Please note that this site uses XHTML 1.0 Strict and and CSS2. In order for you to see the site properly, you need to identify your browser:
We are now leaving for the hospital for my wife's back surgery. She's scheduled to go under the knife at 9:00 AM MST (16:00 UTC). Watch this space for further updates.
We're now at the hospital. Hope this comes through OK as we only have console ftp access to this site as it “Doesn't have a content rating” which is untrue, just check the source. More information as it comes available.
Still waiting. Should be under the knife at 11:00 AM MST (another half hour or so).
Just got word that the Doctor is closing, closing on his first patient on the day and that Shan is still in holding. It's going to be a very long day I think. 1 PM
It's 3:10 and we just got word that she's out, everything went well and she should be coming home tomorrow morning.
What a long and dreary day yesterday was. They finally brought Shanna up to her room at 3:30 PM yesterday. Like all surgery patients, she looked like death warmed over. The nurse gave her morphine for the pain but didn't think to give her anything for nausea. About three hours later, we had a freshly polished floor and a barf bucket. We almost needed two as I don't deal with that very well and guess who had the pleasure of holding the dang bucket? We finally found something that would both help with the nausea, somewhat, and to which no one in her family is allergic. Then came the next round of trouble, her face was going numb. No one had a clue as to what could be causing that (she feels that when she's hyper-ventilated during labor before, but she wasn't breathing fast and deep enough to do that) and so she was jumping back and forth between sobbing frustration and white hot anger. Not a pretty sight, let me tell you.
Then came the night shift. They took forever to get out of their staff meeting and then when the PCT finally made her rounds, I jumped on her with all Shan's troubles. Think I might have startled the poor girl, I know that I was ready to start chewing people up if something didn't change quickly and when the change did come, it was almost immediate. Jennifer, the actual floor nurse, came into the room and commiserated with Shan. It wasn't long after that that she had Shan on her side, resting comfortably.
I spoke with Shanna about thirty minutes ago and they are still planning for her to come home today, she is feeling sore but is otherwise doing very well. Well, I have to get appointments with the doctor for myself and two of the kids (what a time to get sick huh?), argue with the USDA for screwing up my home payments again, and finish a couple of loads of laundry. Talk to you later.
On hold with the doctor's office, and needing to post this. Can't wait for February/March when DSL will become a viable option.
Well, the doctor says it's a viral infection so we can't do anything but treat the symptoms, pain in the butt but about what I had expected. Anyone have any good remedies for coughs, sinus pressure or sore throats?
Shanna told me that her night at the hospital was not as good as I had thought. So I don't fly into a full blown rant here, let's just say that the care was insensitive and derisive at best. Needless to say, I would not have gone home had I known how poor that night staff was going to be. I guarantee that the hospital board will be getting a very appreciative letter from my wife's overjoyed husband. Thankfully, Shanna continues to improve; although, her temper is not in the best mood this morning. I'm sure that my being ill is not helping the situation at all.
On to happier things! I have the best mother and mother-in-law anywhere. Yesterday my mom took the kids down to their great-grandmother's house and made pies while I went and brought Shan home from the hospital. They were gone long enough for me to move all the leaves from the front yard back onto our garden/weed plot. She then piled the kids and myself into the car and took us to see the doctor. It's a good thing she did or I'm sure we would have needed a mortician instead! After we returned home who should call but Shanna's mother. “When your mom has had all the love she can stand, send your kids over to my house,” she said. She took the kids until our neighbor brought dinner to us and then she brought them home but she wasn't done yet, not at all. As soon as the last morsel was munched she gathered them up again and whisked them off to her house and they are there still. We'll pick them up at 1:30 and head down to feast at my grandmother's house (the great-grandmother mentioned earlier).
I just want to say how thankful I am that my wife has so many good friends in the on-line community and our off-line neighborhood. We are blessed by your goodness, thank you.
Changed Shanna's dressing, looks like the incision is about three inches long. They've sent home a suture kit for me to remove the sutures. Don't know if I'll be able to do it or if we'll have to make a trip down to Granny O's house (she was an ER nurse in her day) and have her unsew the thing. The big removal day is next Tuesday so tune in next time to see if our gallant hero is a manly man or runs whimpering to Granny's house! ;o-)
Thanksgiving, what a blessed day. Let me give you a short (very short) history lesson on the origins of Thanksgiving. George Washington introduced the first day of Thanksgiving in our nation with the following proclamation:
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted -- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d dy of October, A.D. 1789.
(signed) G. Washington
Read more about this proclamation. Jefferson stopped the practice saying that it was too kingly.
Abraham Lincoln proclaimed at least two national days of fasting in 1861 and 1863. In October 1863, President Lincoln issued the following proclamation written by William H. Seward then Secretary of State.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
A PROCLAMATION.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed,
Done at the city of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State
While quoting these two great men, one who is rightly known as the father of our nation (the USA) and the other the great defender of the Union, I am tempted to veer into the realm of church and state but will not do it today. I will simply leave their words to speak for me.
