Surgery/Post Surgery.

Well, I am 12 days out of surgery. I would say I am doing OK...sorta. Surgery was May 27, I went back a week later, just for a dressing change. The nurse & I both went "Oh no" at the same time as the dressing came off....the whole top of my foot was swollen & lobster red. Doc was in surgery. She took a couple of pics & sent them to him & he had her take one of the pins out the toes. (3 of them had these pins down through the top of the toe-they are abt 3" long). He thought one of them might have been causing the infection as it was working it's way out & had a lot of stuff on it...my body just rejecting it. Happens sometimes. So she pulled the pin & they faxed me in a prescription for antibiotics. I had been cheating & not using both my crutches. I'm allowed to put weight on it as long as it's the heel of the foot. So I was using one crutch or my cane. That was a big no no. I'm supposed to use BOTH crutches ALL the time and stay off it as much as possible & when I'm not up to have the foot elevated. I went back to the DR the next day & saw him. It already looked 20% better (he said). I agree, it looked better. I go back on June 10th to get all the stitches taken out and the other 2 pins. I have a permanent screw in the big toe. like on the other foot. I hope this stops the ulcers on these toes. It's got to help.

I'm being spoiled and going crazy. Rich did drop me off at the nail salon Thursday & came back to get me after I was done. I will be SO glad when I can drive. I could now....it's my left foot, but the Dr. prefers I don't. That way I won't be tempted to "go shopping." LOL Like I'm SUCH a shopaholic. I have been getting a lot of crocheting done. I finished one & got it mailed to Sandra's daughter who had a beautiful 8 lb baby girl! (some of you might know her from journaling...Labdancer51.) Although they live in England, I've known Sandra for a couple of years from AOL journals. When I found out her daughter was having a girl & I wanted to make her a baby afghan, I was thrilled...the past few I'd done were for boys. I have a couple more to make two for boys and one I don't know the sex of yet. I think I will do a green & white one.

Other than my surgery, life has been as usual. The girls are having a ball out of school. Swimming almost every day. Our oldest granddaughter, Ashley left for Washington on June 2 for her annual trip to visit her Mom. I know she was looking forward to it. Unfortunately I didn't get to see her after my surgery, right before she left. I wanted to give her some "mad money" in case she ran across something she really wanted, but i'm sure she will be fine money wise. I also wanted to talk to her about the Twilight series books. She is one of those who encouraged me to read them. I'm almost done with book two and i can't believe how much better it was than the first book & the first book was really good. Very very easy reads.

A very good friend was going home from work late Wednesday night when he had to stop for gas. Of course at a self serve station. He was robbed at gunpoint. The guy asked for his wallet & his keys. He only had $14 on him. I HOPE he's got the locks changed on their house. I haven't talked to him since Thursday so don't have anymore details. I am just glad the guy was satisfied with what he got and took off. It's a scary world out there. I heard a statistic that 1 in 3 people in the United States will be touched by violent crime. Sad isn't it? Scary.

Well, it's getting late. Hope all is well with you all. I will try to get around to your blogs when I can. I can't seem to concentrate on doing much online. LOL

Love you all! Have a good week!

Monday Morning Minutes

Good Morning one and all. I guess that's the appropriate greeting even though I haven't been to bed yet & it's 6 a.m. Slept too late today so I guess that 's why I was so wide awake tonight. I've been watching television most of the evening & doing some crocheting. I have 3 baby boy afgans to get done by Oct. Shelby has been repeatedly asking me to make her a new poncho which I will....if I ever get caught up. LOL I asked her if she'd like to have a fluffy scarf instead. She considered that & told me maybe...if I let her go with me when I get the yarn. LOL
I am happy to report that in the past week of so I have had a lot of pain relief. I WISH I KNEW what caused this happy occurence. We've had a lot of humidity & I thought the change of weather was what was causing it. It's been trying to rain off and on for over a week, so I'm starting to think it's NOT the change in barometric pressure. LOL Whatever, my hands have hardly had a twinge and my feet have been livable, so this has been. I guess someone had OTHER plans for my body this past week. Thurs night I noticed discomfort in the two toes on the left foot that still have (small) wounds. I take off the bandaids at night to let them get fresh air. They were very swollen & inflamed & felt warm to the touch. "Infection!" I thought. Called Doc first thing in the a.m. & he called in some antibiotics. They have helped but it's possible that my surgery Wednesday may have to postponed. I am not sure how I feel about that. It needs to be done. I DON'T want to have the surgery of course. I do want to stop having infections & ulcers on my feet. Anyway we'll have to wait & see. Plus these antibiotics give me horrible heartburn. The price we pay.
My sister in law had her surgery a couple weeks ago. She is doing very well. I was shocked that even though she had 2 plates and 8 pins, they only put her in a boot. She is allowed to take it off & flex & turn her ankle. Wheat harvest is about to commence (in KS) if it hasn't already. I sure hope she doesn't try to get back to it too soon. I worry about her being too bored & thinking she is ready to do more than she should.
Well, I bettter hit the hay, as the farner in me says. LOL Oh yeah. I'm a real farmer. I can't even grow weeds correctly.
Will let you know if I get the surgery.
Love y'all.

