Evergreen

... with my quit-smoking program and I'm happy to report that six weeks after starting with the Nicoderm patch, I'm smoke free. Monday is the end of the program and I'm OK. I had the toughest test this week. I went down to the Cherokee casino hotel in North Carolina for an overnight. (It was actually a great deal. They comped me to the room and gave me, no strings attached, to $170. So I played with their money at the outset and made plenty enough to keep playing without actually going into my wallet. In the end it cost me about a hundred, not counting my profit. And I paid for my meals and saved all the reward points I had earned for future use, maybe next month. I'm now a platinum member of the Total Rewards Club, yay. You get a lot of freebies when you're platinum. When they invite you to places like Tunica or Reno, they usually even pay for your flight. It's definitely a win-win.
Now, as to why I've been away from my blog, there are a number of factors: First, I have been sick on and off (no need for the grisly details) and it's taken me a few weeks to get back to normal: Second, I've been contracted to work with a weekly paper in Sevier County so I get to play editor and make up a few extra bucks.
Though I'm enjoying most of it, I find it's taking up too much of my time and when I retired, this was not what I signed on for. I want more "me" time!!!! Still it IS fun, you know. I like the editing part but I also enjoy a lot writing columns, editorials and even some features. I don't like doing breaking news, because I did all that ages ago and I don't love that kind of reporting any more.
I don't know how much longer I'll do it. I don't want to get too involved because that'll make it a lot harder to walk away.
Not much else going on. IN April, we are awaiting a visiting from our kids, Papi Chulo and Miss Scotch and we are so looking forward to seeing them before they head for Hawaii. After they are gone, we have a weekend Ghost Hunter adventure in Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tenn. That should be fun; there'll be lots of lantern tours of haunted places at night. I love all that stuff and am looking forward to going. After that, we'll see what other little vacations we can put together.

Next week I'll be finishing up my phase 2 and going to phase 3, which when completed, will mark the end of my stop-smoking campaign. I'm really amazed that this has not been painful. I haven't had an anxiety attack, I haven't broken anything nor yelled at the Missus (well, I did yell once, early on, but not anymore., Mercifully, she understood where my head was and there was no retribution).
So, when I last wrote I had a weekend overnight visit to the hospital for observation because they and I thought I might have had a heart attack. I don't seem to have had one, but I did manage to catch the flu and it took a week to pass. I'm still feeling the effects; I have a wicked cough and I have no sense of taste or smell (bummer). And I endured a wicked, wicked intestinal assault that lasted more than two weeks. I think that was due to an increase in one of my medications, though, and I seem to have resolved it by restoring the medicine, Metformin, to the previous dosage. This, too, shall pass.
On another front, I just hooked up with the publisher of a small weekly who badly needs a new editor and I've decided to give it a whack, part time as a contractor, to see if we can't make it a better paper. The owner seems to be a good guy and seems to know what he wants, but unfortunately, he is not prepared to make a huge investment, so we have to make our impact on the cheap. I have a few ideas up my sleeve and will try to make them work. I've told the guy I'll work at the paper as long as I'm enjoying the gig. Once it starts being a burden and i get too stressed, that will be it. I have do desire to return to my old life which revolved around the newspaper and little else.
I think I'm going to enjoy the gig, but time will tell. It's a difficult place for journalism because there is an entrenched political machine that has no accountability to the taxpayers. The county's law are written to enable anyone who wants to run amok and to do it without any reporting requirements. If I were much younger, I'd have myself a ball ripping away the curtain of secrecy.
I'll keep you posted.
 

I'm working on the sixth week of my Nicoderm quit smoking plan. Which means that after this week, I will start on Phase 2 (less nicotine in the patch). That's a two-week step-down followed by Phase 2 ( a teeny bit of nicotine) for two more weeks and the ten-week program will be done. I'm happy to report that I have not faltered at all, though I did have a couple of cravings and I'm looking forward to completing the plan.

