Nobody said this would be easy...

grrrr.....

I hate food.

Wait, let me rephrase that.

I love food. I adore food. My life is not complete without something tasty to nibble on at mealtime. However, I really dislike what most food that falls into the "tasty" category does to my body and health. grrrr....

To put things into perspective, overall I've been doing fairly well with both meal content and portion control the last few days. I've been eating mainly stuff the comes from the outer edges of the store - the produce, dairy, and meat sections, only veggies without any sauces from the frozen section - in reasonable proportions to each other. Whole grain cereals and low-fat milk for breakfast, turkey sandwich on whole-wheat bread with salad for lunch, for dinner something like baked pork with fresh green beans and some macaroni & cheese made with the Dreamfields pasta. That was yesterday's menus, by the way.

My sugar, 2 hours after dinner, was a whopping 140. May be high by most standards, but it's normally been running over 200 at the point in time, so 140 is cause for excitiment.

We needed to make a run into the next town to pick up some stuff at WalMart about 9:00 last night. We were hungry. We ended up at the Huddle House. It's about like a Waffle House or and Omelet House. We were in dangerous territory, that's where we were. It's late at night that my willpower seems to go *poof* and I'm really susceptible to the call of chips, ice cream, fried foods, and potatos.

Suffice to say, I didn't behave. The salads just weren't calling my name, neither were the the grilled chicken, stuffed tomatos, or omelets. Country fried steak with fried eggs, please, hash browns instead of grits, and whole wheat toast, all the while, telling myself "I'll just eat half, yeah, that's it, I'll just eat half the steak and potatos, and I did leave off the usual request for cheese on the potatos..." I do such a wonderful job of rationalizing and lying to myself, it's not funny. I ate the whole stinking thing. Every last crumb.

It would be very easy to look at that episode and say "That's it, I can't do this, I'm going to give up and eat whatever I want, because the food is going to win in the long run, I'm still gonna' die and it's going to be the food's fault", but I'm not going to do that. Okay, I screwed up last night. Everybody does. But, I can't let it become a habit. And, I can't let "everybody does" become and excuse.

Next time I'm facing Huddle House at 9:00 PM, and it will happen, trust me, I'll try a different strategy. It may take forcing myself to listen to the omelet, no hash browns please, that make sense. Or, if I do give in to the "I'll just eat half" theory, maybe I'll ask for a to go box before I ever start eating and put what I'm not going to eat in the box, then put the box out of sight. We'll see... for now, I think I'll go make a mushroom omelet to start my day...

BTW, I still haven't tried the cinnamon tea with honey and lemon. I keep forgetting to bring the honey back from the campground. I have found some wonderful Celestial Seasonings teas that are naturally decaffinated. I bought a sample pack that has wonderful flavors such as Chamomile, Peppermint, Berry Zinger, Lemon Zinger, and SleepyTime. The lemon and peppermint both taste great with a cinnamon stick in them.

It's here! It's here! The Casting Crowns CD is here! Now, to find the time to listen to it... :o)

Update on Dad, from Dad

My Dad has taken over sending out the updates that I sent while he was in the hospital. He is quite the nut, which is a wonderful thing to see. He's looking really good. Here's the latest from him:


Mark's Sporatic Condition Report 30 Aug 07

It has not been all that long since the last report, but a couple things have happened. The staples came out of the wound. In the clinical sense, the surgeon was very happy what he saw. At the personal level, I was just relieved to have them out. There is still a lot of soreness in the wound area, but not nearly as bad as when the staples were in.

The guy from the artificial limb store was there and took some measurements. From them he can begin work on the part that fits onto my leg.

I realize that this little condition report revolves around me, since I am the patient here. There are those that have secretly formed a cult, or at least an enthusiastic following, of the parrot. Photos of the parrot (and of me) have been requested, so here they are:

This should handle the news for a while. Evereryone take care and have a safe holiday.

Mark

Mark E. Young, Jr.
MSgt, USAF (RET)
Member IPMS/USA
Dayton Area Plastic Modelers Society

KC-135A - built when Man thought He Could Burn Water

Another day, another battle

Today begins fresh, a new battle against my body's natural tendancies to have too much glucose and cholesterol floating around in there. I'm convinced that I can produce this stuff out of nothing sometimes. That is the only explanation for some of the numbers that turn up in my bloodwork. It is really trying to drive me over the edge into a pit of despair some days, but I'm not going to let it reach it's goal today. Too many things to do, people to see, friends to stay in touch with, that kind of thing.

