Too busy to Blog

I have my old energy level back and have started working on updating our family website. So I will be taking a brief break from writing in my blog. So I will be back later.

Don't Mess With Me, Or Dirty Tricks

Last week we changed my vent circuit (the air hose from my vent to my trach) and discovered that the new circuit was 6 inches shorter. So I checked and found that all the circuits I had just received were shorter. So I sent this email to the company asking them about the shorter circuits.

I have two items of concern.

Yesterday I changed the circuit on my ventilator. I was surprised to find that the new circuit was roughly 6 inches shorter than the old circuit. I had changed the circuit just after transferring to bed from my wheelchair. Because the circuit is now shorter, it kept tugging at my trach when I would turn over. I also discovered this morning when I transferred from my wheelchair to my easy chair that the circuit is so short that it tugs at my trach during the transfer. When I transfer to the toilet I place my wheelchair in front of the toilet and stand and pivot to the toilet. I find that with the shortened circuit I had to move the chair closer to the toilet making it hard to pivot.

Is it possible to still order the longer circuit?

The second item concerns the external batteries. I find that the plug receptacle on the battery box seems to be just a bit too short. As I drive my wheelchair around, the cord plug works it's way out of the battery box receptacle. I just thought I would bring this issue to your attention. In fact I am now using the original external battery my supply company brought 3 years ago when I first got my vents.

I am really concerned about the shorter circuits and would like to talk to you about this. I am not as concerned about the battery issue because I no longer use your battery.

P

However, I didn't receive an answer. Yesterday I sent emails to every email address on their web-site. Today I received an answer.

I just hate it when people don't respond to a request.

P, Sometimes a force to be reckoned with.

Garden memories

A number of the Blogs I read on a regular basis have been talking about gardening, fresh vegetables, and canning. Reading these brought back memories of the gardens my parents had when I was young and still at home.

I think my earliest memory of canning involves the time my mother's pressure canner blew up. At the time we were living in Terra Ceia North Carolina. If I remember correctly, my mother had just walked through the kitchen to check on the canner and then came outside to check on us kids. That is when the canner blew up. There was glass and green beans all over the kitchen and the lid had created a hole in the ceiling. That was the last time my mother ever used a pressure canner. After that everything was canned using a water bath method. I don't remember a garden in NC, so I am not certain where the beans came from.

When we moved to Allison Iowa I remember hiding at the bottom of the garden on the first day of school. It was a new school because we had just moved from NC and I didn't want to go and be the new kid at school. I remember Dad planted asparagus at the end of the garden. Dad said that it would take about three years before the asparagus started coming in well enough that we could pick it. We never got to pick much of it because we moved to western Kansas about three years after arriving in Allison Iowa. However, we did get some asparagus because I have a nice scar on my finger where I cut myself once when picking asparagus. I don't remember Dad ever planting asparagus in any of his other gardens. I think he thought he wouldn't be there long enough to reap the bounty. The funny thing is that my parents lived at least 10 year in three of the four places after Kansas.

It is in Kansas that I remember most of the Dad's gardens and Mom's canning. In Kansas Dad planted two gardens. I have six brothers and sisters and my Dad didn't have a large paycheck. So we had two large gardens. Oh the fun of those cold winter days looking at the seed catalogs. Dreaming about the flowers and vegetables we would be planting. Dad would have tables of seedlings starting under grow lights in the basement. Then he would harden the seedlings by placing them outside during the day and putting them in the garage during the cool nights. Finally he would start planting them. I seem to remember the tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and potatoes always were in the garden in the back yard. The beans, corn, squash, cucumbers, and okra always seemed to end up in the garden that was in the neighbors' field.

Once the garden started to produce us older kids would pick what seemed to be bushels and bushels of vegetables. We would sit and snap beans until we never wanted to see another bean in our entire life. Then my mother would can quarts and quarts of beans. The same would be true with the tomatoes. We would have to help peal the skin from the tomato. I seem to remember red fingers and finger nails. The picture of Mom standing in a HOT Kansas kitchen canning all those vegetables. Oh the smells that the canning filled the house with. The smell of hot bean or tomatoes canning, or the sweet smell of pickles.

I have memories of picking tomatoes only to find that the bottom half was rotten. Or how scratchy the Okra was when you picked it. Also how hot and buggy it seemed when we had to pick the sweet corn and thinking how happy I was going to be to get away from all this. I have many more memories of those gardens, but I think you get the idea.

What a weekend

Son J finally arrived at 9:00 PM Friday evening. I guess that is what happens when one leaves at 4:00 PM planning on driving 90 miles through the Chicago area Friday evening traffic. He said that after 2 1/2 hours of stop and go traffic he found that he was close to his friends house so stopped for a visit while waiting for the traffic to clear. Once here he added the wet marinates to the beef. He also massaged the beef that had the dry pepper rub.

Bright and early Saturday morning K's boyfriend K came with breakfast sausage. He and J made sausage and Buttermilk Oatmeal Pancakes for breakfast. Then J and K started the grills. The gas grill and our old charcoal grill. By 9:00 AM they had the foil smoke packets made and were placing the teriyaki marinated meat on the grills. They ended up using two grill grates for the charcoal grill. For the rest of the day J was busy turning meat on the grills as it smoked. After it had smoked enough he would remove it from the grills and K and I would help place it on the dehydrator.

By late afternoon the smoking and dehydrating process was slowing down so J started preparing the food he had brought along for supper. He fixed steaks, sweet corn, crusty bread with garlic chive butter, and a salad. By this time son K came over to help as daughter K and her boyfriend had other places to be.

