Progress

Well, one of the VA benefits came through -- they provide a very small life insurance policy for a 100% disabled veteran like Marshall was.  I received those proceeds. But still waiting for the more important thing to kick in -- the monthly benefits.

It looks like someone may be buying the property on the other side of mine. There was a big bulldozer over there today putting in a driveway to make the property accessible.  Up until now there was no way to get to that property without climbing a hill that was kind of straight up and down, so it was rather undesirable.  Now a driveway makes it a better piece of property.  It's really getting crowded back here.  I might as well be living in a city.

And I've been having trouble with our solar energy backup generator.  The house runs totally on solar power, but when we have several cloudy days in a row the solar batteries run down and the backup generator kicks in.  At least it should.  It hasn't been working and I've had to learn how to troubleshoot it and I'm not very good at that.  I really don't like being the "man of the house" and wish Marshall was here.  He would know what to do.

Anyway, the guy who comes out and maintains all of the solar components says he's pretty sure the generator needs a new starter and he ordered one but it will take a few days.  That means I have to be very aware of how much sun we've got and if it's cloudy I need to really watch my power usage.  I'm not used to that -- I'm used to everything working flawlessly.  Ugh.

Today I had an appointment with my dermatologist to have her look at a few suspicious areas.  To make a long story short, she thinks I need to start a 3-week regimen of using a chemotherapy cream on three spots (my hand, my arm and my leg).   That sure got me a bit freaked out.  I'm not sure I totally understood this, but she said that this chemotherapy cream would do one of two things:  One, if these areas are cancer, the cream will cause these areas to shrivel up and die in two to three weeks; or two, if these areas are not cancer, nothing will happen.  I asked her why she couldn't just do a biopsy and she said the areas were too large and if she took the biopsy at an area where there was no cancer, it would miss it.  I guess that makes sense.  But it's scary.

So tomorrow I will go to Walgreens and turn in the prescription for this cream (Efudex).  She said they would not have it in stock so I probably won't get it until Friday or Saturday.  At least I will get to try out my new VA insurance to see how it works.

I've ordered a headstone for Marshall and the VA is making a military marker to go with it.  We have decided to put the headstone and marker at the cemetery in North Baltimore, Ohio, where some of Marshall's other relatives are buried.  Not sure yet when that will happen.  We will also scatter some ashes there.

Marshall's dearest friend Jim called and said that Marshall told him many times how much he liked sitting under a certain tree here on our property.  He said it reminded him of West Virginia.  So we've decided to spread some ashes there, too.  When we do that, we will include his dog Marlee's ashes as well.  That was another thing Marshall had requested, having Marlee's ashes with his.

Marshall's sister Audrey told me that any time we see a penny it means Marshall is nearby and letting us know he's okay.  Well, the day after he died I opened his dresser drawer and there was a penny.  That was comforting.  Audrey has now seen several pennies. Then my sister told me she found a penny and it was from the year 1946 -- the year Marshall was born.  That was really comforting.  Now I look for pennies!