The Knee Replacement Diary

Courtney Duncan

(c) 2007

2007 February 12, Monday

ÒFrom HillsboroÓ

I'm here. One down and twenty-seven to go, but that's the last time I'll be counting like that.

So, to go through the day: We got up at 0400, got ready and shut the big suitcase. It weighed 64 pounds, so we scrambled and repacked everything into two smaller suitcases. Viann got me to the airport at 0515.

There were already 15 people in line; nobody was working at the American counter yet. At 0530, thirty people were in line and they finally opened up. Some had already started going back outside and checking in at the curb.

So I got checked in. All seemed well.

I was in boarding group six, being near the front (but not first class). Right at the end of boarding, they paged me to the podium. They said they'd been paging me for 45 minutes and that one of my bags had a lock on it and had to be inspected by TSA (Thousands Standing Around). I said I hadn't heard the pages and that I'd left the lock open and on it's combination just for this reason, but I gave them the combination (149 of course) and the guy ran off to see if he could still get it on this flight. Then I stood on the tarmac in drizzle for ten minutes waiting to board. Eight minutes into this, the running guy strolled by without my suitcase. It didn't look good.

So, the flight was a little tense. Would that other bag be there? Would I have to do without it for three or four days? What would I do without half my stuff? I didn't even know which half it was.

But there was nothing to do. We took off, climbed through the rainy clouds, sailed over clear and sunny Arizona and New Mexico, then came down into clouds and landed at DFW. The weather here is just the same as there, 50ish and ... damp.

The lady sitting next to me doesn't like "bumpy" flying. As we went over Phoenix, always bumpy, she chatted and chatted and chatted. Nicole Simpson, drug abuse, her first husband, Katrina, tsunami, a regular news summary. I listened politely, trying to make meaningful conversation with my "hyperbolic intersection positioning VLGA algorithm" paper in my lap, looking out the window at barren expanse from time to time.

So anyway, we got in at DFW and, after the usual tense wait that everybody goes through at baggage dump, both my bags were there, hallelujah!

Did I mention that I didn't have breakfast this morning because I didn't want to get up that much earlier to fool with my teeth?

So, I called the Waco Streak number and the guy was ready to go right then. There had been no passengers from DFW to Waco or from Waco to DFW on the earlier runs, so they had been cancelled and the guy had stayed in Dallas and napped. There were two of us, a guy from Portland, where it was "just like this but 15 degrees colder" and me.

The driver lives near Whitney and had spent most of the early morning in fog. He knew about Hubbard, has friends there. Not anybody I know. Was I moving back here when I retired? "Maybe...., but doesn't look like there will be much country left." Everything on 35W and some of 35E is under construction, and surrounded by new development. He went down 35E.

Well, we got to Hillsboro nearly an hour early, a little after two. I called mom from nine miles out and she was on the way. He let me off at the Holiday Inn Express and I stood there for half an hour, slowly figuring out that this wasn't the "regular" place. It turns out, after some local research, that the drop off point has been changed in the last month, since I made my reservation, so recently in fact that a local who rode the Streak last month had gone to the old place. The driver today had to look up where to go himself.

Realizing that this must be the problem, I picked up my hundred pounds of stuff and started walking towards the Days Inn, or whatever that is where the old drop-off used to be. Meanwhile, mother was going inside there and learning that the people at the desk had no idea what she was talking about. Then she went to the gas station next door and they didn't know either. Then she went back to the hospital where Susan tried calling my cell number from the gift shop phone (long distance prohibited) and from her own cell (no service), then she went home to wait for me to call.

Meanwhile meanwhile, the pull strap on my big suitcase had broken (two weeks ago on the way back from Arizona), so I was carrying it (46 lbs.) in alternating hands across the truck stop, past the restaurant, up onto highway 22, where the handle broke. Dammit. I had already tried using my computer bag strap to pull it, but that didn't help. The four little wheels insist on going cross ways to the direction of travel, so you pull it about five feet and it falls over and gets drug on its side. Sooooo, I picked the thing up in the middle of the highway and carried it by half a handle, full well realizing that putting twice the stress on the other handle attach point would shorten it's tiny remaining life quickly.

Once off of the highway right of way, I was able to do tag-team luggage carrying, with a team of one, and ultimately arrived over at the suspected correct pickup site. No mom in site. This is when I called and left the message.

I got out my papers to read. The phone rang. Mom was at home, would be right back down.

So, this didn't go too badly after all. I did get picked up about three, as originally scheduled.

Did I mention that there hadn't been time for lunch?

So we went straight to the hospital so I could meet Susan and she could know that things were all ok. Telling this story to them made for lots of good laughs all around. We then tried leaving the hospital and ran into another bi-lateral knee patient (three years ago) at the entrance. Stood there and traded war stories while the automatic door opened and closed every seven seconds. Then from there to the Shell station to fill up the car so I could see how the gauge doesn't quite work right. Then from there to home to get the feather deal off the bed before we made it up and take it down to the donation place. Then down to the donation place to drop it off, then to the Post Office to mail stuff, then over to Wallmart for a deal to repair the kitchen TV antenna wire, and stuff, and socks, then over to the mall to buy a nighty, then, well, I guess that was it, and with some daylight left too!

Mom has as big stack of TV dinners for my suppers. We have cereal for breakfasts, and I'm supposed to come up to the hospital everyday at noon where any guest of a Senior Circle member gets free lunch. This won't start tomorrow, it will only happen when she is actually in the hospital here (late next week) or visiting at lunch time. This is where she eats lunch every day. $2.00 and always something different. She doesn't ever have much supper. I suspect we'll eat out in Waco somewhere tomorrow.

After eating, I felt much better and less desperate. I could live through this after all, I thought. The bed is made; the cat even let me touch her once, for about three seconds before running off in disgust.

We spent the evening filling out my Leave of Absence forms prior to taking them down to the doctor tomorrow. All the California State benefit forms say "mail in no sooner than day 9 or later than day 49 of your leave." I called the LOA people at work and left a message asking for clarification. Day nine is next Wednesday. Tomorrow is not really a doctor's visit, but we'll be going by for this and walker adjustment and such anyway. Tomorrow is Joint Camp training. We're planning to leave about 0730.

MomÕs cellphone is here. The new dual cordless house phone is here. We've talked about the installation details. The HDTV is here. She opened the box to look at the directions and the remote, but we watched the old TV for Jim Lehrer and I did indeed see it misbehave as it has for twenty years. I said, "You know, we could fix this ... right now."

My 36-pound box coming via UPS is to arrive Wednesday. When I have my tools we'll probably do some or all of these things.

She has not been to Cole Ford, for shopping or service in maybe a year. The car is not in that bad a shape, but it doesn't have much clutch, or tires, left and can't be locked. Well, so maybe it is in decaying shape. We haven't talked further about a car yet.

The garage is leaning much worse than I've ever seen it before. I asked if there was a plan. In short, no. I inspected it for safety. I don't think a person standing there is in immediate danger, unless there is a 50 mph wind gust. I would inspect often, however.

We really have to do something about the garage. I fear it could fall and might even damage the house. She said Wilda had wanted to clean out that back room next time she was here. I asked what prevented me from doing it now. Nothing. Even the workbench area in the back is collapsing.

Well enough for now. Keep in mind that we're just in the information-gathering phase at the moment. I do need to remember to keep eating. Cheers.

Oh, somebody like next door does have wireless, but it requires a password and might not be hooked to high speed outside world anyway. Dialup for now. Research continues.

2007 February 13, Tuesday

ÒHillsboro – Waco, Day 2Ó

We arose early and went down to Joint Camp arriving right on time at 0845. Mom is now "admitted" for Monday and we are cleared to go straight to Outpatient Services that morning. The time is moved up from 0600 to 0545. Arghh!

There was no trouble with traffic and only a little trouble finding our way around in Waco. Driving on the freeway I became more concerned about the car. It pulls to the left enough to be irritating and when I looked at the tires closely, I agreed with the tire people here, "fine for around town, but don't go out of town much if at all."

Admitting sent us to the wrong place. We missed part of the Hugh Downs video on joint replacements. He had both his knees done at the same time and made a documentary about it. Not too bad. The rest of the class was people at the hospital telling us the same thing that is in the book. Mom knew it all, but there were some corrections to the way to do exercises from the pictures in the book.

She had blood drawn (standard butterfly needle problem), a chest XRAY, EKG, urine sample, knee flex angles measured and minor consultation with the people at Joint Camp. There are about a dozen in our group for next week, two hips, two bilateral knees (includes mom), and the rest single knees. The one thing that concerns mom is pain medication. They insist on nothing but Tylenol, since all others (over the counter anyway) are blood thinners. She says Tylenol does nothing for her, she can't get by without Alleve (on the prohibited list), and when she asked was referred to her doctor.

So, after camp let out we found Fishing Pond Drive where the doctor's office was and went in. It is a huge operation with a waiting room that seats about 70, a staff of a couple of dozen, and five doctors. Most of these people are friendly and helpful; some are not.

Mom talked to Dr. Ethridge's nurse about the pain medication situation. I talked to her about my Family Medical Leave Act forms and left them all there. All of this resulted in "we'll call you back" promises that haven't happened yet. We were there about 1300.

We went to an uber-Wal*mart where I bought a new, big suitecase and some house shoes. Mom bought some LPC. Then we went to home improvement places and got a new light fixture for her bathroom and a better vanity faucet so she can wash her hair there rather than only in the guest bathroom.

From there we drove up Valley Mills past the catfish place and Baylor Stadium to the freeway and Baylor where there was an IHOP. (Mom had a coupon, expires Friday). We both ate for $12 (I paid, she brought the coupon.)

From there we drove north towards home and after talking about historical things (why she didn't take that one last course in college that would have resulted in a teaching certificate, for example), I asked, "so, what's next." "Well, we were going to go look at cars, I have no idea what to do." I wondered when the best time to go to the car place was. Glancing at the clock it was 3:21 p.m. You want to go in when they're not overwhelmed with business but you're not the only one there. Right now seemed like probably the best time for an initial visit.

So, we took the different exit and parked in the handicap space at Cole Ford.

Larry Cole was coming out the door as we went in. We would look around while he did something and he'd get back to us. Michael Bull (yep, really), the "New Car Sales Manager" picked us right up and showed us around to all the used cars. I told him we wanted to spend $7,000 - $9,000, he said fine and showed us a couple of 2006 Focus's at $13,500 and a 2004 Focus at $9,500. There were also a couple of Fusions. Mom looked at them and said "Too big, and I don't want purple."

So we went back and looked at the bright red 2004 Focus. Inside it is about the same size and arrangement as the current Escort. It has a trunk, not a hatch, but the back seat opens and folds down (similar to our Mazda but longer) to make about the same hauling space. Of course everything is automatic, windows, transmission, mirrors, everything. I did the actual test drive; we drove half way to Abbott and back on the freeway. I showed her how to work the shifter. Mike spent considerable time sitting in the front with her showing her everything, including the owner's manual, while I went around and looked under the hood and under the chassis and all that sort of thing. Looked good to me.

He had some other cars in our price range but they were Chevys. This was the only Ford. Mom wants a Ford; she likes the service department here.

So we went in and talked. Mike ended up quoting us $10,000 drive-away; he did this by adjusting the trade in value on the Escort from $500 originally offered to $689. Mom then wanted to buy the full warranty that goes through March 4, 2011 or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. Another $1650.

She has nearly exactly this amount of money in an account at the bank over her minimum balance of $10,000. She wrote a check but won't sign it until we've gone to the bank and moved money in the morning.

The schedule is:

0900 Bank

1000 Go to Cole Ford, swap cars and keys, sign the check.

1100 Go to the Molly Coddle (State Farm) Insurance, change it over.

The exciting thing to me is that we'll be able to sleep in per banker's hours. Maybe until 0730!

She wants to go to Hubbard Thursday if Bennie is available. She wants to learn to drive on that trip. I'll probably do the driving tomorrow.

She's not going to park it in the garage. She won't park the old car in the garage either. I took pictures of the garage and the old car. Maybe I'll get them loaded and send a few tomorrow.

We're talking about the garage. We don't know what to do. I'm going to see if we can window shop sheds and pole car ports tomorrow, driving the new car around. She said gravel in the hole in the driveway won't work, that's what the city did and it all just got dispersed. The neighbors tried concrete and bricks. That hasn't really worked either. It's a mess on both ends, the street end and the garage end.

Just now we set up the HDTV. It is working fine, found 35 digital channels in the area, maybe 20 of them in English (maybe five of those religious). We're watching the weather on channel 5.2 (All weather all the time, Ft. Worth.) It will be below freezing here tonight and probably won't get over 40 tomorrow.

It gets 28 channels analog, including 6 and 10 from Waco much better than the old TV (now out on the porch). It even gets 68, whatever that is. She says 68 sometimes has old Dick Van Dyke reruns.

2007 February 14, Wednesday

ÒThe End of the BeginningÓ

My box came UPS today. All my stuff's here. We're able to look at pictures from the computer on the TV. Will be able to watch DVDs in digital quality. (I had an S-video cable in my box.) I've fixed several things, including the pointing of the TV antenna. It's now pointed at Cedar Hill instead of Tyler. All the digital channels work now.

Cinder lets me pet her while we eat dinner. I eat with one hand and pet with the other. She's kind of attention starved like Sassy. Haven't tried picking her up. Mom has to train me in several rules and cautions for when I'm coming in to take care of her by myself.

Mom got a nice pen-pencil set and I got a hat for buying a Ford at Cole:

I managed to leave my toothbrush at home. Fortunately, I put my toothbrush from work in my backpack as a backup, just in case. This caused a problem in airport security, but I'm using it now.

The Waco Streak driver was an older guy who lives near Whitney. He asked if I wanted to hear some Tennessee Ernie Ford on the car stereo while we rode along. Anybody (else) here ever heard of Tennessee Ernie Ford? Gospel hymns from the 50s? 40s?

Here's the new car:

More garage trouble:

We've agreed that (time permitting and if the weather warms up 5-10 degrees, as it's supposed to this weekend), I'll clean everything out of the garage. The few things mom wants we'll store someplace else. The few things I want (if any) I'll put in one of dad's footlockers and store ... someplace else. The rest goes to the charity sale or the street.

There may be hazardous waste disposal issues, but most of the tools out there are rusted and frozen up. Probably worthless. I probably took away everything of value in 2001.

Today things went pretty much as planned. Went and got the car at the dealer, took it and switched insurance.

Liability and Uninsured Motorist were costing $152 / six months. With the new car it would have gone up to $160, but since this car has actual value, we decided she should add Collision and Comprehensive, $1000 deductible (the cheapest) each. The total is now $260 / six months.

No driving teenagers here....

I then spent 20 minutes trying to find the "overdrive" button. Turned out to be on the (automatic) shifter.

Mom's main complaint is that everything is automatic and nothing is labeled with words, only pictures. At least all the automatic stuff (transmission, windows, radio) is on the warranty.

Of course, the radio is now set exclusively to WRR 101.1 (all three FMs) and WBAP 820 AM.

She is planning to drive us to Hubbard tomorrow. I'll get a picture in the driver's seat then. This drive will be a major use for this car.

We then went to the hospital for Senior Luncheon (seniors and their guests eat for $2, mom paid).

That's mom, Pat (whose Gift Shop shift just ended) and Susan after finishing our hot dogs / spaghetti.

