My Old Self!

Went for a bike ride this morning, and really felt more like myself for the first time. I felt stronger, and could push it on hills without getting all winded. Nice to be back! Also taste and appetite have been doing much better in the last week. Even had some chocolate wedding cake Saturday! My lab last week showed the Creatinine down to 1.4, a significant improvement in the status of the kidneys. Oddly the Hct (red blood cells) was down to 25.5. I suspect this was a combination of better hydration and that the erythropoietin ("epo") shots hadn't taken effect yet. The way I'm feeling now I'll bet my Hct will be up this week!

MC and I celebrated our 35th Anniversary on the 23rd of June. My taste buds were still wacko then. Luckily we only ordered one dish of each course. It was still worth having a special dinner to recognize what we've achieved with love and mutual support. The next day MC headed out on a much deserved "vacation", driving to Utah to join Bram on a four day River trip on the Yampa River. She had a wonderful time. While she was gone I cleaned and re-stained the front and rear porches, scraped and repainted the front and rear entry stairs, installed a new bed in the guest room, and put the refurbished oar outrigger on the rowing shell. Now in addition to bicycling, swimming and weight machines, I am rowing at least once a week. I haven't tried running yet, but that's next.

Much of my time the last two weeks has been spent preparing for a Comanche Fly-in I volunteered to host July 4th weekend. I had 27 fellow Comanche (the type of airplane I own) pilots and spouses here the whole weekend for activities including a BBQ with Sandpoint's 4th of July fireworks, an EAA Fly-in breakfast, lunch and tour of Dr Bird's Museum of Aviation and Innovation, and a classical piano concert by Alexey Koltakov (a renowned Ukrainian pianist). While our guests were attending the concert Saturday night, MC and I flew our Comanche down to Lewiston for the wedding of the daughter of one of our closest friends there. 123 nautical miles is about an hour in the Comanche (3.5 hours by car). We were back in Sandpoint Sunday morning in time for a special Sunday breakfast I'd arranged at a local restaurant for our departing pilots. You can only pull off that kind of multitasking with a private airplane. Love it!

Phil