Last Tuesday morning found Victoria in a great rush,
making a lunch for Kurt that she hoped would make him feel better. He had never recovered from the bronchitis
and then pneumonia that he had when we were on our trip to Florida. She dashed out the door shortly before noon, laden
with chicken breast fillets and mixed vegetables and whole-grain rice.
Here’s an oddity we came upon unexpectedly one
evening at dusk in Panama City Beach, Florida – WonderWorks. I’d never
heard of it before. I looked it up, and
found this website: WonderWorks of Panama City Beach. There are half a dozen of these buildings in
the U.S., each with a website specific to their individual locations and
exhibits.
Here’s what it says on this website: “WonderWorks is an amusement park for
the mind with 35,000 square feet of ’edu-tainment’. The attraction
combines education and entertainment with more than 100 hands-on exhibits that
challenge the mind and spark the imagination.
This once top-secret laboratory was located in the Bermuda triangle. An experiment gone awry lifted the laboratory and
carried it to Front Beach Road in Panama City Beach, where it landed upside
down. Luckily all of the exhibits
remained intact and available for guests to explore.”
Here’s a daytime photo of the place, from their
website:
I searched around online and bought some books,
coins, and tac pins having to do with Pensacola Lighthouse and the Aviation
Museum for grandsons Aaron and Ethan. Next, I bought some books about the
manatee, a stuffed manatee, and a hand-painted little manatee for a couple of
other grandsons.
Maybe I’ll get things about pelicans for Joanna; she
loves birds.
It’s fun to get them things that we saw on our
vacation. I don’t get many things while we’re traveling, because the
vehicle is usually pretty tightly packed already, and because I don’t want to
spend too much while on the road. Besides, I find all sorts of
interesting things on eBay, Amazon, and other websites that I would have never found
as we traveled.
I looked for a stuffed great blue heron for Joanna,
thinking she’d really like it. I found
one, made by Hansa, the company that makes the most realistic stuffed animals
and birds I’ve ever seen – for $146.
Amazon has one – for $126.
I guess Joanna doesn’t need a stuffed great blue
heron as much as I thought she did. :-\
The vacation’s not over yet; I still have soap, mouthwash,
sugar, creamer, and tea left from the motels! The lotion, shampoo, and conditioner are all
used up, though.
One time when Aaron (oldest grandchild on both sides
of the family) was a baby, Larry was holding him on his lap at one of our
church luncheons. His other grandpa came along (John Wright, a friend
since we were all children) and paused, looking at his one and only grandchild.
He leaned down, tapped the baby with a long finger,
and said, “Sonny, just so you remember-----” he tapped his own chest with the
same finger “this is the Wright grandpa.”
And without another word, and without even a glance
at Larry or me, he strutted off in his long-legged stride, leaving us both
cracked up.
He’s a good friend. It’s always nice to be
able to share your grandchildren with friends.
Last night, his wife Bethany had a mini stroke. She is recovering at the Columbus hospital today. She hasn’t been well for many years now.
Tuesday night, I posted photos from the seventh day
of our trip to Florida, including pictures of houses on stilts and a Great Blue
heron: Florida, Day 7
Kurt and Victoria have set a tentative wedding date
– October 30th. This means... there are a whole lot of bridesmaids’ and
candlelighters’ dresses in my future. Thankfully,
Victoria found a beautiful gown for herself online, so I won’t have to sew that.
Victoria has an app on her phone that’s
counting down the months, weeks, days, hours, and seconds.
Wednesday morning, I got the following text from
Hannah, who was forwarding it from Bobby:
“Dave n Becky baby girl Cheryl Ruth. Born 7:07. Don ecstatic, first
granddaughter. 😊 ”
This, I must confess, really churned up me poor ol’
decrepit brain cells. I actually thought
she meant ‘Dave and Becky’ of There Goes a Truck (children’s humorous and educational
DVDs), though I couldn’t quite make out who ‘Don’ was.
It belatedly occurred to me, Oh! She means our
friends ‘David and Rebecca’! Rebecca is a 2nd cousin of Larry’s.
