Busy day

[aadler]

Oh, yeah, lots of stuff taken care of today.

Susan and I stayed busy. Partly a matter of scheduling, partly how things worked out, partly choices.

We had two medical appointments scheduled. The first was in the morning, follow-up on the stem-cell injections Susan got in her knees several months ago. Improvement was hard to recognize for quite a while, because she had to deal with so many problems with her back. Over even the last week or so, though — mainly since we got back home — it had become clear that her knees were manifesting stiffness rather than the inescapable pain she’d felt before, and x-rays showed substantial improvement in cartilage regrowth. (The measurements just confirmed what was already showing; even a few weeks ago, she needed her wheelchair to move more than a few steps, but since then she’s been able to get around using just the cane, with a promise of more on the horizon.) We were, in fact, so pleased with the results so far that we wrote out a hefty check on the spot to get the same treatments for her hips and shoulders. Which were administered right there, and we can hope for comparable improvement in these other problem areas within a few months.

Then I had an appointment of my own, in the early afternoon. Things looked okay with the eye that had been operated on; I’ve been able to make out a bit more every day, though the vision there still isn’t clear enough for me to navigate by (the other eye is good enough for that). Pressure was up some, though, and they reduced one of the medications and added another to address that part.

Susan and I checked mail, then stopped at Hobby Lobby to get her some yarn, then went to fuel up at the service station, then went to Walmart for shopping. I’m supposed to sleep only on my left side, to favor the treated right eye, and for that purpose I’ve been sleeping on the couch (Susan’s usual) so I could keep my back against the couch-back to remind me of staying in that position. Meanwhile she took my usual, the dinette-bed. She’s found my customary sleeping-spot to be a harder surface than the one she had previously used, so I picked up an egg-crate foam mattress pad to help her along.

I also decided some time ago that we needed to get ourselves ‘out there’ a bit more, and for that purpose I bought a pop-up screen canopy to set up outside our motorhome, and a small folding table to hold the wine or iced drinks we’ll relax with when we set up outside, and a couple of extra folding chairs for those hopeful occasions when passersby stop to visit. People living the RV life are generally pretty friendly, but they also wait to se if you want company and interaction. We’re doing what we can now to make that clear.

By the time everything was in place and settled in, it was a bit too late to do the canopy for today, but we’ll take a shot tomorrow just after noon, and again in the cooler time around sunset.

Oh, and I got word that Susan’s phone has been repaired, but it was too late to go pick it up then, so I’ll take care of that tomorrow.

I wouldn’t exactly call this the good life, but it’s not bad. Not bad at all.