After lunch we went to see Don and Shirley. No changes there. Same cat situation. Don's eyes got pretty big when a strange, bright red car started pulling up in front of his house. He was going across the street to get a delivered package off of Amber's porch. When we rang the doorbell, Shirley came out and said, "I thought it was Don, I was going to ask him why he thought he needed to be ringing the doorbell!"

She had tips on the Mimi/InDebt/Sassy/Alex situation. Don't know if we will be able to make any use of them.

Then we went to see Mosey Jean. She had nearly fallen out of bed last week. The helper had come in and held her up while paramedics came, but they seem to have injured her getting her back in. She's called up the fire marshal and chewed them out about it.

Back at the house, I brought in my box and got out the tools to fix some more stuff, like the antenna cable in the kitchen. We were going to watch a DVD Shirley loaned us but looked at a whole bunch of pictures (from my computer to the new TV) instead.

A rat has chewed through a ceiling light wire in the garage, but I haven't done anything about that yet.

The doctor's office didn't call us back for my forms or mom's meds question. This is irritating and sloppy but not unexpected. Their phone will be ringing when they open up in the morning. We'll probably be going over there sometime tomorrow to take care of this.

Haven't done anything with the cellphone or new cordless yet. Maybe tomorrow, but we're supposed to go see Bennie....

2007 February 15, Thursday

ÒHubbardÓ

Today we did manage to get connected with the doctor's office and my paperwork is supposed to be finished. They also sent a prescription to our local pharmacy here for mother's pre-op pain medicine. She's not supposed to take anything but Tylenol since most anything else is also a blood thinner, something you don't want before surgery. She says Tylenol does her no good and won't take it. It's up in the air what will happen with respect to the prescription. Stay tuned.

We spent half an hour at Walmart looking for sock rings. They don't seem to have any.

Sure enough, the car salesman brought in his wife's bathtub chair and shower curtain. I fitted it to mom's tub. She doesn't want it installed until she is coming home in a couple of weeks. They programmed the other car key fob so it unlocks the doors now too.

We turned in the video that Shirley loaned us "Facing the Giants" without watching it. It was due today.

I put in the dual cordless phones, kind of like ours but a different brand. While I was working on it, she pulled up the cable laying on the floor that I had been using for e-mail.

I also got out the cellphone and we talked about it while I put it together. The battery was completely flat out of the box so I put it on the charger and haven't tried to activate it yet.

She seems receptive to all this but there are so many new things, a TV that is totally controlled by menus (she had me looking for Closed Captioning, which I finally managed to turn on, but which isn't easy or obvious, for example) and new car with all pictures and no words, and a new cordless. It would be a lot for anyone to want to learn. We'll see how it goes. I talked to her about the plan. 450 prime time minutes, free evenings and weekends and in network. She doesn't really get all these concepts but immediately focused on the 450 minutes, analogizes it to the way long distance used to be done. As a result, she may never use the phone during the day.

She drove to Bennie's. It didn't go too badly. The car is much more responsive and powerful than she's used to. It was jerky at first. She keeps stomping on the left floor where the clutch would be and complains that there isn't one there. It took us three minutes to get the key out of the ignition after we got there. It took me that long to realize that it wasn't in ÒPark.Ó Durned smart-aleck cars!

Bennie took us to the Mexican place out on the east end of town. I told mom I wanted to pay. She said that was OK but I'd have to arm wrestle Bennie for it. So, while everybody was finishing up, I went and paid before they thought it was time. Then, when Bennie protested, I told her, "Look, the whole purpose of this establishment is to bring outside money into the Hubbard economy. Since you live here, you can't do that."

I did let her leave the tip.

They had the Hubbard Senior Daniel Gordon there for me to meet, and his mother Jennie. He is supposedly the smartest kid in Hubbard since I was there. We talked a little shop, but most of the conversation was dominated by Hubbard historical matters, the usual. I'm going to try to get in e-mail touch with him. He's planning to go to Hill Jr. next year, living at home in Hubbard and sharing the car with his mother who works nights somewhere else.

It was well after dark when we came home. I drove because of that.

But, and here is a surprise, mom is fascinated by the cruise control and wanted to know all about how it works. I got the idea she might plan extra trips to Hubbard just to be using it. Interesting.

We started talking about Monday. Monday will be a long day.

2007 February 16 Friday

ÒEnough High Tech for One TripÓ

We activated the cellphone today. Right now it's turned off and on the charger. She's talked to Viann a couple of times. That was helpful. I'll turn it on tomorrow sometime for a while.

The number, as we said before, is 254 640 0850. Do not leave voice mail messages there. Although it will take messages, I have not set up the mailbox and mom will not know how to get the messages or what to do with them. To leave messages, call the house number. She is able to use that machine.

She's saving all her learning capacity for the car and the surgery. The new TV, the new answering machine, and the new cellphone are secondary. She will not be taking the cellphone to the hospital, for instance.

To that end, I'm just going to run the TV on analog for now. The picture is slightly better on digital, but the tuning, (such as "13.1" rather than "13") confuses her and you need to be on analog channel 3 to use the VCR (DVD also works from there) so it's just best to go low tech.

As for the other news of the day, we went into Waco and picked up my paperwork, faxed it to JPL (where it is a "Regular Day Off" Friday) and mailed the other to Sacramento. As far as I know right now, I'm done with that.

The doctor phoned a prescription to Jim's Pharmacy over here, but mom refused it as soon as she learned it had Tylenol in it. When we were at the doctor's office, I had her talk to the nurse about it. The issue is that mom cannot have any pain medicine that has Aspirin in it, since Aspirin is a blood thinner, not to be used in the last week before surgery. Aleve and Ibuprofin have Aspirin in them. The nurse thought she just didn't want to take Tylenol because it was addictive and assured her it was OK for a week, doctor's orders. Mom insists that it does nothing for her and she won't take anything with Tylenol in it, regardless of what else is in it. She is taking extra of something she takes for her feet anyway and that seems to be working.

So, the day has contained some battles. We're tired. Doubtless it doesn't help that she is in some pain. She says the pain is more fatigue than acute.

We ate at Catfish King and thought of Wilda.

We also went to the biggest Walmart in the universe (10 acres?) where I bought a new suitcase and some house shoes.

We also went to some home improvement stores and bought a light fixture and a bar faucet for her bathroom. She washes her hair in the sink.

It was 16 here last night. The high today was around 50.

2007 February 17

ÒSaturdayÓ

We slept in this morning. 8-ish.

I changed out the light fixture in mom's bathroom. Two lights weren't working. After the replacement only one light wasn't working.

It's warmer today, something in the 50s, with 30 mph winds. Reminds us of Amarillo.

I also repaired the light in the garage that doesn't work because a rat chewed through half of the wire. Why am I repairing things in the garage?

I don't think mom will let me (us) tear it down. It will be a big job. Permits would have to be pulled. The first part will be to clean it out. Haven't started that yet. There are hazardous wastes in there that need to be dealt with properly. Won't know if I'll get to something like that while here until we see how it's going with the rehab.

While we were driving around for other reasons, we looked at other people's carports and storage sheds. She doesn't seem opposed to something like that. Next big project?

We soaked both shower heads in LPC (or whatever that stuff is). They both shoot straight now.

Mom's gas bill is about $20 in the summer, $150 in the winter. This is 30-50% higher than mine! It's all deregulation, she said. I said there wouldn't be any near term hope, the President, for example, is one of those oil/energy guys too. She shot back: maybe, but it was all Jimmy Carter's fault. He raised gas prices in the south because of shortages in the north.

We went to Pizza Hut for lunch. We talked about Bible, preachers, and world views. I told her I was going to write a book demonstrating that you can prove any world-view from any Bible. She said somebody would shoot me if I did.

Only if they take me seriously.

We filled up the car for the first time. Nobody knew which side the spout was on; this was our very first fill up after leaving the dealer. Got 34 mpg. I guessed right!

Took hard-to-care-for plants to Shirley's. We both did laundry. Shirley does all the computer operation but Don figured out that the monitor plug was loose making the screen yellow. (Shirley was running virus buster software, messing with her settings, etc.) They have DSL, so there is high speed here in Hillsboro, at least out there.

Mom keeps doing her exercises, is beginning to do a little packing. She was disappointed with the class last Tuesday. They didn't answer questions like what to bring to the hospital, they only told people things that they could have read in the book. She didn't ask any questions then.... We think maybe Viann can talk to her about it tomorrow.

I moved into my new suitcase. The old one is ready to go to charity. Cleaning it out I found one of Viann's socks and Katheryn Dillon's old address on the tag. The new one is 50% bigger. May be hard to keep down to 50 lbs.

We watched Cast Away (Tom Hanks) on the new TV tonight. So now I've seen it. Hard to watch.

2007 February 18, Sunday

ÒLine Street UMCÓ

Sunday morning we got up and in our slow, ponderous way, went off to church. Mom, of course, is in the Courier equivalent class (ask Viann what that means). There were at least a dozen in attendance. We discussed John 14:1-14, people pondering the mystery of the trinity and lamenting all the people who were missing out on being Christians. I didn't say much.

Beth was the teacher. She's the one who had bilateral knee replacement a few years ago and really didn't do much therapy. She showed up at Hillsboro Hospital for her session, carrying her walker rather than using it, after only three weeks. This is thought to be a best case. Beth is thin as a rail.

It was what I remember as a standard Methodist service, piano only, but there are a few modern twists. The hymnbook has a few numbers in it that we would consider choruses today, and we did one of them. The offertory was the choir special, directed by the preacher. He also sang. They needed the help. The most modern chorus was from 1977. They also project the words on a screen in the sanctuary. The church has a computer with PowerPoint and the Methodist Hymnal is available on CD.

I met several people and remember few.

This was third Sunday. That means third Sunday after-church pot-luck luncheon. We hadn't brought anything but I told mom we'd just help reduce the amount of leftovers people had to take home.

Back home, I napped in my National Geographic, just as I would have at my own home. Later we took some hard-to-care-for plants to Shirley's and visited there some more. Shirley had had yellow-screen on her computer (not blue, yellow). I immediately suspected a loose video monitor and Don, who doesn't even do computers, immediately chimed in and said, yes that's what it was. He knew from his tank training (WW II) how to fix cables and connectors. We do spacecraft like WW II tanks. Talked shop a little.

This had been more effective than virus scanning, calls to help, and messing up all the system preferences.

They do have DSL, at least in that subdivision.

Back at the house we puttered around packing things. At 1900, mom started telling me everything about taking care of the house. Thermostats, plants to water, how to lock and unlock the doors, what to do with the mail, the recycling, the trash, the cat. I scrambled for my notebook and took a full page of notes. Oh, and there's some other things to be fixed, now that I think of it....

The target for getting to bed was 2100 and mom did indeed start washing her hair at that hour, so I finally gave up and was sleeping at 2230. Mom sometime after that.

2007 February 19, Monday

ÒGrandma has titanium knees!Ó

After 5-1/2 hours of fitful sleep we got up at four this morning and got ready. I woke up ready to go at 0230 and 0330 before the alarm went off at 0400. Is that from Oceans Twelve or Thirteen? Left the house at 0458, parked at Providence Hospital in Waco at 0547. Went right in to the pre-op area.

I had a headache and mild nausea until at least 0700. Mom seemed fine from what I could tell.

They were ready for us. Mom changed into her surgical clothes. The nurse checked who she was and put marks on both knees. This marking of the correct knee would be more important if they were only doing one. The area was filling up. Someone was there for cataracts, someone else for disk repair.

They came and wheeled her away at 0625. I was left with the bag of clothes and other luggage. I wanted to cry.

I went up to the waiting area and checked in with the nurses. They said to stay close and keep them informed of where I was. I went in the waiting room with several other groups watching the blaring weather channel. It wasn't dawn yet.

I got as comfortable as I could get in a short waiting room chair and dozed off. The preacher woke me up at 0715. He was here this morning to see us, have a test done himself, and see his three month old grandbaby who has been in the hospital for several days. Yes, this preacher who is younger than I am has grandchildren.

As the preacher (Darrel Phillips) got up to go, I thought I had the strength to go down to the cafeteria for breakfast. Just as I stood up the phone rang. It was Jeff in surgery, 0730. Mother was asleep and Dr. Ethridge was getting started.

This is a level of customer service I'm not used to.

I told the nursing desk I was going downstairs and went and had Raisin Bran and banana.

Back in the waiting room, the phone would ring about every 10-15 minutes. It was always somebody's operative team keeping some family up to date. At 0900 it was for me. Everything was going fine, the doctor had started on the other knee. At 1005 it was for me again, they were done, everything was fine, the doctor would be up to talk to me.

Right before the doctor showed up, the preacher showed up. He had another grandchild on the way in the to the emergency room, suspected dehydration.

Dr. Ethridge is a nice, amiable, direct man, mid to late 50s, slightly taller than me, white hair but doesn't look that old. He was an engineer working for NASA for three years before he went to medical school.

They had found no cartilage in either knee, as had been suspected from the X-Rays. I think he used the term, "all messed up." Everything had gone as planned. There had been no adverse reaction to anesthesia; each knee had taken about an hour, which is normal. Everything looked fine. She would be up from recovery in about an hour.

Darrel and I went over to the nurse's station to ask if we had a room yet. Yes, 428. Could I move in? "Sure, go ahead."

The room was empty except for the recliner I'm sitting in now (the one the patient is supposed to use when they sit up). They had taken the bed downstairs to get her all set up on it before moving back up here.

About 1230 I went out to get the rest of our luggage. When I got back she was in the room with three people working on her: the floor nurse (Jennifer, one of the knee camp people we already knew), the anesthesiologist ("she is very difficult, no useable veins....") and a surgical nurse or record keeper.

Mom's legs are all bandaged neatly up and strapped into machines that bend them back and forth very slowly. It looks like jogging in ultra-slow motion (like 100 yards a week). This is to prevent clotting. She's also on oxygen.

We've been here about ten hours and she will wake up when someone comes in to do something and is coherent and talks to them reasonably, participating in her own care, but when it gets quiet, she goes back to sleep. We haven't exchanged more than three sentences at a time, nor has anyone.

We've seen the breathing trainer, the local caseworker (not the one I talk to in Hillsboro about what after the hospital there, but the one who talks to that one about what after here), the local doctor, and two shifts of nurses. They work 7-7 here.

She had some liquid for lunch and some Jello and liquid for dinner. She would take a spoon of Jello, put it in her mouth, and fall asleep for ten minutes, then barely wake up and take another.

A Clinical Nurse Specialist came in and did an assessment. Mom recited off all the surgeries she's ever had again. It was hard, she dozed for twenty seconds between each one. Someone else came in and put things on her feet to squeeze them, like the leg benders. After two hours of this she woke up and said she liked them, they did just the right thing to make her feet not hurt. But, it wouldn't be worth spending the time at the doctor's office to do this all the time. Then she drifted off again.

An antibiotic was administered at 1500 and 2100, Cefazolin 50 ml. She used the pain medicine button once, fairly early, morphine sulfate. I've asked a few times, she says she doesn't need any more, but doesn't object to having the button within reach.

We (well, I) made a few calls to locals, received a few calls. The preacher came by one last time as I was heading out to lunch. The cafeteria here is open 6a - 7p. I've talked to Viann two or three times and Wilda's machine twice. Called Susan Beck (mom's friend from Pink Ladies) and was called by Nancy Jackson. Also called Elizabeth (Skemp) this evening. They plan to come see us next weekend. Doug ran in the Austin Marathon yesterday.

