Ha, ha. Just one more day till its 2011. What a ride this year has been. Whew, I hope it slows down in 2011. I’m not looking for anything close to a repeat. My resolution for the new year is “NO HOSPITAL VISITS!”
One of my friends suggested that he might take out an insurance policy on me. He thought it might be a really good investment. Hmmm. Maybe he’s on to something.
Whew, I never thought I’d see the day I turned sixty. It seemed so OLD. I mean like ancient old. But here I am. And you know what? I don’t feel old except when it come time to piddle or do anything that requires physical strength.
In January my son-in-law bought me a snow shovel, of all things. I thought he might use it himself but it was sadly for me. I tried to use it, but it only worked for a few minutes and then it just would not shovel any longer. The automatic function seemed to stop working and I just couldn’t get it to work in manual either. It is still hanging in the barn if anyone is interested to see if you can fix it.;
In February, I tried my hand at using www.pajamagram.com. The pajamas came just as they said they would. On time delivery, packaged in a really nice organza covered hat box with chocolate candies and lovely little oil/scent packages that were supposed to ensure a romantic evening. She really hated the leopard print with red piping sleepware. It looked so good on the young lady in the catalog. I’m not sure how or why it failed to light the fire of desire in her. Valentines was a bust.
March is our anniversary month. She wanted to book a Cruise to Alaska. I wanted to book a trip to Wyoming. We booked the cruise. They say that anticipation is 80% of the fun for a trip. We had all the anticipation and none of the fun. We got cold feet for the cruise after I got seasick sitting in a boat on Lake Union. We never left the dock. There was a little waitress walking around handing out cocktails with a celery stalk sticking out of them. Not sure what they were but between the gentle rocking of the boat and looking at that red liquid with the celery stalk for a while, I started to get green and we had to leave before the boat left the dock. We canceled the cruise. Our anniversary was a bust too.
April brought April Fools day. I got fooled and never ever recovered from it. the boys at work moved my office out to the warehouse – phone and all. It was freezing there and the noise from the trucks pulling in and out made it hard to concentrate on my computer.
May included a fishing trip down the Yakima River. I thought taking a Friday off work to go fishing was a great idea. The water was high and the wind was blowing so hard that the boat, at one point, was going up river on its own. The guide had to oar just so we could go down river. Two anglers and only one fish. Not what I consider a good day on the water.
June came and we celebrated my birthday. No 60! What a day. Didn’t know all those things came in black. I still have some of my packages unopened in the back of the closet. I’m really afraid what they might have in them. The girls at the Miss’s hair salon all swear that black is slimming. Maybe it is on them but it has a way of magnifying my hips way out of proportion to the rest of my body. It doesn’t help me one bit.
For my birthday, we went fishing in Republic with my boss. He lives there. We stayed in our motorhome on his riverfront property. It was really nice until the mosquitos found that we were there. They decided to have us for dinner. There was some other mystery bug there that decided to wake from its slumber too. MRSA! If you have ever seen the movie Hitch then you have a small understanding what I looked like the next morning. My ear was about 10 times bigger than it normally was and I really felt like I had the flue. She had to drive the motor coach home. A 10 to 12 hour drive with me moaning and groaning unintelligible things all the way.
We ended up at the hospital the next day and they modified my plumbing with a new thing called a pick line. The feisty nurse installed a tube in my heart that exited my arm and told me to pump these tubies of medicine in them for the next ten days. 57 syringes later she yanked the thing out without even telling me what she was about to do. I almost lost my lunch right there.
July brought the fireworks. The neighbors almost set my house on fire! The kids were shooting off bottle rockets by the thousands – literally! I have the sticks in my front yard to prove it. I also have the broken window. Those rocket sticks made enough kindling for my other son-in-law to start a bond fire in the back yard. He piled so much stuff on the fire that orange flames were visible from the front yard looking over the house. We had scorched earth for 20 feet all the way around the fire pit.
