Drug Study
Hip Revision
Adopt A Nun
The Wedding Erica’s
Manager Visit
New Super Market
Hip Revision Recovery
LNL Conversion
May Expenses
Rocky Boots and Chinese Stress Balls
Acupuncturist
Fall of 2000
Sparkill – November 2000
Major Car Accident
A Terrible Financial Decision
January and February
Financial Planner
Dental Work
Doctor, Dentist, and Jury Duty
September 11, 2001
The Rest of 2001
Drug Study
I am not sure if you guys remember but I talked about being in a drug study for a new RA medicine called Enbrel. You would give yourself a shot twice a week. I ended up getting the placebo and stopped about 4 months into the 6-month trial. Because I had participated in the study, afterward they analyze their initial results I was offered to again participate in the study only this time I would be getting the real medicine. I would have to go for a check-up every month, answer a questionnaire each month and participate in a phone interview with the drug manufacturer every three months. To this day I am still giving myself the shot of Enbrel once a week.
Hip Revision
The reason I bring the drug study up is that it was during this month on Jan 18th, that they did a hip revision surgery on one of my hips. The doctor said it was one of the easier revisions he had done because he did not have to work to get the old replacement out. It just fell out with no problems, which was highly unusual. But it meant that I had to be off my RA medicine for several weeks before and after the surgery.
The first time the surgery was done was on both hips and I was in the hospital for 12 days. This time I was only in the hospital for 5 days. Because the hospital was not in a great section of town, I had Connie leave early and we hired a service called “September Service” to stay with me that first night in case I had any problems. I have also posted a story about the “Medication Mix-Up” in “Stories-Other”.
The surgery was done on a Tuesday, January 18th, and on Sunday we went out with friends we had known since 1976 for a late lunch. I am not sure where we were planning on going but I do remember it was closed and we ended up eating at a Mexican restaurant called Ojeda. Gary and Carol and their daughter Erica showed up for my surgery ad they took me to surgery around 10 that morning.
Adopt A Nun
I do not remember much about it, but Connie and I adopted a Nun, named Sister Philomena the previous December and started sending yearly checks to the convent where she resided. It was a program to help this convent support the older sisters who had retired. What was unusual we just agreed to adopt a nun and were surprised when her name was Sister Philomena as that was the saint, I had chosen during my RCIA journey.
I am not sure what went wrong with the car that month, but it was expensive to have it repaired. We spent $1625 on car repairs that month. It had to be on my 1991 Oldsmobile as Connie’s Blazer was too new and was still under warranty.
The Wedding Erica’s
I had gotten out of the hospital on January 22nd, and two weeks later I went to a wedding. Gary and Carol’s daughter that had visited me in the hospital was getting married on February 5th. It was an evening wedding. I remember how hard it was to get dressed in a suit for the wedding. It started at about 7 pm and we also went to the reception afterward even though we did leave early before 11. I was using a walker at the time and was extremely slow. I know I could not have done it without Connie’s help. In looking back there are so many things I could have not done without her help.
Manager Visit
I was still home recovering during February when my manager and a couple of my co-workers said they were going to come out and visit me over the lunch hour. The manager said they would bring pizza for lunch. It turns out they were about forty-five minutes late getting there and they did not bring pizza. Connie never forgot that as she said what kind of guys tells you he going to bring you pizza for lunch, show up late with no pizza. I do not blame Connie, for being mad. She had drinks, plates, and some dessert ready for the people showing up. After they left, she still had to run out and get us some lunch.
New Super Market
Allen was growing and there was a new major supermarket opening called Tom Thumb. It opened in February and I remember going there when it first opened with Connie. I was still on my walker and Connie got me to an area where they served food so I could sit down while she shopped at the new supermarket.
Hip Revision Recovery & Cart
During February we had Jay do some house repairs, got the carpets cleaned, and spent $459 having the air condition and heating unit worked on. Toward the end of February, I received a cart from Tanglewood Medical that my insurance covered most of it. I was getting ready to go back to work but the building I worked in was large and I felt that I needed that to help me get around. It worked out beautifully as it was not too heavy, but I could not lift it with my hip have just been redone. So, when I would drive into the office, I would call a person who would come and get it out of the trunk for me and sit it up which was extremely easy. The cart folded almost flat when the batter was detached, and the battery was easy to take off and attached and only weighed about 4 pounds. I would plug it in at my desk to keep it charged during the day and then I would have someone help me when I left. It was very neat for getting around, but I do remember one time making a hole in the drywall as I turned too soon. Sometime over the next three months, I would ride it around the neighborhood with Connie. Even though I had the cart that was for long distances and I still had to use the walker around the house and at work for short distances.
If you remember, this is the month for “The Husband Give Away”, if you have not read it, you can read all about it in “The Funnies”.