Every time I make these calls I have the distinct feeling that there is somebody else I should be calling about these things. ... oh, right, mom. Right.

Other than that it has been pretty slow here all day. We're in a private room so there's no noise of other family and patients coming and going. All the Joint Camp rooms are private. All rooms at Providence are private. This requires a special dispensation from Medicare.

There were only two joint surgeries today, mom's two knees and a hip. This means we'll get extra attention at Joint Camp that starts up in earnest tomorrow morning. She's supposed to take pain medication before starting to get up for that.

When I first saw her it looked like she was really hurting. This has gotten better through the day. She just looks mildly distressed right now but has slept soundly and snored throughout the day.

I'm spending the night in the recliner. They brought me sheets and a pillow. I went out to the car to get my house shoes that I bought at Wallmart the other day. It must be 60 out there. I'm gonna try to get down to the cafeteria when they open in the morning so I can get back up here and not miss anything.

2007 February 20, Tuesday

ÒDay Two, or is it One?Ó

Some of the material refers to this as "Day One after surgery." Some seems to call the day of surgery Day One. When does the 21st century start anyway, 2000 or 2001?

I checked my voicemail at work. Something about my travel report from Sedona was messed up; my reimbursement may be delayed. Something about my (Kronos) timecard for last week was messed up. Blah blah blah. I forwarded all this to my secretary.

So, after uploading my e-mail from the hospital room phone Monday night, I got on the couch under a blanket and went to sleep about 2300.

No one slept well. I recall maybe half a dozen instances of people being in the room with the lights on doing things through the night, and those are just the ones I recall. At 0445 they were in there, worried about mom's blood pressure and trying to get her breathing in the breathing exerciser so she wouldn't build up fluid in her lungs. Mom reports something I don't remember, that they had some machine they were trying to use for this and worked on it out in the hall noisily for a while before even coming in.

Did she dream that or did I just sleep through it? Both are possible.

After the 0445 episode, I went back to sleep and didn't really wake up until 0645, too late to be at the cafeteria when it opens, but who cares?

I was pretty groggy for about an hour but did eventually get down and eat, scrambled eggs and bacon this time.

The problem all night had been low blood pressure. Automatic alarms would go off and they'd come in and try to do something about it. Blood work was done this morning; her count was 7. The doctor said if it was under 8 she needed blood. There was no significant blood loss during surgery but there was some seepage inside the wound. This is expected to go on through tomorrow. And, as mom pointed out, she doesn't have any blood to lose. Two units were ordered and they spent most of the day putting them in. The cross checks and fail safes in a blood transfusion are extensive. Two nurses read things to each other; forms are filled out. It's like launching nuclear missiles. Although I've donated probably five or more gallons in my life, I don't recall ever seeing this end of the deal before. Not with all this ritual anyway.

This also explained why she was so pale yesterday and today. She looked a lot better when I left tonight about 2000 but was very exhausted and ready to sleep all night, at least.

By the way, before stapling the skin after surgery, they glue it on the inside. Impressive, huh? They redid the dressings this morning and I got to see the staples. A vertical incision along the front of each knee, maybe 6-ish inches long.

While I was at breakfast they bathed her in the bed, changed into street clothes (one of the things the patient has to learn how to do), stood her up, and put her in the easy chair.

A team of therapists came in around ten, got her up, and put her on the walker for about two steps. Every motion of any knee is excruciating. I tried adjusting the chair or the bed and any knee movement leads to winces, even at glacial speeds.

Whenever she is asked what her pain level is on a scale of zero to ten, she always says zero or ten. This leads to pain medicine.

They had to call in the "master master" IV guy, Steve, to get a second one started to do the blood transfusion. Steve was the guy who did three or her four chemotherapy treatments and had always done a good job. The other chemo, the one I attended, was done by someone else resulting in burned veins throughout her left arm. Her right arm can't be used due to the mastectomy and her feet are out of the question for this surgery episode since they are downstream from the knees, so the burned out left arm is all that's left and it takes a master of masters to start an IV on any size needle in that arm, much less the big blood needles.

So one guy came in and tried and turned pale after one futile stick and Steve was called in. Mom likes Steve.

We talked about blood transfusions and the blood supply. This brought up autologos donations (for self) which reminded us of Viann doing this before John was born. Viann didn't get to finish the series because John was born a month early. We went dripping a trail of blood out of Joselitos and straight up to the emergency room. They took her in and nearly started an emergency C-section right there in the ER until they finally found the baby's heartbeat. Retelling this had me crying about it all over again. That's our baby Johnny of course!

And then Jennifer came in and started the first blood unit. About a half hour later, the first IV, the one hooked up to the PRN morphine, went bad and had to be pulled. This meant that mom goes from morphine on the PRN button to oral Darvon, which is Tylenol. After talking to the doctor and the nurse mom, weak and resigned, essentially said, "whatever" and took the pills. There's also codeine in them, which is helping with the pain, and making her groggy.

Jennifer is our day nurse, 0700 to 1900. She is very attentive and knows what she is doing. She never fails to get help when she's supposed to. She reminds me of some other competent nurses I know.... She works three twelve-hour days a week: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

All pain meds (and being awake most of the night) had mom exhausted. She still dozes off between bites of meals. She was wheeled down to the therapy gym at 1400 and fell asleep between repetitions of arm exercises! They didn't do getting up and getting down, things that might damage the blood transfusion, still in progress. That will happen tomorrow. She is very eager to get all the needles out. (And the foley catheter too, although she has to be able to get up and go potty on her own first.)

She got car sick (easy chair sick?) on the way back from the gym and came close to throwing up but only burped. Her digestion isn't working right yet. She ate most of her Jello for breakfast and about 1/3 of her "regular" lunch, but just poked around at a big dinner hardly touching any of it in the end, between doze-offs.

Right after therapy (about 1500) she wanted to be put back in bed. I arranged for this. It took about half an hour. She wasn't comfortable for about an hour so I had them come in and turn her on her side. This took another half hour and was hard to watch. Just try turning on your side without changing the bend in your knees, or without being able to lift your rear up in any form.

She slept for a while this way until the preacher came in. His three month old grandchild is still here, he was on the way up to see him. He'd been in Austin today trying to get his father-in-law's retirement straightened out. Somehow he retired from his job with the state incorrectly and had to get rehired to re-retire. Don't ask me, but it has to be a government operation. He prayed with mom; she was truly grateful.

For reference his numbers are: Church 254 580 9733, Parsonage 254 582 2867.

The hospital, of course, is under construction -- expansion. All day we can hear what sounds like ball peen hammers hacking away at entrenched tile floors and steel beams.

Through all the moving around, mom kept taking off the blood oxygen monitor, and this made the box beep three times about every fifteen seconds (Morse "S"), waking her up. After about the eighth time of this, I just turned it off so it wouldn't beep. The nurse had told us several times that she was stable and didn't need it anymore. Well, after half an hour, somebody came up from respiratory and turned it back on! Everything in the universe is networked. Finally Jennifer made arrangements to go without it and turn it off.

Mom wears a locator bracelet among other hospital ID on her wrist. We were told when she came in that this would allow them to find her anywhere in the hospital (and also know if she leaves without checking out). New babies wear them on their ankles to keep from getting stolen. Well, while mom was sleeping, I was reading in July 2003 Spectrum, my professional magazine about these locator systems that could be used in a factory or hospital to keep up with people or things. At that time four years ago, one company offered a prototype system. A box about the size of a cigar box (DSL modem...) would be in most rooms and the locators would be about the size of poker chips.

Yep, there was a DSL modem like thing hanging on the wall with blinking lights with the same logo as mom's bracelet. The IV machine wears a locator too. (Nope it's not wireless internet. I tried.)

After therapy, I gave mom a choice. If she needed me to spend the night again, I would go to Hillsboro right then, change clothes, restock, and come back. Otherwise I'd wait until after dinner (and Lehrer) and just go to Hillsboro for the night.

She chose the latter. I left about 2000, drove to Hillsboro, drove through Jack in the Box, and came to the empty house. This is weird for me; I've never come to this house empty before. I plan to get back down there about 0900 tomorrow.

The house was quite warm. We left a stove on low expecting highs in the 40s. It was actually about 80 today.

Cinder wanted me to put food in the bowl then trusted me to let her out for the very first time.

Mom's room number at Providence is 254 751 4428. The nurse's station (Four South) is 254 751 4470.

I guess today's summary is that it was a lot better than yesterday but we're all exhausted, especially mom. She's doing about as well as can be expected, given all the circumstances, and is making reasonable progress. No unusual complications. It's one day at a time.

2007 February 21, Wednesday

ÒLoose EndsÓ

I got up at 0730 this morning and turned on Paul Harvey (like mom would) then promptly fell asleep and didn't wake back up until 0900 (also like mom would, she tells me). Left the house at 0937 and got to the hospital late at 1020.

This was in part because I didn't get to sleep until 0100, right after I finally managed to find the cat waiting to be let in at the front door, among other things.

As mom predicted, she led me to the food dish this morning and made sure I put new food in it then wanted to be let out for the day, without actually eating.

Both therapy sessions were much more involved today. There are also a lot more people. There were only two in Joint Camp who had their surgeries on Monday so it was slim yesterday. There were six total today.

They did a lot of exercises in the chair, then standing in the walker. They took mom over to the practice bathroom and taught her how to use the bathtub stool to get in and out. This worked fine but was very slow. They told me that by the time she actually comes home she may not even need the stool. We'll see. Everybody, professional or anecdotal, tells you different things.

She hasn't been taught enough to do without the catheter yet and it's still in.

Mom's "good" knee will be the left. It's already doing better.

My two biggest concerns are upper body strength and pain medicine. She doesn't have enough strength in her arms to lift herself. A one-knee patient has two arms and one good leg, but a bi-lateral patient needs to be able to operate with arms-only, much harder. She did do the exercises, but has never been strong in this way.

Every time she takes any kind of pain medicine it puts her out. We were involved with therapy from 1345 to 1445 and she's been asleep ever since (now 1730). At least she's not hooked up to stuff that sounds alarms all the time anymore. This may be the most sleep she's had since surgery.

Something was wrong with the leg exercisers last night but she didn't remember or know or understand enough about it to tell me what it was. She'll be on them again tonight. I'm thinking of staying over, though I don't know if there's anything I can do except be in the way.

OK, so loose ends. I think of stuff all the time when I'm not in a position to write it down. Here is some.

Yep, they do it here in Texas too. In big letters in the middle of the street in front of the hospital it says:

PEDESTRIAN

FOR

STOP

Yes, just like that.

At the house we keep all the radio and TV remotes in drawers. This is because Cinder sat on one in the middle of the night once and not only turned the TV on but continued to sit on the remote and turned it up as loud as it would go. Wish I could have seen that.

And here's something I guess I knew but really didn't register. Since chemotherapy five years ago, mom has lost most of her taste and smell. Wilda points out that she was never a big fan of food even before that. She'll be sitting here with a big dinner in front of her and it will smell good to me, but she only eats at it through determination, not through interest or appetite.

I finished the book Viannah gave me, "Mercury 13" about the women who did not become astronauts in the 60s, while mother was sleeping yesterday. Started another one today, the one Bruce Wear had sent to all the Trustees (from amazon.com) when he was elected last month. It has to do with Post-Christianity evangelism.

There was confusion about the flowers that I don't quite get. Wilda's flowers came in a happy face pot with a small but fat envelope. The envelope was fat because it contained plant food to keep the plant alive. It also had a sheet of instructions on how to use the plant food and the card from Wilda. Mom understood that the flowers and the card were from Wilda but because it came from the Hewitt Florist, that the Reeds use, she thought that the other stuff was from the Reeds. "How would Wilda know about the Hewitt Florist?" in other words. I let her study it all in an attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery and tried to explain that ftd.com or equivalent knows about all sorts of florists that the customers don't, but I don't know how she finally understood this.

Susan and Pat came by today and brought more flowers and cards. They were invited (by staff) to go to therapy with us but didn't want to see the pain. No confusion there, on either count.

They play Brahms's Lullaby over the PA system here once in a while. Mom told me today that it means a baby has been born in the hospital. I've heard it three times today and maybe that many times every other day!

I said that at 1820, now it's 1830 and they're playing it again. Twins?

(It went off once more before I left for the night.)

Now it's 2300. Since mom slept all afternoon and didn't show any signs of doing anything else, I was thinking of leaving. Then they brought dinner in and she woke up and all that changed.

The outgoing nurse told me that she was a lightweight (and also low mass) with respect to drugs and anything normal that they would give her would knock her out like this. She arranged for Darvocet, which is less.

They'd had an extra lunch because someone had gone home and brought it to me. So, the lunch I'd bought and brought up to eat when mom had lunch was left over. I ate this plus her hamburger while she worked at Jello and other things at dinner.

She wanted to go through and reorganize everything in her luggage and send dirty clothes home with me to wash tonight and bring back tomorrow.

The washing machine is running.... 2300.

I took out the trash and recycling too.

One reason she hadn't slept well last night was because they hadn't changed her out of her day clothes when they put her to bed. She wanted to change into her nightgown (for the very first time) so we folded the chair down to a sitting position and did that. Then she wanted to use the bathroom so, at some length, the guy came in with one of those portable potties and she got up on the walker and moved around and used it. That was good news.

I then watched while they put her into the leg motion and foot massage machines and got her set up in bed. All this was while they were showing a promotional piece about the U.S. Marines on KWBU (yep, Baylor University, BU). As soon as she was flat, she was out again, so I left and went home. I've determined experimentally that if you push it and try to make the trip from home to Providence Hospital as quickly as possible, it takes about fifty minutes. If you take it easy and follow the speed limit and don't crowd anybody, it's about ten minutes under an hour. Providence is on the other end of Waco from here.

I have to get there earlier tomorrow so I'm setting the alarm for 0600 and will not rush but will leave as soon as I can do everything. Hope to be there by 0830. If we actually move to Hillsboro Regional Hospital tomorrow, it will be a very big day.

2007 February 22, Thursday

ÒThe Worst is OverÓ

I'm writing this at 1955. WRR is on; tonight's program is "maiden voyages" the First Symphonies of various composers, currently Shostakovitch. This is the earliest I've been at the house this week. Needing a cold one, I looked in the refrigerator. There's nothing carbonated in there, so no temptation. There is a bunch of orange juice, but that's breakfast. That left a choice between cran-something and prune juice. I poured a glass of cran-something, took a cookie out of the freezer (a leftover from $2 lunch at the hospital) and popped it in the microwave for 20 seconds.

The good news of the day: Progress has been great.

I got up, took a more relaxed pace at things, and got to Waco an hour earlier than yesterday (yes, in 50 minutes). Mom was up in the big chair with her feet up on my little chair. I stood around....

Most of the luggage was out on the bed, she put me right to work dealing with the rest of it, getting things out of the closet and sorting her stuff from hospital stuff. She was ready to leave, and was looking and clearly feeling much better than before.

She's on Darvocet for pain, PRN. That seems to make the difference.

This packing wasn't finished when they came to take her to therapy.

Here she is learning how to take off socks and put on shoes.

Here she is learning how to go down stairs with the walker.

I mean, the fact that I'd even take the camera into therapy was a huge improvement. No IVs or urine bags today (on us anyway). The foley was out when I arrived this morning.

