Yesterday was a big day for me! I got my new pacemaker/defibrillator installed. Surgery was at 8 AM (had to arrive at hospital at 6 AM Yuck!) and all went well. I was back home at Judy’s house around noon. Today, I am sore, of course, but can breathe again yay! And, best of all, no alarms coming from my chest at midnight!

My discharge instructions were as follows:
No driving for a week. check
Keep incision dry for five days. check
No lifting over five pounds and no raising left arm over shoulder height for three weeks. UH OH!!!!!!!!
The closing on my Roswell house is scheduled for May 13th. I am having a moving sale next weekend and have to get the house empty by May 8th so I can get it clean and buyers can have their final walk through three days before closing. This will be a tad tricky!

I named my last pacemaker Beldar. I felt like I had an alien in my chest — it kinda protrudes a bit — and that seemed like a good alien sounding name. But Beldar has passed on and I now need a new name for my new friend. I would greatly appreciate suggestions!

In the meantime, I am enjoying getting to know my new little friend who helps me walk up stairs, inclined walkways, etc. He/she helps my heart kinda like a seeing eye dog helps a blind person. Maybe Rover would be a good name!

I had a very eventful week last week.

Monday, April 8th.  Today, I brought Krystal and Casey to their new home away from home, Safari Pet Resort.  I decided to pay for a group playtime each day.  I decided against the room with their own TV and the tuck in, bedtime story.  Yes, those are actual options.  Next, I packed up and headed to Georgia.

Tuesday, April 9th.  I made final preparations on my house in Roswell today, readying it for the market.  I bought flats of flowers to plant in the yard, met with my handyman, had all the windows cleaned, and took a tour of houses in my area with my real estate agent to see my competition.  Tonight, I got to visit with old and new friends at a dinner for two groups of Oasis members, a support group for people going through divorce.

Wednesday, April 10th.  So many important things happened on this day.  It’s Casey’s 9th birthday.  The yard was mulched and tidied.  The house was cleaned from baseboards to ceiling, and everything in between.  I signed papers for house to be listed on Thursday.  And most importantly, I went to the cardiologist and they turned off my internal alarm clock.  No more 7 AM daily wake up calls from my chest!  Surgery is scheduled for April 24th.

Thursday, April 11th.  My home for over 22 years, now just a house, was put up for sale.  Bobby, my real estate agent, called me at 8:30 AM, to tell me a showing was scheduled while he was uploading info.  In the afternoon, Judy, my dear friend, and I headed to her doctor’s office to begin a new chemotherapy treatment.  She is so strong!  Praying this one works well.

MIDNIGHT.  Beedeebeedeebeedee….and so on….my chest is calling again!  Are you kidding me?!  I would rather go back to the 7AM wake up call!

Friday, April 12th.  The plan was to get on the road around noon, so I went to Home Depot in the morning and bought several baskets of flowers to put ‘jewels’ in the yard for the open house scheduled for Saturday.  I got back to Judy’s house and got a call from Bobby–I had an offer for the house and another one was coming. What???  OK, now I needed to plan a counter offer. After prayer and thinking, I mentally prepared my response.  Before I contacted Bobby, he called with the second offer–full price.  Wow!  As my friend, Ginny, said, this had God written all over it!  I didn’t make it back to Tennessee until after 10 PM.  

Now, my tiny apartment patio is filled with the ‘jewels’ from my non-existent open house.  Oh, and the best thing…..I am now in Central Time Zone, so my nightly alarm is at 11PM instead of midnight.  Come on April 24!

As a newly single 50 something year old, it can be quite hard finding single men.  I decided to give online dating a go.  The men I have met in person have been wonderful, and although I haven’t met anyone that a potential relationship will develop, I’ve made some friends.  One friend is now engaged to a woman he met through one of the dating websites, and I was cheering him along the whole way!  

There have been some interesting profiles of people I haven’t met.  On a Christian site, one guy put a “prayer test” in his profile.  He asked women who were interested in him to read certain Bible passages, pray, and ask God to tell them a special thing, a “secret code” if you will, and get back to him, so he will know that woman is God’s choosing.  It was very detailed.  Several guys tell you how handsome they are.  Well, there’s a picture right there.  Don’t they think we women can decide that for ourselves?  And what is it about men and their hair?  On these sites, you describe yourself.  Invariably, guys will say “brown hair” or “black hair” when in their pictures, it is clearly gray.  When they look in a mirror, do they just see what it used to look like?  Besides describing yourself, you can also describe who you would be interested in, as in age, ethnicity, etc.   One guy wrote right at the beginning of his profile “if you have ever dated or married anyone a different color than me, pass me by.”  Really?  Really???  So far, I haven’t, but I passed him by.