When I went to bed around 7:00 PM the two brothers were cleaning up the kitchen and finishing up the dehydrating. I found out the next morning that they finally finished up around 9:00 PM. I must say that while making beef into jerky is a lot of work, it turned out to be good jerky. And it was a lot of fun to make. You do a lot of visiting while your hands are busy.

Sunday morning I felt good enough to make it to church for the first time since catching this latest infection. I had a good time, saw a lot of people, and talked too much. Of course I talked too much, I had to make up for lost visits. However, by Sunday evening my weekend caught up with me. I was in bed early and asleep by 8:00 PM. P told me Monday morning that she had a difficult time with the 10:00 PM I.V. It seems that in my sleep I would kink the I.V. tubing and stop the I.V. from running.

Busy Thursday

Well I had a busy day yesterday. First thing yesterday morning I sliced up one 4.5 lb. bottom round roast for Beef Jerky, leaving 16 pounds to go. Then someone from the builders came to do some drywall repair. Just as he left our friend C and her two kids came over to visit. C and I visited while we waited for K and P to come home. The kids played blowing a Thomas Train whistle and having fun.

K and P got home in time for lunch, which settled the kids down. After lunch as was I slicing up another 4 lb. bottom round roast the painters came to repaint the patched drywall. Turns out one of the painters remembered me from when he was here earlier. I found out they had tried out a new hot dog stand for lunch that is just south of here. They said it was "OK" as far as hot dog stands go. I also found out that he lives in Hobart. Just like Uncle H and I used to tell each other, "If you don't ask, how will you find out anything."

Then just as everything was settled down and I was thinking about a short nap, Uncle B stopped to visit and find out how I was doing with the new antibiotic. We visited until son K showed up on his way to the Willow Creek Leadership conference, which is being satellite linked to our church. However, because K ended up working from 5 AM until 3:30 PM he didn't get to yesterday's session. He hopes to get off work earlier today.

So by last night I was really tired. I set my alarm for the 10:00 PM I.V. feeding and fell asleep in the middle of it. I woke up at 12:30 A.M. and disconnected everything, turn over and slept like a baby until this morning.

Road-Trip

My son J is finished with his two summer college classes. To celebrate we are planning on turning 20 pounds of bottom round into jerky this Saturday. So this morning P and I went on a road-trip to a couple stores. We left at 10 AM and drove to the first store to purchase Hi Mountain's Pepper Blend. After that we went to Sam's Club and purchased a number of other items. I now have enough to make the Jerky Saturday and to make Jerky some other time. I am really looking forward to this weekend. J just told me that he plans on going to the store to pick up steaks, sweet corn, onions, mushrooms and some other things for a good supper Saturday after spending the day making Jerky.

The one thing that surprised me is how tired I am after spending only 1 1/2 hours out of the house. I think that I will finish this now and take a nap before starting the next I.V. antibiotic.

Yet another drug

Well the doctor called yesterday afternoon. She had seen the results of my latest culture that showed the infection was still growing. She did tell us that the infection had stopped being sensitive to the Maxipime that I had become allergic to. So last night the Home Health Nurse came and started me on a different drug. I took the first dose last night and just finished the second dose this morning. So far I don't see any allergic reaction. So that is something to be thankful for.

Getting better??

Well the Benadryl wasn't working so yesterday afternoon the doctors called in a prescription for Prednisone (hope I spelled it right). I took two dose last night and this morning the horrible itching is reduced and a lot of the hives are gone.

After the late night ER visit Wednesday night P called off work yesterday. It's a good thing she did because I think she spent a good part of the day talking to doctors. So now we wait until we get in to see an Infectious Disease Doctor. The last I heard that would be Monday August 13.

I hope I hear something about the sputum culture today. Of course now that my regular doctor is on vacation for the next couple of weeks, her partners are telling Pam that I didn't have pneumonia in the hospital last week. So if the culture doesn't show any infection, I am getting feeling that they might not want to put me back on the antibiotics.

It certainly gets old having this happen. First they tell me I have something, then they tell me I don't. I guess these Doctors are going by science, but I know my body far better then they ever will. As we found out last summer when I was on IV, pill, and nubulizer antibiotics the better part of 3 months. My regular doctor at least listens when we tell her something isn't right. These other two act as if I am stupid.

I am just afraid that this Pseudomonas bug will lie dormant for a while and then come back even stronger. This is what happened for the first 18 months after I had my tracheotomy. I would get sick, they would do a sputum culture. It would show an infection, they would put me on antibiotics until the sputum culture came back clean. Then in a month or so the infection would come back.

Well maybe that will not be the case this time. And talking about this time. This is enough of this rant.

Just when you thought...

P sent this out to my family this morning. Boy do I itch. For those of you who don't know the entire story I came down with pneumonia two weeks ago and have developed an allergy to every antibiotic they have tried.

UP of MyTippy

Everyone,

Just a quick note. It is 5 a.m. and we have just returned from the ER. UP developed hives tonight. We went to ER and they gave him some Benadryl which has helped. The doctor said not to admit him "yet" until he can talk to the infectious disease doctor. They may try to do something called desensitization assuming this is an allergic reaction to the antibiotic which they are not sure about.

P.

Nothing to say

I just returned from my doctor. She said to continue with the antibiotic while we wait to see the results from today's sputum culture. I asked her about my being SO tired all the time. She feels that the tiredness is caused by the infections, which is causing my lungs not to be as efficient.

So I wait for the Home Health Nurse to come to change the dressing over the Groshong CV Catheter. While the nurse is here she will take a sputum culture. Then I wait to see what the next step will be.