Here she is coming down the hall for the Joint Camp graduation lunch.

Here we are sitting in the red Joint Camp Cadillac while other hip and knee patients look on.

Here we are packed and pretty much ready to go.

Goodbye room 428.

That's Susan and Pat's flowers up there on the shelf. Under them are the leg doods. At the end of the bed is the foot massager. I've been living on those juice bottles like you see on the left. Yeah, cran-whatever. Whatever.

When the nurse came with the cart to move us out, I discretely mentioned that we should try to ... void ... before getting under way. Everyone thought that was a good idea. They worked on this while I went to get the car.

By 1311 we were driving away from Providence.

About 1400 we were in Hillsboro driving around a semi tractor trailer stuck in the ditch on the street to the hospital. Yep, a little under 50 minutes. The hospital is a little closer than the house, even when you go three blocks extra to go around a goof. Better roads to the hospital too.

We didn't know where to go at the hospital (Emergency or Main Entrance) so we tried Main Entrance (site of the Gift Shop) first. Good guess. They knew what to do with the paperwork. They were expecting us; I was amazed. I went and moved mom into a wheelchair (without foot rests, the Auxilliary had a bunch of extras and didn't know what to do with them so they threw them all away). This was my first time at this; I hadnÕt been allowed to help much as "coach" at "camp." But it went fine. Mom is doing all her own getting into and out of chairs now.

We went in and parked her in the Gift Shop (special privilege) where she chatted with today's Pink Lady while we waited. There's only one chair in the Gift Shop. I stood around....

Then they came to get us for the paperwork. Mom knows everybody in there and they know her. She works by them every week and eats there nearly every day. "No, you don't need to show us your Medicare Card, Supplement Card, Senior Circle Card, that's all on file. Don't bother to fill that out, it's all in the computer already."

So, we borrowed the Gift Shop grabber, so mom would have one in the room, and wheeled down to room 111, the northwest most room on the facility.

254 580 8511 room

254 580 8600 nurse's station ("Station One")

254 580 8500 hospital main number

Her nurse for the evening was eager to see us. She'd been waiting since mid-morning for us to show up. You'd think things were slow but they're not. They're just coming off a big flu census.

If Providence Hospital was Holiday Inn, Hillsboro Regional is Motel 6. This isn't exactly accurate, mom's private room (Senior Circle benefit) is much larger than the one at Providence, large enough to be a semi-private room if the plumbing was a little different. But the fixtures, the air conditioner, the lack of high tech locating equipment and so forth reminds one a lot more of Motel 6 (or 8 or 10).

It's private, but shares a bathroom with the adjacent private room. Yes, somebody is in there. A baby and its mother. I'm letting mom and the hospital staff deal with bathroom issues.

Anyway, mom is more comfortable here. It's home.

I get to eat free up there once a day while she's there, including this evening.

The nurse checked her in thoroughly. This included a big sales pitch on Advance Directives. Mom is supposed to be getting paperwork and may well do one while she's there. (Family members and hospital employees can't be involved in the signing, but there are plenty of Pink Ladies around.)

Mom got up out of the chair and ÒwalkeredÓ over to the chest of drawers and unpacked all her stuff into it. This meant getting into and out of a chair without arms by herself.

Yes, I'm standing right there all the time to catch her if she falls, but I don't help unless she asks. She wants to do it herself, and does ask for help often, when it's impossible otherwise. Mostly I just bring her "that bag over there" so she can work on it.

Dr. Bauerschlag came by. He's mom's doctor now. He was very attentive and helpful. We didn't see anyone from therapy so we suspect she won't be on the leg exercisers tonight.

I dealt with Dr. Okani's office. (He is the oncologist from mom's cancer five years ago and thought she had an appointment tomorrow.) Reschedule.

Susan came by and visited during Lehrer. We all talked over content until I showed mom how to turn the TV off. See? I can do stuff like that. Mom had already changed into her gown and had put herself up in the bed. She was fading fast. Susan left to go do her taxes. I told mom to push the call button and get them to deal with bathroom, then go to bed for the night.

Went out to the car (parked right by the MRI trailer) and drove the one mile to the house, arriving at 1930. <sigh>

Hey, Park Street (not Park Drive that we live on but Park Street at the west end of the block) was paved today! Just the one block, but it's nice and smooth asphalt.

Yes, I took out the trash and recycling last night. Got to go get the cans and bring them up.

<pause to get cans from street>

It was more than 80 today. We used the new car's air conditioner on the way home on the freeway. Mom says she doesn't like hot weather in February. Reminds me of SoCal, but this is not weather that I ever remember experiencing when I was growing up here. Can't see it in the sky, but the forecast is for thunderstorms somewhere in the region tomorrow and/or Saturday. Susan says she always does laundry when the forecast is like that so she can get clothes dried on the line before the rain starts. "It might go on for days!" She still does this although she has a dryer and hasn't used an outdoor clothesline in years.

I wouldn't mind seeing a little actual weather, so long as it doesn't blow the garage over.

Tomorrow I'm going to Wallmart to see if they have one of those grabbers that has a built-in shoehorn on it. I think I'll get me some Lucky Charms and microwave popcorn too and maybe some kind of juice that's not cran-....

2007 February 23, Friday

ÒIn HillsboroÓ

My favorite digital channel is 8.3. This is part of WFAA where 8.1 is broadcast channel 8 and 8.2 is continuous weather with NOAA radio audio. 8.3 is "All DFW all the time." It is nothing but a webcam on part of DFW with audio from the tower frequency. Once in a while you'll see a big plane taxi by, or fly through the field of view on takeoff or landing, but for the most part we're just looking at a building from a camera that wiggles in the wind. With Tower audio.

We're supposed to have a chance of strong thunderstorms, tornados, and hail tonight between midnight and sunrise. There have already been tornados in the panhandle (Shamrock). It's part of a cold front, the same system that has it raining in La Canada, but it hasn't gotten cold yet. I wore short sleeves today and it was too warm for my jacket. It rained (heavy drizzle) mid-day but mostly it's just blowing with gusts to 30+ mph.

On the way up to dinner with mom at the hospital, I put my work computer in the car (front right seat) with MacStumbler on. Pulling out of the driveway I got two wireless hits, the one I've been getting all along (am seeing right now, but it requires a password) and another. As I drove up the street there were two or three hits per block. As I got close to downtown, I started seeing wireless routers with names like "cityofhillsboro" and "jerries". Sure enough, in the Brookshire parking lot, there was "HillsboroLibrary". I was able to log into it without getting out of the car (it was raining) but I wasn't able to get VPN to work. After messing with it for a while, I went back out to the freeway, still getting a hit or two per block (more sparse out on the highway where there are fewer houses and further between). I parked in front of Schlotsky's and signed onto their wireless. One of their corporate goals is to bring wideband wireless not only to all their stores but to other public places like parks and recreation centers and libraries and so forth.

I got VPN to load from there, but couldn't get it to confirm me into the inside JPL network. Still, I managed to upload and download most of my work e-mail (hundreds of messages) but mysteriously, not all of it.

There's things I don't understand about VPN. I may call work and complain, or I may just blow it off. I can't get it to load at all over dial up and I don't remember (if it even exists anymore) the JPL dialup 800 number for inside computer access.

(VPN is used to get into the protected network inside JPL. I can log in from Schlotsky's and do anything else that doesn't require JPL inside-ship.)

Well, this isn't very important, but I thought you'd be impressed that there are literally dozens maybe hundreds of wireless ports in Hillsboro, some of them open to the public. If I had an external yagi to go with this computer, I probably could point it around the neighborhood and find somebody without password protection. :-)

My free (Senior Circle sponsored) lunch was at noon today so, after all this MacStumbling, I drove through Jack in the Box and took my own dinner over to the hospital.

Pink Lady Pat came by for a visit during Lehrer.

Mom called at 0800 this morning with a list of things to bring up. She got me out of bed where I was trying to sleep in, but I hadn't been successful in getting back to sleep since 0700 so it was just time to get up and deal with the fatigue headache anyway.

Then she called again with more stuff. She was feeling pretty good. I went up for lunch fully laden.

Did I mention the other day that Park Street was paved? Not Park Drive that we live on here, but Park Street, the little lunar landscape three-block street just to our west. Well, I was coming home late Tuesday night, I think, thinking that I'd drive (slowly) on that street on the way home just to see how bad it was. It was coned off on the Elm and Park Drive blocks, inaccessible, and with a fresh new coat of asphalt. (Yes, I did mention this before, I remember having trouble spelling 'asphalt' the other day too.)

Well, anyway, today I came home and all three blocks of Park Street are paved, all the way from Franklin to Elm to Park Drive to Walnut. They stop at every street crossing so that the street being crossed can still be abysmal (abyss, get it?), but the rest is paved nicely.

This gives us hope that some of the other horrid streets will be paved, like the one we live on. But not much hope.

From the hospital I drove after lunch to the five places in Hillsboro that have medical supplies looking for a "Grabber" (or, properly, "Reacher"). In particular, we want the one that doubles as a shoehorn so that the patient can put on their socks and shoes without bending more than they are able. The five places are Wal*mart, Brookshires (grocery with in-house pharmacy), Bond's (old pharmacy), Jim's (less old pharmacy), and REMA, a medical supply place out in an industrial area north of town. I'd always wandered what sort of wilderness was out there. None of them had any but the standard reachers, or none at all.

So I called Joint Camp. Nobody was there, so I tried Four South. They consulted a Joint Camp nurse and recommended either Wal*mart or "that medical supply place around the corner from the hospital."

"OK, thanks." (They don't really know either.)

So I came back to the house and googled around and found one on ebay and ordered it. Ebay fronts for more than individuals auctioning junk, it's like amazon in that it fronts also for real vendors who have ratings and so forth. By Priority Mail, it will be here by Tuesday (from who knows where), well before any trips we plan back to Waco.

While at Wal*mart I bought myself a bunch of microwave popcorn, some Lucky Charms, and a whole bunch of juice bottles.

After dinner I sat with mom and talked about stuff until visiting hours were over at 2100. Just before I left she was changing into her pajamas and I noticed a big bruise up high on her leg, around the calf. In fact, there was a bruise-looking thing on both legs, left side outside and right thigh inside.

Mom dismissively says, "Oh, that's just something having to do with the surgery, I first noticed it this morning."

Well, yes, but that doesn't mean it's dismissable! Surgery is not just some normal thing that you do that might cause innocuous bruising. I insisted that the nurse look at it before I left. The nurse was concerned but not alarmed. She said they'd have the doctor look at it in the morning.

She started Coumadin (blood thinner) last evening. That may be related. They may want to hold up on that if it's related but that's up to the doctor. They are not going to use the leg pumps here at Hillsboro. (I don't know if they have any.) That may be related too. I don't know how concerned to be. Since it has been going on for at least a day and maybe was caused by the leg pumps over the last several nights, I guess (hope) it's not real urgent. It doesn't look like a bleed, more like vericose veins or a bump you'd get from a fall. I'll be up there for therapy in the morning (1000) and will make sure some doctor tells me that this is OK and is being handled right.

Meanwhile, she's about as close to the emergency room as she can be, and they've got my numbers.

After that I came home and started everybody's laundry, which is still going on.

It is finally starting to get chilly, maybe I'll have to shut the doors.

2007 February 24, Saturday

ÒA Tad Windy Here TodayÓ

The winds have died down to only 28 mph. The garage is still standing. Gusts earlier in the day were around 55.

It was the lead story on the news. DFW was pretty much shut down all day and won't be back to normal until Tuesday or Wednesday.

This is one of my better pictures of the dust storm, taken from the hospital. We thought we were back in the dust bowl (the 30s in the panhandle) again. People around here have never seen anything like this. Doug and Liz drove down in the unusual winds and drove back in the dust. One plane "drifted" off a taxiway at Love Field.

The headline was "West Texas comes to North Texas."

Other than that there was no "violent" weather last night, as expected.

Here's mom looking at her car out the window (far left). And the dust.

This is the nighty we bought. I had it home last night for washing. Haven't washed dishes yet this week.

Special prize if you can tell me what this is.

The new cordless and the new cellphone.

The new TV showing the "All DFW All the Time" channel (8.3).

I got there this morning during the first therapy and stayed until after supper.

Patsy and her mother (the people across the street who take care of the cat when nobody is here) came by. Bennie and Joyce came by. I tried calling Rob (Aanstoos) and it was busy three times. Mom told me to call Narcidel from home for billing reasons. It's too late now. I'll do it tomorrow sometime. Well, if it's not too late when I'm actually here.

Flo came by to deliver a better walker which we adjusted. Bennie was there and took her loaner back on the spot!

Doug and Liz arrived while mom was eating lunch. They didn't bring in lunch; they took me out to El Conquistador. We talked about our kids and Baylor, legal matters, Joanne, and other such things.

They brought me back about three and after another visit (I don't even remember who), mom got a pain pill and I did the second therapy myself. This was walking her about a hundred feet down the hall and back while holding a safety strap around her waist and a safety wheel chair behind her.

After that, dinner came (I moved my free one today to dinner) and after that we watched TV while I faded off. Finally, I left shortly after the movie of the week started on Ch. 8: Forrest Gump.

All the time, the wind was howling outside, until about dark when it calmed down to a dull roar.

No doctor came by today so I grilled the Physical Therapist about mom's bruises. We believe that these occurred in surgery, "They tie them down pretty good so they won't move during the operation." They are no different from yesterday when we first noticed them, so that's believable and I think there's no danger.

As for the leg pumpers and foot pumpers, they are not ordered. They would have them here if they were, but the way Dr. Ethridge does it, they only run those things at Providence for three or four days and not any more after that. Different doctors do different things, some longer, some not at all. The therapist asked about the ice machines. We were told at Joint Camp that Ethridge thinks they are expensive and not worth it.

OK.

This does allow mom to get better sleep anyway.

I'm pretty tired myself.

2007 February 25, Sunday

ÒWent to Church TwiceÓ

Hey, I used to go to church routinely 5-7 times a week. (Yep, two Sunday services at each of two churches, Rest Home, Wednesday, and often a funeral.) Twice is like slacking.

They have a "Praise Band" service at 0900 at First UMC. I went and took extensive notes. They have well planned sudden stops that work well. In fact, every song they do is like that. There are no transitions or modulations or flowing one song into the next. They stop and the preacher, who is otherwise uninvolved in band, announces the next one. A transitional compromise, no doubt. The special was piano, bass and drums on Joyful Joyful right out of the hymnbook. This seemed a little non-sequitur to me. I know too much about the business I guess.

The drum player is also the assistant/youth pastor. He was always popping up and down between the parts of the service he ran and the drums.

I knew about half the songs, but could guess the other half. Kinda like C & W music, there's not that much different from one to the other.

This is not near as true, by the way, of the "traditional" hymns.

The sermon was a story about how the (senior) preacher had baptized a baby who was born dead and it had become an ecumenical experience (Catholic, fundamentalist, UMC, and Hindu (the doctor)). I kid you not. I won't be judgmental about this, but I can see why mom doesn't like him.

Susan (Beck), mom's close, younger friend here, who goes to that service routinely, saw me there and made sure I was introduced around. This netted mom some visitors Sunday afternoon. Susan is a Pink Lady (President of the Pink Ladies) and is subbing for mom right now. Monday afternoon is mom's regular shift.

