Nine, Nign, Nein...

ahhhh, more fun...
So, Lou is doing MUCH better. She had to be dialyzed NINE days in a row... Crap! They took ninety... (wait)... NINETY freakin' pounds of fluid off of her. She's antsy and frustrated and wants to get out of there desperately. But she knows that she has to be patient. The infection has to be cleared up and once that happens, they can amputate the other leg. So that's where things are right now. I'm glad she's feeling better. But I think she knows that she's got a boatload of therapy ahead of her. Not something she's thrilled about, but she knows there's no other way. The one area where she's improved a little bit too is that her kidneys appear to be working again. She's had some output so that's a good thing. Slow steps... anyway. There was one really nice moment that we had that I've never done before. Lou was in her hospital bed and was talking about how anxious and frustrated she was... I told her that nothing I said could change that. I couldn't pretend to know what she was going through. It was something I felt lost about. But I told her that she needed to get into the Word because the enemy would use her anxiety against her. That he would use a spirit of fear against her. She looked at me and said "would you read some to me?" How could I not? I knew she needed some reassurance about herself and about feeling better in her faith. I read her some scripture from Phillipians and after I read it, I started talking to her and telling her about what I thought it meant. I told her about the story of the author of that book, the apostle Paul, and I told her a little bit about his story. How he went from being a persecutor with the name of Saul, to being persecuted as he went fearlessly to tell the Good News as Paul. I think, once I broke it all down for her, she calmed down and began to relax. I didn't tell her that she couldn't feel frustated or upset about being stuck in the hospital... again. But rather, it's okay and human of us to feel like that, and heck, I'd feel like that too. However, do not give dominion to the enemy by allowing the spirit fear to consume her. Of course in keeping with our smart alec sense of humor, I said "Do me a favor? Lie to me and tell me this helped." She laughed and said thanks that she did feel a little more peaceful. But knowing Lou, she'll get antsy again, but I'll keep an eye out for her and let you guys know what's up... I humbly say thanks to you for your prayers and good wishes... It has done more wonders than you know. It has strengthened my resolve to keep my faith entact. Can't ask for more than that!

Slow and Steady...

Well, things are slowly improving for Lou as she was moved out of ICU and into a regular room. But that's because they took a boat-load of fluid off of her and dialyzed her four days in a row. Her kidneys still don't work and they're still going to have to amputate her other leg as well. But she is still hanging in there. I was visiting with her yesterday and she was pretty miserable because of the pain in her leg. I don't how soon till she is well enough to have it removed. But, once it happens, well, it's a whole new round of rehab and learning to deal with being a double amputee. Lou is not a spring chicken. I'm hoping she'll have the energy to fight and continue to live life... Terri is hanging in there. She found out her gyn/oncologist is moving to Columbus and that there is only one other gyn/onc doc in our city who has a toilet paper roll of a list for patients.So after praying on it, she made the choice to follow her doc and make the commute to Columbus, a 2 and a half hour trip each way for her to be treated, sevral-times a month... Meanwhile, nothing else in the land of Mik is going on right now... The gal pal and her mom and Aunt are off on a shopping trip to Tennessee so I'm going to spend some time with my family. As much as I talk about them here, I don't see them as much as I should. But I hope to get to hang out with them a little bit. Plus, I'd really like to sneak in a little golf somewhere along the way... I miss hitting that little white ball all over the place. It takes my mind off of things and I can laugh about how lousy I am at it...

(Tell Me Why) I Don't Like Mondays....

My apologies to the Boomtown Rats... But I've gotta tell ya, I've had better days. Lou got rushed to the hospital and is in ICU. She has a ton of problems going on with her and I got a phone call at work today from Terri who was bawling and said that Lou was taking a turn for the worst. I went numb. I got in my car and drove over there. I went into the ICU and was expecting to see a very grim and bleak scene. To my relief, I saw Lou with her eyes open, awake, and alert. They told me that her blood pressure was in the toilet but when I looked at it for myself, I was feeling a bit better. She has got a real long road to go... dialysis, removing fluid from her, and they've made the decision that she's now going to have to lose her other leg too... This whizzes... but I'm trying to keep my thought process on the fact that she can still have a quality of life if they can treat her other issues... Lots of things going on with her... Say a prayer if you could, okay? Thanks. Terri is still trying to deal with her own chemo treatment and couldn't go to the hospital and was torn apart over it... But her immune system is so compromised, that she couldn't afford to catch anything hospital-borne... But I went over and kept her updated. It's wierd. I'm frustated a little bit because it always seems that crap like this happens around my birthday. Let's see... Lou nearly exits stage left in ICU. The anniversary of my dad's passing is tomorrow (wednesday). And here I sit, another year older and sitting in an intesive care unit watching one sister fight for her life and then I see my other sister battle at her home for a shot at life... It's tempting to feel sorry for myself... But I know that my sisters would give me a big crap-burger if I did.... here's a perfect example of Lou letting me know that she's still got plenty of life in her....
The scenario: I'm visiting with her in the morning and I step out so that the nurse's aide can help her with a bath. I'm sitting in the waiting room and Lou's best friend Nan shows up. I talk with Nan and I don't see my kid sister Angie walk by and head into the unit. After a little while, I let Nan go in to the ICU to check on Lou. She sees Angie and they proceed to have the following conversation (as related to me by Angie):

