More update

I gave up the car about a year ago. It needed new brakes and "front end work". I drove it longer than was safe, but when it scared me I passed it on to Dale, my honorary son-in-law. He still riggles under cars to change oil and install new brakes. 

For a while I hired rides to my infrequent doctor appointments. Then I seriously fell. Not the first time, but the first one I could not bail out of. Flat on my back with a seriously broken hip. Painful ride to the hospital where they decided my blood chemistry was to wacky to risk surgery. Bla, bla, bla.

Eventually a handsome young orthopedic surgeon proudly described his repair. A rod down my femur and another across my hip to repair the damage. An extra week in the hospital to tranfuse blood and iron and stuff, off the rehab, finally home. 

It turned out I still had a lot of bones left to break. I'll spare you the details. I already wrote they consumed half a year or more of my life and Beth's, who squoze me in with work and her return to school to earn her CPA. 

Beth is still lugging me to various doctor appointments, with no complaint to me, though I know the cost to her. However, she is focused and determined and will not let me slide. On the one hand, she makes me crazy. But arguing simply ends in fights, and the couple of those we've had are worse to me than breaking bones. Now I just give in, lips zipped.

We have one last problem to solve. I finally gave in to a full spinal study, which Beth has advocated for some time. It involved MRI's, which I have declined for years. My last MRI was over ten years ago, and I emerged close to unconscious.

Well, those have changed since then! Or I have. I do have hearing aids now, and taking them out quiets my world considerably. Add ear plugs and music and it simply was an uncomfortable hour or so on a hard table with underlying construction noise in the background.

In a subsequent visit to a spine specialist I mentioned the surgery twenty years ago and the neurologist showing me the x-ray with the nerves of my neck squeezed to the size of Scarlet O'Hara's waist, comparatetivly. "Oh, yes. That's why you're falling again!" said the spine specialist. Two new disc collapses. So, a visit to a neurologist is in my near future.

I didn't open this blog to whine, by the way, but have done plenty of that. I really wanted to show you what's become of Mr. Yesberger's trees. I linked the story of the day Emily and I went to photograph those trees I found so fascinating. There's a lovely set of photos of "my tree" by the pond (my header photo!) in all four seasons here.

My sister had opportunity to drive down Truxell Road recently and told me my tree and the pond are in rough shape these days. I asked for pictures and the other day I got them.

Yes, that's my tree. The pond, foreground, is choked with rushes and covered with scum. The Conservancy, to whom Mr. Yesberger's acreage now belongs, is returning the golf course to meadow by neglect. 

That's my sad update for today.