Poopy Week, Great Weekend

I think this is a record for me – I’ve never gone this long without writing a blog. What can I say – it’s been a totally event-less week.  Actually, I’ve been feeling really lousy lately.  I’ve got a triple whammy working on me with regards to fatigue.  As usual, there’s the MS.  Plus, my bladder is completely out of control and I can’t retain fluids at all – this is leading to dehydration which has been causing tiredness and fatigue (yes, two very different things).  Then I have my hormones which are also out of whack, causing me to get my “thing” about three times a month, which always causes some of the worst tiredness I’ve ever experienced during the first couple days.  Ugh.  I’m on a new med for the last issue and hoping it will kick in within the next few weeks, dropping my fatigue and tired-causing issues from three to two.  Paws crossed!

 

I felt better today than I’ve felt in a while.  I picked up my plane from my aviation mechanic’s property a couple days ago.  Had two new cylinders installed, plus my annual inspection.  It was so good to go flying again.  I went for an hour long flight today.  It was the Niagara Grape and Wine Parade, so I flew over and snapped some pics:

I flew back over before noon, and there was a Cessna 172 flying over downtown pulling a banner:

Headed over my mechanic’s property and did a low and over.  I have to fly 10 hours without doing aerobatics and at a fairly high power, in order to break in my two new cylinders.  It was hard to find his property doing 746 MPH, but I managed to find it:

Within seconds, I was over my mother’s house in the next town over.  Thought I would check out her freshly painted siding and the empty space where the rusted ol’ TV antenna used to be:

A few seconds later, while doing mach 4, I was cruising over Howell’s Pumpkin farm:  Here is the cheater for their corn maze:

Don’t forget to grab a few pumpkins once you find your way out:

Flew over Bissell’s Hideaway, which has an acre-sized pool.  Clearly drained for the winter:

I have another flight planned for tomorrow.  I’m supposed to take up a friend of a co-worker at my office.  We have the time planned for 10:30, but it looks like it may be raining in the morning.  Hopefully it will clear up by the afternoon.  If not, I guess I’ll be stuck at home with my four little freaks.  Little Mya has been quite the bully lately.  Boo decided to use the cat bed to sleep in during the day.  No one has used it for over a year.  Well, Mya would have none of another cat using something that she could potentially use:

As you can see, she was accommodating at first, allowing Boo to stay curled up and sleeping, while Mya hovered over the heat register above.  Then she decided that she deserved to be in the bed too:

It was then that Mya decided that she was deserving to be in the bed by herself.  One bite on Boo’s bum lead to a quick evacuation:

What a bully.  Similar thing happened the next day too:

I was at Jan’s last weekend.  We went into Zellers and couldn’t believe they had their Christmas stuff out on display.  Hello, it’s only September!

We also went to Tim Horton’s and split another Smiley cookie.  I think the charity here is toward something to do with a children’s medical thing.  Not a bad deal – eat a yumola cookie and make a donation toward charity:

A tad deformed, but totally delicious.

Once back at Jan’s house, we noticed this horrible, massive spider crawling on the outside of her house:

Talk about going from yumalo to yuckola.  Ugh!

Today’s symptoms: The best I’ve felt in over a week.  Finally some energy.  Started getting a symptom I haven’t had since I was in university back from 1996 – 2000.  While walking home from work over the last week, I’ve been getting horrific spasms in my legs which cause me to stop dead in my tracks.  Hopefully it’s just a fluke thing that will pass very soon.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/29/2012 4:29 PM

Shopping In The States

Since my plane is being fixed, Jan and I obviously weren’t able to fly to Stratford today.  Instead, we headed over to the Factory Outlet mall in Niagara Falls, NY.  Soon after we crossed the bridge, we stopped at the Timmy’s for a coffee and some noms.  We split one of their massive smiley face cookies.  Not sure what charity it was for – I was surprised they didn’t have it advertised in the store

I rarely get in the clothes shopping mood, but fortunately, was today.  One of the first stores we went into was Zumiez.  Not surprising, since I’m addicted to them, I did end up buying a really cute hoodie.  It was buy one, get one half off, so I was able to find a spring/fall jacket too.  The guys working in the store were super nice and fun to chat with.  People like that make shopping even more fun than it usually is.