Sometimes I have to wonder why God created diseases such as diabetes and the high cholesterol, but then it hits me - we've probably created these monsters ourselves, without any input from God. God gave us the intelligence we needed to do all kinds of good things, this is true.

But.... wait a minute while I get on my soapbox here.... can everyone see me? Good....

We've used that same intelligence to create a culture that thrives on high fat and carbohydrate diets, and all of the chemicals and additives that humankind has come up with for our food supply boggles the mind. If you look at the root of most diets that have been the most successful at combating heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, most chronic illnesses... they all have the same basic principal - get back to nature, dipstick. Stay away from things with ingredients that you can't pronounce and stuff that has been processed until all that was ever good and healthy about it has been pulverized and turned into a pasty mush.

OK, I'll hop off the soapbox now...

So, in the interest of trying something new and healthy, I started out the day with cinnamon tea. I did some reading last night, into the wee hours of the morning actually, on different things to try to regulate blood sugar and cholesterol. Most of the natural remedies included things like "eat more fresh veggies and fruit", "get more exercise", "stay away from caffeine", and, interestingly enough "cinnamon". It turns out that studies have shown that people who consume between 3 and 9 grams of cinnamon a day tend to have lower blood sugars. It matters what kind of cinnamon it is, apparently, and that you should make sure that you're using real cinnamon. I didn't realize there was such a thing as fake cinnamon, but OK, I guess... About.com has a pretty good summary on their web page about the health benefits of cinnamon in their alternative health section.

So Back to the tea... I found a recipe on the About.com website for cinnamon tea that uses a bag of regular black tea and a cinnamon stick. All I have is the Lipton orange pekoe/black tea blend, so I used it instead. I poured a cup of hot water and put a cinnamon stick in it. I set a saucer on top of the cup to keep it warm and let the cinnamon steep for ten minutes or so. Then I took the tea bag and dunked it in the water 3 or 4 times, just enough to color the water really, and took it out. Left the cinnamon stick in there. Added a spoonful of Splenda (gosh, I love that stuff!) and had a pretty darn good cup of tea.

I'm on my second cup of tea now. Same cinnamon stick, less Splenda, and no teabag (which means no caffeine... even better!). Mmmmm... quite tasty. It tastes better than the one that had the teabag in it. Even if it doesn't help with my sugar, it sure does taste good.

I was messaging with my friend Heather last night. She's done quite a bit of study on holistic and natural healing. She suggested that I should start drinking a cup of hot water with a teaspoon of honey and a teaspoon of lemon every morning as a way to help with my cholesterol. I wonder how a cinnamon/honey/lemon tea will taste. I can probably leave the Splenda out completely with the honey added in there. We'll find out tomorrow....

http://diabetesmine.com/

I just wandered onto this blog by accident. Lots and lots and lots of information about living with diabetes. I think I'll spend some time here...

http://diabetesmine.com/

My doctor is crazy

I have Type II diabetes and high cholesterol. I've let them get away from me, lost all control over the last year or so. My numbers are on the high side, but not alarmingly high - yet. I'm trying to get control back. The sugar is putting up a fight. It seems like all I have to do is think about eating and my blood sugar level goes sky high. It's quite frustrating. We won't even talk about the cholesterol - it doesn't respond to diet, exercise, anything organic it seems.

I've started working with a new doctor to get this stuff taken care of. She helped Jack get his blood pressure under control. I'm sure she'll have me back in line as soon as possible. We're trying some different medications now.

She is a very... ummm... interesting lady. She seems quite eager for me to get pregnant once we get the sugar under control. Can you say "No way"? I thought you could... As if I need to start having babies when I'm almost 40, and my husband is already at 50... It would be different if I'd already had some children. Not too keen on getting started this late, and not on top of the health issues I already have.

This was at my first visit that she brought up the babies. When we planned my next visit, it was going to include a pelvic. I told her we could go ahead and get it out of the way if she wanted to, I thought it had already been scheduled, but she says "No, I don't do pelvics on first dates..."