August brought another fishing trip. Our friends, Loren and Marsha, came to visit and stayed with us for a week or so. Loren and I went fishing for a couple of days. The first day out, first hole of the day, I fell in over my head – soaked completely – in snow melt water. Good thing I had shorts on. I think I dried out by about 7 pm that night after I took a shower at home.
September brought another trip to the emergency room to see that feisty nurse. She installed the external plumbing unit again so I could inject my self with that slimy bug killing juice again. I guess the really cool thing about all this is that the grandkids have really had fun playing with all those syringes. The hold about half a soda can of water and will shoot for about 25 feel. We had some fun wars in the back yard.
October is the kindest month of the year to me. I get to go to Wyoming. I get to meet some good fishing buddies, sit around in my new leopard print with red piping pajamas, and endure their harassment for 10 days. Nothing I would rather be doing.
November brought one of the funniest events of the year. We have been raising two turkeys named Thanksgiving and Christmas since early March. They were ready for the dinner table. They got so fat that they could no longer stand! My son and his mom decided that it was time to harvest. I said to use the ax and just chop their heads off. They chose to use a saw! I suggested that they might like to use the limb lobbers on the second one. They chose to use a knife. As bad as the grizzly event was it wasn’t the worst part. They did it in full view of the chickens. The poor things were traumatized for weeks. They almost starved to death because they wouldn’t let us near the coop without a major ruckus. I now know what hen pecked is all about.
December is here and we had Christmas on the fifth day of the month. Our daughter and my third son-in-law bought tickets to come out for a visit. We brought the who family together and ate Christmas (the turkey). He tasted just fine. You’d never know he had his neck sawn off in stead of chopped. His feet are still somewhere out in the back yard. I saw one of the dogs chewing on it yesterday.
If this is what turning 60 is like, I can’t wait for 61.
Its been three weeks. No contact. No word. No email. No texting. Nothing.
Our friend, Peter, has gone back to the Sudan, that forsaken place of full of misery and danger. He wants to find his mother, whom he has not heard from in over 5 years. No easy task. There are no phones, computers or other communication devices in the Sudan.
He left with suitcases packed full of shoes for his family. Sneakers, boots, stompers, just about any thing he was given by friends. Not much money in his pockets either, just barely enough to purchase a return ticket. My guess is that he will spend most of it and have a big struggle saving enough to get back to the US.
We may not see Peter again. He could just meld back into his previous life, or he might surprise us all and return with his family! What a joy that would be.
Pray for Peter. He is one man against formidable odds. Pray that he is able to find what he is looking for and in the process, find happiness and joy. Closure is one of the big items on his mind. Closure on all the what-if’s life has given him.
Peter, may God protect you and wrap his loving arms around you as you traverse the wilds of the Sudan. May you find what you are looking for and in the process, find closure and happiness.
Blessings on you friend!
Kathleen and I had the distinct privilege of having dinner last night with one of the lost boys of Sudan. He goes by the name of Peter – one he chose for himself from the bible. Peter is a Christian who lived in a Muslim country that has been at war with itself since 1955. It is an African country that the ruling clan wants to make Arab. The ruling clan lives in the north and all the wealth (oil, gas, minerals, salt) are in the poor southern part.
They have been killing one another since before the war started. Peter has lost just about all of his family. His dad was killed; he was separated from his mother when he was 7 and set loose to wander the desert sands of the Sudan for the next hand full of years. He was able to contact his brother last year, but not since. Peter's one desire is to go back to his homeland and find his mother.
Peter is now an American citizen. Yet, while he lives here and sees the life we live – a dramatic comparison at best – he wants to go home, into the war zone, to search for his family. There are no guarantees that he will find anything other than trouble.
Peter is a strong Christian young man. He has an amazing story and testimony of how God has directed and protected his life. I am sure this is not the last I will see or feel of Peter. Blessings on you my new friend.
