Just an update for those still interested.
I purchased a Stratitec refill kit from Sam’s Club for about $17 last night. Went through and followed the instructions for my HP 5550 printer and HP 56 cartridge. Everything so far has worked well. Stratitec has instructions on how to reset the ink monitor for the cartridge on their website. So far I’ve printed about a dozen pages and no problems or deterioration in quality.
Thanks again to everybody for their input.
P.S. My post count is now in double digits. Woo-hoo!