Where Have You Been, Mrs. Robinson?

 Now that I have your attention, let me explain. I am talking about my  own  absence from the blog. In a sentence - I have been busy with medical visits and preparing for next week's book group meeting.

The medical appointments have all been normal follow-up visits with my docotrs. In one case, my diabetes is being handled by the endocronology department now instead of my primary care doctor (though he will remain in the loop). And they are not over yet. I have a urologist, a demotologist, a podiatrist, and a sleep specialist on my calendar before the end of the calendar year.

As far as the preparation for this month's book club, I am the discussion leader this time. The book, "when Books Went to War", is about the program America had to provide small, specially-made paperback books for the servicemen and women during WWII. As discussion leader I was responnsible for developing the questions. I actually found some online and a few of my own.

My current reading comes and goes. Books that I am currently reading: in fiction, "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins and "The Hunting Party" by Linda Foley. My nonfiction are "The Pity of It All" by Amos Elon, "Good-Bye to All That" by Robert Graves, and "Mind of the Raven" by Bernd Heinrich.

All good reads.

This Week

This week has been productive.

- I read another book of time travel; specifically, how to build a time machine. Written earlier than the first one I read, this said traveling to the past was possible, but had some limitations. I'll discusss all of this in a later post as I said before.

 

- Read a book about oranges. It was written in 1965 by John McPhee. Actually, it's a re-read.I first read it in 1993. Everything you wanted to know about oranges.

- Read a terrific novel about a Russian count who sentenced to confinement to a very plush Moscow hotel for the reast of his life beginning in 1920. The book ends in 1958. A major surprise in the last sentence - and no, it was not all a dream!  one of the very best I've read in years.

- Discussrf with my doctor to increase my daily insulin shot. Still once a day, just going up 5 units to 30 from 25.

- Still watching re-runs of MASH. Saw the two where Radar left the show. He was going back to take care of his mom and the farm in Iowa becasue his Uncle Bill died. The real reason he left the show was because of burn-out and wanting to spend more time with his family.

- Actually went out twice this week: had to follow my wife as she dropped off our cars for inspection and oil change. Strange feeling being out. I pretty much styed in the car. 

- Watched two DVD movies this week. One was about finding rhe famed City of Gold. It was National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets. The other was also a sequal: Night at the Museum 2. This one had Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart.

 

 

 

Kardia App

This week I purchased an EKG device that works with an app you can download on your phone.

The ruler is only for size comparison. To work it, I open the Kardia app on my phone then place the tips of my first two fingers of EACH hand on each pad. It begins automatically for one minute, recording an actual EKG printout that I can send to my doctor. Or I can just keep it for historical purposes.

It will show Afib abnormalities - I have actually Aflutter so I hope it will detect that if I ever need it.

I did it once. Wednesday. Normal. My plan is to do every Wednesday unless I feel I need to do it to check.

It's Not Over Until...

Well, I got the stitches out this morning. There is good news and bad news. The good news is that the incision is healing well; in fact, the nurse complimented me on how well I was able to keep both the stitches and the incision so moist like I was supposed to do. Most people don't do a very good job of it. I had a total of 15 stitches.

The bad news is that it is still covered. The nurse put on some glue on the incision and covered it with six flex-strips or other tapelike material. These have to stay on for two more weeks; but if they fall off after two days that is okay too.

She also said that a small amount of leakage is normal. By that, I am assuming she meant blood. I noticed I have a few drops on my T-shirt.

The most difficult thing to keep the scar as moist as possible. The nurse originally said to use petroleum jelly again. I told her I couldn't/didn't want to do that because then I would have had to wear a patch over it and that jelly would stain my shirt. She finally said I could use Gold Bond cream like I did for my biopsy.

Anyhow, I'll take it easy for a few days, then about Monday begin another set of exercises.

Skin Cancer

Since my last post, I have had the cancer taken out. It will be two weeks tomorrow and I am supposed to have the stitches out. That's my chin in the picture below.

Here it is, patched up before I went home.

I am looking forward to having them taken out. There is another set of stitches inside, but supposedly they will dissolve by themselves. They're bluish-purple the doctor says. If I see some wormy things of that color coming out of my skin later, then I am to go back and they will remove them!

Here's what it looks like now

The shiny look is from it having vaseline over it; supposed to assist in the healing. I've had to wear a bandage over it, changing it twice a day. It leaked a little after I first got it done and had to go back two days after surgery to get three more stitches. It still burns and looks a little swollen. I hope this is normal, or at least not too unusual. 

BTW, the yellowish color is bruising from pushing down during the surgery, and then again when I went to for bleeding - they did that to find where the blood was coming from!!

We'll see. Like I said, I go tomorrow.