What a Week-part 3

If you haven't read parts one and two... go here & here.

As of this writing, John is still in the hospital, although I will be going to get him tomorrow.

The day after he had the nephrostomy tube placed, Dr. Barney came in and told us that they found puss in his kidney when they did the procedure. So they were going to keep him for at least the weekend. I came home.

So Saturday morning I got a call from his grandson (Jeremy lives in GJ) saying John wanted to talk to me. He said he woke up in the middle of the night sopping wet. So the nurses changed him and he went back to sleep and when they woke him to take his pills and eat, he was soaking wet again. The suprapubic tube was leaking. They didn't know why. (No one took the time to figure it out until Sunday. It was clogged and they had to flush it.)

On Sunday, they had him get up and walk around because he had water on his lungs again. They didn't want him to get pneumonia. Because he is on oxygen and he is in need of something to hold on to, they usually give him a wheelchair to push around (he can also sit if he gets too tired.)

He called me this morning to tell me that they would probably send him home today and I should try to get ahold of Dr. Barney to check. So I put the call in and waited all day. Got the call from the Doc at about 4:45. They are going to send John home with a 4-wheeled walker that has brakes. (One thing I love about the VA... if you need anything to help you with your life, they send it home with you. We don't have to go out and buy it, or wait for insurance to approve it.)
John was sure to call me and make sure I knew that he was coming home! He is so cute. (I can imagine he is more than ready to come home after nearly 2 wks in the hospital!)

So the vigil ends! Whew! I am off to go Divine Digital and step into the Chat Room with Michelle.

TTFN... Tess

Days 13 , 16-17, 19

Due to John's hospitalization, I have not had a chance to upload my photos. So it is time to get caught up!

Day 13

This is our cat. Her mom was a tuxedo cat and her dad was an orange tabby. Her mom had been dumped by someone. (We live out in the county) She was such a sweet cat that I started feeding her. She remained an outdoor cat. She had a lot of litters. I tried to give them away but ended up taking them to the pound in Montrose (another 100 mile drive one way.) The next to the last litter she had, included Cali. Cali had 3 brothers and sisters. Momma cat smothered one when they were born (accidently) and she moved them into an old camp stove full of rust (which killed another one) and I am not sure what happened to the 3rd but Cali was the only one left. We decided she was just too wonderfully colored to get rid of her. We were going to keep her. But she was WILD! I had to put on leather gloves to catch her. I brought her into the house and fed her. She was scared to death. Then I started putting food out for her in the same place and I would go get her from the barn and bring her up to eat until she learned how to find it on her own.

She has become domesticated, to a point. She likes to go for a walk with me and John. She likes her belly rubbed, but not her chin. She is one of the only cats I know that will allow us to pick up her back-end by the tail. She is also an outdoor cat.



I will have to add 14 & 15 later. They were not in my computer at the time of this post.

Day 16

I took this next photo from my motel... It is the VA Hospital. It looks pretty big. BUT, the first floor is made up of clinics, the pharmacy, the commissary, the cafe, and a few offices. The second floor is where the library, hearing center, dental office, x-ray, pulmonary, lab, prosthetics and records are at.

The third floor is for the psychiatric ward and doctors offices. 4th floor is not known. Fifth floor is the patient ward and preop. 6th floor is OR.



Day 17

This photo was taken from John's room. I happened to look out and saw it and ran down to the truck to get my camera.(Ok so I didn't run.) This is a newer used car lot. They purchased a ladder truck a few years ago and do some strange things now.



Day 18 has to be added, these missing photos are on a different card.

Day 19

This next photo was taken along the route home. I haven't gotten a photo before of this area with snow involved. I thought it to be quite wonderful. You can see why this is part of a scenic byway.



The rest are in my camera. I shall upload them later. They are about to discharge John from St. Mary's back to the VA. So I better get things shut off.

TTFN... Tess

What a Week!!! (continued)

Continuing from Monday: I had been told before I left that they were going to give him another Cat Scan the next day. They would call me with the results. They said if I didn't hear from them by 3:30 - 4 pm to call and ask about it.

