As we said earlier, we made it home – just in time for some gorgeous weather. We quickly moved the critical things out of the RV and back into the house after we arrived. We got our taxes in the mail on time and got to watch the tracking take them all over the place before being marked as delivered over a week later. Phew!
On Tuesday April 16th, we headed to Knoxville for Stu’s appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Ivy. All went well and he left after a cortisone shot in his left thumb and an appointment for carpel tunnel release surgery on May 3rd.
Next up was our dermatologist appointments on April 22nd. Stu came out clear, I ended up with a biopsy (turned out benign), a couple of frozen spots on my arms and legs, plus orders for Efudex (a chemotherapy cream for pre-cancerous skin). The instructions were to use it twice a day for two weeks, applying a thin layer on my nose, cheeks and temples. Since I have already had a couple of spots on my nose frozen before, we hope this will take care of everything. I will be documenting the whole process in a later post – my follow up appointment isn’t until July 22nd, so you can see how long this process can be!
Here are some photos of the wall behind the parking lot…
Then on April 24th we headed to Knoxville for lunch at the Downtown Brewery with good friends. What a great time we had!
Things were rolling along nicely until I woke up Sunday to a text to call my daughter as soon as possible. My grandson was involved in a bad auto accident. He swerved to avoid a deer, rolled the car, airbags deployed, rolled it again, then crashed into a tree. He had to have multiple surgeries to fix a shattered kneecap, broken ankle, broken wrist and badly broken elbow. In addition he ended up with more surgery to correct a fractured sternum. There were no head injuries, fortunately. He is still in the hospital in Colorado Springs but should be moving to rehab in the next day or two. He’s doing much better!
We got a deal of the day on a bigger, better SunJoe pressure washer and Stu was impressed by what a great job it did. He will use it on the house and I will use the smaller one (no detergent tank) to keep the deck clean from mud & the dogs. LOL!
This is a before/after just using the small pressure washer with water only! See how nice and clean the dog chew spots are? {snicker}
So now it was up to Stu to get as much done as he could beforehand, knowing his right hand would be pretty much out of commission for two weeks. The first thing we did was to prune back the six rose bushes in the front and back yard. We hired a local guy to dig out our front planters completely and then dig out all the rose bushes so we could move them over by the fence. He did a great job and we will use him again when we need some yard work done.
Then Stu put in a drain system from the gutter to the side of the planter.
And then added mulch…
We purchased some Leyland Cypress trees to plant along the back fence in hopes that as they grow and fill out, the dogs won’t see as much of the neighbors and will maybe not be so vocal about them. time will tell. We lucked out with a discount coupon for Lowe’s from our change of address form we put in back in Folkston, GA plus there was a 20% discount if you bought 20 or more trees. Well, he bought all 28 of the available ones and got them planted. The cross fence you see is going to get moved to the front of our garage making it easier to let the dogs in/out without needing to go on the deck (a must when we rebuild it).
Next up is some nice dwarf Arborvitae trees for the front planter. The flowers have been moved to a couple other spots. If they live, fine. If not, that’s okay too. Same with the rose bushes (but we suspect they will survive just fine). Here are the rose bushes and so far it looks like they are all budding! (two weeks after transplanting)
In other medical news, Stu saw his ophthalmologist and is scheduled for his cataract surgery. He will get his left eye done the morning of May 13th and the right done on May 20th. Each surgery has a follow-up appointment the same day, late in the afternoon. His follow-up on his carpel tunnel surgery is May 16th. Hopefully he will be done for a while.
The #2doods are loving life, as they always do. They boarded for two nights during Stu’s surgery and although they love it there, they are always happy to be home. They have really been enjoying these 70-80 degree days!
They really love it when we sit out on the deck with them.
The carpel tunnel release surgery went well but it made for a long day. We had to be in Knoxville at noon ET, which meant leaving home at nine CT (allowing 2 hours drive time due to traffic issues). They took him back at noon but it was after four when they finally did the surgery. We got out of there just after five, stopped for dinner at Denny’s and got home around seven. LONG day… He is doing well, three days of keeping it elevated and taking OTC meds (never filled the Rx for narcotic meds), and tomorrow he goes to a therapist to get the dressing changed and get it evaluated.
It hasn’t slowed him down. He’s mowed the entire yard over the last two days and even burned up a ton of weeds (his favorite method of killing them).
Oh, and we did have some short-term visitors down by our pond…
Oh, and I almost forgot – yesterday was mammogram day. Results were good!
