Can You Say "Lung In-fec-shun?"

I dragged myself out of bed yesterday - which was Wedneday - and went to the doctor. He took one look at me and said "when is your knee surgery scheduled for?"

I croaked a reply: "two weeks," I said.

"No," he answered back, "you have to phone and postpone it, you will NOT be well enough to have surgery in two weeks." Then he narrowed his eyes and said "you've been waiting a long time for this new knee. Almost as long as I have known you. Too bad."

"Yes," I replied, "three years the end of February since I had the first one done."

AAAARRRGGH! !@#$%^&*

Diagnosis: lung infection, or as most people refer to it, a chest infection. He sent me home with a prescription for Amoxicillin 500mg - huge pills - take every 8 hours and instructions to come back in 14 days.

Back to bed. Sniffle, cough, hack, wheeze, whine and feel sorry for myself. The Booking Nurse at St. Joseph's Hospital in Comox took my news in stride. "Well, you are looking at after the New Year now, probably into February. We'll call you."

Here's the thing: I refuse to get all upset about it. What good does it do and it doesn't change anything. I believe things happen for a reason, although God only knows what the reason is for me getting sick at this time. Oh well.

On the bright side, once I am well enough, I will be able to do Christmas Baking and make Christmas gifts from the kitchen as I like to do. That was off my list due to my upcoming surgery. We don't have to worry about driving through a snow storm to the hospital up in Comox at 4am like we did last time I had surgery there. Still, it WOULD have been great for it to be all over with finally, sigh.

The dogs are ambivalent. Dad lets them do whatever they want to when mom isn't home. Now they will have to behave more. They do however really miss me when I am gone. Heck, you only have to leave the house for 5 minutes and they act as though it was 5 years when you come back.

I have still been taking them out into the garden yard during the day and just before bed time at night. The cool moist air feels good to breathe for me. The dogs, surprisingly, don't mind the wet grass, and especially like going out into the yard when it is dark and spooky.

We have a string of clear Christmas lights running down the one side of the fence to the boat and a yard light that shines down upon the yard from behind the house so it is lit up quite well. Unfortunately they choose that time usually to plant doggy mines all over the yard, and it is incumbent upon me to try to pay attention and remember approximately where they are planted so I can drag myself outdoors the next day and deactivate them.

The photo's above show the difficulty in that. No, I didn't photograph the doggy mines, that would be, well, disgusting. What's that you say? Then why did I add photo's of Bear Poop? Well, that's different. No, Really.

Where was I...oh yes, photo's. You can see my difficulty in trying to find doggy mines and not step in them. The leaves fall off the trees, turn brownish, curl up...need I say more? Yes, they do look a lot like doggy mines. Why don't I rake up the leaves? You're kidding, right?

Back to the photo's. The one of the water in a shallow pond in the field is for illustrative purposes. When the water appears in the pond, that means the well is nearly full! Hooray, no more hauling water, taking laundry out to the laundromat to wash, or eating from paper plates and plastic utensils!

And the other photos are to show that as of November 6, 2008 my Calendulas are still blooming, the leaves on my pot of Hydrangea are turning color, the Holly berries are ripe and the Zonal Geraniums at the front of the house are still very much alive and blooming.

Time to go and lay down again. Have to take antibiotics at 5pm and feel quite sleepy now. Hope to be a bit better tomorrow. Oh, and I have to say how happy I am that Barack Obama will be the new President of the United States of America. He is a good man, and will be good for the US, Canada and the World.

God Bless America.