OT August Chit Chat

[Pegakafarmgirl]

Hi everyone,, did July fly by fast or what,,,, i think it did,,

Family reunion went good, cept, everyone "thought" it was gonna be hot,, and it certainly wasn't,,rain,, ahhh,, we loved it,, yeah we are strange,like that,,lol.

Garden is going to be done earlier, then we think,, well we did start planting in March,, weather was decent..now I have to figure out, what to do with 44 tomato plants, that are producing some great tomatoes,,, hate to let them rot..V/8 tomato juice,, sounds like a winner,,

we have {still} hot weather ,, and its Garys fault,, quit sharing,,I just send it east,,

Sam , {puppy} she makes me laugh,, she acts so comical,,I really enjoy her, we are working on the basics,slow and steady,,{obedeince}

later then,,,

[Gary]

Family reunion went good, cept, everyone "thought" it was gonna be hot,, and it certainly wasn't,,rain,, ahhh,, we loved it,, yeah we are strange,like that,,lol.



we have {still} hot weather ,, and its Garys fault,, quit sharing,,I just send it east

Ha ha ha First thing a farmer thinks of RAIN either too much or not enough. Ummm my mother taught me to share...... and if anyone needs some warm weather let me know cause I still have plenty to go around. It is still in the mid to upper 90's so I stay in the house. Woke up with muscle cramps and spasms this morning at 5:20 I think a nap is in my future.

We are going to MIL house in Boise for a couple days. Need to service her A/C and check on the automatic sprinklers I installed for her. Not only the grass but we planted a bunch of containers all around her backyard patio and also her front porch so I installed a drip system on a timer system. My brother in law lives closer to her house than we do so he checks on her more often he called and spent 20 minutes thanking me as he no longer has to drag the hoses around. MIL is on her 3rd week of chemo and so far so good. No nausea or any problems what so ever. She thinks her fatigue level is higher but it seems to be about the same to my wife. Now that she has not had any side effects she thinks it isn't working! Sometimes you just can't win.

Talked to my sister and she looks after my mom as she lives closer to her (down in southern California) seems that my mom took out one of those reverse mortgages after my dad died in 2000 my mother has always been secretive and would never tell anyone what is going on either health or financial wise sooo........ we do not know how much money she took out just that its gone and as a result we will not have enough to move her into assisted living facility. She is okay now but she still lives in the house we grew up in and lives alone she never had friends everyone she associated with were my dads friends and she never liked them because she always thought that they just were friend with them because they wanted something (have no idea WHAT they could have wanted). Have see how this works out I told my sister that I would be happy to come down and give her a break as my sister lives on the other side of Los Angeles county and has a full time job as well. When did we become parents to our parents?

Feeling a bit rough I finished all the antibiotics and it seems to be taking longer to get my energy back. Probably a combination of the heat and the fact that I have to spend most of the day in the house. I get bored and I offered to reorganize my wife's sewing room and I even offered to take her fancy electronic sewing machine apart to see how it works ( it does lots of complicated stitches and even has its own screen for programming it) she didn't want my help. As a matter of fact she said that if I touch her sewing stuff that she would...... never mind I don't think that its physically possible to do that anyway.

I am ready for fall!

[Jeanie Z]

:) Hi everyone. David is still in VA waiting for the doctor to call him after the doctor makes the referral, etc. When I posted in the July Chit Chat I put the chemo drug as Sarazen but it is Nexavar that David will be taking.

I read the info on it and I hope he does not have the side effects they list. We are hoping that he will be able to have more TASE treatments through his femoral artery putting chemo into each tumor to decrease their size.

David is making a bucket list of things he wants to do before he dies. One is to go to the hot air balloon festival in New Mexico in October.

Personally after 65 days I am just ready to have him home. Thank you all for your prayers and support. Jeanie :)

[Cherie]

Juggling job and home and my parent's illnesses/injuries 7 hours away. Today, I finally feel like I'm catching up and getting a break. I'm starting to build the business at work and have my first closing on Friday. Dad is having his bone scan a week from today and had his urologist cancel appt that was supposed to be day before yesterday because his uro-dynamic testing equipment was not working correctly. So Dad still has the catheter and it's driving him nuts and he's already had a whopping UTI for which abx just ended. Mother has a rapidly spreading skin infection and was started on antibiotics for that 48 hours ago. Sister Tricia (lives around the corner from them and is a nurse) is having major health problems of her own and they have pretty much narrowed her symptoms and labs to lupus or sarcoidosis or polymyalgia rheumatica. Against her wishes she is on steroids and off the NSAIDs and her pain is ramping up to not manageable. Baby sister Lin is a licensed massage therapist and worked on her today and she got some relief.

We are having delightful weather here. It gently rained much of yesterday with temps 70-72. Today is sunny, high clouds and upper 70s with a lovely breeze coming off the ocean.

[agate]

Sounds as if everyone keeps so busy it's amazing anyone finds time to come in here and post.

In case you didn't notice, a long-time member of this board, known as xo++ (Mark), has posted a thread with his news. I'm sure everyone here wishes him well. He contributed many helpful posts on this board for many years.

[Cherie]

I was delighted to hear about his meeting his soulmate and subsequent marriage to a neurologist...no less. And it excites me that she wants them to donate their expertise to help those less fortunate.

