Teddles.com

With the exception of loading the last boxes and stuff into our car and Scott's car, and unloading it in Palm Springs, we haven't relly worked that hard this week.

Steve blew the leaves in the year and it looks really great again. We unpacked a few things and put books in the bookcases that Chuck had dropped off for us, and then we rested or played.

Last night we went to the Uptown Grill for a nice dinner and listened to their new pianist, Jason Webber. He is truly talented both on the piano and his vocals. We didn't know if it would work for Scott with his hearing, but he really enjoyed the time there and loved the music.

Then..... we went on to Toucan's for music, noise and men. Except there were a LOT of women in there. Mostly straight women too. I've never seen that before. The music was good and Scott was having fun cruising the men, so we stayed. And drank. And before long Steve and I were on the dance floor. We haven't danced in years and it was fun.

Then all of a sudden a sign flashed on the video screens that said "LAST CALL"! Yikes. We ran for the exit before the lights came up and headed home. It was a fun evening.

It was a busy week of work and fun. Steve, poor guy had the time so he did the final packing of the last minute odds and ends at the Arnold Street house on Tuesday while Coty tried to clean. I was at work doing a lot of color and working hard myself.

It's great having Scott around again. and the Italian Greyhounds (IG's), Molly and Meg. They are so cute and happy. It's just nce to spend time together. We have missed them.

We found another good restaurant in the neighborhood. It's called the High Dive and is only a block down Morena Blvd. from the RV park. We split a huge gorgonzola Iceburg Wedge salad and ordered the Tuesday special, pulled pork sliders for a dollar each. We will go back again. It was easy, close and really good.

Another reason it's nice to have Scott around is he is so helpful. He offered to help us get the washer and dryer that we have given Mom out to her house. No small job. And then to get the refrigerator out of the house and into the garage. Another big job what with two flights of stairs out the front door, the only route it would fit. Thanks guy.

We took him for dinner at the Gathering. We got a call from Jack, our bartender, telling us it was Wendy's birthday so we wanted to show up for that anyway. We had a good dinner, but I should not have had fried fish and chips. It was delicious, but really not good for me.

I'll do better next time.

With renting trucks, filling them, driving to Palm Springs, unfilling them and trying to put some stuff away, there has been little, actually no, time to write. And if there had been, there was scan energy left over.

Everything that has to go to PS is in PS. Yippee!. That part is done. We now have a room full of boxes and chairs and tables and clothes, but it is all here. Last weekend we unpacked over 50 boxes. We have around 200 more. Do we have too much stuff or what? I keep throwing away but.....

And guess who showed up at the door last Monday morning!? Chuck. He's down from the mountains of Sequoia. It was great to see him if only just for a few minutes before we headed back to San Diego.

And once in San Diego Steve dropped me off at the pulmonologist to get the results of the most recent CAT scan (No Change - good news for now). As he pulled into Coastal Trailer Villa he was following Scott into the park. Everybody is coming back to play!! Hurray.

We went out to Urban Mo's for a bite and then to bed for some needed catch up rest.

Moving out of the rental house where we have lived for the past year is both cathartic and boring.

We are getting to the end of things. We have had the garage sale and rid ourselves of so much quality junk, we have the pile developing for donation, either to Coty, our housekeeper or to one of the charities that help the homeless. We have still packed too much crap to move to Palm Springs where we will then have to unpack it and donate much of it there. But it is a wonderful thing to divest of all of these "treasures" and lighten the load.

One of the big problems is storage in the desert. Since the garage has been converted (in 1976) to living space, storage is tough. We have yet to get the cabinets in place in the guest room so there is scant place to store stuff. To me that's a good thing. To Steve, a tragedy. He is such a packrat. "I might need that someday...."

We are buying nice storage pods for the side of the house, soon to get the cabinets in place in the guest room, and with the divesting of junk, it should all be manageable.

We packed most of the last things in the rental house yesterday, getting ready for the truck on Saturday. We have to load it before we leave town and will unload on Sunday in Palm Springs. Then all that will remain is to clean the rental house and finish organizing all the stuff we need here to live in the motorhome.

I'm so happy to be back in the RV. Once we get the areas in here organized, with an office area and a storage pod outside for our closet, the food storage better organized, and just get used to where things are stored, life will be grand. It won't take long..

