1. Ever since moving to Kellogg in 2017, I've been on a four month, rather than a six month, dental cleaning schedule. I take good care of my teeth, but I'm just one of those people whose dental health needs more attention than most people.
I knew going into my kidney transplant, that, after the surgery, I'd have to go anywhere from 6-12 months without a cleaning because of concerns that the cleaning might send infection into my bloodstream.
At the six month mark, I talked with Dr. Murad and he instructed me to be patient and wait longer before my next dental cleaning.
When I let the transplant team know I needed a damaged tooth extracted, the team supported this, prescribed me pre-procedure antibiotics, and, in turn, supported my return to dental cleanings.
So, today, for the first time since April 23, 2024, Kathy got to work her dental cleaning magic on my teeth.
She thought things might be rough today because it had been nine months since I'd had a cleaning, but good news: my teeth and gums were in better shape than she anticipated. She also told me the area of my extraction looked really good.
It was a positive experience and now I'm back on schedule again, to my relief.
2. The list of thirteen books Leah Sottile posted back in July have been heartbreaking, unsettling, transporting, and always fascinating to read. I have one book on this list left. I didn't plan for it to be the last one. I've read these books without a plan regarding order.
But, Dave Cullen's book Columbine, his comprehensive book on the school shooting, what led up to it and the aftermath, is the one book I have left to read.
Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on the scene at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. He then spent ten years researching and working on this book and published it ten years later in 2009.
I'm just over a hundred pages in and I'm done reading about the horror of the violence on 04-20-1999 as it happened and about the agonizing waiting families endured before they found out if their loved ones were alive or not.
Cullen writes brilliantly about the unsettling amount of wrong information about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and the shooting itself that began to circulate almost immediately. Much of this wrong information lives on, despite efforts, like Cullen's, to correct it.
I'll return to writing about what wasn't true about the killers and that day in a future blog post after I've read more of the book.
3. Today I posted my 8th "life is good" picture as a part of the Facebook Joy Project.
I took this picture in the late spring of 2009.
It features my now deceased brother-in-law, David, with my now deceased beloved Springer, Snug.
David had recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had decided to ride across the USA with his brother-in-law on their motorcycles. They paid us a visit in Eugene.
David died in November of 2009, several months after his visit to Eugene. (I saw David for the last time on a visit to his home in Arlington Heights, IL in August of 2009.)
This is one of my favorite of all pictures I've ever taken.
I've always thought, and I might be crazy, that David and Snug look like brothers in this picture.
It's the last time I saw David still looking pretty healthy and it is, to me, a great picture of Snug feeling calm and secure in David's company.
By the way, Snug died in October of 2011.
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