by Judy Handley | Jul 22, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 203: Another Case of Medical Ping Pong
Date: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 74, Low 59 degrees
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Yesterday’s focus was the back and forth on whether or not I have Lyme disease. Today it was Shadow’s turn. On June 30th, I took Shadow to the vet to check out what looked like a little growth just above his eye. The vet I saw tried to convince me that the growth was caused by allergies to his food. I just couldn’t buy that and did not switch his food as it took nearly two years to find a food that a dog with colitis can handle. But the growth has gotten much bigger, so I made another appointment. The vet I saw today said Shadow needs surgery to remove the cyst and that she doesn’t think the cyst has anything to do with an allergy. Same office, different veterinarian. The surgery will cost well over $1,200, so I left the office without scheduling. I have to give this some serious thought as I really don’t have the extra $1,200. The car ‘doctor’ told me this month that my car needs a new oxygen sensor at a cost of $350. So, I’m already driving around with a car with the check engine light on continuously. I was hoping to get that done in August, but now that will have to wait indefinitely. Shadow’s doctor appointments and medications for just the two appointments, one in June and one today, have already cost me more than $500. I sure wish money grew on trees!
After an appointment at the bank this morning to meet with the financial advisor for the Board of Library Trustee’s investment fund, and then Shadow’s vet appointment, I had a delightful lunch to celebrate the birthday of a friend. Then I was off with Ollie and his friend Seton for an afternoon of mini golf, bumper car rides, and ice cream at Somerset Creamery.
by Judy Handley | Jul 21, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 202: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t
Date: Monday, July 21, 2025
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 80, Low 56 degrees
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Last week I was told I tested positive for Lyme disease. Today I was told that, yes, I tested positive for Lyme disease, but when they ran the complete panel of subtests, actually I don’t have Lyme disease. This is very confusing and took much of my day talking to the doctor at the Urgent Care that ordered the tick panel, talking to nurses who called to confirm prescriptions, to confirm my afternoon telemed appointment with my PCP, and to do a pre-meeting interview, and then talking to my PCP via Zoom. One doctor prescribed more doxycycline, then the next doctor cancelled it. Then that doctor called back and added four more days of meds. The really confusing part of this is that I had a tick panel done in 2022 and had the exact same results. I have much to learn, but for now we are going with the ‘no Lyme’ diagnosis and will follow up in September with yet another tick panel. Whew!
I also had to call Shadow’s vet for an appointment. The strange growth above his eye that was diagnosed two weeks ago as being caused by food allergies has gotten significantly bigger over the past few days and is oozing a bloody fluid. I do not believe this was caused by a food allergy, and I will fight that battle tomorrow.
Before lunch, I went over to check in on Ollie. He was making jewelry and quite content to stay in his room to do this. But it was a beautiful day and I needed to get him outside. We came to my house and had a lovely lunch out on the firepit deck. The ‘firepit’ is a fire pit stove that happens to be square. We put a tablecloth over it and enjoyed our lunch. Then Ollie went across the street to cut the neighbor’s lawn, and I went inside for my telemed Zoom call. After that, Ollie did some much needed trimming and weeding in the garden off the back deck. Our next chore was to find a hitch and ball to attach to my car so we can haul Ollie’s Sunfish. That was it for today and tomorrow we have plans to play mini golf.
The weather today was beautiful. Yesterday I turned off the AC but still needed fans. Tonight, it is so cool that I had to turn off the fans and close some windows. The temp today was 80, but without humidity, it didn’t feel hot at all. And tonight, it going down to 55 degrees F. It is 62 right now and I feel chilly! But warm, sunny days and cool nights make for perfect summer weather.
by Judy Handley | Jul 20, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 201: Learning Day
Date: Sunday, July 20, 2025
Weather: Overcast with Dibble Dobs, Tiny Bit of Sunshine PM; High Temp 77, Low 66 degrees
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
My day was dedicated to the first attempts at producing financial reports using Excel for the Board of Library Trustees. I have gotten a couple of tutorials from friends, but today I tried to put what I have learned into action. I made huge progress, but it was very, very slow going. I now have a long list of questions. Once I get the answers to those questions, one more day like today should get the reports done. My hope is that after I do this once, it will be easy to produce future quarterly reports. I worked until 7:15 tonight and then went to Heather and Jed’s for a family dinner. It was a quiet Sunday, but quiet days are good once in a while.
by Judy Handley | Jul 19, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 200: Ollie’s ASLP Graduation
Date: Saturday, July 19, 2025
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 77, Low 69 degrees
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I can’t keep up with my family. All in one day, we are scattered here and there. Heather, Jed, and I went to Mass Maritime for Ollie’s graduation from their two-week summer college-like residential experience. It is called Advanced Studies & Leadership (ASLP) and is for 7th and 8th graders from the Cape and Islands. Ollie loved it and hopes to go for a second-year next summer to try and win one of the scholarships to Mass Maritime. Ollie’s team won the boat building and race contest and became very close with their counselor, a cadet at Mass Maritime. The rooms were typical dorm rooms, but his had a view of the canal.
