A little bit of this and a little bit of that in 2025
This has been a year of a lot of different things…which is different…for me. In the past, my year has been most of either one thing or another. More of the not so good. In the last couple of years my mom had been sick and then passed, and then my sister and I had to deal with all that was left behind. So sad so for so long! Last year it was my first year in maybe a few years here and there in my whole life, that I’ve lived in a house without any animals AT all, and no dog in MY grown-up houses within the last almost thirty years. I also have had to continue to deal with my share of medical aftermath things of course, or I wouldn’t be here. But this year has had a lot of good things too! It’s been a bit of little of this and little of that in 2025. Here they are in no particular order…
After years of vocal cord injections, some that worked, most that didn’t. I discovered an ENT doctor at Cornell Weill Hospital in NYC that I was introduced to by my ENT who had given me a couple palate injections to help my swallowing problems. It’s who you know!!! This doctor was a specialist in doing vocal cord implants-laryngoplasty also known as a thyroplasty. I had to be awake during this surgery while an incision was made in my neck to create a window in the voice box’s cartilage, then a permanent implant was placed to push the vocal cord closer to the midline. I had it done at the very very end of last December, almost the beginning of January, so I’ll call it 2025. It sounds now when I talk to those that know me, like I have a cold. To those that don’t know me, they can understand me-hear me, they don’t have to ask all the time for me to repeat myself because they can’t grasp what it is I’m saying. That’s an enormously huge improvement! Do I wish my voice was even better? All the time. My voice doesn’t sound the way it used to back before the effects of nerve damage from brain surgery really took effect about five years ago, it sounds like me with a cold…that’s what people who know me think it sounds like. It’s a big improvement to those who never met me at all-like the customer service people on the phone I would try to get help from, they would say: “we have a bad connection, can you call back or speak up?” People in stores when I would ask questions could never understood me and I was right in front of them..now they can. My voice may improve even more as the months go on, it already has. I wish my voice sounded like it used to be way back when it was MY VOICE, but it’s so much better than the almost completely non-understandable voice it was. Four years before I had this surgery very few people could understand me at all. Very upsetting. I had tried several different ways to fix things, they didn’t work. This is the best solution I could find. My voice used to be heard enormous distances. Now I’m lucky to be heard. If I live long enough even more ways to help it could be discovered. Doctors are always working on things.
My doctor told me at the beginning of the year said that it had finally come time to treat my osteoporosis. Really? My bones feel fine. I always have walked a lot. Afterall, I did walk 250 miles from Long Island to Mass General Hospital to raise attention for the need for brain cancer research. I’ve exercised a lot, ate well, the osteoporosis may very well have been due to the medicines I am taking due to a side effect of the Proton Radiation treatment I had. However, that treatment is a small price to pay considering if I didn’t have it I didn’t have it, I would most likely not be here. I was told also the osteoporosis alos could be heredity. My mom looked like she had it, but she said she didn’t. I remember her when she was 5’ 10” tall and when she was 93, she was 5’ 3” tall. Is that just old age? Maybe. I think there could have been some osteoporosis there. I can’t ask her now, she’s not here. You don’t feel osteoporosis; you just have it. The only way to know you have it, is through your bone scan. I had been monitored for a while and it was time to begin treatment. I started my monthly Evenity injections in January, and will be supposedly finished at the end of December. Let it be so! There is a chance I could have to take a different injectable for a month or so afterward. One step at a time.
I had a bad fall on my wet wooden stairs outside near my deck, I thought I broke my, finger, or my wrist, or my elbow, maybe them all. I was in enormous pain. It was four months ago and the pain still feels like a month ago. I had many x-rays. The good news is that I was told I broke a finger, the best I could have had out of all those things. It will take me a while before the pain subsides, I’ve been told six months, maybe a year. Compared to a broken wrist or elbow, this is hugely good news for some with osteoporosis!
My husband Jon and I went to Port Lucie, Florida in March to see the Mets in Spring Training and saw my friends Barry and Patricia. I hadn’t seen the two of them in maybe a decade. Time flies! We had talked on the phone, Facetimed and texted, but we hadn’t seen each other. It’s not easy a lot of time to see friends who don’t live close. I have many friends who I wish were down the block, or just in the next town, but they’re not. They live in different states or even different countries. The Mets were doing great when we saw Barry and Patricia; the Mets were doing great until the middle of June. If you are a Mets fan you know what I’m talking about, you could see the World Series in their future. After then, it wasn’t so good. The dreams faded, My husband and I are big Mets fan. Sad! It still was good to see our friends Barry and Patricia.
After fourteen months without our dog Max after he passed on April 1st 2024, we adopted a small corgi who was just a little less than a year old. Max will be forever in our hearts; we’ll miss him always. But I grew up in a family with a dog, Jon and I had dogs most of our lives together. It’s so good to have a dog friend again. Her name is Luna, she’s a good car rider, we’ve never had that before, she’s small and can be easily picked up. She loves to walk, needs to walk. Good for exercise. She’s a loveable girl!
I believe I have stopped biting my nails…after many years. I’ve always bitten them. It’s seemed like a helper at times. What happened I’m not sure. It was about five months ago and it seems to have stuck. I didn’t make a plan, just one day I didn’t feel like biting them anymore. It’s almost like I had too many other things going on. I’m not holding high expectations like I have in the past when I’ve made a promise to myself or a plan to stop biting them, I just keep on keepin’ on. My youngest daughter…a former nail biter, has already told me I should get a manicure. She gets regular nail manicures. I’m not ready for that yet-it seems to “into my nails”, too much of a commitment. I’m not ready for that step. I’m good to have nails, at this point it seems to have stuck. I’ll take it one step at a time.
My youngest daughter graduated from law school in May. Big Deal! Also a big deal is that I was there for the amazing event. There were times in my life that I was told by my “excellent doctors” that my being around for events like this was not really going to be possibly. It was not going to happen. I am so happy at these occasions when I’m able to be at them and have proved them wrong.
My husband and I will be celebrating our 40th anniversary in November. We’ve been through so much together. This may be hard to believe, but my intense health issues have only been one of them. We feel very much like that quote “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”. Jon has made me feel beautiful even when I have felt so sadly bald and swollen from prednisone. I love him and can’t imagine my world without him!
My sister took the ferry from Connecticut to Long Island to spend a few days overnight at my house with both me and my husband, meet our new dog Luna…she loved her. She also saw my oldest daughter and son-in-law who live just ten minutes from me and to go kayaking at the bay for the first time. She was looking forward to it…we both were. She had never been kayaking before. I’ve been kayaking for years and love it. We had fantastic weather; it was 85 degrees and sunny. She at first was a little nervous, but after those first few minutes, I think she was ready to buy her own kayak in Connecticut and begin paddling. It was a beautiful time!
Please check out our link to our Fall 2025 Charitybuzz events beginning on October 7th https://www.charitybuzz.com/support/2107. If you want to DONATE to BRAIN MATTERS directly, just CLICK HERE! Thank you in advance!
