Category: Weather

Round Two

Round Two

Sorry.

I’ve been away from my desk for most of the last month due to a battery of medical visits and a row with the insurance company. Well, yes, I had some other concerns as well. More on that later.

July is one of those months when I need to visit at least two doctors and go get a test for the third.

I went in for labs for the first doctor’s visit (my primary care physician) a week before seeing him. I could call him a right, jolly elf because of his stature and his demeanor, but that would be unkind of me. Over the past several years, I have come to respect him. He’s a good man who gave me a clean bill of health.

Two days after going in for labs for my PCP, I had labs in anticipation of a CAT scan that happened a couple of hours after seeing my PCP. I had an appointment to see the Doctor who had ordered the CAT scan a week after having it done. The day after the appointment to see my PCP and to have the CAT scan, I had an MRI for the third doctor – the surgeon who did a quick resection of part of my rectum because of a small bit of localized cancer found when I had a colonoscopy two years ago. All three doctors have been keeping an eye on me – promising that they would do so for five years after the initial discovery of the mass on my rectum.

With a clean bill of health from my PCP and nothing said by the surgeon ordering the MRI, I presumed that my visit with the Oncologist would be the third part of a trifecta of good news from the medical establishment.

As Maxwell Smart would say, “Missed it by that much!”

Apparently, the Oncologist and the radiologist she used for the CAT scan found something suspicious on my liver.

So, apparently, I’m off to round two.

The Oncologist has ordered a new MRI, followed a week later with a visit with a different surgeon, followed by… well, I guess I’ll have to see what the surgeon has to say, first. The Oncologist and I are optimistic that this particular little bump in the road will be easily taken care of and that I will likely die at the age of 102 at the hand of a jealous lover.

There are a couple of things that I am/am not looking forward to. For one, I will likely have one more scar to add to my surgical scar collection. (Five so far, three in places where I’d rather not show – not including where I was circumcised.)

The other has to do with my hair.

Will treatment for the second round lead to the loss of hair on my head (so I can cosplay Lex Luthor), and if it does, will I lose hair on other parts of my body (so I can fit in better with folks at a naturist resort)?

Another consideration – if I am going to lose the hair on my head, should I get a haircut first?

So many questions. I’ll catch up on the possibilities later.

As far as the other stuff I mentioned at the top of the page, well, I won.

The insurance claim I had from the windstorm on the first of March has finally been resolved.

I finally had the last word with the company that sold me the solar panels on my roof.

And the dog Filbrix is in good health according to the vet.

The only outstanding problem has to do with hundred-degree temperatures. Thankfully, the air conditioner still works. Otherwise, no problems.

Be Seeing You!

Ants at a Picnic

Ants at a Picnic

There’s an adage here in the Lone Star State – “If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes. It will be different.”

Last Thursday evening, we went from some pretty nice weather to really crappy in no time flat. Just after supper, the tornado sirens went off, announcing the arrival of a severe thunderstorm with rain and high winds. Things started blowing around and the next thing we knew, we were in an interior closet with the dog Filbrix listening to a whole bunch of clattering and thumping – wondering if we were to lose power or our lives to what was going on outside.

The dog Filbrix insisted that she bring one of her tennis balls into the closet so we could toss it to her.

When the wind died down, we took a peek as best we could in our back yard, to find a major portion of our roof scattered about. When we got out on Saturday morning, we found that, indeed, large chunks of the roofing on the west side of our house had made it into the back and side yards. For the most part, it was just the shingles (as you can see in the photo above). The other half went to work, and I was left to take care of the mess as best I could.

Now, here in our little corner of the DFW Metromess (well, not just this corner, but in every corner), disasters are followed by contractors looking for work. Can’t say as I blame them. They swarmed our neighborhood like ants at a picnic from Friday morning and into Monday afternoon (while I was writing this). There were tarps going up almost as fast as they could be gotten from the home improvement stores with salesmen running about like kids in a candy store, trying to lock repair contracts as quickly as they could be written. I had a conversation with a fellow on a neighbor’s roof while I was in the back yard attempting to clean up the mess left by Mother Nature. He came to our door an hour later with a pen and a contract in hand, wanting me to commit then and there to having him take care of the damage done on my roof.

I told him that I already had a commitment with another contractor. No worries… but if you are unhappy with your contractor, here’s my card, give me a call.

Walking the dog Filbrix Friday evening, I was asked the same question about my roof, and did I need a contractor at least half a dozen times. Not surprising. I had a similar experience a few years back when I stopped at a fast-food restaurant with my son in an area where a storm hit a few days earlier. We were approached several times by contractors asking about our roof. While we were eating.

Ants at a picnic.

