I’m off to Augusta for my annual VA physical. It was actually scheduled for last month but I had to reschedule due to my butt sore and not wanting to retard the healing by sitting on my butt for the two hour drive. When I changed my dressing Sunday, there was no more draining and it appears to be all closed up. I put a new dressing on just to be sure and I’ll be doing many weight shifts for the drive.
Finally got my towel warmer operational. They had put in an outlet close to the shower to plug it in but it didn’t work. The project manager stopped by yesterday and fixed it. What a sybaritic pleasure it is to have a nice warm towel to dry off after a shower. I’m loving this new bathroom!
Things are starting to come together. I had the Mexicans out today to perform crape murder on my crape myrtles. I call it that because my BIL sez it’s wrong to top crape myrtles, but that’s what happens around Atlanta in February. I’m a little late this year. They also cut back my autumn olive bush in the back. That thing really grows! I’m having a weeping Japanese maple planted in the front yard where my maple tree used to be. I got cited by the HOA management company for not having anything there. Three years ago, I cut down the maple because the shade deterred my Bermuda grass from growing. I had the stump ground at that time as well so they should be able to plant it OK. Hopefully, my financial situation will be such that I’ll be able to have my patio in the back extended and stone retaining walls around my beds. That should finish the outside. Then comes the rest of the inside. Master bedroom closet doors widened, hardwood floors in the master bedroom, and the master bedroom painted. I’m also gonna have to have the rest of the inside of the house painted. When I put the hardwoods in the master bedroom, I may have the guest bedroom done as well. And, when I recover from all of that, I may upgrade the guest bathroom with a new tile floor, new cabinets, granite counter tops, and brush nicked fixtures.
I cannot believe that in July I’ll have lived in this house for 17 years. The only house I have lived in longer than that was the house I grew up in. I lived there for 24 years, 19 before the Navy and 5 after I got out of the Navy and went to college and my first 2 years at IBM. I also find it hard to believe that in October, I’ll have been retired from IBM for 11 years. Where does the time go?
Howdy Denny …..
It was 1996 when my group “THE DIRTY THIRTY ” received our corporate letters informing us we had to take early retirement or lose our retirement benefits. Time does fly & the stupid thing is of the 30 people so affected , only 4 of us had plans to remain at the company more then 3 more years. So the 10 years of litigation & fighting we forced onto the company caused them to spend more money then if they had let nature take its course.
Medical Bullshit ….I have Aetna Insurance supplements to the medicare for my Wife & I , we received letters detailing a new service to have a doctor visit us to review our current plans & existing healthcare being provided . Whoopee!
This is suppose dto help our existing doctors to better serve s…Yeah Right! Just what a trained professional needs is some insurance company telling them how to do their job.
I have my local primary care physician with 2 visits a year, my Oncologist at Cleveland Clinic with 2 visits at year, My Opthomologist yearly visits, my Dermatologist 2 visits a year, quarterly PSA testing & regular scheduled Colonoscopy exams….Have many professional medical people let alone Insurance Company overseer`s do I need?
The sad fact is Aetna had a similar program some 7 or8 years ago where they wanted me to be reviewed by one of their nurses to make suggestions to improve my healthcare plans ……I did do a phone interview with the result being a follow up letter suggesting I take part in a smoking cessation program!
Somehow they overlooked my medical file which documented I had quit smoking 46 years earlier …True Story, I eagerly await my phone call from Aetna to set up the interview.
Drive safe Denny and good luck with the physical. I hope you studied hard for the urine test.
OH Yea, And Have a happy St. Patrick’s Day.
Denny, next time you develop one of your sores, ask the wound folks how they feel about “cold” laser (also known as therapeutic laser) therapy for these wounds. We use it all the time in vet medicine and I tell you we’ve had a ton of lesions that just wouldn’t heal (usually because of constant abrasion, underlying neuropathies and sometimes concurrent diseases like diabetes) and when we used the laser on them they would heal in a couple of days. I’d love to know what the human would folks think of this modality for treatment.
