Another Reason Also Prevented Travel .. Me

There was another reason why I couldn't travel besides waiting to see how Heidi would improve the next 30 days after her vet trip. During the week I was waiting for the blood work to come back from the vet, I woke up one morning with some intense pain in my lower left jaw. At first I just thought I had slept in a bad position but I soon found the pain was coming from a tooth.

That should be an easy quick fix. Most likely an old filling was in need of repair or replacement. The problem was as the day moved on, the pain increased and moved up to my cheekbone and below my chin along the side of my neck.

I will say from the start that I do not go to doctors unless I am barely surviving. Luckily I have had very few health problems in my life that led me to a doctor, I've been lucky. As far as dentists, I go annually to get a checkup and cleaning and that is about all it amounts to.

I can usually find the solution or a fix by researching on the internet and I can say that 99.9% of the time, what I read about does fix the health issue. For example, the issue I had with acid reflux almost had me going to the doctor and even suspecting possible heart issues with a family history to make it a concern.

I found out by changing my diet, which I am still following and starting my 4th month today, fixed the acid reflux problem ... I haven't had any, zip, nada since that time. Plus no trip to the doctor to be told what the cause was.

So when I felt the pain move to a different part of my head, I thought it might be more than just a possible cavity or a filling that needed replaced. From my past accidents I realized it could be not dental at all but more of a muscle or joint problem.

I actually thought and I still think it might be, a problem I had from a car wreck in my 1963 VW Bus I had at the time in 1979. Friends and I use to spend a lot of weekends at the Rosarita Beach Hotel in Baja. Cervezas and Tequila were consumed in large portions and sad to say, driving did take place.

To make a very long story short, since that wreck in 1979, dental x-rays have always picked up an object that looked like a cavity, with it being in my cheek area and not on a tooth. It confused them until I would tell them the reason for that "spec" looking similar to a cavity on x-rays. Over the years that piece had moved down my jaw to just above my left upper tooth line from the corner of my left eye.

The dental techs or dentists were always freaked out when they saw the x-rays and would ask for the history of my head. I'd then tell them the story on what that was and how it got there. They were not concerned about any future damage. That accident like many other past accidents happened on a full-moon.

As I write this I have another tooth for the first time in the past few weeks now feels like it's the culprit of my pain. (Referral pain??) I know it's not, but the pain has moved today. I am also trying to sip a cup of coffee that I am craving due to my lack of caffeine and lack of sleep these past weeks, hoping that drinking that will not send me through the ceiling if that hot liquid happens to touch my lower left jaw area.

So where was I ... oh, the different pains. Some are intense, at all hours of the day or night. Until last night I have been sleeping in 45-60 minute intervals depending on when the pain wakes me up. Yes, I've been living on ibuprofen, aspirin, cold presses, hot damp wash cloths, face massages, "icy hot" cream on my cheek ... and starting this past Thursday morning I started using Orajel.

The meds not at the same time of course. Some times they work very well as all the other things I use, some times they seem like they are not there.

About the time I decide to go to a dentist or a doctor, on two separate occasions I have woke up after a couple of hours of solid sleep and there is zero amount of pain ... like it never happened. I've gone as long as 3 days straight feeling normal and out of nowhere the pain comes back ... always on the left side, lower jaw area and at times along the left side of my throat.

Through all of this I can brush my teeth over those same teeth suspected of giving me the problem, without any pain reflex. I can floss between those teeth that are painful with no problems. I would think if I had a cavity needed fixed or a filling needing replaced that brushing and flossing would let me know from the pain that is where the problem is.

So since mid-July sometime, after the vet trip for Heidi, I've been living with what I have described. Some times at 2am or 4am walking around the house in pain I have told myself there was no way I could be traveling right now and camping with my 3 hounds.

I have been playing phone tag with my old friend of 45 years that is a semi-retired dentist, hoping he can shed some light on the situation about what it could possibly be. Of course I imagine he will say I should have been in a dentist office weeks ago.

I mentioned heart issues in this blog. I don't have those but I did double check all the information I could find on the signs of cardiac problems with pain in the left jaw as a warning sign. From all the information I have read on medical sites, I don't find this being a cardiac warning.

So to end all of the rambling ... yesterday afternoon I was hit with the pain strike intense enough that it almost had me in on the floor on my hands and knees. Sadie took that as a sign that I wanted to play with her and she started by running and chest bumping me from the side ... lol

By midnight last night there was zero pain ... NONE whatsoever!!! Yet, ten minutes after laying down to sleep, intense pain. I get up and fall asleep sitting up in a big comfortable chair in the living room and sleep for a solid 4 hours. At 6:15am I get up to let the dogs out.

At that time the pain feels like it does AFTER you get work done at the dentist and the Novocain is wearing off. I go back to sleep for another 5 hours of solid sleep ... waking up with only a slight numb feeling in my jaw.

