Just Numb

 Yesterday I went to Dean and Stephanie's house to meet with all four of Linda Lou's children, my stepchildren and her two nephews and her niece. That was the closest thing the family will have to a funeral for we do not believe in enriching funeral directors. Some day soon we'll have a little get-together of our friends in the Program for Linda Lou died with almost 25 and a half years clean and sober. Someday I will tell some of those stories, I'm not quite ready yet, although I told a couple of those stories to the kids, along with how I threw her number 2 boy out of the house for farting in my face and laughing about it, several times. Only my near-legendary patience and gentleness allows that boy to now have five kids. Note: I only threw him out once, he farted several times, due to my position, and his, he was farting in my face so, out he went.

 Anyhow, I', still pretty numb, I'm not sure how long it takes to process this. I have just barely started to pack up her clothes, took a batch of her house dresses to our neighbor Patsy and am going to be shocked at how much space I'll have in the closet.

 So, don't expect much from here until I'm ready to put out the ad:

 Help wanted: Chubby girl with low morals, must have a passion for housecleaning.

 

Linda Lou Davis. 11/23/45-6/26/13

  Linda went home today, about thirty minutes after they disconnected the ventilator. I discovered that they could not do the tracheostomy because they were sure she would have died during the procedure. At any rate she never regained consciousness and died peacefully. The hospital people did everything they could think of.

 Linda Lou was the daughter of Emit Elmer and Jesse Mae Henderson, sister of Martha Wilson, mother of Andy Romero, Robin Corner, Michael Corner and Stephanie Rosnett. Granny to nine hairy legged boys and two beautiful girls. Wife to a guy who never did deserve her.

Say Goodnight Linda Lou.

 Well it's about over. Linda Lou's Kidneys have failed and her blood count has gone south. The Docs tell me that within five or six hours after we stop life support she'll be gone.

 I'm keeping her on life support for long enough for the twins to get here.

Very Slow Progress

 This morning the hospital peeps lowered Linda Lou's Oxygen* level in her ventilator from 100% to 70% and her Oxygen levels in her blood stayed fine. So they then turned the sedative drip off to see how she would breathe on her own. That's when Stephanie and I went home for lunch.

 We got back and the hospital staff had turned the sedative drip back on, seems that Linda Lou was struggling a little too much to breathe for them to be totally comfortable. Still they then cut the Oxygen level to 60% and her O2 blood level stayed good. So, I'm taking this as some more slow progress. Still I'd take it kindly if the prayer posse keeps at a steady canter.

  * I can't remember, is Oxygen a common noun or a proper noun where the "O" should be capitalised? Lordy it's been a long time since high school English classes.

One Step Forward, One Step Back.

 Linda Lou is still heavily sedated, asleep (unconscious?) almost all day and night, still intubated with a ventilator. The good news is that the MRSA is finally knocked down, little progress with the pneumonia, so far. My hope is that the anti MRSA drug down to a holding level the anti-pneumonia meds might work a little better. Of course they've fed her so many antibiotics that they've killed at the "good germs" and now she's got a fungal infection. So now she gets an anti-fungal drug pumped in through one of the three hundred and fifty-two tubes that enter and leave her.

 Early afternoon: A turn for the worse, she's developed a condition known as B. I. C. or B. A. C., the Doc had a difficult accent. Anyhow she is bleeding from one area and clotting in another. At any rate this has a fairly high mortality rate, in the neighborhood of fifty-sixty percent. That's the bad news, the slightly better is that since they discovered this and started treating it, her platelet count is improving some. We'll know in a couple-three days.

 I'm going to pray some, then go curl up like a sick bear.

Another Bunch Of Straw. Poor Camel.

 S yesterday I was having my first cup o' coffee and the case manager from HealthSouth called and wanted to know how Linda Lou was. I suggested she walk down the hall and ask her, whereupon she explained that LL had been taken to the hospital. So after I told her that the folks at HealthSouth were too durned important to tell me about minor details such as life, death and emergency hospitalization I asked which hospital, of course, being the case manager she couldn't be expected to know such insignificant details. Grr!

 Eventually we found Linda Lou at Medical Center of Plano, the same hospital where all of Stefanie and Dean's Boys were born. Seems she is in the critical care unit with Pneumonia.  I saw her yesterday and she was in a full oxygen mask. This morning they sedated and intubated her. She will be out at least 'til tomorrow.

