Vacation Day for Dave

I have an appointment at 11:00 to get the stitches out of my mouth from last weeks surgery.

I have taken a vacation day to accommodate the appointment and go to a funeral.

In the meantime, I have this to deal with.

It started snowing last night and continued into the evening. At some point, it turned to rain and I expect it will be gone by the end of the day. I'm going out to fire up the snow blower but I think the snow is too wet.

I'll let you know in the next paragraph.

It's the next paragraph but only about 15 minutes have passed. The snow is too wet for the snow blower. I tried to do a little shoveling but to hell with that. I don't want to attend another funeral today. Especially as Guest of Honor.

To compound matters, the snow blower is running like shit. I think I left gas in it all summer. I got some gas stabilizer but that has not seemed to work. I need to get it in for a tune up.

11:48AM: The dentist was a breeze. Sit down, cut out the stitches, get some instructions and get out.

Now I'm going to relax until I go to the Memorial gathering for Dave Rowand. I knew Dave from High School but became his Beta Brother at Washington State.

I always thought we would be attending my funeral before Dave's. He was in great shape, skied all the time and had just retired after selling the family business last year. I suspect something with his heart took him down.

I also learned to about another death, this one a high school buddy who died last week. Another Dave! In this case, Dave Gaiser. He was just a year older than me and died of heart failure. 

I may end up out living all my peers because my heart issues are identified and monitored and under the control of lots of drugs.

Either that, or I'm dead tomorrow.

Ski Day Number One

I have discovered that my energy level is much higher on my Mondays off than it is on Sunday, just the day before. At least, that is what I have experienced the last couple of weeks.

I had a whole slew of things I was going to do yesterday and began my morning tearing into them. 

I cleaned out the fireplace and did a very thorough job of cleaning the glass on the front of the Fireplace Insert.

Then I decided it seemed like a good day for a walk...something I need to do more. While on the walk, I thought it would be a great day to be skiing. So I pulled out my phone and called my life long pal Rob. He's retired now so I new he would be free. I pitched the half day skiing idea and he was in.

So Rob picked me up at noon and we drove up to Mt. Spokane. We were  on the lift at 1:15. 

It was a nice mostly sunny day, but cold. It took me a while to adapt to the cold air. It made me cough for 20 minutes. 

Of course, the worst part of the day for me is walking from the car up to the lift. After that, gravity takes over and I'm okay. Not great, just okay.

We skied 8 runs in about two hours. After the eighth, We drove down the mountain and stopped in to the Hub.

A great day!

The Day After

To my great surprise, Dr Steve called me today to see how I was doing. I can think of only one other time where a Doctor called me the day after a procedure. That Doc was a dentist as well.

Anyway, we talked for a while and I asked him to describe the procedure he performed.

He told me he got down into my gums and really cleaned and disinfected the area. He also used cadaver bone to rebuild the damage to my jawbone/tooth. Then he gathered up more gum and refilled the area. 

This procedure cost about $2,500.00 and my insurance is covering all but $390.00 of it. Plus, I had to buy some prescription drugs, including Hydrocodone which I only took one of.

Receding Gum Report

I had surgery on my gums today.

For a few years now, my dentist has been concerned with my receding gums. I have lots of threes verging on fours and a couple of fives. Fives are bad. Even worse, a nine is really bad.

Well, I have a nine mm pocket on the inside of my #28 tooth.

So Dr. Gaunt referred me to Dr. Steve, who is a periodontal surgeon. I went in about three weeks ago and he determined I needed the surgery to rebuild the bone and gum.

So Susan drove me to Dr. Steve's office this morning at 7AM. They got me into the room and on the chair pretty quickly. The nurse gave me a cocktail to drink that had Valium and something else in it. It relaxed me pretty fast. I was never out but I was definitely in twilight.

When it was over, I lamely piled into a wheel chair. My legs were very heavy. I was outta there and back home by 9:00. Then I slept for most of the afternoon.

I experienced very little pain. The worst part of the whole thing is that they packed some dental putty on my teeth and it feels like I have a big plug of chewing tobacco in there. 

I have to go back in a week and have the stitches removed and hopefully the plug of chaw.

First Post of 2019

Here we are in the new year and I'm finally getting around to posting.

I'm back to work but really feeling like crap. I've had a cold for over a week. It's never been bad enough to keep me in bed but I haven't been terribly active.

Today I'm very congested and snotty. I've unloaded some tremendous snot balls into tissue today. It's been really impressive but not something I wanted to share with people. Just you!