LNL Conversion
March must have brought us some storms as I put $500 down for roof repairs from Tailor Made Roofing. I also bought tree cookie bouquets that month and I have no idea for whom or why. I had returned to work by now as we did the conversion for Lincoln National Life earlier this month. I know, I went in on a Saturday afternoon, while we were running the conversion process. Even though I did not have much responsibility, I went in because of my experience in case they needed any help. The conversion team was leaving Sunday for Hartford Connecticut where Lincoln National Life was located. They would be on-site to work with the clerks as they adjusted to using a new system. The rest of us would be here to handle problems they uncovered and to make sure we prioritized them according to the impact on the customer.
April, I had a couple of large amounts of income come income in. I received a $1,496.25 refund from my medical insurance from the purchase of the cart after my hip revision surgery. I also received a check for $3,206.88 from the sale of software. I have no idea what the money from the sale of the software was. It does not make sense to me.
May Expenses
May was an expensive month for us. Before I get to that toward, the latter part of May, I visited Dr. Jones, my orthopedic surgeon. I went in with a walker and walked out with a cane. It was so good to be able to get rid of that walker and not be dependent on the cart. Being back to just the cane made me so happy.”. They finished redoing the roof this month from the storm earlier in the year and it cost another $4182.95 besides the previous $500 we had put down. We also spent almost $500 on home repairs and getting work done on the spa.
Rocky Boots and Chinese Stress Balls
Rocky Boots
June, I went to Sherman to buy some Rocky Boots for Dr. Jones and me. I am including a story about Dr. Jones and the shoes we both wore, “Rocky Boots. You can find it under “Stories” – “Others”. It is called “Rocky Boots –2000”. This month I also received a bonus check for my work on the Lincoln National Life Installation. It was for $8,000. Finally, now that I was back to just using a cane again, Connie and I took off for several days to go to Hot Springs Village. Connie loved it there and it had been at least seven or eight months since we had been. One of the things, I remember so much, it that Connie loved it so much, she always cried when we left. We also joined Sam’s Club in June.
Acupuncturist
I started seeing an acupuncturist in July, a lady named Shelly Tsai. She and her husband were supposed to be a couple of the best acupuncturists in the area. I went to see her from July through October. I did this based on Connie’s experience with an acupuncturist she used. I did not have as good of luck with it as Connie did. You can read about Connie and her results from seeing an acupuncturist in “Stories” – “Other”, “The Acupuncturist– late 90s”. During July we started having Mountain Valley Water delivered. They had this machine we had put in the spa room and every month they would bring a great big jug of water and place it in the machine. The water was exceptionally good and refreshing. We continued that until we moved in September of 2004. We also started experimenting with online grocery shopping and having it delivered. That seems to be quite common now but back then it was new.
Fall – 2000
We had just gone to Hot Springs Village in June but because we missed several months because of my hip replacement surgery we returned in August. I remember us eating at Forbidden City the same restaurant that used to be here in Texas, but their owners had moved to Hot springs Village.
Our air-conditioner went out on us and we had to have it replaced in September. A new air conditioner at that time cost us $3,614. I also joined Weight Watchers in September and continue through November. We met on Tuesdays or Thursday nights. I believe it was Tuesdays. My weight had jumped to 215 and I wanted to get it down to 200. I did make that goal, but I am not sure I did it the right way. What I would do would be not to eat or eat very little on the day that we had to weigh in. We met at St. Jude’s a 6 PM and I remember always getting some good to eat afterward.
I found myself laughing when I saw we also joined Costco in October. I have no idea why we were members of both Sam’s and Costco because with just the two of us we did not need the big packages that they sold.
Sparkill
In November Connie and I went to visit her mother in Sparkill, New York. I think I mention before she lived at Thorpe Village which was run by nuns. We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Orangeburg and rented a car from National. I think by this time we had started flying into LaGuardia instead of Newark. If I remember correctly, we went on a Friday, November the 3rd, and stayed until Wednesday the 8th. I am not sure what all we did that weekend but as always, I know we took her mother to Red Lobster as we did that every time, we visited her. I remember the night of the 6th, as I was watching the election returns, and finally went to bed when they announced that Al Gore had won. The next morning, I found out that he had not won, and it was all going to depend on a recount in Florida.