I ended up buying a couple skirts and tops.  Everything was on sale and I ended up with five or six things for about $150.  I wish Jan was able to find something for herself though.

After the mall, we went over to TOPS to buy noms.  I had to sign up for another savings card, as I lost mine about a month ago.  I think we only spent about $55 – still, got some things we can’t get here.

It was a very fun and productive day.  I came back to the apartment to see three of my kitties were studying my Commercial Pilot text book:

I rarely get a pic of all four of them together, but was able to snap this shot of them in bed a couple nights ago:

It was a nice short work week for me.  Kinda nice to have a four day weekend.  The non-filer team had a nom day yesterday.  They offered me some penne leftovers, after everyone was full.  I didn’t want to waste one of the disposable plates, so I used my mug:

Good thing everyone knows I’m weird so no one thought anything of my cup o’ pasta.

Today’s symptoms: Feeling so much better today than how I felt last week.  My fatigue level was more than tolerable.  I’m surprised how long I lasted today.  Actually, I have to head down to Fonthill in about an hour and a half to go to the Air Force Association meeting at the Legion.  Next, month I will be the guest speaker for the group.  I will be doing the same presentation I just did up at the airport in Sexsmith last month.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/20/2012 4:52 PM

Play With Your Noms

I sorta have a short week.  I took Thursday and Friday as my compressed days, so that Jan and I could fly out to Stratford for the day (Thurs).  Unfortunately, Vyctor is now at my mechanic’s having some cylinder issues dealt with.  Bummer.  I flew him in on Sunday and was greeted by this wonderful sight once I opened my door:

 

Talk about the best greeting ever!  Anyway, Jan came to pick me up to drive me back to St. Catharines.  A little tear trickled down my cheek as we drove away:

He’s so cute.  No worries from me though – I know he’s in the best hands I could ask for.

The other night, I was in bed, working on a pilot training app for my iPhone.  One of the questions had a picture of an airplane.  I almost died – it was the picture I took of my first plane!  They Photoshopped the registration on the side of the plane, but I’m 100% positive it’s the picture I took.  In fact, it’s the pic I used on my old contact cards:

Here’s my card….hello!!!

I think it’s really neat that they used my pic.  I’m going to email the company and tell them about this crazy coincidence.

You know what else is crazy, this:

Seriously, why do people do this with their pants???  Look at his friggen legs – they look like they’re the same length as hers, yet he’s over a foot taller!  Ugh.

Ok, crazy number three – my little pereguine falcon dude came back and was sitting in my bathroom window again.  I sure with I could have seen him with the window open:

Had an interesting experience just before starting this blog.  I decided to snack on some pretzel sticks with honey mustard.  Boo started pawing at the bag, so I threw a pretzel on the floor for her to play with.  I kept nomming away.  Boo jumped up on the couch, then down right away.  I noticed I dropped one on my lap, so I ate it after dipping it in the mustard.  Then Boo jumped back up on my lap and started pawing at me.  It was then that I realized that she was looking for the pretzel she was playing with earlier.  Yup, I ate it!  Yuck.  I said “Boo, that was totally gross!”  She then jumped off and on the couch three more times, bringing me pressies.  She even put one of her favourite toys, a pipe cleaner, into my mustard cup.  How sweet was that:

Today’s symptoms: After a really lousy day yesterday, I felt quite a bit better today.  A few aches and pains but my fatigue level wasn’t too bad.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/18/2012 7:49 PM

Blah Week

Please excuse my lack of bloggage this week – nothing exciting happened.  Actually, I wasn’t feeling too well.  I’m not sure if it’s the new med I started a week ago, or just other stuff going on, but I’ve been dealing with a whole week of insomnia.  Fortunately, I finally slept through most of the night last night.

