(Kay) Inquiring minds want to know. Why is July the worst month to be in need of emergency medical services. Is there a logical reason or is it just one of those weird statistical things?
I haven't thought about writing a children's book in years. Maybe I will start one. I am bored more than anything, I think. Jim made me promise not to (insert long list here.) since there would probably not be anyone around. No one gardening. Raining all week.
If I ever decided to write a horror story sat in a hospital, it does not sound like I would lack for material.
Cando1,Jim is gone for the week. I will ask him about the trees when he gets back. That is more his area. One of the apple trees he planted is producing this year. Jim is not much into hunting but, if the deer start taking an interest in his apples, venison is a real possibility. Do you have S.A.D., the winter blues?
More Disabled Gardeners, Laughing with Joy ...
Because July is the month when medical students all over the country move up a notch. Medical students become interns, interns become residents - Birdie can probably explain it better than I can. They graduate from "school" in May or June, find out what hospital they've been accepted by (which pretty much determines their career), put a labcoat on and presto, they're "Dr. So-and-so". They're not necessarily smarter or more confident in July than they were in June.
Raining all week? Gee, it's raining all week here too, since April!!!! No, we had one hot day in May, and I'm not using the bed-heater or flannel PJs much, but we're still not using fans! In July!! Crazy!
Carrie gave a fine explination of the medical staff rotation and shift in July ^_^ I always hated that month when I was working in the hospital or even in Medical case Mgmt. Just when you know the good Drs...shoop! all gone to a different rotation or as Carrie said to a different Hospital.
Pray for the patients, pray for the nurses, pray for the world! (Pray for the Drs too)
(Kay) I received the most wonderful b’day gift today. The very first of Amargia’s “crop of wild children” called today with b’day wishes and to tell me what she has been up to lately. She has started something that vaguely resembles Amargia, except she is totally focused on edibles and just seeing everyone has fresh food.
I had to call Jim and share. He was thrilled because he considered this young woman a lost cause. We bailed her out of jail only last year for assaulting a police officer. We are talking about someone with hair dyed magenta, tattoos and body piercings. Punked out to the max! Now, in a year’s time, she’s become a respectable citizen with a social conscience? Maybe, the strange magical influence of green growing things? Or, she saw the Big 30 on the horizon and just decided to grow up? A miracle? Doesn’t matter. My mother had one about looking gift horses in the mouth.
I have to see what she is creating for myself. (Figuratively speaking, of course. Visual references are so much a part of speech.) ) Jim would usually give himself weeks to recover from the trip he is on. But, has already started making plans to drive up to see what she has done. (4 hours. one way.)
Solitary living skills are beginning to kick in, Cando1. After a dinner last night of watermelon and popcorn, I decided to do some real cooking just for myself. Might even pull out candles and the good china. Why not.
Carrie, I was just talking to my sister in Vermont. She cut the phone call short when her husband told her the sun was out. She wanted to go outside and see it. Getting that bad, huh?
Very Happy Birthday Kay. Popcorn and watermelon is definately a lonely persons meal and i've had plenty of them. But just think how good you were, you ate veggies and not candy. ROFL.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAY! You let Jim be gone on your birthday?
My birthday is celebrated around here like a national holiday, Ray would never go anywhere or do anything else. I'm amazed he even goes to work. This year he woke me at 12:01 am and said "let me be the first to tell you happy birthday." Then all day, birthday-birthday-birthday, and then again at 11:59 pm (I was asleep, of course), "allow me to be the last person to say happy birthday!"
I think it comes from living for so long in a marriage that was like a police state. He is so relieved and astounded that I am nothing like his ex-wife (even 12 years later) that he gets overexcited. And this is not a autocracy, I don't inform him what he has to do for me and how much he has to spend and how big of a loan he has to take out to pay for what I want! He can pretty much make as big or little a deal as he pleases. He can't forget, of course, but he wouldn't.
Oh, yes, Kay, the sun was out most of yesterday - it even got a little warm a few times if you sat in the sun. I think May has finally arrived, if only it warms up enough for me to take off my long underwear!!
This message was edited Jul 10, 2009 9:25 AM
long underwear in July!? OMGosh am I glad I don't live in MA - I couldn't take the winters and couldn't even enjoy the summers.
Carrie, I have a question and really would like to be educated. I don't mean to be intrusive, but I guess I don't understans MS ads much as I thought I did. Anyway,.... I have read you speak of being positioned in a wheelchair where you couldnt turn it yourself, yet also of driving and i think cooking. How is that possible? Do you have fluctuating periods or episodes of changing functional abilities?
