A POTPOURRI OF CATHETERS, PETUNIAS, HAIRCUT, CATARACTS, AND RETIREMENT!!!!

What a bumpy journey life is. Pat has been dealing with the weird and whacky world of cardiology, and has had pretty much every cardiac test known to medical kind. The latest results are somewhat a relief and yet not great enough to cause us to whoop and holler!  When Pat was sitting at the poker table of genetics, he drew a bad hand as far as his blood is concerned. Yes, he got the looks, the body and the brain of a front-row candidate. But somewhere waaay back when, during the Cro-Magnon period, there was a genetic fluke which has since been passed thru the evolutionary chain to....Pat! It is called Factor V Leiden - and what that means is he is more likely to have a blood clot, and indeed he has had three. This gene "defect" was discovered not that many years ago, so doctors when he had his first clot didn't know about it. Whatever surgical procedure My Baby needs to have done requires much planning. As you can imagine, this can get hairy!  When you are dealing with all of this it becomes so clear how darn short life is! So Pat sez..."I quit"!  The FDIC will be without him sometime in June. This is good and was what we planned when moving here!  The good things that come from this experience? Determination to live a healthier lifestyle...eating better, walking every day - and of course more time to watch The History Channel.

Next it will be my turn to go get my cataracts taken care of. My "baby" cataracts have grown up. I see through a filmy curtain which bugs the heck out of me. I hate the idea of someone sucking those dudes from my eyeball but what can you do?
I am greatful the procedure has improved over the years since my Mom had them done. You could see the little cut in her eye and she was stuck with coke bottle bottom glasses. Yuck. Now they offer several options. The most expensive is a lens with "hinges" which adjust between far away and close up. I won't be getting those, but most likely toric lenses for astigmatism. If I am VERY lucky, when I wake up in the morning I will be able to see who is sleeping next to me.

I threw caution to the wind and went to the hair salon today. I have PTSD when it comes to getting my hair cut. When I was a sophomore in high school my parents  HATED my long hair. "Get your hair out of your eyes, Susan" became their mantra. "You will look soo pretty with short hair!" etc etc.
One day my Mom picked me up from school and took me to a hairdresser for a "TRIM".  When I got home I literally could not use a hair curler it was so short. I cried. I cried some more. I threw my hairbrush at the bathtub. I wanted to kill my Mother who had obviously paid off the guy to Get The Hair Out Of My Eyes.  Now I get my hair cut every seven years whether it needs it or not.  Today was the day. The girl who did it talked me into having "lowlights". I might get used to it in a week or so. Basically its a darker blond with lighter blond streaks. Imagine an aged skunk.  By the way, are you supposed to tip if your hair is done by the salon owner?  I did - but wasn't sure of the protocol!

And then there are the petunias. I bought some plants a few weeks ago and they have been sitting around waiting to be planted. The first week we had frost. The next week we had doctor and hospital rounds. So now I am dealing with petunias on life support. Mea culpa Mother Nature!

That's all the news from Lake Webegone.