I'm back.... on the deck.

I'm finally out on the deck. It seems like an eternity since I've been out here. Maybe I was hibernating after all. But now that I'm out here, I see all the work I should have been doing instead of hibernating. I just kept telling myself it could wait until after the critical sinus season. For me that's February through the middle of March. The dusty moldy rotting leaves and dry grass can bring on two weeks of the chronic running nose. So this year I just tried to avoid it. I think I should have been coming out here every once in awhile to take care of some of this stuff. Now I have to do it all at once.

Why is it the things that you would like to flourish in your garden are the last ones to come back from Winter, and those that you wish would just shrivel up and die never take a break? As you can see the Beast is flourishing... I could probably harvest the dandelions and sell them to Whole Foods for a tidy profit. We've got a bumper crop going on back here. And the garlic chives.... take my advice, NEVER plant garlic chives unless you have an area that is totally encased on all sides by 16 yards of concrete. They will take over. I think they now cover the entire area under the deck. Yes they can grow without sunlight.

The oak leaves from the empty house next door have accumulated between the houses and are mounded up knee deep in the corners against the fence. My mom taught Nita and I that this can be a good thing... let them pile up against the rose bushes, hydrangea and daises.... they will insulate them from the cold. Momma knows best.... Now we're ready for the wind to blow in from the South and get them out of here.




Years ago in another town, I had a neighbor who constantly raked his yard, we all had one tiny measly tree in our yards. He asked me why I never raked my yard (his polite way of saying 'rake your yard') I told him why should I? That's what wind is for. We were North of him so our leaves ended up in his yard.... evil roar! Jody will probably hit these with the mulching mower.

Speaking of Jody.... you all know he's gone back to work (Feb.2) and as I had mentioned we had noticed that his neck had begun to swell. He's been looking a little puffy around the jowls. This past week he dropped in to visit our GP Dr. Ennis. His salivary glands are inflamed from the radiation... dry mouth. Dr. E told him the swelling was due to the fact that he's not healing properly. He shouldn't have gone back to work, doing the kind of work he's been doing quiet so soon. When they released him to go back to work... which is now being investigated by the Oncologist as to why the nurse told the insurance company he was well enough to go back to work, when he really wasn't well enough. In fact he should have continued to be on disability another month to three months. So now his health is deteriorating.

So Jody went to see the Oncologist yesterday. He came home with a drawn out diagram of what the normal cancer 'treatment/healing' curve looked like for most patients, what Dr. J had hoped Jody's curve would look like and what Jody's actual curve is taking. Where most people feel bad in the beginning (curve is taking a nose dive) then treatment (curve levels out) healing (dips lower then and then huge upswing). Dr J hoped Jody's would be a slight lowering then straight across and back up, because Jody never felt bad and they had caught the cancer so early. What actually happened was Jody was very high, then a slight drop with chemo, and another drop with radiation then a huge gully with the healing. Right now he's bottomed out... his 'curves' look like a skyline showing the mesas of West Texas and a huge dry riverbed with Jody lying in the bottom of the riverbed.

Jody is a study in cancer, he's still got a unique situation going on here and Dr. J is wanting to write a paper using Jody's case. He's fascinated at the differences in Jody's reactions to the treatments opposed to other people and how they reacted. In Jody's opinion the radiation was so much worse than the chemo. This is probably because it was done to his throat. Maybe they could compare to treatment of mouth or throat cancer... anyway, Jody said he'd welcome any questions from Doctors. But not patients... he doesn't want to scare anyone. He said he might consider taking chemo again, if need be, but never radiation.

So Jody is considering taking some time off, as Dr. E put it... either take 90 days now or in a month you'll need a year off. The days at work in the office are not what's hurting Jody, it's the long drives to the job site, then once they are there, two of them doing the heavy work of 4 people in 10 -12 hour days. It's too much. And then there's the stress of knowing something is not right with your body and knowing you are not getting better when you should be. He's a worrier. I think he should take the time now, it's preventative. I'll keep you posted as to what he decides. He wants to finish the job he and Jeff have been working on in Granbury before he does anything. We are alike in that aspect. Once we start something it's hard for us to turn it over to someone else to finish.

He did enjoy working so closely with Jeff this past week. I think he was being a proud Pappa at how well Jeff tackled a job that others had somewhat avoided and he wasn't scared to call the manufacturer to ask questions about repairing the unit he was working on. Jody said Jeff is really smart. That coming from someone who is known in the industry they work in as being a troubleshooting guru is huge! This means Jeff is following in Dad's footsteps into a career that will be never ending.... water treatment!

It's going to be a busy weekend and I had better get to it. Ya'll have a good one!