 

Jan and I decided to head back to London Airport today for our second attempt this month to have breakfast at the Katana Cafe.  It was closed when we went there a couple of weeks ago.  Also, there was a book in the aviation shop that I wanted to buy, but thought I might be able to get cheaper online.  Bad news – I couldn’t find it online.  Ugh!  I called the restaurant yesterday to ensure they would be open today, plus they put me through to the aviation shop.  They set the book aside for me, since I think it was their only copy.

It was a really nice flight there.  A bit of a head wind, but we still made it there in about an hour and ten minutes.  We hit some wake from a Dash 8 that was ahead of us, while we were coming in on final.  It kinda freaked Jan out a bit, as it felt like rather abrupt and rough turbulence.  After she gave me the evil eye, I was able to get back to focusing on my landing.

We were both very relieved to find that the restaurant was open.  Our breakkies came out fairly quickly and looked delicious:

As you can see, Donkey joined us this time.

Our meals were so good – we both cleared our plates.  After noms, we went over to the shop to purchase my book.  The guy there said he also had a very hard time finding a copy of that book.  It was worth the flight back out there!

Back to Vyctor – notice how Jan pretends to need to duck to fit under the wing.  I think she could stand under, jump and still not hit it:

Once back in the air, I tried to get Jan to allow Donkey to sit on her lap.  She kept telling me to “Get lost” and threw Donkey over my way.  I made about four attempts.  Figured I would have to be a little more creative.  I told her that my seat belt was too loose and when I reached to my right to tighten it, she didn’t notice that I gently placed Donkey on her lap.  I wanted to see how far I could fly before she noticed:

About ten minutes later, we headed through Hamilton airspace.  I had to change my heading a tad to accommodate this incoming jet:

After we landed back in St. Catharines, I started laughing as I taxied over to the Flying Club.  Lil Jan asked what my problem was.  I said she would figure it out soon enough.  She went to take off her seat belt, saw Donkey, whipped him at me along with a few choice words.

We headed out to get groceries, then back to my apartment.  It was a really great day and I felt better than I have all week.  Yea!

Today’s symptoms: Hardly any aches and pains and my fatigue level was very minimal.  Hoping tomorrow is the same, as I have a few flights planned.  I will be flying out to Brantford to meet up with a friend’s grandkids, and taking them both for a flight.  Paws crossed for another good night of sleep.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/15/2012 5:59 PM

 

Shopping Spree!

I had such a great day today.  I went over to Jan’s for our usual Sunday visit.  Also, as usual, we went to Timmy’s for a coffee and some noms.  I read in a flyer that it was “spend your points” day at Shopper’s Drug Mart.  Knowing I have quite a few points, we decided to head over there and see what damage we could do.  Upon arrival, we asked an associate how we go about spending our points.  She (Susan) said that 95,000 points equals a $220 shopping spree.  Wow, I said that I have over 360,000 points.  Susan and the associate standing next to her both looked shocked and said that I must only have 36,000.  I said I’m sure it’s over 360,000.  They scanned my card and said that I had something like 369,000.  That is $880 worth of goods!  I said that Jan and I will just do the $220 spree for today.  Susan helped us out quite a bit in the cosmetics and boutique sections, then spent another 45 minutes or so wandering around the store picking out a slew of items.  It was so much fun!  Then we got a pile of samples for spending over $75 (well, free!) of stuff in the cosmetics department.  As we checked out with all of our free goodies, we did the queen wave as we loaded up the car.

 

After, we headed back into the mall and wandered around for a bit.  Then over to Zehrs for noms.

On the way back to my apartment, I stopped off at the PEN Centre to do some Christmas shopping.  Never too early to start!

