full moon over Friday...

View of mountains from Lake Desmet yesterday

Well, darn it, my sleeping later didn’t last very long! Either that or I’m just experiencing the effects of the full moon tonight.  I woke up at the ungodly hour of 3 a.m. this morning. I’m secretly a little happy about it, though, as the moon outside is just stunning in the darkness. Right now, it’s hanging right over town above the mountain and it’s so big and bright! There’s not a cloud in the sky that I can see… all I see are amazing stars and so many constellations!  It’s actually quite warm out there, too, almost 38 degrees!  Now, accounting for the clear night and no wind, that is pretty darn warm! Usually, that’s our high temperature this time of year! The weather underground says it’s going to get up to 61 today…whoo hoo!!

Yesterday, I did end up wearing shorts all day and it was so awesome!  My legs were thanking me all the live long day for being able to breathe again after the long winter. I ended up having an extremely busy day yesterday, but not much of the one I actually planned.  Something really got into me yesterday, I guess it was spring fever and the first thing I did was a lot of spring cleaning and rearranging here at the house.  This was all before 9 am!  The reason I remember the time is that I tan on Thursdays at 9.  After tanning, I went to track down Ginnie and found that she was still out at the Lake after the previous evening’s comedy thing that I missed.  She had gotten a room with Tamra so they didn’t have to worry about drinking and driving.  Lake DeSmet is only 12 miles out of town but it’s a lonely, dangerous 12 miles at night, lots of wildlife to worry about. So, when I called Ginnie, I asked her if she was still at the lake and she said yes.  I told her I was coming out there and she told me that she was down by the water.  When I got to her, she was lying on the stone gate entrance to the boat ramp area, basking in the sunshine.  She told me that I really didn’t miss much with the comedy, they were pretty bad.  The first guy had an accordion and you couldn’t hear him over that infernal contraption very well.  The second guy apparently had a very thick Scottish accent and a repertoire of very old jokes.  So much for Comedy Central, I guess.  It made me feel a little better about having to miss it, though!

Coming back into town on Main

After leaving Ginnie and Tamra to pack up their room, I headed back into town and had a lovely lunch out with Rob before going to get my stitches out at the hospital.  Luckily, Dr Quinn comes to Buffalo on Thursdays so I got to see him right here at our little clinic, instead of having to trek all the way to Sheridan for a short appointment.  The stitches did indeed hurt a little when he was pulling the little suckers out!  Gosh, I’m funny about that!  He declared my knee was looking great though and my range of motion was coming along well so I don’t need any physical therapy for it.  We then had to discuss the bulging disc in my neck, which has central stenosis, and has been causing problems for over a year now.  That’s the major reason I go for massage every two weeks.  Quinn says it’s still not damaged enough to do any invasive surgery on (thank goodness) and we agreed that some physical therapy and Flexaril should be the treatment for now.  So, next stop was making appointments for that.  I start the PT on Monday.  I sure hope they can help me because I am tired of the knots in my shoulders and having to pull my shoulders down to get that disc to go back in place!

Since I was on a doctor roll, I stopped by to see Sandy, my family doc, on the off chance she had a free slot because we had some more medical issues to deal with that we were putting off until after my knee was dealt with (I know! I’m a mess!)  She had a free slot open about 20 minutes later, so I stopped over at the Blue Gable Motel next door and visited with my friend Jim, who owns the place, until time to go back over.  Sandy and I had to fill out some obligatory insurance forms I needed to prove to the hospital back east I’m still sick (Ha!) and I needed some forms for AFLAC filled out as I am filing for the accident for my knee and for when I spilled coffee in my lap back right after Christmas.  The medical problem is that I have another bad PAP.  This is pretty scary as I had cervical cancer back in 1990 and I’ve already had a hysterectomy because of it.  I’m not looking forward to what may be coming next.  I can’t believe that 22 years later, I’m having problems again.  Unfortunately, one of the side effects of having AIDS is the propensity to get cancer frequently, which I’ve been pretty good at. If it is cancer, it will be my third or fourth, I’m starting to lose track. Sandy was awesome, though, trying to calm me down that this may just be a fluke. The results of the PAP showed a lot of unusual cells, though. She is referring me to a GYN in Sheridan for follow-up in the next week or so.  It’s always something with me, I tell ya.  I guess I better get that mammogram she gave me the rx for pretty quick, eh?

