Remember me?

Hi. Long time no talk. Nice to see you.

A lot of shit swirling around these parts.

Let's start with my trip. Our flight out of Raleigh was on time.

We got to Dulles and were immediately met with a delay. Then another delay. Then another. Then there was a gate change. Then another delay.

I mentioned to Rick while on the shuttle bus in Raleigh that if our flight was late it was going to be due to the incoming plane that is taking us to Cleveland. Sure enough. Because the weather in Dulles was high winds all day it caused all kinds of delays they told us. 

Our plane was coming from St. Maarten.

We finally arrived in Cleveland at around 2:30am. 

We had to go outside in 17-degree weather and high winds to wait for the shuttle to the hotel. OMG, I forgot this kind of weather. Brrr...

The shuttle driver was as high as a kite. A happy little dude, but high. 

I am glad no one was on the road or that we had such a short trip to the airport hotel. He reminded us though that it was really 3:45am because of the time change. Great. 

By the time we got to our hotel room, bought some junk just off the lobby for what we were calling dinner it was now past 4am. (all things in the airport were closed, no bars, no restaurants and we were so damn hungry) 

We crawled into bed at 4:30a. We had to be back at the airport no later than 9am for our rental car pick up. We awoke at 7:30 to get showered and head to the airport to get our car.  We were living off such a small amount of sleep for so many days that coming home we spent a day napping off and on. 

The rest of the time up north was good weather. 

It was in the 40's which is what I call winter. So it was very nice. 

Coming home was a far easier trip, everything on time. Yeah.

But never again will we ride in economy class. Poor Rick was miserable.

His legs hit the seat in front of him. He was so miserable. Thankfully each flight was 1 hr or less. On the way home I bumped us up to economy Plus because there were available seats. Worth the leg room money for Rick. 

I am shrinking in height by the day and this poor guy was a pretzel.

Then I had to come back to a doctor's appointment for my damn eye mass.

I met with the Duke team yesterday. More blood work and more tests. 

The only option left is to be on steroids for 3 months and 3 months of an immune-compromising medication. Yipee. 

Now not having to be around people sounds wonderful to me at first. 

But knowing I can't is different. 

Sort of like my own personal lockdown isn't it? 

If this suppresses my immune system I don't wish to get a cold from someone or covid.

But the side effects of these drugs are insane. Let alone the ugly steroid-induced swelling, bloating, and all-around looking like shit. I have to worry about depression, anxiety, losing hair and there was something else but I was thinking, gee, fat, depressed and bald, what's not to like here for a woman and I forgot the other side effects he was rattling off. 

Shit, damn, fuck is all I can say about that.

I begin these today. Day 4 I start the immune-suppressive shit. I go back in 2 weeks to see my main doctor. Then after a month etc. I guess wearing a mask is even more essential for me these days. 

My eyesight has gotten worse since my last visit. I knew that. I didn't need the tests to tell me. It's changing rapidly now and the doc was shocked by the changes in less than 30 days. I knew and wasn't happy but it wasn't a surprise to me.

I told Rick while flying it was getting very hard to see out of this eye at all now. And even with glasses it only looks like shapes looking through linen. So there is nothing there but hopefully, it will get better. It will never be gone but smaller is the hope. This has worked for others so fingers crossed it will for me too. 

Gee this is a happy post isn't it? 

I told Rick he can push my Body by Steroids into the sun and I can work on my tan since I can't really go out anywhere. Fat looks better tan so there is that. Trying to see the positives. See is the operative word here. 😁

When we got home yesterday from Duke we opened a bottle of wine to commiserate and sat on the patio. It was a gorgeous day yesterday. I love 72 degrees with no humidity of note. Just a perfect day. I could live in that forever until winter. I'd like those 2 seasons, can you work on that for me?

As we sat on the patio the yellow on everything was thick. Pollen everywhere. My car has yellow all over it as well. Rick said he'd wash the car today and I said, "why?"  It will be yellow tomorrow. So we enjoyed the sunshine and the warmth while on the patio until Wheezer Boy couldn't take it anymore.  His allergies since moving here have been off the charts. 

So we went inside.

I figured I could drown my sorrows in my wine inside just as well right?