Just a quick entry. I don't feel like writing a long entry.I am crying because I am in pain. A lot of it. My feet, my hands, my knee & and my shoulder/back. I strained a muscle down the lower part of my neck into my shoulder blade area. It 's NOT getting better. I was at the ortho doc. I forgot tell him about it. He probably could've given me a shot. Nothing else is helping. He was pleased with the progress of a couple of my wounds on my feet. One that has been open for 5+ months is completely healed . The one on the other big toe is still not healed but a lot better. The 2nd & 3rd toe on the left foot...same. He has decided he is going to operate on the toes on the left foot. 3 of them, maybe the 4th one too. He wanted to do with within the next 2-3 weeks and they couldn't find a slot for me until May 27th. The man is OVERBOOKED everywhere. They turn under (like hammertoe) so he will release a tendon and put a screw in the big toe then take a joint out of the other toes. Did the same thing to the right foot a few yrs ago. The toes don't bend anymore. I hope this works. It's only was partially successful with the right foot. I'm not asking for sympathy. It's about all I have to write about.
It's beem unbearably hot the past week. And it's only early May. Hopefully the pool will be swimmable in a week or 2. We got the solar blanket on it today. It still has to have a good vacuuming from the dust that blew in a few weeks ago. Ugh.
My SIL's surgery went well. She had to have 2 plates and 8 pins put in. They have it in a temp cast. She goes back Tuesday to see if they will put it in a cast or boot. I am pretty certain it will HAVE to be in a cast. I wish she'd had my orthopedic surgeon. He is supposed to be one of the best there is in Texas, maybe the country. I know he's busy enough!
Happy Belated Birthday (in my blog) to our beautiful granddaughter in Arizona, Addison. She turned 3 on May 2. I saw pictures in her Mommy's blog. Looks like she had a great day.
I'm done for the night. Hope everything is going well with you and yours. I'll try to get by your blog in the days to come. You know me, always a day late & a dollar short.
Hugs,

All I wanted to do tonight is change the layout(background) on my blog page. I've done it several times to date. Now I have html code in two different places & STILL have the Easter background on my blog. I know I'm computer illiterate, but you'd think I'd be able to change a couple of simple backgrounds. Thus....I am A G G R A V A T E D!!! I HATE BLOGGER. I've had a crappy week/weekend (tho not as bad as some) and am just about ready to chuck this blog. I use the site The cutest blog on the block. com. So what did I do wrong? Any ideas????
Facebook is relatively easier. My kids are on there and on twitter, so I may just go over there. I don't know.
My poor sister in law, Jane (brother's wife, in KS) has had a crappy month. She & my brother are farmers. They have farm land all over the county they live in so they are on the road a LOT. A few weeks ago they had a snow/freeze and one of the farm roads (if you can call it a road) had only been graded on one side. So she was driving their small S-10 pickup & decided to get over in that lane so she wouldn't have to drive in the inches of snow. She hit a chunk of ice which in an ordinary truck would not have done a thing but she it just so and it push her towards the ditch. She skidded into the slushy, icy snow packed (from the road grader) ditch and the pickup just hit nose first and flipped over on it's top. She wasn't hurt badly but couldn't get out as she was surrounded by the snow. Luckily she was able to get my brother on the radio who was just a few miles behind her. He dug her out.He called for an ambulance and they got her out. The worst of it was how high her blood pressure was! She was extremely lucky. Not so last Tuesday. They were moving so calves and she was on the 4 wheeler. One of the baby calves was headed straight for the fence so Larry hollered for her to cut it off. She did. The 4 wheeler hit a hump of dirt and flipped her over. She broke her left leg (at the ankle) cracked the ankle bone and thought she had broken her shoulder and/or collar bone. Bless her heart. Larry & another hand were going to try to lift her up into the truck and she told him she didn't think they should be trying to move her so they called the ambulance again. The little paramedic was the same one who ran on the pickup wreck & he told her "Jane, you can call me if you want to see me & we'll go get some coffee. You don't have keep getting into accidents!" That was cute. Needless to say the next few hours were difficult for her. A good friend of theirs is a local dr. but they are in little town of about 3,000. There are 2 fairly good sized cities each about an hour to an hour/half away. She chose to go to the one in Enid OK. (Our hometown in right on the KS/OK line). Her side of the family live down there. They splinted her up and sent her home. She will go back down next week & have surgery on her ankle on Thurs. Thank God her nothing else was broken but she has some very bad bruising. This is going to be hard for her. She is NOT one to sit around reading a book, knit, watch tv, or sleep. She is one of the hardest working women I have ever known in my life. It's 500 miles up there. I should just get on a plane & go spend some time up there. I haven't seen them for almost 5 yrs I guess. With the exception of a couple years ago, they flew down with their Dr friend & his fiance to go to an auction. We got together for dinner then spent half the next day together out at the auction. I used to drive up there often just me and the kids before they were all in school. No I can barely make if 5o miles out of town before I start to get sleepy. For some reason as I have gotten older, the car has become like a sedative and I just cannot stay awake/
What else is up? I found out that my brother Larry (wife-Jane) are going to have a second grandson. They have 2 sons. Matt is 33,autistic & lives in a group home. Mark is 31, my daughter's age. He has a little boy now who will be 2 in Oct. Their new baby will be here in Sept. Going to have their hands full.
It's getting late. Guess I should head for the bed. Hope you have a great rest of your week and a warm and sunny week ahead.

