I Should Have Known...

Everything comes at a cost...or at least, that's my take on things. For example, last Friday night was the first time in a week I had been able to sleep in bed. It had taken me that long to overcome abdominal pain that I initially had thought perhaps was the result of a hernia trying to get started. As I learned, however, it was the result of an abdominal muscle I somehow had strained. Bottom line: It took a week for the strain to relax enough for me to sleep any way other than by sitting upright.

Then, on tournament day this last Sunday, I finally seem to have put those bouts of vertigo in my rearview mirror. Have enjoyed 72-plus hours now without once feeling like everything around me was spinning about 60 mph. Whether that holds is anyone's guess, but I'll gladly take whatever relief I can get.

With that much "positivity" happening in such a short span of time should have been sufficient warning that the roof was getting ready to come crashing down around me. It started with a giant headache that awakened me Tuesday night, followed by another one yesterday afternoon. I also had a gimpy left leg when I crawled out of bed yesterday morning, and it dogged me all day. Those events, however, as I was destined to learn, were only part of the "negativity" that would prove to make yesterday a day which I wish I could just forget.

The dominoes started falling regularly when I received a phone call from the dermatologist office I visited a week ago for my six-month checkup. The doctor had taken a biopsy at that time, and the results had come back. Seems they will have to dig a little deeper in the biopsied spot in their pursuit of clean cells. Then I'll be stitched up for a couple of weeks...more a nuisance than anything else.

On top of that, yesterday's passing rain made me aware that it's once again time to hire someone to clean my gutters. They were full to the brim yesterday with water, thanks to all the pine needles from my cantankerous old neighbor's pine tree in the back clogging the downspouts. This problem now forces me to go through this evolution about three times a year.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, the freezer part of our three-year-old refrigerator-freezer decided to go belly-up yesterday, too. Had to do a "reset" on it for the same reason a year ago, but this time, the "reset" failed, so that undoubtedly will mean searching for a new refrigerator.

Can't say I've had this much fun since the company commander ripped off my face mask in that gas-filled room at boot camp and told me to find my way out the best way I knew how...if you get my drift.