B.L.T.'s

Yesterday was a crazy day.  My father is in the hospital...an acute care/extended stay hospital, actually.  Perhaps a little background on this is in order...

Sunday, January 28, 2011, I was doing laundry and didn't hear the phone ring, but my husband called to me to come up and listen to the message on the answering machine.  It was very scary...my dad's voice, barely audible and audibly shaking calling "help me!  help me!"  I called back immediately and when my dad answered he told me that he had called my brother Doyle (who was about 25 miles away without any transportation because Brenda had dropped him off at his farm and was coming back to get him after she finished with some errands.)  Doyle might have been out of pocket, but he had his thinking cap on and immediately called 911 and informed them that the call would need to be transferred to the closest amblance to my dad because Daddy needed help. On my phone, my dad, voice still shaking, told me that he wanted me to stay on the line because he was going to try to go unlock the front door like Doyle had told him to do for the emergency ambulance drivers to be able to get to him.  And sure enough, before the telephone went dead I heard my dad talking to the 911 drivers.  I called my brother back and he told me what had happened.  He  said the Emergency crew was going to call him and let him know Dad's condition and where they would take him, and sure enough a minute later the ambulance driver called back with that information.  Doyle and Sheryl (our cousin who works with Daddy four days a week) and their spouses were going from two different directions to Grapvine to meet Dad at the hospital.

My dad was given immediate care and the attending doctor called in his doctors to consult and the results of a lot of the tests that they had given dad started coming in.  Dad was asleep...the ambulance drivers had given him an injection to calm him...but the test results to see if he'd had a heart attack or stroke were negative.  More tests, days going by in the hospital, my dad beginning to feel better and the final accurate diagnosis...the most immediate being that his temperature was very high and needed to be brought down to.  My dad has congestive heart failure and needed quick treatment to prevent any damage to his heart.  The 2nd thing going on, the root cause of his feeling sick ... he had an infection in his blood stream...sepsis and the doctors needed to find an antibiotic that would target the infection, be strong enough to clear up all the infection, while being something that Dad would be able to tolerate without it damaging his health or his heart.

Because the antibiotic the doctors decided on needed to be administered intravenously and because he needed antibiotic treatments every day for about 40 days, along about the 7th or 8th of February (after the snow in Dallas melted) he moved to an acute care/long term care hospital.  He needed no nursing home care.  Once a day he needed an iv of his medication to be administered.  Daddy seems to like the place a lot.  Although Carlyle in Southlake is not highly rated for good patient care, Dad only needs help with his pick line IV administration.  He is perfectly capable of taking care of himself and is one of the few patients there who walks by himself and does not need help to bathe or dress.  At Carlyle he meets people.  He talks to me about who else is there and is not alone.  He seems to enjoy the food...calls the cook a chef.  He seems to get better and better every day and is already making plans to check out of there on the 3rd of the March so he can attend an annual pipeliner reunion the following weekend.. 

Which brings me to yesterday.  Dad's five kids are all calling him and checking on him and talking among ourselves about his condition, but Doyle lives the closest, so when things happen, sometimes Doyle is there to take care of it and handle any problems.  He keeps the other 5 of us informed...in fact he also keeps a few of the grandkids, who are all close to dad, informed of Dads condition.  However, last week he and Brenda had plans to travel together to Hawaii to attend a business convention...and since Dad is taken care of where he is and Dad has Sheryl (Cochran, our cousin who has been working with him four days a week to keep his house and balance his spending and sort and read his mail and run his errands for many months now) to go visit him regularly and take care of things at his house and to bring things to him at the hospital, it looked like Doyle would not need to worry while he was gone.

Until yesterday when dad called to say that he isn't sure he got a full dose of his antibiotic because much of it had leaked out onto his bed and bedclothes.  It was all settled by reporting the incident to the Doctor who said he wanted the results of a blood test to see if Dad needed more of his medicine....but it seemed to take the whole day.  Of course it took place while Doyle was out of town and could not go talk to them!  And of course the workers at the hospital denied any problem or wrongdoing and had to be told that Dad is not a nursing home patient but rather an acute care patient and that he has no kind of mental problem and does not report things that are not so.  In the end, after talking to Dad and Sheryl and me, the nurse who was responsible for the 'leaking' IV line made sure to call Dad and Me and Sheryl all three, sort of acknowledging that Dad has family who cares about his treatment and needs to know.  I called him last night before he went to bed and he said he was glad that it was not going to affect his treatment and that he was glad he would not need to stay in the hospital another day past his release date.  He told me that he is looking forward to attending a Retired Pipeliner Reunion the weekend after he gets out of the hospital.  I hope he is able to make it to San Antonio because he said his old friend Red Tinkler has agreed to meet him there. 

