Maggie left for China yesterday and is currently waiting on a connecting flight in Seoul, South Korea.  Her father has a massive blood clot in his brain and she felt it was best if she returns home, he’s a good man so we all hope he pulls through.  He’s not that old, early 70s but has lived a hard life and this isn’t exactly a surprise but sad none the less.  He’s alright right now, I’m not sure if he’s had surgery yet or is still waiting but yeah scary stuff.

It’s just Brandon and I at home for the next month to month and a half, I guess we’ll see how things play out but my father in law is in our thoughts.

Went to see the doctor this morning and she says that while my shingles infection has ended, I have post herpetic neuralgia.  I still have pain where the rash was and on my back it’s very itchy which is all normal and should go away in a few months ugh!  Looking online, if I’m really unlucky this could last the rest of my life!  She prescribed me a cream for itch however it’s harsh and she said not to use it for more than 2 weeks and that she could prescribe me a nerve pain killer or narcotic to help with the pain which I passed on.  I don’t particularly like taking pills and will just deal with it…

Sigh what a nightmare this has been but at least I have a great support group at home and at work…  I think what I’m most annoyed at is the fact that this happened in the summer, I don’t feel so bad about staying home all the time in the winter but when the warm weather is here I prefer to be out and about. 🙁

Saturday night on a night vision walk with Maggie I noticed a small but sharp pain on the side of my torso, feels like when you pull a muscle or sleep wrong.  Anyway I figure it was nothing but the next morning it was there and by Monday the pain started to spread to my back and I noticed a small pink spot at the spot where the pain started.  I wanted to go to the doctor yesterday but there were many meetings during the day and Brandon’s BJJ class so I went this morning to see the doctor and after listening to the symptoms and looking at my torso she said I had shingles.

Apparently if you have the chicken pox as a child the virus stays in your body but lays dormant and can flare up at any moment.  It’s not dangerous just painful and it is contagious if there’s skin to skin contact so it’s back to hand washing and distancing for the Sun family.

At the Shoppers Drug Mart while I was waiting for the prescription to be filled, the digital kiosk next to me was talking about the Shingrix vaccine which gave me a bit of a chuckle.  I mentioned to the pharmacist that I thought shingles was an old person thing, he then asked me how old I was so I replied 43 and he just nodded so I guess that means I’m old lol.  I was given a week’s worth of valacyclovir in 500MG tablets which I’m suppose to take 2 tablets 3 times a day so hopefully by this time next week I’ll be back to tip top shape.

Just annoying and painful, oh well gives me an excuse to get out of my chores right? 😉

Or at least happy belated father’s day to all the dads out there.  I reflect often on my life and one area I hit it out of the park with is marrying Maggie, she gave me our wonderful boy Brandon.  Being a dad is the best thing ever and I enjoy every moment of it.

Brandon is 12 now and knows that it’s these types of gifts that really do it for me and I treasure all of the cards and drawings he has done for me over the years.  Brandon is the best son a father can ask for and I’m so damn lucky to have him be my boy.

With the pool opened last week Brandon and I decided to use it both on Saturday & Sunday!  Last night we also used the BBQ for the first time since moving and mmm I had a meat coma afterwards lol.

Our new house has so many more amenities than our old place and we’re definitely enjoying it.  I’m going to move the BBQ soon sit on the deck and I just bought replacement LED lights for the backyard, the old ones that came with the house no longer work and I love how it spices up the backyard when it gets darker but will install that tomorrow and show you the results then. 🙂

On Friday I went to the cottage to check a few things and was surprised to see a burst pipe in the bathroom…  Our “cottage” in Belleville is an actual house fully winterized so I don’t think it was due to the cold but none still a problem and I suspect the pipe has been leaking water for at least a month.  We have a local contractor taking a look and overall the damage is not super bad, but of course still requires to a bit of work.  I’m pretty upset at myself right now, I wanted to go by earlier but was lazy and didn’t bother and now yeah I’m kicking myself about it.

We haven’t used it as much as I thought we would, I guess having a pool in our new house makes the appeal of a cottage less so Maggie and I have been talking about selling it.  Good thing the market has gone back up, if I can break even I’ll be happy but who knows maybe we can make some money on it too.

On Saturday Taunton pools came over to open our pool and man these things require a lot of maintenance!  They suspect there may be a leak somewhere in the liner as water levels dropped a lot over the winter but I need to get it up and running before they can send a diver to take a look so I’ll worry about that later.  In the mean time I’ll just pay attention to the water level and increase it as necessary.  Since the water levels dropped though, the cover went into the pool and left a small spot open to the elements which meant a ton of leaves, needles and some small sticks found its way into the water and to the bottom of the pool…

Took me about 1 1/2 days to clean it all up, unfortunately I didn’t take a before photo but I did take an after and it looks pretty darn good.

Haha it’s just absolutely freezing right now, I haven’t turned on the heater yet as we’re still in maintenance mode, tomorrow I’ll get the water tested and ready to swim in, having family over next weekend so I’m hoping it’ll be ready for that.  In the second photo I laid out the pool cover, as I mentioned earlier the guys from the pool place came over on Saturday and it was raining really hard so I aired out the cover yesterday and man is it large!  I think when we close the pool this year, I’ll take care of putting the cover on as I didn’t like the way it was done last year.

I’ll talk about the weekend tomorrow, had a surprise (not great) at the cottage but I’m feeling lazy and don’t want to blog about it now.

I forgot to post a weekend update, it was uneventful but we did go to the park for a quick walk around in the dark.  Unfortunately it was muddy so the walk was cut short but in the car, I asked Maggie to take a picture of me with my nods on while in the parking lot.

Haha turned out pretty well & no I wasn’t driving.

Got the terrible news today that one of Brandon’s friends from his old school passed away after a long battle with cancer.  Sigh I remember chasing the boy around the playground, after he “recovered” he came over to play and history is all we have now.  When I told Brandon he cried and it’s ok to cry in situations like this, I also told him that we all handle grief differently, to take as much time as he needs and that if he wants to talk I’m available.

I’m glad he can also talk to his old friends in Scarborough through Discord, they’re all devastated as well and I can only imagine the pain the poor parents must feel.  I don’t know what I would do if that happened to me…  Life isn’t fair, hug and tell your loved ones how much you care because there is never a guarantee for tomorrow.