He's Alive

The ending still sends chills up my spine. (I just realized the irony of that statement).

Things are great. Until they're not.

Bob was feeling great yesterday. Wanted visitors.

Then when my family was visiting along with two of my great nieces who adore their uncle Bobby he dozed for just a second and then tried to bolt from the bed, still attached to the IV and the leg pumper things. I thought he was having a bad Vietnam nightmare.

I flew around the bed yelling at him to stop, I'm just imagining those screws in his spine are getting stripped at this point. My nephew is trying to grab him from the back, I'm attempting to tackle him like he's Andrew Luck and then Mount St. Helen erupted all over me, him and the bed. Panic was definitely in the room, I yelled at my niece to get a nurse, the walker was against the wall so my nephew and I are basically holding him up while he keeps saying he has to get to the bathroom. I was trying to get him to realize the damage was already done.

The nurses were finally able to get him unhooked and to the bathroom where he continued to get sick, which is just horrible given that he shouldn't be twisting his back at all.

The rest of the night was rough, had to take him off all pain meds. Has an intestinal obstruction. This morning they finally got approval to give him something which has only knocked off the edge slightly.

Said this was worse than Vietnam, but I suppose it's pretty close to the guys who were tortured in prison camp.

Up until Friday, he thought he was a man of steel. I think his girls thought he was too. Pain is the great equalizer. I'm sure the jumping up from bed wasn't on the doctors orders.

It's 6:20 a.m. now, and he's finally resting.

Thanks for the prayers.

Go Rest High on That Mountain

It's two o'clock in the morning here in room 2537. Feeding Bob ice chips. The damned alarm keeps going off that monitors the heart rate and oxygen level because it's not tight enough. Nurse is changing it now.

About 45 minutes ago my cousin's long battle was finally over. My brothers did such a wonderful job taking care of him. I had always assumed I would be there to help them in his finally hours, but God didn't really consult me on this one.

I hurt so badly for his family, especially his older brother who is still reeling from the shock of his beautiful bride of 30 years getting her horrible diagnosis last week, they had plans to come up and stay for the week and couldn't

But I can tell you this, I don't know of anyone else that is as blessed as I am to have such a magnificent, caring, loving family that will not hesitate to care for someone in the darkest days, doing the worst parts of a nurse's jobs only because of love. I know when dad was in his last days, I was amazed at the strength you can find and the things you can do because you know you have to.

I'm filled tonight with thankfulness that Bobby is okay, that I have such wonderful family, that my brothers were able to help Bill during his final hours and my nieces were there to assist. And such sadness of a life gone too soon ravaged by the bastard who's name is cancer and that his brother now has to be strong for his wife while she begins her own battle.

I would post the video, but Steve Jobs hated Bloggers so I can't do it on here. Here are the lyrics. So appropriate for tonight.

 

I know your life On earth was troubled And only you could know the pain You weren't afraid to face the devil You were no stranger to the rain

Go rest high on that mountain ‘Cause, Son, your work on earth is done Go to Heaven a shoutin' Love for the Father and the Son

Oh, how we cried the day you left us And gathered round your grave to grieve Wish I could see the angels’ faces When they hear your sweet voice sing

Go rest high on that mountain ‘Cause, Son, your work on earth is done Go to Heaven a shoutin' Love for the Father and the Son

Wanna Know What's Going On?

Bob's surgery tomorrow. Cousin moved in with my brothers back in November. Dying from his second bout of esophageal cancer. In the last stages now which means every hour's a challenge and requires round the clock care. Time is very short now. His older brother found out late last week that his precious, fit, healthy wife has cancer of the lining of the left lung. Chemo is starting soon, which means he won't be able to come up next week like he planned to visit with his brother one last time. I supposed God sometimes forces you in to setting horribly difficult priorities. Brother's hopefully soon to be ex-wife thinks she's entitled to his settlement while she screws around with her former boss. For some people greed and lust far outweigh being a decent human being. Of course she never used to care about reading his blog or mine until she starting sleeping with her boss so now I see her IP address show up on visits to this blog. Hope she comes by and gets her wish about reading about herself. Remember Carly Simon's You're So Vain? You probably think this post is about you. She's too stupid to realize her IP address gives her away. If ya got any prayers on your dot in the map our family sure could use one or two about now.