Don is David’s father, and he and his wife Judy had seven grandsons – and now,
one granddaughter.
So, with my brain back together again, I proceeded
on through the day.
That night after church, Kurt went home earlier than
usual, not looking a bit well. Victoria
came and showed me the thermometer she’d given him to take his temperature: 102°.
The doctor had told him cheerfully that afternoon,
“Just keep doing the things you’re doing!”
Obviously, that wasn’t working.
Victoria had made beef/vegetable/potato stew, hoping
that would give Kurt some much-needed energy, but he just couldn’t eat it.
Kurt returned to the doctor the next morning. He still had a fever, and he couldn’t even
keep down his medicine. His doctor, a
young one just out of college four years, looked at the x-rays and proclaimed
Kurt’s lungs ‘clear’. However, he seemed
puzzled by those x-rays, and did mention that possible only half of one lung was
working. He really couldn’t seem to make
heads or tails out of the x-ray. But he
neglected to run any other tests that might have given him a clue into what the
trouble was. He suggested Kurt return
the following day to take a ‘sniff test’.
When Kurt’s mother called the clinic to inquire into what, exactly, a
‘sniff test’ is, even one of the older doctors didn’t know what it was, and had
to go ask about it.
I took Loren supper that night – a bowl of the stew
Victoria had made, part of a small loaf of 12-grain bread just out of the oven,
peas, and cherry jello.
Victoria took Kurt some Powerade after she got off
work. If her stewing over him could’ve healed
him, he’d have been well long ago!
Later, I posted photos from the 8th day of our trip
to Florida, which included a visit to the Pensacola Lighthouse and the National
Naval Aviation Museum: Trip
to Florida, Day 8
Look, look! I caught a pelican!
As if I didn’t have enough photos to contend with, I
just had to take pictures of a Northern Flicker, finches, and a busy little
squirrel Thursday morning from my window:
Well, of course I would!
I like to go, oh, just anywhere. I grabbed coffee, camera, computer, and
cardigan, and off we went to Omaha.
Then, while he went on with the truck to a job in
Fremont, I went to a Goodwill in Omaha, another in Fremont, and finally the one
here in Columbus before coming home. I got quite a number of great
bargains on clothes (a couple of Easter outfits, etc.), some heavy little
squarish candles in hazelnut vanilla scent for Hester that will match the
dishes her sister Lydia gave her, and, at our local Goodwill, a whole bunch of
cookbooks (need to count them...... hmmmm ..... there are 14), most
of them hardcover. I picked only books that look like new. The
whole box of books cost $30 ------ and I saw a sticker on one brand new book
that said $29.95, and several others were almost as much. So it’s like I
paid for one --- and got the entire rest of the box of books free.
As I came driving up our hill on Old Highway 81, I
saw Larry in his pickup driving up the hill a quarter mile ahead of me – we
both got home about the same time. Just as we walked in the door, Lydia
texted us and asked if we wanted to have some ham/potato chowder; she’d made a
big panful of it, and they had a lot left over.
So we carried in all my bargains, then drove back
over to Jeremy and Lydia’s house, and had chowder and biscuits. Mmmmm,
mmmm! But... shouldn’t it be me making supper for them, and not the other
way around??
Sweet little Ian is smiling now; he was one month
old that day.
Next, we went to Wal-Mart for juice, yogurt,
bananas, oranges, and a little bag and bottle holder that will attach to Larry’s
new bike (a fancy-schmancy, nifty-schmifty Cannondale). He goes on a
15-20-mile bike ride every morning, and he needs bottles of juice that he can
take along with him, and yogurt is a good snack when he gets back. He
averaged 17.3 mph yesterday morning. That’s a pretty good clip!
Saturday morning, there was a 25-mph cold, icy wind,
and he only averaged 14.5 mph.