What a ride the past four days have been. The virus I've been fighting took a nasty turn and I've been doing my best to keep up with everything. Unfortunately, I wasn't doing nearly as well as I thought and my wonderful wife came to the rescue, but more about that later. For those of you more interested in Shanna's progress than my runny nose, let me bring you up to date.
Thanksgiving was great. We, Shanna included, went down to Grandma Fordham's house for dinner. Shanna alternated between sitting and standing and seemed to have a good time while she was there. It didn't take long before she was tired out and I took her home to rest. Having Thanksgiving dinner in that home brings back dear childhood memories. The whole Fordham family would gather the Sunday closest to Nov 23rd to celebrate Granddad's birthday, tables would be lined up from the kitchen and into the front room in a huge U and a Thanksgiving feast for 70 would be laid out. The saying about that gathering was that if you brought a date and we scared him/her away, it was your own fault. The place seemed rather empty with only 13 of us at the tables but it was still warm and wonderful.
My personal downhill slide picked up momentum. I'm not sure but I also believe that Shanna's nausea began its downward rush that day. Well, I've spent nearly 45 minutes trying to remember anything else from Friday and all I've come up with is that it was my youngest brother's 21st birthday (Happy Birthday Ray!).
This was a ver bad but also a very good day. the snow started to fly, a good thing, and Shanna started to panic over her nausea, dizziness, and being light-headed. She feared that her blood pressure was low (happened during all of her pregnancies and caused similar symptoms) so I went down to my Grandma Ormond's home to get an arm cuff and I checked her blood pressure and pulse. 137/88 with a pulse of 65. If anything, her pressure was leaning a bit high but that was likely caused by her emotional state more than anything and her heart rate was right down where it usually is.
That evening her sister-in-law called with DSL problems. I ended up taking the kids over because it was a problem that I knew I could fix if I could just see it. Sure enough, it was an extremely easy fix. As a reward of sorts, Cathy offered to feed me and the kids and then send us home. Sounds like everything is starting to come up roses when the phone rings, it was my mother. She had called Shanna only to find that Shanna was on the verge of tears her nausea was so bad. Mom had tracked me down to give me some marching orders on calling the doctor, getting the pain medication changed and getting my skinny butt in gear about it.
After talking with the nurse at the answering service, we filled Shanna up with my homemade chicken noodle soup and viola! the nausea was gone. Usually our pharmacy is very good about labeling medication with directions on how to avoid nausea for that particular prescription, this one didn't have that information on the bottle. Cathy kept the kids for another two hours and life started to look very nice.
The day of rest was indeed a day of rest and I needed it because my virus finally gained the upper hand today. Shanna felt great, drove the kids over to her mother's house when I passed out on the front room floor. All in all a very nice day other than that I felt like I had been run over by a large train.
Back to work today, we're trying to migrate 10 years of data from a PI 2 archive database to Intellution's iHistorian. Wish us luck because the last time we tried this the only success we had was with lunch!
Shanna's doing extremely well other than a bout with intestinal discomfort. I managed to remove the suture this morning. It was a grueling ordeal for both of us. There was supposed to be a knot at the top for me to cut and then I was to pull the tail at the bottom and the whole thing would come sliding out. No knot, I pulled a little slack up to the top (or so I thought) to see it maybe the knot had gone under the skin. Still no knot so I decided to try pulling it from the bottom and hope that the knot was never tied in the first place. I looked down to where the tail of the suture was sticking out and realized that the slack I had pulled had completely pulled the tail inside the incision. Swearing up a storm to myself I asked Shanna if she were OK and ready for me to give the final pull. She said she was and so I pulled. I knew it was going to burn (I had called my youngest brother, Ray, to have him brief me on his experience with this same thing) and that once I started pulling it through I should not stop unless I saw blood. I gave a pull, Shanna hissed, the incision danced (literally) and the thing came out. All that was left was to cover the incision with surgical glue, cover that with steri-strips, cover the whole thing with more glue and let it all dry. BTW, surgical glue stinks to high heaven. After it was all done, Shanna said she couldn't believe the amount of pain relief that removing that suture brought.
On another note, BCM arrived yesterday in the mail. For the uninitiated, BCM (BattleCruiser Millennium) is a game that I've been beta testing for quite some time now and it has finally gone gold and I received my copies yesterday. Do you like first person shooters? BCM is a first person shooter. Do you like being a fighter pilot a la Wing Commander? In BCM you have to decided whether you like planetary defense or space superiority fighters better. Ever wanted to command an Imperial Star Destroyer, Rebel Blockade Runner, or the USS Enterprise? In BCM you'll have to choose only one ship from the nine available carriers, ten cruisers, or eight transports; not to mention deciding which of the twelve races you want to play and which of the thirteen castes in each race best suits your game. All of this is sitting under the hood of this one game along with 230+ planets/moons (and you can land on those planets and moons and get out and walk around as long as you don't get shot), maybe I'll post a picture or two of me running along the hull of my MKII sometime tomorrow.
