Melanoma

When Doug went to the dermatologist two last week, he had a biopsy of a large spot on the top of his head.  I had noticed it awhile ago as I was cutting his hair, but the doctor in Goshen had told him last year that they would just need to watch it.  I was glad that our new one took a different approach as the biopsy results confirmed that it was melanoma. We were both thankful to find out that it was stage zero as it was 100% curable.  The dermatologist would just need to remove it and Doug would be fine.

It all sounded easy yesterday when they removed the melanoma.  They would leave the wound open until they could confirm that they had removed it all.  We would receive instructions on how to clean it out and care for it until our next appointment in a week.  If they got the results early then we would come back on Monday or Tuesday for stitches.  We both felt very good about the process and even took pictures of Doug’s bandaged head.  Meg texted right away that she loved his new yamaka and Doug replied that he felt it was more of a papal cap than the traditional Jewish head ware.  

Everything changed late this afternoon when Doug took off the bandage for me to clean the wound.  It was by far the most disgusting thing that I had ever seen.  It looked like they had removed the two inch spot with a melon baller.  Cleaning it out was awful, especially when I kept thinking about the nurse’s last words - “Make sure you clean it well because if it scabs over, we’ll never be able to sew it shut.”  

Somehow, Doug and I got through the process, but it completely overwhelmed both of us.  We left for dinner at Las Margaritas shortly afterward, and I do not remember one thing that we said or did for the next hour.  I have never had that happen, but I must have been so incredibly upset about the procedure that my brain couldn’t process anything else.  I am not sure how I will be able to do it again on Sunday, but hopefully, it won’t be quite so bad.  I told Doug that if I really can’t do it, we will just have to go to urgent care for help.  That at least made me feel better for the time being.  At least I now know that not choosing a profession as a nurse was a great idea.  

Happy 25th Birthday, Nick

Today was Nick’s 25th birthday and Meg has been busy planning a big celebration for him.  She helped her parents order him a long wanted espresso machine and started baking desserts yesterday.  She also learned how to make his favorite pancakes from scratch.  She bought him a new game that they could play together on the Nintendo Switch and a birthday banner along with party hats for decoration.

I enjoyed listening to all of Meg’s plans.  Nick has been a wonderful addition to our family and we appreciate him very much. Nick and Meg have been together for so long that I barely remember her life before they met.  It will be a lot of fun having them in Florida soon.   I know that they will really like the sunshine and all that Orlando has to offer a young couple.  

Connections

When I met Maggie’s parents last November, her mom, Nancy told me about an online word game called Connections.  She thought that I would really like it as it was made by the New York Times who also produced Wordle, a game that I played daily.  It took a few days for me to completely understand how to play - I had to find groups of 4 word connections inside of a set of sixteen words.  After I learned the instructions, I then struggled to make the connections in the four allotted guesses.  After a few days, I finally caught on and was at least able to play.  I wasn’t the greatest at seeing the connections, however, which made the game extremely frustrating at times.

When Brett was here in February, I showed him the game and soon realized that he saw the connections a lot quicker than I did.  We worked on the puzzle together while we were waiting in lines at Disney World and then again while we were hanging out at my house.  I enjoyed sharing the game with him and after he left I missed having a “Connections” partner.  

Doug started helping me with the game after Brett left, but sometimes the groups were also too hard for him.  Whenever we both were stumped, I would screen shot the words and send them to Brett.  After a while it became a daily activity that I really enjoyed.  With his help, I became better at the puzzles and there were days that I didn’t even need his help.  I now have a 74 day streak of “connections”, but the best part has been “connecting”with Brett and solving them together.

Good News Out of Bad

Today, was my six month check up and I made a list of a few topics that I wanted to talk to Dr. Aich about this time.  The first was the Lipitor that I had been taking for my high cholesterol.  It had worked to lower the numbers to a normal range, but I had noticed recently that the medicine was absolutely killing my stomach.  I didn’t realize it at first, but once I tried the medicine without any other pills with my lunch, I instantly got sick.  It wasn’t just once, but every time.  I took a break from it and right away noticed a difference.  Dr. Aich was concerned that my cholesterol would rise again, but agreed to let me try it for three months.

I was very happy to hear that, but not the second piece of news.  She thought that the pain in my toe was from gout.  I was bummed to hear that, but not surprised.  I had never had a pain list this before and it made sense from what I had read.  We agreed to cut out some of the foods that increased uric acid.  