Mother seems to be seeing some improvement on Antibiotic for massive skin infection. Dad is still waiting for Urologist appointment to get rid (he thinks) of catheter but his bone scan is not for another week and new urologist cannot see him till August 27th for Urodnamics. He is hoping he can get into the Urologist who treated the Prostate CA 5 years ago sooner. I am so grateful that my docs are generally within an hour from home and forget all too often that so many people need to drive for 2-4 hours to get competent medical care...sometimes more.

85 here today with 95% humidity but it sure helped with stamina being in the office for much of the day (nearly 5 hours) then had an eye doc appt in another a/c office that took nearly 2 more hours. It's now down to 74 and we have turned on the A/C in the bedroom and Dave's watching TV while I am on the computer in the office in the next room.

Cropped my new Avatar out of this photo taken at Becky's Ordination on June 16. Notice we both have the same gray streak on the left front of our hair?Cherei and Becky Post Ordination.jpg

[Gabriella7]

We are still going to doctor's appointments and neuro is still running additional tests to try and come up with my husband diagnosis. His brain MRI was normal for his age, the EMG was very abnormally complex, and the blood work came back normal. This visit he ordered a chest x-ray and additional blood work which will be sent off and we will get the results in about 10 days.

He is not improving and has even gotten worse with the short-term memory problems, his back (which does not cause him any pain) is getting more and more bent over, and he is still losing weight.....30 pounds in the past year. He is 5'10" and only weighs 135. ALS has not been ruled out as yet.

The heat wave is relentless and it has been 96 for most of this week. We are also in a drought so nothing was planted this year as no one wanted to water new plants. Our "Brown Turkey" fig tree has finally started producing figs and the muscadine grape vines will have a bumper crop as neither of those require any additional water....only what little rain we get.

I have had a UTI since early June and finally pleaded to get it treated with antibiotics and got them today. My urologist is so afraid of causing me to have another infection which turns resistant to oral antibiotics that I have to beg to get treated. You all know what happens with the MS when one has an infection....not to mention that my diabetes is out of control.

Looking forward to fall weather sometime in December........

Gabriella

[Cherie]

Gabriella,
I know all too well what happens to MS when a UTI goes untreated. Hope this works for you. And I cannot imagine how frantic you are to find out what is going on with your husband. Sending healing thoughts and prayer your way.

[SalpalSally]

Nice picture Cher.

Feel better Gab.

[Gary]

Seems like everyone is dealing with a family member with serious health concerns. Keeping everyone in my thoughts for positive outcomes. Until a couple of years ago when my wife developed COPD and had a bout with pneumonia did I realize what it was like to have a spouse with a serious illness. I now know what our respective spouses go through on a daily basis.

We are back home after being at MIL for a few days. I had several projects that I DID complete. Thanks to my wife for keeping her occupied and out of my hair. Bless my MIL but she is the type that thinks no one can do anything without her giving constant advice. My wife and I have had an agreement for the last 30 years, I do not tell her how to design, choose colors or what the layout should be. And she does not tell me how to do the work. It works really well I have spent my entire life working in the trades and I realize that all my taste is in my mouth NOT in choosing a color for the living room!

Garden is growing like crazy plenty of tomatoes and cucumbers and I am happy to share. We are expecting a couple of days (this Thursday and Friday) where the temps are suppose to be in the lower 90's so that is going to be our canning day. We have decided not to can anything that require me to drag the pressure canner up from the basement. We have never had a problem and have canned every type of meat and vegetable imaginable but it still scares me: 1. exploding jars 2. food borne bacteria . I still boil the daylights out of anything canned. I would much rather freeze food than can it. Problem is with just the 2 of up I just cant justify having a deep freeze anymore. My wife wants one of those apartment size chest freezers . Might not be a bad idea..... when there is a sale on ice cream and chocolate chip cookies we could stock up.

I over did and now paying the price lots of quality couch and TV time for the next couple of days.

Our renters have been going through a nasty custody battle. The kids do not want to visit with their father. There are 3 of the 9 kids that are over 18 and have nothing to do with him, to me this is the most telling, as I could not imagine having no contact with my grown children, the oldest (age 25) has not talked to him in 5 years. The court believes that the kids under 18 should have no opinion, and for the father it is a control issue. Until she left him they lived way out in the country , home schooled the kids, and did nothing without his permission including talk to other people. The court ordered them to spend 10 hours with him yesterday. He took them to the county fair but they could not go in because he thought it was too expensive so they had to look through the fence. Wait it gets worse. The 13 year old girl was Dx last winter with type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetes. H was suppose to get training on the care of IDDM he got training on type 2 diabetes. NOT the same.

Her blood sugar when over 420 and he walked her around Walmart for exercise. Told the other kids her blood sugar went up because they were criticizing the way he was managing her blood sugar. He took her to the ER and asked how much insulin she needed they said we cant tell you until we check her out. He said I am not going to wait and he left. Their food for the day consisted of a small basket of cherry tomatoes, 2 snack size bags of peanuts, 4 bananas and A HEAD OF CABBAGE!! Sound like a great meal for a kid with type 1 diabetes let alone to feed 6 kids. Good thing my daughter was away being a councilor at diabetes camp all week. She has definite feeling on treating diabetes and how kids should be treated/raised and is not the least bit shy on saying so. I am afraid that there would have been an explosion.

This is a small town and we know everybody so it isn't hard to find out what someone is up to. Sorry I just had to vent. Despite working in the prison system and having contact with really bad people I still can not believe that someone would willingly treat kids this way let alone your OWN kids.

Getting off my soap box now.

Be healthy everybody.