| THE SUMMER & FALL OF 2002 |
| The spring and start of summer was wonderful. My eldest son had taken on the job of tearing out our main bathroom and installing all new walls and fixtures while we were in Florida. It turned out far nicer than we ever thought it would. It looked like a Roman sauna but a lot swankier. Ron is the decorator expert and soon had wall hangings etc that went with the decor that he fashioned himself. On one of my trips to Toronto I went looking for a statue of David and found just the right one to stand in the corner on the marble topof the sink cabinet. I ran some pictures of various other statues off the internet ('The Wrestlers' and others) mostly by Michaelangelo. had them framed and hung them in the bathroom. We really received a lot of compliments for the room. Then in early June, we decided to get new windows installed for the living room and dining room. The house never looked better and we really felt lucky and blessed to have come this far.. |
| Our contentment and pride was very short lived though, when early in July my asthma, which had been lying dormant for a while, appeared to suddenly erupt into severe attacks. Nothing I nor my doctor did seemed to improve the situation. In fact it continually got worse so that by the end of Aug, I couldn't walk across our deck without having to sit down to catch my breath. Our house. which was a 4 level side split, soon became more than I could comfortably navigate because of the many stairs. As much as we hated to make a change, we decided that it was time for us to find a single story bungalow or move into an apartment. We soon ruled out an apartment as we couldn't face being cooped up with no way of enjoying the out doors. We had friends in St Catharines and we were always impressed by the warmer winters they enjoyed, so in early September, we drove down for a visit and got a real estate agent to show us what was available. We looked at 4 houses and were extremely disappointed with what we saw for the money we wanted to spend. (We had decided to really downsize and pay an amount that would leave us with a bit of extra savings for future trips to Florida.) We were about to give up when the agent got a call from her office about a small bungalow that they had just listed. We immediately went to look at it and fell in love with the house. The area was not as nice as we had had in Peterborough, but we found it suitable for us. Mind you, it probably helped when we discovered it was being sold by a younger gay couple who had lived in it for 12 years and had updated everything inside. It may also have swayed a bit when we realized that the house was only one block from the Hospital and two blocks from the only gay bar in St Catharines. We gave them a rather lowball offer and they signed it back with the exact amount that we wanted to pay. So we had bought a house - now we had to rush back to Peterborough to list our house there. We listed it on Friday morning, had two prospects look through it that afternoon and both presented offers that afternoon. We accepted the one and had sold the house in less than 24 hours. |
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| The closing date was Oct 15th, It was about this time we realized we were getting a little old for this sort of thing. We had so much furniture etc to get rid of and a way too much packing. This was made even worse by my asthma attacks which were worse every day. Poor Ron had to do the heavier work while I sat and packed dishes etc. I was really looking forward to our new house without stairs believe me. By the time we finally moved in however, my breathing was so bad I could barely walk from one room to the other. It was a month before we found a family doctor. He put me on heavy doses of prednesone and new puffers, but by Nov 17th, Ron convinced me to go the ER at the near-by hospital where I found out I was suffering from a Congested heart Failure. My condition turned out to be a lot more serious than we liked to admit. The doctors insisted on Ron staying with me as they were not sure I was going to make it through the night. However, this old queen has gone through such things before and by the next morning I had recovered and was out of danger. I was only in the hospital 7 days, then was allowed to go home. Now I am on a strict diet which is low fat, no salt and absolutely no alcohol. This is not easy for someone who rarely went a day without a drink, loves salt on all his food, (in fact I used to drink beer with salt) and who's favorite food is steak or English style fish and chips.(with lots of fat & salt of course.) However, I found that I could live with these restrictions and already feel better. Of course, the alternative, really did not appeal to me. I've got a lot of living to do yet. The biggest disapointment however is that we had to cancel our usual trip to Florida. Even if I felt well enough to go, our health insurance would not be valid. We could just not take the chance without insurance. One week in the hospital in the States would bankrupt us in no time. Will take up this journal later. Thanks for listening! |