Ribs

For the 4th of July, Dave decided to give grilling ribs a try.

He started the process early, around 8am, since we needed to get to Eugene. By about noon, the ribs were done!

Ah, the happy grill master!

Lee seemed to have a bit more life in him than the previous days. New blood really can help make one feel better, but the line all the nurses and physicians feed you about feeling incredible the next day really is not the case in our situation.

He consumed two ribs & some potato salad. Not too bad. Would have been nice to squeeze some dessert into him.

Kim enjoyed the meal too after a long day of work.

And the grill master rested in the corner chair. A job well done!

Dave and I headed home to make sure Mr Moby wasn’t spooked by all the fireworks. He did quite well. Much better than our previous dogs!

Blood Transfusion

Tuesday was spent hanging out at Riverbend hospital for my dad’s blood transfusion. What a LONG day! We arrived at 10am and he was locked in until almost 7pm. We were located some where back in the rabbit warren behind ER or so they said. They did have a comfy bed for him to rest in and they gave him the choice to either put on a hospital gown or stay in his clothes. Why would you even offer a gown? Those things are a pain! The clothes stayed on.

After type casting his blood and having the lab send down the WRONG type of blood (yes, all those coded wrist bands really do come in handy. I’m so glad everything is checked so well by the nurses prior to administering blood), blood flow commenced! Previous transfusions had lasted about 2.5hrs per bag. This go round averaged a tad over 3hrs per bag. They gave him a dose of Tylenol and Benedryl to counter any body rejection. A nice added side effect from the Benedryl is drowsiness! He spent most of the first bag sleeping. Before administering the second bag, an injection of lasix was added. For bag 2, he spent his time going back and forth to the bathroom.

Kim (my sister) and I shared the day together. I took Lee in and kept him entertained until lunch. Kim arrived bearing gifts of Thai food, Lee’s lunch had just arrived, good blood arrived at the same time. Wow! What a lunch party! It’s a good thing the sight of blood doesn’t bug any of us. It’s really quite a beautiful thick liquid they feed into his body. After lunch, Kim and I escaped to the grounds for a nice walk along the McKenzie river and a coffee break before heading back in.

Today, the 4th, I’ll head down, get him a little lunch and hang out for the afternoon. We need to keep tabs on how his body reacts to this new blood. Fingers crossed that he doesn’t have problems. He will also start round 2 of antibiotics to continue fighting the pneumonia.

I learned yesterday that my mother-in-law will undergo a mastectomy on next Monday for her breast cancer. Seems like a good plan of action. My grandmother had one later in life as well. Zoe always kept her extra tissues in the empty bra cup.Such a handy spot! Maybe L could keep her phone there! That way she might actually HEAR it ring!

A big happy birthday to Alex & Kirsten. I can’t believe they came into the world 27 years ago.

An early happy birthday to my uncle Hal who’s birthday is tomorrow!

A belated birthday wish to Lucille who was on the 3rd.

🙂

An afternoon of waiting

Nothing like spending the afternoon waiting at the doctors office with my dad.

His health has not been improving, basically remaining stagnant. He’s still fatigued, more and more back pain, and the struggle continues with getting fluids & food down his system. We learned that the last xray on the 18th continues to show fluid (or something)  in the lower right lung. His temp is good, blood pressure good, weight at 150.5 lbs. I think he’s lost about 8lbs in the past three weeks. Hemoglobin level at 7.9. Not good.

So what happened today: He ended up getting a CT scan at 5pm to get a better look into his lungs and vertebrae. Tomorrow, Tuesday, I’ll take him to Riverbend for his third blood transfusion (third times a charm??? Right???). Once the results return on the scan, the doctor will be able to better direct how best to tackle whats going on. It could mean more antibiotics for a week then back to chemo or something I don’t even want to think about. I can see that I’ll be spending a lot more time in Eugene this week.

Funny things brought up in conversations: My sister called before the appointment and told our father that he “sounded more chipper”. He thought she said “are you licking a flicker?” Oh dear! Flickers are a type of wild bird in our area. That comment kept popping up until I left at 8pm. We also had a conversation about an older TV commercial by “Crooked River Bob”. Some of you Oregonians might know who I’m talking about.  He used to flip around his cowboy hat and say something about” giving you a good deal or he’ll eat his hat”. How that conversation came about, I have no idea.