The fellow I talked to came by on Saturday morning to put up a tarp in anticipation of rain, possibly on Tuesday. He lightened my wallet by the better part of $500 for labor and materials – and the salespeople kept on a coming.

Sunday morning, the roofers were out at least at 7am and were out and about after noon. Sunday afternoon, we learned that the city was going to have a dumpster ready for people to come by to dump debris. The better half and I gathered what we had, loaded into the Jeep, and were the first to take advantage of the dumpster.

Tuesday morning I will be here with the contractor and the insurance adjuster to see what the damage to my wallet will be. It ain’t going to be pretty.

At this point, all I can say is that it could be worse. Crews could be rooting around the remains of the house looking for corpses. Other than a few aches and pains, we are intact and will be getting at least a portion of a new roof.

A couple of other notes.

The solar panels we have on the south side of the house were untouched. And our neighbor had the best comment about the whole ordeal – quipping that we were likely getting the indoor swimming pool we always wanted. It took me a while to realize what he meant. Sometimes I’m slow on the uptake.

Will update, maybe, later.

Be Seeing You!

Snow Day!

Snow Day!

We here in my little corner of the DFW Metromess are having a snow day. Some sort of winter storm has descended on our little burg, closing schools, governments, and businesses so that we can sit at home (hopefully not in the dark) and not be out freezing our little keisters and/or being terribly inconvenienced by the freezing weather.

We’re taking advantage of it. Sort of.

The better half’s boss messaged us early this morning to say that she didn’t think that it was worth the risk to drive the five or so miles to work. We concurred. The only problem is that the better half can’t work from home – meaning that she will miss a few hours’ worth of salary because of the weather. A minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. It does give her a chance to work on renewing her nursing license – something she has been working towards on her last couple of days off.

Those of us in our household who are semi-retired or the dog Filbrix have anticipated the coming storm and have prepared for the onslaught. We have plenty of bread, plenty of toilet paper and plenty of milk, so I imagine that we will weather this storm. There’s no need to go out except for potty breaks for the dog Filbrix. So far, she has been inactive, negating the need for any such breaks. When it’s time, I suppose I’ll get into some appropriate outdoor clothing and go out with her to keep her company while she does her business. Maybe I can convince the better half to take out the dog – she’s already sitting and studying in her sweats, while I’m in naught but my bathrobe.

Yesterday, I prepared soup. Five quarts of soup. It required a trip to Wally World, and wouldn’t you know it, once I got the missing ingredients for my concoction, I found that I had to stand in line to be able to stand in line for the checkout. Wally World can be a busy place when there’s bad weather anticipated. But I made it home. And I made Chicken Corn Chowder – enough for both humans and enough to put in jars for later consumption.

Mmmmm! Tasty!

Now, let’s be mindful of a thing or two. Here in the DFW Metromess, just a little bit of snow and ice are enough to bring most outdoor activity to a standstill.

That’s most.

We’re not one of those snowbelt states which gets whalloped every winter with winter weather. I have friends in Cleveland, Erie, and Buffalo who would look at what we get here and shake their heads, wondering why we make such a fuss about just a tiny bit of snow. They’ll post pictures on the usual social media pages of them out shoveling several feet of snow out of their driveways to get to work to reenforce the Puritan work ethic ingrained in them from an early age. As for us here in this part of the Lone Star State, well, an inch or two spells catastrophe.

When things are at a standstill, though, there are some advantages. But for the occasional cycling of the furnace and the noise I make running my fingers over the keyboard of the laptop, it’s mostly quiet. No traffic noise. Nothing. Yes, there’s the occasional bark of a neighbor’s dog wanting to be let in after doing their business, but other than that, not much of anything. (While writing that last sentence, I caught the noise of the neighborhood kids going outside to experience the weather – and the dog Filbrix is whining – a sign that it’s time for her to go outside to relieve herself. So much for quiet.)

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It’s now Wednesday. I gave up writing this entry to my blog when I got dressed to take the dog Filbrix out to relieve herself. At 4:00, nothing has really changed. More precipitation – this time, freezing rain. No school, no other activities, just like yesterday and just like tomorrow.

I had a bit of a panic Tuesday afternoon. I had to set up an appointment to renew my driver’s license at the DPS (Department of Public Safety. After being in a panic most of Tuesday afternoon, I finally went to the web site to find out that my appointment is NEXT Wednesday – Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel. This afternoon I wondered about my EFM class. I found out that it, too will be put off until next week.

So, we are in for another day of having to twiddle our thumbs and toes while the weather decides to ease off and give us a break. In the meantime, we have enough bread, milk and toilet paper to see us through a while longer. Just me, the better half, and the dog Filbrix waiting out the inconveniences brought about by the latest invasion of cold weather from the north.

Be Seeing You!