Vabysmo in My Eye, Birthday, New Cell Service

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

5/13/23

 

Aloha All!

 

Yet another wet week here.  Despite the rain, we're in full prep mode for our trip, plus there were a couple of significant changes to the usual routine. First, on Tuesday, as predicted, I got another eyeball jab.  Actually, the scans didn't show much buildup but we went ahead with the plan to stave off any problems during our trip.  However, this time we tried a new drug called "Vabysmo," which sounds more like it should be for indigestion than for eye problems. The generic chemical name is faricimab, which isn't much better.  Do you realize there are people who are actually paid to come up with these names?!  Anyway, Vabysmo is a relatively new drug that is showing promise in controlling retinal edema.  In at least some patients it can extend the time between injections by a month or more over Eylea, which is my current medication.  That could be 4 months between shots if I respond well to Vabysmo.  Anyway, it seemed worth a shot (so to speak), and we'll see how things are when I return from the upcoming trip.  In case you're wondering (I doubt you are, but humor me), the difference between the two drugs is described by Drugs.com as: "Vabysmo is a bispecific antibody that targets both vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2), whereas Eylea is a recombinant fusion protein that targets VEGF and placental growth factor (PlGF)."  Clear as can be, right?

Another change this week was that I switched cell service providers.  I was using Mint Mobile, which was very good and certainly a bargain at $15 per month for unlimited calls and texts plus 5 GB of cellular data per month.  However, Mint's international data rates are rather steep, and now that we're back to traveling I looked around for an alternative.  I settled on Spectrum Mobile, the same company that is also our internet service provider. It is also low-cost ($14 per month) and has international rates that are 1/10th those of Mint.  I made the switch this week, and it went fairly smoothly, by which I mean just a couple of snafu's that required a chat session with a tech.  It's been a couple of days now and all seems well.  One limitation of Spectrum compared to Mint is the amount of included data -- 5 GB versus 1 GB for Spectrum.  I'll just have to see if that will be enough.  Also, it will be interesting to see how well the service works when we get to France and Italy.  I can, of course switch back to Mint without a major hassle if I want.

We played golf on Thursday.  It was an ok outing but rather rainy, which I'm using as my excuse for not doing as well as last week.  I had some very satisfying shots now and then, so I'm still enjoying it overall.  We may not play next week because that will be rather close to our trip departure, and we will be in full-blown last minute prep mode.

 

Thursday was also Karen's XX (censored) birthday. At her request the "celebration" was low-key, with the main events being our golf outing, a quick stop at Costco, late afternoon pupus at our neighbor's house, and some hulihuli chicken for dinner.  I got her a long-sleeved t-shirt with an island design, but it was the wrong size.  Fortunately it was from one of the stores along the waterfront and she'll be able to exchange it.

Guess that's about it.  Oh, Kilauea volcano is still not erupting, but there are signs it's getting restless.  There has been significant inflation lately, and an increase of earthquake activity that signals magma moving around underneath.  I wouldn't be surprised that something happens while we're gone.  Too bad -- our stretch of vog-free days since March has been very pleasant.

Take care.

Driveway Paint, Thick Air Golf

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

5/6/23

 

Aloha Everyone!

 

I can't believe it's May already.  What happened to April?  And last year?  And the last several decades?

 

This was a fairly productive week here.  On Tuesday my handyman and I repainted our driveway starting

Paint Job!

at 8 am to get it done early so that it could dry before any rain could ruin it.  It turned out to be a mostly sunny day, so our timing was perfect.  Monday was rainy for part of the day and I was getting worried.  But Tuesday morning was clear and the forecast (usually wrong) was for dry conditions.  I quickly mopped up the bird poop that had accumulated since I did the power-washing last week, and used my leaf blower to sweep off leaves and other debris.  The bird poop is particularly annoying -- we have a power line that runs right above the driveway all the way to the garage and birds love to sit on it and do their business.  Also, there is a nest of Mynah birds in one of our palm trees at top

Poop on the Paint Job

of the driveway, and Tuesday morning mom and pop must have been suffering from eating some bad berries, because they had left a fairly sizeable area of disgusting poop that I had to clean up before the painting.  Anyway, all went well and it looks really nice.  Of course, within hours new splattos of poop appeared.  Sigh....

 

I also managed to get some heavy monthly pruning done.  Some of this is great exercise using a long pole-pruner horizontally from our lanai.  Talk about a core workout!  The target was a vigorous bush/tree called podocarpus.  It looks a little like an evergreen tree, and it will grow to 40-50 ft. if not pruned back.  It is a very good tree for screening views of neighbors and other than pruning it requires almost no care.  It is drought resistant and insects don't like it.  It does shed needles like pine needles, but other than that it is a very useful and attractive tree.  And gives me a good workout.

 

On Thursday we played golf at Makalei and I did pretty good this time, including *two* pars and one bogey. All three of us noticed that our drives didn't go as far this week, which we attributed to the face-saving explanation that the air was extra thick because of all the rain lately.  Indeed, we skipped one hole because it started raining pretty hard, but the next one was ok so we kept playing for a total of 15 holes. There are two natural stopping points on the Makalei course.  The 11th hole is back down by the parking lot and the club house, so it would be easy to stop there and call it a day.  Our fellow player did just that but Karen and I kept going.  The twelfth hole starts back up the mountain again but after the 16th there is a junction on the cart path.  One way continues up to #17 and 18, and the other is a fast track down to the parking lot.  We are usually pooped by that time and choose the "down" direction.  Given how many times I have to hit that #@$#%% ball, I don't feel bad at all to call it quits early.

Speaking of rain, late Thursday afternoon after we got home from golf, there was a brief downpour that was so heavy it was almost scary.  Our over-sized gutters overflowed, as did the pool and the drain across the front of our garage door.  In about 20-30 minutes we received 2.2," an amount we've gotten before but over a much longer period.  As is often the case here, this was a very local phenomenon -- a few miles north or south of us got much less.  In the last two weeks we have had about 6.5" of rain, way more than our normal amount.

Karen started Physical Therapy this week for her hip pain. The therapist's assessment concurred with the doctor's -- not a bone problem but rather irritation of the muscles and ligaments.  She'll go twice a week until we leave on our trip, and she has exercises to do at home that should help. The therapist also advised against using a couple of the machines at Planet Fitness, which she thinks might make matters worse because of the specific ways they put pressure on the joints and muscles.  Interesting.  Note, this advice only applies to people with a problem to begin with --- she wasn't saying that the machines caused the problem in the first place.

Our pre-cleaning for our trip got a boost this week because Karen hosted a book discussion group at our house.  Naturally this called for a flurry of dusting, vacuuming, washing, polishing, etc.  I hope the women attending were suitably awed by my driveway efforts, but Karen didn't report any compliments.  

Ok, that's about it for this week.  Stay safe, dry, and healthy.