On Tues., Dr. Barney called and said that John was getting some fluid on his lungs and his legs so they were going to get him up and moving around. (He had been laying down for more than a week.) He also said the CT showed that there was still some blockage in the kidney. He was going to talk to the Urologist and probably go ahead and send him to St. Mary's. He also said that his PSA (Prostatic specific antigen (PSA): This is an enzyme produced by both normal and abnormal prostate tissues)numbers were rising.

For those of you who don't know, he had Prostate Cancer 10 years ago. After treatment, it went into remission. It started raising it's ugly head again about 9 months ago. His numbers during that 10 year period had stayed to below 1.0.

When I asked the Dr. what his number was, he told me 7.0. (My darling John is going to pass away from the big C.) And from the looks of things, we will be lucky to have him around for another year. The doctor also said he has gone downhill tremendously in the past year. (He has not seen him for 6 months, so it is more noticeable to him. Not that I am BLIND and can't see that for myself. If you go look at the layout I made of him called HOPE you can see quite a difference from then to now.

Yesterday, I called in to see what was going on. John didn't answer the phone so I called the nurse's station. While I was talking to the Nurse the urologist called in. So I waited while she talked to him. Then, she told me what the doctor had to say: They were going to try to replace the stent. Because the original stent had been left in more than six months, the Urologist had a hard time removing it so he could replace it. So now they think that because it was hard, that perhaps when they put the new one in, the tip had bent, and that was why it was clogged.

The nurse then went and woke him up so I could talk to him. I explained to him what they were going to do. He decided that he wanted me to go back to town. If they were going to put him under, he wanted me there. So I headed back to Grand Junction (GJ).

When I arrived, he told me they changed the decision. They had a pow-wow with the Dr's involved and he was going to St. Mary's to get a nephrostomy tube placement. He will have that tube coming out of his back for the rest of his life, and it has to be flushed (by me) daily. This procedure would happen the next day.

Thursday - I am sitting here blogging, while waiting for them to release him back to the VA. I will have to grab a photo of this hospital, for today's photo. They are adding on to it. The new addition is at least double the size of the old portion. It was already the largest building in GJ. Now it will be the highest. Speaking of which, I have the photos for 365. I just have to post them. I will make that the next post. And actually, I am done with this post, so I will say TTFN. Tess

What a Week!!!

John hasn't felt good since he had his small surgery. Mostly it is pain on his lower backside right on the hip. The doctor said it was probably the way they had him laying on the table. But it just wasn't getting any better.

Tuesday night he ate very little and went to bed at 6pm. When I got up, he ate only about a quarter of his breakfast and I called the VA. They made an appointment for him on Friday, because the Urologist wouldn't be there until then. They also suggested that I contact his primary care doctor because his white blood count was a little low. So I called his nurse and was told he wouldn't be there on Friday. So I told her I would just take him to the ER if I felt he needed to be seen after seeing the Urologist. (Our VA Medical Center is a small one.)

I couldn't get him to eat anything else that day. Between the pain, and only sleeping fitfully, he decided to go to bed at 4pm. At 11:30 that night, he had me help him get up and lay in his easy chair. He stayed there the rest of the night.

Thursday morning I told him I was taking him to the ER. I had made a soup the day before that was better than anything I ever made before. I got him to eat about a cup of the soup for breakfast. Then I got him dressed and headed for the VA. (Of course it is a 2 hour drive.) One of the reasons I decided not to wait, he seemed to have more blood in his foley bag than urine. After 13 hours, there was only about 5 oz. in it. When we got to the ER it was his Primary Care doctor manning the ER. No wonder he wouldn't be there the next day. (Being ER Doctor is for 24 hours.) I told him, I expected him to send him up to a ward. I don't take him to the ER very often, but usually he is bad enough to keep him.

So after doing an x-ray and bloodwork they did indeed keep him. He had a raging infection (again) and he was dehydrated, but his stent that was put in last week had some blockage. (Ya think?!) On Friday they gave him a cat scan using the yucky white stuff he had to drink before hand. They could see there was definitely blockage. So they were going to arrange for him to go to St. Mary's, (the regional hospital) to do a test and possibly put a tube into the kidney and drains into a ball coming out of his back. So we waited, and waited. And in the meantime, no drink or food. Finally it was decided he would not go until the next day. So he had a chocolate pudding cup and some milk and went to bed. It was 8 pm by then.

