Ethan’s Journey

 So the cold spell was real. The feels like temp….accurate. I took Moe out this morning in this weather. He has never pottied so fast. Poor thing.  It was a slow moving morning. The crew waited until it warmed up to -5 before leaving (around noon). It was a quiet afternoon. I worked and then afterward did some exercising as well as some stretching with the lull of Keith Morrison’s voice telling a dateline story. He could make reading the phone book sound interesting. Moe slept away the afternoon, while I slaved away at work. He was a bit out of sorts with the transition of everyone coming in, in their helmets, heater and volume. It goes from quiet and relaxed to busy and loud with the 9 people busting through the door all at once. Moe was growling and on alert. I had ahold of his collar until everyone was situated. Moe had very minimal time outside due to the extreme weather. He had some cooped up energy and was running sideways on the furniture once everyone was settled. Afte...

 Sandy was able to move and wasn’t too sore today after he little crash yesterday. The crew left around noon today. They were a bit slow moving.  I hid the largest pair of ladies underwear I have even seen in a friend’s jacket. We had a good laugh about that the pair of underwear was so big it had its own zip code. I worked while the crew rode snowmobiles. I don’t mind. I am so scared to hurt my back, I would much prefer working to experiencing that pain again. It was around 3 degrees this morning. It is nice that the snowmobile gear is rated for such cold weather. The crew returned after 6 hours of hitting the trails. They were chilly. I had some warm tortellini soup made with fresh warmed bread. Yum! We spent the evening playing Left Right Center. Mix that with adult beverages and a couple Italians. It got loud. We shared a lot of good laughs. I have one more day to get through. Yay! Moe was a little more relaxed this evening. He had his eye on me. He is warming up a little ...

 It was a warm 2 degrees out this morning. Yikes! I logged into work as our slow moving crew got up and ready. They left on their snowmobile excursion around noon. Moe has had two instances where he has been nippy. He unprovoked snapped (didn’t bite) one of our lady friends. Another where he snapped at one of our guy friends (who wasn’t wearing a hat or a beard. Ugh! Both instances I was right there, but reinforced that he can’t be trusted. I had a quiet and peaceful house to myself to complete calls throughout the afternoon. When I was done, it had warmed up to 9 degrees and I had to work on my fitness for the day. I took Moe for a walk in the woods on the snowmobile trail. We were out about 10 minutes. He had a blast. I then proceeded to do my physical therapy and ended with a yoga session. I had some time to kill so I worked on a presentation I volunteered to do at a Vet Tech college. It is not something I am doing for work, just trying to give back to the college I went to. I h...

 Paul and I left for our trip. Moe also came along. He will be exposed to uncomfortable situations in a weird place. Paul drove, his buddy sat in the front. I sat in the back so I could plug in my laptop. We have heated seats back there so it was no big deal. When we arrived, Moe didn’t stray too far. He stayed right near Paul and I. He followed me into the bedroom we are staying in and jumped on the bed. This Air Bnb is animal friendly, of course. The set up is perfect. The house has sleeping for 10 upstairs and 3 downstairs. There is a fairly open kitchen and livingroom. When everyone arrived, the counters looked like a convenience store. There were so many snacks that littered the counters. Another couple arrived, there were 5 of us total. Moe took a bit to warm up to them, but we got there. When two other couples arrived, I think Moe was overwhelmed. He seemed nervous and I heard a little growl that was corrected immediately.  Paul has mapped out several rides for the to e...

 We had a storm casualty. Our mailbox. Rip mailbox. Plow 1, mailbox 💀. The snow buried our patio furniture and piled up tall on my bird feeders like fancy hats. It is really pretty. Paul and I took turns shoveling the pathway. He was nice enough to plow out our new neighbor across the street. Ethan had his appointment today at the dermatologist. He had one mole that was “suspicious”. They injected him with lidocaine and cut it out. They are submitting it for testing. It could be nothing. He is a little sore this evening but is not complaining. I just noticed he was laying on his side and not on his back on the couch. Poor kid. He has to go every 6 months for a while. The mole is circled with black dots. The other marks are large stretch marks from when he retained about 50 pounds of fluid prior to putting him on dialysis. The fluid was just oozing out of his skin. It’s another battle scar and a brag to show what he over came. This office seems efficient. We were in and out fairly ...

