August 24, 2007

• I haven’t gotten to ride my bike, the lovely LollyB, as much as I like. Two reasons, the first we’ve had a lot of rains this summer and I hate riding in the rain. And the second, I’ve been fighting an infection for months now.  So sometimes the weather will be nice but I’ll be to tired to ride.

  I run a low grade fever most of the time, nothing high just enough to drain my energy. And most days I have at least three or four episodes of extreme vertigo.  I had to look up the difference between dizziness and vertigo. I have vertigo. When your dizzy you feel weak or faint, when you have vertigo you feel like you’ve stopped and the world is still moving. Not a nice feeling at all.  That’s usually when you see me throw out my arms to keep my balance or to keep from falling down. Not because I’m faint but because I’ve lost my equilibrium.  The infection started in my inner ear because my sinuses aren’t draining properly. The doc gave me a dose of antibiotics and put me on claritin.  I felt fine for awhile and then the sloshy head came back and so did the vertigo. This time accompanied by sinus problems.  Now both my ears and sinuses are infected so the doc put me on the big daddy of antibiotics, changed me from claritin to allegra and threw in Flonase for my nose and a plain saline spray to try and get me to drain instead of just building up fluids. Or better yet quit making all this fluid.  Monday we get the pleasure of driving to Landstuhl for a CT scan to see how bad the infection really is, the doc already wants to do surgery to fix my deviated septum and he’d love to have someone do turbinate surgery. I’m holding out for results of the scan.  I like to take a more casual approach to cutting parts of my body. No need to rush into anything right?  

  I finished 7 of my  approximate 12 to 14 scrapbook pages for our Paris trip. The only thing left to do is add the journaling.  I love to put together the pictures and the gorgeous paper and embellishments and I hate the writing.  I am so bad at putting into words what we saw or how I felt. To me it all sounds stilted or worse I end up sounding like a guidebook. Grr, the pages are pretty so I console myself with that.  Bear took me down to Patton barracks last Saturday and I spent $75. on scrap stuff, sheesh. he spoils me terribly.  When I start scrapping Strasbourg though it will be great to have the paper and stuff already on hand.  I wonder who will get all this junk when we die, which I plan on doing in about 50 years.  Maybe by then I’ll have all the pictures labeled and the journaling done and my great grandkids can talk about how cool it was that great grandma and grandpa lived in Spain and Germany for a few years.  My itchy feet could provide a source of wonder for a few minutes…rofl.

  Speaking of itchy feet I know where all this wanderlust comes from.  During the depression my dad was a teenager, his parents had split up long before and he was bouncing between the two of them. While staying with his dad in Phoenix he got a wild hair and hopped on a freight train and rode it clear to Las Vegas before he turned around and came back. He was about 14, he told me he just wanted to, no reason, he just wanted to see something different.  He’s 86 now and can’t really get around to well, but on his good days he makes my sister take him for long drives to nowhere, just because.  That sounds like a really good reason to me and if I was home I would go with them.  It also kind of explains why all 4 of his kids were born in different states, lol.

  I have 3 very dear friends who are trying to quit smoking right now. I would like to tell all of you that you can do this, you really can.  When I quit almost 2 years ago, I was a chainsmoker up to 2 packs a day. I know how hard it is to let go of an addiction and now I know how many excuses I made to myself and others about why I didn’t quit.  This wasn’t the first time I quit but I certainly hope that this will be the last time I quit. The freedom to go anywhere without the hassle is amazing.  It feels so good to be free.  You can do this, I’m praying for your sucess and if you need any encouragement at all, or you just want to vent, call me and I’ll call you right back so you don’t have a huge bill from calling Europe.  It is a price I will gladly pay to help you get off the nicotine.

  And remember my motto: The urge to have a cigarette will go away whether you have one or not.

  Love you all.

  Dizzy Lizzy!

  • 11:16 am
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