Somehow, I must have missed something. Once Kelley Fry received all my test results from Dallas, she said that I needed to come over for up-to-date lab work plus consultations with each of the specialists (surgeon, internal medicine, plumonologist, GI doc, Social/Psyche worker & Financial Counselor). So I asked my cousin Cullen, and he took me over for the day, and I thought I was done, once Kelley got a copy of one other test done here in Beaumont last year. But as I said- I missed something, because she called me yesterday, and said that my case had been presented, and the committee thinks I am a good candidate, but they have 5 additional tests in their evaluation protocal that Baylor-Dallas does not use. So now I have to return this Friday (the 20th) and undergo those tests. One is an MRI of my liver- since I have not drunk alcohol in 25 years, I didn't expect problems from that area, but one of the doctors saw something on the CT scan that looked vaguely like cirrossis- I don't like that at all. Anyway, I now have 5 more tests to pass, so Suzanne is taking me to Houston for those- we leave at 6:00 AM Friday and my first test is at 8:20. You would think that needing to arrive south of downtown Houston at 8:00 or thereabouts would mean allowing a lot of extra time because of "rush hour", but it's basically always rush hour on the Houston freeways. Anyway, when Cullen & I left at 6:00, we arrived at the medical center at 7:45, so since this appointment isn't til 8:20, surely we will be fine. Then they want to see inside my mouth & x-ray my teeth! I feel like a horse that is up for auction. I have a very difficult time keeping crowns in place- on the one hand, I'll tell Tommy Gautreaux that he must be doing something wrong because all my crowns come loose after a year or so, and I have to go back & have them "re-glued" on a regular basis. But then he tells me that none of his other patients have trouble with crowns coming loose, so he thinks it's me. I know one thing- I'll never superglue another one in. I did that once, and I believe it is proper to say that my dentist came unglued - totally - over that issue. So now I use denture adhesive!
We have had a satellite now for a little over a year. We were extremely pleased until just recently. You know that Beaumont has lots of rain- like 60" per year. Well, Beaumont still has a lot of trees, in spite of having lost half of them in the hurricanes, And lots of storms + lots of trees = lots of failure of systems run across wire- from the power to the telephone to the cable TV. That's one reason we were pleased for the entire first year- Time Warner Cable (including our Road Runner high-speed online service) went out periodically- sometimes with a storm, other times for no apparent reason. After they took their support call center away from our area, we didn't see service getting any better, so we got DirecTV plus a nice, large flat-screen Sony TV that is unbelievably beautiful in HD. Then we had the 2 summer storms that we have had just recently- one is still going on, in fact, because it is a remnant from that tropical disturbance that never materialized or matured into a named storm. The other storm was a few weeks ago. These have apparently knocked our dish askew or something has gone haywire each time. On the earlier one, we were able to secure the services of a technician on the day after we called. When he left, he highly recommended their protection plan, and for about $60 per year, it is worth it- it means that when something goes out, they will fix it and we will not pay for labor, and we thought he said that the contract customers got serviced faster, but this problem was reported Sunday night or Monday morning, and we will not see a representative from DirecTV until next Monday! In our case, it is Steve who misses it. Bless his heart, after working all week, he deserves to watch baseball games & the pre-season football games that are taking place- especially on weekends. As for me, most of you know that I am totally a book person- and a magazine person & a newspaper person. I like hard copy when I read, and I really did resist the idea of an eReader until Steve gave me the nook for my birthday & pointed out how easy it is to hold, and how I can store enough matter on it to see myself through whatever is to come re: the transplant & days in the hospital. So I have taken to it, more or less- but the neat thing about being a reader is that it doesn't require power or any wires. If it is dark when we lose power, I read by flashlight or oil lamp, in the daytime I just get by a window. I can read and I can write without anything fancier than pen & paper and a book.
I need to pay our bills- I have usually done the mid-month stuff by now. I've had to devise a new structure for when I pay what, because now we have Steve's check every other Friday, and my great big SS check once a month on the final Wednesday (which is payment for the month before now), and then I need to work on my paperwork that needs to be returned to the Social Worker to let her know who is going to be with me when I am recovering in Houston after I leave the hospital. More after I see the transplant team Friday.
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