My biggest challenge is my emotional health and depression. I so admire those of you who have profound physical challenges and seem to maintain function and a feeling of worth and use. I'm sure that living alone and isolation are my biggest drawbacks....no one to answer to or to ask me to get up or do anything. I mean if I don't eat or bath or change my clothes or anything, noone sees or cares, even me much of the time, so....
anyway I have just wanted to understand more about you ^_^
Have a blessed day my friends,
Sheri
MS involves plaques or hardened areas where the insulation covering the nerve itself doesn't function. Mostly the effects of MS are the result of the brain not being to communicate with the rest of the body. The body has all these automatic feedback systems built in that go on all the time without you even realizing it.
For instance, if your feet are cold, your feet's nerves send a message to your brain saying "we're cold" and your brain responds by sending a message to the blood vessels in your feet to dilate so more blood will flow to the area. With MY feet, they will send a message to my brain saying "we're cold" and my brain will get the message "you're old" and it will agree, and maybe divert more blood away from my feet and to itself so it can think. So my feet are ALWAYS cold.
I use 2 wheelchairs, the comfortable one, which is manual, and the painful one, which is electric. (I don't wheel myself in the manual usually - it was never suggested and I've never really tried to do more than a few feet. You need special gloves which I don't have.) The electric chair is liberating but is painful, too.
I drive a wheelchair-adapted minivan with hand controls. I am almost always accompanied by a family member or a PCA. I used to do my own transfers - say 10-12 years ago - but I used to fall frequently, too, and need the fire department to come pick me up. I'm not sure if I'm less able now or I'm just more cautious,
Typically, MS involves progressive disability. With me, I got very disabled within the first ten years of my diagnosis and have been fairly stable for the last fifteen years. Cautiously, neurologists say I have bottomed out. (It could get much worse.) I have nearly normal use of my upper body. I have nearly normal use of my brain, most if the time.
The visible symptoms of MS can be things like foot drop, staggered gait, inability to write, slurred speech, and more hidden or concealable effects are cognitive stuff like perseverating or word recall problems, urinary and bowel incontinence, inability to regulate your body temperature, depression, immune changes, sleep changes, fatigue, etc. It's a little like those drugs that cause diahrrea and/or constipation.
Lots of morbidity, very little change in mortality. They don't know what causes it, maybe lack of vitamin D. DH going to bed - more later. I could type forever about MS - it's not intrusive.
Carrie, Thank you so much. Much of what you wrote was what I had thought . I did not realize that it could so differently effect the upper and lower limbs though. Now I understand your activity decriptions that had me puzzled at times. I never worked in Neuro, so pretty much only had what I remembered from nursing school.
So you have had this since your 20's it sounds like. I think you are blessed to have a faily that loves and suports you and , of course, medical & ins coverage for the PCA's.
G'nite ^_^
Sheri
Good evening. This is Kay Smith with today’s Amargia news. Not as interesting as what is on your 10:00 local news, but probably not as scary either.
Canna lilies, lantana and moss roses are coming into full glory. I finished the base concrete work on a new raised bed. Will begin decorative work tomorrow. It is in the garden dedicated to my mother so I think I will give it a Native American motif, but sort of funky and 1960ish.
Your DH sounds like a keeper, Carrie. Jim’s brother and I shared the same b’day. We called ourselves the “finer niners.” This year, though, I thought the day should belong to him alone. They scattered his ashes on the 9th at dusk on Chesapeake Bay, as he wanted. I am very close to brother’s wife #1. The grieving widow is #2. It would have been socially awkward for me to attend.
Cando1, can I borrow your Chihuahua. My big, bad, mongrel farm dogs are not doing their job. Six of my Roma tomatoes had bites taken out of them. You know, I would not mind sharing if whatever it was had just taken one and eaten it. But, it just went around sampling. I have this image in my head of two armadillos or opossums behaving like people at a wine or cheese tasting.
One says to the other, “Excellent texture, but a bit too much acidity, don’t you think?”
BirdieBlue, love your descriptions of what is happening with the baby birds. Like their getting feather nubs. It allows me to "see" something that I can't actually see any more.
Thanks carrie for describing Fibro so well. Your DH is definately a keeper. I'm so glad you found each other.
Sherri, you did a great job describing bad depression. I felt the pain. It is so hard to get across that depression is not a momentary downside but a dibilating pain hanging on to you for dear life dragging you down into a bottomless pit, and when you look up it is so very far to normal again. Our problem Sherri is that wehave to fight not only will do but also can do.
The CHF makes me feel sometimes like even tho i breathe in Oxygen. It simply is'nt enough. esp in hot weather. I don't go out in it either. I'm also having small pains in my chest most of the time.
