July 30 - Guess what? For the first time since I came home from the hospital, my neck incision did NOT get infected this past weekend! I know, shocker, right?

My skin graft is finally looking MUCH better. I think showering with all the bandages off has been a huge help. A lot of the scabbimg and blood is slowly washing off and I can now see the healthy skin underneath. Plus, as of Friday it finally stopped oozing. It's been dry for 4 days straight, Woo hoo! Next appointment to see Chrysa is 8/8 and I'm feeling good about her letting me go back to work on 8/13! Yay! I've had more than enough downtime now, thank you very much.

Lots of stuff going on this week. Today, Sandi came out and spent a few hours kicking my butt at backgammon. She left right after lunch and I was immediately on the phone with a plumber. I did a load of laundry last night and the downstairs toilet and bathtub backed up plus the basement where the drain hole is located, flooded. Turns out the pipe from my house to the road had a bunch of roots blocking it. $166 later I can do laundry safely and dryly once again. On the downside, they showed me the view going all the way down the pipe to the street and there are numerous places where the pipe has corroded into nothingness or where it's collapsing in on itself. I am now pinching pennies and will hopefully have the 6K for that repair job saved up by February. Damn. Home ownership is costly!

Tomorrow morning is the dentist appointment where they prep my teeth for radiation. JT, H, and Jer are coming to visit me at lunch. Then I'm off to the goop appointment in the afternoon. Wed is the PET scan. Thursday the plumbers are back to replace my hot water tank because it's 14 years old and rusting away to nothing. My friend Jamie will also be stopping by so that I can talk to him about potentially doing some part-time housekeeping for me during radiation treatments if necessary.

The "if necessary" part of that last sentence is new as of today. I was talking to Rochester Karen today and she said last summer her Dad had radiation treatments for his prostate. 5 days a week for 9 weeks and he wasn't affected by fatigue much at all. She said he was still golfing every week for crying out loud! So, I am now hoping my freak out about extreme exhaustion might all have been for naught.

Of course, I'm still going to take some precautions, just in case. I'm going to hit Walmart and stock up on everything! (Especially pet food.) And as mentioned above, have a housekeeper ready in the wings. I still need to buy the puke bucket. Can anyone think of what else I should do ahead of time, just in case?

Lastly, RayB stopped by on Saturday to play some cards with me. He had a most excellent suggestion for a new vice............Porn! LMAO!