Author Archives: Tim Hughes Living with CML

365 Day Photo Challenge 222/365 “Not Enough Time in the Day”

08 Saturday Aug 2015

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There’s simply not enough time in the day when you have a lot planned.  On weekends I try to cook for dinner because 1. to give my wife a break and 2. to try new things and to break the regular routine of my wife’s cooking.  Today I went grocery shopping and spent over $50 on supplies for tonight’s meal and tomorrow’s breakfast.  We had grilled BBQ chicken breasts, fried potatoes and Dutch Oven Blackberry Cobbler for supper.  Tomorrow morning we’re having pancakes with sausage and biscuits.

What was also planned but didn’t have time was to go on a bike ride.  Just simply didn’t have the time.  Maybe tomorrow after breakfast I’ll go on a ride but I also want to go find that waterfall that I’ve heard so much about.  It’s about an hour drive from here.  We shall see.

“Life Goes On!

365 Day Photo Challenge 221/365 “The Weekend is Here!”

07 Friday Aug 2015

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I have a lot of plans whether or not I’ll get to them all remains to be seen.  I’d like to get a bike ride in, there’s a waterfall about an hours drive from here that I’d like to go photograph and I’m planning on doing some Dutch Oven cooking one day this weekend.  So I have a lot I’d like to do but it really depends on how active I want to get in this heat.

I sincerely hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.  Enjoy yourself and do something fun.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 220/365 “Oncologist Report”

06 Thursday Aug 2015

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Today was my day.  It’s been so long since I’ve had a day when most things went without having a problem.  I even had a civil conversation with my boss this morning.  My day was pretty well planned out so I went straight to it.  I stayed pretty busy and the day went by pretty quick.  About 2 pm the receptionist from my oncologist called and said that the doctor wanted to speak to me.  My results weren’t due in until next week so I immediately went into panic mode.  The doctor came on line and told me that my levels were lower than they had been since my diagnoses.  That was exactly what I was needing to round out my day.

I had a meeting after work so I got in really late but both my daughters were still up and they both had a great first day back to school.  That made me happy too.  Maybe this will keep going at least one more day until the weekend.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 219/365 “Emotional Rollercoaster”

05 Wednesday Aug 2015

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I felt so bad for one of my daughters today.  We upgraded their phones a few days ago and they were supposed to have come in yesterday.  FedEx tried to deliver them yesterday but no one was home to receive them. So today my girls stayed home all day just so that they would be home to receive their new phones.  FedEx came and they opened their new phones only to find that one of the phones had my wife’s number.  When ordering their new upgrades I made the mistake and marked the wrong phone to be upgraded.  My daughter was devastated.  I arrived home in the middle of mass chaos.  My wife was on the phone with the carrier trying to explain to them what happened but they were unable to help. We ended up going to the phone store and after explaining to them what happened and about another hour and a half of computer work we finally got it swapped.  But there was a price.  The upgrade my wife was going to get later on won’t happen because I used her upgrade by accident when I screwed up and ordered the phone with the wrong number.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 218/365 “Dilation, How I Loathe You”

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

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Went to the eye doctor today to get a new prescription.  Of course they want to dilate your eyes.  Not only does everything become blurry, light hurts your eyes and makes it a challenge to drive home.

I’ve been having to see an opthamologist for some time now and I’m quite familiar with some of the tests that they perform.  I’ve had several procedures done including injections and Vitreous Humor Removal, a procedure to remove floaters from my left eye. I’ve had several tests run that I have no clue what it’s for nor what they’re looking for.  I just let them do it as long as the insurance pays for it.

Today’s visit was to get another prescription for new glasses.  Since the surgery in my left eye my vision has diminished greatly.  According to the doctor my vision has shifted from a positive 1 to a negative 1.  My right eye remains a positive 1.  It may be a challenge to have my glasses made.  We shall see.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 217/365 “Oncologist Appointment Today”

03 Monday Aug 2015

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I spent the afternoon at my oncologist today.  I never really like going there because it breaks my heart seeing all those people sitting on those recliners getting their chemo treatments.  Not knowing their situation I always fear the worse for them.  My blood work for the most part turned out ok.  However, they won’t get the results from the main test for at least a week or more.  The toughest part is the waiting.

