Another annual visit is in the books! It's been a crazy, exhausting, frustrating trip, but the bottom line is that they were pleased with Bill. They realize that most of his problems now extend from the COPD and emphysema and they were not upset that he has slowed down so much.

There is a small growth on his left ear that the dermatologist froze. He didn't say if he suspected anything with it, and since he just froze it I suspect it was not cancerous. Bill is susceptible to skin cancers because of the immune suppression meds. I would think that if Dr. Hall thought it was cancer he would have done more.

All of his labs were good, the chest xray didn't show any difference from the last one except that they could see the emphysema on the films. Dr. Hosenpud said that everything went fine with the heart cath. His arteries are clear, his pressures were good and the heart looked good. I don't know if there were any changes in the echo, but we should find out tomorrow when we get the results of the biopsy. I think they did a complete right heart/left heart cath and biopsy. They took him back about 7:45 and got me about 9:45. He was already back in holding and the sheath had been removed. He only had to stay flat for an hour and we were back at the hotel by a little after 12. He's still taking it easy and can shower and remove his dressing tomorrow.

We finally got the oxygen replenished yesterday afternoon. It took 2 different phone calls to our provider before we found out that this Lincare didn't deliver and we had to drive across town to exchange the tanks! When we turned them in Bill had less than an hour of portable oxygen left in the original tanks. And, this morning as I was changing tanks in the hospital to come home, the new tank was empty! But, I had 3 of the big tanks still in the car and he could stay on Mayo air as far as the car. Makes me kind of leary on getting home, but I'm going to trust these big tanks are full and will get us home.

We've had storms this afternoon but since rain is badly needed we've just sat and watched. We had brought pizza in last night and had some left over so we had lunch without going anywhere. I may go bring something in so that Bill doesn't have to go back out. There are also frozen dinners in the snack room that can be charged to the room so we may do that.

I'm mentally and physically exhausted. We had to be at Mayo at 6 Monday and today. This was the first time that knitting didn't relax me while I was waiting. I had 2 projects with me and completely ripped one out and I've knit back the other one twice to where I started. I also couldn't concentrate on reading which isn't like me at all. I think I'm just tired.

All that's left to do is pack and go to sleep. Of course Bill isn't able to lift anything which bothers him more than me. I'd rather do it myself anyway. I want to leave pretty early to get out of town before rush hour starts. We're going as far as north Alabama tomorrow. It's about 40 miles north of Birmingham. It will be a good drive, but then it won't be as hard on Friday.

So, that's what we've gone through this week. We still have to do stool samples after we get home and mail them back, but that isn't hard to do. I don't think I will update after we get home. Take it on faith that we made it home with no problems. Talk to you in a week!

Another busy, busy week. We went to Brianna's awards ceremony Tuesday and Bill made it OK. Sitting on bleachers in the gym about killed both of us and people are so rude. He finally just ran over someone with his oxygen tank when they stepped in front of him and then stopped. There was one kind man who directed traffic a little bit to get us through the mess. There was also an announcement made during the ceremony that really offended me and things only got worse the next day.

There's going to be a special election to build a new fieldhouse and sod the football field and give teachers a raise. It will raise property taxes a little over $100/year. This is coming on top of just approving an increase in sales tax for police and fire and to build a new police station. It was announced during the awards ceremony that if we voted for the millage increase then we wouldn't have to suffer through another program in a hot, gym with no air conditioning. That was not the venue for that and that's why I was offended. I also didn't appreciate that flyers were passed out before hand.

Wednesday it was announced that graduation would be moved from the football field to the gym because there was a 50% chance that it would rain. That is standard, but the call has always been made the day of graduation. This created a firestorm because students were each issued 7 tickets. Our family had several coming from out of town and other relatives, on the other side of Brianna's family, thought that she should give up one of her tickets so that their family could use it. That wouldn't have been a problem if she was the only one graduating, but her cousin, on that side of the family was also graduating. It was then announced late in the day that it would still be held on the field unless the weather did get bad.

