Tag Archives: Family

Happy New Year!

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2023 came in with a bronchitis bang. It was a lovely Christmas where I had the joy of having all four of my kids and my four grandkids under my roof for the first time in a few years. It is rare that this happens so I reveled in the chaos of these little people so dear to me romping about the house. I think my husband enjoyed it as well, though he would take periodic breaks in his office, I think to come up for air. He’s been spoiled with just the two us rattling around the house for a while.

But I basked in my recliner taking it all in, especially the banging of pots and pans in my kitchen as my daughter-in law cooked for all of us.

Pots and pans that I wouldn’t have to clean! What else could I want for Christmas? But as it happens, I had a birthday in-between Christmas and New Year’s. It usually gets rolled up in all the festivities, but not this time. Because it was a milestone birthday, my kids cooked up a 70s celebration, secretly decorating the patio like a disco of yore and dressing up in hot pants and knee socks, while my grandson kept me busy in my bedroom listening to him read from his new book.

It was a glorious day capped with a large arrangement of white roses from my son and his family, he whose wife cooks up some delectable Mississippi magic in the kitchen. I like to describe her food as the kind you can’t stop eating. When she volunteers to cook, I say, yes, please, and get out of the way.

Sadly, by New Year’s Eve all was nearly back to normal. I said goodbye for now to all but one visitor and the next day arrived my latest guest: illness. It started with a cold. I’m used to colds lasting a couple of weeks. Rotten immune system and all that. But this lagged on. Seemed to get better, then got worse, then seemed to get better, then got worse. I finally succumbed and went to urgent care. I bypassed my doc as they couldn’t test me. But since it had been over a week, the doc said no point in testing for covid or flu. He merely treated my bronchitis and sent me on my way.

But through all these weeks of painful coughing, now thankfully much, much better, I’ve had the memory of this holiday season to keep me warm and comforted. There really is no better medicine.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and that 2023 treats you kindly.

And So This is Christmas

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I will have a full house this year, to celebrate another milestone birthday. And I’m grateful for that. I truly am. I wonder how it is I got to be this old. I still feel twenty! But I have survived a year since the slipped disc diagnosis. Slight, I keep reminding myself, as if that alleviates things. But, hey, the pain is more controllable. For that I am grateful.

I tell myself how lucky I am to have illnesses that hurt worst in the morning. I have never been, and will never be, a morning person, so how apropos is that? I can linger in bed, read, write, play on my iPad. My responsibilities have lessened with age. One perk, I suppose. Or maybe, I have downsized them by instinct. Self-preservation.

Whatever it is, I give thanks to have all my kids and grandkids with me this year in what may be the very last Christmas spent in this house. I may have to change my header from palm trees to mountains. Palm trees or the sight of palm trees has always been soothing to me. They represent home, home in south Texas that is, but they have also been representative of home here in south Florida for over thirty years, though I’ve never felt of this place. Have just been passing through for three decades!

I look forward to making plans for next year. I am making mental lists of what goes with me, what gets sold, what gets given away. Something else to think about, occupy my mind. But for now, I will enjoy my family and give eternal thanks for all that I have been given in this life.

All.

I wish everyone the merriest Christmas, happiest holidays, and the very best 2023!

Ablation

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In a few days we will have an ablation. I say we, because whatever the outcome is, it will affect me. Us. My husband is lucky. When he had a massive heart attack five years ago, while doing a bike trail, kindly bystanders called 911. The paramedics at that moment were rolling by returning to their station, and he happened to crash in their presence. Fell into an arrhythmia not compatible with life. Later at the hospital, the paramedic told me that he had continued with resuscitation because he saw that he was fit, that he took care of himself. So, I kept going, he said. I focused on his muscular arms as he talked to me and I imagined the power he had put into doing CPR. They were so kind; they even collected his mountain bike from the park where he had nearly collapsed forevermore.

The doctor came to me hours later, during a respite where my husband was not trying to die, and told me that he could not do a bypass. That there was not enough well tissue to work with. I understood. In order to build a bridge, you must have solid ground on both sides. It took months, but because of the collateral circulation he’d developed as a result of his athleticism, he recovered well enough to resume most of his activities. He did have to cut down to 20-mile bike rides instead of the 50 or 75 that he’d done in the past. The doctors were amazed every time he jauntily walked into their office, sometimes with hat tipped rakishly over one eye. Miracle Man, they called him. I felt like asking the doctor, are you writing him up for a medical journal?