 I am not impressed with our “snow storm”. Sure, we are getting snow but it isn’t like a huge amount. 12-18 inches over a day and a half? Eh. Seems like a typical January event. I was hoping for thunder and lightening or something cool to happen. Maybe a non-devastating earthquake to rattle our house a little. Just something a little exciting. Devastated I am thankful I don’t have to drive in the morning. Paul plans to work from home. Ethan plans to go to work as usual. A snow event like this one is an introvert dream.  Cozy in front of the fireplace. I do think about the homeless and hoping they find shelter from the cold and snow.  We are packing up and getting ready for our trip up snowmobiling. I will not be riding (and have been benched for life)….stupid back! My plan is to work during the day, hang out in the evenings. Still not a bad gig. It has been a few years since I was last able to go. I actually logged into work today and worked for a few hours because tomorr...

 I signed up to do a “smell test” for Parkinson’s disease research through the Micheal J Fox Foundation. It helps them collect information about having loss of smell the first indicator of Parkinson’s prior to loss of motor function. Seems easy and might help someone. I had read that smells like coffee, banana, licorice and anise (not to be confused with anus) are smells that people is early stages of Parkinson’s disease struggle with. If you want to see if you qualify visit mysmelltest.org Ethan and I headed out to the lab this morning. The temp was zero. We have a system for the lab. As soon as we get into the parking lot, Ethan scans the check in sign while I find a spot to park. That puts Ethan ahead of the people walking in that have not checked in.  We did that this morning. By the time we walked in, they were calling his name to verify his orders. It’s funny, he has so many tests done every 2 weeks, the new people always seem surprised at the number. I call it Ethan’s t...

 We had a bad smell in our refrigerator. I knew where the smell was coming from and purposely kept the item in the fridge. Everytime the door was opened the bad smell would burp out. I wanted to see how the boys would let it go on for. Ethan acknowledged the smell and let me know about it but did not troubleshooting to find out where it was coming from. Paul complained about the smell but also let it sit there without investigation.   Later in the evening Paul opened the fridge and burped out the sour fart, hot garbage smell.  He asked me what it was.  I asked him what troubleshooting he had done to try to identify the smell. He had not done any. I pulled the container I knew was the culprit as asked Paul to smell it to see if that was the smell he was talking about.  He gagged, coughed, and gagged some more. There may have been some dry heaving. There were swear words. He shook his head “yes” and we had finally identified the smell.  I know it was mean, bu...

 My old man, Ferguson, looks like the keeper of the crypt. He is perfect. This morning he was wagging his tail and playful. I picked him up and was giving him his daily belly and neck rubs. I laid him on the heating pad and turned it on. He soon discovered that the heating pad was GLORIOUS! Normally, I turn the heating pad on in the morning for Penny and Jiminy to snuggle. Penny saw me turn it on and came over to stare at Ferguson. So much dog drama! She was trying to use her stare and little murfs (quiet barks) at him to get him to move. I chased her away. Ferguson went fast asleep and was SMILING.  I love old animals! I even more so spoiling them.  The heating pad was a hot ticket item today. The dogs rotating on and off it. They happily shared with one another. Got to keep these little ones warm. How did my dogs survive when I worked out of the home? I picked away at phone calls I needed to make. Set up appointments, added them to my work calendar, home calendar and ph...

 Today I received an email saying that a girl on my team sent me a message to a group I am in on Teams. I clicked on the link in my email to bring me to the message. The link opened Teams with a pop up that said “You are not a member of this group and therefore do not have the privilege to see into the correspondence of this group.” Well that is a little snarky. I message my team lead. “Hey, and I supposed to have visibility into group XYZ? I got a notification but Teams is being quite passive aggressive about me seeing the note (I might turn Teams into HR for harsh language”. I wrote to him. He responded back and said that he was able to add me to the group. “Out of curiosity, when did this group start? I asked “October 1st” he said Holy crap! It took me this long to figure it out?  My team lead went on to say that they just thought I never responded to stuff because I was standoffish. Which makes me a little more mortified they thought that.  He was kidding. Ha ha! We w...

