Medical problems continue to challenge our family
Medical problems related to my wife’s heart continue to challenge — or “plague,” depending on your perspective, I guess — our family as summer starts to cool and wind down. I doubt the hot summer we’ve been having had much to do with it, but certainly it’s easier to face daily or weekly crises when you don’t feel like you’re face is melting off your body.
A few months ago, I mentioned that my wife developed atrial flutter, i.e., some of the “wiring” in the upper chamber of her heart is firing crazy and causing the heart muscle to flutter around instead of beating steadily and firmly as it should. She’s been on three heavy duty medications to control the condition.
Until just over a week ago.
At that point, she developed a strange slowed heartbeat that would jump in erratically every few beats. This slow beat or almost “heart pause” (my term for it; not medical) was making her very weary and somewhat nauseous. A quick trip to the emergency room led to a three-day stay in our favorite hospital again.
The cardiologists took her off the three medications she was on and put her on two new ones. Case resolved by medical magic one more time. They indicated if this medication doesn’t control the issue she’s probably going to need a pacemaker.
About an hour ago she came home from her part-time job feeling very, very tired and she’s in taking a long nap now. Stay tuned …
When our kids were young, they never talked about insurance
One of the signs of my growing old just walked out of the house a couple of hours ago, following an interesting conversation about insurance.
Our son came by this evening after work, just to let us know he was over a nasty bout with the flu and doing all right. In the course of his visit, the conversation turned to insurance and how his homeowner’s insurance premiums doubled awhile back following a claim for storm damage to his roof. The company he’s with replaced the roof and immediately doubled his premium.
He’s a bright man (aerospace engineer with a master’s degree in physics) and, at the age of 37, much better at handling his finances than his mother and I ever were. So, of course, he went online and got numerous bids on homeowner’s insurance. He found at least four companies willing to meet his pre-roofing disaster premium rate or better it, so he’s changing insurance companies.
I was struck by a couple of things after he left: First, I admire again what a responsible person my child has grown into (I suppose most parents go through similar feelings), and secondly, I noticed quite a contrast between talking to my son about “adult” financial matters now and about sports or games when he was a youngster.
Looks like he’s grown up — and I’m growing old. Not many years ahead, he and I may be having conversations about finding a comfortable and affordable “home” for us to move to. OH — hey, let’s not be too eager to move into that home yet. We’ve still got a few more years of happy mobility left, I’m pretty sure.
Maybe my wife and I will give serious thought to those fantasies of full-time travel for a few years. In that case, maybe our son can help us find a good deal on an RV and a quote on some motorhome insurance for it!
Real cooks don’t need no stinking electric grills …
… and, yeah, there’s a story behind that tongue-in-cheek wisecrack. And, yeah, it does involve things like open flames.
My son’s friend put together a surprise birthday party for him. It involved a backyard barbecue-grilling adventure, of sorts. My wife and I were invited, even though our son and his friends are young, professional, “white color” type people. They were really nice, friendly, and on their best behavior for us “old folks.” It was great fun.
The adventure came about half way through the evening. We are going through a 22+ day stretch of 90 degrees and high humidity weather here in the good old Missouri Ozarks right now. The same was true the evening of the party. So most of us sat inside her (the friend of my son) air conditioned house while she started the grill in the backyard.
It wasn’t some fancy outdoor electric grill with fake flames. But it wasn’t the old-fashioned charcoal grill. She has a propane grill.
Propane as in explosive liquids, TAKE EXTRA CARE.
Fortunately, there was no serious accident, just sort of a minor “whoosh” when she (not being familiar at all with the new grill) let the propane run a bit longer than she should have before hitting it with flame. A big flame.
She came away with both eyebrows and all of her eyelashes intact; my son got an extra chuckle for his birthday surprise, and a good time was had by all.
Real cooks don’t need no stinking electric … but be CAREFUL out there and have a safe summer of backyard grilling yourself!
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