The evening before

I travelled today to my nephew's house. We are ready to get up and go in the morning. His surgery is scheduled second this time. The anesthesiologist talked to him during the testing today and gave him a rendition of what he think happened last time. His monitor was angled and when he turned his head to look, he must have moved his hand the slightest bit.

Ooookay.

Where the heart is

Christmas Past

I am going to guess 1987 for this photo. My nephew (having open heart surgery Tuesday) is the one circled in red. I am directly behind him. One of the rare years I did not have my hair dyed blond and my sister (his mother) is directly behind me. I have one brother in-law missing from the picture. I believe that he is on the far left of the frame holding his son (chubby in gold/white/blue). You can just see the top of one of my brother's head at the bottom. I believe a friend of the family was taking the photo. Two people from this photo have passed away. My Mom, in white (center right) and the fellow in blue with the moustache. He was my nephew's father (another brother-in-law).

Besides replacing a valve that was placed in my nephew's heart when he was a toddler, they are going to do what I believe is called Cardiac cryoablation. My memory is hazy and I am trying to make sense of notes I took on December 17th. From what I am reading this condition is common for those who have had Tetrology of Fallot. A question that has come up is "Will the team use the same anesthesiologist who made the previous mistake?"

My sister did not get her second continuance. The courts will only bend so far. It is not her fault that an error was made when the surgery was scheduled the first time, however she is a repeat offender and she has been in jail/prison numerous times. So much so, that the family stopped bailing her out. How many times were we supposed to pay for her lawyer, court costs, rehab, and many other monetary needs? When she first started down her path of misery, it was the late 80's and her children were very young. They were taken care of by their father and his Mom, along with my family. Every other year or so she was in prison. Out for nine months, in for two years. She was in prison when my Mom died and was not able to attend the funeral.

After a while, it just became routine. We could have been crass and started drawings on how long it would be before she was back in jail. She has the knack for finding desperate men who will supply her with money until they wise up to her. It is remarkable how long she can play them. It boggles the mind. I believe that some of the men never do wise up. They just "quit" her for a while. After a few years away she can weasel her way back into their lives. Amazing.

His sister will not be able to get the time away from college and her job to spend any significant amount of time with us. She was prepared to spend the entire week the first time around. We call it the "dry run". A lot of the original group do not have the time away from work and family life to give this time around. That leaves me with more of the load. My sister may not have been able to drive, but she could cook and clean up a storm and being his Mother would have been able to nurse a bit more comfortably than I. My niece can drive, but will be an unavailable two hours away. I won't be able to leave him alone. My nephew may be relieved that his "hovering" Mother is out of the picture, but as for me, she would have been a great help. But, that is that.

Back when

Here is Titten back in the day when she was smaller and cuter. It is hard to believe that she terrorizes the house today. Night and day. It is possible that she was taken from her Mother at too young of an age. She only goes in the litter box now, (thank goodness!) however, she gobbles her food and gets a bloated stomach. Well, we all know what a bloated stomach can do. Pass gas. And, this she does without abandon. She can clear a room.

For a homework assignment, my daughter had to watch a science fiction movie and answer questions about it. She chose "The Time Machine" 2002 edition. My nephew is a huge sci-fi fan and he gave the movie to us a few Christmases back. I adore Jeremy Irons, except not in this picture. Too creepy. It was fun reading the reviews from users about the movie. My daughter picked up some really good points from their comments and it helped her to answer the questions in her assignments.

This homeschooling is kind of good for us. I am off work until the middle of April and I have been very involved in her school work. We did an experiment together, this movie together and we have even been doing the math together. She would give me a problem and we would compare answers. I only wish that I had the Internet back in the 70's when I was learning how to multiply mixed fractions. Yuck!

We did miss the black out that we were supposed to do from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. this evening. Darn it. We were reading the reviews of the movie and completely forgot.

I wanna go back

A long time ago, I had a daughter that smiled. Before the surgeries, before the boyfriend woes, before the school mess. A long time ago we had small bumps in the road and snags that left us depressed for a day or so.

Now, times have changed. We are sad and very depressed. I am trying to help, but I have a lot on my plate. My daughter feels damaged and very neglected by her boyfriend of 3 years. She had the most invasive surgery one can possibly imagine a teenager having. She had moles removed in her private areas (front and back) and another on her back. Could she get a phone call from the boyfriend? Not even. Nothing. No hug, no phone call, no words of encouragement, no questions to ask how she is feeling. Three years and this is what it has boiled down to. She spent thirty minutes ripping him a new one last night. I let her go. I felt that she needed to get this frustration out of her system.