Yeah, she's interesting. I'm looking forward to my next visit, in a month, to redo the bloodwork and see what the medications are doing for me.

The Casting Crowns CD that I ordered hasn't arrived yet. :o(

A Pirate Turns 60

Dad’s 60th birthday was today. Jack and I called him and sang “Happy Birthday” to him. He said “Wait!” and put us on speaker phone, so everyone else in Ohio could sing with us, too. I told him that I would have called earlier, but I wanted to wait for Jack to be there too, so we could both sing to him together. He said “I appreciate that. I wouldn’t want to hear Jack sing a solo…” Gotta’ love my dad. :o)

He gets his staples out this upcoming week. He says the shrink sock he got last week seems to egg on the phantom pain, but thinks some of it may be from the staples. We’ll find out next week, I guess. It looks like he’ll be measured for the prosthesis itself sometime during the first part of September. I know Mom is looking forward to next weekend, when they’ll go to West Virginia to check on their retirement land. They’ve been working on getting it ready to build a house on. Dad’s been talking to landscaping contractors this past week. A positive thing, I believe. :o)

First Hike - Survived!

We survived. 3 miles. Doesn't sound like much of a walk, does it? Is isn't, until you consider that half of it was downhill. Half of it was uphill. Some of it was pretty darn steep. Some of it was gently sloping. We found out when we got to the trailhead that the camera didn’t have a memory card in it, so the only pictures I have are from my camera phone. When I find the adapter for the mini-chip, I’ll post some pictures, probably sometime tomorrow or Monday.

The trail suckered us in. Really, it did. We started out on an old roadbed, with a gentle slope. Trees grew up all around and met overhead to form a dense, green canopy that shaded us. It was nice, it was cool. I can’t say it was quiet – we could hear the road half of the time. It didn’t help that the HOG Rally was going on in Knoxville this weekend, and the road that the trailhead was on is one of the most popular motorcycle roads in the area. But the walk was easy and comfortable. We were headed to an 80 foot waterfall.

Halfway to the waterfall, the trail bit. We moved off the old roadbed to a real footpath. We’d been walking on gently sloping gravel. We moved to steep terrain, covered by layers of pine needles and dead leaves. I noticed a smell for the first time – the smell of raw earth. It was good. We made our way down the slope, using tree roots as steps. I was very thankful it wasn’t raining. That would have been a very slick mess if it had been wet. As it was, the moss presented an opportunity to slip often enough.

We climbed down to the creek, then climbed upstream to the head of it. 80 feet above us, many small trickles and streams converged into the falls. We’ve not had much rain to speak of for the last several weeks, so the water that fell over the edge wasn’t nearly as impressive as it would be if we’d had normal rainfall this summer. Even so, it was very beautiful.

The water fell 80 feet into a pool, then continued on downstream at a pretty steep pace over large rocks and ledges. It was neat. We climbed up to the pool, something we wouldn’t have been able to do if the falls had been full. We found one fish, about 5 or 6 inches long, one crawdad, and lots of water-bugs living in the pool. There was something very peaceful and calming about sitting beside the waterfall to eat our snack and drink some water.

Neither of us were really looking forward to the climb back up the trail to the car. Jack checked the GPS to see that we weren’t all that far from the car, not nearly as far as we had walked. There was just this problem of a wet, 80 foot cliff directly between us and it. It looked like there was a rough trail going up the side of the cliff, and he decided to explore it. He tried to climb all the way up to the top while I amused myself trying to take pictures of the bees on the flowers growing in a pool of water. He ended up not being successful as what appeared to be a trail turned out to be a tease. Since I haven’t downloaded the pictures off my phone yet, we don’t know if I was successful or not.

We finished up our snack, watched the crawdad for a bit, then started back. The climb back up the steep part of the trail convinced me that I’m really, really, really out of shape. Coming back to the old roadbed was very welcome, I’ll tell you! We walked along in silence. I had nice long talk with God while walking, thanking Him for keeping us safe and for making all of the beautiful and wondrous things we’d seen. Just then, a big black butterfly wafted down on a sunbeam and landed on a leaf right in front of me. Would I be silly to think the butterfly was sent as a way to say “you’re welcome”? It sure seemed that way. We made it back to the car, about 2 ½ hours after we left, feeling tired, but happy. I’m sure we’ll both feel it in the morning, but we’re already planning our next hike. :o)

I am a glutton

For punishment, that is. Jack and I have decided that we need to get into some hobbies that are more healthy for us than surfing the net whilst consuming mass quantities of junk food. Judging by the spread of my backside and the increases of some rather alarming bloodwork numbers, I couldn't have started a healthy hobby any too soon.

