So last week I went back to the Dr because my finger STILL isn’t feeling 100%, and I had been on SERIOUS antibiotics for over a week. When I get to the examination room, I try to relax a bit, taking deep breaths, hoping that the medication for the blood pressure had had some effect. So imagine my surprise when the nurse took my blood pressure and it was 124/84…

Yeah, let THAT sink in a bit.

My Dr in to examine my finger, and I mentioned the blood pressure. He was just a tad surprised as well. Then it hit me – I asked him if it was possible that my constant sudafed taking could have artificially raised my blood pressure that much. He said it absolutely could have, and since I hadn’t taken it in over a week (I have had awful sinus issues since my little guy was born), it probably WAS the culprit, and I could discontinue the blood pressure medication…

UGH

So, yeah – no more high blood pressure, thank goodness. But now I have to find alternatives to relieving the pain in my face most mornings…

PS – “The Women” was great! Full review to come!!

Lonny Stone left his Bellmore home each morning at 10 minutes to 7 to catch the 6:59 train into the city. That put him at his desk at Carr Futures on the 92nd floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center at 8:15, and that’s where Stone, 43, was Tuesday when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the building.

Stone’s wife, Stacey, was in the drive-through lane at a Bellmore bank when she heard of the crash on the radio. She immediately thought of her husband of 15 years and headed back home.

“I put the TV on, and I saw a scene that will be in my mind for the rest of my life,” Stacey Stone said. “The moment I heard, I knew in my soul because we were connected. I knew. I just knew.”

The couple had celebrated their anniversary Aug. 23. Instead of a card, “Lonny wrote me the most unbelievable love letter, and it was as if he was saying goodbye to me,” Stacey Stone said, sobbing. “At the end of the letter, he wrote, ‘The mortgage, the kids, the things we always take for granted are the things I’ll never ever forget. Fifteen years, Dear. It might seem like a long time, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m hoping for another 115 years, and hopefully, it will seem like these last 15 years. I love you like you will never know.’”

As a member of his community, Stone coached basketball, soccer and Little League. “He was the type of person, you wouldn’t say, ‘Lonny Stone, let me think, who’s Lonny Stone?’” Stacey Stone said. “You knew who Lonny was. He was a presence.”

He has two sons, Alex, 12, and Joshua, 8. Other family members include his sister, Gayle, and his parents, Evelyn and Benson Stone of Port Jefferson Station. –Jo Craven McGinty (Newsday)   Project 2996

I am proud and honored to be a part of Project 2996 again this year. The emotions I had on that fateful day seem just as strong today, and I pray for peace in the lives in the families of people that perished.