As for me, I wouldn't waste my breath. I'd say "It's over." Hang up the phone and never speak to him again. But, that's me. She handled it differently. At sixteen she is close to having a relationship longer than I ever did. But this isn't about me.

My daughter is in pain. Physically and emotionally. Mama is mad as a wet hornet. She will let him back in. That is her way. I just hope she gets real tired of the neglect soon and finally dumps his ass.

The green, green grass of home

Ohio, May 2007

From 10 to 30 I usually had my head stuck inside a radio. Well, as close to a radio as I could get. My life revolved around music. When I had my daughter, the music stopped. All of my attention and listening devices were saved for that little baby girl. If there was music playing, I may miss a cry or a giggle. And that just wouldn't do. Now that my daughter is days away from 17 and listening to music of her own, I am easing back into the world of music.

The above photo reminds me of the tune performed by Tom Jones "Green, Green Grass of Home". It was written by Curly Putman who wrote a few other country favorites. I'd change the words to fit my life when I would sing along with the songs. Of course I didn't sing "...run down the road with my sweet Mary..." I think I used a horses' name when I sang it because that was my love when this song was a hit.

My daughter received an iPod when she began her homeschooling. So I get her used mp3 player. I can add iTunes gift cards to her Birthday and Christmas lists. My niece said that I can download iTunes for the mp3 player, also. I am a bit rusty on the newer music technology today. I'll catch up. What irks me a bit is that I cannot find some of my favorite artists music for sale. One artist in particular just does not sell his music this way, I guess. Of course what also irks me is that I purchased a favorite album when it was an LP in 33 rpm. I purchased it when it became a video cassette. I skipped purchasing it on a CD, but now I need to purchase it (or just the songs I like) in an mp3 format. It reminds me of the line that Tommy Lee Jones said in the movie "Men in Black". "I guess I'll have to purchase the White album again." Referring to the tiny disc format for music and the popular Beatles album.

Speaking of Tommy Lee Jones, we watched "No Country for Old Men." A bit bloody and gruesome. I watched it a second time and it wasn't so bad knowing when the spurting blood and gory scenes were coming. I could close my eyes or mute the television. I watched it the second time for the story line and to get parts that I missed. I also watched the bonus features that helped to erase some of the ghastly things that they did. To hear them speak as normal people talking about their characters, sort of minimized the horror for me.

We also watched "August Rush." Somebody had gushed about this movie to me. I was disappointed. It didn't move me at all. I could easily pass on this one.

I lounged around all day yesterday resting from the holiday week-end and getting the rest of that nasty flu out of my system. Today I do not get that luxury. There are things that need to be done and tended to. My daughter has her mole-removal surgery tomorrow in Akron. I better check the roadways. The flooding is pretty bad in areas around me.

Floods of all kinds

Ohio this week

Well. My yard is soaked but I am not flooded. The edges of the yard and some low spots in the sidewalks are covered with water, but thankfully, for me, that is all.

I have been flooded at work with work. My computer keeps crashing at work. I am off now until mid-April. I will be playing nurse maid.

I have been flooded with work at home. Setting up home schooling for my daughter, cleaning for the coming holiday and my two week trip to the Columbus area. We beefed up my daughter's PC at home (her Easter present) so that she can better play her video game (her birthday present). She decided to do her school work on the Mac that the academy provided. My PC keeps crashing at home also. I've been struggling with it.

I have company coming in for Easter. (Provided they can get here via the flooded highways).

And, today I am sick. A nasty sick that I won't go into detail, here. I could not figure out why my headache would not respond to medicine this morning until I caught the weather forecast. What the? More snow?

We watched "Martian Child" last week-end. We watched "I Am Legend" last night. I have yet to watch "No Country for Old Men" and "August Rush". I hope I get around to watching them before we have to return them tomorrow night. Since I am not feeling very well, there is a good chance that I will.

My brother and his wife returned from their Caribbean cruise. I asked them if they found it necessary to bring the ocean back with them. As if they didn't get enough water down South, they are inundated with it at home.

I figured when they left in the middle of that horrendous snow storm, that when they returned the mess of it would be gone. Au contraire. The melted water remains.

Dubious

Sable seems a bit dubious

Six days. Three of them with a toddler. She seems so depressed. I don't know if she is happy to be home and is giving us the cold shoulder, or if she misses my sister's house. Her back leg is still giving her problems. We have been giving her Glucosamine twice a day. She improved but she is limping in the one leg still.