They let out strictly after an hour so I went and filled up the car. Thirty mpg this time, that's three trips to Waco and back and a bunch of driving around town. Then I came home and tried to get a good photograph of the cat, mostly unsuccessfully. Then I went up to Line Street for their regular time service (they only have one).

So, if it's "United" (UMC = United Methodist Church), why do we need two about a mile apart?

Don't answer that; I know already.

I was taking extensive notes there until I thought, "What am I doing?" and quit. The sermon was on giving.

There are two things about the operation at Line Street that strike me as remarkable. One is that, at all times on Sunday morning except during church itself, there is Tennessee Ernie Ford equivalent music playing on the PA both inside and outside the building. (Now we're beginning to see why we need two churches....) As you walk up to the church, this is what you hear. As you walk around inside the building, this is what you hear

The other thing is what they put up on the projector during the special music. During hymns or songs, they would put up the words, and during the sermon they might put up one or two illustrative images, but during the special, they put up a picture of the choir singing. As you look back and forth between the picture and the real thing, what you see is identical. Six women and the preacher standing there directing them with his back to us.

Well, the one on the screen isn't moving. The real one is, a little.

After church they had birthday cake for a baby who was turning one, but I snuck out the front door (where nobody goes) because I was already late for my free lunch at the hospital.

I stayed through dinner (taking a half hour break to walk to Schlotzky's and buy mine) and the news programs in the early evening, then left soon after eight. One woman (from First UMC) who had her knees done in September came and talked to mom for an hour and a half about it all. She showed us her scar and everything.

I called Rob (Aanstoos) and talked to him for an hour. His oldest sister Mary died last summer (she had been sick all her life) but I hadn't heard. I chewed him out about me not knowing this and told him I'd be calling monthly from now on. I also told him he needs to stop by the house whenever he comes through town and see that all my access improvements meet code.

Mom talked about a lot of things between visitors, the whole deal about Line Street and Covenant Baptist, the whole deal about the breezeway / garage / new room contract years ago, dad's foibles in contracting, people who cheated them, and so forth, all the personality troubles at the Hospital Auxilliary, Pink Ladies, which has every bit of the interpersonal difficulty that any real job does, maybe worse.

Don and Shirley came by, but only Don came in. Shirley was out in the car with a cold and didn't want to make everybody sick. He stayed for a while anyway.

I guess I didn't tell the story about the $60 missing in the Gift Shop bank deposit. This story is important to Monday's story.

So Susan went to make last week's deposit and the amount they'd figured and the amount they actually had was $60 different and they didn't know why. So she came down to mom's room (mom is former Auxilliary Treasurer and I'm a rocket scientist, you know) and I asked questions until I understood what they were doing and what had gone wrong.

They just started a new product offering, cards made out of money folded in various cute ways. This is a way to give a monetary gift to a graduate or whatever. The cost of the card made up by a volunteer is $5 but they also have to supply the money that's in the card. Well, the customer doesn't, Pat, the maker, does. She irons the money and makes it into the cute little things, then gets reimbursed after the customer pays.

So guess how much paper money was used in the first sale of two cards? Yep, $60. This didn't take long to figure out. What took a while was getting Susan to understand what had happened and how to avoid it happening again. This basically amounted to the Auxilliary Board making a new accounting policy.

The problem is the $60 has to show up in the books twice or not at all (or generally, an even number of times for you mathematical purists). Well, they'd have been quite happy to have had it show up not at all, that is, when the customer pays, you just take the $60 out of the register and give it back to the volunteer who ironed their own money and used it originally in construction. Problem was, the customer wrote a check. So, now, no matter what you do, the $60 was in the books once. The only option was to put it in the second time, somehow correctly and this is where the new accounting policy had to be, well, invented.

"Well, you don't make everything do you?" I asked. "What happens when you buy products wholesale and sell them retail for your profit?"

This was all explained. The current treasurer (not mom) has a different checkbook and ledger for all that stuff. She keeps it at home so they don't get confused.

I think they do get confused. Anyway.

So that happened Saturday.

Back to Sunday, between visitors mom was surfing around on the TV. The choices were golf and Lawrence Welk. We watched Lawrence Welk. We got to watch Arthur Duncan tap dance for the first time in probably forty two or three years.

During Lawrence Welk mom asked for a pain pill. She said her pain was 5-6 on a 0-10 scale. That's progress.

But, last thing Saturday, mom has been on reduced medicine enough that she felt like she could read and asked for Mockingbird, which I brought in Sunday. She's also paid a few bills.

Hey guess what Doug told me Saturday?  Office Space was filmed in Dallas. Most of those driving scenes are out on and around 635 where they used to work.

You know, that all did seem eerily familiar.

You know how this came up.... our waitress at El Conquistador was wearing some kind of sash with pins on it and was incredibly cheery. ... flair.

2007 February 26, Monday

ÒHappy Birthday to MeÓ

Right after I hung up with Viann last night.

This morning I went up and caught the doctor in the nursing station. He confirmed that those huge bruises on mother's legs are from the surgery restraints. He told me that they would change color several times over the next couple of weeks before they are gone.

Mom didn't get much sleep last night. Only really slept from 2300 to 0100 then someone was brought in from the Emergency Room to the room across the hall. They spent three hours slamming doors and asking admission questions loudly. At 0300, mother asked for a pain pill, being in a little pain (2-3?). This didn't help. She doesn't think she slept any before 0500 when they start doing meds and vitals and stuff.

After talking to the doctor we were both dozing off when mom says, "Happy Birthday." And then says, "Look over in that empty luggage over there." I had left it empty last night.

This is one of those Gift Shop Accounting Nightmare cards, made up like a pressed shirt and framed so I won't spend it. (She bought the frame in Waco Kinkos while I was fussing with the fax to the State of California and has been sneaking it around ever since, through surgery and everything.) The card was homemade on Pat's computer. Pat also makes the cards. Mother tells me that this was the first such card made and sold. So, as always, I'm the problem.

Next stop was Legg's where I bought mother another nighty. Same size and shape as the other one but this one is white with a blue snowflake pattern and pink trim. It is prettier than she remembers, she says.

From there it was down to the Ford place to get Mom's handicap license plates. Texas Ò6Y TNC.Ó I think the disabled part of the plate is good through sometime in 2011 but I can't tell from the paperwork. Maybe I can tell from the rear-view hanger, which she won't need to use anymore.

Back at home, Jan Tarsala had left a birthday message on mom's answering machine just before 0900 here.

Katy called this afternoon. John called just now. (Evening)

We're doing dishes on the John Henry Owens method here. You'll have to ask one of his children what that means.

This is what I did today, rather than dishes. The therapist yesterday was checking us out for house safety. After some fussing with various ideas I bought a 48-inch grab bar, discretely went across the driveway and measured how the one on Nell's house was installed, then put this up. I used dad's drill and plugged it into that outlet down there. When mom's more awake I'll tell her I used it. She was worried that dad had all those outdoor outlets put in at great expense then never used them.

Something dad didn't have was any kind of drill screw-driver bit. A Phillips P2 costs $2.29. Now we have a P2 and a P3 here.

This will pass Robby's QA. That bar would hold up any four of us. The real question is, will it protect the house from a falling garage? I'm supposed to see Randy Sullins at Flethcher's Lumber Co. at 0800 in the morning to discuss options. At the very least I'm going to get this one torn down. Starting with that we can go step by step. Slab, pole shed, etc. Maybe now, maybe next visit.

The current flower collection. I watered Wilda's yesterday and gave it it's food. Need to water the ones at the house too.

Mom (sleepy) opening Wilda's care package.

The grabber that I bought on Ebay Friday came today! See the foot-long shoe-horn? You can turn it around and use the trigger as a hook to hike up your pants or whatever like that is hard. Mom is pretty much able to put on socks and general do all her dressing, maybe except for the post-surgical stockings.

Cindums Doozums in a favorite place.

I found one of the UPS places. It's the print store downtown that mom uses to Xerox things. Across the street I put my card in the money machine and asked for $200. It gave me twenty $10s. I've never gotten a $10 out of a money machine before. (This was my JPL credit card, not my Foothill FCU one, which has been cancelled! (Their fault, not mine.))

Right after Katy called this afternoon, I was rushing around trying to get out the door to go to KFC and buy my dinner and be up at the hospital to eat it at 1700 when there was a knock at the door. I don't know that I'd ever seen a knock at the door here before, certainly not this trip.

It was Leo the yardman. He asked about mom, asked about the yard, said he'd do the right thing in a couple of days and they'd settle up later.

Since she hadn't slept last night and hadn't napped today, mom couldn't stay awake. She got ready for bed (while people continue to slam doors and talk loud and vacuum the halls) and we shut the door and turned on the white noise machine (the air conditioner on low) and I came home at 1930.

2007 February 27, Tuesday

ÒThe Beginning of the End for the GarageÓ

This morning I appeared at Fletcher Lumber Co. at 0800 to meet Randy Sullins and discuss the garage. He's going to come by the house and have a look sometime tomorrow. Today he has an asbestos abatement meeting with somebody in town. This is probably the same Tuesday asbestos abatement meeting at Line Street that they announced in church Sunday. That building needs its asbestos abated.

I plan to talk to him about all the possibilities, but I hope to at least get the existing garage demolished while I'm here now. This will mean moving stuff out of it today and tomorrow. I haven't been up to the hospital to clear this with mom yet.

Called Uncle Johnny with our update. He's nearly deaf; I was shouting. Narcidel is about the same, no worse but no better. He is familiar with Ford Focus; Nita has one.

I made Viannah's Waco Streak reservation. They are supposed to drop her off and pick her up at the house, since we are not far from the freeway. That's March 10 at 1700 and March 16 at 1000 on the Hillsboro end.

After lunch I came home and cleaned out the back room of the garage.

Full.

Empty.

All the stuff in the back yard. To the left is trash (the first four things in the room were trash cans, thankfully). To the right is stuff to consider keeping, somewhere, somehow, or giving away.

In a box marked "Wilda" was all the stuff from my dad's dad's funeral (1962).

The Tinker Toy box. This is the only thing mom wants.

A flower in the bed off the front porch.

One of dad's model engines.

Nineteen or so years of sermon outlines. Mom says they're useless because they're just outlines, but I can't just throw them away. Suggestions?

The first set of trash and recycling.

This is a pretty slow and lonely job to do by ones self.

Boxes for the "hazardous waste" step next.

Know any of these people?

These?

The side porch is where all the stuff for review (suspected keep or giveaway) is. I didn't have the heart to throw away any of the old apple boxes. Did you know that grocery stores used to ship fruit in wood boxes? Well, we have about a dozen of them. Most of them are stacked up empty here. That one on top is a shipping crate for Encyclopedia Americana. No telling how long we've had those. Dad knew how to make kites out of that wood. I don't.

No sign of any action super heroes. They may be in the sun room. Mom has already mentioned that a future project will be to clean out one of the closets back there. Dad's stuff.

I get free lunch with mom at the hospital but have to bring in my own dinner. So far I've been making the circuit of all the fast food places:

Friday Jack in the Box

Sunday Schlotsky's

Monday KFC

Tuesday Wendys

Wednesday Taco Bell (planned)

After that I'll have to get creative. There's a McDonald's across the freeway and a Subway in Wal*Mart. Maybe I'll just repeat. Maybe mom will be home and we'll be back on soup and TV dinners.

Just as I was leaving tonight mom mentioned that she'd only been on sodium pentathol twice in her life, in 1955 with the ectopic pregnancy and in 1988 when they worked on her foot. I asked what they used last Monday. She didn't know. Isn't that "truth serum"? Yes. Isn't that what they use for lethal injection?

2007 February 28, Wednesday

ÒBlue Bell, Duh!Ó

So how long was I going to be here before it occurred to me that I could be eating Blue Bell?

Well, mother hasn't been eating much, not when I've been watching anyway (lunch and dinner). About an hour after dinner this evening, she asked for ice cream. She says it's the only thing that sounds good. I was planning a trip to Wal*mart on the way home....

Just ate half a pint of Blue Bell Hot Fudge Sunday.

Tomorrow my dinner will be from Arby's.

Mom has also been complaining of a tickly throat and that her temperature has been high, around 100 the last several times. She says this is high because she is normally about 96. She says no one believes this until they've seen it for themselves. This evening they prescribed an oral antibiotic. I waited around until closing time to see them bring it, but it hadn't come by 2100.

She was worn out by both types of therapy today (physical and occupational ... I don't know, go ask your mom) and slept all afternoon. I sat there until 1430 then snuck out and came back to work on the garage some more before dinner.

Last night I cut my finger semi-badly while washing dishes.

That will teach me to wash dishes. I was wandering around the house looking for Bandaids while drip-drip-drip-drip.

No pictures. I thought about it, but no.

It was a broken glass. I knew it was broken while I was drinking out of it and washed it carefully so it wouldn't break completely. But, that was the other one of the same type that wasn't cracked that I was washing carefully. I was really hauling down on the cracked one when it gave way. Now it's in the trash. Out at the street.

Mom told me that my due date was 3/17 and Wilda's was 10/16. Did we know this?

I just finished all of Viannah's poetry project this evening, second pass. I don't think I can do a third pass and do any more good or less damage. This while mom and I were watching CSI.

So I'm still slogging through the garage, probably about half through moving the keeper stuff to the porch and the trash to the street. Got to most of the hazardous chemicals today.

I had to throw away all of the fishing stuff. Sorry Katy, but it was all rust. Everything out there is rats nests, mostly made of pecan shells and scraps of stuff. One nest was made of about a dozen (half a dozen pair) of women's gloves. That's where all the garden gloves are!

No superhero action figures anywhere to be found, at least not yet.

Mom had her staples out yesterday. I was surprised it was so soon after surgery. Some of them were starting to grow in. That's probably bad, and is probably why they do it so soon. A Clinical Nurse Specialist did it right in the hospital.

She seems to be feeling fairly well, however. When she is awake and sitting up she's complaining about the nursing staff. They will come in to help her do something and move the walker out of the way like it was an impediment rather than an essential aid. She said maybe they need to be trained by the therapists. I said maybe they need two-thirds of an ounce of common sense.

Somebody came in to weigh her at 0430 this morning. They, too, wanted the walker out of the way. This had to be negotiated. It's no wonder she's tired all the time. Why do they need to weigh patients at 0430?

A card from Wilda came in the mail today. It talked about kitties but no pictures of kitties.

I still don't have my new credit card in the mail.

So Randy Sullins came by and looked at the garage this morning. He said it wasn't safe to be in there.

Yeah, guess not.

This is the trash and recycling so far. I can only get so much done between other things.

Anyway, Randy and I talked for a good long time. He pulled into the driveway and said, "Oh, Bailey Duncan! Yes, I've done a lot of work at this house."

Note to self: Mention ÒBailey DuncanÓ if you want people around here to know who you are. For better or for worse.

So we talked about the following set of things:

- demolish and carry away the garage

- bust up and carry off the concrete slab

- put up a one-car roof shelter for the car on a slab

- and a $500-$1000 class portable building to store the rake in

- some kind of sidewalk from the car to the back door

- some kind of lighting

This will be an itemized list so we can see what we can afford and do that. He's supposed to get the bid to me by Friday. With bids just coming Friday, whatever we do will barely be started by the time I leave, so that has to be dealt with too.

