Our Homecoming

Wow, I have so much to report. I decided to skip to our homecoming first and fill you in on the final London stuff later. 

We ended up coming home a day early. And it's a good thing we did. To start, our flight was horrible. We always fly business class which is much more comfortable. This time we were on Virgin Atlantic which is supposed to be the most luxurious airline, so we were looking forward to it. We were told that their business class was called Prestige Economy. It was terrible going to England. By the time we arrived, I had a hive on my left shin the size of a grapefruit. I have been off the prednisone since August 1st, so was really reluctant to go back on. I've lost 13 lbs. already and wanted to keep that going. The itching was maddening, but at least I wasn't descending into the downhill spiral that usually occurs. After having this for so many years, I know how it feels and what's happening with my body. It takes exactly 4 hours for the prednisone to kick in, so sometimes it's a fine line from when to take it to being too late. Still, I wanted to "tough it out." The hive didn't get worse, but itched terribly for about 2 and a half days and then it was over. I was happy that I could still be "pred" free. 

Not the case on the way home. By the time we got to Chicago, I could see how swollen my feet were through my socks---and they were driving me insane with the itching. Then I started to have that flu-like feeling that told me I was going down. When that happens, I run fever and am in bed a full 24 hours before the "pred" can get on top of it. I broke it out and took my first dose in nearly 2 months. I wasn't happy, but then I'm glad that there's this miracle drug that can help me. 4 hours later, I lost that flu-like feeling, but the med didn't do much for the actual hives or the itching. By the time we got to the house, I took another dose. To make that long story short, I'm back up to 80MG a day---that's a whole lot. I'm getting better and by tomorrow, they should be cleared up. I'm hoping that when I taper off---which takes about 10 days---this will have been just a fluke due to the long flight in uncomfortable surroundings. Below are some pictures.

The hives are sometimes hard to see, but here you can see how swollen my left foot is. Notice the blister? That's from all the walking in London.

Hard as it is to see, the hive actually encompasses my entire foot---even between my toes. Very itchy.

This one is barely visible, but runs the entire length of my right shin.

As if the hives aren't bad enough---on Friday, I went out to run some errands. When I got home, Butch was gone. I knew that he had scheduled a meeting, but it was supposed to be later in the afternoon. I called to see where he was and to ask him to pick up some milk. He was actually at the grocery store when I called. While on the phone, he said we had big problems. I said, "what?" He replied, "go look on the steps to the rec room." I walked over and immediately started screaming, "oh my God, oh my God" really loud. Anybody that knows me knows that I ALWAYS say, "oh my gosh!" I don't use the name of the Lord our God in vain---never! But this was a definite "oh my God!" situation. There was a snake in a plastic container. Butch said he found it in his CLOSET on the window sill. I was totally freaked out. I've reported about all of our "animal issues." They just love it here. But this takes the cake. 

It looks really little in here and wasn't all that fat---maybe a little bigger than a pencil, maybe more like the handle of a wooden spoon, but it was really long---just curled up here.

We had fun scaring Mindy. And then we told Steph that Jordan wanted it (she's an animal lover). Steph started freaking out that it was NOT going to her house.

Butch and Mindy looked it up on the internet---it looks like an Eastern Pine snake, non-poisonous. Butch assured me that he was going to release it across the neighborhood. He lied---which, honestly,I think is the very first time in 40 years that he has lied to me. He let it go in our own backyard. I'm still freaking out. It's just going to come back. Or worse yet, grow up and have 1000 babies right here.

Here you can barely see it in the grass. You can see his head at the top all the way down to the tip of his tale which goes out of the picture. If you use the light fixture for reference, the top part is about 2" so you can really see how long it it. Gives me the creeps. 

We never had critter problems when we had our outside cats (squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, moles, voles, snakes, lizards, and certainly not blue heron---although we did have fox, coyotes, turkeys and a woodchuck even with the cats). Just as I'm thinking maybe we need to go ahead and get another, some new neighbors move in behind us. They have a cat that is spending a lot of time here. That's okay by me. Maybe (s)he'll take care of our wildlife problems. Heck, that's why (s)he's probably coming around. I've said it before, it's like Snow White's meadow around here!

While I'm not even over the thought of a snake living INSIDE the house, I discover that our hot water heater that is inside the closet upstairs in my scrapbook room is leaking. I was up there to get something. I heard a noise, opened the closet and it was like a sauna. I called my favorite plumber---it's a family business---the mom answers the phone. They came out right away and replaced it, but there was only about 1/2" of space left in the over-flow tray. All I've got to say is that if we didn't come home a day early, we would have walked into a mess---and all over our newly redecorated rooms. Thank God we were here.

Of course the location of the hot water heater lead to this mess as I had to get everything out of the closet---or at least most of it. What a mess. And I had my room all cleaned up and organized before our trip.

Jeff, my plumber, told me that if you are going to be gone longer than 24 hours you should shut off the water to the entire house---and be sure to turn off your ice maker so it won't burn up. Of course he's right. We know of several people that have had horror stories due to leaks while they were on vacation. 

One family that lived down the street from us in Kansas City left the house for a week's vacation and returned to 6 inches of water covering their entire first floor of their house. Their dishwasher leaked and ruined all their furniture, carpeting and hardwood floors.

Another friend---and this is just plain wrong---were on a volunteer medical mission in Guatemala when a pipe froze and burst in their attic. They were getting calls that their alarm was going off. The police went out to the house twice, but didn't find anything wrong, so assumed it was a false alarm. Two days later, the fire alarm went off. The firemen responded and looked in the window to see a literal waterfall coming down from their second floor. Their entire upstairs and living, dining, entry and master bedrooms were ruined. They had to hire movers to get out anything salvageable, put it in storage and move to a hotel while their house was nearly re-built. Seems to me that when you are doing something so "giving," you should be exempt from this type of thing happening to you.

Anyway, I'm just glad to be home. Final trip details to come.