 When I woke up, Paul was not in the bed. Hmmmm….maybe he fell asleep on the couch.  Turns out, he vacated the bedroom because I was “twitching” in my sleep and it was keeping him awake. This is the first thing he shared with me. “I don’t appreciate you treating me with complaints. I am not responsible for things that happen while I sleep.” I said. I didn’t bring up the countless times he has woken me up snoring. Ha! The back is showing little signs of progress so that is encouraging. Paul and Ethan are doing the chores. I have removed myself until further notice.  Today was a quiet day. Knock on wood. I didn’t have many urgent recruiting issues. Thankfully. It was chilly. I felt sorry for the birds. They looked so cold. But they happily ate the seed I put out for them.  Ethan was cute when he got home. He asked me how my back was. He asked if there was anything I needed. I was laying in my ice pack on the couch working away. I tried this new bread I found. We had it...

 It was a rough morning struggling to get out of bed with intense pain. I didn’t sleep well. If I moved at all, I paid a price. Oh boy! This day is going to be LONG! I did all my upstairs things (brushing teeth, washing face) and grabbed anything I could possibly need for the day and brought it down stairs (slowly) because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to climb them. I shuffled across the floor like I was 125 years old. Let the dogs out and started stretching out my hip/back. I applied my abonicki balm. It’s a topical balm that surprisingly is 0% sticky. You apply it and then your skin feels like skin.. It makes your muscles feel a little better. It goes deep below the surface of the skin too. It feels like either ice or heat going deep into my core. Maybe it just masks pain a little with a different sensation? Either way it helps. It felt like maybe a bone shifted in my back and it was pinching something. When I did the exercises I was shown at physical therapy, I would get thi...

 I hurt my back today. I was sitting on the floor for far too  long.  “How did you hurt your back?” Me “sitting”. And…..that is classic aging at its finest. I wish I could say I hurt my back learning a new karate move or something cool like that. Nope. Sitting! I powered through the pain until I wasn’t able to go up the stairs anymore. These dogs aren’t going to clean themselves or their bedding. Ethan took pity on me and brought in wood for the fire, which I appreciated. I did some organizing and lots of cleaning. I went through our upstairs closet, which is a catch all for extra inventory. I am also throwing stuff away. I don’t need those half used lotions from the hotel. I am not actively using them.  I found soooooo much dental floss and toothpaste. I also have a decent stash of back up deodorant. I also have a decent inventory on travel bug spray and travel sun screen. I probably don’t need to buy any of those items for the next 2-3 years. I clearly have an anxi...

I took it easy today. I decided mid day to make cookies. I enjoy molasses cookies. I like the crispy outer layer and chewy soft inner layer. I have a great recipe. I also wanted to try cookies using cookie butter. So I looked up a recipe and tried those.  Mid cookie making I asked Avery if she wanted to come over and get some cookies for her and Kendall. Avery came over and we happily baked cookies. Avery even brought her own Tupperware. She was ready. She went what we call “shopping at Mom’s” where she combs the shelves for things she needs at the apartment. She is not currently nor has ever been a “taker”. She takes what she needs which is never excessive. Today I asked her if she wanted to go “shopping at Mom’s.” Today’s find was black beans. Could she be any cuter. We chatted for a while and we got onto the subject of if you had 5 minutes to pack your most valuable possessions what would you pack? It was a conversation about how things were nice to have but in the grand scheme ...

 I dreaded my meeting with Ms. Snarky. I had my ducks in a row. I also practiced removing and tone of defensiveness from my words. But I really thought she was acting like a dumbass. I was also embarrassed for her because she was in the wrong. She wasn’t nearly as rude to my face as she was behind the keyboard. Funny how that works. I just don’t have tolerance for that behavior. At least I was getting paid to meet with her. Ha! Avery called to share that she toured U of R’s Laser Lab. The laser lab is a pretty big deal for fusion and high energy physics. Avery had a blast. She did Avery things there. She was getting a tour from one of the grad students and totally fell in love with the laser lab. She is going to submit an application for a summer research study there. It is a very competitive program. She is trying to network and rub elbows with the right people. She mentioned that she may want to do grad school there as well. It certainly would open the networking doors for her. T...