Now he has developed AFib. Extra beats that are stealing future beats. His electrical conduit is misfiring. And it must be burned away. He worries about not seeing his granddaughters. Is this week the last he will see of them? It annoys me. He was not as present with his own children as he is with his granddaughters. And I wonder, is it because time with them is temporary? Meant only to enjoy? And with his own children it was 24/7 responsibility. Is it because with time, we see the future in these small beings? Blood of our blood.

I worry about my leg thing, as I have come to think of it. It can be particularly cruel in the mornings and he must be there by 0800. I think I will not sleep that night and trick it into thinking it is just the continuation of the day. Normally it stops hurting in the afternoon and by bedtime I have forgotten about the spinal nerve pain. Or at least, have pushed it aside for a little while. He says he will drive himself and they can call me afterwards. But how will I ever find the car in that huge garage? And how can I even think of not being there? But will they let me be there? They are so strict with visitors in this covid age. But I will limp there regardless and if they turn me away, I will drive home and wait.

In the beginning . . .

Hot Stuff

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I take a lot of flak from some members of my family (husband) for not being able to eat jalapeños and other spicy foods. What kind of Mexican are you? they say. Well, the Tex-Mex kind that doesn’t eat hot, mouth-burning foods.

I grew up seeing five-alarm dishes being served to my dad by my mother. In fact, it was my chore to grind the chiles in the molcajete that went into those five-alarm dishes. There was a chile piquin bush growing right by our kitchen door. All my mother had to do was open the screen door, reach out and pull some colorful, pea-sized chiles from it, which she then dumped into the rest of the spices I was grinding.

I remember it made me cry. The aroma, the steam, the fumes coming off those seemingly innocent tiny orange and red chiles. They might have been benign looking but they were not benign at all. For their size, they packed a powerful punch. I don’t know how my dad could eat them, but he seemed to relish anything spicy. As did my mom.

I did try breaded jalapeño peppers once when I visited my son in Mississippi. They came as an appetizer, cut crosswise, breaded, and fried. “They’re good, Mom,” he said, popping one after another into his mouth. I looked at him amazed. He doesn’t eat hot foods, either.  

The second time we went to that same restaurant I caved and tried one, after making sure I had a tall glass of water handy. Was I surprised; they were good! And not the least spicy. Whatever they did to them in preparation, they became, in a sense, emasculated. They lost their sting. Or their stinger.

Now I read that instead of water, you should drink milk to quash the fire in your mouth. I can’t drink milk; it’s just not appetizing to me. So, all the more reason for me to stay away from the hot stuff.

The mouth-burning effect reminds me of the year I suffered with what my doctor could only call thrush, though we knew it wasn’t. It presented as redness and irritation in the mucous membranes, which translated into a constant fire inside my mouth. We couldn’t figure out what was causing it.

At the time, I was the director of three nursing units (with 24-hour responsibility), had very young children (with 24-hour responsibility), and a husband who traveled constantly. I couldn’t eat; it hurt too much. I lived on ice chips from morning till night. I went down to a hundred pounds. The last time I’d weighed one hundred pounds was when I graduated from nursing school seven years before. I couldn’t eat then because I didn’t have time, between my child, school, and two jobs, who had time to eat?

Of course, with the stress my body was now under, I ended up as a patient in my own hospital. The doctors were perplexed. Asked me all sorts of questions, interrogated me actually. Had I traveled outside the country? No, who had time for vacation?

They looked at me as if I was a puzzle to be solved. After much poking around, they hit upon the reason for my “thrush.” A vitamin B12 deficiency. For some reason, my gut was not absorbing enough of it from my food. Since then, I take a supplement religiously. If I slack off, the burning will start creeping back.

Subconsciously, anything hot and spicy takes me back to that awful year, so I pass. I know that capsaicin, an ingredient found in hot peppers, has some health benefits. For one thing, it will clear your sinuses. Fast. Just try some chips and salsa.

Y’all stay healthy.

These are “dress” dish towels I made for family members, with the appropriate theme, of course.

