It has been 2 months since I walked out of the Forest Service office in Kamiah, and aside from missing my friends, I haven’t looked back. I highly recommend retirement to everyone and anyone. However, I have yet to sleep in, sit through a Netflix marathon, or get through even a fraction of my to do’s (I’ve done 2 so far). So what the heck have I been doing? A lot of what I was doing before, doctoring, recovering, travelling back to see family (yay, without the stress of trying to work while doing this).
Over the past 2 months, I spent the first 2 weeks trying to sleep in (failed, still failing at that), check off things on my to do (got 1 down), but other things kept popping up. Like trying to figure out OPM and my payments, Social Security and whether or not I could work part time this year (not until November), and getting Brent from the train station (at 0230). Once Brent came back we tried to wrap our heads around me being retired, went out huckleberry picking for a few days, but then we got the bad news that his dad had passed. We quickly got the house in order, found a house sitter, reached out to a friend for a place to stay on the ends of our flights (as we flew out of Missoula, 3 hours away at 6AM and returned at midnight), got a hold of one of the girls to get us from the airport and off we went. It was a very nice memorial and both Brent and I were grateful he was able to see his dad just a few days earlier. Upon return we spent one night at home, loving on the dog and cat, swapping out sheets for the next house sitter and scrambling to get the yard in order (or at least Brent did while I ran to town refilling prescriptions, buying snacks, etc). We then headed up to Spokane the following morning for my regularly scheduled treatment, spent the night up there as again I had another early flight. This trip though was for something a little more relaxing – a 10 day trip to Mexico. Although the fish didn’t cooperate, the bartenders did and it was a nice forced unwind. Once back my parents met us just a few hours after we walked in the door on their way back from my niece’s graduation – CONGRATS OLIVIA – next step getting your duckploma. Brent and I spent this first week home in almost 3 weeks, trying to get ready for my retirement party on Saturday (we got home Monday), with parents in tow, I drove back down river to Lewiston to make a much needed party stop at Costco, get the house/garage together for partiers, and try to catch up with my mom and dad. However, it was all worth it in the end as the weather was perfect, the brisket was even better, both moms signature dishes (Windsor beans and Kastler potato salad) went off perfect and everyone had a good time. A nice mix of friends, co-workers, family, and neighbors made my transition official and truly enjoyable. But there was still no rest for the weary. As soon as the last party favor was put away I was back on a dead run with medical. Dentist, doctor, visit to the doctors office to drop off stuff, treatment and ending the week with a small surgery,
My small surgery (think of the sound effect in old TV shows when something bad is about to happen). The surgery itself went well, this was a placement of my 4th chemoport in my life. The first one sucked because the doctor reefed on it, sent me home with nothing, then when I sat on my couch crying in pain (which I brought up to him at my follow up and he laughed), I was grateful my other doctor had given me pain pills for my lumpectomy. The second one tried to kill me by getting an infection 5 months in and giving me sepsis (twice). My third one was put in so poorly it had bothered me from day one. So 4th time’s a charm? Whereas the surgery wasn’t an issue, the recovery was what kicked my rear. Did you read the second paragraph? I had been running and gunning and had treatment the afternoon before the surgery. Thinking I would only need a day to bounce back was my first poor assumption. The pain wasn’t being controlled by the narcotics I had to wait an hour for at Walgreens (FYI, in Spokane the drug dispensary at the pharmacy automatically locks down for an hour when a prescription is given for a narcotic). By the time we left the drugs from my surgery were wearing off so I popped one of the pills they had given me at the hospital (must have known I would need to wait at least an hour). By the time I got home, I was back in pain, but outside of the 4 hour wait requirement, so I took a couple more, 4 hours later, did it again. Slept not at all, at 0130 I was awake and having been almost 5 hours from my last dose I upped it to 3 pills (rather then the 1-2 every 4 hours recommended). This did nothing but make me flush, so at 0530 I called the 24 hour nurse line, only to wake my SURGEON on a SATURDAY. I really thought that there would be nurses working shifts that would be there answering the phone. Well crap – I only wanted to ask if I could mix the drugs with Tylenol or Alleve (the answer was a very tired yes). Things did not improve over the next 7 days. I spent 4 days barely able to stay awake (if I sat down I was out), my chest continued to ache but for anyone that has had either surgery or high grade pain pills the ache coming from your bowels can often overshadow the pain you are trying to mask. Even though I am a pro at this (obviously not), I had been aggressively treating myself with a cocktail of poo movers. They worked well enough that by the 4th of July I felt well enough to head out, watch the parade, indulge in just a bit of fair food. I mean seriously, how can I pass up a corn dog (favorite) and funnel cake (shared). After a nice day went home thinking I was good to go. Well my stomach felt differently about fried food rounded out with more fried food (and I had been off sweets for 10 days too). So 1 more day of being laid out put me at a full week of being out of commission. But you know what the best thing about this was – I didn’t have to worry about missing work, burning up non-existent leave, and letting my team down.
But I’m here still. Spent today helping Brent some with processing honey (we finished half of what we probably have in the hives for 52 pints – more to come in a few weeks). Got caught up on laundry, did some home chores, and replanted a few items in our garden bags.
So heading into a new week finally feeling refreshed, excited to see my good friend Terry at the end of the week for a few days, catching a concert, hopefully going huckleberry picking and trying to avoid the heat.
Happy July and month 3 of my retirement.
You are amazing.
😘
So glad I got to see you when you were in WI