How’s my brain handling all this? Well, as I sat in the parking lot at the grocery store after the appointment, I somehow managed to set off the panic button on the car key. I’ve never done that before! I think my brain is in a touch of panic, but I just have to keep moving forward (after turning the alarm off). One day at a time. Tomorrow we’ll deal with the 5hr blood transfusion and getting more fluids into his system.

Dear (Deity of Choice)

Dear (fill in your deity of choice here),

I just wanted to check in and see how things are going. From the looks of it, you’ve been a tad overworked and might have placed a bit too much on my plate. I understand that you have to place cancer in everyone’s life these days, but I really thought one was enough. Ok, so you thought differently and stuck another one in there. We can work with that.  Chemo seems to be working out on both fronts as well as we can hope. But now, you’ve decided to place yet another dose of cancer on yet ANOTHER loved one. REALLY?!  That makes 3!! Wait! It’s 4!  I’m sorry my count was off because I had not accounted for the uncle who died a couple of weeks ago from cancer. I digress.  So, the new one has already had major things happen to her body (horrible car accident, numerous surgeries to rebuild her leg, knee replacement that brought in MRSA, leg removal due to MRSA, pacemakers, oh and then there was the almost death from blood poisoning due to a late term miscarriage while in Guatemala) . I kind of think she’s had enough trauma in her life. Don’t you? Not to mention the family that will be quietly taking on more emotional & physical burden to care for her.

So let me suggest something. Maybe you could help out a bit more with getting the old codger healed from pneumonia and take a little stress off my sister. Lets have more positive reports from the esophageal cancer patient and let him eat more comfortably. And the new breast cancer diagnosis, please make it as easy as possible to remove the growth and allow the chemo to go smoothly. That’s all I request.

Oh, maybe one more thing. You know the snakes in the backyard? I realize this year has been a bumper crop AND they are exceedingly healthy and LARGE. Kudos on that! But can you keep them away from the lawn mower and Mr Moby? He seems to find them irresistible and hunts them. Which means I have to chase him down, extract the squirming snake from his mouth and toss it over the fence. I’m nice about it and don’t inflict additional harm. Handling 6 snakes today was a treat, but way too many! No snake sushi today and I really appreciate that! Good job there!  Keep it up!

Thanks!

🙂

Positive Results for a Monday!

It’s about time we had some positive results happen in the family!

#1: Lee’s hemoglobin was at 8.2 (.2 higher than last week), platelets are normal, blood pressure 104/52 and body temp 98.6. Hurray!!! Mike took him in for the oncology visit and then to get a chest x-ray to check pneumonia status. I’ve not heard the x-ray results. So far, things are looking good!

#2: I received a positive “thumbs up” from jury #1 for the Rural Storefront art project. It will now head to jury#2. I’m thinking this will be the tough one to get through. They don’t know me or my work, so it falls on my proposal, photos and other stuff sent in. Guess I’ll find out some time in July those results.

Not a bad way to start the week!

Sunday with Lee

Sunday happened to be Father’s Day so I wanted to make something positive happen in my dad’s surroundings. Nothing better than cleaning the upstairs windows. Their last cleaning was probably done by my mother over 2 years ago. Definitely in need of a sprucing up!

This is the view looking out onto the back deck from the dining room.  Boy, what a bright day! I’m still learning how to navigate the new phone for taking photos.

When you look up, you see one of the 4  skylights. Yes, that is a pyramid form that vaults above the ceiling. My father designed and built the house before I was born.

The one set of windows not accomplished are located in the stairwell. These are going to be tough! I did manage to remove all the spider webs. Maybe I’ll wash on Tuesday.

While I was removing spiderwebs from the upstairs, I ran across a photo of my grandmother taken  during the 1915 World’s Fair in San Francisco. She had met a young man from India who took a shine to her and paid to have her photo taken. He also sent, later on, a beautiful sculpture of the Taj Mahal in bone. One section was broken so she threw it out. That was a mistake she regretted for the rest of her life (which was quite long).

Albany Garden Tour

Saturday was a most glorious day for a garden tour. Warm! Up into the low 80’s! Needless to say I was a bit more enthusiastic with the photos at the beginning than later on. 7 stops total, but our group skipped the one closest to our house because we already know the setting.

We started out in Buena Vista:

Their gardens were extensive. I was truly surprised at how much was hidden on their property.

They are a working business featuring cut flowers and arrangements.

They had a rose garden

Cut flower garden… This poppy color was so nice.

The larkspur plants were enormous!

and so many colors!