My sister and niece arrived Thursday night for the graduation and it was still up in the air as to where the ceremony would be held and who would attend if it was inside. Bill had decided that he would not go at all. He doesn't like crowds any more. That was one reason I wanted him to go to the awards ceremony. He at least got to see her walk and get several awards and scholarships. I had decided that since Ronna and Brooke had come from Illinois, they could go in our place.

Friday it did start raining in the afternoon and the school announced that if it rained they would hold off making the decision until 9 pm, just pushing the time of graduation back until then, and then if it had to be moved it would be moved then. We had several family members in to eat. Emily provided all of the food and paper goods, I just provided trash bags. Our house is bigger than hers and could hold everyone. We got some pictures taken with Brianna and then everyone took off for graduation. Ronna ended up staying at the house with us. We had both done too much and our backs were killing us. Plus, we had stayed up very late the night before so we were really tired. When everyone got back to the house Em said it only lasted 1 1/2 hours. They practically ran the kids across the stage. But, they graduated. Brooke came in with the "official" graduation fan...advocating for the millage increase! It's just about lost my vote, and it won't affect us because Bill is exempt from property taxes as a 100% disabled veteran. It's all just the way they have done it.

We hit the road about 8:45 Saturday morning after leading Ronna to Emily's house. We had rain most of the way and in Montgomery AL, it was raining so hard that I could only see the semi in front of me. It got dark enough at 3 in the afternoon that my headlights came on automatically! It rained that hard again 2 miles from our hotel for the night and I had to pull over. I told Bill that I just couldn't do it another time. I got soaked getting things out of the car and then getting us dinner. I was in bed before 8. Heard thunder several times during the night but slept pretty good. We got up a little before 8 so had a good long night.

We got into Jacksonville about 3:30 and got checked into the hotel. We've already had dinner because Bill couldn't eat anything after 6. His appointments start at 6 tomorrow morning.

We weren't able to get the portable concentrator but we were able to get 3 extra large tanks. We are also supposed to get re-supplied either tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday morning. I told Bill as we were switching tanks around today that the powers that be that make decisions on the types of oxygen people can use should have to travel with an oxygen patient and see what it entails. We used 2 large tanks yesterday and 1 today. We have 1 left for tomorrow. We do have 5 small tanks left, because we were switching between the large and small when he gets out of the car. I will take small ones tomorrow also because he's going to be at the outer limit of the large tank. He'll be able to get by Tuesday with small tanks and Wednesday he will be connected to Mayo air for his heart cath.

So, there you have it, our busy week. When we get home from here we'll be ready for a rest!

I don't know if I will update daily or not, but I will after the heart cath on Wednesday. See you then!

This has been a challenging week, at least for me and electronics. Healthwise there was nothing new going on. I have noticed that Bill's memory has not been good this week, but I think he's just dry. I've had to make him drink more.

My laptop crashed Monday morning so had to get a new one. It came in Thursday and I'm still working to get it set-up. I finally made some progress with it today. I wish they wouldn't come pre-loaded with apps "they" think I want. I've spent a lot of time going through everything to uninstall some of them. I'm also trying to remember what I had on the laptop that I want to put back on. Luckily I save everything to "the cloud" so I didn't lose much. At least I don't think I did.

I did a little experiment with our internet service. I don't remember if I said anything about AT&T dropping the bandwidth which doesn't let us watch baseball through our Roku device. I noticed that during the day we didn't have any trouble with it dropping...until 5:05. I was even checking facebook on my phone periodically. Yet, in the evening we can hardly get a game started when it starts reloading it because the bandwidth has slowed. I'm pretty sure that after we get back from Mayo we're switching providers.

I got pretty short tempered with Bill about his oxygen the other day and that isn't like me. I was having trouble changing tanks and he said something about it. I told him he should learn to do it himself. He also disconnected his tubing from his concentrator by yanking the tubing when it gets caught on something instead of looking to see what it's caught on. I don't know if I was just tired or what.

We've had another round of storms this week. The cat was really unsettled with the storms Wednesday night. There was a lot of lightning and she was very agitated. She also

got into things before it started storming that she hadn't gotten into before. I don't know if it's because she's feeling better, or if it was the storm. She has finally just about stopped sneezing and her eye that was so weepy has cleared up and is open most of the time. Now if she would just poo in the litter box!