Life is good.

The best thing is that our friend Scott will arrive in the park on Monday. He's coming to stay in San Diego for a while and we are so happy. Looking forward to some good hugs.

Well, time to go to work. We do have to pay for all of this somehow. Damn. Retirement sounds better all the time.

Yesterday I went to get the second opinion on the treatment proposed by my rheumatologist. I really wanted to know if it was appropriate and not too aggressive, or not aggressive enough. I just wanted to find out what I was in for and how this would affect my life. So I went to see Dr Henry Krumholtz in Chula Vista. I took my CAT scan records and cd's, my latest bloodwork, and the results of the needle biopsy on my lung.

Well, for the first time in my rheumatoid history, I got a thorough exam. Dr Press had never checked my joints, had never asked so many questions on history, family, health, pain levels, type of pain. ability to function, onset, recovery with meds, and on and on. That had never happened. I thought that everything, all the answers, were in the blood work that was constantly being done. I believed that the numbers and levels told the whole story. Wrong.

Dr Krumholtz read over everything very thoroughly, examined every inch of me and every joint, checked eyes and glands and everything he could. Then he told me his thoughts on what's going on.

He said first, that he doesn't think that I have Sjogren's syndrom. He thinks I may have had a test that showed it, but I have never had the classic symptoms. Then he said he's not even sure that I have rheumatoid arthritis at this point as my rhematoid factor is normal. That could be caused by the plaquenil that I am taking keeping the RA under control. That was a shock.

He doesn'k know what the nodules in my lungs are exactly, but he's not convinced by the data that it is RA. And we know it's not malignant. He said it could be an infection and could go away on it's own. If it doesn't he recommends that the pulmonologist go in and remove an entire nodule to test and find out.

He said lung nodules caused by RA are almost always in people who have a history of severe RA with nodules everywhere else in their body. I have none. I never have had nodules. I swelled in all my joints in the very beginning of this illness, but have had no other real problems in the two years since. He said it was highly unlikely that it is RA nodules.

WOW. This is big.

He also said that at this time he would not suggest taking either of the medicines, Cytoxan or Remicade. What a revelation. This was not what I expected to hear at all. I really had trouble processing all of this.

I had always trusted Dr Press and thought he knew everything. Dr Krumholtz made me realize that the treatment I had been given so far was offhanded and assumptive, based on little real information. I'm feeling a bit betrayed right now.

I understand that Dr Krumholtz said things I welcomed at this point in time, but the difference in the exams was profound. I feel like Dr Krumholtz actually looked at me and the data and used his experience to try and find an answer to this puzzle. I at least like the wait and see position as opposed to the attack now position of Dr Press.

For now I have a reprieve. Who knows, I may still have to take the poison medicines later on, but for now.........HURRAY!!

After not coming to the desert last ween end because of the garage sale, it was wonderful to come back to the house. I just love being here. It's still wuite hot, 107, but the pool is great and we still do whatever we need or want to do.

The proceeds from the garage sale enabled us to complete one more item on the list of things to get done in the house. We got the flat screen TV for the media room. We ended up with a little bit more expensive one than we had planned but got a 46" Sharp at a pretty good price at Costco.

Gotta say, without the HD hookup satellite feed the picture isn't as sharp as I thought it would be. We have a Dish Network guy coming today because of feed problems yesterday so I can ask him some questions. We'll see.

We went over to see our friend Ed Tracy on Saturday night. His partner of 40 years died of cancer two weeks ago and it was the first chance we had to check on him in person. He seems to be doing okay, but in these weeks after a loss of that kind, things are the Twightlight Zone. Next weekend is the celebration of life and we will be there.

I sure wish I didn't have to go back to San Diego today, but we do. Wednesday I have a second opinion on my treatment situation so that will be a good step in getting this started so we can get to the end.

Wish me luck in making the right decisions.

An article came out in the news today that four drugs used for Reumatoid Arthritis are more dangerous than thought before. Remicade, the drug I was hoping to take instead of the Cytoxan (Chemo drug) was one of them.

The news release from the FDA said that these medications work by suppressing the immune system and thereby stoppping the RA, an auto-immune disease, from attacking the body. The problem is that they also leave you open to infections, including "a potentially fatal fungal infection". That fungal infection is called Histoplasmosis.