Another house had a resident woodworker. He was so sweet! He showed me around their home which featured many of his creations. Just beautiful joinery and wood choices. I really enjoyed his hanging chair. So did little Olivia!

They had a lovely dogwood tree in their front yard.

A little lattice work at a different house. Nice way to block the neighbors!

and a little sweet pea tucked at the back of our final garden visit.

We all really enjoyed the tour.  A big thanks to all the host gardens and OSU Extension Master Gardner’s for putting the event on!

Sunny in Eugene

I was in Eugene for another day. Kim took a nice break this afternoon to have lunch with a friend and a colorful trip to some of the fabric stores. Something positive and bright for her day.

Lee is hanging in there. Breathing is about the same. Temp at 98. Eating more food and having a stronger interest in what’s getting prepared. He is taking more naps during the day, which seems reasonable and necessary. The appointment with the primary physician was unproductive. It’s been well over 2 years since he’s been in to see the doc. I guess the guy was totally annoyed to even see Lee in the first place, let alone check on the pneumonia condition.  All the recent visits have been with the oncologist. The primary doc has never been terribly good at spotting changes in his health. I’m also pretty certain my dad isn’t the most helpful either. Why no one picked up on all the cancer clues that surfaced years ago…. anyway, nothing can be done about that now. So, his lungs are sounding much cleaner. He did have a slightly elevated temp yesterday and decreased blood pressure. We’re now waiting for what comes from the Monday oncology appointment.

I managed to send off my application for the rural storefront project. Feeling like the photos might not be in the correct format. At least they are all 600×800, but not certain about the 72 dpi. Hmmm. I just don’t care right now. I can’t even imagine what will happen between now and October. Hopefully my dad will still be around to see projects to come.

I have tomorrow off and will take advantage of the good weather and take in the Albany Garden Tour with friends. I’m sure glad my neighbor Gail is so much fun. She’s my gardening and Mr Moby walking buddy. What would we do without our friends? Now if I could just convince someone to come mow my lawn…. another Saturday project!

Mushy brain

That would be ME having a mushy brain right now! I think all the stress from the past several weeks hit last night and I really wasn’t functioning well. Sleep wasn’t great, but I did get some. Today I’m laying low in anticipation of heading down tomorrow. Kim needs a full day break with no work.

Yesterday went ok. His temp remains constant at 98. Coughing has greatly decreased. Cognitive ability seems good but I’m wondering if some of the meds are giving him anxiety problems. The  blue pills will be completed this afternoon and the other antibiotics continue for another 9 days. Actually, the whole pill thing confuses him. One can’t be taken within 2 hours of having calcium. The others have to be taken every 8 hrs. He’s not in control of that area right now and it bugs him. He is consuming a bit more food, even getting up to have lunch at the dining room table. We had a bad soup incident on Sunday and I didn’t want to repeat that one again!

Today he had some stomach problems (most likely due to the antibiotics) but those have passed. His appointment with his primary physician is in an hour. He’s showered, dressed and ready to go. The only way we could convince him to do this appointment was to make it clear this would help lower his daughters & sons stress levels. Lots of grumbling and snarling came from his general direction before he agreed.  Now that’s the father I know!

I did work hard at organizing my sisters stash room. Should have taken before photos. The after photos are still on my new phone and I’ve not figured out how to download them yet!

🙂

Bananas, Meatballs and Strawberries

Toss in some cottage cheese with pears, a cheesy broccoli/potato cake (only a half), three meatballs (small), and some local strawberries with whipped cream and that’s what Lee managed to eat yesterday. Much better than the day before. Still having a fluid intake battle but at least his body isn’t burning off liquids like it had.

My siblings & I are all suspecting that the medication is having some positive effect upon the bacterial infections. Not huge leaps of improvement, but certainly more positive than his condition on Sunday. I guess one couldn’t expect an 85 yr old body to just bounce back! His body temp stayed just above 98 all day. Better brain function and certainly more zip in his conversations. Better sleep with little to no coughing during the night.  Hopefully this positive trend will continue.

Mike, Kim & I all report having definite problems with sleep. Ok, I had a little extra problem with my hubby packing all night for his business trip. Last night I slept for 6 hrs straight. Pretty darn good for me! I also can report Dave did make it off on his flight with out complications. He’ll return on the 21st. My extra Moby support system will be greatly missed. Evening walks with our neighbor don’t pack the same punch as when Dave’s around.

We will see what today brings. I’m hoping for more positive steps forward to kicking the bugs. We’ve nicknamed them “the bad cooties”.