I took him out to the street and showed him the hole in the driveway. ÒYou know, the one he just drove over?Ó He said the hole was on our property and that he could do a proper concrete job on it while he had the people out here anyway. But he also said that since it was there because the city dug up the water line (at Nel's house) years ago, they should fix it. "Sure, they can do this, they have a patch truck that goes around doing things like this all the time. Call Jimmy Moore at public works over on Morgan Street. Tell him I sent you; they do a lot of business with me.

OK.

Another note to self: Guys bidding jobs stand around a shoot the bull a lot because that's the way they avoid forgetting anything.

So this made me late for lunch. I changed quick and went up to the hospital. During lunch, I asked, "Where's Morgan Street?"

Over by Mosey Jean.

OK.

So, when I left the hospital at 1430 I drove straight over to the Covenant Baptist end of town and, at some length, found Morgan Street. Went in the office and asked for Jimmy Moore. Was waved straight back. He was in. Opened right up with with "Bailey Duncan...." ... Never heard of him.

OK.

But, Jimmy lived on Park Drive for 28 years, in the 400 block. (Mom says, "Yeah, they got a lot of repairs down there.") He couldn't quite picture the place and started asking about people he knew in the neighborhood trying to place it. "Is that close to Larry Powell?" "Yep, right next door." He also knew the McCaulley's. "It was their water line that was dug up."

We shot the bull for a while. He graduated from Hillsboro HS in 1973, knew a guy who retired to Escondido, Ca. etc, etc. I told him not to use gravel there; it doesn't work. He said he'd come over and look at it then send his street repair man.

Then back at the house I was hauling more stuff out when the phone rang. It was Narcidel. We chatted for a while and I gave her mom's number at the hospital. This made me late for dinner, but they were still talking (Narcidel and mom) when I got to the hospital with my Taco Bell so I guess it was OK.

Tomorrow is Arby's. Did I say that?

Uncle Johnny had to hang up quick when I called the other day because some people were there to install something around the edge of the house that keeps pine needles cleared so he doesn't have to climb around on the roof all the time clearing them. Wonder how that works?

It's supposed to be cooler here tomorrow, light freeze possible in Dallas tonight. That's why I used up my short sleeve shirts today. It was near 80 again today.

I'm still sitting here with the doors open.

Is February over already?

2007 March 1, Thursday

ÒCinder is MadÓ

The other day Cinder came around in the middle of the afternoon chewing me out.

Rowr rowr rowr rowr rowr.

She didn't want food. She didn't want out or in. She could care less about the litter. What's the problem?

On consultation, we decided that she's mad because grandma isn't here. Grandma says that when she was in California for seven weeks in 2001-2002, Cinder wouldn't speak to her for weeks after she got back.

Could be she's mad because I don't get up and let her in in the middle of the night. I would, but I don't hear her scratching like mom does.

Mom told me today that she'll get a little bell and when Cinder scratches on the door in the middle of the night when it would be too much for her to get up, she'll ring the bell and I can get up and let in the cat.

I think she was serious!

While I was waiting in the drive-through line at Arby's they were playing "Mars the god of War (Holst, the Planets) on WRR. It could have been a Star Wars theme. You should check it out.

Katy called today. Needed help getting started on her taxes.

A book-sized, heavy box came for me in the mail.

It's a new Bible, my birthday present from Viannah! Same version as the old one but a much nicer binding, printing, paper, and everything. Looks like it's built to last about fifty years.

Still no new credit card in the mail :-( . I guess not-Express mail is not-Express. Hope it comes before I leave here.

I stayed at the hospital after lunch for some of rehab. They walked mom down to the Gift Shop where they looked at some new quilts that one of the volunteers made. Then rode the wheelchair about that much further to the therapy room. She practiced sitting down on a 20-inch high mat. Most beds and chairs are around 24 inches, so she shouldn't have any trouble getting into her own bed.

We are talking about coming home. According to the doctor, it's paced by agreement between mom and the therapists. She's talking maybe Saturday but we don't really know. We don't have the potty thing from Flo yet. I'm supposed to deal with that tomorrow. First priority tomorrow, however, is to receive the bid from Randy and decide how to proceed with the garage.

The therapy people, for their part, have only talked informally about going home. Mom is very involved in making sure everything is ready and safe here. It could happen quickly; it could drag out.

This means I have to start thinking about getting the house back into mom-approvable shape and quit living like a pig.

This also came in the mail, mom's graduation from Joint Camp.

And the picture that the Joint Camp people took on their camera.

I put the thing in the shower this evening.

The trash was all picked up this morning and I'm refilling all the cans. At this point I've touched everything in the garage and am now just reorganizing it to other places on the property, mostly on the side porch. That's three boxes of hazardous waste on the left there.

The rules are, if it's mostly rust, it's trash. If I don't know what it is, it's trash (that doesn't rule out much). If it's the fourteenth of the same tool, it's trash, and about eleven of the others are too. If it's a handle without a tool on the end, it's trash. If it's something that we're never going to use around here again, it's trash. If it's a yardstick or a washer or a four inch long piece of solder or a home-made extension cord it's trash. We're going to have a couple of footlockers of stuff to go through, half a dozen antique looking items for the museum, a couple of boxes to ship, and about a dozen trash cans full before we're done.

This is some kind of tool or something that's jammed into place between studs. All three contact points are embedded into the wood a fraction of an inch. I suspect it's holding the garage up, so I quit trying to get it out.

"North of Abbott."

Like I said, Randy is supposed to come by tomorrow with bids. We'll have to act on those bids before any work will be scheduled. I'll be done getting stuff out of there tomorrow.

Mom was much better today. Her temperature was down to 97. The possible-sore-throat-coming-on symptoms are declining. She's on an anti-biotic. They worry about getting infections in the artificial knees. People have died from teeth cleanings, so she'll always have preventative anti-biotics before dental work from now on. What about colds and flu, I'm wondering? I have a note to ask the doctor, but I nearly never see him.

Anybody else here know?

I went to Wal*Mart and bought some new tennis balls for the walker. Used the self-checkout! Put them on at dinner using a box cutter I found in the garage.

Walkers have wheels on the front and tennis balls on the back so they'll "slide good." Why a walker for a handicapped person should need to "slide good" is a mystery. I guess you have to be a user to understand it.

Seems like I'm forgetting things.

I can't get my work computer to log into the JPL network. Either they've disabled me like they weren't supposed to or the protocols through earthlink dialup aren't right. I tried the JPL 800 number dial up and the modems wouldn't even negotiate. That's weird. I shouldn't have brought the work computer. I'm only going to have spent three or four hours on it in the whole month, most of that just deleting spam. By the time I get done with this in the evening I'm ready to turn in. I will probably try one more time at Schlotsky's or something like that. Doing anything that requires VPN or the web is just nearly impossible on dialup.

Of course, if we weren't demolishing the garage, I'd have had more time to "work." Possibly.

2007 March 2, Friday

ÒTexas is 171 Years Old TodayÓ

Happy Texas Independence Day. Somebody on WBAP 820 said it didn't look a day over 150. I think this was meant as a compliment. When grandma was born, it wasn't even 100 yet. When Viann's grandma was born it was around 50. Due to the way cellphones don't quite work, I missed a syllable when she told me this and misunderstood, making her testy.

Anyway, did I mention last Saturday that Doug and Liz said they had tickets for "Twelve Angry Men"? It's a stage play version of the play about a near hung jury. Richard Thomas (John Boy Walton) plays the pivotal "Juror Number Eight", was interviewed on KERA 13 (PBS) this evening. It plays through March 4. They might have already been.

Now to the big news of the day. Two things: the garage, and mom coming home.

I was about to get in the car to go to the hospital for lunch when Randy Sullins pulled up. He had a verbal bid. He said that he'd talked to the guy at the city and that they knew about this place and were about to issue what amounts to a citation for the garage. They would not have just mailed mom something. Since they know her and mom is old school, they would have come out and told her about it. Anyway, just in time! She was about to have to do something.

When I stopped by the house for an hour from 1600 to 1700 there was a written bid in the door. It says:

Remove existing Garage & Install Carport (main title)

Includes:

- Brace existing Garage to secure while removing.

- Remove garage piece by piece due to vicinity to house.

- Jack hammer out existing Slab.

- Level off ground to accommodate a 12'X20' concrete slab.

- Pour concrete slab 5' off property line to meet code.

- Build metal carport with wings on sides for added protection.

- Color to be decided on by owner.

- 3' sidewalk from edge of carport to porch rail to be installed.

- CLEAN UP PREMISES.

- Note: Storage shed behind house is approx. 625.00.

- JOB TO TAKE APPROXIMATELY 2 AND HALF WEEKS.

- Permits to be obtained from city.

I've used his bid capitalization. :-)

It doesn't itemize costs, but I did verbally get some numbers. For instance, concrete is $5 per square foot, so a 12'X20' is $1200, with rebar and inspections. City dump disposal fees for the old garage will be around $800.

They have brochures to bring over to look at colors.

Although it costs more, the sidewalk up to the back door is really a strong recommendation from therapy and I think we should just do it.

I don't know when the 2-1/2 weeks will start. As early as the middle of this week possibly. Depends on how agreements and payments go I suppose.

The current thinking is not to have the concrete people work on the hole at the street end of the driveway (I estimate another $300 if we did that) but to keep waiting on the city to do something and see how that works, if any. (Nothing yet.)

The total bid is $7875.00.

My impression is that most of the cost is the demolition (nearly $5000 of it).

I don't know if I'm supposed to haggle this or just take or leave it, but it seems quite reasonable for what we want done, especially since it will be done properly with all the correct permits and things.

Mom has about $1000 left after buying the car (some interest she was expecting but that wasn't posted until 2/28) and has another $5000 or so coming "sometime in March.

Having consulted with Wilda on this, I think she and I should split the difference and pay $3000 up front ($1500 each, with payment details to be worked out. If mom pays the $1000 she has now that will be the half it takes to get them started. Then, by completion time she should have the rest of her money (since it is near certain not to be before the end of March anyway) and can pay the balance.

Unfortunately the weekend starts tomorrow and I didn't bring any checkbook with me with which I could buy a garage. I'll see how Randy wants to be paid and maybe we'll work out a way to overnight a check out here or wire money or something like that. I could put $3000 on my new credit card but the charge card fees would cut into his profits.

Anyway, that's the scoop on that. I have mom's agreement in principle on this, but we really haven't discussed it at the level of having her explicitly say yes, or picking a color for that matter. Once I've done that and figured out how payment happens, we'll talk again.

By the way, I moved everything remaining to the porch this morning. All that remains in the garage is some boxes to be broken down for recycling, the trash to be taken out, and the hazardous wastes in about five boxes. It is still unclear what I'm going to do with the latter, but I decided to bend the rules and just throw away pint sized stuff in the trash and, if there was only a teaspoon of something in a container, poured it on an anthill in the existing garage and put the container in the recycle anyway.

And after that there were five boxes.

Once I'm done in there, I'll disconnect the electricity at the box and remove the light bulbs and that will be it.

Mom meets the criteria for leaving the hospital and coming home. You have to be able to straighten your knees and bend them to 90 degrees (ultimately 110), get up and down, and walk a certain minimum distance. I stayed after lunch to hassle with the caseworker and the therapists and doctors and nurses and everybody to get all the details worked out to my satisfaction.

Wasn't able to get hold of Flo about the potty chair but Jeff the therapist said Medicare would buy one. They had the doctor prescribe it and made the order today. The hitch is that mom doesn't want to leave for home until it's here but Medicare won't pay for something to be put in your home on the same day as they are also paying for you to be an inpatient in a hospital.

I spent some of the afternoon trying to figure out how to commit the fraud that this rule is trying to prevent. Images of selling illicit Medicare potty chairs on the street corner to indigents for lots of money came to mind. I told Susan that we couldn't even figure out where the $60 in the gift shop went, how were we going to make a living stealing medical equipment?

Anyway, I arranged with the people to deliver it to the house at nine in the morning and told mom I wouldn't come up there to move her out until after that. This seemed to work for everybody.

They also prescribed a walker, so mom will have her own here permanently and Flo and everybody can have theirs back.

The remaining issues are the outpatient therapy schedule and the surgical stockings.

Mom's therapy schedule for next week is Monday 1030, Tuesday 1000, and Thursday 1000. Something like this will also happen the following week when Viannah is here.

As for the stockings, they are really hard to get on and off, being somewhat tight (another preventative for clotting). She only takes them off to bathe and, when really dry, puts them back on. It takes a nurse sitting on the floor with her sitting on the bed to put them on. This doesn't seem to mom like something she can do herself. She worries about what will happen after we're all gone.

Jeff the therapist said that it was Dr. Ethridge's call on how long to use them, but that typically it was four weeks and this would be discussed at his follow up appointment in the next week or so. (I still don't believe they are going to contact us to arrange this. They haven't yet.) Anyway, only one doctor does six weeks and it's not ours.

I asked about having home health come and do something like that. Medicare doesn't pay for home health except for the truly homebound. If you go out in the car to go anyplace but the doctor, you're not homebound. So that's out unless we go on our own nickel. Mom thinks that all her friends who've done this have local nurses in the family.

So anyway, we're coming home in the morning and I'm vacuuming and doing dishes and laundry and putting away all my little strategically placed multi-tasking piles around the house in preparation for tomorrow's homecoming.

I forgot to ask Jeff about how to do a better job securing the railing on the front porch. It's really not approved (by me) for handicap use right now.

The top is secured with four big wood bolts into the porch. That's fine. The bottom is (not) secured by two whopperjawed bolts that dad "glued" into the concrete.

One big difference between dad and I is that I have never believed that glue works and certainly don't for this. It's not working now, for instance.

When time permits I'm going to inspect this and see if there's not some concrete molly bolt like thing at the hardware store that I can work on it with. Another alternative would be a different railing, one that bolted to every step instead of just top and bottom. There are no nearby walls for grab bars.

But, we talked and decided that she can probably get along without ever needing to use the front steps. In general she'll be driving up to the new carport and going in the back door which is 1-1/2 steps and a new grab bar. Only during construction would she need to park and come in from anywhere else.

While Viannah and I are here, she won't be cleared to drive anyway, so Viannah or I can park the car where needed and when she needs to get in it, can pull it up and block in the construction people while mom comes from the back porch. After Viannah is gone and other people come to take her places, they can do that too. Maybe construction will be finished by the time she is cleared to drive and this won't be a problem.

This only leaves the matter of where to park the car when Viannah leaves and who will bring the new car up to the new carport the first time. Guess we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.

Well, at least the big envelope with the new MasterCard came.

The big deal from JPL was the approval of my Leave of Absence and copies of all the policies and things that I already had. Guess this means it all went through. They haven't called me but they may have turned off my e-mail.

It was in the 40s when I went out to work in the garage this morning. First time I've worn anything but short sleeves. It is in the 40s tonight too. Mid 60s tomorrow. I've been listening to KHBR 1560 "serving the area for over 50 years." Classic Country from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and today. Yes, that's what they say. I doubt if you can hear it from California, it's only 250 watts and daylight only, but if you want to know who in the county is holding a fish fry tomorrow, that's the place.

(WRR played the Dallas City Council Meeting all day Wednesday. That was equally entertaining.)

2007 March 3, Saturday

ÒRegime FourÓ

The guy was supposed to bring the potty chair at 0900 this morning, but nobody told him. The case worker called me from the hospital this morning at 1030 and then they called the vendor. Then the vendor called me at 1100 and said he was on his way. From China Springs (Waco). That's where he lives. The warehouse is here in Hillsboro. I've been there.