Anyway, we've decided to try hiking. Our first hike is tomorrow. Wish us well. We're going to head out in the morning, armed with a GPS and camera. Water bottles, maps, and bug repellant, too.

Pray for us...

Oh Goodie...

I just got an email notice that the new Casting Crowns CD, The Altar and the Door, that I ordered a couple of months ago shipped yesterday. It's due out in stores next Tuesday. I wonder if I'll get it before the stores are allowed to sell it? That would be way cool...

True story: Our youth pastor is in his early 20's. The youth class was getting ready for a performance for VBS this summer. They had put together choreography to a Casting Crowns song from a previous album. He managed to lose his copy of the music and was scrambling to find. He finally came to me and said that the youth class wouldn't be able to do their presentation and why, very glum about the whole thing. When I told him to go out to my car and get the CD out of the player, his eyes got as big as saucer. "You mean YOU listen to cool stuff?????" like I was ancient or something. Sheesh. There may be some snow settling on the mountain tops, but I'm far from dead, folks. I'm really starting to believe that life begins at 40, but that's another post for another time...

Casting Crowns is a very spiritual group. It seems like a lot of their music speaks directly to me. Their music deals with a lot of issues that we face as Christians - doubt, fear, service, unconditional love, charades, forgiveness. Lots and lots of deep stuff, the stuff good sermons are made of. There's already been a single from the new album hit the radio stations, "East To West". Very good song that deals with forgivenes - not the forgiveness that we offer each other, but the unconditional forgiveness and love of Jesus. The instrumentals are impressive, it sounds like a full orchestra is used, and the lyrics are very deep. You can hear it at their website. The link opens up on the page for the new album. They have all of the music from it available to listen to, not just "East To West".

Here's the lyrics, if you'd like to see them:

Here I am Lord and I’m drowning
In Your sea of forgetfulness
The chains of yesterday surround me
I yearn for peace and rest
I don’t want to end up where You found me
And it echoes in my mind
Keeps me awake tonight

I know You’ve cast my sin as far
As the East is from the West
And I stand before You now
As though I’ve never sinned
But today I feel like I’m just one mistake away
From You leaving me this way

Jesus, can You show me just how far the East is from the West?
Cause I can’t bear to see the man I’ve been
Rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
You know just how far the East is from the West
From one scarred hand to the other

I start the day, the war begins
Endless reminding of my sin
And time and time again
Your truth is drowned out by the storm I’m in
Today I feel like I’m just one mistake away
From You leaving me this way

Jesus, can You show me just how far the East is from the West?
Cause I can’t bear to see the man I’ve been
Come rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
Cause You know just how far the East is from the West
From one scarred hand to the other

I know You’ve washed me white
Turned my darkness into light
I need Your peace to get me through
To get me through this night

I can’t live by what I feel
About the truth Your word reveals
And I’m not holding onto You
But You’re holding onto me
You’re holding onto me

Jesus, You know just how far the East is from the West
I don't have to see the man I’ve been
Come rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest (mercy I find rest)
You know just how far the East is from the West
From one scarred hand to the other

Amazing Grace

We're on a roll at church here lately, which is a good thing. We had a revival a couple of weeks ago. I was in Ohio with my mom & dad, but I heard about it. It turned into one of those old-timey Southern Baptist shouting revivals, the kind that scare more conservative demoninations out of their wits. No snake handling or speaking in tongues kind of stuff (that would have scared us out of our wits!), but lots of hand raising, amen-ing, snot-slinging, crying, hugging, and shouting. All in all, a good time. And, of course, you can't have a real Baptist function without having a carry in dinner at some point...

Anyway, the feel-goods from the revival are still floating around the church. It was a very successful revival. During that week, 10 people professed faith in Jesus and asked for salvation. Since then, there have been 7 or 8 people want to join the church. Yay!

Our pastor is a great preacher. He can take 3 or 4 verses out of the Bible and make them into a sermon that holds your attention and makes some very good, very valid points. He went through the whole book of Jonah awhile back, which is a relatively short book. It still took a good 3 months, and none of it was boring.