I sent Doyle a quick email to tell him what the nurse had said to me about the 'numbers on Dad's tests. And I, for one, am glad that Doyle is very likely back there today.   (Yesterday Doyle and Brenda were stuck  at the airport in Los Angeles waiting for a flight home, so he might not be home yet) I had a terrible time making calls and having to leave messages and not getting return calls...and Doyle can go to the nurse's desk and look at the records there to see what happened.  I'm glad Dad mostly takes care of himself.  I'm so glad Sheryl is there to pay attention to what he wants and get it for him and I am glad when Doyle is in Denton and can go by to see Dad and see with his own eyes how he is doing.  At the end of the day I still had a little bit of my Sunday left to stop and appreciate the peace and quiet that surrounds me.  I know I am blessed, and I suspect that we all are.  I have heard that there is not a God, but it is too hard for me to believe that there is not some higher power who has been taking care of me and of the things I would stumble through and fail at if there was no God.

Because I was clearing up loose ends from yesterday and doing things I had skipped while I was on the phone or waiting for the phone to ring, today for lunch I fixed Mike and Me and Mike2 BLT's for lunch.  I had nearly forgotten how easy they are to throw together and how good they taste. Comfort food.  I was not able to get my sandwich off my mind when I sat down to write this, and that's why the title of it is BLT's

I like Mike. He's all right!

I wanted to put a note here to let all of you know that Mike went today to Little Rock to find out what exactly is wrong with his right knee. So many of my friends and family have told me to call to let you know how Mike fares and so many of you have added him to your prayers that I think a quick discussion here is in order.

Mike has what is called a 'large cell tumor' at the top of his tibia (the larger of the two calf bones). It will need to be removed so today Mike went to see a specialist, an oncology orthopedic surgeon at UAMS (University of Arkansas Medical School). That doctor examined his xrays and his MRI and his right knee and told Mike he is almost positive that the original diagnosis of a large cell tumor is right and that he does not see anything else that it might be. Mike had thought he would be getting a needle biopsy today and was not looking forward to that.  The doctor gave him a choice of a needle biopsy today or having a biopsy done immediately prior to his surgery that is scheduled for Monday March 7th. Mike chose the latter, and the doctor plans for him to come in very early on the date of his operation on the the tumor and first things first, have the biopsy done and get those results then complete the surgery and remove the tumor and follow up with some bone cementing and possibly some tissue repairs and set Mike onto the road to recouperation.  Today Mike had some tests, completed a pre-op and got a knee brace that he will be able to use now to protect his knee (and his tumor) from any new damage and then after the surgery he will have that same brace to protect his new stitches for a week or two while they heal completely.

I have to tell you that the UAMS hospital is huge...I think just that hospital  Little Rock is bigger than all of the whole town of Bismarck! I took some pics of the Capital building and of a row of birds sitting along the roofline above us when I looked out the hospital window. I am going to put off looking at them for now though and go play a little catchup with a few things I didn't get done today! I just wanted to let you know that all is well with us. Thank you all for your prayers... and don't stop now! It's working!!  If you want to call Mike, the number here is (501)865-1451 and the address here is 13308 Highway 84, Bismarck, AR 71929

Mike was smart enough to check online on the Little Rock News to see if the roads were clear before we left this morning and he found out there was a fuel truck overturned just north of Malvern and the very I-30 we had planned to travel on had traffic backed up in both directions for miles while they waited for HAZMAT to come and remove the fuel before it ignited. We took a different road and the trip to Little Rock might have been a little longer, but as we came into Benton and saw the traffic backed up on the interstate we were sure glad we went the long way around! It was a long day today and we were at the hospital from before 9 until after four this afternoon. And the road was clear sailing coming home this afternoon so it took us less than an hour to get back home again.  On the return trip we did see the site of this morning's accident...a single vehicle overturned fuel truck.  All along that stretch of I-30 you could smell the gasoline but the site was clear and the traffic moving.  There was a still one state trooper there removing debris.

LOOKING BACK, PLAYING CATCHUP

I have not heard from my adopted Grandson that he is home safe from Iraq, but by my count, he has only another 4 days before he can catch a flight out of there.  He'll be home on his birthday which is April 25th.  I am not sure if he will be there to help his wife Kailia celebrate hers on March 2nd, but I hope so.  Happy Birthday Mrs. Maggard!  I hope you get the best present ever!

I did serve jury duty, but I am still in the pool so I might have to serve again before my quarter of service is up come April.  I hated serving.  It is too hard to decide the fate of someone else.  But I think we all did the right thing.  Although the defendant will spend a long time in prison, our jury is not completely responsible because the defendant had already committed several felonies and has charges still pending against him in another county to follow our verdict.  Still it was hard to listen while his mother cried and begged for mercy for her son.  I learned a lot about the way the jury system works in Arkansas, so although I did not like being on the jury, I did find it interesting.