Back home, the sun was shining and the kittahs took full advantage:

As usual, Boo was giving one of the other kitties a kiss.  I’m sure Abby appreciated it.  I told everyone to just chill out while I went to shower.  I came back to chill on my usual spot, only to find a plethora of naked cats:

Not sure where Pinky was.

Last night, I had a rather touching Boo moment.  She was sleeping on my lap and woke up briefly to change positions.  I instinctively reached down to scratch her face.  She instantly put her little head in my hand and went back to sleep.  I was so cute:

I think we sat there like that for almost half an hour.  Such a sweetie.

Today’s symptoms:  I’m slowly starting to get my scar tissue removal procedure out of my head.  I no longer curl up into the fetal position when I think of it.  On another bright note, I felt really good today, despite not sleeping too well last night.  I can’t believe how much energy I had.  Very few aches and pains too.  Hopefully I have another good day tomorrow, as I have my RAA meeting to fly out to in the evening.  Hope to take some folks up for aerobatic flights as well.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/9/2012 7:35 PM

Ugh!

Had a horrible day yesterday.  Ugh-ola.  I had my Tysabri infusion on Wednesday.  It went really well.  We had it finished within twenty minutes last month, which made me feel rather ill for the evening and the next two days.  Too quick for my little, wussy body.  I mentioned it to the nurse and she said we would do it over an hour this time.  I still felt like poo the next day, but that’s how it’s always been.  I’ll feel a little better tomorrow and quite a bit better on Sunday.  Life is good!  Well, it was until the following day.  I had to go back to the surgeon who did my sinus and septum surgery.  I’ve been a little stressed about this appointment since I last saw him in July.  He mentioned that some scar tissue had formed since my surgery, and it would be beneficial for him to cut it out.  Ugh, I almost passed out when he mentioned it.  Seriously, I’ve been thinking about how yucky it would be for two months.  Still, if it will help, then let’s get it done!  When I walked into his office, I noticed there was a big, honkin’ dog with his owner on the bench outside of his office (still inside the building).  I figured they wouldn’t be lingering too long.  They were super busy that day.  I was a tad stressed about my upcoming procedure, so the guy that sat across from me, smacking his lips about twice a second, wasn’t helping my stress level too much.  Fortunately, he was drowned out when a screaming kid that came into the waiting room.  Ugh.  I eventually got called into the exam room.  I still wasn’t too nervous, as I was feeling pretty lousy from my Tysabri infusion the day before.  I was actually somewhat out of it.  The doctor came in and checked my schnoze.  He said everything looked good and if I was breathing OK, he wouldn’t need to slice open the scar tissue.  I said that I was having issues when using the Medi-Rinse (aka Neti-pot).  It wasn’t flowing out the right side.  I asked if him cutting through my scar tissue (and my will to live) would help this situation.  He said it would so I replied, go for it but make it snappy.  I don’t have time for this silliness.  He pulled out a needle the length of my pinky finger (seriously) and said “Don’t panic.”  Yeah, I get right on that request.  No panicking here. He shoved it up my nose, and as I waited for it to come out the top of my head, he started the joyous flow of freezing medication.  It didn’t feel too nice, I must say.  It ran down the back of my throat, so I couldn’t breathe out of my mouth, plus I obviously couldn’t breathe through my nose.  I have really dainty, wussy lungs, so I was quickly running out of air.  He finally finished and I look a wonderful breath of air, while tasting the vile freezing meds that ran down my throat and into my mouth.  In all fairness, he did warn me it would taste horrible.  Next, he looked for his cleaver – or whatever tool of destruction he would use to excise my wretched scar tissue.  He said he would have to get his scissors from the other room.  I pictured him coming back with a pair of hedge trimmers.  Yeah, this is way too much fun.  He came back with some scissors and used these spreader thingies to pry open my right nostril.  He shoved the scissors up there and snipped out the scar tissue.  I can still hear the tissue being cut plus the pressure of everything else going on.  I still felt somewhat decent, despite the not-so-pleasant exerercism I was going through. He then said “You’re going to feel a little pressure”  Yeah, I heard that from my neurologist before she shoved the spinal tap needle into my back.  I knew it wasn’t going to be fun.  He shoved packing so far up my nose that my feet tingled.  He said it would eventually and hopefully dissolve.  I’m still refraining from sneezing so that bloody, yucky packing doesn’t fly out of my nose.  Anyway, I didn’t think it went too bad, except for that fact that it was horrible.  We chatted for a bit after, then I got up and walked out of the exam room.  Instantly, I felt very nauseous.  Fortunately, I didn’t eat yet that morning, so I didn’t think I would hurl in his office.  I walked out into the waiting room, which was completely packed.  There was even one dude standing up.  I tried to reach for the door-knob, but was already starting to lose consciousness.  I missed the knob and my body waved and crashed into the coat rack next to the door.  I managed to reach out with both hands to open the door, thinking that I just needed to get out of there before passing out onto someone’s lap.  I was finally able to open the door.  I was so grateful that the guy and his massive dog that were on the bench outside the office were gone.  I just made it over to the bench as everything went bight white then black.  I’m sure it was only seconds later that I came to and was all sprawled out on the bench, below of which was completely covered in dog hair.  I quickly went into shock – sweating like crazy, chills, shaking pretty bad.  I knew I needed to make it to my car to try to recover.  I made it out there, put the a/c on full blast and went into the fetal position.  A friend texted me and asked how it went – I told him what just happened.  He said he would come out there and we could go for a Timmy’s, just down the road.  He came by within minutes and I was able to recover while sipping on a coffee at Tim Hortons.  I’m so appreciative that there are people like him that care and are willing to help.  There was no way I could have driven back to work while in that state.

