog, was something special. I loved her very much, but Bill, who let me have her when I saw her in the shelter, came to love her dearly. He had a really tough time when she died; he was so sad. A few days later, we realized that it was the first time in our 30 year marriage when we did not have a dog. We didn't like it. I knew that Bill wanted to get a smaller dog and I knew he'd loved MacTavish, so I searched the Internet until I found a breeder in upstate New York. Bill took me up there in an 8-hour round trip. We looked at 2 twelve week old Cairn Terriers and chose the same one immediately. My Mom had chipped in some of the cost. We paid the breeder and were pointed homeward in less than half an hour. We love our Duffy so much. He adds joy to our lives. All the dogs before him were trained by me. Because of my disability, I can't do very much with him. I can't walk him or get down low enough to the floor to teach him certain tricks. I've taught him to sit up like a little cookie jar, shake hands, say hello with a wave, high five and the sit/stay/down commands. Right now he is learning to fall down on his side when we say, "Bang!" He's getting it. He still won't come when called. Stubborn little guy. I'll get him to do it, though. Even though I am the one who trains him and gives him treats, he is Bill's dog, absolutely. He's the very first dog Bill has ever had. Oh, both of us own him, and Duffy does love me, but he adores Bill. Which is okay. They need each other, I guess. Here is Duffy as a puppy at 3 months
and here he is recently. There he is,
looking like a Cairn Terrier cookie jar!
This time this was a ramble and a half. I do mean to write every day - I just suck at it.
I'm just sayin'