The two most interesting ones I’ve seen were not on a Christian site.  One was a woman’s profile…..or at least I THOUGHT it was.  Turned out to be a cross-dressing heterosexual man looking for a woman who would be accepting.  He posted a picture of himself dressed as a man and another as a woman.  

The other one read as follows: (names have been changed)
I have been by myself /divorced for 8 years. Ex-wife (Jane Smith) had an on-going affair with John Doe  (married), and several other married men, thus the reason for the divorce in 2004. I have no bitterness or anger at all. I am ready to “start over” with someone special. 

 Court document speaks for itself. My ex-wife and Joe Jones’ ex-wife were BOTH having affairs at the SAME TIME with John Doe as court documents show, then he had another affair with Marge Simpson while she was married too!! Click on link to read....

And it gives a link to a website.  I think I detect a slight hint of bitterness and/or anger there!

 And lastly, at least 75% of guys 50 – 60 years old have motorcycles.  What’s with that?!  Now honestly, can you see me hanging on for dear life on the back of a motorcycle?!  If anyone reading this is a man thinking about doing online dating, let a woman proofread your profile.  Grammar and spelling matter.  It’s a ‘quiet’ evening, not a ‘quite’ evening.  And you ‘sit’ in front of a fire, not ‘set’ in front of it.  Oh, and guys, look in a mirror.  It really is OK to have gray hair!

When you have a pacemaker and/or defibrillator, the entire device is replaced when the battery dies.  Yesterday morning, at 7 AM, my chest played a little tune for me.  It was a high note, then a low note, repeating about twenty times.  I called my doctor and sent in a reading with a little machine I have.  Sure enough, Beldar (my pet name for my pacemaker/defibrillator due to the sense of having an alien in my chest) is dead and gone.  I was told my batteries would last five to six years.  They lasted two years, seven months, and 29 days.  If I live to be an old woman, that’s a lot of surgeries….and a lot of money!  (May I remind you I have a yearly $10,000 insurance deductible with $5000 out of pocket?!). I thought I would just have to replace it once before I got on Medicare.  But now, it looks like I will have to replace it three, maybe four times before I hit 65.  I sure am glad the cabin sold!  

I am supposed to get a call today to schedule surgery.  I think I will ask if another song could be programmed into the new one.  Hmm….My Heart Will Go On?  Total Eclipse of the Heart?? Listen to Your Heart???  Oh the possibilities!

Life is still good!

Two months have gone by since I moved to this ‘new and far away land’.  I am almost settled in…..new Tennessee license plate and all!  

I am still liking this ‘smaller living’.  But I have to admit–I still have this sense of being in a large hotel suite.  I’ve got my dogs under control, and life is good.  Oh, who am I kidding…..the dogs have decided to let me feel like I have them under control.  I am getting better at walking them on their leashes, although I have had to hug a few trees.  That is, they decided to go in different directions around a tree and back around, so I had to loop my arms around a few trunks to get them untangled.  I’ve also had to pick their leashes out of a few bushes when they walked hither and yon through them.  And, unfortunately…..and this is absolutely true…..I had to once hug a strange woman walking by to get them untangled.  She sort of chuckled nervously as I was apologizing while wrapping my arms around her.  I’ve also discovered these carpets most definitely will need to be cleaned when I move out.  I don’t know why I even dreamed that would not be so.  

Over the past several months, I’ve found that I am more resourceful than I ever knew.  I have replaced parts on a dishwasher and on a toilet.  I have unplugged a very stubborn disposal, repaired a few minor things on a refrigerator, put together some furniture, installed some pantry shelves, and removed some dead animals from the pool and Casey’s bed.  Yuck!!!   As far as I know, the pups no longer bark while I am away and my pacemaker has yet to start beeping at me.  Life is good.  I am happy.  And look again at my license plate.  Doesn’t it look like it kinda spells ‘joy’???