Saturday, I walked into his room and he had a paper there on his tray that said npo (no drink or food). They were going to try for it again. Then they came in and said it looked like it was working now. So he got to eat and drink again.

That afternoon they used about ten bottles of sodium bicarbonate to clean out his bladder of infection and blood. They did this one at a time, putting it in through his catheter and then draining it out. They did it three times. Once more that night and then once Sunday morning. He finally started eating pretty good. He was feeling pretty good, too.

When I got there on Sunday he was pale again, and they had him on NPO. When the weekend doctor came in, he asked if I had any concerns. I said he looked terribly pale. He said they could do something about that, in fact they were going to give him a couple units of blood. They also took him off the NPO. So after lunch the nurse came in to fix him with a new IV. The one he had was too small to send blood through. She wasn't able to find a vein to run it through. She called in another nurse and he looked for about an hour. Going back and forth from one arm to the other. He actually found one but when he put the needle in, John jumped and he popped it. They then called in another nurse. She found one but his veins would contract when she tried it. Finally they called the ER nurse to come up and she got it on the first try.

I needed to get some of my school work done so I went back to the motel. It was about 3 pm. I got a call from the nurse at 4:15 that he wanted me to come back. Poor baby, he was tied down with the blood transfusion and couldn't reach for the water and wanted me to help him out while they were giving him the first unit of blood. It took about 3 hours. I had to spoon feed him. When that unit was done they then gave him a unit of heavy duty antibiotics. They gave him his sleeping pill and sarted the second unit of blood. I said I was going back to the motel and call me if I was needed at any time during the night.

Next morning when I got there, I found out he had had a reaction to the second unit of blood. He had gotten a raging temp and he had a hard time breathing and some other things. The same thing had happened at St. Mary's when they gave him two units of blood back to back in June. So we now know, not to give it to him so close together.

Monday, I came home. I will have to post what else happened later. I have to go back today, cuz they are going to try another procedure.

TTFN, Tess

LayOut for ASDR4

Here is the layout I made for challenge number 2, as I play along on the sidelines!
You can click here to go to the Elemental Scraps gallery for the credit information.

The photos are the ones I took for days 8, 10 & 11.

It's 3:00. Have you taken a picture yet? I haven't. I guess I better grab the camera and go find a subject!

TTFN, Tess

Day 12

A couple of days ago, I had to go to the laundromat. We have a septic system, so we have a pipe that sends the washer water out to the apple tree. The last couple of years it has frozen up on us, so there is evidently a low spot that water can sit in. So next year we are going to dig it all up and re-do it with pvc pipe.

I had to stop at the store and get a chicken for dinner. I used the checkbook. When I got home I forgot to put it away. So this morning my dh asked where the checkbook was. I pointed at my jacket and said it was in the pocket.

So later, I went to get it, but it wasn't there. Uh Oh! He is the kind who never lets it go. He would still be getting me ten years from now. I had to find the checkbook. I went out to the truck and laying on the drivers seat was the pen that I keep connected to it. But no checkbook. I looked beside the seat. I looked under the seat. I looked behind the seat. It was not to be found! So I went back into the house and got the keys to the post office. Since the only thing on the checks was the PO Box (no phone number), maybe someone found it and mailed it to me.

I started the truck, and went to the Post Office. I opened the door. There it was! IN THE DOOR!

So now you know the story behind this photo!



Until next time...

Tess

Days 8 - 11

I took three of these photos for a layout. I am playing along with ASDR4, so I took these photos for the 2nd challenge which is due today! So as soon as I get these posted I have to go make my layout!

The challenge is CABIN FEVER. In the challenge it is both you and your partner, but seeing as I have no partner, I will do it all.

On Day 8 I took this photo of John. Because we live mostly on a fixed income, and with the price of fuel, we keep the temperature down a little. It is really hard on him, between his illnesses and his age, he runs around with his lightweight jacket on, plus gloves. I also bought him the "Snuggies" from the TV for Christmas. (The blanket with sleeves.)



Day 9

I am a substitute school bus driver. I took this after the kids got on board but before we headed out.



Day 10

John takes a lot of naps. He would much rather be outside, but because of the cold and snow, he isn't able to.