So I went to Bill's pharmacy and got mom's prescription "Morton Grv". Diagnoses, "Ulcer Sus"

She's had some reaction to some medication, maybe the anti-biotic, I don't know and she doesn't know, that has the inside of her mouth, tongue included, covered with sores. Mainly this just prevents her from eating. This prescription is supposed to help. She's planning to have grits and maybe ice cream tonight, though the ice cream may be too cold for the climate. High today 50s, lows at night about 35. She's cold (as always) and has the house pretty warm <yawn>, so may not want to eat ice cream.

Anyway, due to not eating, she's tired.

So the potty chair and a new walker (both courtesy of Medicare, about $170 otherwise) showed up at 1330 and soon as it was installed and signed for, I went up to the hospital and had my last free lunch two hours late. We then loaded up and signed out and left the hospital for home right at 1500.

We went the other way, Country Club Dr. so we could drive on the newly paved Park Street.

No change on the pothole in the driveway.

Mom came in on the walker without any trouble. I brought in all the stuff and piled it on the kitchen table. She went and rested for an hour while I read NASA Lessons Learned reports (and dozed off myself, it being a long month), then got up and puttered around and we unpacked, putting all the clothes in their respective drawers and closets and all the other things, like mail and newspapers, where they go for later attention.

She is resting again now (1840) and plans to get up shortly for dinner (preparation and eating), then a bath, with me standing close by, then watching one of the movies Wilda sent in the Care Package. Based on the last several days, I don't think she'll make it past the bath. If she goes on to bed, I may watch Dr. Who with the sound down low.

She is doing a little walking without the walker and mainly asks me to do things that would mean getting back up again, but which she would be able to do herself if she did get back up again.

She has used the new potty chair. It is much nicer than I expected (and new). Everything is going fine except for the sores in the mouth thing.

Cinder came in about 1800. It's getting cold outside being dusk. She's thrilled that motherÕs is room is open again and has been running back and forth from the food dish to the room to some of her favorite hiding places. She went right by mom, lying on the couch. I don't think she even noticed her. Yet.

2007 March 4, Sunday

ÒNot a Visitor AnymoreÓ

So, we did all that stuff last night and I was so exhausted that I went right to bed.

Mom got up and had a bath. We struggled the stockings off and back on, but everything went fine. After getting out she was very cold and stopped at the first horizontal place, my bed, and lay there under two blankets for about 45 minutes before continuing.

We watched "That Darn Cat" but she slept through most of the last half of it. We're going to watch something else tonight.

I'm at Walmart right now to buy Blue Bell and some other dietary thing that might help her eat better with canker sores in her mouth. She was tuning around for "60 Minutes" when I left, in the digital channels. She really likes the digital channels; they have extras. "Supplements" she calls them. Just now she discovered the "All DFW all the time channel."

"What's this," she says. "The airport," I replied. "Wouldn't dad have loved this?

"Yes, if he'd had this I never could have watched anything else."

Hyacinth comes on here at 10:30.

There is never any snow on digital channels, but for weak signals there is sometimes tearing, pixelation, or it just switches to black. She hasn't experienced this yet.

I did get to watch a little new Dr. Who between spurts of activity, but not the whole thing.

So other than the not able to eat right, things are going fine. She forgets to take the walker everywhere she walks, or sometimes just carries it around. It just occurred to me that she's about up to about the mobility she was at before surgery.

This morning she was up before I was and was in sitting on the bed to get me up. She wondered which churches I would be going to. I only went to Line Street, and just for church, after bringing her the cellphone and instructing her how to call me on it. She didn't need to. Later Viann called her on it.

While introducing visitors, the preacher declared that I didn't count as a visitor anymore. This was my third time there.

The preacher is going to have surgery this week himself.

A bigger surprise in church was that four people went up at the invitation to join! So I got to see a whole Methodist joining ritual again.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Denise Strayer called yesterday morning while I was waiting on the potty seat that wasn't coming. She is coming up to visit next Saturday.

The canker sores medicine is: Brand: Aphthanol. Generic: Amlexanox.

I called the nurse's station about what that stuff in cartons was that they brought in lieu of food. They didn't know but recommended Ensure, Boost, and even Slim Fast for over-the-counter equivalents. Mom already knows she doesn't like Ensure, having tasted one of dads years ago. "Sugar milk, bleh."

Pat Garrison brought a peach cobbler from across the street and visited for a minute. She has a piano and organ in her house. We talked pianos.

We go up to the hospital for therapy in the morning and are talking about driving around then and doing other business. I'm also going to make the deal with Randy Sullins and then figure out how to pay $3000 down. Mom wants to look at pictures and colors but generally approves the plan and is ready to get going on it.

2007 March 5, Monday

Ò3/5/7Ó

Hey, 28 years ago today was 3/5/79. 3-5-7-9 -- get it?

We watched Freaky Friday last night; it's the one with Jody Foster (teenager) and John Astin in it (he was also Gomez in the Addams Family). So this was the old one from the sixties. Mom stayed awake through most of it. It was earlier.

Since she didn't have any trouble eating ice cream I went down to Walmart and bought some Equate and Slim Fast. She likes the Equate better than the Slim Fast.

We went to therapy this morning. She was in a rush because she thought the 1030 appointment was at 1000. So, we were there at 0945 and waited a while.

I drew pictures of all the exercises since I don't know what they are called. She wants to do them at home too to avoid being stiff after sitting or sleeping. Jeff the therapist said also that any pain medicine wears off in the night so you might wake up at 0530 (like mom does) and have trouble getting back to sleep because of that.

The good news is that she's getting up and letting the cat in and out in the middle of the night herself. The bad news is that she's doing that and talking about setting the alarm to take pain medicine so as not to wake up at 0530.

I don't think she's serious about the latter, but it's hard to tell. She's not really using that much pain medication.

And she's hardly using the walker at all.

We slept in until about 0800 this morning.

Mom had soup for lunch and that went OK. She is looking forward to eating lemon ice cream.

I called Randy back and told him we wanted to do the garage deal but needed to look at a few pictures and talk about the down payment. He hasn't called me back yet.

On the way home we drove around town and looked at other carports.

She asked if Viannah knows how to do a car that has push button dongle openers. I thought she probably did.

I'm out and about shipping a couple of boxes back to La Canada. They are several years of dad's sermon notes and granddad's funeral stuff (dad's dad). I'll have my own box of junk to go back later in the week.

The lady at the store that takes UPS is our across the back neighbor, 704 Elm, right behind Nell's house. She introduces herself with, ÒYou know, the one with the big pile of brush in the alley?Ó They are hardly ever at home, like most people. Still, the process of shipping something UPS takes twice as long here as it does in Montrose, Ca, and they use an analog, mechanical scale!

The UPS truck was sitting out front when I walked out. Not that I'm in a hurry for this to get anywhere.

When I get home I'll be finishing the garage and moving the drive light from the garage structure to the house.

Mom wants me to go to a band concert with the girls Thursday night. (Bennie, Joyce, etc.)

2007 March 6, Tuesday

ÒThe Garage is ReadyÓ

(First, Monday at bedtime.)

Somebody brought by color samples. Mom wants something that matches the house, which would be the whitest of the choices, "Polar White." We didn't actually see a person so we haven't signed anything yet and I don't know about making payment yet.

So I finished everything I'm going to do in the garage. This included moving the light from the front of the garage to the side of the house. It's now on the same switch with the backyard light. The garage is totally disconnected from electricity and all the fixtures I'm going to remove are out. We're now just waiting for trash day, and the contractor.

So there I was standing on top of a ladder, the glue in the fixture I'm moving already having failed, but trying to get the wiring untangled so I could hook it up. "Dad," I'm muttering under my breath at altitude, "what are you doing!"

In the prior installation, it was held together by the tangle, not the glue. Glue doesn't work.

I'm not going to try to save the basketball net. It would be hard to get down and there won't be a place to put it.

Susan came by, our second visitor. She was oohing and ahhing about the new TV, amazed that we were getting all those digital channels over the air. I have unintentionally put a stop to all the rumors around Hillsboro that the only use you'd have for HDTV is if you had cable.

We watched "Man From Aldersgate" DVD and all of the bonus features tonight. That's Roger Nelson, the guy we all saw as St. Patrick. It was a good show. Maybe we'll get to Sakajawea tomorrow.

Tuesday:

It seemed like Tuesday all day yesterday. At least it is Tuesday now.

Although it is normal to pay half up front, I was discussing with him how to pay our $3000 and he said it would be OK for me to mail it from home next week. "We know you and you're not going to move." So, no crises there. He is going to pull the "demo permit" (demolition) right away, but at this point I'd be surprise if any actual work happens while I'm still here. Maybe we can at least get the whole deal negotiated while I'm here.

Soon as I've done this I'll send Wilda the complete bill for her half.

JPL called, they wanted to know if I'm coming back to work Monday. I hope so.

No matter how I get to Lancaster for Viannah's graduation, I think I'll plan to spend two or three days here on the way, to move back into the new garage and inspect the work and so forth. Whether mom comes or not probably depends on how she's doing. Based on how she's doing right now I'd say she probably will be able to go. She won't use the walker around the house, "it gets in the way." Her only remaining complaint is that she can't get up out of a chair using only her legs.

Flex measurements yesterday were 0 / 95 degrees in both legs. They didn't measure today. She was able to pedal the recumbent exercycle in complete round strokes today. Yesterday she could only go back and forth. She does take the walker out in public, mainly to fend the public off. Once in the therapy room, we stow it until it's time to go, as at home.

We drove through Jack in the Box for lunch. She had a regular vanilla shake. Right now we're waiting on the plumber and Randy and talking about taking a bath and going to retrieve plants from Shirley after they come, if itÕs still early enough after that.

When I got down to dad's old garage radio last week (something he got out of somebody else's trash but still works fine, despite being dirt dobber nest encrusted) mom asked me if I was going to throw it away. Yesterday when she heard it playing she asked if I was going to keep it.

I was looking at my two big Bibles, in terms of packing. I think I'll ship the old one back with the big, heavy UPS box and start living out of the new one late this week.

Randy drove up this afternoon, put the demolition permit on the garage.

Work may start Saturday.

We measured things and talked about more detail.

These are the antiques. Mom says that the big hay rake was left by the core of engineers when they were cleaning up our yard after the Hubbard Tornado.

By the way, the anniversary is Saturday March 10. What is it now, 34 years?

That's the grating from Tomball. We're saving it from the wreckers.

The new lighting installation.

Queen Cinder.

The shelf that fell over.

Mom, improving.

We're setting up to take our second home bath. That may mean warming up some of the house pretty warm.

2007 March 7, Wednesday

ÒEating Solid Food AgainÓ

Mom picked out the "easiest looking" TV dinner today and ate most of it. She's also religiously eating all the Slim Fast and Equate.

Last night we did another bath, but she was nearly completely independent this time and didn't need any help except with the stockings (off and on) and washing her back. She's back to doing her hair in the sink, in my bathroom. We're waiting for a plumber to come and put in new fixtures so she can do this in her bathroom. We waited yesterday too and he never came.

After heating up the bathroom and the bedroom to about 95, there were no chills this time. She's doing a lot better too.

Today we're planning to drive up to Jim's Pharmacy, a look at some pole car sheds around town, and to go get groceries at Walmart.

But, the crises this morning is pain medicine. "Now we can eat but we can't sleep." She hasn't slept well the last couple of nights. She has manageable pain during the day but can't get into a comfortable position at night and so doesn't sleep well.

It's not like she's getting no sleep. She just had a nap of half an hour, after putting everything away after lunch, and slept through half of Sacagewea and all of the bonus features (on the National Parks along the Lewis and Clark (Clark and Lewis!) path, including a nice piece on Rainier) last night. It's like she's not sleeping at night.

Dr. Bauerschlag is on nursing home duty today and isn't in the office. She wanted to talk to the Physician's Assistant Kathy Enright and couldn't find her way to that in the telephone tree. Kathy is the one who lives at 703 Park Drive, one of the few well kept houses on the block. I suggested just stepping down there, only half seriously. Mom didn't think she would be there.

So here's what the problem was. When you dial the doctor's office main number, you get a menu. "Press One for a list of doctors." She was doing this and getting nothing but a list of doctors. Kathy (not a doctor) was not on the list. Dr. Bauerschlag's office said they probably wouldn't even collect their calls until tomorrow morning, after another night of painful non-sleep.

When I called the number, I waited to see what was after "Press One." Sure enough, "For the Physician's Assistant, Press Four -- For Insurance Press Five." So I pressed four and mom talked to Kathy's machine.

An hour or so later (while I was out in the yard talking to the contractor) Dr. Enright's Nurse called back. They don't Òhand out pain medication.Ó She was trying to make mom an appointment to see Dr. Bauerschlag tomorrow afternoon. Mom refused. She's already taking two Alleves (prescription strength, cleared by Dr. Erwin years ago).

The next step was to call Dr. Ethridge's office in Waco. "What kind of surgery did you have?" they asked. "Why don't these people know anything?" mom wants to know.

So there was a terse exchange about that. They said that they would check with the doctor and call us back. Mom said, "Doctors are never available!" and that was the end of the call. Indeed, that was seven hours ago, it's now near the end of the workday and we haven't heard back from them.

She plans to take this up with Dr. Ethridge at her appointment Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, Shirley has some left over Darvoset that we're going to go get. Mom's not going to even try to handle this with Bauerschlag tomororow. "And I don't care who knows!"

Flo just came by to bring us supper and pick up her walker. Wasn't here long. Proclaimed that mom was doing great, better than most people.

Randy the contractor and his builder Steve came by this morning with drawings. To make a long story short, Steve thought that building storage space in the back of the garage would be about as expensive as a separate building. So the plan was changed from a 12' X 20' structure to a 12' X 24' structure with 12' X 6' storage area at the back. After more discussion, we decided to put up three full walls there and not have a fourth inside wall or door at this time (it could be added "easily" later). The car is 15' long; I measured. The parking area will be 12' X 18'. There will be a headstone to keep the driver from driving into the storage area.

Mom and I went outside and looked at colors. The structure will be "Cool White" with "Koko Brown" trim. This roughly matches the house. They recommended light colors for this climate since the darker ones tend to get really hot and rust out.

We also decided where to park during construction.

Still looks like Saturday to start demolition. They asked if I wanted to help. I don't know if they were serious or not. I might.

Mom's appointment with Dr. Ethridge is Tuesday 3/13/07 at 1410. Mom plans to have Susan and Pat drive her and Viannah down and back since Susan knows all about Waco and drives down there all the time.

We drove over to Shirley's house to pick up the hard-to-take-care-of plants and the drugs. It was a nice visit. Went from there to Jim's (Pharmacy). The Femora wasn't ready, Dr. Okani's office hadn't responded to two faxes. They sent a third. We got home, Dr. Ethridge's office had called back at 1738 offering Vicodin or Tylenol 3. The pharmacy was already closed. She's going to call back and work with them tomorrow, now has 16 pills from Shirley.

We went out and drove around looking at other construction that had been done by Steve around town. A lean-to drive up at the Interfaith Ministry donation center behind City Hall, and just about every structure out at "Air Stream Park" which is out southeast of town across from the college.

