Joan on the Road...of Life

We are still waiting hopefully for Harry to feel better, be out of pain, regain his appetite, get out of bed and get home. But I think it's going to be a long haul. This week an MRI showed an abcess on the spine so the docs did a biopsy to try to further identify the culprit bugs. We await the results.

We took Mom in to visit today and he seems in fairly good spirits but looks thinner and still cannot sit up straight....too much pain. He has several specialists looking at treatments. With three antibiotice and several pain killers you'd think something would work. We appreciate your prayers and good wishes!

I've started raising the flag at the admin levels that THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED! Jim has been at the hospital every day, nearly all day, trying to dig out the facts from all the doctors. All we want right now is for Harry to be home. After that I'd like to see what legal recourse there is.

Today, we hope, was our final "dump day" while we're here. Friday the plumber installed a cleanout valve on the back of the house. Jim ordered a macerator pump and 40 feet of hose that should arrive on Monday. So if all goes well we'll be able to take our showers in our little home and won't have to go to the beach to dump the tanks. That will be a relief.

We have a caregiver coming in three days a week to help Mom out with housekeeping, laundry and cooking. I wanted to get this started so we could see how it would work for them. We can't be comfortable leaving here unless they have good help. After this first week I feel like it's possible.

It looks like a lovely weather week coming up but the trees are starting to turn. Maybe it will be a looong Indian Summer :)

Posted by Joan at 06:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

We visited Harry yesterday and he looked better and felt a little better. He can have the bed up to about half way without too much pain. On a scale of 1-10, it's not a 36 now...maybe a 6. So that's good. Looks like the meds might be kicking in.

He's lost a bit of weight and muscle tone so he'll be needing some rehab time to gain back strength. He'll need it when he comes home because Stella 2, the little poodle will attack him with joy!

I made my famous "Spanish Rice" for supper and we watched one of our New "Rumpole" DVDs. Jim had a 40% off coupon for Borders and they happen to have the entire Rumpole series in a boxed set. He was a happy camper.

Speaking of camping, we have a plumber coming today to see if it's possible to put in a sewer dump somehow at Mom and Harry's. It would sure make our life easier here. Also we should be getting back our furnace today. It was starting to make weird noises so we planned to take the MH into a shop to get it fixed. Luckily, the shop was willing to come take out the furnace, repair it and bring it back.

I was cheering on the Anaheim Angels last night as they won the AL Western Division title. Sure wish I could have seen the game and the celebration. Oh well....I think I'll be able to see the playoff games as they are usually broadcast nationwide.

Saturday was the second birthday of that beautiful great grandson, Evan. He had quite a party. Here he is as he enters the "terrible twos."

I'm sure he looked a lot happier as he opened gifts :) I took a phone self portrait and sent it to his Mom along with me singing Happy Birthday. I hear that he said "Oh look! My Nana!" when he got the picture.

Well, that's all the notes for today from the heart of the Midwest where it's 87 today and 67 tomorrow!

Posted by Joan at 05:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I used to have a book titled What Not to Name the Baby. The theory was that we should wait until babies grow up before we name them. Then the names would be appropriate. The descriptions of people by name were fun. For example: Joan wears powder blue and pearls and would marry Jim! Another was: Harry always knows where to get the ice....and that's my Dad.

Since this whole hospital/ health scenario began Harry has been trying to connect with his friends and manage things from his hospital bed and the phone. He called Donna at the Library Friends to be sure she'd bring in garden tomatoes for us to pick up for Mom. He called Dennis the Osco pharmacist to tell him how it was going and to check up on all the drugs he's getting and his banker, Emma, to assure she would transfer money from one account to another.

He checked up on his bedmate from the first stint in hospital and called his sick neighbor. He knows all the nurses on the floor by name and all about their families. Harry is the great networker. How many people do you know who have made friends with the garbage collectors? We had to watch for Paul, the garbage man, last week to tell him how Harry was doing. Paul and the recycle gal always put the garbage cans back on the patio for Harry. Everyone says..."he's such a nice man!" And he is!

(He feels a bit better today. Even got a smile from him!)

Posted by Joan at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The only really good news here is that we have a diagnosis for Harry's condition. The infection, picked up in surgery, has moved to his spine. That is the cause of the pain. It's called osteomylitis. The infection attacks the soft tissue of the spinal area and sometimes even the spinal bone. Luckily, Harry's condition is still soft tissue and with the proper antibiotic the infections should retreat, the pain subside and within a couple of weeks he can come home. He'll need IV antibiotics for several weeks.

