Farewell 2023

December 31, 2023December 30, 2023 ~ JodiLea

You began wonderfully; I woke up in my own bed, in my own house. Long story that belongs in 2022. The aftermath of all that we are still dealing with to this day. I am grateful that it was not worse. Enough about that.

In May I would be 65 years old. I was unprepared for the onslot of health insurance and medical institutes pestering me. My email inbox would have 50+ emails regarding Medicare. It is kind of spooky that the entire U.S.A. knows you are turning sixty-five. There must be a list somewhere.

Your winter was cold and long. The snow piled up – inches into feet, then yards. Before it could melt, another winter storm advisory was issued, and we were stuck at home for a few days. Again. Over and over.

Spring finally arrived around Memorial Day, and the first hot summer day was in July. In August, I finally thawed out from the winter of 2022, only to arrive home from our anniversary trip in September (Cabo San Lucas) to freezing temperatures. I was not happy about that.

Of course, by the end of this year, I was not happy about much. Things went south when I entered Phase I of the dental plan. We (the dental office and I) discovered that the temp dentures were too huge once my jaw’s swelling and healing progressed. At the end of July, my surgeon gave me the thumbs up to go into Phase II – the permanent dentures that would snap into place with the implants that were placed in my jaw. After 3 sets of dentures – the third time is not always the charm; BTW, none of them fit my mouth or even worked together.

The only reason I can think of for this is that no one had any impressions of my mouth when I had teeth. How could this be? I was always biting into that goop to send to the lab to make my partials and crowns. We are talking about YEARS of dental impressions, photos, and scans of my jaw. I have been crowned more times than all the Winsors in England. And yet, not one of those models that depict my original tooth structure and bite is to be found.

I have spent the last 9 months without the ability to chew. And yes, you CAN get tired of ice cream, milkshakes, and smoothies. So, I will be starting Phase II over again with a specialist whose office is a 2-hour drive each way from our house. This faraway land is called “Modesto,” and it is the land of specialists. My Endo is also there. I think the main reason hubby and I put up with this is that there are no specialists closer. And – Costco is there.

I just realized that if I’m snowed in, I can still have teleappointments with my Endo. Not so with a denture specialist. I may have to go another half a year of hiding my face behind masks. These weird situations like this jaw thing keep cropping up. Things that I never heard about anyone ever having to deal with before. If you read this blog occasionally, you know what I am talking about.

Then, just last night, after my shower, I noticed something on my scalp.
“Oh, please be a tick,” I muttered. I finally had 3 mirrors arranged to take a good look at the something on top of my head. I recognized the thing. It was not a tick. It was the same brown spot that had happened before, in a different place on my head that was cancer. Sigh.

Not going to make the mistake I did last time. I waited while it grew larger. I listened to my doctor tell me it was probably not serious, but we will watch it. By the time I had a biopsy, it was a large mass and a good-sized hole in my head when it got removed. To close the wound, the surgeon cut my scalp open with a huge ‘L’ shape that surrounded the hole, then he and his assistant proceeded to install stitches that would pull my scalp over the wound. by this time, the local anesthetic was wearing off, and I got to experience this reconstructive surgery without anesthetic. Do you know how many nerves are in the skin over your scalp?
Because I refuse to have another lobotomy, I will get a referral for a dermatologist ASAP.

I betcha there is a great Dermatologist- in Modesto.

Goodbye and good riddance, 2023.
Welcome, 2024!

TTFN

Dare I Say it? Bah HumBug

December 23, 2023 ~ JodiLea

Let me explain.

Every year I worked my butt off to make the holidays happy for all. Everyone loves Christmas, yet nobody wants to help decorate the tree, make food, go shopping, clean the house, prepare the bedrooms for visitors, or write Christmas cards.
It is exhausting, thankless, and stress-ridden. I started to dread the holidays. I have enough to do without getting on the holiday hamster wheel. I felt guilty and Scrouge-like. Christmas is in your face starting in October. Even if you don’t go into retail stores, radio stations play Christmas music starting the day after Thanksgiving. Some of them play holiday tunes ONLY for the remainder of the year. You see Christmas displays, sale signs, elves, Santa, and toys everywhere you look.

Television advertising is annoying enough without the jolly jingles and mini-stories geared to tug at your heartstrings and your wallet. Hallmark once produced emotion-provoking ads that entertained. These seemed to have gone to the place where clever Super Bowl ads went.

While studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses, I learned why they do not celebrate Christmas. I won’t go into details here, but there is a good article on JW.org that does *. That year was the best holiday season ever. Why? I was free to not get involved with the holidays at all. No one expected me to do anything. My family still celebrates Christmas, but I don’t have to.

Click HERE to learn why Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate Christmas*.

Arriving: Cabo San Lucas

October 11, 2023October 10, 2023 ~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

The brochures were not lying – the view, the hotel, and the ocean were so stunning that I almost did not believe it would be true. My photography skills are mediocre, so these pix are from the brochure.

Our flights were uneventful, and we arrived at 1:20 pm as scheduled. The airport-to-resort shuttle was waiting to take us to the Zoetry Casa Del Mar. 30 minutes later, we were there.
Check-in was painless, and a hostess showed us to our room. She also showed us another suite upstairs that was like ours but with a different view. We liked the original one best.

A banner across the door said, “Feliz Anniversario,” meaning Happy Anniversary. I got to practice my Spanish with real people – some even understood what I said! A lot of the time, I spoke in vain due to denture lisping and slipping. Spanish AND English were both mangled. My hubby did not understand me half the time, either. I just shut up when I got tired of repeating myself 2 or 3 times.

Communication was not my only challenge. I really needed a straw. Juice glasses had small openings that caused the dentures to float. No straws were available. In fact, a waiter confided that straws had been outlawed in Cabo to protect the sea turtles. You just can’t make this stuff up. One of the customer service staff smuggled 2 straws to me. He did not say where he found them, and I didn’t ask. It was at that moment he became my adopted Grandson. GiBraun. He said it was like LeBron but with a G in front.

I finally figured out how to drink the juice. I stole a wide-mouth glass from a nearby table and transferred it over. It was fabulous! Yogurt, papaya & banana smoothie. Very yummy. Now, I needed to figure out how I could manage to eat in public. I could not order anything from the menu, so I ordered refried beans with cheese. These came in a bowl and were the consistency of soup. I expected pinto beans but got white beans. That was not the issue. I could not eat it using the spoon they served with it. It was the size of a serving spoon. I wish I was exaggerating.

They drink very strong coffee in Mexico. Our room had an automatic expresso machine. After two tiny cups of that, I could not sit still. They must use Mexican Jumping Beans to make it. Once we found out normal coffee was available in the bar at 7:00 am, hubby would go down and fetch us some every morning, and we would sip it while we enjoyed sitting on our veranda, watching the ocean. We read and did sudoku & crossword puzzles. I wrote thoughts in my journal. In less than an hour, we continued our relaxation in the room because the sun began hitting the veranda and warm-up our coffee.

Being treated like a princess reminded me of our “Thrones.” There was this pair of high-backed chairs positioned against the wall between rooms. They were very stiff and formal-looking, not made for comfort. I decided that these were our thrones. I wish I packed my tiara. Hubby humored me and would sit on his throne when I sat on mine. When housekeeping was cleaning our room, we had a place to wait.

To my knowledge, no one else ever sat on our Thrones.

To be continued…