The tyke above dressed her up in Mr. Potato Head's glasses, sat on her like a hassock, ate her dog food and had to have a peanut butter sandwich when she was given her medicine. We put her glucosamine pills in peanut butter on bread and she swallows it whole. He even took a couple of bites of her bread as he gave it to her. I was told all of this second hand. I didn't get to witness any of it. The eating of the dog food would have done me in. Yuck. Currently we feed her dry Purina One. I can't stand wet dog or cat food. My pets do not get that. Ever.

Hey, wait a minute. I just checked the ingredients of Purina One. It states chicken as the first ingredient. I knew this. But, in parenthesis it says: Chicken (natural source of glucosamine). Well bust my buttons. Maybe she just needs extra.

I am worried about hip dysplasia.

Seven inches

Snowfall outside my back door

It looks as though my little town got off easy. Compared to the bigger cities of Columbus and Cleveland and Cincinnati. And, I didn't have to drive. If my nephew's surgery had happened as planned, I was supposed to drive home Friday afternoon, pick up my daughter and return to Columbus area on Saturday. It would not have happened. Columbus area was on a level "emergency travel only".

As it was, I did go to my department meeting at my home office (60 miles away) on Friday and got caught driving in a mess on the way home. During the meeting one of my co-workers piped up that all schools were dismissing early in my area. It was a mess up that way. They ended the meeting and instead of our usual lunch together, I headed west. About 20 minutes into my drive the roads were a mess. I was mostly caught in a huge line of traffic where nobody was passing anybody. You couldn't, really. It took me 2 hours to return instead of the hour fifteen I normally take.

My poor brother, his wife and her family are stranded in an airport. He called from a motel near the Cleveland airport last night. He said a van was supposed to pick them up and take them to Pittsburgh and they were going to try and get a flight out of there. They have to make it to Florida's Eastern coast by 3 p.m. today to get on that cruise ship. What a wonderful get away that would be. And 10 days later you return and this mess will be gone. Hopefully.

My Sunday paper just hit my doorstep and I think I will get it and read a while before I bundle up and start the shovelling. I pick up my Sable today from my sister's house. She has been stranded there along with my grand nephew. I have a photo of them playing in the snow, I'll have to post it soon.

As for the movies. No Reservations was a bit "ugh" for my taste. Across the Universe was better, I thought. I enjoyed the music and some of the plot was of interest to me. Neither movie was riveting.

Eighteen years!

My sister's pet cat lived to be 18 years old. They are now down to six cats. See? It's a family tradition. I still have five. Two of them are at least six years old. The others are young'uns.

My Sable is still up at her house from the surgery trip. My eldest brother watches her for me. They spoil her rotten. My grand nephew uses her as a pillow and a chair.

We are supposed to drive up and retrieve her on Saturday, but with this storm coming, I don't know. I might have to wait until Sunday. Of course I am hoping for the storm to come overnight tonight because I have a meeting with my home office scheduled for tomorrow and I won't mind missing it one bit.

My middle brother and his wife are headed out on their first cruise Saturday morning at 3 a.m. They have a limo picking them up, so they won't have to drive. They are concerned that their airplane won't be able to take off, though. They are scheduled to leave from Cleveland, but may have to re-route and leave from Columbus. I wouldn't want to be a limo driver and have to drive in the snow and ice. Yikes. They are headed to the Caribbeans.

I didn't get the chance to touch base with my nephew today. I'll check in on him tomorrow. I think he was headed into work today.

Boy howdy. Is everyone else getting sticker shock in the grocery stores these days? Wow. We stocked up just in case we get snowed in over the next few days. (Hope so, hope so, hope so). And we rented movies. Across the Universe, and No Reservations.

Speaking of. While at my nephew's house we watched Apocalypto. What? Did Mel sit around with his sons and they all came up with ways to gross each other out and he put it all in this one movie? Bloody, gory, ghastly, gross! I even closed my eyes when I knew a sickening event was going to happen. My nephew is the Blu-ray disc, home theater surround sound, plasma T.V. larger than life type of guy and what I didn't see when I closed my eyes made the sounds that much more horrifying. I am still reeling from the movie. If you don't care for blood spurting out of some guys head or hearts being torn from the chest - skip this one.

Detours and bumps

Life is full of setbacks

The short version. My nephew's surgery was cancelled at the very last second. And I really mean the absolute last second. The anesthesiologist inserted the catheter that would thin the blood to the heart, but inserted the tube into the vein that went to the brain and because there was too much risk for a blood clot going to the brain, the entire procedure was scrapped until the beginning of April. You can read more here.