I asked him if he was really interested in going to Mass Maritime after high school and he responded with an enthusiastic YES! It could be a good fit for him. Right now, he is just excited because he had such a positive experience. But the prospect of a college scholarship excited him even more.
I came home and went to the Saturday Freedom Rally on the Green. Sam and Jonah were both working at Corner Cycle today, and Heather and Jed went to work on the boat. Tonight Heather and Jed took Jonah to see the Trombone Shorty at the Melody tent in Hyannis. This was part of his birthday present from Grammy Marti. And after Ollie got home from camp, he went boating with his good friend Seton and family and didn’t get home until 9:30 pm. That left just Sam and I at home to have dinner together before he took off for the evening. Sam experimented with salt brining steaks that he then grilled. We had steak, salad from Heather’s deck garden, and the best corn on the cob I have had in a very long time.
Then there is the crew in Puerto Rico. Justin and Ziggy took off on Friday evening for Lake Guajataca for a weekend canoeing adventure. I sent a “Have a Great Time” text to Ziggy and that got us into a back forth texting adventure. He sent photos of the lake when they arrived, breakfast the next morning, and even a bird that we identified together. He thinks it was a moorhen. Fom the photos, I thought it was a juvenile black-bellied whistling duck. But regardless, how much fun it was to communicate back and forth.
by Judy Handley | Jul 18, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 199: Mingle and Mix at the Woodin’s
Date: Friday, July 18, 2025
Weather: Partly Sunny; High Temp 80, Low 61 degrees
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I spent my morning getting a little Excel tutorial from my friend Sue Gilbert. And while I was at her house, I got to meet Brian and Nadia’s new baby, Sequoia. She was a preemie, but now at four months, she has caught up. And what a beautiful four-month-old!
Then this afternoon, I headed to Bruce and Jane Woodin’s for an Encore Mingle and Mix. We gathered at 5 pm and enjoyed the summer evening together on the Woodin’s deck, with some escapees who sat out on the lawn. It was a lovely evening. Thank you to Bruce and Jane.
by Judy Handley | Jul 17, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 198: One Million Rising, Making Good Trouble, Lyme Disease
Date: Thursday, July 17, 2025
Weather: Partly Sunny; High Temp 80, Low 69 degrees
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
One Million Rising, Making Good Trouble, and Lyme Disease … What do these things have in common? The answer is me. I attended the One Million Rising Zoom class last night, I went to the Making Good Trouble rally at the Bourne Bridge rotary late afternoon today, and this morning I found out that the inevitable finally happened. I tested positive for Lyme disease.
I’ll start with the bad news first. I live on Cape Cod where the chances of getting Lyme disease are extremely high. I have a dog that is protected against Lyme, but who probably carries little tick friends into the house all the time. I try to be careful, but I don’t use any tick repellent. So I finally have Lyme disease. Last Thursday, I discovered a tick attached to my lower abdomen area. The next day I discovered two huge red circles on my upper leg and lower abdomen where I had removed the tick. I went to Urgent Care on Friday afternoon and since I had been in one month prior with another tick ‘incident’, they decided it was time to do a tick panel. This is a blood test that shows what tick borne disease you might have. The final results are not in yet, but I tested negative for everything except Borrelia, common called Lyme disease. I have been on doxycycline since last Friday and will find out next steps once the full panel results are in.
Last night I joined 20,000 people on a Zoom call and another 80,000 on YouTube and other streaming options for the first of three classes to teach us how to build the number of people actively resisting what is happening to our democracy. It is called One Million Rising and is sponsored by Indivisible. More than 5,000 of us that watched last night pledged to hold face-to-face training meetings in our towns. The next class is on the 30th and then I’ll be ready to host classes here in Falmouth.
This afternoon I tuned into the weekly Indivisible Zoom meeting which included a guest speaker, Erica Chenowith. She is an American political scientist, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a brilliant strategist. She says the first step in getting the whole of society working towards democracy is to figure out how to get people to show up. Like other experts I hear, she says building the ranks with people who are willing to show up is the first step. How we do that is through initiatives like One Million Rising.
And then this evening, I showed up. I went to a Good Trouble rally at the Bourne Bridge rotary. I’ll talk more about that in tomorrow’s log.