I just finished a cup of hot coffee and there was no change in the pain level.

So ... I was also a reason that traveling had been put on hold.

In the meantime some photos of the hounds. Winston is finding out that he likes air conditioning as much as he does the heaters in the winter ... thus this is his favorite position ... when not eating.

"I don't care about global warming ... I can sleep anywhere, anytime"

Of course Sadie doesn't care about how cold or hot it is, she likes it outside. With being a bloodhound and its hot temps along with sticky humidity ... that produces more drool ... lol

"Don't worry ... my owner will wipe it off"

Usually around 7:30 we head out just to sit outside or take a walk through the field. Sometimes Sadie lets me know by her look that sitting is not good enough, that she wants the daily walk ... whereas Winston is more than happy to sit in the shade in "his" soft grass.

"Lets go for a walk"

"It's great ... I'm not going anywhere"

As you can see, my project in April of digging up wild bushes, vine roots and cleaning out the area before I planted grass seems to be looking pretty good for a non-professional job after 3 months. Add in a historic month of rain in June breaking all rain records since 1865 in Indiana, I have a good amount of grass.

On a closing note ... before I could finish this post my dentist friend called me back about my jaw/tooth issue. I'll not go into it in detail but it will not be a quick fix. Once an dental x-ray is taken, there could be many steps in finding the source of the problem by dentists, endodontist or oral surgeons.

It was good to hear from him, what I have been doing with my self-treatment is good stuff.

I hope the issues Heidi and I are having will be fixed by the cooler temps of September where we can head west. That is the plan anyway.

Dairy Queen and Apple Computer Photo Issues

Well after all of that hard work over the weekend, the rain on Monday gave me a day off from any kind of effort. I took advantage of that and probably spent more time sleeping than anything. I didn't have a great night of sleeping Sunday night ... I knew the reason.

So I caught up on my lack of sleep on Monday. I now have a better idea what it must feel like to be a basset hound or a bloodhound, as I followed their daily routine.

Probably not good for you but they taste good going down ... Dairy Queen grilled cheeseburgers, with onions, tomatoes, mustard and ketchup. I also added a large order of onion rings to that gut bomb and a large strawberry shake to wash it  all down.

Everytime I do that and after I finish, I say never again ... but a few months down the road, I'll do it again and then spend the majority of the night sleeping in 30 minute periods, waking up with some major heartburn.

So the rain on Monday didn't bother me that much .. the day was a totally wasted day.

With the new changes that Apple has shoved down their user's throats whether they want it or not, the latest update to their Operating System Yosemite has replaced their iPhoto program with something called "Photos". This program is like the one on all the iPhones and iPads but it's a huge change for those with iMacs and MacPros or MacAirs.

It migrated the 24,000 photos I had with a few minor issues of "duplication". I found out yesterday why those photos may look to be duplicated in the Photo program. Luckily I can still use and view all of the self made folders I have put my photos in previously in iPhoto, even though the new program is designed to and would love to do that for me. I hate when that happens.

The one thing I am having to learn is how I treat photos that I want to post to the blog. No longer can I go directly to Photos like I did with iPhoto to pull the photo out of the file to post on the blog ... I have to put photos in a different file that is accessible for the blog to pull them.

The 2nd thing I have been having problems with until I dug through information to find out the fix ... when I would export the photo to the file I had set up for the blog to use, it would export the photo in the original size. Well some of those photos from my Nikon D3200 are huge in size ... like 5-7mgb large per picture. The blog would pull them and post them ok but I have to wonder just how many photos of that size the people at Blogger will tolerate.

Of course the solution to the photo size problem is hidden in a drop down arrow at the time of export. You have to set yourself, otherwise by default, the photo size remains the same as the original size it was loaded.

I love the Apple products that I changed to in October of 2010 but their recent changes to their O/S has had too many bugs when they released it. They don't tell you how to fix things, you have to read forums, or read it on a blog ... for example since I have not changed any of the default settings it has attempted to synchronize my 24,000 photos in to my iPhone that has only a 16Gb hard drive. Go figure...lol.

If I wanted my iPad and iPhone to have all of those photos I would have made my own arrangements to have them transferred. I didn't, so now at some point in time I will have to spend time taking those photos out of my iPhone and iPad.

Back to the diet information. I am finding that my heartburn / acid reflux is occurring more frequently with any kind of food eaten. I guess those late nights of hot salsa, chips with melted cheese are going to happen less and less.

Retirement Life Observations

On April 8, 2014 I decided to take vacation days up to my corporate exit interview two weeks later, so I guess my retirement really started then because every morning after I would wake up with my own schedule. It's been a little over two months since I have retired. Some things in my lifestyle such as my diet have changed considerably while other changes have been subtle if they have changed at all.