We've been busy getting ready for Brianna's graduation and then our trip to Mayo. My sister and niece are coming for the graduation and I feel kind of bad that I have to kick my sister out so early the next morning for us to leave. We are going to leave later than I normally would so we'll have to go through Memphis instead of the way I prefer to go. But the extra hour that adds would make it too late getting to our first stop. I would really be tired.

I'm trying to find out if we can get one of the portable oxygen concentrators from our supplier. They've been working on it all week. With graduation and then 2 days in the car, all of Bill's tanks would be empty and we need at least 7 hours of O2 for the first day of appointments. Hopefully I'll hear something Monday. There is a place that rents them for travel but I don't know how much lead time they need. Just one more thing to stress about.

I'm sure there was more going on this week than I've remembered here. I may have to start writing and saving it as a draft as things happen! I know I don't cover Bill's health much anymore, but that's the beauty of transplant...you generally go back to leading normal lives. But, I keep this up for my mother who lives in another state. And, even if our normal lives give people some hope, or a laugh, then my job is done.

And speaking of mothers, Happy Mother's Day Sunday to all of the mothers out there, especially mine. If you still have your mother, at least give her a phone call. I know I'll call mine!

This may not get updated until we get to Mayo next Sunday afternoon. Hope everyone has a good week!

What a wild weather week! Last week I told you about the tornado that blew through. Saturday night/Sunday morning the storms started in again and a tornado embedded in straight line winds came through. I heard the wind and then the power went off and back on. As I was trying to get Bill's tank ready the lights went out for good and then Emily called to make sure we were up. I think I told you that the emergency sirens didn't sound during the last storm and they were supposed to be fixed but again they didn't sound. I did get an alert from the newspaper by text, but the weather alert from the storm center didn't come until 30 minutes after the warning. I got us into the pantry and then got a text from Ryan to make sure we were OK and he had the weather on and said that the tornado threat had moved across the river. So, back to bed we went.

At daylight, in between storms, I started the generator and got us back up and running. The power came back on around 10:30 so we were only without for about 8 hours. Some were out until Tuesday and one of the local schools cancelled. Most of the towns around us were affected, along with the old air base which is a housing complex for retirees and lower income families. Some folks were mad because businesses that were running on generator and were open couldn't do some transactions because their computer systems wouldn't work. We were also quite popular that day. Joe and Barb came over for coffee in the morning, another friend came over later in the afternoon to charge her phone and another needed to shower before having surgery the next day. But we were glad that we were in the position to help out, and had some good visits with friends.

We finally were able to bring Miss Kitty home Thursday. She has settled back in, although she's not pooping in her litter box again. She's going in the same place on the floor so I don't know what I'm going to do about it. At least she pees in it.

The weather has been crazy again, tornadoes aside, hot then cold then hot then cold. It's also been windy. We had to turn the heat back on but I turned it off this morning. It's a beautiful morning, in the 60s with a light wind and pretty blue skiess. I'm doing laundry and if I had a clothesline I think I would hang some out, but since I don't it's a moot point.

Bill has been coughing more again lately, but only in the night and right after he gets up. I think he didn't use his inhalers his inhalers yesterday and he was very winded all day, breathing very hard on very little exertion. I also think that's it's a natural progression of the COPD/emphysema.

I had one day this week when every part of my body hurt. It was another of the damp cold days and I hope it was just from that. But from my toes to my head with everything in between aching, I was miserable until the Aleve kicked in. I also have a strained Achilles in my left ankle and it was quite sore for a few days, which made my entire leg hurt since I sit and walk differently. I have a compression brace and it didn't help any.

So, there's our week in a nutshell. I know a lot of my friends and family in Illinois and Indiana are dealing with a lot of water, along with parts of Arkansas and Missouri. There was one levee breach that caused a lot of flooding and road closures. We are supposed to be far enough from the Mississippi (9 miles behind the levee) so we should be OK when the flood waters get this far downstream.

If you're dealing with water and storm cleanup, stay safe. If you aren't but know somebody who is, or who is dealing with something else, help if you can, even if it's picking up lunch for them. It will be appreciated! 

See you next week!