It sucks getting old

 I have spent the largest portion of my life healthy and unconcerned about any problems related to my health. At 73, I thought I was doing quite well, but then the symptoms appeared.

I had some trouble breathing, which turned out to be because of my heart. It's enlarged (which I have known most of my life) but never caused any major problems before.

According to my doctor, it also beats too fast. On the occasions that he sent me to the ER, they concur, but, medications for it don't seem to help much. These are what I came back with the last time: 

Annoyingly, my memory has gone through the mill for the last thirty years, too. Fortunately, Hubby is very understanding about it and takes it mostly in stride, answering questions that I should know the answers to. The good news is that I have never been very social, so sitting at home and not stressing in the world works just fine for me.

I was taken aback a bit at my last doctor's visit. I have a small rough patch just behind my left ear for a month or two. And when I mentioned it to the doctor on my last visit, he looked at it with a magnifying glass and very nonchalantly pronounced it was cancer.  Of course, this was very unexpected, but he said we'll take a biopsy and take it off, if necessary within the next several weeks. 

Before this week, my concept of 'cancer' was an overtaking invasion and organ failure. Bit now I know it can be taken care of from a small beginning. 

I will keep you posted on the progress, even though it sounds like it will be slower than I prefer.

It definitely sucks getting old.

Gypsy Day in Taranaki. June 1st

 

In a nutshell, Gypsy Day is the start of the dairy season and sees a large number of dairy farming families, shareholders, contract milkers and employees move to new farms. The day will see an estimated 5000 farmers pack up and move, according to Jane Muir from DairyNZ

jailhouse accommodations

Our last night in Christchurch in 2016 was spent in the Jailhouse Accommodations at the locally converted jail. Click here for their website. 

Being a backpackers' hostel, I expected it to be loud but the 'inmates', even though most of them were pretty young, were well-behaved and respectful. That's our room with the bunk beds!

Easter weather

 As we all know, Easter comes in the spring in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern.

Of course, autumn is a time of cooling down toward winter, but not this Easter.

Two or three days ago, we had a fire in the wood stove because it was a bit nippy.

Tonight, almost 11PM, we have windows open and fans going and are commenting that it's finally cooling off.

It just started raining, so that should help.

Strange thing, weather.