Thanks for the positive thoughts and the prayers. I don’t really know what
Stage 2 means – except that the disease is not limited to the single
tumor, as we’d hoped. But Ginger is much too good of a friend to put her through
anything more than Dr Pat suggested when Walt told her that we can’t
afford to take her to a canine oncologist because it is very doubtful that they
would suggest any course of therapy with which we could agree. What kind
of life would Ginger have, should we agree to any kind of radiation
treatment?

It’s been hard enough trying to keep her quiet while the wound heals where
they removed the tumor – and she can’t understand that is for her own
good, and that we’re only keeping her quiet this week so that she can run like a
crazy dog next? I know that none of us have any promise of tomorrow, so
why should we expect more in relation to our funny fur-baby? We shall enjoy
her while God lets us, and while she enjoys life – be that weeks or years -
and with a diagnosis of Stage 2, it could be anywhere in that range.

We will be treating her with Benadryl 50 mg twice a day – Dr Pat says that
this will minimize the effects of the histamine that the MAST cells will
continue to produce, and hopefully keep them from going crazy and
producing another tumor. We will ask about Prednisone, as that was listed as a
common treatment in the information I read. Other than that, we will let Ginger
be Ginger, and thank God for each day we get to enjoy her.

There’s a give-away brewing over at “BumbleBeans!”  I just had to share, because 1) it’s been WAY too long since I’ve posted anything on here and 2) this is just about the cutest bag I’ve ever seen!

So hurry on over to BumbleBeans and answer this question:

In my dreams, if I’m not sewing, I’m _____________________________… It looks like she’s been gardening because she has all these gorgeous pictures of a lush garden – it’s been so dry here that everyones’ gardens just turned brown and blew away. So I’ll just keep following her blog and continue to have both garden envy and string envy… <VBG> It’s amazing that she’s got that cool of a garden all while living in NYC!!!!

Run, now, run! The give-away ends August 1!!!!

Well, Monday came, and when I got to work and called home, as usual, to say I’d made the commute safely… I got a recording that said “this number is not in service… if you feel that you’ve reached this number by mistake, please hang up and try again”…. Well, I was pretty sure that the reason was because yesterday was the day when we were to get high speed broadband internet, and digital phone service…. and for much of the day, evidently, DH and the phone people spent some quality time on his cellphone trying to talk through this thing…. end result, we now have lightening fast internet – well, sometimes it is and sometimes it’s hard to tell there’s been a change… and we also have a computer desk (mine) that lost the castors off one end, and it’s very disconcerting to type while you are holding the keyboard tray ever so slightly to prevent it from sliding back into the desk… while looking at a monitor that has a strange list to the right – sorta looks like the Titanic did shortly before…. well – you know what happened to the Titanic!!!!

And I don’t know whether it’s our ever changing weather or whether something magical, called healing, is finally taking place inside my knee. After our Sunday drive, in search of bluebonnets, my foot swelled up something awful – spent the rest of the day with it elevated as high as… well, you know that story too… and Monday morning it was good as new. I spent much of Monday at work with it elevated a bit, as well… and noticed when I got home that my leg seemed to feel stronger – less… different from  my other leg. And this morning, for the first time, my knee did not feel stiff or achey when I got out of bed… It may only be a fluke or it may be because of the weather changing – but a relatively pain-free morning is such a wonderful new experience that I had to share!!!!  Maybe… just maybe… life may be starting to settle into something that can be tweaked a bit and known as “normal!”

Just a quick update, with no pictures to make it interesting or anything… This could have been titled “February Went the Same Place as January” but it won’t be.

Mid-way through my knee rehab, I had to have my knee aspirated and went almost back to square one in the healing process.  The wonderful Nurse Practitioner at my Ortho Clinic worked with me to teach me how to get the persistent swelling down,  and advised that, because of the osteoarthritis of the knee, it could just take quite a long time for the knee to heal completely. I’ve managed to get it to the point that she agreed I could return to work, with pretty strict light duty restrictions, and she re-injected the visco-supplementation stuff they washed out in the ’scope and WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!!! The first go round was sheer torture – likely because the little particles in the viscosupplementation stuff (ground up rooster combs or whatever it is) got wedged in under the tears I turned out to have in my meniscus. This time, I iced and elevated as directed, and had 2 almost completely pain free days. What a change!!!!