Now, for the long story. I understand mistakes. I have made enough of them. I felt bad for the anesthesiologist. But I wonder if he fully understands what he has cost people. Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn't. He is probably reminded daily of what he has cost the hospital in prep charges and fees and I have no idea if the insurance company will pay for this mistake or not. Maybe there is insurance for that sort of thing when my nephew's medical insurance says "This was not part of the cost! We won't pay for his mistakes!" Maybe they bill it under something else. Maybe they say that the patient had a problem and bill the insurance company with that verbiage on the claim. Who knows? Who audits this stuff?

As for my family. This was stressful to say the least. First there is the patient (my nephew). He needed to schedule the time off from work. His work needed to find somebody to replace him for six weeks or so that he was out. He used sick days and/or vacation time. The day before the scheduled surgery he went to the hospital for a round of tests. There is his drive back and forth (an hour one way).

Second there is his Mother. She is not currently working, so there is no use of vacation or sick days. But the stress would be enormous. She was prepared to feed all of the family that was coming in.

Third is the sister of the patient. She was on spring break from school, which was fortunate. She took a week off from work. She does not get vacation pay because she works as a waitress in a restaurant part time while she attends college. Her drive back and forth from Toledo to Columbus. Her stress. Making arrangements for somebody to take care of her cats.

Fourth is my eldest sister and her husband. Their drive from Canton to Columbus and back. In an ice storm, no less. Their meals. They are both retired so there was no vacation/sick time taken. My brother-in-law's Mother is in the hospital in another city, so he had to skip a day from visiting her.

Fifth is another older sister who took three vacation days for the trip down and back (3 hours one way). Her gas mileage, her meals. Making arrangements for somebody to watch her pets.

Sixth is me. I was to provide the primary care. My sister is not permitted to drive a vehicle, so I was going to be the driver for after the surgery and the main care taker. I arranged two weeks off from work vacation time. Since I couldn't leave my daughter at home, I arranged for her to be home schooled. This was all decided before my sister was allowed a continuance from court to keep her out of prison until the end of March. (Even longer story). We had anticipated my sister (his Mother) being out of the picture during this time. My drive (2.5 hours one way) and meals for my daughter and I. My arrangements for somebody to watch my pets and check on my house while I was away.

What cost do you put on all of that? Other than getting my daughter home schooled, almost everything listed above will have to be repeated. I didn't include the things that only needed to be arranged one time, like the mountain of paperwork that was needed. Fortunately, the motel let me cancel our reservations. My sister's intentions were good, but five of us were going to stay at a motel, instead of with the 3 of them for a total of 8 people in a little two bedroom house. I mean, get real.

My niece won't be able to get the time off in early April. My one sister won't be able to, either. My eldest sister and her husband who are retired will probably be able to make the trip again. I can swing it. I'll have to jump through some hoops at work, but they are pretty good about that. I'm glad I did choose the home schooling for my daughter because now she can travel with me. My nephew will swing it at work. He doesn't have much of a choice.

But, will my sister (his Mother) convince the judge to give her yet another continuance? She is working harder than ever before on staying sober this time around and at finishing her counselling and rehabilitation. So far, so good. Most people drink because of stress. The strange part is that her heavy drinking problem started when he (her son) had open heart surgery at three and she sort of fell apart back then. She had another child ten years later and five years after that she had an Autistic child. Her fragile psyche does not handle life very well.

So, there you go. I am trying to get over it. I have gone through many feelings. My first response was "I'd rather the doctor come to us and say 'I'm sorry, we have to reschedule the surgery - too risky.' than for him to come to us and say 'I'm sorry......' because of you know what!". The other response was "There is a reason". We all went through that response. Maybe something would have happened, etc... Of course I am trying to put this into perspective. I do understand mistakes. It is just that a lot of folks have to pay for this one.

Sigh. Life does have some detours and bumps. Since it is winter and our roads in Ohio are atrocious, we can say that life has some huge pot holes (some folks call them chuck holes) and when we hit them, we blow out a tire. That costs us to repair the tire and maybe we miss work or an important appointment or some ceremony that we will never get back in our life and who pays for that? Not ODOT, that's for darn sure.

Maybe I should have stopped with the short version.

Some questions pop up as I read my post. There is a lot more to the background of this story than what I have written about here. For example. When my daughter's art teacher asked her why she would be out of school this week, my daughter replied "My cousin is having open heart surgery." To which the teacher replied "If my cousin were having surgery, he could darn well do it by himself!" What the hell kind of response is that? The obvious question would be "Why does my daughter have to go?" My answer. Because her Mother is going and we live by ourselves and there is no other family within a fifty mile radius she could stay with. There is no other family who does not work who could pick up and leave their homes to come and stay with her during this time frame. Without going into a lot of explanation, I cannot leave her by herself for a week. End of story.

