Tag: Agent Orange (Page 1 of 55)

Here in North Texas, we tend to have warm weather well into the Fall. I first planted tomato plants outside on Feb 28, and we had our first ripe tomato in May. The last of these tomatoes ripened in September, and I then pulled the plants.

About the sixth of September, I planted two new plant starts of the Roma variety. As I write this one month later, we have a nice-sized tomato on one of the plants that also has several additional blossoms.

It appears that we can safely double-crop tomatoes here in Pecan Plantation.

My health continues on the upswing. Pretty soon, at this rate, I will be as normal as can be expected given the condition my condition is in. Got all that on board?

My lab visit this morning consisted of recalling all my biometrics for the technician, covering my hands with a special ointment, then washing them, and finally examining them under a black light to identify any missed areas. There were a few places, especially around the wrinkles in my knuckles, but no biggies. Then a blood draw, and lastly a flu shot of this season’s expected variety.

Stopped on the way home at a Chinese place we frequent and brought home hot and sour soup for lunch. It was too much on the hot side, so did’t eat much of it.

Our former dog walker’s last day was Monday, but luckily, we found another, and she walked Dickens yesterday morning for us. I will take him for a golf cart ride this evening, so he will have two “outings” per our plan to do this at least three times a week.

Going to chill out to ride time. Meanwhile, Let The Good Times Roll!

Today, we are to host our dialysis nurse visiting our humble abode for an annual home check. Not certain what’s involved, but we are what we are. Not expecting any trials and tribulations from the visit. Will advise tomorrow when we have completed the visit. It’s annual BTW.

Keep hearing from the Spinal Cord people. I get frequent calls from their tech reps asking me how it’s going. They outfitted me with an iPhone SE with their app on it, which I update how I’m doing. The app also informs me how much battery I have left in the battery pack embedded in my back. It was activated on 9/17/25, and so far, after 12 days, it shows three of four bars. Regardless, I’m going to recharge it on Wednesday. It has an inductive recharger that looks like a small ping pong paddle, and a battery pack for juice. The HFX (what the device is named) has a video link on its web page that is very easy to follow.

Our new domestic showed up today as planned. My wife and I split up her five hours allotted time. I had her do yard work for me, and my wife has her busy with household chores.

We are rolling along, getting stronger each day. Rationalizing meds has helped me gobs and now I wake up with a clear mind and ready to rumble.

Before I even got out of bed Sunday, my wife informed me that we were making a “To Do List” first thing. That generally does not bode well for me, as often as not, she has some task in mind that I’d rather pass on. So this morning I beat her to the punch and made up my own To Do list as follows:

1. Massague Linda’s legs – this was added first thing, and I didn’t mind.
2. Take Dickens, our Golden Retriever, for a golf cart ride. On days when our dog walker is not scheduled, I generally take Dickens for a 20-minute cart ride around Pecan Plantation, which he really enjoys, in the mornings and evenings.
3. After the ride, fuel the golf cart. I do that once a week. Takes 5.5 gal and topped up today.
4. Check tire pressures on wife’s car. We recently had new tires installed, and according to the car’s tire pressure monitor system, all pressures were off. Not now.
5. My wife has a stick vacuum cleaner; she does out tile floors with a Golden Retriever that produces gobs of hair. The brush was not going around was reported. I ran it on my workbench for some time without any difficulty, and also vacuumed floors, also no problem. So this one ended up as an open item.
6. We have a local gal coming in today to work in the house and do some yard work for me, which I had to get ready for. I filled our wheelbarrow with bark mulch – 2 1/2 bags, and loaded a cart up with 2 bags of mulch/compost for use tomorrow. We’re going to place bark mulch around three new trees we have recently planted in the front yard and replace the mulch that has floated away in the rainstorms we have here in North Texas.
7. We have a thornless rose that grows very, very rapidly and needs trimming almost weekly. I got the big Ryobi 40-volt trimmer out that we have and gave the bush a trimming.
8. The last thing on my list is to watch the Ravens-Chiefs game at 3:25 PM. I’ll be ready to sit by then.

Meanwhile, I’m going out and clean the front bumper on our truck that I recently backed into and left a little evidence behind. Keep in mind, all of this was accomplished before lunch by an 86-year-old on dialysis with heart conditions, a spinal cord stimulator, and diabetes. Not too shabby, I would say. Now to the ball game and Dickens’ evening golf cart ride.

You would think that a central piece of equipment for dependable peritoneal dialysis would be the Liberty Cycler from Fresenius. I have not found this to be the case. In this regard, the Cycler, often as not, has a mind of its own. It does what it wants to do rather than what it’s supposed to do.

Last night was a case in point. I had two bags on the cycler, a six-liter IPN bag on the heater tray, and a 5-liter bag hanging on the left of the cart connected to the first “White” bag lead. I went through a normal setup until the Cycler ran checks for bags and repeatedly informed me it found no heater bag. Usually, this is caused by not having cracked the cone enough, and over and over again, I checked the cone being broken on both bags to no avail. I had to shut the cycler down, replace the bags and cassette, and start over. Of course, this was happening on a night when I had to get up early to go to Fort Worth for an appointment regarding my spinal cord stimulator.

After the reboot and replacement of bags and the cassette, everything worked as advertised. I’m pretty certain the cassette was to blame, as this has occurred before. It is from a freshly delivered box, and the first one out. This is one of those instances where a call to tech support would only have consumed precious time and not have resulted in a more harmonious result. In this regard, Fresensisus’ “tech support” is an oxymoron.

Typically, one has a love/hate relationship. Not here, only hate. What’s to love about an inanimate piece of junk that lets you down?

And yes, my visit to the doc about how my SCS is doing went well. Got “See you in a month!” guidance.

With each passing day, the site of insertion of the Spinal Cord Stimulator is becoming less and less bothersome. At this rate, in a week or so, I should be as good as new. Have a checkup in Fort Worth this Friday. During this visit, I’m certain they will look at the area on my back, ask if I have any questions, and send us on our way—no big deal.

When we visited my dialysis nurse to unplug my stopped-up catheter, which I previously reported on, she suggested getting our GP to issue a script for meds to increase my appetite. I was at a routine dental appointment yesterday and took the opportunity to go a couple of blocks up the street to our GP’s office, where I requested a call from him to discuss getting prescribed such a med. He is scheduled to call me at 4:40 PM on 9/22. We’ll see what he comes up with. This suggestion is because the IPN is NOT increasing my albumin, while a significant cost and inconvenience to us.

I quizzed Perplexity about such appetite-increasing drugs and received the following information:

Here is a table listing the most common drugs prescribed or used to increase appetite, ordered roughly by how widely they are used or recommended as of 2025:goodrx+7

Common Appetite Stimulant Drugs

• Megestrol acetate and dronabinol are the only appetite stimulant drugs approved by the FDA, especially for severe disease-related appetite loss.healthline+2
• Mirtazapine is increasingly used off-label because it reliably increases appetite and weight.buzzrx+2
• Cyproheptadine is often used for children/adolescents with appetite loss.droracle+2
• Oxandrolone is now uncommon in the US due to safety issues, but is still used elsewhere.goodrx+1
• Corticosteroids and most antipsychotics commonly cause increased appetite as a side effect, which is sometimes exploited clinically, but significant side effects may limit long-term use.webmd+2
• Appetite stimulants are primarily prescribed for disease-related appetite loss (cancer, HIV/AIDS, or cachexia) rather than general weight gain.

This table provides an up-to-date, ranked overview for clinicians and patients interested in medically supported appetite increase.rxlist+7