Wounds on SCI patients below the level of injury work differently so I don’t know what that would do. What this wound required was keeping it moist and staying off of it. You don’t want it to scab over.
The laser reduces the amount of “toxins” that dead tissue emits by dilating both lymphatics and blood vessels. It basically creates an environment that is much more conducive to the healing process. It’s really good for burns and chronic, non healing wounds (in dogs and cats) but knowing how it works, I don’t see where it would be detrimental to SCI patients. I guarantee you if you ask, they’ll either be hell no, or it’s worth a try mindset.
Denny, as a long time homeowner (44 years in the same house), let me tell you, you never get done with your projects. Just got done with a remodel that cost twice the estimate (the contractor is on his way to a maximum of nineteen years in prison for infractions not related to his poor arithmetic). And now I have to hire a new contractor to fix and finish the job. So I feel your remodel pain. Good luck the rest of the way.
Yeah, I know. You make one room of the house look nice and then the rest of the house looks like crap. New furnace and AC in the Fall and now the bathroom. Let’s hear it for home equity LOC and low interest rates.
On retirement and time – I retired from IBM just shy of 4 years ago. (April 1 seemed like a great day to start retirement!) Time does go by fast, partly because you spend time re-doing your house. But also, the old saying “Time flies when you’re havin’ fun*” is really true. Hope that’s part of what made your 11 years go by, Denny.
(*The anti-thesis is what one frog said to the other on the lily pad – “Time’s fun when you’re havin’ flies!)
George V.
The years go by so fast they make your head spin, after age 60. I retired from the phone company early because they promised me my free medical for life.. I earned it, slaved away for 40 years. Now the fuckers are charging me 400 buckos a month for that free medical. My cousin retired from IBM recently and is getting even more screwed over than I….We are the ones who built these companies, fought for this country and now our reward is to take it in the shorts so the gubmint can import more worthless welfare cases. I am looking in the mirror and feeling kinda stupid lately…
I hired on at IBM at the right time and had enough time in that when they changed the pension plan, I qualified for the old plan. I can’t gripe about my medical. I get Medicare and IBM gives me $3K for my Part B premium, my Medicare Advantage premium, and vision. It doesn’t take care of everything but I’m better off than others. Every now and then I’ll bad mouth IBM, but the company took very good care of me after my accident and I had a good career. It’s a shame the company had to change so much to compete in the PC based world. They’re still the king of the mainframes. My godfather worked for the phone company way back when and they took real good care of him and his widow still receives his pension.
When the “DIRTY THIRTY” of which I was a part of had to leave in order to assure we would keep our retirement medical benefits , the Company paid 100% of the cost of our medical benefits with the understanding we would be responsible for any increased costs.
Granted this was before Obama but the Company kept their word as to maintaining the financial support.
Currently my wife & I have medicare with a wrap around plan from Aetna administered by the Company to cover what Medicare does not.
For this calendar year the cost to me over & above what my former Company is paying is a total of $500.00 to cover both my wife & I for the Aetna wrap around plan. I consider this pretty damn reasonable compared to the horror stories I hear from other people.
I do have some of the meddlesome co-pays …$15.00 for doctor visits & major hospital events like my replacement knee surgeries which cost me $100.00 for each surgery with an additional $100.00 co-pay when I had a Kidney removed back in 2008.
I am not complaining but do wonder if someday they will withdraw their financial support for the Aetna wrap around plan. they say no every time but…you never know.
Drive carefully, Denny. I used to love hearin’ stories of your CDSM and the tales of how work was before you retired. I guess you put the lie to those statistics they tout about how retirement kills off folks in just a few years.
Denny, you gonna stick around for the tournament?
Just once before I die I’d like to walk the hallowed grounds of Augusta National. Maybe I could schmooze Condi into hosting me as a guest.