The next question might be "Why does your Mother have to go?" My answer. I was there for my nephew. When he was four and I lived with he and his Mother when she was in the army, I was there to care for him. When she lived with me and my Mom and she was out late at night, he would wake up scared in their bedroom and come running to me. I was there at night for him. When she worked in a bar and I worked during the day, I was there for him in the evenings and I bathed him and got him to bed. After he grew up, we remained close sharing our love of computers and he often stopped to see me wherever I lived. I obtained custody of his sister when she was 13 years old, he was 23 and juggling college and work, their mother (my sister) was in prison and my Mother was tragically killed in an automobile accident. He visited almost every week-end while his sister lived with me. The two of them, my daughter and I formed a make shift family. Every holiday we spend together. During the holidays that my sister is free, she spends them with us.

My nephew is thirty years old. His father is dead. His female maternal figures are his mother, his paternal grandmother and his maternal grandmother (my Mom) and me. All grandparents are dead. My sister was supposed to be in prison. His sister is 21 years old. She is struggling with school and living on her own. That leaves me. I am next in line for spending the most amount of time with him. I love him like I would love a son. He means the world to me.

What does my daughter's art teacher know about our family and why my daughter must go with me to Columbus during this surgery? How dare he question something he does not know anything about? Would he like to take my daughter in and get her to school and back and be responsible for her? My daughter will be seventeen years old, this is true. Maybe I was mistaken when I drove her everywhere (we already went over this in a previous post). Maybe I am over protective. Actually, it was her decision to wait for her to get her driver's license. Even if she were able to drive herself and had her own car, would I leave her for a week? Who am I supposed to leave her with? Her boyfriend's family? My co-worker? She told me flat out that she refuses to stay with any friend's family.

Oh, wait. Isn't there another question? A more personal question? Dan Quayle would not approve. If you want to see where this paragraph of my post goes you can look Mr. Quayle up on Wikipedia.com. I won't even start with that topic. That would be some can of worms that would include therapy and therapists, religious beliefs and society beliefs. We make our beds and we must lie in them, isn't this so? So, there I am. We all have our grief in some strange way. We all have pot holes in life that give us flat tires. We all have to pick up the cost of repairing that tire. And, we must all move on. And so, I shall.

Back in the day

When I was a little girl we swam in the lake pictured above. Today it is stinky and dirty. I don't see how I would have stuck my big toe in it, let along went completely under water. My sister said that it wasn't dirty and stinky back in the 60's, but I wonder.

My fondest memories of this lake were the large beach balls that we would bat back and forth. The sand was a bit silty and if you don't know what that is, it is like a sticky mud. It was almost black in places. Pretty gross now that I think about it.

We have home movies (on 8mm) with this lake and a lot of Christmases on them. What was fun about 8mm was that we could play them backwards. Hilarious. We moved a few to VHS over 10 years ago. I wouldn't mind gathering the rest of them up and transferring them over to DVD format.

My daughter, nieces and nephews roll their eyes and run when I get that old tape out. My sisters and I love it. We laugh and say "Didn't we ever mow the grass?", or when we look at the old dogs that we used to own. One is of my sister with the old fashioned hair dryers. Where you place the hood over your head and it is attached with a hose to the dryer. And, this is great. Each of us were reading a book whenever the camera came around (unless we were outside). That is what we did back in the 60's. We read books. Amazing.

Style

I think it would be great to have Venetian blinds like this in my window. Except in blue, of course. Instead of just a plain color, I think they can begin to create beautiful colorful fabric blinds. Maybe they already do.

Plans are set for motel reservations for my nephew's surgery in Columbus. The hospital allows a room for immediate family. My niece was eligible for that room. My sisters and I rented a room in the nearest motel. It is one mile away. The free room that is affiliated with the hospital? Twenty minutes away. How typical.

My nephew was very close to both his grandmothers (who have passed). His father is also gone. I think about them a lot as this surgery approaches.

On my last day of work my co-worker talked me into going out to lunch. It was in the middle of the blinding snow storm. During the meal, she made about a dozen remarks about a guy sitting across the restaurant who kept looking at her. When he got up to leave she asked me if she should run over there and give him her telephone number. My turkey sandwich tried to reappear.

Except for three days, I will be out of the office the entire month of March. I know. I should have just taken the 3 days, too. Maybe I will.