Major Car Accident
On November 17th, a Friday in 2000, I had left very early to go to an appointment for my drug study. I think I had to be in downtown Dallas at the clinic by seven that morning and it usually took over an hour by the time, I filled out the paperwork, talked to the nurse had blood drawn, and saw the doctor. I remember leaving around 8:30 and thought about stopping for a biscuit and sausage at Braum’s before I got on the North Dallas Tollway. I decided against it and got on the tollway at the Mockingbird entrance. I had only gone three or four miles and had not even made it to the next entrance and exit when a car came around me doing about eighty miles per hour. She had not gotten very far in front of me when she clipped another car and spun around and around. She turned sideways in the middle of the tollway when I hit her right on the driver’s side. Luckily, I was trying to swerve so I hit her hard, but it was not a complete direct blow but an awfully hard one. I was lucky I did not turn her over. After I hit her, I glance off her car and ran into a wall on the side of the tollway head-on. She was still turned sideways in the middle of the tollway and I was off on the shoulder my front end into the wall. I was so glad she had a bug car because the first thing I thought after a few seconds and realizing what had happened, was did I kill her. The police and ambulance came, and they took her away in the ambulance. After talking to the police, so they could fill out their report. and declining to go to the hospital I was allowed to leave. My car was not in great shape, but it was drivable.
I was hurting and had decided I would drive back up toward where I worked and go to the emergency room there. I got there and called Connie who came to be with me. By now I was in some pain. I remember kidding the nurse saying I hope I do not have holes in my underwear, as that was something my mother always said: “always have good underwear on in case you need to go to the hospital”. She said people always say that, but the biggest problem is not the underwear it is people seem to have a lot of holes in their socks.
It was determined that I had a hairline fracture in a couple of ribs. They gave me some heavy-duty pain medicine and sent me home. I stayed in bed sleeping from the pain medicine most of the day. Around six-thirty, a lady showed up from Progressive Insurance Company. She wanted to check to make sure I was ok. I inquired about the other lady and how concerned I was that she might have been hurt badly. She told me she was going to be ok and had been released from the hospital that afternoon. I think the thing that saved her was she was in a big car that could absorb the impact. After checking to make sure I was ok, she asked to look at my car. She came back in from the garage and said, hey would probably total it.
The night before Thanksgiving which was the 23rd, I had not slept well and was having a lot of pain. Around nine that morning, I told Connie, I could not take it anymore and be going back into the emergency room. I told Connie, there was no need to come because I did not know how long I would be there. There was not much that they could do but it was just going to have to heal on it on.
I got home around one and Connie and I went to the Black-Eye Pea for their thanksgiving dinner. I remember it so well because we both knew how lucky I had been not to have had major injuries or even worse.
A Terrible Financial Decision
In December, I made one of the worst financial decisions in my life, and I should have listened to Connie. Before that a couple of things. We had worked done on our spa and I received a check from Progressive for $4032.34 as they had totaled my car. It was less than 10 years old but had over 175,000 miles on it, so I was surprised by the amount they gave me.
Now for the worst financial decision of my life and how I wish I had done what Connie had suggested. Over the years, I had been given stock options and had participated in the stock purchase program. I remember I had a least six thousand shares of the company’s stock. The stock had gotten to $72 per share around mid-December. That was much more than I had paid per share. Connie wanted me to sell it and take the profits. It was not that I did not want to sell but the capital gain taxes were going to be tremendous, so I convinced her that because of that I would wait and sell them after the 1st of the year as that would give me a whole year to figure out how to do the capital gains tax.
Before the end of the year, the market started going down and down fast. By the end of December in only about two weeks with not even 10 trading days, the stock had dropped to $57,25. It never recovers to anywhere near that high as it continued to drop, Our 401k also took a major hit that year.
In hindsight, Connie was always the one that seemed to do better than I when it came to investments.
2001
January and February
I have a calendar from 2001 that Connie was using so it gives me a little more information about what was going on that year. During January, Connie had lunch with the neighbor behind us on January 5th and 11th. Connie and a lady named Mary Greene were in charge of starting the calls for the prayer chain. They had become friends and her husband Don was having knee replacement surgery on January the 9th. Connie saw her primary care physician on January 18th, and I am sure it was nothing special as she saw him every January just so she could get renewals on a prescription that she was taking. Other than that, the only other thing on her calendar is some breakfasts and lunch with friends and a couple of weekends where she had scheduled us to have lunch with friends.
In February, I went and met with Progressive reality as they want me to sign off on the accident. They gave me some more money because of the accident to get me to give up my medical claims. I told them I would not sign until I had met with my orthopedic surgeon and got an all clearance from him. They still gave me some money for future medical bills, but I did not sign off about future claims. It was $1,931.20. Connie and I sent $100 to sister Philomena the nun we had adopted. Connie, met with Dr. Williams on the 15th to get a night guard for her teeth as she was grinding them during the night. We also had a major payment to Plano Medical Center for $931.50. I think that was for the emergency room visit after my accident in November but Progressive reimbursed me for that expense. We had all the carpet cleaned in the house that month.
