We have made another trip to Washington State. About three weeks ago, after some frustrating heath events, Janet looked at me and said"Well, while waiting to hear from Doctors, we have canceled our cruise given up two time share weeks, and missed about everyone's birthday but those who can come see us for a birthday. I am tired of it, why don't you get on travelocity and see if you can get reservations to go out to Alex's. Aubrey (our grand daughter) is going to play the lead in Oliver, at the New Blue Parrot Children's Theatre and Kurt (a grandson) is going to play one of his first (eighth grade) football games and I want to go see them"

I checked with Travelocity and found a couple of reasonable tickets, and away we have come. I was pretty dubious about the traveling. Janet has really suffered during relatively short automobile trips, and this was going to entail a three hour auto trip backed up with about eight hours of airplane, airport, and airplane again.

The trip turned out all right. Although Travelocity had shown a very limited number of discount seats (OURS, always), and a crowded plane, it turned out that we had a lot of space and Janet was able to stretch out and nap for much of the journey. It was still difficult, but we made it, (thank heavens for wheel chairs in terminals).

We checked in at the curb in Jacksonville (our departure city) and I was struck by how the new rules on baggage created suffering for the people who work in travel. The guy who checked our two bags (all we could afford) had literally no customers but us and I asked him how things were going. He was clear that his job had gone from being a really good job to the kind of job that urges one to keep looking for another.

Well, anyway we went from Jacksonville to Dallas, and after some food and a lot of CNN news we went from Dallas to Portland where we had a very nice trip through the terminal compliments of a very nice guy pushing the wheelchair, and we were met by family

Right after we arrived we were able to see the last half of a football game and went from that to a play rehearsal (Janet skipped that and went to bed early)

The next morning we received calls from our local cardiologist informing us that the surgeon in Houston had looked at Janet's new CT scan and didn't think surgery was necessary at this time so she should have another CT scan in six months and they would re-evaluate. (Which "somebody" in our cardiogists office suggested that the Houston guy was scared of it too) It is such a frustration. Her first surgeon at the Medical College of Georgia had said that is was crucial that she have surgery in four to six weeks, then we didn't hear from him for almost three months, at which time he stated that he was reluctant to do the surgery because it was beyond his skill and practice so he had referred her to a surgeon in Houston. Now the one in Houston says, in essence, "It isn't bad enough to warrant surgery now, lets postpone it for awhile. " At any rate we have another appointment with a surgeon at Emory University in three weeks to get a second (I guess that this is really third) opinion and Janet has an appointment with another doctor in two weeks to examine the lesions that the CT scan showed on her liver. Wow.

IN the mean time, Janet gets weaker an weaker. She has occasional breathing problems and a lot of trouble eating, (If she eats more than a few bites at a time, she has spasms (she calls it "burping".) The local doctors think that these are both problems caused by the size of her aorta. (According to the CT's her aorta is between three and five centimeters in diameter which is about the size of some folks hearts)

We're here, and we're gonna have a happy time . I will post periodically do let you know the kind of fun we're having. I am using Windows Live Writer to do the posts, and the links on the side bar inform me that this provides easy inserts of hyperlinks, pictures, tables, maps, tags, videos and Plug ins, so I will experiment with these things as I go along. As early readers know, I have had almost no success with them before.

It seems strange but Janet and I have laughed more since her surgery in Helsinki in 2006 than in the entirety of our marriage. We giggle and make fun of things to the degree that one of our children took her aside awhile ago and said, "Mom, when this surgery is over and you are all better, you are going to have to become 'responsible' again". We'll fool her/him. We are going to have fun. On October 11, our church is having a party for the three couples who live here that are celebrating Golden Wedding this year, soon thereafter we willl do all the doctor's appointments and on November thirteenth (Jan used to refer to it as the year Friday the Thirteenth came on Thursday) WE are going to do something else (don't know yet, but it will be fun) to celebrate the actual day (Maybe you will all be invited--If both of my readers show up it will be like doubling the population of the city). Then, if we aren't locked in a hospital we will go our an use the multiple weeks of timeshares that remain to us.

I was going to mention that I have now created a Facebook page. It has been three weeks, and I don't have a clue what to do with it. Oh well, we live and learn. If anyone has suggestions, let me know.