Author: Steve

  Given my heart history, I have to remain constantly aware of my energy level.  That’s my early indicator of redeveloping heart issues.  If my capacity starts a steady decline, that means it’s time for another visit to the Cath Lab to open up the blood flow to my heart again.  We expect it to happen; we just don’t know when.   We’re watching for patterns.  A change in energy for one day is not a big deal.  A decline over time is.  For the last couple weeks, walks were getting tougher and slower.  Clearly, something was going on.  I was almost ready to trigger the cardiology visit and change our schedule to accommodate hospitalization and recuperation, when a coincidence struck me.  For the last few weeks I’ve been eating oatmeal again after a several-year hiatus.  I love oatmeal.  I don’t remember why I stopped eating it in the first place.   But the onset of my energy decline coincided with my resumption of daily oatmeal.  I eliminated the oatmeal from my diet.  I feel great again.   You just never know.    

  Doctors, dentists, mechanics.  Two weeks.  A full schedule.  Blood drawn from both of us this morning, an annual physical for me.  Only one more thing to take care of: get a permanent filling put in Judy’s tooth; the tooth that required an emergency root canal.  The root canal resulted in a temporary filling.  A quick visit to our regular dentist to look things over, do one filling, and we’re done.   Turns out that visit this noon was the *next to the last* thing to do.  Several old fillings, really old fillings, were wearing out and coming apart.  They needed fixing right away, before we’re gone from Colorado for the year.  Last thing to do was to go back this afternoon and get several fillings redone all at once.  Judy is still sleeping it off.    

  Oil change trauma.  An oil change isn’t that big a deal for the Jeep.  It’s a much bigger deal for the motorhome.  Not only do we have to buy 29 quarts of oil and an air filter that costs $100, we have to give up our house for an entire day.  We give up our house and our office all at the same time.  We’re left to wander aimlessly in the Jeep.   We did manage to occupy ourselves for the day (well, Becky helped).  Actually, we got a lot of errands done.  We picked up the coach tonight and got it parked back in our spot next to the pond at St Vrain.  The oil change only happens once a year.   It’s all better now.