He took the verses about the fish spitting Jonah back up and turned them into a sermon about good and faithful service to the Lord. Originally, the Lord had given the fish a pretty good meal when he had him swallow Jonah. Might have had some indigestion along the way since Jonah probably wouldn't hold still, but you'd have to admit that an entire human being would made a feast for the fish. Still, when the Lord told the fish to let him go, the fish not only did it without questioning God, but he also went wayyyy out of his comfort zone, up onto the dry land, to do it. Good and faithful service.

Wow, I'm getting way off track here, aren't I? The point that I was trying to get to was that we're having a great time at church here lately, and our paster can turn thin air into a wonderful sermon.

He started a series on grace yesterday. You can't talk about grace without talking about mercy. They are antonymns that go hand in hand. Grace is when God gives what we don't deserve. Mercy is when God doesn't give us what we do deserve. I need to get a copy of the tape and transcribe some of the sermon where he was giving examples of each and how they work together. It was awesome and has the power to give you chills when you think about it.

Being a study in grace, he also studied the song "Amazing Grace". It was written by John Newton in 1772, a preacher who's mission in life when he was younger was to enjoy every decadent and sinful thing there was. He had no fear of God, nor regard of man. Something happened on a slave trading ship going from Africa to England that changed his tune, and he found God. He started preaching, and to go with his sermons, he would write a melody. Amazing Grace came about as a melody to go along with a sermon on grace.

Our pastor said something that struck me. I wrote it down so I'd never forget it. He said "this man never got over what God did for him." It got me to thinking about how complacent so many of us are about our salvation, almost like it's old news. That is dangerous ground, and I'm going to do my best not to tread on it anymore.

There were originally 6 verses, of which we traditionally only see 3 in most hymnals today. The last verse that we sing now wasn't written with the rest of them, it was written in Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and is now the accepted final verse. Another verse was written in 2006 for a song sung by contemporary Christian artist Chris Tomlin. It's too early to tell if that verse will catch on or not.

The original verses written by John Newton in 1772:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!

Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promis’d good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.

The popular last verse from Uncle Tom's Cabin:

When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise,
Then when we first begun!

The newest published verse, as sung by Chris Tomlin:

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free
My God, my Saviour, Has ransomed me
And like a flood, His mercy reigns
Unending Love, Amazing Grace

On Being Assimilated...

First of all, I'm back home again. My father is doing wonderful and the only thing I really could do to help him out any would be to stay and cook fattening meals for him. But, since both my mother and my sister can do that, all I'd really be doing is getting in the way and moping around becuase I wasn't at home.

A home health care nurse and an occupational therapist came out to evaluate Dad on Thursday. The nurse will be coming out a couple of times a week to check healing on his stump and check vital signs. The occupational therapist won't be back. She watched Dad use his walker, checked out the house for things that could be problems, decided there weren't any, checked his strength, all kinds of things. After standing in the living room where all of the airplane things are for over 20 minutes, she told us that Dad didn't need her, he could already take care of himself. Yeah, we knew that, but home health care had to see it for themselves, I suppose...

A physical therapist comes out early next week to evaluate what he needs, and he also has an appointment with the prosthesis maker to get started on that process.

When we were little and were getting ready to leave on long trips, which meant getting up super early to get into the car and go back to sleep, Dad would walk through the house and ring these huge cowbells to wake us up. They also went to football games, and were a source of great embarassment for us as teenagers. Anyway, Dad woke us up with them yeterday morning. I staggered to the hallway to find Dad on the other end, standing there with his walker, all of the cowbells in the basket, the dog barking at him, and an impish grin. It's good to have Dad back. :o)


Now, about this assimilation thing... I have spent 37 years and 7 months detesting the taste of coffee, even though I've been surrounded by it. Up to now, if I drank coffee, it had to have so much stuff in it to disguise the taste that it wasn't coffee anymore, it was some sort of flavored syrupy stuff.

Anyway, Wednesday morning, I got up early in a hotel room to finish the drive to my mother's house so I could go with her to pick up Dad. The only caffeine available was in the form of the complimentary coffee maker in the room. Needing something to help wake me up badly, I decided to choke some down.