But I must go get my lunch packed, and gather all the things I need to take with me  to make it through a day with this knee, like my cane, ice pack, ace wrap, and the work releases… And find my truck keys – they would likely come in handy!!!!

Wish me luck.

The following post will make more sense, if you read it with the following information:

For the past 2+ weeks, I’ve been mostly “in my nest” on the corner of our sofa, with my leg elevated and iced. Well, in the past week, it has come down for trips to the physical terrorist (sorry Jeff – you really aren’t so bad, and I know that you are doing this torture stuff for my own good!)… I have not been completely incommunicado, because I’ve had my DH’s old laptop, but sometimes it and I do NOT communicate too well. So, I started a blog post back on January 13 – 5 days after having 2 meniscus tears repaired, and other flotsam and jetsam cleaned out of my knee, but it disappeared into the bowels of the laptop without letting me know that it’d been saved as a draft… And there was no wonder my knee hurt so much – there were way too many “tenants” in a single tenant dwelling. So without further ado, I’ll leave you to read the slightly zany, slightly drug induced ramblings from back then, so I don’t have to re-write the whole dumb thing:

Wow – how did it get to be 2009 already? I suppose when one is distracted by getting a vehicle repaired, and dealing with work while coping with knee pain, time just sneaks past you.

Yes – the knee thing is official. I had the arthroscopy on my knee last Thursday, and I didn’t have a torn meniscus. I had TWO tears. Both of those have now been “repaired” and, unfortunately, the other diagnosis of osteoarthritis of the kneecap has been confirmed. Doc told my DH that I will eventually need knee replacement surgery – could be 2 years but could be 20. I’ll opt for the 20 year plan, thank you very much.

Now I’m busy with what I describe as “Combat Knitting.” Because of allergies to some analgesics, and a chemical resistance to others, pain relief seems to be an issue. So I have taken up sock knitting. Because I must concentrate on the pattern in knitting, I have learned that I can knit my way through some of the pain. In my head I chant “one more row – one more round….” I’ll take something for pain when I finish this section – and before I know it, I’ve gone past my “mini-goal” and haven’t had to take anything more than the anti-inflammatories that I’m suppose to take on a regular basis.

That concludes the ramblings of a deranged knee-repair victem… and, if I can find it in this computer, I’ll share a picture of the first of my sock knitting successes. I called them “Grinch Socks” because, while just learning to knit socks, I certainly did NOT want to waste money on yarn when I have boxes of the stuff in the closet. I just didn’t have a lot of variety in the baby or sport weight, and nothing in “sock weight”… But the Grinch Socks do keep my feet warm, as long as I have another pair of “real” socks underneath to keep them from slipping off my feet! And I’ve almost finished a pair of much prettier socks, done in Baby Bernat Jacquards “Easter Basket” yarn. But you’ll just have to come back and see those next time. Look for them labelled “Bobbie’s Knee Socks” – they are only anklets, but…well… there’s this knee thing that I have working here LOL

First Ever Completed "Grinch" sock

Oh yes, you must excuse the attire – I only had a few pairs of PJ pants that would fit over the lovely foot to thigh bandage that I came home with, and had to endure for 3 full days… What a relief it was to get that thing off!

Later~~~~ I have a pretty sock to finish knitting!

Warm wishes from our house to yours

Sorry that I’ve been so bad about posting recently. I’ve been fighting a problem with my knee since mid-October, and it’s made it uncomfortable to sit at the computer for very long at one stretch. Consequently, I’ve spent my computer time “lurking” on my yahoo groups, collecting tutorials for Christmas giftees, and trying to keep up with those of you in Blog-Land who have been prolific writers.  The doc finally decided this week that what had been treated as osteo-arthritis of the kneecap is really probably a torn meniscus, so they will ’scope my knee and hopefully it’ll be almost good as new. Unfortunately, because of the upcoming holidays, I have to wait til January 8th, so I’m hopping around with a cane to catch me on those times that my step is not solid, to prevent my landing from being so!