So we are looking for caregivers to help Mom and Harry out. We can do a lot of things for them but long term, they are going to need some support when we are not here (in the winter cold of Illinois).

Today we're hoping to see some progress from the treatment he's receiving. The docs say that this weekend will tell us whether the current course of antibiotics is working.

Needless to say, inside my head, I'm screaming....WHY did this happen?

Posted by Joan at 07:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ten days since I last wrote! Well, we've had our ups and downs and I'm not sure what today will be. My Dad, Harry, came home a week ago after successful removal of a benign bladder tumor. Up! But while in the hospital he had a mild heart attack AND got an infection which they started treating with tetracycline....then he had an allergic reaction. Bad rash over his whole body. He began running a low grade fever.

We tried to provide good care for him at home, hoping he'd improve but he also developed a horrific back pain so that he could not move. My Jim became his nursing aide. This is a side of my hubby I've never seen :) He has been absolutely wonderfully attentive to Harry's needs.

Last night we realized we just could not provide the care he needed and Harry agreed so the Gurnee Rescue Squad came and took him back to the hospital. What wonderful guys (and yes my granddaughters, they were "hunks"). We followed the Rescue Squad to the hospital and every time we stopped we could see Harry on the cot talking to the paramedics. He is one of the world's greatest networkers!

We are hoping the docs will find out what on earth is causing the severe back pain because none of the pain killers put a dent in it. So today we'll catch our breath and hope that we have more 'Ups" in the future.

Posted by Joan at 07:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been seven days since I posted anything. How come? I guess because there was a lot of unusual activity and I just couldn't get a good "story" out of my brain to my fingertips :) So before I forget here are a few vignettes from the last week.

Poor Stella
One morning Harry, my Dad, noticed a large yellow puddle by the side door. Little Stella, the pudgy white poodle, was severly reprimanded. "Why didn't you go bark at the back door?" So the puddle got soaked up by newspapers and Stella went to her corner.

The next morning we came in the side door from shopping and here's another big puddle. I'm talking big. Harry gave Stella another stern lecture. I said, "That puddle looks awfully big for such a little dog." Then Harry noticed liquid dripping out of a little side cabinet that stores canned goods. Hmmm....

I started investigating and found a can of pineapple juice with bulging sides and leaking bottom! I gently removed it to the sink, punched a hole and let it drain...yellow liquid. Poor Stella. She got lots of apologies from Harry.

We cleaned out the cabinet of excess and emergency canned goods. Apparently it's been awhile since that got cleaned because the winner of the "use by" date contest was a bottle of Karo Syrup from 1976!

Hilly Comes to Visit
Granddaughter Hilly came from CA for a short vacation before she starts her junior year of college. She bought a "cheap ticket" which brought her in at midnght and departed at 8 AM. Yikes! So she caught the limo service in and out of Ohare for the hour drive to Gurnee.

The first night she just piled into the motorhome and slept on our Aero Mattress on the floor. About 5 AM I hear this nasty noise and find that she is throwing up. She wound up sick and sleeping for 24 hours. Looks like she got a bad sandwich snack in Atlanta.

Then we had one day to see the sights, like the house her Mom grew up in. We had fun on the grand tour. I asked her what she noticed most besides how green it is here. She commented on the lack of fencing in back yards. In CA everyone has their own little section fenced off, six feet high. In many Midwest neighborhoods one yard blends into the next with maybe a few shrubs defining the property.

Here's Hilly checking out Lake Michigan...her first Great Lake.

(Note: I am amazed at the quality of these camera pix!)

Then Tuesday Harry, Hilly's Great Grandpa, had surgery. So we spent the day in the surgical waiting room until the doctor told us all went well. We ended that day with a Culver Burger. Hilly agreed that there's nothing like it in CA.

A vacation is supposed to be a change of pace. Well that's what Hilly got! Actually she said she had fun and it was a good family experience. I'm sure she enjoyed showing her Grandpa (my hubby) how to send pictures from his cell phone :) He's pretty techie but has a hangup about sending text and pictures on the phone.

Health Haps
So Harry had surgery for a bladder tumor and hopefully will be home today. It's a good thing too because we all have a hard time remembering the routine of things to do :) Mom is trying to do a little more around the house but it is slow going for her. I'm still nursing my torn meniscus and debating where to go see a doctor and hopefully have it taken care of. So the bulk of any heavy duty stuff falls on my Jim right now...he's my rock!

Posted by Joan at 06:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)