I fixed up a cup of it, put in the small amounts of sweetener and creamer that were available, and promptly burned my tongue on the awful stuff. !@#$!!!!! Into the sink I went to put some cool water in it so I could suck it down quickly. Maybe I won't taste it too much if I gulp it down, right? I took a test sip to make sure I wasn't setting myself up for a blistered throat. Hmmmm.... what is this stuff? It tastes good..... how can this be coffee???? I wrote it off as a fluke as I enjoyed, yes... enjoyed that cup of coffee, without a mountain of sweetener and cream.

On the way home last night, I stopped at a convenience store in Knoxville, about an hour away from the house. I decided to give it another shot, to test the fluke theory. Didn't take me long to suck that cup down, either.

*Sigh*. I have been assimilated.

Back in Ohio again...

...this time for some happy stuff!

Dad came home yesterday. Mom and I went to pick him up. Our first stop was the pharmacy. Our second stop was a Chinese restaurant. :o)

He'll start the prosthesis fitting process shortly. He'll have to wear something to shrink the size of the stump and mold it to fit. He has a home health care nurse who will be coming in once a day to check his progress and take care of any issues that pop up. We're not expecting anything drastic to happen.

He hops around the house very well on his walker. We've put a bicycle basket on the front of it that he uses to carry around whatever he needs - food, drink, books, stuff to do... the little dog fits in it, but isn't very sure about things. He looks so much like Toto out of the Wizard of Oz movie when he's in it!

I'll probably go home tomorrow or Saturday. I'm not really needed very much, but it sure has been nice to visit and be here. I'm going to try to get hold of Ruth and see what she's up to tomorrow night.

Laundry Observation

I am convinced that laundry, when left unchaperoned, will procreate faster than teenagers at the drive-in movies. And it breeds faster than either rabbits, cockroaches, or the dreaded wire clothes hanger.

Dad starts his rehab today. So far, the parrot has gone with him everywhere he goes. I don't know if he'll take it with him to the physical therapy sessions or not. We'll find out tonight when I get a report from Mom.

Now, back to battling the dreaded laundry pile...

This is an evil, evil website...

So totally non-productive... http://www.gamesforwork.com/

Home of the idiot test, versions 1 - 4. Don't go here unless you have lots of time to kill.

My Dad, the Pirate...

I just got off the phone with Mom and everything is going well. Dad has started chasing the nurses up and down the hallways a few times a day, and the surgery site still looks great - healthy and pink, no signs of infection. I think tomorrow, the dressings will come off to let open air get to it.

Mom paid a surprise visit to each of the rehab centers they've been looking at and toured them. She took a lot of pictures and they both went over the results and her impressions to select one. They picked the Dayton Rehabilitation Institute, located in the old St. Elizabeth hospital in Dayton. The rooms are laid out like hotel rooms, and the occupational therapy area will help Dad relearn how to handle everyday things, like getting out of a regular bed and a recliner, managing washers & dryers, kitchens, that kind of thing. They even have a car so that he can practice getting in and out of it from either the passenger or the driver's side doors. Well, it's half a car - it's been cut in the middle and only the front half is there.








Mom took some pictures of Dad yesterday, too. He looks sooo much better than he did right before the surgery.

See, the mischievous grin is back. :o) Once they totally disconnect him from the IV, Dad can start wearing his own clothes again. The hospital gowns, while functional, are most definitely not flattering, and more than a little breezy in the back. :o)

I'm not sure who sent it, but Dad now has a peg-leg to go with his parrot. He's got both of them hanging from the trapeze bar at the foot of his bed. The hospital staff is now convinced that not only are Dad's friends and family sick, we're also insane. Oh well... He hasn't tried the fake bird dropping yet that I know of.


It isn't the best picture of Dad, but you can see the parrot at the top and the peg-leg hanging at the bottom. It has a threaded post at the top to make attachment easy, a bungee cord on eyebolts for efficient storage, and spare felt pads for the bottom so that Dad doesn't mark up the new hard-wood floors he just put down in the house a few months ago.

Soooo, that's where things are for the moment. Tomorrow will be another day.

Grins,

Lori

A new take on "Thriller"

Okay, I'm going to show my age here... I confess to being one of those teenagers who was anxiously awaiting the release of the video to Micheal Jackson's song "Thriller" in the 80's. This was back before he started having any surgeries and such, back when it was really cool to watch MTV and they played real music videos. Not like the really bizzare stuff they show now...