So, back at work, I told everyone what just happened.  Half of them went into the fetal position and the rest just shook.  Yuck!  Yeah, not fun but as long as it helps in the long run, that’s all that matters.

At work today, my body revolted against the stress it went through yesterday – both physically and emotionally.  I didn’t make it through the whole day at work.  Went home just after 1:00 and crashed on my couch for the evening.  Ugh – can’t wait to feel better tomorrow.

It’s supposed to be yucky weather tomorrow – hopefully I’ll have a couple hours of clear weather so I can go for a flight.

Gee, no pictures today.  Let’s see what I can do about that. Glad I don’t get to sleep alone:

Yup, that’s four hairless goobers I have to contort my body around each night.  I’m lucky to get even a corner of a sheet or blanket.  They’re so worth it though.

Today’s symptoms: Not a good day symptom-wise.  Lots of aches and pains, balance was horrible and very fatigued.  I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow after I sleep well tonight.  I think I’ll bring to bed an extra little blanket I can whip out and throw on me once the kittahs take everything else on my bed.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/7/2012 7:45 PM

Over The Rainbow

Had an awesome long weekend.  I was able to go for a really nice, solo flight yesterday.  First, I headed South along the canal.  Saw some nifty, Navy-looking ships on the way:

I flew along the Lake Erie shoreline and dipped my wings at everyone who waved at me (around half a dozen).

Passed the remnants of an old ship:

And the lighthouse at Point Abino:

Then back to the airport.

It was an awesome flight – very relaxing.

My friend Julie from work just texted me, while taking her cute dog to the park:

She snapped these awesome rainbow pics during the drive back home.  Don’t worry – I asked her if she took the pictures while driving.  She assured me she didn’t.  She had her dog Ella drive while she took the pics.  What a relief!

She was surprised how close to the airport it was.  They drove over to see where the rainbow ended – no surprise, my plane Vyctor was at the end.