Kay, be glad to loan you my mean lil dog. I went out this evening and found something taking bites out of mine too. Think mine might be a turtle.It's fun watching a frustrated Cricket try to attack a turtle shell.
I loved your news comment. would'nt it be nice to watch the good things that happen. I've got petunias,coleus,marigolds,zinnias,lantanas,hostas,oriental lillys,and a few late daylillies blooming. Tomatoes cukes and peppers to pick.I'm a very lucky person tonight.
Speaking of Lucky. My DD has a 60 lb dog named Lucky. a couple of years ago she went to visit family for a couple of weeks and i too care of her pets. Lucky decided to get out and go find DD. He took off down the road at a trot with me after him and calling him. He got as far as our neighbors. He took one look at their big emus. Tucked his tail and ran back home and he's a very brave dog. I still laugh at what he must have thought of emus.Probably thought he was in Jurrasic(SP) Park.
Cando, I'm so sorry, you probably explained this before and I forgot, but what is CHF? It doesn't sound fun, but we're all trying to have fun despite whatever gets in our way. Love the images of Lucky scared of emus, and the cricket attacking a turtle!
Kay I understand better now why you had to spend this birthday alone - totally understandable, and even, dare I say, gracious.
Sheri, yep, one of the definitions of MS used to be that be that it had to be multiple locations and multiple occasions.
Kay - I once taught a blind friend how to crochet by describing the moves and the way the yarn fels with each stitch. It was so incredibly exciting for each of us as she progressed and even made a lap blanket. I would love t describe those Bluebird babies.
When tey first hatche they (all 5) were in a little pink clump about the size of a golf ball with heads that looked very odd because ther were as big as the body. It is so amazing how each day or 36 - 48 hourperiod the amount of growth and change if so aparent. I'll take a picture one evening and then the nest day take another picture and they will be quite obviously filling up the little nest cup aboout 20% more. by about 1 week old they have grown to fill the cup about the sixe of a nice peach an actually lok like little birdies. During that first week the main thing visible is when they stretch their necks very tall (once they can, of course - which is about at day 3)...anyway, they stretch that neck up about an inch and oen wide their mouth and the inside is an incredibly bright yellow. I mean it is like a bulls eye for the parents to aim at with the food. A friend posts pictures with a camera mush better than mine an you can see how the parents just cram a whole wad of mealworms into one babies mouth and down the yellow throat. It's no wonder they grow so fast.
I hope that enabled you to "see" them a bit better, Kay! ^_^
CHF + Congestive Heart Failure. the heart just doesn't pump well enough to get a sufficient oxygen supply to the body, so the person is always weak and feels out of breath.
OOPs, sorrry...the nurse in me answered......didn't mean to answer for you Cando
^_^ Sheri / BirdieBlue
Oh, Kay - Bluebirds also do something unique. they "wing wave". Using one or the other wing they will wave and sort of greet or call or direct each other. It is very cool to observe. Sort of one of those "aha" moments where you do a double take cause you can't believe what happened actually happened!
That is why sometimes I will sign off by saying-
Wing waves to ya,
BirdieBlue
This message was edited Jul 11, 2009 10:05 AM
Thank you, Sheri, I appreciate both the CHF translation and the description of bluebird babies. I do not observe things closely enough. It's lovely to see details through your eyes that i never would have noticed!
Sheri, YoU did a great job describing CHF. I've noticed you have a gift with words both describing and rhyming. Keep up the good work. We love it. I can just see those rascally bluebirds waving to mom and dad, Hay!! i'm over here. i need food more than anyone else does.
Today, i'm going to make a broccoli casserole and peanutbutter cookies for my grandson,who comes on his days off to help me with chores i can't do. He is a God send. He burned the trash and mopped floors for me. Also have to pick more tomatoes and cukes and water my flowers.
Guess i better get busy
Sheri, you DO have a wonderful gift for description. Now, "Wing wave to ya." has a new clarity. My aunt taught me to knit when I was young and I enjoy it. But, there just isn't much use for knitted things this far south. Maybe, when gardening is no longer possible, I will sit around and knit sweaters for people in Maine or Minnesota. LOL.
i just got back home from serving at church to help prepare for tomorrows services. reading your notes to me brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for the validation and kind words. Each of you means a lot to me and I pray for your peace and strength and joy.
Wing waves of love to ya,
Sheri ^_^
Oh, Kay, you could knit things for meeeee!!! (wing-waving!!) Sorry to be so self-centered; I used to be able to crochet hats, then I knit a beautiful scarf for my lousy ex-husband, then after that my hands wouldn't work well enough to knit. (whine) I used to sew, I used to knit, I used to take boring clothes and take the buttons off and sew exciting buttons on instead, and now all my creativity is expressed through flower gardening.