Anyway, I came across this on Yahoo! today. Inmates in a prison in the Phillipines have acted out the video, complete with a, um, ah... "damsel" in distress. The damsel has a receding hairline, but use your imagination. They had limited resources to work with... :o) It's a little over 4 minutes long, complete with sound. They did a pretty darn good job, too...

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=879021&fr=&cache=1

Home for a few days

Made it in to the house late last night. Dad and Mom are both doing great and there isn't much for me to do to help them out, so they shooed me back to TN. It was soooo nice to sleep in my own bed, with my own critters last night. I'll go back to their place for a few days when Dad comes home, but I don't think they're really going to need me all that much. Dad is already maneuvering around the hospital on a walker. He'll do very well with a prosthetic leg in place.

Before we left yesterday, I took Jack to Foy's, a really interesting collection of stuff all crammed into one store. They have all kinds of penny candy (it's a nickle now), gag gifts, party decorations, crazy kid stuff like kazoos, spider rings, and rubber snakes, a hardware and small houseware department, and lots and lots of costumes. It looks like Oriental Trading's Halloween edition exploded in there, and then some. When I was a kid, I could wander in there for hours and never get bored. Still can, as we found out yesterday. :o)

Our mission at Foy's was to find a pirate's parrot. When I was making phone calls following Dad's last surgery, somebody asked if he would be issued a parrot and a peg-leg. Well, no, but that is a wonderful idea! We couldn't do the peg-leg, but we did find the parrot. Dad loves him! He's perched on the trapeze bar that is hanging over Dad's bed in the hospital, and Dad says he is a great source of comments from visitors and staff.

Mom called a little bit ago and said that the surgeon had come in to inspect his handiwork. She was there when the dressing came off the leg. She said "It looks beautiful... all pink and healthy, nothing dark or bad going on there...." Yeeehaaaa!

On another, sadder note, our household is down to 2 cats as of this morning. When we got home last night, April, the grand matriarch, was sitting in Jack's computer chair, ignoring us. We figured she was mad at us for going away for a few days and went on to bed. This morning, she was still sitting in the same spot, had not moved one bit. We took her to the vet's office. Bloodwork showed numbers that indicated pancreatic cancer that went off the chart. The vet was surprised she was moving around at all, let alone trying to argue with him when he drew the blood. He said he could make her comfortable for a few days, but that she'd be back very soon. We decided the kindest thing to do was just let her go. She'd lived 18 years and had been fairly comfortable most of it, and was most definately spoiled. She had a good life, and I'm glad to have had the chance to be her people.

Surgery #6

Oh man, where to start? It's been a massive roller coaster ride over the last few weeks. We think the last hill has been climbed and that the real healing can begin now.

Dad's surgery (the 6th one since July 2) went very well. The surgeon was able to amputate about mid-thigh, leaving a good portion of the leg to attach a prosthesis to later. He is very confident that this was the best option available to Dad, and we all agree. He says that Dad will spend a week or so in the hospital. After that, he'll go to a rehab center for another week. It won't be the same one that Dad had picked before - this will be an aggressive facility aimed at getting him back on his feet, not just taking care of his incisions. He'll come home after that. He'll be fitted for a prosthesis in 4 weeks or so, after the swelling goes down and things have a chance to heal more.

He's pretty much out of it at the moment, which is to be expected, but he's already looking better. His color is much better, and he looks more relaxed than he has coming out of previous surgeries. We all feel as though a great weight has been taken off of us. Everything that could have gone wrong has, even the worst case scenario, and we've all made it through.

We still have to watch for infection, but because Dad is in great health (other than the leg, that is...) and so young, he really doesn't have any other complications to watch out for now. He will have some adjustments to make and he'll have to re-learn how to do some things. He would have had to do that anyway, and there is no guarantee that the bypass wouldn't have failed 5 years from now, resulting in the surgery he had today. If all goes well, Dad will have most of the mobility that he had before. There is a good chance that he'll go back to work once he's able and got some practice under his belt, which will leave Mom to clean the closets out when she retires.

Life is good. We are blessed.

Many thanks for your thoughts and prayers,

Lori