CHANGE OF PLANS

It’s a good thing that we are flexible and don’t mind change. All of our great plans for the holidays and cruises went out the window when Lovern came down with a bad cough and was coughing up blood. Back to emergency and nine days in the hospital. At first they thought she had pneumonia and then tuberculosis and put her in isolation. That turned out negative so they thought it was Valley Fever, a fungus borne on the winds and dust in AZ (and the San Joaquin Valley where our houseboat is, it turns out). She just had a CT scan to see if there are any more spots on her lungs. The spots are healing so now it is official labeled pneumonia.

Zoe was bringing Lovern some clothes the second day in the hospital and had a debilitating vertigo attack in the car and ended up in the same hospital via ambulance (on another floor) also. After beaucoup tests, they decided that her Menier’s Disease (vertigo) has become chronic and she has spent each day since fighting the effects. She has gone to one specialist and his solution was to remove her eardrum. She is seeking other opinions. She thought for awhile that a pill the dr. gave her was helping so we went to Thanksgiving dinner at our friends Pat and Joan. At the end of the dinner, however, Zoe had a mild attack and we had to leave early. The neighbors probably thought she had too much holiday cheer as she stumbled to the car held up by our friends.

The new specialist has given Zoe great hope and says he can stop the attacks altogether. She has to be on a no to low sodium diet. Do you have any idea how hard that is” Our diets are loaded with salt!

So we have spent our time back in AZ bouncing from one dr. appointment to the next. The only good news seems to be that Lovern’s back pain has lessened and her legs (and walking) are getting stronger. She starts physical therapy on Monday.

So we had to cancel our grand plans for the two cruises and now are busy trying to figure out our refunds with our trip cancellation insurance. We are both feeling much better and even ventured out to the German Christmas market in Mesa. We enjoyed the Christmas carols (although the accordion drowned out the words) and the bratwurst, beer and strudel. Zoe had roasted chestnuts only because of salt issues.