Swell. I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach.

I have a second opinion by a new rheumatologist on Wednesday where we will discuss my options. I may have to spend a year sick on Cytoxan. I'll try not to whine.

Yuk.

The great news this week is that Steve is getting better on his own from the psiatica, and the doctor thinks that with an epidural shot into the displaced disc, the stenosis will abate and he will not have to have the surgery to relieve his leg and back pain.

It wasn't to be a difficult surgery and the recovery was not too long, but surgery, and especially spinal surgery has risk and pain involved. We needed some good news for him. We are both really relieved.


We put the motorhome in site B12 at the Coastal Trailer Villa park and it really felt comfortable, like going home again. Funny, because it isn't an elegant high-end park, just a down to earth place to be in a convenient neighborhood with quiet people and a little strip of grass around the patio. Simple. Nice. Well cared for.

I sat in the rig and just relaxed for a few minutes. Then I opened the fridge. Oh my. In our haste at the end of the Oregon trip to empty the rig of clothes and food, we forgot to leave the refrigerator door open. Mold. Yuk.

So I got to work cleaning. Once the fridge was done, there was the rest of the kitchen and then the bathroom. After that, the dining room floor. I have to do that again as the carpets have to get cleaned and that will throw debris on it again. It's not so big so no big deal.

The main thing is getting moved out of the North Park rental house. Steve has been working very hard to get us packed while I'm at work. He has a shorter work schedule than do I. We have already taken one truckload over to Palm Springs, with probably two more to go.

I hate moving. It's too much work and it disrupts my life. But I'm really looking forward to this. It means we are on our way to work our plan to move to Palm Springs in a couple of years. It means a new adventure is not too far away. I'm ready.

The only rock in the road is whatever treatment I will have to take for the Rheumatoid Arthritis. If I'm on a bi-monthly infusion for 2 years, then we won't be fully in the desert for that long. If I'm on Cytoxan, and I don't think I will accept that drug, it's for a year. We shall see what develops.

I'm just looking forward to being trailer park people again, having low rent and high hopes.

Just thought I'd tell you all that those of you who have encouraged me to get back to my political writing will be happy. I'm so fed up with the Republicans and the skewed, perverse way they see this country and overlook the mess we are in that I had to get the poison pen back out. I know some of you won't agree with me, but these are my feelings.

Like I said in the bio, the leanings are definitely liberal. That's who I am. Read it or not,

I'M BAAACK!!

Yesterday was a day to rid ourselves of so much of the unnecessary stuff that we have carried around and stored for so many years. Yippee!! And we were successful.

Saturday night was not spent carousing. It was spent in the garage putting price tags on the thousand things we had to sell in the morning's moving sale. We worked until nearly 9:00 and then collapsed. What a tedious job.

Coty, our longtime housekeeper (who didn't want to have to dust or work around these treasures any more) showed up before 6:00am to help us get set up. She brought two great tables for displaying the crap, I mean treasures, and we were ready before 7:00.

Steve had advertised the sale in Craigs's list, and a lesson we learned is that garage salers really check the newpapers. It was a slow start. It was steady, and really picked up closer to, and past the ending time set for the sale.

Steve was speaking with a young couple who wanted the dining chairs and asked them if they needed a couch, and they bought ours!

With all of the junk, treasures and unmitigated crap sold we ended up with a very good day. Coty took what was left to sell at the Swap Meet in National City next week and will split the profits with us. IT"S ALL GONE!!!

We had time to rest a bit, take another shower and then head to Bill and Stacy's house for a barbeque. Since this is the first weekend we have been in town, they decided to have us over with some other friends. It's always a nice group, with Kay and Orv, Jack and Wendy, Randall and crazy Gracie, and some lady friends of Stacy's.

The burgers, chicken and hotdogs were great and plentiful. The macaroni salad was super as was the barbeque meat balls and the deviled eggs. Needless to say I ate too much, topped by a 7 layer chocolate cake that could kill. Man was it good and I'm not that much of a chocolate guy.

Well, we dragged ourselves home and collapsed. We fell asleep in our chairs before 9 and woke up to go to bed. Even I slept in till 6:30 this morning.

But it's done.

Today we move the motorhome into it's new space in the Coastal Trailer Villa Park. Space B12.
With all of the furniture moving out we will be living there very soon.