I'm not sure what I am supposed to learn from the last few weeks. In and out of the hospital daily, doctor appointments, labs, blood draws, more doctors to see. What does it all mean? Yes, I have some little buggers running around where they shouldn't and they need to be destroyed. But is there a chance it is bigger than that? Was there someone in this adventure who needed me to pray for them or offer an encouraging word? Could that be part of the purpose?
I met many people over the last week – some old friends from my previous bout with this bug and I met many new friends. None of them were grouchy or seemed sad. They seemed like they really did enjoy what they did. That was good. It helped me through a tough time. But I still have to ask if there was a deeper lesson for me to learn?
The only issue that jumps up for me is that unlike my previous episode 10 weeks ago, this time it seemed to be about me. I mean, for me, it was about me and not about others. I did not remember to pray for those whom I had conversations and discussions. I didn't pray for the assistant (Julie) or the blood draw lady (Vicki). I did not pray for the nurse (Marla) nor for the doctors (can't remember their names). It just seemed to be about me. Why was I so focuses on me and not them?
That's not to say that there were not brief moments where I prayed for them – it just was not what I was focused on – and probably should have been.
Lord, forgive my selfishness.
Have you ever felt like you were being tested? Un common dreams, life events that don't seem to match up with what you were hoping they would be? There is the difficulty understanding the whys, what ifs, and most disconcerting of all, the uncertainty of what the future holds?
I am going through my second treatment for the MRSA bacteria infection in 10 weeks. It is not the treatments, they are not pleasant or fun in any way, and it is not having the actual bug that seems to get me. It is getting it back to back so quickly that is messing with my head and heart.
I have met some pretty remarkable people at the medical facility where I go for treatment. Marla, what a gentle nurse who shows all she meets compassion. Julie, the trainee – she who keeps the linens stocked in all the rooms – always has a smile. There are all four doctors who have stopped by to look in on me. Each concerned that I get well quickly. And there is Miss Vicki. She reminds me of Tiny Tim's girlfriend.
Miss Vicki has had the pleasure of inserting a tube in my arm 51 cm and making sure that it went the right way – down into my heart and not up into my brain – all without missing a beat while I am sitting there cracking jokes and, well, just being a little difficult and annoying to someone who is matter of fact, has all the pieces lined up and each piece in its proper place, almost mechanical.
I think she almost relished the opportunity to do it the second time after the little stunt I did at her expense 10 weeks earlier. She did have a somewhat sinister smile when we met in the hallway this time. However she was very nice to me again. Something I did not deserve.
With all that said, I am having difficulty with the ancillary ramifications of being laid up again. Not the actual being sick or treatment but the inability to do my job and the disruption to my daily routine. That's what is really bothering me.
I have great co-workers. They rely on me and I on them. Then when you step out of the daily routine for a week of unexpected circumstance no one has a good idea of how to deal with the phone calls and planning that needs to continue with your work. It stresses them out because they are trying to pick up small pieces and patch thing together and understand what you were trying to do. We all can look at a project and my bet is that we would all take a different path toward the end. Not that any of the paths are wrong, they are just different.
My experience is that this breeds suspicion. I think that is what I fear most.
I have a wonderful boss. He is young, has a very quick mind and can run circles around my in the sheer quantity of work he gets done. I am not sure I have met anyone quite so focused. He is a good man to work for and I am continually learning from him. So, why am I so bothered by this second bout with MRSA?
Perhaps it is my desire to not want to disappoint him. I am not sure. I have some further thinking to do before I make up my mind. All I know is that something about this is really working on me.
I updated my computer at work today. I have been using MS Office 2010 BETA for the last six to eight months. Loved the program so I purchased a final release copy yesterday. While doing my homework on installing it I read many of the horror stories others have had. Ooo, I was a little hesitant.
I did an uninstall via Windows, then used MS Windows Installer Clean Up Installation Wizard for Office 2010 and finally followed up with running CCleaner. The install went without a hitch. Up and running. It saw everything including all the network sign-in information. Oh, what relief.
I'm a happy camper.
