Well, I made it to 2002! WooHoo! And so did you!

As you can see, I've updated this website. I'm hoping that this new style makes it easier to see what all has been happening to me over the years. Please be patient if you try to access all the past years, during this first week of the month. I am in the process of working on the Waikem website, the Waikem Wheel Newsletter, plus trying to go back and review all of the past months and fix them to work in this new design. Whew! What a way to start the new year - busy, busy, busy. :) And I love it!

Until something happens in this new year, please go back to December, 2001 and check out how last year ended.

I tease Mom; she teases me!

Somehow it just didn't seem right. Here I was in Ohio having to go to work like normal, while all my family in the Carolinas got to stay home on a SN*W day! To cheer myself up, I had to call Mom. See, all these years in Ohio, that's one thing she's always been quick to tease me about - the sn*w. For a change, we had only a light frosting still on the ground, while the Carolinas were struggling with close to a foot of the white stuff. Ah, but the saying in Ohio is "if you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes. It'll change." And that still holds true. Not two days later, Mom was able to call me and pick on me about the 5 inches or so of sn*w that we got in Ohio.

Jack, Inky, and Sunny out in the white stuff.

This is my Mom (Celia) trying to clear off her car.

MouseOver to see how much nicer my house looks after editing the picture. (The Stop sign is gone! I know it says "Do Not Enter"; but on the side I see from MY house, it says "Stop".)

Just some shots of winter.

Somebody's been eating the snow. LOL

It's looking like I better get to work on updating the pup's website next. I've got quite a bunch of pictures to add over there. LOL

Looking towards 14th St.	Looking down Struble Ave.
MouseOver to see exactly how much I have to shovel to clear the sidewalk down the side of my house.

Only because it's gonna to annoy someone, I have one little side note this week.
Well, I guess I did make a big deal about changing the look of my website. I wanted it to load faster and be able to jump around the months and years easier. A certain someone I know made a comment about the new look. If you will notice, when you click on a month in the calendar it will mark, so you'll know what month you have see; plus the header of each month's page is now sporting an appropriate monthly picture. :P he he he

Several things of interest to report this week:

The snow melted. It got warmer. The boss went out of town for a week. I got the newsletter online, and upgraded for 2002. I upgraded and updated this website. I'm working on an update for the puppies' website. Jim and I helped DO put together a 3D Thomas Kincaid puzzle.

	MouseOver CloseUp!

For good measure, I threw in an appointment with my Doctor this past week. I don't think that I mentioned that I had an earlier appointment last month. Unfortunately, my blood work didn't come back as good as I hoped that it would. (And I told that nurse, who drew the blood, to make sure the results this time were good. I guess she didn't listen to me.) It seems that my T-cell count dropped back down (but only by about 10 or so; so that wasn't too bad); and the viral load had gone back up (from about 5,000 to 30,000; still way below the previous count of 193,000 - but it was a big jump up).

So the doc sent me to have some new blood work done. This test was to determine what my "resistance" to the drugs was - a measure of how well each drug is or isn't working. What do you know, though!? The nurse was listening to me. As she started filling the 4 vials (hey! that's good. It's usually 6 to 8 and has gone as high as 12 vials!), I mentioned that my previous results hadn't come back so good and she remembered! This time I made her promise for better results and she said she'd try for me. :)

The results are back, and I've gone over them with my doctor. (here's another tangent to the whole story- when I first started at Waikem's, everyone referred to me as "that guy with the pony-tail that does the computers". Even though I've tried to be "Propellorhead", it seems that I'm stuck with the pony tail misnomer. As the nurse was showing me to the room, my doctor walked by asking if the "pony-tail guy" was there yet. The doctor, the nurse and I, all got a snicker outta of that one.) The good news is that all the meds are still working VERY well. All that is, except for one. Of course, it's not the icky orange ones that I hate (loathe, despise, there isn't a good enough word to convey how much I hate that med!). Nor is it one of the BIG pills (which really aren't that hard to swallow, they're just big). Nor the antibiotic (that not only prevents pneumonia, but makes me itchy with hives!). It turns out the only one that doesn't work anymore, is the itty-bitty teeny-tiny smallest little pill that I take twice a day. Pooh! (and that's an understatement. LOL)

Now, I've dropped 2 pills a day and gained back 1 (Boy, the doc is good. He kinda thought that the little med wasn't working and already started me on a new med.). The order for more blood work is sitting here on my desk for me to have done in about another week and I've got another appointment set up in a month.

Although there is still a little time, think happy thoughts for me! March is fast approaching and that seems to be a bad month for me. Not only do I get older each year (and this year, I'm turning 40! GASP!); but that seems to be the month that I get the sickest. Going back a few years, I didn't go home during March, and I got pneumonia the week before my birthday; the following year, I didn't go home again, and I got pneumonia again, but this time it was the week after my birthday; the following year I went home to NC in March and stayed well; then last year, I didn't go home and ended up just shy of the hospital trip with pneumonia - my counts were actually the WORST they had ever been! It seems the years I go home for a visit, I don't get pneumonia. That's sounds like the plan to follow :) !
Even though, I've been blessed and lucky enough to have had two trips home last year, I'm already working on plans for another trip in March. I really hate pneumonia and since I've never figured out how I stay so well, except by trying to keep things the same, I'm going to stick to the pattern for going home in March and NOT getting sick!

If all that above wasn't enough, I've been working on updates on the puppy website and a new site showing off all of my mask collection. I'll keep you informed as I finish it up; but for now, if you don't see pictures for every section, hold onto to your horses. I'm working on it! :D

No Updates. Sorry :)