SPRING IS HERE!  (I think)

This morning there are yellow and white daffodils blooming along my fence and the camelia bush below my kitchen window has burst into huge pink blooms.  I hear that we can expect another month of cold weather, and probably three months of rain and thunderstorms and even some tornado weather, but today the sun is shining and the birds are singing and the flowers are in bloom.  I don't know when the first day of spring is celebrated, but here I think I will celebrate today.  I am thinking that it is time to till the garden and start hanging the laundry outside instead of using the dryer.  I reckon I can use the exercise, actually.  I have been doing all the cooking and cleaning.  Mike always has been a big help with both things and now he not only is not any help, he needs someone to help him carry things and bring him things so he can use his crutches and so he can stay off his leg as much as possible.  It is wonderful that the doctor is going to do his surgery in only a week (after the weekend)!  Already I feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel and that Mike will be walking again before it is time to mow the lawn every week during the summer!   It is very much a relief to me that Mike will be all right...and soon!  Tomorrow is Sunday and as always on Sunday I look forward to a peaceful day...for me AND for you.

Our House is lovely in the spring.

What a difference a day makes

 MY ADOPTED GRANDSON

I got an e-mail today from my adopted grandson.  His name is Jason.  I 'met' him a long time ago on myspace.  I entered my maiden name Maggard into the search engine and lots of pages came back with my last name on them, but I didn't know nor was I related to any of them (but one...my cousin's son living in New York.) Two of the pages though I could not find my name on.  I read them from top to bottom and could not figure out why they were returned by the search engine since Maggard was not anywhere to be found.  I sent back a message to both of them asking why.  The first one, an oddly named one...Keokee, I got an answer back that said simply "This page came back because all of the page administrators on this myspace have the same last name.  In fact, about 90% of the people who live in Keokee are Maggards.

The second answer came back a long time later.  It was Jason.  He told me that his last name and my maiden name are one and the same.  He didn't know for sure whether he and I are related because he told me that he has very little knowledge of his heritage.  His father gave him that name, a father who left him and his brother and his mother when he was very young.  His mother since remarried and he had a father who had a different last name than him, but a father nevertheless.  Jason joined the army as soon as he was old enough.  He was writing to me from Iraq where he was serving an extended tour of duty and was waiting anxiously to go back home to Utah and join his wife.  He and I wrote back and forth regularly after that because he told me that duty in Iraq and his job as a helicopter mechanic were things that he could handle just fine but that he appreciated reading what I wrote because it took his mind away from his reality.  Me, chatterbox that I am was glad to tell him what is going on in my life.  Jason told me that he has a grandmother, the mother of his father, but she and he have no relationship at all.  I said that I would be his grandma if he wanted one and he immediately adopted me and the two of us have stayed in touch ever since.

As the months passed, Jason came home to his wife and they moved to Kansas where he was stationed for a number of months.  And then he went back to Iraq for another tour.  In the letter I got from him today Jason has started a countdown and has only fifteen days left before he returns stateside.  Good news!  I hope the last two weeks flies by for him!

JURY DUTY

Today the phone rang and it was Judge Shirron of the circuit court in Malvern telling me to be at the courthouse for jury duty at nine o'clock Thursday morning.  I went to Malvern the last week in December because I got a summons to appear for jury duty.  That trip was an orientation to the way jury duty works in Arkansas.  I am in a jury 'pool' and will remain in the pool for three months.  When I go on Thursday I will first need to answer the questions in the 'voir dire' to be sure I am qualified to serve and to see if the lawyers for the two sides will accept me.  The judge told me that most cases are settled immediately before they actually go to court, and he gave me a phone number to call on Wednesday night to be sure that the court session will actually occur on Thursday.  My son told me that when I go through the voir dire I should say "It isn't actually fair that I serve on a jury because I can read people's minds and know what they are thinking"
I think I will just do my civic duty...

MY GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY

Today, the day after Valentine's Day is the day my granddaughter had her baby...three years ago.  That means that today is my great granddaughter's third birthday.  Happy Birthday Zoey!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

The weather when I woke up on Sunday was beautiful.  Almost all of the snow had melted...just a few patches where the ice stayed snow covered because it was in the shadows and the warmer temperatures got rid of that pretty fast.  Such a lovely Sunday, almost springtime.  No hat or scarf, no gloves when I walked down to the mail box and Trinity's cat Kayley went along with me so she could chase the birds that had landed everywhere on the lawn...I saw robins and bluebirds and blue jays and sparrows and wrens and cardinals...I didn't know that different kinds of birds ever flocked together like that.

