I know it has been a long, long time since I did a blog post.   I kept waiting for some good news to share.   Between Dave’s recovery not going as quickly as we hoped and having to literally isolate because of the horrible state of Arizona, I haven’t been able to motivate myself to get this done.  

BUT, that’s no excuse.     First, the sunsets have been beautiful as the heat and dust descended upon the Phoenix area.   We are now getting used to 110 degree days and our limited ability to go anywhere.   

I get up at 5:00 am most days; if I have ordered groceries to be picked up, I get them at 6:00 am.   I also do laundry at that time of the day - it is too hot otherwise.     Speaking of hot, our freezer is out in the shed, which is NOT temperture controlled.   110 is just to hot for a freezer to function in, but a wet towel over the freezer cools it down as the water evaporates from the towel.   Really hot days require re-watering of the towel in the afternoon!    But it works!

Dave’s recovery hasn’t gone smoothly.   After his open heart surgery they put him on a beta blocker that was supposed to help his heart function well and keep his blood pressure down.   It did a good job at keeping blood pressure down, but it also reduced his pulse rate to the low 40s/high 30s.    Which is way to slow.   So they discontinued the beta blocker and his pulse rate came back up and his blood pressure stayed down with a very small dosage of another BP medication.  But he still wasn’t feeling good and his EKGs were showing some abnormality.   He wore a ‘heart monitor’ for 48 hours that did continuous monitoring and they found out that his heart would stop for up to 3 seconds at a time.   So he needed a pacemaker.   

We got it scheduled, and just before he went in for the implantation (with light sedation and local anesthetic) the cases of corona virus EXPLODED in Arizona.  So again, I had to drop him off  at the hospital (he had to be tested for the virus first) the day of the surgery and pick him up the next morning.   They sent him home on an antibiotic to make sure he didn’t develop an infection at the incision site.  Unfortunately, it turned out that he didn’t handle the antibiotic well.  He had a bad reaction and ended up in the ER 4 nights after the surgery.   After ruling out a heart attack, they sent him home after about 5 hours, saying that it was probably just the muscle twitches he felt and they didn’t now why his feet were swelling and in pain.    He was so tired when he came home that he didn’t take his antibiotics (it was 4 pills a day for 7 days) until that evening.  Sure enough the next morning his feet started to swell again and he didn’t feel quite right.   We stopped the antibiotic and the swelling started to go down, and he started feeling a little better.  The physicians put him back on the beta blocker and he feels much better.  He’s doing some limited walking - they closed all the gyms (including our fitness center at the park) so there is no where that he can do any walking in air conditioning.   So a little VERY EARLY in the morning is all he can do.   Our life now consists of physicians office visits and staying home!  

These are our 4th of July masks I made (for us, my sister Margaret, and Megan and Kenneth) to give myself things to do.   I’ve ordered “Back to School” material to make some masks for Megan and her aide for when they start back to school in August.   I shutter to think about her going back into the school with all of the problems Texas is having.   

Hope you are all staying safe and have a great 4th of July and summer.   We will be hibernating here and hope everything keeps working.