Tea

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For a while now, I’ve been drinking green tea. Bottled green tea, that is, which I mix half and half with Vitamin Water. I suppose this would be called, in my parlance, half-strength tea. I used to drink straight black tea for the caffeine jolt I needed. I switched to green tea a few years back after reading about its health benefits (improved brain function? bring it). But I always drink it iced.

I cannot tolerate hot tea, thanks to my mother. She didn’t go for any fancy or expensive store-bought medications. When we were sick, she brought out her teas. We hated them so much we would sometimes suffer in silence unless, of course, it was something that was difficult to hide such as diarrhea or vomiting. Those kind of gave you away and along came the tea with a homemade hot pack or two.

I can see her still, walking through our small house holding a steaming cup in front of her, and cradling it in her other palm as if it were precious. She would stand over you while you reclined in bed and waited for you to drink it, no faking that! When we were little, she would sweeten it with some sugar or honey, but once we passed a certain age, we had to down it straight. No more pampering.

It’s hard to say which was her favorite to dole out, but I remember orange leaf tea made with freshly picked orange leaves from the tree in our backyard. She would boil the leaves and then bring us this dark liquid to drink sweetened only with her love and good intentions. And no, she didn’t read the tea leaves left in the pot, at least I don’t think so.

Another was mint tea, made from leaves picked from the mint she grew in a little herb garden in our front yard. That wasn’t so bad, but we rarely got that. It was mostly taken by Mom and Dad. And then the ultimate was manzanilla tea (chamomile), the cure-all and be-all of all teas. If you sneezed, you got manzanilla to drink and it didn’t taste good. She bought the manzanilla in little bunches at the local H-E-B.

Her teas cured our GI upsets, our headache’s, and our general feeling of malestar (discomfort). And the key word is cured. We truly did feel better afterwards, but maybe it was a combination of our trust in her belief that it really would help and the strong desire to avoid drinking any more tea.

She did keep a few aspirins in the house for such things as sore muscles or sprains, but she relied mainly on her home remedies. Even when my brother injured his leg falling from a tree, that he shouldn’t have been climbing in the first place, she tried hot packs and poultices until I noticed a purplish looking lump on his calf and said, “It’s broken.”

At that, they bundled him up and drove him to the hospital. Sure enough, it was a severe enough fracture that he was admitted for several days. But when he got home, cast and all, he had to drink his share of tea. Just punishment, I say.

Though doctors and hospitals were available and accessible for my mother, she considered them a last resort. If we had a raging fever that her teas and home remedies could not touch for a couple of days then it was time for that last resort. Our family doctor was part of a large practice and it didn’t matter if you had an appointment, the wait was interminable. The waiting room was usually standing room only. You had to be really sick to sit, or stand, in that waiting room for half a day, or you had to believe that your child was so sick that you could not help him or her.

I drink my (iced) tea each and every day, and I think of her. Her philosophy of help thyself. Her willingness to use all in her power to make us well and keep us well. She was born in the month of October and I think of her more at this time And, somehow, I have a strong feeling that my mother has been plying the angels with her teas these past eleven years

Y’all take care, now.

My mother and me when I was about 2 years old.

Needles and Pins

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Needles have factored in my life ever since I was ten years old when I hand sewed clothes for my rescue Barbie. I call her that because that is what she was; my father rescued her on his sanitation department rounds. Picked her right out of someone’s trash and brought her home to me. She was dirtied and naked, but I cleaned her up, and dressed her, and loved her.

I come from a long line of women who sew, by choice or necessity, or both. A lot of my clothes were made by my mother, who made many of her own dresses as well. My much older sister also contributed to my wardrobe by making for me a green plaid skirt that came with attached suspenders. I was surprised because she seemed to always have it out for me, accused me of being the pampered one, once proclaiming that I got to have new shoes, but she only got new soles. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that I was growing and she was grown.

I guess the suspenders were her way of getting even. But if that was her plan, it failed. I liked the skirt and wore it often. Working with needles was ingrained in us, as demonstrated by her choice with which to do battle. Of course, I ended up picking a profession in which needles factored greatly. In days past, I could get an IV into the tiniest and rolliest of veins. It was nothing laudable, just part of my job, just something my limber, strong, young fingers could do.