Day 11

This is the final photo for the layout. It is only 30 degrees outside. Definitely Cabin Fever weather and time of year.


I am off now to make a layout.

TTFN, Tess

Layouts for challenges

I had a little extra time on my hands, so I made a couple of layouts for challenges.

This challenge is at Divine Digital. The first Quote Challenge for 2009 and Ronda of Kiss This Designs is the new host for it. Here is the gift we will receive for playing along.



If you would like to play along, here is where you can find the challenge.

My layout is of my Granddaughter, Elizabeth. She has Ausberger's Syndrome, which is a type of Autism. I bought this kit last year and use it occasionally for my grandkids' layouts. The kit is called For the Love of Makayla and it is made by quite a number of designers. I had to go to the Autism Awareness web pages to purchase it. It was actually a donation by all the designers.

This is a photo from Christmas.



Here you can see it in the gallery and see the credits.

Next we have a challenge that is also from DD. This one is a daily challenge, hosted by Laura White [Princess Lala Designs]
& Royanna Fritschmann [Studio RA Designs] and each day they give you prompts to journal and and layout challenges.



You can find it here if you would like to check it out. The nice thing is you don't have to do all of it. And if you do five challenges in a week you get a gift. You don't even have to have them done in the first week (which helps me
since I started on the 7th day lol.)

So I started with day one. The challenge for the layout was to have a thought bubble and two photos and use the sketch to go by.



Since I am working on 365 both in photos and in this challenge, I started a new album to put this layout in. If you want to know about the credits you can find them there. I just love doing vignette to my photos! Of course, I used the process on these.

That is it for now. I will post my photos for days 8-10 later. I haven't yet uploaded them!

TTFN, Tess

Days 5-7

Day 5



I had to take my dh to the VA for a surgical procedure. On the way I snapped this photo of ice flowing down from a pipe running across the Dolores River. The pipe used to carry water to an abandoned house at mile marker 99 on the Scenic By-Way. I will be scrapping a page with this photo to add to the book I am making about Hi-Way 141.

Day 6



This photo was taken of the VA as I was getting ready to go to the motel. My DH didn't come out of the anesthesia too well so they kept him for observation. I was getting into the truck when I noticed my camera and realized I had not yet taken a photo, thus this photo. I have been going to snap a few and make a scrap page of it to put in his scrapbook anyway.

Day 7


Here we have a photo of my new down comforter. It arrived two days early. Although the duvet cover did not arrive with it. But now the comforter will have a chance to fluff up. According to the UPS site, the cover is on it's way to Montrose. Which usually means it will arrive the next day. (Did you know; in Germany the down beds and comforters are hung over the window sill to fluff and air out? I was there in the early 70's.) I can't do that with my windows but I can hang it out on the laundry line.

See you tomorrow.

Tess

Day 4 photo

I am going to school online. Tomorrow it is time to hit the books again. Today's photo is of the login page.

TTFN. Tess

ASDR4 & Hummies World

I am so excited!!! I wanted to sign up for the ASdR4 (Amazing Scrap Digital Race year 4), but I procrastinated and was too late, so I decided to play along anyway. The first challenge is up. It is at Hummies World and the challenge is to scrap a photo that has been ripped/torn at least three times. Oh my gosh, I have never done that. She gives tutorials and a link to download pre-made tears. She has also talked to Atomic Cupcake and gotten them to give out a free action to make the edges torn. That is what I used.
So I took the photo from the other day of the deer and scrapped it. It really shows up those deer and I cleaned the photo up anyway. What do you think?


A little background: The reason it states this is not hiway 141; I am building a scrapbook to donate to the local museum. I live close to the SW corner of Colorado and HiWay 141 is a Scenic Byway. The route is quite beautiful. There are also some historic places along the route. I live 100 miles from the nearest city, so I am making the book about that section of the route. You can find more pages here: Hi Way 141

So I couldn't go to bed until I got it finished and posted it. Too exciting! I love to learn new techniques! I will have to do a few layouts using this technique so I don't forget how.

