2 August 2023
It seems I’m still seeping. I had a bloody tee shirt this morning but since I put a towel down on the bed, I didn’t have bloody sheets. For the first time in quite a while I was able to turn on to my left side and actually doze a little while. That gave my right shoulder a little respite. The swelling is still present and I suspect Friday that Dr. Burgers will opt to operate again to remove some of the congealed blood. She’ll probably schedule the surgery on either Monday or Tuesday.
The best part is that I can cover the opening from the drain with a bandaid and now take showers. The bath wipes worked well but there’s nothing like a hot shower! As you might guess, nothing goes according to procedure with me. I think I’ve stumped Dr. Burgers with the congealed blood.
Holley and Jim called early this morning and asked if I was up for lunch or dinner. I really need to get out of the house more. They suggested several places and we settled on Tom Jenkins BBQ. I’ve been here long enough to remember when Tom Jenkins was simply a smoker in a parking lot on Federal highway. You’d pull into the parking lot and see what was available. They did that for 6 years and then in their 7th, purchased their current location.
Fancy it is not. It’s family seating and at busy lunch times you can find lines out the door. We made it just before noon and before the rush.
The menu is pure BBQ: chicken, pork and beef. They also have no patience if you haven’t already made up your mind by the time you get to the register. Holley’s usual order is a quarter chicken. It comes with two sides. Her choice of sides are collards and collards. If you order iced tea, it comes sweet, sweet, sweet. None of that unsweetened stuff. You just assume you’ll need a dental appointment after your sweetened tea.
Holley and Jim are just too good to me. Not only did they buy my lunch but Holley had been shopping and found some Guy Harvey jumpers on sale for $5. I was the recipient of two of those plus a pair of pants.
Harvey is Jamaican and often does paintings of marine wildlife. You can imagine how successful he’s been in a state like Florida bordered on two sides by the Ocean. People get Guy Harvey tattoos, hang his paintings in their homes and even have their boats painted with his designs. He does good work and has a foundation for the preservation of sea life but he’s a little too commercial for my tastes. However, I like the jumpers.
For some reason, since my first disastrous round of chemo, I seem to get cold in the afternoon. Logic would suggest I raise the thermostat but then I get hot at night when in bed, so I leave the thermostat set at 78°F. I just don a long sleeve shirt and long gym pants and put on some socks. These jumpers are perfect for that.
Today was bulk trash day so the city came to pick up my Bismarck palm segments.
It was tough to say good bye to that palm. I raised it from a 50 gallon container when it was only about 4 feet high. My next door neighbor who cut it down for me also recommended someone to make some repairs to my fence around the house. As usual with fences, something goes wrong with the gates. His friend came by yesterday and will make the repairs. Since he was recommended by Ariel, I trust he’ll do a good job.
August and September are our busiest months for hurricanes. In some respects, it’s a good thing the palm was hit by lightning since it turned out to be hollow inside which probably weakened it enough it would have blown over into the house. I ask Reyes Landscaping to trim all my palms in June at the beginning of hurricane season, mostly to remove the coconuts which become cannon balls during hurricanes. We left the Bismarck alone this year except for some trimming of fronds and seed pods. Little did we know it would come down on August 1.
Not only did Holley and Jim treat for lunch, buy me clothes, but she also brought me something to solve the bloody tee shirts.
She swears by this. Spray on the bloody spots and rinse in cold water. Then turn the shirt inside out and treat the other side the same way. If all else fails, use on the dishes!
After an 18 minute wait, I finally reached a human at the Florida Retirement System. I did indeed get a 3% pay raise but it also increased my withholding tax so that gave me less of an increase than I anticipated. As it is, I still got a $77 raise from last fiscal year.
Stay tuned!