The sun has come out and it feels like May or maybe early June. No way is it halfway through July! I have little green golf-ball tomatoes.
Maine, Minnesota or Massachusetts, of course. I will provide sweaters for people in all those cold “M” states. My aunt also tried to teach me to crochet, but I was a teenager when she made that attempt. She would have had better luck if she had tried to teach a fish to ride a bicycle. I bought an audio book on how to crochet this spring. I think I will make another attempt at it this winter.
I need to find things I can keep on doing. I may be able to deceive other people’s eyes where my age is concerned, but my bones and joints KNOW how old I am. The pain is insignificant compared to what most of the people reading this thread deal with. But, I worry sometimes what will happen when I can no longer literally run off my nervous energy.
I might hold you to that, Kay, come October!
Age and gravity get to all of us! Then the creaks, pops and leaks set in. Some of us get to experience additional surprises with our changing bodies and systems, but no one escapes being surprised by some change or other during this trip called life.
My post just disappeared.
It's not here either...oops!
(I hate when that happens!!)
I guess it is like my mother said when she was first diagnosed with lung cancer and told her time was short.
"Well, I guess, no one gets outta here alive." Now, for the Good News.
This is Amargia’s Weekend Report.
The infamous garden terrorist, Houdini, The Goat, escaped once again and perpetrated an attack on Mindy’s wildflower area. Mindy, an Amargian-at-large, a vegetarian and a proponent for the rights of incarcerated livestock vetoed the suggestion that today’s menu include Cabrito en Fricase (Puerto Rican goat stew.) She states officially there will be no retaliation
Kay reported multiple UFO experiences about her head and shoulders while sitting on the deck. A rational explanation for the mysterious experience has been discovered. Hummingbirds were protesting the fact their feeder was empty.
A controversy arose regarding the name that Amargia has bestowed on the neighbor’s mule. Critics allege the name “Don Quixote” while clever and literary could be misleading as regards to species. The mule had no comment. His mouth was full of watermelon rind. But, a source close to the mule says the mule doesn’t care what we call him as long as we call him when we have good things for him to eat.
In the absence of our designated lawn mower, Jim Smith, the bahia grass has began raising its “victory sign.” Those distinctive V-shaped seed heads. Hurry home, Jim. You remember what happen last time a certain V.I. got her hands on the riding lawn mower keys.
That is the Amargia Report for Sunday, July 12th.
Have a great evening, All.
Too funny!! ^_^ ^_^ ^_^
Thanks for sharing this, Kay!!
How many sources are close to the mule? (Inquiring minds want to know.)
A good reporter never reveals sources.
So YOU'RE the one who's friendly with the literary mule?
O.K., O.K., so Don Quix and I do have this watermelon thing going. But, the watermelon season is short and Jim will be back soon.
I feel sorry for Don. He is all alone. There are some horses across the road, but they won't give him the time of day. He has only goats for companions. And, besides, he has the cutest ears.
Oh how I love goats. I adopted a mom with 2 hr old twins that needed bottle feeding a ffew years ago. She was pretty old and had very mad mastitis (a tumor I think). I had them for almost 2 years an loved them so much. I would love to have another one, but it wouldn't be the same as those hand raised babies. I really was their "Maa" and the even called me by name!!
edited to correct 'mastectomy" to mastitis"
This message was edited Jul 13, 2009 11:12 AM
Sheri (Bird), that sounds so adorable! May we call you 'Maa' too? ^_^
Seriously, you seem to have a very strong, loving nurturing side.
aww shucks****blushing***
^_^
Birdie, Sitting on the deck watching the antics of the goats is how Jim gets his laughs. They do some hilarious things. Because of that we forgive their occasional garden raids. I don't think a fence has been made yet that can keep baby goats in.