Financial Planner
I was continuing my weight watcher program in March and was doing ok as I was keeping about 10 to 15 pounds off that I had lost. I also received a $5000 bonus that month but have no idea, what it was for now. We had already gone through two financial planners that both Connie and I were very happy with. The first one was Kimberly who was just starting out, she got married and moved away. We then had Derrick, who Connie thought was great, but I think it was more his British accent that she liked. He took a promotion and moved to Ameriprise’s home office in Minneapolis Minnesota. Toward the end of 1999, we end up with a gentleman named Todd Bloom, who had been a nuclear engineer but switched careers and became a financial planner. The great thing about Todd was that Connie was extremely comfortable with him. We always thought I would go first, and it was someone we trusted that would do right by Connie and she had confidence in him. I am still using his office but since he is semi-retired, I now use one of his associates.
Dental Work
Connie and I had a standing joke about the dentist. I made sure we both saw the dentist as often as we should. For Connie that was every six months and for me that was every 10 weeks. Since both of my parents had lost their teeth and I did not want that to happen to either of us. I would tell Connie “If I had wanted a toothless woman, I would have married a girl from Tennessee”, she always laughed at that and it made our dental bill seem worthwhile.There was some major dental work going on in March and I believe it was for Connie’s night guard as we spent over $600 that month with the dentist. A new Mexican restaurant open in Allen called Mexi-Go. Connie and I ate there quite frequently up until about 2010 and then we would go occasionally. This was also the month that we started going to Bennigan in Frisco. We went there about 3 Saturdays a month until late 2007. We had a favorite waitress named Shannon that use to waited on us every time. I also bought new glasses from Pearl Vision. I must have bought two pairs based on what I paid for them.
In April we took a trip back to Hot Springs Village because I have a receipt from Pegasus café there. I remember how much Connie loved going there especially for breakfast as she really enjoyed the breakfasts that they served. I see from our calendar that Connie was meeting people about once a week for breakfast or lunch, but it was strange, to see on the calendar that on the 25th of this month she had breakfast with Flo, and lunch with Diane.
Doctor, Dentist, and Jury Duty
Doctor, Dentist and Jury Duty
I am not sure what was going on in May of that year, but Connie went to see Dr. Kellum on Friday the 13th. That was highly unusual as I remember her seeing him every January, so I am not sure what was going on. We had a very high dental bill that month that was over $1200. So, I much have had to get a couple of crowns. I wish I could remember s she served on jury duty that month. I am not sure if she served on a jury or that was the time, she had to go to Sherman which is about 45 minutes north of where we live for a federal grand jury. She received $71.05 in jury duty pay, so it may have been the federal jury selection as the county only paid $5 a day. I remember we drove up on a Sunday afternoon so she would know where the Federal Courthouse was and where she could park. She did not get selected but the jury was being selected for people on trial for stealing automobiles, taking them across state lines, and selling the parts. Connie was so glad not to be selected for that jury.
In looking at June one thing really confuses me, and that is Connie went back to see Dr. Kellum. I cannot recall why she would see him twice in two months as that was highly unusual. We had a major expense for air-condition repair this month and we spent a lot with Jay doing house repairs.
I am now totally confused as Connie was back to see Dr. Kellum. I cannot remember what was going with Connie, but I cannot even recall what was going on with her health-wise. Connie had also scheduled up for two Saturdays out with friends. One Saturday we went out with Tom and Sonja and the other Saturday we went out with Gary and Carol.
Not much was happening in August and September, but Connie was going out with a lot of different friends for lunch and breakfast. In September we bought a new computer for about $1,500 at Gateway. I remember it so well because there was a gateway store in Plano that was a little hard to get to but if you remember the Gateway stores were painted to look like a cow.
September 11, 2001
On the morning of September 11th, I had arrived at about my normal time 7:30, and by 8:00 we all knew about the planes hitting the twin towers. I am not sure how much work really got done that day as everyone was trying to get the latest news about what was happening. There were about six of us who went to a little lunch place in the Colony and sat there for about 90 minutes just glued to the TV.
Connie’s friend Flo was scheduled to fly to Philly to see her family on the morning of September 12th but because of the terrorist attack all flights were canceled and she would have to reschedule her trip. She was finally able to make it to Philly on October 10th.
The Rest of 2001
One Saturday in October we came home to find our water heater had gone bad and there was water running out the garage when we got home. It was a little after one as we had been out to lunch. We were able to call and get it replaced that day. I cannot believe it only cost about $400.
I sold some stock in November, but it was not EDS. I cannot remember which stock it was, but I do remember that my friend Bob Brune had recommended it. We bought a new mattress and box springs for the bed in our master bedroom. Connie, definitely Pfaltzgraff, and we bought a new set of dishes from them. I still have them today. We also went back to Hot Springs Village for Thanksgiving this year.
More house repairs were required in December as I see Jay, we paid Jay several hundred dollars that month. One thing we were still doing was our Thursday night pizza, we had been doing it for several years and continue. Pizza Inn had a Pizza Night on Thursday where they were charging 1950s prices. It made have been a little higher but that the way they advertised it. They also had a big Pizza Buffet that night which we enjoyed.