Hello, friends.
Just… looked to see when I last posted here, and I can’t believe it was December 6, 2024. It’s been 11 weeks!! Every Friday morning I wake up and think, I missed my blog again. I had no idea that I’d done that 11 times. Yikes. Apologies, all. I guess a (good as any) way to dip my toe back into the bloggy water is to attempt a broad catch-up, for those of you still around and interested.

Here goes!

Holidays
With the holidays came visiting relatives and lots of quality time with family, and those were the best times! There is nothing like family. We are blessed, especially so in that everyone’s doing well.

Health
Sjögren’s Syndrome (autoimmune): Same as always. Nothing new.
Lung: Charlotte the Lung persists in her totally manageable holding pattern of structural abnormality (partial collapse) and low-grade infection (fungal). No changes, no new issues, all is well. I have another pulmonary function test and CT scan scheduled for next month, just to confirm.
Breasts: My mammogram revealed an area of concern, so I had to have a biopsy. That took place on the day after Christmas, and the result came back benign. We like a normal biopsy, yes, we do.
Brain: My brain has joined Charlotte the Lung in earning herself a name due to shenanigans. I call her “Agatha” after the Queen of Mystery, the wonderful Dame Agatha Christie. Agatha the Brain is being mysterious, but my neurologist is on the case! More on this to come.
Gums: I got to enjoy my fourth gum-graft surgery on Wednesday last week.
Years of monitoring and four surgeries later, my periodontist and dentist agreed that my gum recession is a case of unfortunate genetics. There is likely a fifth surgery in my future. I had my top front done twice, the bottom front, and now the bottom sides. The top sides will be next, whenever it gets to that point.
I’m healing well, I think, and today I was able to eat oatmeal, the most solid food I’ve had since the surgery. It was delicious.
Mental health: After over a decade, my medication’s been switched from Buproprion (Wellbutrin) to Desvenlafaxine (Pristiq) in the SNRI class. We had pharmacogenetic testing done to make sure that the new medication will work with my DNA, and it does… wonderfully, might I add! I’m very happy (pun not intended) with this new anti-depressant.
Other: I had a cold and a bout of food poisoning. They were neither here nor there. The cold did not develop into pneumonia. The food poisoning did not last longer than three days. Best-case scenarios!

Fitness: We’ve been sadly inconsistent with our workouts since November. It’s been fits and starts. Things keep happening… houseguests, holidays, illnesses, and occasional other circumstances. We’ve only worked out three times this month, and then I had surgery last week and it’s No Exercise For Two Weeks as I recover. Once cleared, I’ll get back to trying to get back, and then boom, a three-day brain test in March during which I won’t be allowed to work out. [::shakes fist at Agatha the Brain::] See what I mean? Fits and starts.
It will happen in time, though not soon enough!

Home
My office went through a major re-vamp, and you know – if you’ve been here from the beginning – that I’m going to come to you with an “Updated Office Tour” picture post. This time, though, there’s been a bigger change than décor theme! For the first time in ten years, there are no plants in my office. I’ve moved them all into the bedroom so that I can keep my office door open. The cats don’t go into the bedroom, so the plants are safe behind that closed door. (The cats are safe, too. Many of my plants are toxic to cats.)

Speaking of the cats…

Kids
Feline kids (Roary and Sabrina) are great, and
Reptile kid (Geronimo) vacillates on the line between hibernating and not-hibernating. A desert tortoise will do this; it’s just challenging when you have him artificially hibernating in a Sterilite box in the tool shed. It was 76F today, so I took him out – with great ceremony, mind you – and placed him in the sun to bask.

I went back into the house and came back a while later to check on Geronimo. He’d moved a few feet over. Next time I came out to check on him, I found him hunkered down at the corner of the tool shed, sound asleep, so I opened the door and put him back in his box. This time. The high temps into the next week, starting tomorrow, are projected to be 79, 78, 81, 85, 86, and, finally it’ll be 90F on Wednesday the 26th. If it’s actually 79 tomorrow, I’m not putting him back in the shed. Rise and shine, kid! I miss you.

On that note, it’s late, so I’ll close here. I didn’t expect this overview to go on this long, anyway!

I hope you’re well.

Always.