Sick toes and I'm an April Fool

Well, it's official-and I knew it would be. I went to my foot DR on Tuesday & my foot ulcers (3 of the 4) are infected. He marked the red areas with a sharpie & said if the redness moved beyond those lines in the next 36 hrs he was putting me in the hospital because it would mean the antibiotic he was going to prescribe wasn't working & he'd have to put me on IV antibiotics. Luckily it did not. I have been seeing this Dr for about 12 yrs now & I trust his judgement pretty much. He said something about in the future as a proactive measure we may have to amputate half the toes that are the ones that consistently get the pressure sores/ulcers. That would be half of each big toe. Half the 2nd toe on the left foot and maybe the 3rd on that foot. I'm sittin there shaking my head no. It's bad enough missing half of one toe (2nd on the right foot)I like to wear my sandals too much. As long as I can get them to heal without having to be hospitalized then I don't see cutting them off. He said he wasn't talking about any time soon. Subject changed. I'm using silver nitrate sticks on them & sivadene (burn cream) & 3 of them are healing up well. One was pretty bad. I let it go too long. I should have called him at least 2 or 3 weeks ago. The one on my left big toe has not been completely healed since before I was in the hospital last Nov.! Definitely a slow healer. The baseball size bruise I got from hitting my calf on the corner of the girls' bed has barely changed in the past 3 weeks or so.
On a lighter note, I don't think I have EVER been such an April Fool. LOL My 27 yr old son, laid off work with ENTIRELT too much time on his hands (LOL) got me quite a few times. First, I'm rushing out the door to the garage and my hand slips of the knob. I'd just wiped my hands on a paper towel, so I grabbed it. I thought it was Crisco or something, but it came right off...it was lotion. LOL He was already gone for the day on a field trip with one of the girl's class.I get in the car & this prob that I've got with my car not coming out of Park happened. I FINALLY got it in reverse & I make it to the retina DR only 5 min late. I knew he wouldn't let the day pass w/only 1 prank. I noticed when I got home that my bed had been made very neatly. Now, he will make my bed on occasion, but usually doesn't. I wanted to take a nap but I was sure he'd put something in it so I crashed on the couch. I hadn't gotten to sleep much the night before so I crashed hard. He slipped in quietly about an hour before school was out & set to work creating his pranks. LOL I woke up about 30 min after he got home, according to him. I had to run to the restroom. The lid was down on the toliet. I yanked it up but brought up the seat and lid-he'd used clear tape and taped the lid shut to the seat. LOL So he got me! I grab the toliet paper and baby powder goes flying out between the layers. LOL Prank #3. I sit down at my computer. My mouse doesn't move. he's taken a two sided piece of tape & taped it down (Richard's too). Prank #4 on me, I had a diet coke, being the addict that I am. I use the same straw several times. Evemtually it will crack or get a hole in it from stabbing the ice or something. Nothing comes up, I get a new straw. LOL So my straw wasn't working, I got a new one. I did several things. By this time my other son, Chad & his little one, Hailey were here so I was distracted. I sat back down to my coke and my straw had a hole in IT! Then I looked at it and could tell it had been cut. Tommy couldn't contain his laughter. He'd done prank number 5 & 6 now. He'd gotten Chad with the baby powder toliet paper in the other bathroom. LOL After a while I get up to fix another diet coke. I keep a butter knife on the counter lying on a cloth napkin. I use crushed ice so I use the knife to chop the ice so it doesn't clump into one ball. I pick up the knife which was stuck to the napkin! Again with the dbl side tape. Prank #7. I finally got him to tell me what he'd done to my bed because I wasn't going to get in the bed until he fessed up. I guessed it. He'd made an envelope with the flat sheet so your feet could only go into the bed a couple of feet. We left that one for Richard. When Rich got in the bed, he came back in here & half angrily said, I put my foot thru the sheet. And I was laughing and said "What?!" He then said "April Fool's". The girls were gotten too. He put clear stapping tape facing out across their door. He told Shelby to run put her book bag away. You tell her to run-the girl runs. LOL She ran smack dab into the tape at eye level. Cracked her up. We tried to set it up to get Mackenzie but by then she knew something was up & she spied the tape. They thought it so funny to run through the tape they asked Tom to put it across the kitchen door. It wasn't real sticky so to "get them" Chad & Tom held the tape-tightly. Thinking the first one to cross the "finish line" would break the tape...they both got to the doorway at the same time and bounced off the tape. LOL I got a couple back on Tom. While he was still gone on the field trip I took a handul of jelly in a paper towel and smeared it across his (vinyl) chair in his room, his doorknob and the first Dr Pepper can he'd reach for. Just another jelly to make it sticky. Oh and he taped across the opening of my diet coke box in the fridge. The girls and I swapped out the inner pkgs of cereal. We put the cocoa krispies in the raisin bran bos & vice versa. Then I filled the sugar shaker up with salt. He always has a healthy dose in his morning coffee. Of course they couldn't contain themselves about the cereal & finally conned him to giving them each a cupful of each of the cereals for a snack. Of course he knew something was up by the way they were excitedly coaching him. But for their sake acted appropriately "FOOLED."The next morning, the girls were the same way as soon as they woke up. "Aren't you going to make your coffee Dad? You always have coffee in the morning." PLUS he'd filled the sugar shaker the day before & I didn't have enough salt to fill it up completely so he tasted it before he poured it into his coffee. LOL So I didn't get him there. We decided to make a rule about the pranks. Nobody gets hurt, no big messes to clean up, and nothing vulgar. LOL He's decided it's his new favorite holiday. He's always been one to do something....anything for kicks and grins. He should be a comedian. He IS a funny guy.