Wednesday of this week found a very unusual phenomenon here in SouthEast Texas… SNOW!!!! I love snow, but much prefer it when I’m safe and warm at home – NOT when I’m trying to get home. It turned my 50 miles commute into a 2.5 hour endurance match, made even more uncomfortable by the fact that I’m in a rental car, instead of the Toyota Tundra that normally provides me a feeling of safety during my commutes. It’s in the shop because it did it’s job well last week and protected me from THIS:

Not Ford Tough

Thankfully, the driver of this truck was not injured, and though I was shaken and sore, neither was I. Tundra did sustain some injuries, but NOTHING like Mr. Ford. The nice Toyota people said that they should have Tundra back, good as new in a week to 10 days. Then I can relax a little on my commutes, instead of nervously occupying the “rent-a-can!”

Gotta head off for work now, but I promise to try real hard to be more diligent about updating this here blog more regularly!!!

It’s been so long since I posted anything, that’s probably what you’re saying to yourself. It’s a phrase that’s been bouncing around in my head a lot lately – guess that means there’s plenty of empty space for it to bounce in. So much in life seems to have changed since Hurricane Ike came through our part of Texas – much of it having very little to do with Ike. Just that’s sort of a time line that most folks around here gauge things by. You know how Texans are…. Well, maybe you don’t but most of my life I’ve heard things compared to mutually known places, events, people. Like when I first got into EMS in rural Bandera County many many years ago, often you’d get directions to a patient’s location in “next to” or “just past” so-and-so’s ranch, or where the barn burned down last summer, or across the road from such and such…. The final parrallel was often drawn at the Lone Star Ice House – it’d been there for more years that I had been, and after whoever was giving me directions realized I was (in Maine terms) from “Away,” they’d break down and use that as a landmark.

That’s the reason it was a bit of a shock, this weekend, to drive down to the Bolivar Peninsula, in search of closure, I suppose… To see what Ike did, or didn’t do to the things, places, people that we held dear, if only in our memories… Swede’s Store was at the end of the road to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. They lived near the Intercoastal Canal – close to the north side of the Peninsula. Here’s what’s left of Swede’s Store:

Swede's Store - Crystal Beach, TX

After seeing Swede’s, I was a little nervous about what to expect to see when we got up Crystal Beach Rd, after all, we’d already passed miles of almost total destruction.  This is a view of one area, near what was Gilchrest, on the Gulf side of Hwy 87:

Gulf side of Hwy 87, East of Rollover Pass

As we continued west, there wasn’t much on the north side of Hwy 87 either. Sure there were some houses, or pieces of houses still standing, but by and large, a lot of the area looked like this:

North of Hwy 87, east of Rollover Pass

People fishing at Rollover Pass 2 months Post-Ike

Well, this post is getting really long, so I’m going to save the rest for another post. Let me end this one with a reassurance that many many businesses had painted on the sides “We WILL be back!” And all along the peninsula, Old Glory still flew in the breeze, some a little wind-blown, along with the Lone Star flag, on poles, where houses once stood.

Tho' battered, we will persevere!

 If you wish to see more pictures from our road-trip down the Bolivar, you can check out this album, or wait for me to blog more.

http://www.pics.squawkboxnoise.com/thumbnails.php?album=7

 

A short time back, I was ecstatic to find that I was the winner of one of the give-aways held by Nancy, who was celebrating her 500th post at “Blogging, Near Philadelphia!” My prize – the gorgeous contents of this basket:

When Nancy notified me it was being mailed while I was on vacation last week, I was sooooo excited but in a bit of a quandry as to when I’d find time during my “stay-at-home quilting retreat” vacation to work on it. Well, the US Postal System took that delimma out of the equation – they delivered it on my second day back to work! What a wonderful pick-me-up!!!!