Well, in other business ... On Sunday afternoon, I suddenly began having some heavy duty ches pains, heavy enough that the Missus suggested and I agreed to head for the hospital. Fortunately, it's a very short drive there. I had already taken three nitroglycerine pills and after that I felt like I was in real trouble. The emergency room at Park West hospital is outstanding and once I walked in and said I'm having chest pains, they raced me right to triage and from there to an ER room, where they did all the stuff they customarily do, x-rays, ekg, etc. They gave me an aspirin that seemed to help a lot but they suggested I stay overnight and do a chemical stress test in the a.m. My wife and I talked it over and decided to stay the night.
The next morning they got me going on the test -- if you've never had one, they pass up the treadmill and instead exercise the heart with radioactive chemicals. They get a more accurate reading. Fortunately for me, mine seemed to indicate that I did not have a heart attack. I know better, though. I had SOMETHING. I have had several attacks since I was 31. I've had three cardiac caths and a quadruple bypass. My situation is complicated by diabetes. My theory is that I had a stress-related episode, which once the stress was gone, I returned to normal -- for me, anyway.
The hospital stay was no fun. The food was abominable. The food in sheriff joe's jail in arizona, which is well known around athe country for being bad, was great compared to this. For lunch I actually gzzot something that truly fits the descrption of mystery meat.  At first it looked and felt like liver, but then I started to lean toward chicken and even pork. I still don't know what it was and none of the nurses would hazard a guess -- or a taste of the stuff. Dinner was misnamed  some kind of steak. It looked, felt and tasted like regurgiated meat of some type. This was accomplished by vegetables whose taste and good things were boiled out and cardboard box mashed tubers. I was so hungry from not having eaten for 24 hours or so, that I actually ate some of it.
Then, I erupted when I was told I was OK but I couldn't leave because the doctor had not checked me out. I had to wait from about 11 a.m. to about 6 pm, when I finally told the nurses that I would sign myself out if if they didn't get a doctor to sign me out. There was a veiled threat that the insurance company would not pay if I checked myself out and I said I'd be happy to phone the insurance co right then and there and tell them what was happening and ask their advice. A doctor materialized within 10 minutes and signed me out. I swear the doctor was about 12 years old.
Wasn't that a great weekend.
On the upside, the grandkids had an overnight visit with us. The little guy, Alex, came to us directly from dr's office where he'd gotten several shots and a blood draw. He was, to say the least, cranky all night. But he was fine the next morning, all bright and smiling and all was forgotten. The odler guy, Andrew, was very good and helpful. We always find little things for him to do like helping set and clear the table, loading the dishwasher, sweeping ants off the porch, and he played a lot of checkers, which he loves, Now I'm teaching him dominoes.
Have a nice week!

Glad to report that I'm wrapping up the fifth week of my quit-smoking campaign. That's about halfway through the process, which involves wearing the Patch for a total of 10 weeks.  After the sixth week, I graduate into Phase II, which is a step-down in the amount of nicotine the patch feeds my body every day. After two weeks of that, I go to the third and final phase III, which provides a minimal amount of nicotine. After that, I should be free of the habit.

It's pretty exciting for me. I feel much better these days. Food tastes better, my breathing is much easier and I seem to have more energy. I just wish I had more to do to burn up all that energy. 

Pleased to report that I've begun my third week in my quest to stop smoking. I wear the patch, by the way, and it seems to be working fine for me. I was finding it hard to sleep nights with it, so now my Missus removes it every night just before we go to bed and I'm sleeping much better.

I want to thank all of you who have written to me here to support my challenge, esp, Papi Chulo and Jrsygrl. These two are close to me and know full well what a major lifestyle change this represents for me, a lifetime smoker. The good thing is all the bucks we're saving, the fact that food tastes better and I don't hack a lot, AND it's got to be better for my diabetes and heart stuff.

It's snowing outside. I haven't seen snow in so long, but it's falling pretty heavy tho it's not sticking to the ground, just the cars. My missus who hates snow is at work and will eventually have to drive home. She'll be terrified if it keeps up so I pray that it stops soon and/or turns to rain.

What is happening to us, anyhow? Our weather patterns are constantly changing these days creating havoc -- if not floods, then drought. We've got to restore the balance in our climate or we're going to be like one of those weather disaster sci-fi movies.

Been watching all the inauguration stuff on TV since Sunday. It's getting old real fast. I look forward to Obama taking the oath and settling down to do the nation's business. God knows we need to do that.

Old man Bush will be out of there not a minute too soon. We can only hope that he doesn't have any more tricks up his sleeve. I noted that Pelosi wants to pursue investigation of Bush and Obama would rather not. I have to side with Obama in this. Such an investigation will quickly turn into a sideshow and will distract the nation from the urgent need to solve our problems. It's just not worth it. I'd rather see Obama undo Bush's damage either through legislation or executive order and have it done with. As for the Republican congress members who are poised to start blocking Obama's plans, I would suggest that Americans mount a huge contact campaign to remind these idiots who is charge and vow to them that if they don't stop their obstructionism they will be guaranteed a big loss in the next elections.

Today is the seventh day of my quit-smoking campaign. Doing well, but it hasn't been all that easy. There are urges still that I fight off with deep breathing exercises, lifesavers and hard candies, and lotsa water.

Saturday was a real test for me. The missus and I decided to visit the Knoxville Flea Market (it has really good stuff) and I drove there (about a 20-minute ride). On the way home, we detoured to the Golden Girls restaurant, another 20 minutes behind the wheel) for some delicious down-home cooking. We had chicken-fried steak with eggs fried and homefries and biscuits. The point is, though, that driving has always been a smoking trigger and I felt tempted the whole ride. I fought it off, though, with deep breathing and lotsa water.

I feel reallygood about this. I am taking it day by day in hopes that somewhere along the way, sooner rather than later, the urge to smoke with sort of disappear.