For those that are retired maybe we can compare our changes in lifestyle since retired while those that are considering retirement may see something they can consider in making their decision.

In my case I didn't feel there would be a lot of change because I've always lived a pretty simple lifestyle being single. There isn't a lot of drama in my life. My health is good, I'm active and have a few interests such as cycling, my hounds and reading. There have been some notable changes though even in the two months being home.

One thing I have noticed is the number of people I am around. I never socialized a lot in my non-work hours when I had a job because most of the people I worked with lived in other towns in opposite directions than where I live. Another reason is most of them have families and they are busy with all of their kid's activities with sports and school. So less people is not a surprise for me. I actually like the solitude that comes with being single.

Another, is my diet changed drastically and with that change I have lost 16 pounds since I walked out of the office on April 7, 2014. These changes were basic. I was no longer around Pepsi machines at work, no longer around the daily pastry that would be brought into work by different co-workers and no junk food available that I ate a lot of. Now, I think a lot of the junk food intake and my addiction of Pepsi Cola were job stress related. My diet now consists of a lot of fresh veggies and fruits...a lot. I occasionally have fish with rice and a vegetable or black bean burritos. I supplement beans into my salads for a little extra protein.

I am riding my bikes more than before but not as much as I want. I want to ride more and with the heavy humidity and high temps, my riding is going to take place early in the mornings until fall. It will be just like the old days when I was doing a little racing and all of our training rides were very early in the morning with a possible afternoon ride. Once I start a regular regiment of riding 5x/week, even more pounds will disappear. My 45 minutes of mowing my yard with a push mower is good exercise because of the heat but also my front yard is on an 80' incline. So I get some good leg and cardio workout while mowing.

Years ago I started an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to track all of my income (different sources) and expenditures to get control of my money and my spending. I categorized each expenditure and then formulated a monthly average. As years passed I link those previous year's monthly averages so I can see where I might be spending more in different categories or where some prices are increasing since last year because I am buying the same amounts.

This spreadsheet was a key factor in deciding if I could retire or not and if I could survive financially.

Besides that spreadsheet on income and expenditures, when I thought of retiring I made a different spreadsheet just for retiring options. I listed all income and expenses buy the current monthly averages.

I will make a separate blog post just on this spreadsheet, because it showed me all the different options whether to retire or not and options if I were to retire and what the financial bottom line would be. It was quite shocking what some of those options showed once it was seen laid out on paper.

I do not plan on giving "expert" financial advice on this blog but maybe some basic things that all people can use. One would be the spreadsheet to track income and expenditures and two, a spreadsheet showing before and after retirement options with the incomes different due to your change in income sources once you retire.

I will say that since retired I am spending less and not making an intentional effort to do so. Sure, I made some adjustments. I sold my old Chevy Pickup that was never driven more than 300 miles per year and put that money in the savings. I sold my Kia Sorento that was never driven and decreased a car payment and insurance reduction. I sold a Class C RV that I was not going to use, that also eliminated a payment and insurance reduction. I got my 'herd' of vehicles down to two. A Mini Cooper for great gas mileage and local driving and my Toyota FJ 4x4 for winter driving, camping trips, dog trips to the vet and any other trips where I would have to haul something from a store.

I started downsizing my possessions two years ago more than I would with the annual spring cleaning because I was planning on changing my lifestyle to RV living and possibly full-time. So I downsized a lot of things. Sold a little of it, gave a lot away to goodwill and the local library. When I had the thought of selling my house and hitting the RV road, I continued this downsizing to the point of getting down to possessions that I did not want to get rid of. I knew then it was time to stop as I was in my "downsizing comfort zone".

I am not living in a skeleton house of things but I will say my house is not stuffed with anything that is not used, read or worn. For instance my table place setting was reduced to 4. Thats only 4 forks, knives, small spoons and large spoons, 4 plates, 4 bowls. I could probably even reduce that to only 2 and may do that. My suit and ties and dress shoes were all given away last year when I saw I no longer had to wear them at work and I had not worn them in years.

For those that are considering downsizing, I will tell you that there is nothing that I have missed not having. That includes the trucks and cars I have sold, even the RV. I still have things I want to sell, some things I will give away but I am pretty close to be downsized to just the things I need. Even the hounds were involved as I got rid of all their extra bones, kong balls etc that they no longer chewed on...threw some away and gave the kong balls to other friends with dogs.

So ... after two months of retirement I can say I am thrilled with my decision and that I had the guts to go through with it. I knew I would miss the income I was making but I would not miss the drama at work and constant changes for the worse. They had made it almost impossible to do your job by the time I left. My schedule if there is one, is wide open and I love that freedom.

One last thing, that constant heartburn I lived with thinking it was diet related and some of it was, is gone.

Good luck if you decide to retire and good luck to those that have.