I’d share a picture but the reflections from the ziplock bag were too much for my meager photographic skills… Take them out of the ziplock???  Not a chance! I sneaked a peek and the fabrics are just as wonderful in person as they were in Nancy’s picture only there are many other colors you can’t see in the basket. However, I want to make sure that I keep them all together, don’t mix in any ‘rogue’ 1990’s scraps, or lose any of these lovely pieces.  This coming weekend, while I’m off again, I’ll find a basket to keep the leader/enders in, so that I can keep them seperate from the ones I’ve got in my current  leader/ender container – and GET MYSELF BACK IN THE HABIT of using the leader/enders, a-la-Bonnie, so that I can make this quilt while assembling the border (Whatever that turns out to be) for my “If I Had a Nickel” quilt.

So, I’d like to say “Thanks again Nancy” – there are wonderful quilt-makings in there, along with a lesson in the value of consistently using the leaders and enders. Hopefully I’ll be sharing a picture of the “real-deal” before long!  Until then I’d best get dressed, and get on the road to Planet Houston, or I’ll be late for work because it’s raining, and it’s a proven fact that Houstonians, when mixed with commuters, don’t fare too well on the freeways!  And I can hardly wait to get back home to admire my new quilt kit some more!!!!! Nancy – it’s the best!

I went and got the Wal-Marting done, after stopping by Hancock’s and picking up the background fabric for my original fabric choices for Judy’s Star BOM. A nice bone Kona cotton, and something called Bridget Gold for an accent. I like them ;0)

On my way home I ran right into a HELL of a storm. The closer to home I got, the worse it got. Just as I turned into our drive-way, DH called me to tell me NOT to come into the subdivision – but he was a little too late. I stopped fairly close to the front of the driveway because it was raining and blowing so hard I couldn’t see. It was rather like being INSIDE a washing machine on spin cycle. When it finally died down enough that I could pull on down the driveway, I saw DH’s brother, his fiancee’ and our nephew running next door to Mom and Dad’s house. While I was in the “spin cycle” a tornado/microburst/straight line winds from Hades had snapped a big tree in front of his house and buried his son’s jeep, his fiancee’s pretty little red Mustang, and landed with one end smooth in the center of the cab of his truck (which is now on the seat of his truck) and the middle on top of his mobile home. It’s a REAL mess…  

That was about 3:00 this afternoon, and the power just now came back on. Now there is a pine tree on the old logging road across the ditch from us that is hitting the power line and burning.

We came through relatively unscathed but when the power came back on, we learned that there is now a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico and it appears to be headed straight for Galveston Bay – just down I-45 from here. The storm is supposed to make landfall early Tuesday morning, and the insurance adjuster said he won’t be able to make it to BiL’s until Tuesday. What a way to end a drought – when it rains it pours. And what kind of name for a storm is Edouard, anyway? What happened to the manly names like Bill, George, Ferdinand, or Gilbert?

To make matters worse, I didn’t get to wash my new background and accent fabrics for the BOM… In fact, I’m not sure I even told DH I bought it…. Shhhhhhhhhh ;0)

Hope everyone else had a nice, BORING Sunday!

Yamel Jager Merino, EMT-P
 age 24 
Yonkers, N.Y.
MetroCare Ambulance

Died September 11, 2001

at the World Trade Center

We will never forget.

We must always remember

all the others whose lives were lost, or changed

Read more about Yamel

I never met Yamel. The things we had in common were that we were both female paramedics in an industry that is primarily male (EMS), both got up the morning of September 11, 2001, and went to work for a private EMS provider, and she died while caring for those in need. I came home.

I will always remember. I can never forget.

WE MUST NEVER FORGET.

 The above is my post from September 11, 2006 on the 5th anniversary.  And, no, I did not forget – I wanted to write something new to show that I still remember Yamel. That I still think about what happened that day almost every day. I remember driving into Houston and how strange it was to have empty skies. Those of you who have been into Houston from the north will understand – the freeway I frequent is in the flight path to Bush Intercontinental Airport, and it is very eerie to see the sky completely empty of air traffic. I think of that time, and the feelings I had in those days often.

I have not forgotten, nor have I joined the ranks of those who seem to think that we will never be attacked again. I choose to live. I choose to honor Yamel Merino’s death by trying to make sure that I live each and every minute given to me to the fullest. No – we must never forget.

I CHOOSE TO REMEMBER