TTFN! Tess

New Sheets and a new layout

When I went to Seattle, one of the things I did was to go to Linens n Things, to look for some flannel sheets for John's bed. I wanted to get them on sale before the store closed down. I figured I would save the money it would cost for shipping. So Tonya, Ronni and I stopped in there while we were out buying clothes and new shoes for them. The sheets have snowmen/women on them. So today, I put them on his bed. (He got them for Christmas.)
When I put him to bed just now, he said he might not sleep too well, knowing all those snowmen were watching him. He can be so funny!

The second photo I took was of the pillowcase. You see the pink? I bought those flannel sheets a couple of months ago for him. I told him I hoped it wouldn't bother him too much being pink. He told me he was thankful for the warmth of the sheets. He didn't care what color they were! So now, I will put the pink ones on my bed. (I didn't tell him I am awaiting a package with a down comforter and pink and white duvet cover that I found at Overstock.com for really cheap! But it came out of my paycheck so he can't say anything!)


I made this layout today. I went to scraporchard and found a challenge I wanted to do. It is the Fruit Salad Challenge. They tell you what number of papers, elements, fonts, etc. you have to use and it is up to you to make a layout using those items only. This month it is 1 paper, 2 paper strips, 9 flowers, 3 elements of your choice, 2 leaves, 2 ribbons, one font and one alpha. All but the background paper are from the Winter Wonderland Blog Train and the background is from the Christmas Around the World Blog Train. You can click on the photo to go to the layout page for the credits!

That's it for today. I have to get back into schoolwork tomorrow, so not sure if I will post again before next weekend.

Thanks for looking!

Tess

Recent Layouts

I made this layout with Sara Ellis' Happy Blue Year kit that can be found at Gotta Pixel. I had signed up at DST to be a one kit CT and she asked me. I was so thrilled!

Here is a layout I did for a challenge. I forgot where the challenge was at. I didn't get it uploaded at the time I made it, and I have been to a number of sites lately, and unfortunately the computer had an auto update so I lost the site. This challenge was to use wings. It was for last month so it is too late now.
It is a layout of my dh's great-grandson. His family has a hard time thinking of me as grandma, I am just Tess, which is fine. His grandson said I am NOT his grandma, nor will I ever be! lol Anyway, this was last summer, when Gage and I were playing.

The kit comes from LouCeeCreations and is called eu naturelle. I found it on her blog.

Enough for now, way past bedtime!

Tess

Day 2 - Project 365

Here are my day one photos.

I got John up just before midnight so he could celebrate the ringing in of 2009! His robe is too lightweight so he put mine on! ... lol I set up my camera on the corner of the TV Credenza. I decided I wanted to get a little closer a photo... so I zoomed in and took the following photo!

OOPS! A little too close! Cut our heads off! So I missed the midnight hour! If at first you don't succeed try, try, and tried again!

Got it! (Sorry, I didn't Photoshop them!)

...and on to day two...

I went to Paradox today, to the library where my girlfriend works. That library is only about the size of a master bedroom.

On the way home I came across this sign. It is there for unsuspecting individuals.

Unfortunately, it takes a tragedy to get the D.O.T. to do
something. And yesterday someone ran into a cow.
I hope they didn't get hurt too bad.

Not more than a quarter of a mile up the road I had to wait for some deer to cross.

And along the road in a number of places in the next 16 miles were the cattle.

Project 365

There is a new thing going around. (OK, new to me.) It's the 365 days of photos. I have decided to play along, at least it means I will have to blog more often!

So I took a photo of John and me kissing in the New Year this morning! I will post it next time. (I have to figure out what Debbie did with my card reader first. (When I went to Seattle, Debbie decided to clean up my desk area [after I had told her I know where everything is even though it was a mess] and now I can't find anything! She likes to put everything into boxes and containers and put them in the farthest away place she can. I needed a check for Darcy and had left it on my desk, so I had her come over and help me find it. Oh my gosh, now it is even worse. While we were looking I found some one-use cameras I had grabbed from my parents house to get developed. I put them on my desk and turned around to look through another box. When I went to get them to take to WalMart, they were gone! She couldn't leave them there, she had to hide them away!) lol

Speaking of her putting things in containers, I had left my bread machine baking container on the counter soaking, she filled it with grease during my vacation. I could of killed her! But she took good care of John for me so I just let it go.
She is definitely a blonde!

That is all I have to say today! Happy New Year to you and yours!
Tess