AC's Back On

And the reason this is?  We want to sleep.  It was just not cooling down enough last night, but I wasn't about to go around the house at 2AM shutting windows, so I didn't turn the Air Conditioning back on until this morning.  Oh, and yes, it was a bit warm today. :)


Jane and Nancy have soccer tomorrow, so Cathy and I are going to do something in the crock pot.  I got the recipe from "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook."  A rather unwieldy title, but it does have some freaking awesome recipes.  Any book that includes SEVERAL recipes with Hominy has GOT to be good! ;)


I can't remember exactly what the recipe was but it definitely involved turkey smoked sausage and a jar of good salsa.  We're going to slap it over whole-wheat pasta; whichever type we have in the pantry is fine.


Today, I decided to get up and put on my compression socks.  Holy carp, what a workout.  I guess they wouldn't work well if they were not a job to don.  Did they work?  The jury is out, only because I didn't put them on right out of bed. I think my ankles had already started swelling before I put them on my lotion-slathered feet.  Don't forget, I'm still trying to stave off the nasty Hand-Foot Syndrome from my chemo.  


On the agenda for this week?  Monday, a plethora of blood tests; my PT/INR, and some exciting pre-chemo checks...CBC, platelets with differentials and something called a D-Dimer to check my clottiness, so to speak.  Thankfully there is no test to check my snottiness.  I think the results might be pretty fascinating, though, if there were.


Then, Tuesday, it's Camptosar infusion time, followed by the start up of my week of Xeloda, and of course, the Dreaded Decadron Insomnia.  After that, the remainder of the week will be filled with me trying not to be nauseated.  Although, on Thursday, it'll be back to the phlebotamist for another PT/INR.  


But on the happy side, my sisters and I will be attending BlizzCon, virtually of course.  Wouldn't want to barf all over an actual convention, and I think the airlines would charge me a fortune to pack up my scooter, Darth Vader (my oxygen concentrator), and my CPAP.  


And now, it's time to take my night time bevy of pills and read a bit before I head off to slumber land.  I hope you all have a great upcoming week full of peace, sleep, and much happiness.

Hell's Bells!

Ok, I had turned off the Air Conditioner last week, when we were experiencing high 70's through high 80's weather and it was great, but this week, we're back to high 90's again.  This is actually normal for us here in the Phoenix metropolitan (dang, that word is a pain to type!) area for this time of year. 

If you notice on my Weather Channel widget, our lows are great; tonight we'll hit 64... blanket weather! ;)  So, now that the sun is long past being down, all my windows and doors are open and the fans and cross currents are bringing that cooler air into the house.  And it's LOVELY!

Jane says she heard our Great Horned Owls last night, so I hope I get a chance to hear them soon.  Our bats were back again this evening as we were all out enjoying the sunset and the cooler temperatures.

Went and had my PT/INR today, since Dr. R has changed my schedule from Monday and Friday to Monday and Thursday.  Had a chat with my case worker from my insurance company, wondering WHY this time, they wouldn't cover the Coumadin Clinic.  She's going to find out.  Seems my insurance isn't covering quite a few things these days, not the least of which is the only sleep aid that I, as a person with advanced lung disease, can actually use.

Yes, I broke down and asked Dr. R for a sleeping pill to use on my Dreaded Decadron Insomnia nights.  He prescribed Rozerem, which doesn't have a sedative effect, which would be a bad thing for a person with lung disease and sleep apnea.  But my insurance company said "prescribe Ambien" to which my doc said... diplomatically... "NO!"

Oh sure, I could spring for it myself, but for two nights in a month, they can bite me... I'll just stay up all night.  It's not cheap, by the way.  And frankly, I have other, much more important, priorities on my finances right now.  But, you know, I'm freaking sick of non-medically trained bureaucrats (dang, that's even harder to type!) telling MY DOCTOR how to prescribe medicine, when they don't know crap about me as a patient.  Yeah, I'm perturbed... which is nicer than saying this pisses me off royally.  Probably because I'm sleep-deprived.  Alas.