Aren't you regretting reading that horrible runon paragraph now?

Sorry, but it had to come out somehow. Now you know why I've been so silent these last few weeks.

When Will I Long For Snow

We made the decision 8 days ago.

We've been talking about it for years. It only makes sense, really. We have a beautiful place in Fort Myers. No, it's not on the beach. Four miles from the Gulf. And every winter, we say, "Someday" with a dreamer's whisper.

Someday, we won't rent it out to Snowbirds and hope they don't use an ink pen near the beige leather sofa.

Someday, we'll escape this God forsaken land of Indiana winters and motor our way south just after Christmas.

Someday, we'll head back north just at the time of year where Indiana becomes a beautiful blooming, sweet smelling, land that smells of ripe tomatoes, sweet corn in the field and where the golden finches sheds their drab colors of winter for that bright sunny coat of feathers.

Someday, we can enjoy the place that feels a little like home for only a week or two each year and some other couple settles in for a couple of months while we slip on the ice and curse the dreary February days.

The decision was made last week when I was driving into work thinking about Bob.

Six years ago we were closing on this new coach home. I was just recovering from double whammy health issues and starting with a new client on a long term project. Bob was traveling down to Fort Myers getting the place in shape, buying decor. Yeah, I can trust him with that, we actually nearly always agree in decorating. I think he has a bit of Queer Eye in him.

The builder had not thoroughly cleaned the tile floor of the grout. We had the furniture delivered the day after closing so we didn't have time for them to come back in with their industrialize-size cleaner. Bob scrubbed the tile floors for four days. Yeah, he also cleans.

When he got home he began complaining about his ankle. Months went by and he sees a few docs. They think he hurt his Achilles' tendon. More months, still issues. More months still issues. About three years ago he had me look at his right calf. I had not realized that his right calf had grossly deteriorated. He went back to the docs, they did an MRI of his spine, the neurologist thought his calf muscle had been destroyed by the injury cutting off the blood supply. We didn't ask for a copy of the MRI. Big mistake.

One quack said he needed to cut the muscle in half and reattach it. I'm not sure what that would have accomplished other than maybe the doc wanted to buy a new boat. Thankfully Bob didn't take his advice.

About 10 months ago Bob realized it wasn't just his calf that had deteriorated but also he could now be called a half assed man and he couldn't take offense. Obviously THIS wasn't the result of an ankle injury.

Back to the docs, another MRI. This time we got copies of all the records. The MRI indicated something about a spinal tumor not have grown much from the MRI from three years ago.

Yep, he had a tumor on his spine found in an MRI three years ago and we were never told. Does that happen nowadays? I cannot for the life of me understand why the neurologist didn't think it was important enough to tell us. Sure it's benign, but it's in his spine and his leg is deteriorating.

She did an EMG on the muscles in his legs and said they were very sick. At one point she said dead. Not something you want to hear. Her best guess was that maybe a nerve in the L5 area (low back) was being pinched from a small extrusion in a disk. She sent him on to a spinal surgeon to get his opinion. When Bob mentioned the neurologist the spine guy noticeably kept his opinion of her not looking into the tumor three years ago to himself.

The tumor appears to be about the size of the end of your little finger, but it appears to be blocking most of the spinal canal. And it's unlikely he will get any of the damaged muscles back. They have been starved for too long.

They have to cut out his L1 and L2, remove the tumor and screw the bones back together. The hospital stay is three to four days, so this isn't a minor surgery. In all this time, Bob has never had any pain,just a slowly progressing limp which is starting to affect his ability to stay upright.

We'd like to say that we realize that life is too short, but in truth, we never realize it. It has always been about "someday". I realized the other morning that its highly likely in a couple years we will need to move from our two story home here and downsize to a ranch. And we may need to decide whether we need to keep our beloved place in Fort Myers that we don't get to enjoy.

So it's time. It's just been hard to walk away from a steady income from clients, to say either I work from home or I only work a few months a year. But realistically we need to call it now or never get to enjoy what we have while we are still healthy and able.

Surgery is scheduled a week from Friday.