After all the doctoring, I stopped downtown and visited with one of my friends in the courthouse and gave her my cool walker.  Judy had some hip surgery a while back and she’s been using a regular walker with the tennis balls on it.  Thanks to my MS, I have one of those nice, wheely ones with the cool brakes and a seat..and it’s a real pretty red!  She was real happy to have it as the one she was using was scraping up the linoleum at the courthouse.  It did my heart good to be able to help her, too. I told her to keep it as long as she needed it, I didn’t think I’d be needing it anytime too soon.

The nice thing about not being on any HIV drugs right now (they have all failed and I’m waiting for the next new drug in the pipeline) is that my MS is under control for the moment. You see, MS attacks your immune system and because I have AIDS, as long as I’m not taking the meds, and my immune system is down, the MS has nothing to attack! Good thing, because I can’t take any of the MS drugs because they destroy your immune system and logically, that’s not good for the AIDS! Yes, I am a freak.  When I first got diagnosed with MS about 8 years ago, my neurologist was just shaking his head.  He had never seen the combination of the two illnesses before.  I imagine it’s got to be more common now as there are more and more people with HIV but I rarely find any info about it on the web.  He’s the one who said we had to treat one or the other but we could not treat both.  So far, I’ve only had about 5 MS flares since I’ve been diagnosed. Mine is the Secondary-progressive type where relapses and partial recoveries happen but disability doesn’t fade away between the cycles, it progressively worsens until a steady progression of disability replaces the cycle of attacks.  I’ve been lucky so far, I think, in that I’ve had so few attacks.

Anyway, to top our day off, we had a lovely Business After Hours to go to at State Farm Insurance.  Alecia K. has taken over the business from her dad, Ross Elliott, who has semi-retired.  We had a grand old time smoozing with all the local business folk and the Wild Bunch was there to “hang” Alecia as a new business.  Sometimes,  I miss being in the Wild Bunch, I was a member for many years, but they have really started doing so much I just can’t keep up with them anymore.  I’m still an honorary member and I still have my embroidered duster, though! They are the ambassadors for the Chamber of Commerce and in addition to welcoming new businesses, they put on one heck of a great Wyoming Luau every June, complete with lots of roasted pork and music.  For the last few years they’ve also been feeding the musicians for the three days of the Big Horn Mountain Festival. They do a lot more than I’ve mentioned and the town just loves them. 

The Wild Bunch "hangs" Alecia at the Business After Hours

So, it’s Friday and it should be just gorgeous.  I was supposed to go visit my girlfriend Michelle this morning, of the golden retriever, Abby, fame, but her dad’s in ICU in Sheridan, poor dear.  SO, I think me and Ms Thistle are going to go for a nice walk over at Mtn Plains Heritage Park this morning, instead.  Rob and I have our appointment with the accountants this afternoon to find out what we owe good old Uncle Sam for the year.  Good thing that tonight is our Happy hour at the Moose and all is right with the world!

Here’s hoping you have an awesome weekend and wherever you are, your weather is nice and you can get out and enjoy nature! I don’t know what Rob has planned for us this weekend except we are going to meet the owner of the boarding kennel where Thistle will be spending her spa vacation while we’re down in Arizona next month.  She’s over in Sheridan,  so I imagine we’ll at least hit the Elk Pen for some photos and of course, the Dragon Wall Chinese Buffet! 

Ta ta for now, my lovelies!  Be the best you can be and smile, smile, smile!!!