The other night, there was a little fly in my living room, on the wall above the lamp.  Something so tiny and yet Abby and Boo were able to spot it instantly:

Pair of speckled dorks.  Meanwhile, little Mya was completely uniterested while chillin on this pillow:

I didn’t sleep too well last night and had a hard time staying focused at work.  Fortunately, I spent much of the day at a tele-worker’s house, training her on Windows 7 and Office 2010.  After working a few accounts, I wandered over to the Employee Assistance Program bulletin board, which hasn’t been updated in over ten years.  I spruced it up with nice, new pamphlets.  The previous ones were so old, they were turning yellow and disintegrated while I was taking them down:

Tomorrow will be much better, after I actually sleep tonight.  Mind you, I have my Tysabri infusion after work tomorrow, so it probably won’t make for the best evening.  Oh well.

Today’s symptoms:  Very tired and achy.  I couldn’t believe how stiff and sore I was.  Ugh!

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/4/2012 7:44 PM

Flight for Breakkie

It was a perfect, calm day so Jan and I decided to fly to London for breakfast this morning.  Jan was quite happy it was a very smooth, hour long flight.  I’m always up for a challenge, so when I was cleared to land on runway 09, I decided I would attempt to land and stop the plane in time to taxi onto the first taxiway.  I would have to come in rather slow and touchdown soon after the runway numbers.  I cheered when I was able to do it!  Wouldn’t the control tower folks just be absolutely thrilled that I could taxi off the runway within seconds of landing?!  Here is the diagram of the airport.  I was able to land and have the plane stopped by the red X, which meant I could easily turn onto the first taxiway (yellow line):

 

 

My cheers quickly ceased when the stinky ol’ tower called and asked that I taxi down to the next runway (thick black line) and turn right there instead.  Ugh!  My Queen wave quickly turned into another gesture.  Anyway, we taxied over to the restaurant and were shocked that it was closed.  Ugh again!  I could see it being closed for the holiday tomorrow, but why the heck would they close it Sunday?  Someone came out to ask what we were doing there and said that we could walk over to the terminal building and go to the Timmies instead.  Yeah, I just flew an hour to go to Tim Hortons!  Oh well, we decided to head over.  There was another little grill place next to Timmies and we ordered breakfast from there.  Jan wasn’t too impressed but it was better than nothing:

After our noms, we headed back to my plane.  I was thrilled to see he was still there.  On a bright note, my horizon indicator that has been spinning wildly for the last three flights (due to some pretty intense aerobatics and spins) finally stopped and righted itself.  Here’s what it looked like while spinning:

It’s supposed to look like this:

I’ll see how long it takes to get it spinning again.  I hope to fly tomorrow morning, so that should tell ya!

The flight back was a tad more lumpy due to the cloudage coming in.

We headed directly over the Hamilton International Airport:

We also passed the Stoney Creek Airport, which I didn’t know existed until today:

Once back on land, Jan and I tormented the manager of the Flying Club a little then headed out to buy groceries.  When we got back to my apartment, I mentioned to Jan that Abby has pooped under the bed twice in the last week.  Ugh!  I decided to cut up my padded mats and close in the underneath of the bed.  I was able to tape the mats we cut up to the sides of the bed, but there was no rail around the head or foot.  I needed some short nails, and a hammer would be nice too.  We walked down to the dollar store just across from my apartment – no nails or hammer.  Giant Tiger – nothing.  The Avondale – nope!  Over to the corner store up the road – success!  I bought a little box of nails, but no hammer.  I decided to just pick up a rock on the walk home and use that.  The nails were the perfect size and the rock worked wonders!  I was able to enclose the bed.  I’m just waiting for one of the cats to try to run under it – good thing it’s padded!  Not too attractive, but it’s functional and totally hidden under my bed spread:

The things we do for our pets, eh?

Today’s symptoms: Felt great!  I didn’t have any aches or pains – I can’t even remember the last time I could say that.  I also didn’t start to get pooped to later in the evening.  I would give anything to have every day like this!

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 9/2/2012 6:39 PM