Friday, September 10, 2010

What is this? Do I feel Fall in the air?

Tucson
Ahhhh, it feels a bit like Fall around here!  Finally!!!  Yes, Fall is in the air, albeit, it is still in the 90's during the day; it is cooling down into the 60's at night.  AHHHH.  Cool nights are returning.  The air feels "crisp" in the morning and evening.  The sun's position in the sky is different, casting different shadows on our mountains in the evening.  The air just feels different, it just feels better.  Gone is the humidity of the monsoons and the strange bugs that comes with the monsoons.  Don't get me wrong, I prefer heat over cold, but I wasn't bargaining for the HOTTEST summer on record!!!!  But we have survived it....and  even enjoyed parts of it.  The storms were amazing.  Even the heat was bearable; until the humidity set in.   Now, we can sit out on our deck in the morning and evening and enjoy our mountains.  Yes, summer is over, no more triple digit temperature days...I hope.


The Santa  Catalina Mountains


Al is doing much better.  At least for now.  He will see the Nephrologist next Tuesday and we will see where we go from there.  Sure hope it isn't to dialysis; but if it is, we will deal with it.

We celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary this week.  We both agreed it didn't seem like 29 years...each year has brought us the ups and downs that a marriage brings; but for the most part they have been good years.  Looking at 30 next year. 

Now that the heat has cooled off, I am starting my walking plan back up.  It was just to darn hot to walk in the heat and unless I wanted to get up at 4:00 a.m. (NOT) to walk, I wasn't walking.  Denise and I are going to try and walk at least 3 times a week at the school track.  Since she is recovering from hip replacement surgery and I am just, plain, out of shape, we will take it slow and build up our stamina (I am not sure that word is in my vocabulary!)  

So until next time.....we are getting comfortable in Tucson again.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

A month later

Well, here it is a month after my last post.  I can't seem to keep caught up these days, with anything!

After I returned home from LA Al wasn't feeling well so into the doctor we go.  While in the doctor's office Al took a turn for the worse and the EMT's were called and carted him off to the ER (next door to the doc's office.)  After a LONG time in ER, Al was admitted for observation.  He did have a minor stroke while in the doctors office.  However, the neurologist that saw him in the hospital discovered that he also had Parkinson's disease!  That's a new medical problem to add to the rest of his problems.  However, it is being controlled by yet another pill (he only takes 28 pills a day!)  After a few days in the hospital the doc's let him come home. 

We had a peaceful, albeit, hot couple of weeks at home.  Had some good monsoon storms to keep us occupied. 

On Aug. 23 Al had a doctor appointment for his regular follow up.  The doc ran some routine blood tests while we were there.  That evening the doc called me and told me to take AL back to the hospital, that he was in kidney failure.  His kidneys were basically shutting down!  So back to the ER we went for admission back into the hospital.  The Nephrologist on call just happened to be the one we see, so we felt fortunate we didn't have to see another new doctor.  He felt that Al was dehydrated...I was amazed.  Al drinks tons of water a day; however, he is also on a pill for water retention and it was working overtime and dehydrated him.  So for 3 days he was in the hospital with and IV drip to hydrate him.  Kidneys finally kicked back in to 20%, which for Al is normal.  We still arent' sure if he will have to go on dialysis yet, but at least he didn't have to have emergency dialysis.  What a fun month this has been!  I DON'T NEED ANOTHER ONE LIKE THIS!   Al is home and feeling pretty good now, but I am watching him like a hawk, of course, sometimes that doesn't do any good either.  :-)

In other news, ummm,  life is pretty quiet here.  The weather is beginning to cool off to the low 90's and it isn't so darn humid.  We are still suppose to get a couple more monsoon rains, which are very welcoming.  The desert is a beautiful green right now...so pretty to see.  Of course, with the heat we have it won't take it long to turn back to brown.  We even have some cactus in bloom right now; pretty orange blooms on some of the barrel cactus. 

I am deep into my genealogy research again.  It is something I can do from home and I really enjoy it.  Of course at times I get so confused I don't know who I am!  As Jennifer says, we don't have a family tree, it's more like a hedge!  So true.

Until next time.......hope everyone is happy and healthy.  Live each day like it is your last!

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