Still, all in all, life as I know it is fantastic, beaurocracy-ridden insurance companies notwithstanding, and so, I have a smile on my face, a song in my heart and a glass of red wine at my side.  I have a huge family that loves me to bits, friends that give me shoulders galore, and chihuahuas that provide unquestioning adoration.  For what more could one wish?  A freaking good night's sleep on Dreaded Decadron Insomnia nights!!!!!

And could I also ask to be rid of this silly twitch in my left eye?

Love to all. :)

Power Outage

Sometime around Noon, my sister, Jane, called to tell me she could see huge billows of black smoke from her store.  I hit the 'net and eventually discovered that a transformer had caught fire in East Mesa.  Her store had had a couple of brown outs, and then lost their power just about the same time we did here, 2:15PM.


It was only about 105 at the time, so the house was relatively comfortable, as long as you didn't open a door and didn't move.  The temperature in my bedroom topped out at 89.7.  Around 4:30 ish we called our power provider, Salt River Project, and asked if they had an estimated time when the power would be restored.  Remember, I have an oxygen concentrator and my CPAP which I really do need to sleep well.  The person on the line was lovely, especially considering how hot it was, and how unhappy many of their callers must have been.  He said the current estimate was 2:30 AM.  Ai carumba!  


Well, I do have an O2 tank, which I am not sure I even know how to use, but I would do my best, if the need arose.  But it was so uncomfortable and I was having problems breathing.  I am currently doing a breathing treatment as I type; figuring I'd better do it while we HAVE power.  I am guessing we might lose it again before the day is out.


Of course, as I am typing this, you will see that their estimate was not very good, thank the gods.  Power was restored about 6:30PM.  Oh the joy of Central Air.  Although, frankly, I would have been happy for just a functioning item that would have gotten air flowing through the house.  I wonder if there are chargeable fans for sale anywhere.  Must check Amazon.


I confess to quickly grabbing a sparkling water from the fridge during the outage because my iced tea went fairly quickly once the heat rose in the house.  Oh, Nancy took one of my chemo hats, soaked it in water and I wore that for a while, and it was great! :)


At least I had started work early, so when the power went out, I had already gotten my eight hours of exciting numbers crunching completed.  It really IS exciting.  I have fun. :D


Tomorrow we're having an Ozone Health Watch and that smoke didn't help, and of course wildfires still rage around our state.  So, send some good juju our way for continued power so I can run all my breathing thingies, especially my nebulizer.  Yeah, I can of course go to a local hospital if necessary, but you KNOW how I feel about THOSE places! :D


Love to all, keep cool, and give out some hugs!

To Heat, or not to Heat

Last year we never turned on our heat pump.  Arizona is a little different when it comes to utilities; we spend most of our utilities budget on cooling the house down, rather than heating it up.  In this household, we try to keep electric use to a minimum during the winter so that we can afford to cool the house in the summer.

Currently, in my bedroom, the temperature is 64.4.  While this might seem lovely to many, it's a bit nippy for me. :)  But, I have a sweater on over my pajamas, as I sit here at my computer, sipping really yummy hot coffee.  Outside, it is currently 36 degrees.  It was a very chilly night. 

The point is that for us, it's simply easier to wrap up, put on more blankets, or more clothes and be warmed in the winter.  In the summer, you can only take OFF so many things before your neighbors call the Police.  Besides, don't we all sleep better when there is a bit of a chill in the house?  Kind of like a hibernation switch flips on; you cuddle under the blankets, and BOOM!... you sleep.

Oh, and lest we forget, we have furry insulation devices here.  For me, it's Cisco and Quito.  Though both are so old now, I have to PUT them up on the bed, boy, do those chihuahuas give off some heat!  And they are soft and cuddly to boot!

So, unless it really gets like Arctic cold here, I guess I have answered my question; no heat!