 This aging process of interesting. What would young me think about current me?  I know current me would be so annoyed if I had to be around young me for an extended period of time. Things keep changing. Preferences, I am more aware of politics, not overly aware because I think it can get quite overwhelming. It happened to a friend of mine a few years ago and I remember thinking “I want NOTHING to do with politics”. Now I am curious. Maybe we just like having something to be a little angry about. As I was working a little dark eyed junco  bird came to visit. He perched himself on the chair on our front porch and peaked in the window at me for quite some time.  It was sunny and the sun beams were making the snow sparkle.  He was a fat little thing. I hope he doesn’t get diabetes because he eats too much at the feeders. The cars were driving by cautiously. I was glad I didn’t have to go out today. I had a lady send me a snarky email. Tomorrow we meet regarding thi...

 It was warm out this morning. I filled my bird feeders, brought in wood to prepare for the “storm” coming. It is just going to snow a little bit. I organized the stick pile Paul had left in the grass and put the sticks in bags to dry. They will be great kindling in a day or so.  I cleaned out the fire place, got it ready so all we have to do is light it in the morning and the house will be cozy tomorrow. The dogs will love it. While I was bring in wood from the wood pile, the dogs had some outside time. It was good to get their noses sniffing things. They needed that enrichment. They have been awfully lazy the past few weeks. I chatted with Avery for a few minutes today. Her kitten was being naughty today, trying to knock a photo off the wall. That little guy keeps Avery and Kendall busy. Naughty little guy.

 It was a somewhat quiet day. There were very few annoyances which is a celebration in itself.  I was pulled from the Las Vegas conference and re-directed to the Virginia conference in February. This will be better for connecting with people close to the hospitals I hire for.  I was pushing to do both but it was going to be 8 days of solid peopling, traveling and then the punishment the week following of all the emails and catching up to do when I got back. I secretly think no one would want to cover my hospitals for that long. I wouldn’t blame them. Ha! Sometimes I don’t want to either. Ethan and I were chatting tonight. He was mentioning how he looks healthy but feels fatigued all the time. He is frustrated because he sees people at his work, staying late or working overtime. He is just not physically able to do that. He looks normal, so he worries people think he is lazy. No one has said anything about him being “lazy”. I do believe he does his job to the best of his a...

 It was a little before 8am when the heart transplant team was reaching out to me about Ethan’s bloodwork. We are decreasing the dose of one of his rejection medications again. This is a slow process because we don’t want to put Ethan’s heart in jeopardy. Ethan had a good point. He started a new medication after his bloodwork 2 weeks ago.  It was a stronger statin to keep his “bad” cholesterol down. His kidney values have really gone wonky in the last two weeks I did a deep dive into this medication and found that there were some reported cases of kidney adverse reaction. We approached the team and asked what their thoughts were. The negative change was enough for everyone to take notice. His doctor immediately pulled him off that new medication and increased the dose of the previous medication that he had done well on. I am bracing myself for side effects to appear after doubling the dose. I was proud of Ethan for making that connection. He is thinking two steps ahead.  ...

 This is what kidney disease looks like at noon on a Sunday after a full night’s rest. Ethan was feeling a bit run down this morning. Fatigued. Not coming down with something, just tired. Luckily he wasn’t at work. He is good about listening to his body. He took little Jiminy up for a nap. Jiminy is tucked in Ethan’s arms offering sleeping support. Jiminy is always up for cuddling and napping. I started filling out Ethan’s paperwork for his upcoming dermatology appointment. I get agitated when we prepare for a new doctor. The new patient paperwork seems totally take so long.  Any medical history? Record the condition and date of onset….. Yeah…best of luck…. Eyes-yes Brain-yes Heart-yes History of seizures-yes History of stroke -yes Pulmonary (lung) - yes Endocrine-yes Vitamin deficiencies-yes Cholesterol -yes High blood pressure -yes List surgeries, dates and locations and surgeon of each surgery…..are you kidding me? From 9 months and up?!?!? From 9 months to 16 years old he ...