Today, I am retired from my profession and am an active sewer and quilter. And my fingers are not so limber and stealthy anymore thanks to RA, and the osteoarthritis that comes from wear and tear. But I blame RA more. Always more.

This year, I found myself getting pricked too frequently by the straight pins that I would use to hold piecework together so that the seams and the corners turn out perfectly even as they are sewn. I know my poor fingers weren’t stabbing themselves on purpose, but I got pretty darn tired of it.

I decided to retire the straight pins and switch to these darling little clips. They have almost a death grip and hold the pieces tightly together. But they are a little hard to open if I don’t grasp them just so. And they do pinch me on occasion, but it hurts a lot less than a needle stab. I love them. Not going back to pins unless there is some particular instance why it must be a pin that is used.

So no more this.

The moral of the story is, I suppose, adapt or (hobbies) die.

Yes, please

One of my projects in progress, safety-pinned and ready for quilting. I decided to make myself a scrap quilt using 2-by-2-inch squares out of each of the fabrics I’ve worked with. I reached the size I wanted (just covers the top of my queen-sized bed) without running out of all the fabrics I’ve used for many other projects. But there’s always more scrap quilts to come.

Perhaps I will plan a quilt for my sister. I should incorporate some green plaid fabric, and maybe a shoe print fabric.

Y’all take care now.

Life, etc.

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So, I’ve been gone so long, I forgot how to get into the admin part of this site. I shall have to use their newfangled platform. New to me, that is.

You know what they say, life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. Or as my mother used to say: Uno pone, Dios dispone. (one plans, God decides)

But as they also say, life goes on, RA and all. I don’t want to exclude my little parasite for fear that it might resent being ignored, like Glenn Close in the movie Fatal Attraction.  That was a great line, “I’m not going to be ignored,” she said. Why would Dan think that a force like her could ever be ignored.

RA is like that. It won’t be ignored, but we can try. Every day. Some days I’m more successful than others, and presently, it’s behaving itself. I have been doing manual labor for five weeks. I decided to go on a remodeling binge. My husbands pleads, “This it, right? We won’t do this again, will we?”

Funny thing, he has to do nothing, except put up with a little inconvenience, like sleeping in the other bedroom for a couple of weeks while they worked on our bathroom and closet. And maybe skirt around the furniture while they paint the walls. He’s at work all day. I’m the one home juggling the needs of several crews at once.

But I did bring this on myself. I never knew how many books I own, or how many framed pictures and artwork were on my walls. Seeing them all together was eye-opening. And I’m willing to lug my beloved books from room to room, no matter how heavy they are.

My only complaint is that if I sit too long in between spurts of activity, I have a hard time getting restarted. I feel like the tin man, rusty as hell, frozen in place. But as I told my rheumy who laughed at me (laughed with me?) it’s age, wear and tear, not specifically RA. Though I’m sure it’s in cahoots with the osteoarthritis, and we won’t specify the age. I’m years young, not years old.

It’s been a busy year. I was psyching myself up to live through another June 11th, the day my husband tried to check out last year. We are both still traumatized by those events. And while I was dreading the day arriving, my son had a car accident. He had an injured ankle, which turned out to be fractured. But the cause of the accident rocked my world. He’d had a heart attack, at the age of 35.

This was June 2nd. And at three o’clock on the morning of June 5th, while I was trying to sleep but couldn’t because they were going to do a cath that day to find out what heart damage there was, my older son called me.

You know that a 3 a.m. phone call is a bearer of bad news. I held my breath as I reached for my phone, thinking about his children, him, his wife. But they were all O.K. He had called to tell me his father had just died. From a heart attack.

He’d had three already, and had been told his only possible treatment was medications. I knew the day would come, but you are never ready. I’d spent part of my life with this man. And though we went our separate ways, we remained connected through our son.

I immediately wanted to split myself in two. Both my sons were in trouble and needed me. One, alas, far from me. I had to think. I know my older son has a wonderful support system in his wife and her family. I see how they love and respect him.

And my younger son was scared to death, his wife is pregnant and she has no real family close by. I had to stay put. But it was really, really hard living through the physical and psychological trauma of one son, while aching to be with the son who was feeling such emotional pain.

I will see him and his family in a couple of weeks. We are meeting up in Disney World. And then we see each other again for Christmas. I can’t wait.