He uses a ‘Map My Ride’ app on his smartphone that
shows his exact route, his speed, his elevation and climb, if any, and time of
ride. It even tells him how many other riders are with him, providing
they are using a similar GPS mapping system. He goes with my nephew
Robert, sometimes his nephew Nathan, some days son-in-law Bobby, and almost
always a cousin, Ben. They ride before sunup each morning. Friday,
Ben was surprised to see on his smartphone the words, ‘riding with Larry
Jackson’. Some people think that’s spooky... but I think that’s pretty
nifty. I suppose if you had’ve just robbed the local Five and Dime, it would
be spooky. heh
I just looked at Larry’s phone – and discovered that
his app, too, tells him the names of the other riders he was with.
Since he’s been riding for the last couple of
months, his blood pressure has come waaaay down – he doesn’t need blood
pressure pills at all – and he’s dropped a few pounds, too. He doesn’t
snore as much, and he’s not so tired.
Now he’s making noises about getting me one o’ them
thar pedalin’ machines.
Late that morning, I looked out the window – and it
was snowing! It was only 32°.
I cut my hair, curled it a bit, and then worked on
my pictures. Sometime in the middle of
the afternoon, it snowed and sleeted like crazy for a little while.
Victoria had a few minutes of disconcertment that
evening because she lost the sterling-silver-and-diamond-chip heart pendant
Kurt gave her when they first starting dating. She was ready for bed...
had it dangling from her hand... chatted with me a minute or two... got a
bottle of orange juice out of the refrigerator... and went upstairs to her
bedroom. The pendant was no longer in her hand.
I helped her look. I even looked in the
refrigerator.
After much rushing up and down the stairs (that was
Victoria; I confined my search to the kitchen/living room/bathroom), she
finally found it – perched atop her boot in her room.
I posted photos of Day 9 of our Florida trip, as we drove
from Pascagoula, Mississippi, to Mena, Arkansas. West of New Orleans, we
saw homes that had been damaged by tornadoes a week earlier, as we traveled
just northeast of that large storm, cutting down through Missouri, Kentucky,
Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. By the time we were in the mountains
of North Georgia, the storm was to our north, and producing several inches of
snow in St. Louis, from whence we’d just come. As we headed north toward
home, we managed to stay just north of the worst of another storm that would eventually
produce a lot of flooding in New Orleans and other parts of the south. Florida
Trip, Day 9
Early Sunday morning, about 2:00 a.m., Kurt’s parents,
Bill and Ruth, took him to the ER at the Columbus hospital, and he was admitted
to the ICU. He has pneumonia and mononucleosis. The mono has caused
the liver and the spleen to be enlarged. He was very sick ... but we were
all thankful for a diagnosis, albeit belated, from a more experienced doctor
and staff.
By 9:00 a.m., they had decided to move Kurt to the
Med Center in Omaha (via ambulance), where they are better equipped to care for
him. One lung was nearly full of fluid.
Victoria went with Bill and Ruth to Omaha. The
doctors ran a lot of tests, and gave Kurt intravenous antibiotics and breathing
treatments every four hours. He had a
lung that was deflated and not working, because it was filled with thick fluid. The mono had caused his spleen to be so enlarged,
it was in danger of rupturing. One of
the doctors told them that if his spleen ruptured, he would bleed to death
before they could do anything about it. Kurt
will have to be very, very careful to do nothing that might rupture the spleen
for a good six weeks, giving it time to get back to normal.
Bill and Ruth brought Victoria home just before we
got home from church last night.
We were glad to hear that the doctor here in
Columbus knew the original doctor in David City, and he called him personally
to tell him all this. He certainly needs
to be further instructed on how to care for patients with asthma/bronchitis/pneumonia! He’s liable to cost someone his life, with
his lack of aggression in such serious cases.
Give the young doctor credit, though; he immediately
called Ruth to talk with her and apologize for not catching the mono, the
pneumonia, the deflated lung, and the enlarged spleen. I don’t think he’s stupid, just inexperienced
and a little too cocky and sure of himself.
He actually did consult with the other doctors in the clinic, but he
obviously didn’t apprise them of the severity of the situation. Kurt could’ve died, because of his inadequate
care!
