My
last post was done a few hours before I got word that my youngest
brother was being taken from one hospital to another because of a blood
clot about 5 fingers above his right outer ankle. So things have been a
bit busy since then.He had 4 1/2 hours of surgery that same night for it, got very upset with his wife/so the next morning when she wouldn't give him something to drink or eat (he was still on nothing by mouth), so he told her they were finished. She told the nurses she was leaving his room since her being there & not giving him something was agitating him. She found a couple of chairs & went to sleep. Later that morning (Thursday the 8th now), I got a text from his 20 yo daughter that the dr wanted to do more surgery, said he hadn't gotten it all, but my brother wouldn't even consider it until he saw his wife. I couldn't get her on the phone - didn't realize she had my brother's cell phone & she had changed #'s & I didn't know it - so was sending texts to the wrong # for her. Finally, my boss said leave, so I left & drove the 75 miles there. Was able to calm him down some by touching his arm, talking to him, etc. He very much wanted a cigarette - was a 3-4 pack a day smoker - was refusing the patch to help him with the cravings - I even told him I would stick it where he couldn't reach it, if they would give it to me. But he never agreed to it. He was in ICU from Thursday morning until Friday, then in a normal room until Monday.
Before I left on Thursday night, he told me if I left, I didn't love him. I told him if he didn't take the patch, he didn't love me! He also told his daughter - after she found a ride to get there, that if she went to work the next day, Friday, that she didn't love him either. I told him he was definitely being the spoiled youngest brother!
I went to work on Friday, then drove up Friday night to see him. Came home, Saturday about noon, I left to drive up again. On Thursday I had sent a text to my sister & oldest brother asking if they would like to ride up with me on Thursday evening, if he were allowed visitors. They both had turned me down. My sister was moving. So when I left about noon Thursday, I didn't even ask if they wanted to ride with me - figured if they couldn't ride up in the evening, why would I think they could a few hours earlier. On Saturday was told by my oldest brother that he would have riden with me - don't know what had happened to the helping my sister move that would have allowed him to be free. But anyway, the 2 of them & their s/o & her 2 youngest children drove up on Saturday - only stayed about 30 minutes before saying they had to leave to find a motel.
Sunday I stayed home to do all our taxes. Got a call Sunday morning from my oldest brother asking if the youngest was still in the hospital - said as far as I knew although there had been some talk of a possible dismissal, if he walked at least with a walker (the foot was still cold, a lump had developed higher on the leg that was painful, but the warmth seemed to gradually be moving down into the foot) - which he didn't do until Monday. So he was held until Monday after he walked. I understand the sister & oldest brother did go back for about another hour on Sunday.
Monday I got a call that he was on his way home & wanted me to come up & spend the night. I told him I did have to work on Tuesday, so he said Tuesday night (I also was still really tired on Monday). I suggested that I wait until the weekend when I wouldn't have to hurry back for work. So the plan was that I would go up on Saturday & spend the night. Which I did. Friday I called to make my Avon deliveries & then after doing all except 1 by noon on Saturday, I headed out. Saturday evening, we went to Salina to pick up his prescription for diabetic monitoring items - he has been diagnosed as being diabetic and was told that the smoking probably was the cause of the clot. His blood is very thick, so currently he is on coumadin & a 325 mg aspirin each day to thin it. So while he hadn't 100% quit smoking, he has cut way down, says when they are all gone, he won't be buying more & his wife says the same. They also are all planning to follow his diet at home so that he doesn't feel singled out. Which isn't a bad idea anyway - pretty much the whole family is overweight by at least a few pounds & most by a lot.
While I was going, I took along some DVD's that I had bought recently from Amazon that are movies we watched as children. Although the ones we watched as children were 8mm silent movies & we never knew there was a sound track to them - Abbott & Costello in the Foreign Legion and Hop-Along Cassidy in Bar 20 Rides again. My brother's son loved Abbott & Costello. Hop-A Long Cassidy meant more, I think, to the 2 of us since we had always watched it, but no one else really cared for it. Anyway, we watched those on Saturday evening, Sunday morning before I left to come home.
He had a Dr visit this past Tuesday to check his coumadin levels. Then he stayed in the car while everyone else did some grocery shopping, so ended up with his leg & foot hurting a bit. Then a PT session on Friday which left him pretty sore. He also went to a band concert for his youngest daughter. Saturday was his wife's family reunion, which he didn't want to go to, but she told him he needed to go. I told him the same - he needs to not think he needs to hide his physical disabilities now (he already had some with his spine & his heart). So he was tired after that.
On a better note, I g
ot
quite a bit of knitting done during this time, but also found out I
misread my instructions for shaping, so ended up taking most of it out.
I currently have the 2 sleeves & the front of E's sweater
on the needles. Should have that about done by the end of this week.Have been looking online for patterns & such to be used in the May newsletter for the Carolinas Machine Knitting Guild I belong to & help with the newsletter for. I try to have all that done by the 15th of each month so that the editor can have it all put together for us to proof-read before the end of the month as we must publish on the 1st of each month. So I am behind on that. We had a couple of back ordered products at work come in, so we had to work on getting those orders all right back out the door. And now the owners have decided to launch a fundraising plan for churches, so we have been printing, signing, folding & stuffing & printing envelopes for that this past week or so. So lots of things going on at work.
This weekend was the start of the 2 nights in a row plan for the grandkids visits with me. Since I no longer am working at my son's gym 4 evenings a week, I decided to expand what the grandkids got to do with me by 1 night. It also will mean most of the time, that it saves me some gas now that they live 30 miles away. I always take 1 of the grandkids on the weekend that our soon to be sil gets his daughters - their mother brings them to Hutchinson or South Hutchinson to be exchanged, so if I pick them up on Friday evening & deliver them at the same time I pick up a grandchild, I can not only include 1 of his daughter in dinner with us before heading home, but they can bring his daughters back to their mother on Sunday & pick up the grandchild I have. Which means neither of us will need to make two 60 mile round trips on that weekend to get them all exchanged. Except this weekend & the next 2 coming up - he didn't have his daughters this weekend for whatever reason, but will have them for 2 weekends in a row after this, but next weekend isn't my normal weekend with the grandkids & the following weekend is our 33rd wedding anniversary weekend, so unless our son boxes in MO that weekend, I don't intend to have grandkids or anything like that. My dh should be off work on Friday & Saturday as his normal 2 days off. So thinking about getting tickets to a dinner & show for us. They almost closed this theatre, but another group took it over finally. We have gone 2-3 times in the past & I really want to find a time that I can take all the grandkids & the soon to be grandkids to it
.
They will be doing Jack & the Beanstalk from July 9th to
August 14th, so maybe that would be the show to take them to.Friday as I was heading home with my grandson, it was raining on us. We saw a rainbow. I got out of the van to take a picture of the 2 ends & we found that it was a double rainbow!
Hope everyone has a great rest of their Sunday & a good week coming up!
Original comments:
The foot is now completely warm, but a maroonish red on the outer side & was swollen when I was there last weekend. But the good thing of the smoking, I think, is that his wife says she is going to quit smoking also & they are the only 2 smokers in the house.
I never saw the one of Laurel & Hardy, but we always loved running the film backwards so that the jeep went backwards through the bath tent. My bother's son loved the fish with the dentures also! He just kept talking about it!