I left the office feeling good about my visit until later when I read what foods increased the chances of a gout flare up.  I was absolutely floored when I saw that tuna, watermelon and turkey were high on the list.  One of the three of those were in almost every meal that I ate recently.  I was going to have to really do some research to see what I could eat that was still healthy, but wouldn’t have high levels of purine in them. While I was bummed to read all of this until it dawned on me.  Since I had stopped taking my statin, I could start drinking Fresca again.  That definitely made up for all of the food that I had to stay away from for the next three months.  Doug and I stopped and bought three liters of my favorite drink on our way back from McAlister’s tonight.  I couldn’t wait to open one up.

Laundry Tragedy

Cameron called today completely mad.  He had washed his laundry and realized that one of his new shirts had blue spots all over it.  This wasn’t the first time that it had happened, but I thought that we had solved the issue months ago.  This time, I was more thorough in questioning him on exactly when and how this was occurring.  “Did you use cold water?”  “Has anyone used bleach lately?”  “Did you switch any thing in your routine?”  Did you buy new detergent?”

The last question finally answered everything that I needed to know.  Cameron was using a colored laundry soap that he had gotten from Grandma.  It was different from what I had always used “All Free and Clear” and it was blue.  Cameron couldn’t tell it before as the detergent had turned a pink sweatshirt purple, but this time, we could see the blue in his new Hollister shirt.  He threw the detergent away and made plans to buy a new brand this week.

The next problem I hoped to answer for him was either how to get the stain out or where to find another shirt.  He was concerned that Hollister would be out of them as they were on clearance when he was in Ocala two weeks ago.  I knew that it wouldn’t hurt to try so I ran out to the mall this afternoon and was happy to see the same shirt hanging on the clearance rack. The only issue was that they didn’t have his size.  I searched through hundreds of shirts until finally, I found one size large in the exact same color as his.  Ten minutes later I was back in the car calling Cameron to let him know the good news.  He was extremely happy and I was glad to have been able to advert the laundry tragedy.

  

Basketball Kind of Weekend

It was a great weekend of watching basketball.  Last night, Florida won in a very close game which we enjoyed out on the back patio.  Most of the Big Ten teams did well, which was fun to watch as well.  

Today, we continued watching games but this time we stayed inside.  Doug had a lot of work to do and I wanted to rearrange a few pieces of furniture to fit in our newest purchase.  When we sorted through all of the items that Dan had brought out of Carl’s basement via zoom last Sunday, I was absolutely shocked with how many Nigerian artifacts that there were.  I only remembered four pieces wherein reality there were four boxes full of memorabilia.  Doug said that he really wanted to keep all of it, so I started to brainstorm what we  would do with everything.  

Thankfully, a stop at Home Goods solved the issue.  Yesterday, we found the perfect bookcase that not only matched the colors in our living room, but looked beautiful as well.  It took some maneuvering to get it into the Pilot and into our home, but we made it without having to hire anyone.  After some rearranging and reorganizing today, we moved our old bookcase into Doug’s bedroom to house the family heirlooms. The new bookcase looked fantastic and was definitely a fair trade for Doug adding four boxes of African artwork to our home.  It also helped to ease the pain of watching my ranking slip in the family March Madness pool by the end of the weekend.  

A Day Out Exploring

Doug and I didn't have any plans today, so we spent some time this morning looking for places in the area that we hadn't visited yet.  The first one that Doug mentioned was The Flying Boat Tap Room.  It was in Belleview, twenty minutes southeast of our home.  We had tried to go once, but it was too crowded.  The distance was a deterrent from us trying again, but with nothing else on the agenda, we decided that today was the day to go.  Once we picked our lunch stop, we looked for other places to try close to it.  At first, we didn't really find a lot, but then I noticed that there were three different wineries that we could drive to that would loop us back around to Ocala.  

The Flying Boat Tap Room was very good.  We ended up ordering the same guacamole sandwich with Doug adding one of their beers to his plate.  From there we went to the Dragon Flower Winery.  We had been there once right after we first moved to Ocala.  It had such a fun family atmosphere that I suggested to Doug that we return with Meg and Nick once they moved to Florida.  Our next stop was our least favorite on the day.  Doug said that the wines were weak, and he really did not like the suggestive labels on the bottles.  It was also in the middle of nowhere, making us both uneasy.  The last stop was extremely impressive.  Whispering Oaks Winery was only thirty minutes south of our home, but we had never heard of it before today.  It had delicious blueberry wines for Doug to try and a full food menu as well.  It would be a lot of fun to make reservations there for dinner on a Friday or Saturday night.  Overall, it was the perfect way to end our day of exploring Central Florida.