It’s mostly the very young doctors who just don’t
seem to understand the danger with asthma and pneumonia; we saw this with a few
of our own children. Makes me want to tell them, “Here, let me tie my
scarf around your neck, and you just keep trying to breathe while I pull.
Yep, you’re doin’ fine, you’re doin’ fine...”
Victoria left for Omaha again with Bill and Ruth
early morning. She wrote a note at 8:30
a.m.: “Kurt feels pretty good. He’s breathing a little better, doesn’t have a
fever, and is acting kinda like his normal self. They have been giving him the breathing
treatments and having him blow on gadgets that make one take deep breaths to
open up the lungs. The doctors will have
a consultation and decide what to do based on the latest x-rays and an
ultrasound, and they should have a decision between 10 am and noon.”
A little after 11:00, she wrote, “They scheduled a
bronchoscopy tentatively for 2:00 p.m. There is something blocking one of his
airways, in the bronchial tubes if I understood correctly, so they want to find
out what it is.”
Another note at 3:30 p.m.: “He’s in recovery now for about another hour,
coming out of sedation. There actually is no blockage after all, just such
thick mucus and swollen, inflamed glands and airways that they would collapse
automatically when he coughed and keep anything from coming up. The mucus was literally filling his lung from
bottom to top, and it is also collapsed at the bottom of the right lobe. They cleaned it out and now they’re going to
start another treatment that should help loosen up whatever is left so he can
cough it out. There’s a lot of information
to process, but at the moment, it just looks like he needs plenty of time and
some antibiotics to recover. It’s gonna
be a long road no matter how you look at it, adding mono on top of all this.”
My new pedometer, a 4x3 Motion Activity Tracker by
Ozeri, arrived this afternoon. I’ve just
set the mode and attached the strap, and hung it around my neck. In the time I read a couple paragraphs of
instructions and wrote this paragraph, I’m up to... 277 steps.
Wheeee! Isn’t this fun?
((huff puff pant))
Hester brought me a scarf tonight that she got at
Christopher and Banks. It doesn’t quite
match the sweater and skirt I thought to wear it with; maybe I’ll have to get
an outfit now to match the scarf? I’m going
to hem a skirt for her, but need to get matching thread.
Larry got home from work a little bit ago, and now he’s
trying to read a Big Equipment auction/sale magazine. His head is resting in his hands, and it’s debatable
whether his head is going to fall out of his hands or his elbows are going to
fall off the table first.
Here are the photos from the last day of our trip to
Florida, wherein we drove from Mena, Arkansas, to home: Florida
Trip, Day 10
We enjoyed the drive, though I wish we could have
had a little more time to stop and explore. I really wanted to see
alligators and crocodiles! I wanted to go out to sea in a glass-bottomed
boat! I wanted to see Fort Pickens! (Well, I didn’t know I wanted
to see the Fort until after I got home and was looking at my pictures on my big
screen and spotted what looked like walls of a fort off on the National Gulf
Shores Island, and looked it up – but then I did!) I wanted to go up in a
lighthouse, not just look at it. I wanted to explore submarines and old
warships...
Oh, well. Can’t do everything, I guess.
Certainly not everything all at once. And someday before too long I’ll
explore something else, I expect.
The flower gardens keep looking at me reproachfully. I went out and started clearing out some of
the old growth from the Autumn Joy sedum – and discovered the stems were too
soft to break, and the new growth was starting to get pulled out of the ground
as I tried. So I happily gave up on that,
until things dry out a little more.
Victoria got home late tonight. The doctors told Kurt he must not work for a
good two months – this made him look on in horror; he has never been a slacker,
and idleness doesn’t suit him. But they are very serious about it; he had
a closer brush with death than even he realizes, I think. So... this
means Kurt and Victoria’s wedding date choice of October 30th might need to be
postponed a little bit, until they can save a little more money and find a
house.
Being glad a loved one is still alive, and starting
to get better, even if very slowly, gives one’s patience a good boost, you know
that?
Kurt is still in the ICU in Omaha, and will probably
be there another day or two.
Time for bed!
,,,>^..^,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^,,,
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