Yesterday we drove in to Hot Springs.  With all the leaves off the trees I saw things I had never seen before.  Mike's leg still gives him trouble so we didn't do any sight seeing (other than our good close up look at the road construction going on on Higdon Ferry Road that held up the traffic for a really long time before we were able to travel on).  We drove straight to the Sam's store and picked up all the things we had been conserving and doing without while the roadways were icy--mostly bread and milk, but we bought some tortilla chips and some Pace...can't live long without those!

Today is another beautiful day.  Spring is in the air!

Thursday, February 10 - Melting, melting, melting....

There is still snow everywhere.  Today it is interspersed with huge patches of brown winter grass and bare dirt and rocks.  The sun is shining so bright it gives new understanding to me of the word snow blind.  The weather is still cold...my indoor/outdoor thermometer says it is 40 degrees out and the thermometer on the back porch post says it is 30 degrees....I reckon that's the difference between the temperature out front in the bright sunshine and out back where the house itself blocks the sunshine with its shadow.

My father is in the hospital in Grapevine, Texas.  He celebrated his 91st birthday in November.  Last Sunday he felt so sick that he asked to have 911 send an ambulance to pick him up and he has been in the hospital ever since.  The doctors have diagnosed him with a blood infection and with congestive heart failure.  Both things are dangerous, but now they have him on a strong antibiotic to treat the infection and they are regulating his diet and liquid intake so as to get rid of any buildup of fluid and congestion.  The antibiotic is so strong that they don't plan to send him home for another 25 days or so depending on how the infection is cured and stays gone so today there is a plan to move him from the hospital in Grapevine to another hospital, an acute care hospital in Denton.  I have not heard for sure yet today whether they moved him or not.

My husband had an appointment to see an orthopedic oncologist in Little Rock on Friday last week, but it snowed that day and was coming down so thickly that the appointment was moved to February 25th.  He let them know that if there is any other opening, any cancellation that he can fill, that he can be there quick if they will only let him know.  He was told they suspect a large cell tumor at the top of his tibia.

And that's it for the 'bad news'.  The good news is that we are both safe and warm and the electricity has not wavered throughout all the hours that the snow was falling.  I took lots of pictures and plan to look at them and add them to this blog...as soon as I figure out how to do it.  I am still learning something new every day!  Does that ever stop?  I hope not!  The snow was so beautiful that I am hoping my pictures will show how it outlined the tree branches and covered the front lawn and made it completely white, untouched, pristine.

My first blog entry is all about this Snow Day

It started snowing very early this morning, about 3 a.m.  By the time I woke up at 9 we had at least half an inch of the white fluffy stuff and it is still coming down.  I walked out on the back porch to knock the ice off the dogs' water dish and left tracks and those are all covered up now.

We have some little birds hiding out in our rain gutters so I put a box with a hole in it on the porch for them to hide from the snow in, but so far none have done so and the sunflower seeds I put next to and onto the box are completely buried in snow now so much for my being able to attract the birds to safety with those.  The cat wanted out, but so far she is just looking out through the few inches of opening that I left at the bottom of the garage door...hoping some bird will fly inside so she can catch it I presume.  She is the world's greatest birdcat but some days it is too cold to go hunt in the trees.  She put her little paw out into the snow outside the garage, but she drew it back in quick and settled down to sit around the corner from the opening of the door looking out, but not going outside.

The dogs are running and playing out in the back yard, refreshing their path along the bottom of the fence.  Gypsy (the wolf shepherd) seems to think it is beautiful out in the cold and that she is a puppy even though she is almost 12 years old.  Her two black lab puppies are turning white then black again when they shake the snow off.  Red and Blue come up onto the porch when I walk out on the breakfast nook.  Begging for food is their main occupation.  I gave them treats when I broke the ice on top of their water bucket this morning, but that only makes them know that more treats might be available.  They are not staying up on the porch out of the wind and snow, though...they seem to like it better making tracks out in the yard.

I don't think I am going to walk down the driveway to get the mail in the mailbox at the end today.  I have some new red rubber boots though, so I might.  It's just that to go to the mail box is a quick jaunt.  Coming back up the hill is not quite as easy as all that even when it's not snowing.  Last time it snowed, Mike drove down.  He didn't realize that it would be really icy and slick driving back uphill.  He backed up and drove forward a number of times before he got enough traction to slide his way back and forth across the driveway until he got back up to the house.  I think he decided that if the car ever moved forward he was not going to let up off the gas or let it stop again until he was all the way to the top.  I think there is a new movie down there in the mailbox, but I don't know for sure and don't think I really want to know.  But those new red boots and my warm coat are right by the back door...just in case I change my mind and decide I want to build a snow man