My younger son is dealing with his new, hereditary health status and is still limping around. It will be a while before his ankle, tendons, and ligaments, recover to where he can get back to his karate training. He had scheduled to test for his 2nd degree black belt at the end of June.

Meanwhile we await the birth of his little girl in nine weeks or so. I can’t wait for that either and have broken out my sewing machine. More baby quilts to make.

Through all this, RA has maintained a presence, though not an overly aggressive one. I am completely off Prednisone and have had no other med changes. My labs are slightly off, but then so am I.

Hope all is well with you, dear reader.

 

Dancing In My Happy Place

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When you arise in the morning think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love — Marcus Aurelius

I shall celebrate.

For the moment.

Had my rheumy check-up yesterday. Hadn’t been there in four months. I’d anticipated his incredulity when I told him what I’d been busy doing this summer.

It was not the usual summer, not by a heartbeat. But we made it through, almost. In nine days it will be fall. Or autumn, if you prefer. And summer will be behind us. My husband is doing cardiac rehab, working out and lifting weights, with a portable heart monitor weighing him down while he does it, mind you. He complains they go too easy on him. He stopped requiring dialysis weeks ago and the dialysis catheter was finally pulled last week. He’s driving and back at work.

I doubted that this day would come. I knew too much. I read the cardiologist all too well. His eyes shared with me what his words would not. And because I was also weighed down, albeit not with a temporary portable monitor, but with a permanent dread and a constant worry, I doubted. And I wondered, as I stumbled through my never-ending days, when my own collapse would come.

I’d taken precautions of course. When you have RA as your constant companion you cannot ever go without protection. I fortified myself by increasing my daily dose of Prednisone by an extra 4 milligrams on The Day After, as it will be forever known in my mind. I had already made the decision to stay on 1 mg forevermore. I want quality not quantity, I’d told my rheumy. He understood perfectly; he deals with the demon himself.

And so to forestall the demon rising and knocking me down when I could least afford it, I upped my Pred. That gave me some peace of mind, but still I waited and watched and wondered every morning when I took my dose. Would today be the day? Was it there? Closing in on me? Lurking?

A couple of weeks ago I caught a cold and felt like poop and I thought this is it, down I go. Thankfully, it happened after he’d been given the green light to drive. How’s that for lucky! I could give in to my cough and my sniffles and my lethargy as much as I pleased. And that I did, for two whole weeks as it turned into some sort of viral bronchitis.

But eventually, it went on its way and it came time to draw my labs for my upcoming rheumy visit. I was curious as to what the results would show. How bad would they look? I visualized the numbers based on the previous ones when there’d been no life or death crisis to live through. Well, yesterday I found out how they look.

They look normal.

Every one.

I haven’t been normal, well at least in this way, for twelve years. Twelve long years.

I don’t know why now, and I won’t ask. I’d already started the weaning process of saying goodbye to the extra Prednisone sloooooowly. My rheumy agreed and slowed it down even more. That’s OK. I can do slower. I see him again in December and by then I’ll be back down to the 1 mg dose, which I’d vowed to continue indefinitely.

Time will tell, as it does with all things. For now I’m to continue with the 22.5 mg of Methotrexate weekly. He’s so cautious he wouldn’t let me decrease my dose, not even by one tiny pill. I don’t want to change more than one thing at once, he said. All right then. I can take it. Literally.

So I shall rise above my disappointment regarding that and dance in my happy place.

For just a little bit.

And then, I will resume my plans to go see my precious baby grandson. A trip that was delayed by the events of this summer. I saw him born last fall and God willing I will see my beautiful boy this coming fall when he turns one.

 

Proof that life goes on.

Proof that life goes on.

A Change is as Good as a Rest.

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This past Saturday morning I wanted nothing more than to snuggle deeper into the covers and stay there. After a month of early rising and little sleep, I wanted to remain in my cocoon and hide from the world.

The very idea of rising to shower, dress and leave the house when there were no appointments to go to seemed like a punishment I didn’t deserve. But my daughter-in-law had put me on notice.

While we were all consumed with being at the hospital, she quietly took over the care and feeding of the troops, including the out-of-towners. And she paid special care and attention to my granddaughter.  We didn’t know what to tell her, she being only six. My first impulse was to protect her and tell her nothing. But how to explain the sudden disappearance of her beloved Pa?

