Hellooooo, John! (@johnbishop)

It's cold here too. I think it's cold everywhere. I went out first thing this morning to fill my gas tank, and it was -5º. When I was heading home, my Jeep's dash told me it had risen to -3º. I thought, "Phew! It's really warming up. Time to set out the patio furniture." 🙂

I haven't acquired a walker yet, but I can see one in my future––maybe my near future. Most hours of the day, I get around just fine, a little shaky, of course (at certain hours more so than others), but my balance practice has so far prevented me from falling. Of course, I don't want a bad fall to be an overdue message: "Hey, Ray, how about that walker?"

Although my partner and I have skipped going to movies and plays (those darkened auditoriums) when we have a friend's invite for dinner, I do much as you do: stop drinking any liquids a few hours before we're expected at the friend's, then ration drinking any liquids while we're there. That helps, but we've made a practice of keeping our social get-togethers short.

Along those lines, a movie over three hours, like Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon, presents a real challenge. Wagner operas are definitely out, too. 🙂

I plan to give tamsulosin another try. I was too quick to blame what I thought was a new side effect on the tamsulosin. What I thought was possibly a medication side effect may have been nothing more than my PN acting up. I, too, would rather avoid surgery, minimally invasive or not; a friend had the surgery you may be thinking of, and although the results were good, he was uncomfortable for about 7-10 days (i.e., a catheter). Today, he's happy he did what he did. I envy him, but I think I will try tamsulosin first.

I see it's now -1º. Downright tropical. 🙂

Ray