WOW!!

It is so nice to have a BLOG when you know that Face Book, Twitter and e-mail won't do the trick.
It is going to start out as an instructional or entertainment piece based on your perspective. Entertainment for me. I will end it on a much higher plane than I've ever flown before. You'll decide for yourself.
The end of June of this year I was out loping branches off a 20 year Aspen. I tell you it's age because landscaping experts say that is just about the predicted life span of an individual Aspen.
Anyway, that Aspen got back at me. I started feeling dizzy, and then faint, and I went inside and my blood pressure ( I take blood pressure medicine) shot up to 180 over 120. (Those are not good numbers, by the way, on or off medication.)
So I tell Peggy what I'm experiencing. She takes my temperature. It is over a hundred one. And then she says you're calling the Dr. (And, oh, its on the weekend.)
I fight her for a while, but give in.
I get through to my Doctor (Dr. So and So) and, he and I chat. He says, "to be on the safe side you'd better go to the emergency room at (such and such) hospital. "
Peggy drives me there with neither of us knowing I'm in for a three day stay. I don't believe there is a heart machine or stress test in there I didn't take. And they kept finding nothing. So Peggy and I are sitting chatting with Dr. So and So,So, a compatriot of Dr. So and So.
He runs around the hospital checking out all these test results and says, "you know that CT scan we took of your heart?"
"Yeah." "
"Well your THYROID shows up so low in your sternum it shows up in the scan. It has a very irregular growth on it. AND it is sitting right on top of your Vegus Nerve which can affect balance."
Seemed to make sense.
"But I think I'm going to send you down to the radiologist to get a needle biopsy to make sure we are not dealing with something else."
So? Well the needle biopsy says all this irregular mass on my Thyroid is made up of Hurthle Cells. And I guess nobody in my little clique at this point knew that Hurthle cells are NOT always cancerous. In fact Hurthle cells in the THYROID are almost never cancerous.
(Don't take my word for that please. I'm just quoting and paraphrasing my sources.)
So! I was sent on to an endocrinologist to plan our life time relationship. She, too, spoke of cancer. ( She is a very stately yet easy to talk to person, who also assumed I had cancer.)
BUT, and this was the first time in the process it came out. You can not do an effectively true biopsy on your THYROID until you yank it out of there. So Dr. she and she sends me to THE SURGEON OF NOTE!
(He's had some pretty noteworthy clients, but seems uneasy with a lot of publicity so let's make him Dr. SEE AND SEE.)
After looking at ALL the tests, he says, "first of all Thyroid Hurtle cells are hardly ever cancerous.....about 20 percent of the time they are malignant.
But you are definitely a candidate to get that Thyroid out of there, and then, and only then can we confirm one way or another whether there is cancer in there."
"Okay, let's do it."
"Not so fast. I don't have an opening for a month and a half."
"But isn't that too long to wait?"
"A MASS that large has been there a long, long time, and there is no evidence any cancer has spread to any other part of your body. We've got plenty of time."
Okay, let's shorten this story. Last week they walked off with my Thyroid. I wait another 3 days for biopsy results, and the news is NO CANCER. So how do I feel? Angry? Bitter? Scared? Resentful?
NONE OF THE ABOVE. I STILL LIKE ALL THESE DOCTORS AND APPRECIATE THEY ARE HUMAN. I've been saving that picture I took about 15 years ago....just for this moment. I didn't know that's what I was saving it for, but THAT my friends is how I feel.

JUST HORSIN' AROUND!

But I do have some advice. About every five minutes say to your medical men and women, "ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?"

Odd?

Money IS coming from somewhere.

Went for a walk today in a rural area very quickly becoming suburban.

How do I know that about the money? Because we're walking on this five mile long highway that wasn't even public knowledge 6 months ago.

They've already cut through a deep thoroughfare hidden by massive berms. It is already half paved. But because of those berms, it is not likely you'll ever know it's there until you use it, or fly over it.

Now here is the topper. They say they'll have it done by the end of the year.

No, wait a minute, here's the topper! It is being built a mile away from a new highway that will run parallel to it. That road has been on the books for at least a decade, but it won't be fininished until 2012.

You'd think that would be about all the ODD a person could take in a day. But we are walking along this construction site and up pops a coyote. It skitters by us, crawls under a fence and disappears to where ever coyotes disappear to. I guess not THAT odd. But right after that?

Three cowboys ride up with their trusty cattle herding dog (either a Border Collie or Australian Shepherd.) Really nice looking quarter horses. So we exchange howdies, and they ride off down some creek bed to tend to some steers. But just as they part, that little cattle dog leaves the cow poke party and starts hiding behind us. Odd!

This soft spoken giant in beige boots (no spurs) comes riding up to me, jumps off Trigger, and says, "Here, hold muh horse," and hands me the reins.

"Yes, sir! Isn't he supposed to hang out with you and help round up the herd? "

"Well, first of all, he's a she. Named Dally (pronounced dolly.) Problem is she's afraid of horses."

He picks Dally up in his arms, remounts with my help, thanks me, and as he's is riding back into the creek bed, he says, " if I hadn't picked her up just now, she probably would have followed you all the way home."

So we mosied on our way surveying this new highway project. We walked about an hour in three or four different directions, and then on our way back to the car? Yup! Here comes Dally. With the cowpokes? Nope! Her herding instincts she applied to us. Licked us a lot when we behaved like we were supposed to. Nipped at us if we moved in any wrong direction.

Peggy was adamant.

"We are not going to leave her until we get her back to her owners."

Well turns out there were a bunch of phone numbers on Dally's collar. Cell phone to the rescue you'd think. But out of all those phone numbers we got through to just one female voice mail.

Well just as we were about to set up camp for the night, we see our wranglers up on a hill and wave wildly to them. They finally catch sight of us and with Peggy hanging on to Dally with all her might, the dog is reluctantly reunited with her family.

"Kind of odd for a Border Collie, or Australian Shepherd to be afraid of horses isn't it," I ask.

"That's not nearly half the problem. She's also afraid of cows."

I've got to tell you. In my mind, THAT'S ODD!

They rode off, and we drove off, and fortunately none of us into the sunset.

BUT IN THIS ECONOMY I STILL WANT TO KNOW WHERE THE MONEY IS COMING FROM TO BUILD THIS ROAD? AND WHO IS GOING TO TAKE CARE OF THE COYOTE?