Surgery is over

Paul has come through the surgery with flying colors. The surgeon is very pleased with the success of the proceedure. Paul said he has more mobility in his neck and more feeling in his fingertips. He is still in post-op but should be walking out in the next hour or less.

He will take it easy today, walking and resting and seeing the surgeon tomorrow. After that appointment, we'll be free to 'move about the country', lol!!!

Our next stop is Paradise California to see my dad and 4 daughters before returning to Las Vegas for further doctors appointments.

Life is Good!!!

Left Homer and Arrived in Las Vegas

Well, that's a bit simplistic. We actually left Homer at 7:30am and made a few plane changes and lots of treking through the airports before arriving in Las Vegas at 5:00pm!

The down side is that several boxes of frozen fish bumped our luggage and we're WITHOUT!!! It may arrive late tonight but "a bird in the hand" if you know what I mean.

Also our rental car fell through. Hopefully they'll have something mid-morning.

Oh, it's 104' here too, ain't that just peachy, lol?

We're both tired and going to bed and hope tomorrow gets better.

Friday is our first doctors visit but we won't know anything because it's just to start the lab work and referrals.

We'll write more when we know more!

Finally, some News.

We finally have surgery dates for Paul's herniated disks in his neck, August 18-20



That means we will be arriving in Las Vegas the week before to see our primary care doctor for referrals to his cardiac and diabetes doctors. (all that takes 2 to 3 weeks)



From Las Vegas, we'll drive to Thousand Oaks, CA to see Dr. Chiu for Paul's surgery (actually a repair not a vertebra fusion). It's the same surgery I had about 9 years ago with the same doctor, very successful!!!



We will go from there to Paradise, CA about August 21 for a week's visit with my dad and 4 of my daughters. We'll then drive back to Las Vegas to see the other doctors (however long that takes). (But we all know that, when you're dealing with an HMO, it's never a perfect world).



In a perfect world, we'd be ready to fly back to Homer Alaska by the 10 of September, I'm just hoping to be back by the middle of October (I'm trying to be realistic here, lol)

The Blizzzard and more

I was very disappointed this winter with the lack of WHITE in Homer Alaska. I came home as quickly as I could (from Las Vegas) so I wouldn't miss the snow, only to find there wasn't any, well almost none.
The weather was warm (40ish) for 3 weeks at a time and then freeze and snow (a little) for the next week. Only to melt and warm up to the low 40's again. It was messy and dirty and NOT white, as I had hoped.
Then, the worst thing happened on Feb. 2nd. Puxatony Phil came out of his groundhog's hole and didn't see his shadow. That meant that winter was over and Spring would arrive early (in 2 weeks). BUMMER for me, I hadn't had my winter yet. Well, things got better right away. We had a blizzard that lasted for 5 days! So exciting, snow and wind, dry, blowing snow. It was WHITE and clean and drifting everywhere. We had several feet of the white stuff drifted high against every building, car and plant. It was beautiful.
Poor Ben, he needed a snow plow to clear the driveway when it was over. And there were several people that knew I'd asked for more snow. I got phone calls from them asking me if I was satisfied yet! Oh, YES, I was very happy that it finally felt like winter in Alaska.
We've had a little more snow off and on since but the effects of the blizzard are gone from the streets and driveways. The ground has been exposed in many areas except where the snow was piled or drifted. We did get 4 inches night before last that melted in the daytime warmth. I love Alaska!

It's been a L o n g Winter

It's not been long because of the weather but because Paul totaled his 07 Dodge truck. He had whiplash and abrasions on top of his head. He's had x-rays, CT scan, & MRI but nothing is broken , just bent.

He's been seeing the chiropractor a couple times a week and is finally feeling better most of the time. He had shooting pains down both arms because of pressure on some nerves in the neck.

It took quite a long time to find a replacement truck too! We had several dealerships looking and we were searching the classified ads, Internet, leads, and Craig's List.

He wanted another 2007 Laramie and they're like finding "Hen's Teeth". Apparently when someone buys them they intend to keep them forever. Fortunately, we finally found a man in Fairbanks that had 2 trucks and wanted out from under the payments. We drove up (almost 600 miles) to Fairbanks and looked at the truck. It was a beautiful bright Inferno Red Crystal color. It was in fantastic condition and had a bonus sunroof (which Paul wanted on his first truck but wasn't available to him then) so he bought it.

He talked to the repair shop that did the estimate on his damaged truck and there was $24,000.00 damage. It didn't look that bad but the underside had significant damage.

He did a 180* spin on black ice and took out 5 mail boxes set in concrete and a 12 inch diameter tree. He was VERY fortunate!

I'm sorry I haven't updated this blog since he got home but you can imagine we've been busy with doctors appointments and truck shopping.

All is well and we are still enjoying Alaska and the weather. Tucson likes everything but the snow so she stays in all winter. She is still quite the character and is still the boss of the house.

The man of the house is finally IN the house

There was some problem with blogger saving my post last weekend. It saved the two pictures but not the clever text. Now I have to try to recreate the witty blog post, here goes:

It took 3 weeks for Paul and Ben to arrive in Homer, AK.



It was near dark when they got to the overlook and they wanted a picture. You can see some of the dirt on Ben's truck. Paul's truck is also VERY dirty.

They were both very tired and extreemly happy to have reached the end of the road.

Welcome Home Travelers!!!

Paul misses Christmas and New Year's

I may have arrived home Dec 19th but poor Paul is still on the road. He made a couple extra little stops on the way but the biggest adventure was a blown transmission.

Paul and Ben are driving two trucks, 4000 miles, from Las Vegas to Homer Alaska. Sounds okay but not so simple. Even though Paul had his truck checked out the transmission didn't last. On Christmas day it blew 120 miles south of Fort Nelson, BC Canada. It's pretty cold there, -26 degrees.

There were a few glitches in making the repair. The mechanic couldn't find a transmission in Edmonton but Paul found one in the Anchorage area on Craig's List. They found a man in Homer coming their way to bring it to them. Unfortunately that turned out to be for a 4-wheel drive and wouldn't work in his truck. He found another in Prince George, about 500 miles back down the road. So, on New Year's Eve day, they hit the road and drove to pick up the transmission. THEN, they turned around and drove back on New Year's Day. The roads were empty and they were fortunate that they didn't break down, again, lol.

Now the mechanic can get to work and meanwhile Paul goes to the parts store to buy block heaters for the 2 trucks. The man at the parts store said he didn't need them and sent him on his way. The good news is that the mechanic found a broken starter mount and replaced that before it caused another break down. The bad news is that they really needed the block heaters.

They got on the road in 9 days only to be broken down in the next town. The batteries froze and neither truck would start. Now they were back in the shop to have block heater, pan heater and 2 battery blankets installed on the 2 trucks. They even had to sleep without heat at the one and only motel because they had run out of propane.

The good news is, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, Oh yeah, they were safe, healthy, and saw several critters on the road. Paul called last night and said he made it into Alaska. It looks like they will be home on Friday afternoon, Woo-Hoo!!! The weather report last night said there is freezing rain on snow in Anchorage which is causing many accidents so I'm praying for their safe travel on this last leg of a difficult trip.