Going to the eye doctor tomorrow to get a new prescription for new glasses.  Since my eye surgery my eyesight has diminished quite a bit so I’m actually looking forward to being able to see again.

I was not able to ride tonight due to a scout meeting I had to attend.  With tomorrow’s eye appointment I’m not sure if I’ll be able to ride or not.  Wednesday looks good but Thursday is out because of another meeting after work.  The weekend looks good but there is a waterfall I want to find and photograph so getting a ride in on Saturday may not happen.  We shall see.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 216/365 “Big Dog, Big Headache”

02 Sunday Aug 2015

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My GoPro was dead or else I would have a video of this huge dog coming out from nowhere and chase me up a hill today.  He came at me so fast that he couldn’t stop in time and hit his head on my back tire nearly knocking me off my bike.  I always look for this dog when I go down this road but today he had two friends about the same size as he is.  The one that hit me was taken back a few seconds giving his friends a chance to get at me.  Normally I don’t get too excited about the big dogs but today I was a bit concerned when I could see that for some reason they meant business and showed me their teeth.  As I reached the top of the hill two of the dogs lost interest but the one that got beaned still thought that he could get a piece of me and started nipping at my new shoes.  Of course by this time I’m standing up trying to pedal faster and get away from the situation.  As I make the top of the hill and start rounding the corner the dog finally gave up and went home.  The bad part of this was is that I have to go down this road twice on my route which means I had another round of this to look forward to when I come back toward home.  Thankfully, the second time around was noneventful.  The dogs stayed on their porch and didn’t give chase.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 215/365 “The Weekend”

01 Saturday Aug 2015

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I had a very relaxing day here at the house today.  I got up and got the smoker ready and spent the majority of the day smoking a couple slabs of ribs.  All three of the kids were at work and the wife went on a shopping spree for the girls to purchase them back to school clothes.  In between the times I had to tend to the smoker I spent some time cleaning up some files on my laptop and removing unused programs to make room for more pictures.  I even got to watch some pre recorded Perry Mason shows to help pass the time.

Tomorrow will be spent much the same way except I have plans on doing some riding tomorrow being that I won’t have to be tending to a smoker.  The kids will be at work again and the wife will be doing some grocery shopping.  Nothing exciting but hopefully another relaxing day before the work week begins on Monday.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 214/365 “Excited Girls”

31 Friday Jul 2015

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We don’t have a lot of money and having three kids, one in college and two being seniors in high school, makes it difficult “keeping up with the Jones”.  My twin girls share most things they have, including their bedroom.  We can’t afford for them to have a car so they drive my wife’s car to band camp.  They will walk to school once school starts. It’s unfortunate that they have to share so many things but like I said we just can’t afford it to be any other way.  Cell phones became an issue two years ago.  We simply could not afford to have them each have a smartphone, so we purchased each one of them a phone with minimal features.  They have complained many times saying that they can’t do school work and other things that their teachers want them to do. They each have iPods that they do some stuff for school on since they can hook up to the internet at the house wirelessly.  I’ve promised them that if we can afford it that I would purchase them smartphones when it’s time to upgrade.  We still can’t afford it but today their contract was up and I did what I promised them.  They don’t know it yet but they will be happy campers when the Fedex truck arrives on Tuesday.  I’ll have to made sacrifices but at least I fulfilled a promise I made to them.

365 Day Photo Challenge 212/365 “Took a Day”

30 Thursday Jul 2015

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My truck had to be towed to the shop yesterday because my shift cable had broke.  I decided to take the day off even though I really couldn’t afford to take off just to have a break from my bosses.  Work has become a source of stress that I really need to get a handle on.  With that said I decided to take the day off and go visit my daughters while they were at band camp.  I figured that if they could march in the 95 degree heat I could at the very least go and sit and watch them for an hour or so.

My truck is finally fixed so I guess I’ll be heading off to work tomorrow. It’s just a day until the weekend.  No plans thus far for the weekend except to relax and spend some time with the family.

“Life Goes On!”