Unfortunately, the park is limited access, so we could only see what we could see from outside the perimeter fence, but that was enough to get the idea.

We drove back past Central Baptist, way out on the edge of town and found that some of Cho St. is also being paved. Along the way we passed the place where some church sponsored first Sunday tractor pulls and had had dad come out often and preach.

We watched the KERA (PBS) fund drive, "Music From the Movies - 50s, 60s, 70s" tonight.

Elizabeth called. She's going to come down and see mom and Viannah Sunday afternoon.

2007 March 8, Thursday

ÒTrip to Wal*MartÓ

Went to therapy. They did an abbreviated schedule today. No measurements. Her schedule for next week is M-W-F 1000. And Dr. Ethridge on Tuesday as mentioned before.

Pat came by while we were there to have mom fix something wrong in her knitting.

We went from there to the ATM. Mom got out of the car without the walker and used the machine successfully. From there we continued to Wal*Mart where we went in and got her one of those ride-around electric chairs. It goes a little fast for her. I was nearly trotting.

We bought a nice garden hose reel to replace the auto-wheels that the hoses had been on before (and which are going away with the garage). Then we went and got groceries.

She did fine with this, but I don't think she's ready to do it on her own yet.

The trash and recycling has been taken away. The cans are now all in their demolition-ready positions.

Susan bought us lunch at the hospital and brought it by. Too much food!

After lunch the plumber came and installed something in each bathroom sink, so that's done.

Jim's Pharmacy has heard from Ethridge and Okani and next we'll be going down to pick up those prescriptions.

Cinder had to be petted throughout breakfast.

Later...

We went out to the pharmacy and to fill up the car. Mother has trouble with the gas cap when it is on tight enough. Make a note. When we got home Leo was here mowing. Everything is now mowed, looks much better.

Wound some of the hoses on the new hose winder. Read about special recycling day (March 24) in the paper and noted that there is a way that day to dispose of automotive waste. Reorganized the hazardous waste into "automotive" and "paint." Actually, did nothing, just noted that it was already organized that way.

While the mowing was going on, Bennie and Alice Ruth and Jennie and someone named Vera Mae (used to be a cook at school, probably in the Wilda era) showed up. We sat around for a while them mom agreed to go to Braum's. She had a shake while we all ate fattening burgers. I even had a Jalapeno Burger and even let Benny pay.

Then I took mom home and went out to the college to sit with them at the band concert.

It is the Waco Community Band, about 50 people of whom about 1/3 are band directors who (I think) are frustrated by always having to be leaders and would just like to play in a good band once in a while. Then there are lawyers, retired people, students, a few other types of teachers (i.e., Baylor Faculty), and so forth. The band is operated out of MCC, kind of like the Pasadena Community Orchestra is operated out of PCC, and it's kind of the same sort of thing.

They play about as well as I do, worth listening to, close enough to accurate that a person can fill in what's left up to what the composer intended. The program was all marches, but only three of them Sousa-esque. The rest were an interesting variety, like the fourth movement of Berlioz Symphony Fantastique for example.

I noted on the back of the program that mom and her friend Pat are "sponsors." That's the $100 level!

I came home and reported all this to mom who was watching Tony Bennet on the KERA fundraiser. (What a week for a pledge drive!) I told her that this organization had "brought culture to Hillsboro." She complained that people turn the volume up and down on the radio to make music into background but should just leave it alone to be heard as intended.

Since she now has the prescription Darvacet, she's taking it before bedtime and it makes her sleepy. That should help for the next several days, at least through the Etheridige visit.

In the end, I've become a local hero here (as usual, just for showing up). And Viannah is too!

2007 March 9, Friday

ÒThe Basketball Hoop is Saved (But Not the Backboard)Ó

At 0430 this morning I thought I heard a cry from mom's room. I bolted over the bed and into there where I found her sleeping soundly. Later, trying to get back to sleep myself I hypothesized that it might have been a cat fight out at some garbage I left in a can on the porch. Later evaluation ruled that out too, the garbage wasn't touched, but I moved it out in the back yard and composted it anyway. (Well, it could have been a no-food-involved cat fight.)

Or mom could have been dreaming.

Then, Cinder got mom up and they toured all the outside doors in the house before settling down on a chair in the living room. Mom went back to bed about 0500. We all got up about 0815.

A young fellow from the lumberyard dropped off some scaffolds, presumably to be used in the demolition. He looked around the garage and said it was too bad we didn't try to save it. Kids!

After breakfast I packed up my box to take to UPS thinking I'd wash the car and buy flowers while I was out. Managed to smash another finger in my suitcase in the process. While I was packing, with a bandaid, Leo showed up with the edger and finished up the mowing job from yesterday. While he was doing this, mom asked if she could ride along to UPS.

While we were blocked in by the mowing truck I took out the ladder and a wrench and saved the basketball hoop. This involved climbing up in the rafters, something that no mother would approve. By the time anyone knew what I was doing the whole assembly was down safely, and the bucket holder on the ladder was bent out of shape. I would have to draw a picture to explain further.

The hoop and net are on the porch with the garage stuff; the backboard goes out with the rest of the garage. There will be no place to mount it here now; mom wanted to ship it to Wilda. C.O.D.?

I moved the paint to the porch. It's not hazardous unless you eat it. The rest was in the trunk of the car. I thought I'd take it down to O'Reilly's Automotive Parts (the place where you take oil during the citywide cleanup 3/24) and see what they would take. The answer: oil only, nothing else. So I gave them the four quarts of oil that used to be new and we drove home, via an unusual route through another part of town with bad streets south of 22.

After lunch mom had a bath, the stockings are still a struggle but I'm getting better at it. She wasn't cold this time, but then it was 82 here today. We had the windows open most of the afternoon.

After that I finished my work e-mail up through 2/26, when I last did a download and actually replied to a few messages.

Told mom I was going to the library to finish this, which was OK. Wanted me to pick up something at Walmart too. Went to Schlotsky's ("the library") which actually works, and did e-mails on both computers. My password at JPL has been turned off, even though we sent them a memo not to. "Bureaucracy, the only constant in the universe." (Dr. McCoy) Wonder how long it will take to get it turned back on next week?

Then I went to Wal*Mart and bought flowers.

The trees are blooming. Can you identify this?

I took the rest of the automotive recycling out back and "stored" it in metal trashcans, put the trash cans beside the house, and parked the car out of the way.

After Lehrer and Billy Graham (Franklin) we watched network TV tonight: "Close to Home" and "Law and Order."

2007 March 10, Saturday

ÒViannah is Here!Ó

Well, she's nearly here. She's the only one on the bus; it's running early, she'll be here in a few minutes - around 1630.

It's 86 today. I've run out of "summer" clothes.

This is the 34th anniversary of the Hubbard Tornado. That day was also a Saturday. We were up then at 0621.

This morning there was an actual cat fight at 0515, but we didn't get up until after 0800.

The guys showed up and started working on the garage about noon. First they put down tarps, then carried off the loose pieces like the doors, then put up the scaffolds and started tearing off the shingles.

They are going to try to take off the roof, then one wall at a time in a controlled way. He said he didn't start until noon because his trailer, that he is hauling away with, was loaned out. They come and go like for breaks and lunch but are still out here this afternoon and plan to be back early Monday morning to continue.

I have some pictures that I'll send later. Denise Strayer came by from about 1300 to about 1500. She looks about the same. Justin has spring break starting today too and was on the way to Temple to be there with her this week.

I've packed all my stuff and moved it from the rear bedroom to the front room. We changed the sheets on the bed.

I discovered that my van doesn't leave in the morning until 1000, but that's still 0900 "standard" time. My plane is supposed to get into Burbank at 1455.

There's a front moving this way. Rain and thunderstorms are expected in the state starting tonight, into the DFW area tomorrow. The weatherman told us to plan outdoor activities for today and indoor activities for tomorrow.

There has been no precipitation since I got here. The area is having a drought. Looks like I'll be flying out in thunderstorms. Great.

The neighbors across the street are out on their porch playing loud mariachi music. I'm on the porch swing waiting for Viannah. Somebody down at 705 Park is using a chain saw to cut up trees. Looks like they are actually going to get that house ready to use.

Here she is! 1630 on the dot!

Later, near (new) midnight.

So that was an hour early, we had time to kind of settle in a little before leaving for dinner.

The people finished up on the garage for the day, took away the doors and shingles and all of the tables and shelves and things inside. Then they cleaned up, leaving it pretty nice. The structure is still there, about the same.

At 1800 we went to Pat and Glynn Boykins for dinner. This is the Pat who will be driving everybody to Waco Tuesday. Quite formal three course dinner. Quite good. The conversation was an exercise ducking local sensitivities. Finally, I managed to get the topic turned to the problems with the local First UMC, something where everyone could talk at length and Viannah and I could listen with interest (for lack of a better word). Reminiscing about things long past is always a good subject for polite society too.

We escaped without major incident and returned home to set all of our clocks.

I also called this morning and confirmed my Streak reservation for tomorrow and told them to set their clocks. We'll see.

We're going to go try to do our e-mail now. Next report from me from California.

2007 March 11, Sunday

ÒDay 28Ó

I'm at gate D16, DFW. They've just posted that Flight 2055 is leaving from here. That agrees with my ticket, good. I'm in Group 5, Seat 13A, same kind of airplane as I came over on.

Some of our clocks that are supposed to set themselves in the night did, some didn't. Mom's by her bed didn't. Both of mine did. All the phones did themselves -- on the network.

Viannah drove us to the pickup point. We stopped by Schlotsky's to do our e-mail. While we were sitting there the guy from the Streak called me. They were waiting. We went right over and put me on.

I told mom goodbye, she thanked me a lot for coming. "Very helpful." She and Viannah were headed from there to Walmart.

We were on I-35W before 1000 so I don't know what the big hurry was.

It is interesting to drive up the freeway without much traffic and see all those trucks parked around churches, that are nearly always empty lots at other times of week.

TSA was the usual hassle. I took the laptop out of its bag but "it has to lay flat in a bucket all by itself." This was a big demand for a line with no buckets at all. I'd emptied everything that looked like it contained or might contain or might possibly contain liquid from my backpack but was pulled out anyway. What for? "Something in there looks like an antenna."

"Yes, there is an antenna in there."

They had to unpack everything to find the antenna. The passenger is not allowed to touch their stuff during this ritual.

I note that about 80% of the passengers are wearing sandals.

I also got a 58 lb. bag checked in free. They said yesterday it was mayhem in here but today they'd let is slide since I was going home. "But don't let it happen again."

So there's nothing unusual going on at the airport.

I was trying to train her to leave her phone on the charger and take it when going out then put it back on the charger when she gets back. This is the way it would work best in her situation. She is trying to do this but it's a slight change in the routine, though. Several times she has left the phone on the kitchen table when we went out, but did put it back on the charger when we got back. Good effort.

When she was up in the middle of the night with the cat she noticed that the alarm clock had not changed time but her cellphone had.

We had a second meal from Flo's soup. "Too salty," We threw out the rest in the alley and all the cookies. Attracted birds. We didn't want grass there anyway.

She is still tired a lot, probably due to pain medicine sensitivity.

I never managed to wash the car. The one time I got over there, late Friday afternoon, there were actually lines waiting for the washing places. I didn't want to spend my new Montana quarters anyway. It's not very dirty yet.

I never had any time alone with any of mom's friends to thank them. I'll write notes from home. The short list is: Susan (Beck), Pat (Boykin) her sidekick, Patsy across the street, (if you can't remember a woman's name in Hillsboro, "Pat" would seem to be a good guess) Shirley and Don, Bennie, et al, and Flo.

I got several phone numbers including Vanessah Gonzales, the neighbor next door 582 2099. She said she is a "CNA" (Clincal Nurse Assistant) and was there to do anything mom needed. Mom said, "The stockings? " Maybe I guess. She also said her husband Jesus (ÒHay-soosÓ) would move stuff around if mom needed. He doesn't speak any English though.

I've also got several doctorsÕ numbers to put in the database somewhere.

Right now they're boarding a flight for somewhere in Mexico saying, "Have your passport in your hand. We don't need it, but you do. If you get to Mexico without your passport, they will send you back to the U.S."

I also watched people leaving for Tokyo. Didn't hear a similar announcement for them. Maybe that's what they were saying in some other language.

The computer says we have T-Mobile wireless here in the terminal. I'm going to hit send on this and see if it works. It won't let me receive my e-mail without logging in and none of the other networks I'm stumbling seem to work at all, but I do have a couple of bars and it may work. If it does, I'll finish up from home with a different message.

It didn't work, but they've changed my flight to Gate D17. Gotta go.

<later>

The flight was packed but otherwise uneventful. We got into Burbank early, as often happens when you're not in a hurry or don't have a tight connection. We saw a forest fire to the south about 30 miles east of here.

This was interesting, our approach was straight down the 210, I could tell, because I could see the 10 out my left-side window for ten or twenty minutes. I saw an airport go by, probably Ontario.

Oh, and in the middle of the flight I saw another airplane like ours pass us going the other way, certainly less than a mile away and a little below. Wonder if they try to see how close they can get or something?

Then (back on approach) we got up to Griffith Park and turned up the 5, just like you would in a car, and did a left hand traffic pattern, up over the mountains to the north of the airport and down the slopes barely over people's swimming pools in the foothills to the north.

I could see the runway out the left side just before we lined up.

We touched down with the brakes already on, it was a jolt, people exclaimed. I think it was just to slow down in time (in hot air) so we wouldn't have to taxi back up to the terminal. We did have a female copilot. Last time I flew with a female pilot it was abrupt and businesslike like that. Somebody called me sexist then, but I was just reporting what happened. Perhaps this is an unrelated correlation.

It was hot here, in the 90s. My back was killing me. The crowds at the luggage were thick. That one bag was still 58 lbs.

It was a strange, indeed, unprecedented month.

And now it's Monday. I talked to Viannah this morning while grandma was in therapy and grandma this evening as I was riding home on the bus while Viannah studied.

We went to In-N-Out for Family Night last night, then came and watched a Fireball XL5, then I unpacked, discovering that I have one of mother's three car keys. That will have to be mailed back pronto.

At 0630 this morning I called Randy to ask where to mail the check, tell him the colors, and make other deals about garage stuff. He said it had rained last night. This wouldn't slow them down until they were trying to pour concrete which is still a few steps ahead.

Mother said the garage was all down on the ground but not all hauled away. The demolition people are very neat, stack their trailer very carefully and clean up carefully every day to try to avoid us stepping on nails.

And that's the end of the reports from Hillsboro since I'm not there anymore. As I get pictures unloaded and stuff I'll send things out, but not so routinely. I'll be checking with grandma every day probably for several weeks, and Viannah while she's there and traveling back. Meanwhile, the several (like four or five) stacks at my desk average about a meter high each. I spent the day in triage of this sort of thing at work and will spend the evening in triage here at home.

Oh, they did in fact turn off my access to network at work on 2/24 and just restored it this morning at 0700 PDT, just twelve minutes before I walked in. Good thing they set their clocks.

Postscript

A few pictures I left out of the report.

One Òlast pictureÓ of the old car, old garage, Walker #1.

ÒCity of HillsboroÓ

The suitcase handle.

Chewed wire from garage light.

Mom hooked up to three machines, dozing.

Dinner at the Mexican placed in Hubbard. Alice Ruth, Daniel, Bennie, Daniel's mother, my mother.