Oh my , I just had a very enjoyable flashback memory of my 2 babies on my back deck waiting for me and their bottles. They couldn't have even been more than a ;week old. As soon as they knew i had the milk, got stampeeded and they woulkd be at the back door calling "Ma-a-a". I vinally took a roll of wire and wove in in and out across the picket fence at the loser level. Seems like I had to make about 4 or 5 pases. thaat "woven fence" kept them in with Mom. I would go back there with their bottles, a larger container of the formula and a bucket to carry it all in. Jimmy always ended up across my lapdrinking from a bottle in one hand and Cindy would get as close to me as she could for the bottle I had in the other hand. then of course when they would empty those and it was time to refil, lots of milk got spilled from them butting and pushing. My Mom came over once that I remember to watch and laughed so hard that she lost it (literally!) (I think I loaned her some shorts) Jimmy was white and Cindy looked like she had been lightly sifted with Cinnamnon over a white coat (thus her name, of course). I would have animals all around me if i could, but my 4 acres is now inside the city limits (annexed last year), so no more "livestock". I wouldn't be up to the 24/7 12 month care requirements now anyway. Last I knew, about 5 years ago I received a picture of Jimmy and Cindy perched atop a plywood lookout trilevel platform "mountain" at a roadside farm "petting zoo" in VA. They were babies around 2001 or '02, so they are probably still charming the travelors. Jimmy would "play butt" is I made a fist and said that as I held my hand out. He was very gentle and both were dehorned.
Well, thats my baby story for today.
Birdie
Awwww. And now they're at a petting zoo? What a wonderful retirement home for them. Sheri, you paint a hilarious picture! We were at a petting zoo once in upstate NY when my kids were four or eight or ten (?) and we had bought bottles of stuff to feed the baby goats and lambs with and I was in an electric scooter. I DIDN'T have the formula - the girls did - but I must have reminded the animals of something or someone, because they all tried to climb up onto me!!
Well, either I have missed a "continue" link, or else no one has written here in quite a while.
I rescued a small buff colored kitten from way up in a Dogwood tree , He was also pretty for out o thd i and sizing up the jump to the neighbors roof was on 2 side of the tree trying to sweet talk him down. It took nearly a half an hour, but he finally made it, slipping and sliding and nearly falling ore than once. He made a little 12-15" jump into my arms and just immediately began to purr like a motor boat. I couldn't leave him outside i my yard and didn't want him loose around all my bird feeders, so I brought him 9now named "Dogwood" into the sun-room. So he has his own room. I fixed him a bowl each of water and dry cat-food. Nest thing I did was to fill a pan with kitty litter from a new unopened bucket. After I had taken his litter pan over near his food and water, I turned around to find that tiny little rascal squatting down in the bucket of litter. Well at least that let me know that he was litter trained. Wish I had gotten a picture of him squatting in that big bucket. I could barely see is eyes up over the edge!
We took a nap that afternoon and he cured up in the crook of my arm, using my arm, shoulder area for pillow. He does the cutest thing: will turn around like most animals do in a circle to make a "bed",k then when he lays down, he reaches out with one or the other paw and grabs the tip of his tail which he then pulls up to his mouth to suckle like a pacifier. I watched him do that numerous times. This is apparently a habit that he has had for a while, too, judging by the rather "automatic" way that he grabs out for that tail. I actually held it for him a couple of times, so that he could relax and suckle without having to hold it in place . letter I awoke for my ow potty stop and went o to my bed. We napped together 3 times during that 1st 18 hours or so. Then on Wednesday we wend to the low cost spay neuter clinic for Feline Leukemia virus testing Praise the Lord! He was Negative!!! So he got his other shots and we came home. Dogwood is absolutely terrified of Elvis, so I will always believe he was fleeing from Elvis when he climbed up that tree. Yesterday we went to visit my regular Vet and spent the night to get "things nipped in the bud" this morning, He will be coming home this afternoon. I'm off for a nap myself. I fell asleep here at the computer last night
I will post a picture as soon as I can load the pictures. Dogwood is the color of coffee withLOTS of cream in it and has white paws. His fur is very clean and no fleas. a purrfectly healthy wikld adolescant male . And just in case anyone is wondering,....Yes, ....he has adopted me!
~~Sheri~~ ^_^
Sheri, does it sound like he was domesticated before? Being litter-box trained, etc? Best of luck on your new best friend, Sheri!
And no, there is no new laughing with joy thread - I haven't been laughing too much recently, myself.
Yes, Carrie, he must be someones pet that escaped, but I have seen no "Lost Kitten " signs up, soooo........
I know that pets can escape, but no lost pet signs make me think "irresponsible" pet owner. If this was an In/outdoor cat, why Han/t he been neutered yet?
Anyway, he has been now!!.. My vet thinks Dogwood is just the cutest thing, and he also has made a big hit with the other staff also. They reported his use of his "handy pacy" where he was awaken foam surgery. I got him some toys when I got kitten chow. Unless he is back asleep, he's probably "killing" the yarn puff ball on top of an 8"coil spring that comes out of the middle of about a 8- 10" carpeted square. He was jumping and grabbing an goin nuts over that a few
I sure will be happy when I can oad and share some pictures with you all. He sure keeps me chuckling!!