 While all this was going on I went to a Doc-in- the- box and discovered that the Sinus Syphilis and Lung Leprosy that Linda Lou had given me was really only a bad case of Bronchitis. So I got a week's worth of stout antibiotics and told: rest, fluids and take my pills.

 Anyhow, Bingo T. Pug and I are going to follow the Doc's orders and I'm going to sit around, read the Internet and take naps. I'll go see her tomorrow if she's awake.

Dear Ralph:

 Ralph, I know we don't talk much, you being busy in Congress and all but here is something I don't understand, maybe you can help me here. It's been a long time since Civics class in high school but I seem to remember that the Federal Government can't spend a nickle without that nickle coming through the House of Representatives.

 Yet here we have the Justice(?) Department spying on reporters and we still haven't got to the bottom of the Justice(?) Dept. running guns to drug cartels. We have the IRS treating right of center citizens differently than leftists and, worse, foreign relations of Obama. And we have Obama promoting the woman who lied on national TV about Benghazi.

 Congressman Hall, pardon me for being a" pore dumb redneck" but with all this going on why does the Justice Department and the IRS and the White House still get oceans of taxpayer money? I understand that certain factions of the government hate us but can't we make them hate us with their own money?

 I know there are parts of the IRS and Justice Department that are essential to the country. I'm pretty sure, though, that if we cut the budgets of the White House by some eighty percent and the Justice Department and IRS by a hundred percent until they straightened out this problem of Obama and company thumbing their noses at Congress and, by extension, the citizens of the United States of America, would stop and quickly. 

 Ralph, we haven't much time to save the country, it's way past time for you folks in the House to step up.

Adventures In Suburbia!

 So the other day the medical types decided to send Linda Lou back to the hospital where she got her knee rebuilt. This hospital, Dallas Memorial is right off the LBJ Freeway in an inner ring Suburb on the north side of Big D. I don't remember when they built this road, I simply know that it's been under revision and repair since they opened it. So, first they had to wait an entire day for a bed to open, then they brought the ambulance and took her to the wrong hospital, a place in an outer ring suburb to the east. Seems that one of them is Dallas Memorial and the other Dallas Regional, neither one actually in Dallas.

 I wonder, was this normal idiocy or is Obamacare taking over? Of course turning our entire medical system over to a gaggle of politicians, lawyers and IRS goons if far beyond normal idiocy.

 Anyhow, they finally got Linda Lou to the right hospital at four AM. Sigh. The plan is to go into that ankle Monday sometime and take out all the rods, screws and other hardware, sprinkle liberally with antibiotic beads, insert what new hardware they think should go in and hope like heck that surgery #7 is the magic one.

Friday was Karson's first day of summer vacation. He graduated from Day Care and will enter Kindergarten in the fall. His momma was babysitting a little girl just learning how to walk and so when her afternoon naptime came up I drove Karson  to the Cabellas in the outer ring suburb north of here. We looked at all the taxidermied critters and the fish an the aquarium, then we walked around some. The Great Ammo Panic of '13 is easing, there were lots of various centerfire rifle calibers, handgun ammo is coming back and a certain amount of shotgun, including buckshot. There was no #1 buck in 12 gauge, though, and not a single .22 LR round in the store.

 From there we went to the "Library of Guns" the room where they have the collectible rifles, shotguns and pistols and revolvers.  There were lots of special edition Winchester 94s, a takedown Winchester 92 and something that almost made me cry, an almost pristine Griffon and Howe sporter 1903 Springfield. Then we looked at an old Colt Single Action in .32WCF. Nine thousand dollars. Considering that these were usually a boy's first revolver and one could buy a new one, with a box of cartridges and a holster for a twenty dollar gold piece, well, we've come a long way. Actually one can still buy a new Colt Single Action for a twenty dollar gold piece, what has come so far is the devaluation of our money.

 From there we wandered around some more and ended up at the fudge shop. I got chocolate and Karson got Monkey Business. Then he didn't like it and ended up with my chocolate. I didn't like the Monkey Business, either. If you're ever in Cabellas and wander up to the free samples of their fudge, try the chocolate or the peanut butter.

 We stayed gone until after naptime and then we got home to Karson's brothers who start their last week of school tomorrow. Unbeknownst to me my wife and daughter have decided I will stay here until the Fourth Wednesday of June. In the second bed in a room  with a tenyear old boy. Please kill me.