My daughter-in-law handled it all, quietly and efficiently. So quietly and efficiently, I began to feel guilty. My son was a constant at my side, and took turns with me spending nights at the hospital, while his wife was left alone to carry the ball for the whole family.

I made a mental note to do something for her, someday, when I was not so tired, but she got ahead of me. She was taking me out to lunch and a massage she said. And though I reluctantly got out of bed and left the house that morning, leaving my son at home with his dad, I felt a little lighter by the time we made it to the corner a block away.

It turned out to be the right medicine for me. To move away, just far enough, just long enough to breathe free air.

We enjoyed a leisurely lunch of specialty pizza with a lot of much-needed sangria. And afterwards we walked down blistering hot streets to the massage place. Even the boiling sun felt good.

The massage hurt, though I’d asked for light to medium pressure to be applied. Too many tense and knotted muscles in my back. Later when we compared notes, I found out that her massage had hurt too, for the same reason.

Nonetheless, it was a good experience. The dim lighting, the gentle, soothing voice of the masseuse and her otherwise healing touch, the sense of letting go and just allowing myself to be was something I hadn’t realized how much I needed until that moment.

Now I have something else to be grateful to her for. And I still need to come up with something to do for her.

Us, a few Mother's Days ago.

Us, a few Mother’s Days ago.

 

 

Pokes Galore

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I had my two-week BP follow-up last week. Like a good girl, I’ve been taking my Lisinopril every day, well, except for one day. I had a glass of wine and decided to skip it, but then I felt guilty for doing so. So I said, what the hay, I’ll have both if I feel like it. YOLO, right?

Doc asked me if I’d been taking my BP. He looked surprised when I said no. I don’t have a personal BP machine, nor do I plan to get one. It did cross my mind while I was at my “favorite” haunt, CVS, but I totally forgot to check it. I mean, why raise your blood pressure?

When he took it, I read 132/80. He was happy with that, but he wants to see me in three months. Which means I have to keep taking this little pink pill for three more months. And he wanted a slew of blood work, fasting. I usually stroll into the lab sometime in the early afternoon. This meant I had to get up early and go get bled before breakfast.

I’ve never been a morning person. I perk up around noon. The idea of rushing out of the house, sans breakfast, to go get needled wasn’t all that appetizing. It took me a few days to psyche myself up, and when I walked into the lab I knew why I go late in the day. It was packed to the rafters.

Two and a half hours it took for them to end up sticking me twice. That’s never happened to me. They always get it on the first try. But I was submissive and said nothing. No need to rattle the phlebotomist and cause her to stick me thrice.

What kept me calm was the ongoing thought that in a couple of days’ time there was going to be another needle introduced into a far more sensitive part of my body. I would have willingly taken a third needle to my right arm in place of that.

I knew two things when I walked into the ophthalmologist’s office. The sight in my right eye was better and I was going to get another shot.

The scan proved me correct. The blood settled by the retina was half gone. Vastly improved, but needing more treatment.

There was only one glitch. The cheaper drug he’d used before was not available, they’d ordered wrong or something. But, he had a sample of the designer drug, if I was of a mind. First, I asked if there was any difference in effect. They were essentially the same he said. It was a matter of dollars and cents for the pharmaceutical.

OK, how impacted would I be in the dollars and cents category? No impact at all, he said.

I mulled it over for a bit. We can order the other drug and you can come back, he said.

Did I need more anxious anticipation?

No. I’m here, prepped and ready I said. Just do it.

The immediate after effect was different. My eye was only slightly red, the sting was mild. I could open my eye, though it was sensitive to light.

I’d driven myself there figuring I’d sit in my car for a bit while the worst of it wore off, but I had no trouble driving home immediately after. I had almost no discomfort for the rest of the evening and night. The next day my eye was slightly pink and slightly sore, a result more than likely from the Betadine antiseptic. I used the artificial tears frequently and as he said, all was back to normal after a day.

The eye injection was definitely easier the second time around but I still don’t want to do it again, though I will probably have to. I did postpone the next appointment a few days past the four-week window as we won’t be in town. We plan to be in NYC celebrating our daughter’s 25th birthday. A quarter century. How did she get so old?

***YOLO = you only live once. I sincerely hope!