Nan: Hi Angie
Angie: Hi Nan
Nan: So Lou, are you feeling better?
Lou: Mmmm... no, I still hurt. And I'm hungry! Get me some food...
Angie Don't worry Lou, lunch will be here soon...
Lou: Okay, so Nan, where's my brother?
Nan: He's out in the waiting room.
Lou (to Angie): go get him and tell him I said to get his a** in here.
Angie: Uhhhhhh....
Lou: He said he was here to visit me but he's out there and that's just bullsh**
Angie (shaking like jello, trying not to laugh out loud): okay Lou....
Nan (jaw aptly dropped and could not get words out)

Even the nurses were cracking up about that one... I've got more hope for her at the end of the day than I did at the start.... thanks to her busting my chops.

Shoot The Works...

Hope everyone is well. Me, it's still crazy but I'm hopeful things will work out as I pray for the best. The girls are still trying to hang in there. They are more durable than the energizer bunny. They (try) to keep going and going and going... you get the idea. Terri's port got plugged up so she had to have another one surgically put in. On the day of the procedure, I go and pick her up at her house for this thing, not saying much cause I didn't know what she'd be thinking about. I figured I'd just play off of whatever she was feeling and roll with it. Well, she gets in my car full of fire and venom. At this point, I'm thinking “uh-oh, what went wrong?” and was preparing for the worst. Anytime I've seen Terri upset, there's usually been a major catastrophe involved. So I'm expecting awful or painful information to hit me between the eyes. When I ask what's up, she barrels into a complete whining session about... about... POLITICS... what the??? I'm over here thinking either she got more bad news about her cancer or something is seriously wrong with Lou... but nooooo... She wants to vent about the election and a bunch of trifle little things that I could care less about. Now for the record, my sister and I are diametrically opposed in our political views. That has never bothered me. We take potshots at each other's issues and it's like a sport with us. She loves to get all worked up and when she does, I start calling her “Norma Rae” from the Sally Field movie and that gets her going even more. She loves to start in on me when I go over to visit her and Lou. She keeps hoping that she'll change my mind and I keep telling her that there will be blizzard warnings in hades before that happens. But we always keep it civil. That's the most important thing. Anyways...
My little sleepy town had it's big city-wide garage sale this past weekend. Part of the Independence Day celebration. We had people that came in from all over to our little plot of real estate and see what deals they could find. I found a computer and monitor (old, but works) for two dollars. We also had the fireworks on Saturday night at the beach where tons of people from different towns came to the lake to see it. The beach was absolutely packed to the gills with humanity. But the folks were all in really good spirits so that really made the whole thing enjoyable. The weirdest thing I saw was people dancing on the beach to the music that the DJ over on the pier was playing. Not that they were dancing. But rather, what they were dancing to... C'mon people... since when do you see 10 and 12-year old kids doing the macarena??? I thought that died a good death back in the 90's where it couldn't disappear fast enough. The funniest thing on the beach was watching people both young and attempting to be young, doing the cha-cha slide and other various forms of line-dancing... in sand!! Let's just say that it's a little tougher to do than it looks. And NO, I wasn't one of the folks out there trying to dance. I was busy watching little kids playing catch with a wiffle ball... I wanted to be out there with them on that... After the fireworks, I walked back over to my house (takes all of 45 seconds or so) and went in and got all ready for bed since I knew I had to get up early for church the next morning. I must've forgotten to pass that little nugget of information onto my neighbors. They were up well into the middle of the night shooting off all different kinds of fireworks and explosives... and the funny part is that we live just down the street from the police station! So I oversleep and wake up less than well rested for church and as I get to my car and get ready to make the 30 minute drive to church, I notice that my car is completely covered in orange and gray powdery soot. It was the residue from all of the fireworks that the folks from the neighborhood shot off in the midnight sky. The street looked like a war zone with all of the leftover and exploded bottle rockets and the other various things. I shook my head in disbelief. I drive quickly to church and just do get there in time for the start and enjoy the service like always. It ministered to my spiritual needs and gave me things to think about as I head into another week of challenges and ups and downs that we all go through, better known as 'daily life'. I left there feeling better about things and when I came and looked at my car, I couldn't help but laugh. I headed for home and stopped at the car wash and my car looked shiny and new afterwards. It was a beautiful day and when I got back home, there were already lots of people at the beach and when I drove down my street, the place had been cleaned up by the city and in the little field across the street from my little house, there were about 6 little kids, under the age of 9, playing baseball. They had one bat, and one ball... no gloves and no bases. I had some old throw down bases that were collecting dust in the trunk of my car, so I immediately got them out and gave them to the kids. You would have thought I gave them gold. They're eyes lit up and they said “you must be a coach or something“... I just smiled and told them to have fun but be careful and I walked back over to my house. I fell asleep but was awakened by my gal pal calling me from Florida where she and her whole family is on vacation. She misses me already... wow, what a novel change from my past relationships. I told her not to worry about me but to just have a great time on the beach and shopping (her two favorite pastimes) and that I'll be busy working (hint: sleeping on the couch) while she's out having a blast. Have a great week y'all, and now if you'll excuse me, I have more, uh, work to do... ;)