Friends,

We continue to lead an interesting and adventurous life. I woke up this morning and got to work by turning on my computer. When it came up, I couldn’t read anything! That makes it much harder to use. So now I am learning to use the magnifier and the high contrast setting, which turns the screen black with primarily white letters for text. It is quite disorienting, but I can get work done. When we went to the dentist I couldn’t even see cars 1/4 mile away. I couldn’t read any of the road signs. I guess if this stays the same, I won’t be doing much driving. I was talking to a friend about this and he said I should check the ink cartridge in my head. I responded that my toner low light must be on. I need to get a new toner cartridge for my eyes. My friend also suggested that I gently roll my head from side to side to redistribute the toner. What a crack up! I am still laughing! Isn’t life wonderful! My vision changes from day to day, but it has never been this bad. I am really looking forward to getting the cataract surgery.

Tuesday I had surgery on my leg to remove a basal cell carcinoma. This is a very minor form of cancer that is easily treated by surgery and normally doesn’t cause any serious problems. It is usually caused by skin damage from the sun. They cut a football shaped section of skin from my leg. The skin on my leg is so tight that they couldn’t pull the wound closed all the way, so it is not completely shut, and must fill in. If there is a problem, they can do a skin graft, but the wound seems to be healing nicely. It was kind of strange in the operating room. Just as the doctor started cutting, a nurse brought in a cd player and started it with pop love songs of the early 70s, like Summer Nights and others. I was trying to keep from laughing the whole time. When they moved to the next patient, one of the questions, obviously very important, was “what track just played?”

Monday I saw my dentist in preparation for the Oral Surgery I had today to put in implants. These are basically screws. The oral surgeon drills a hole in the jaw and uses a ratchet wrench to screw the implants into the jaw bone. The top of the implant is designed to accept a fake tooth or teeth, depending on what is being done. The only problem is that the bone must heal around the implant for about 4 months before they are strong enough to hold a tooth securely. In my case, I will have 3 implants on each side of my lower jaw, and there will be a 4 tooth bridge on each side. So I still have 4 months to wait before I can chew anything effectively. Bummer. Some times these things don’t move forward as fast as we would like. I am just happy that some day I will be able to chew again.

The operation was pretty simple, and it went smoothly. I feel pretty weak and groggy right now. Menchie is out getting me some pain medicine right now.

Menchie and I will be closing on our new house in New Mexico this weekend. We are looking forward to that.

Next week, on Thursday, I have an IVIG treatment, a followup with my dermatologist, and an appointment with my Oncologist. A big medical day.

Have a great weekend!

Ted and Menchie Wilcox
www.wilcoxent.com/mzima/health.php
www.freedomathometeam.com/tmwilcox
tw@wilcoxent.com