So once again, I've turned this into a marathon entry. We're having wind, wind, wind, and dust, dust, dust everyday. We were under a high wind advisory tonight. The high Sat. afternoon was 79 and Sunday is supposed to be 54. If we don't get some moisture soon we're going to dry up & blow away. The ciry is raising the water rates dramatically & the more you use the nore your increase is going to be. NOT FAIR.
Well, hope you had a safe & fun April Fool's day. And you're enjoying warm weather and NO wind. Love you all. Barb

Weather Roller Coaster

Well, the past few days have been a weather roller coater and the forecast for the coming week looks like the same thing. Maybe not to the extreme we had last week. On Thursday it was 80 degrees. Friday we had snow and temperatures in the 20s all day. The snow would cover the ground, stop, sun would come out, snow would be gone then start snowing again. AND SO WINDY. Not fit for man nor beast. My tulips had bloomed already & were almost done, so the few that were left bit the dust. Saturday was a lot better. I think that the high was in the 40s. Today it was 76 this afternoon. I made a hearty beef stew on Friday. It was so good. The girls at the rest of it for dinner this evening.
My son, Tommy quit smoking on the 26d. I aim so proud of him. It's his 3rd attempt. I hope this one sticks. He took the girls to see Monsters Vs Aliens yesterday. The girls LOVED it.
I've done nothing all weekend. My 12 yr old granddaughter & my daughter both have read the Twilight books and raved on about them so i started the first one. I have several bay afgahs to finish and I haven't quite mastered crocheting and reading at the same time. LOL
Oh and the best news for last, our daughter is being baptized next weekend. We were terrible parents & never took them to church on a regular basis. Richard being a lapsed Catholoic and me never finding that Church home I felt good about. I am super pleased about her decision and think it will make nothing but good changes in her life.
Hope you all have warm beautiful weather this week. We will be mostly warm but windy about every other day. LOL Take care. Love you all!!

Who Can It Be Now?

I have had several people say I had no link to my blog on my profile. I had somehow unchecked it on my profile settings so hopefully you should be able to find me. I wondered why I hadn't heard anything. I KNOW my posts are long and excruciatingly boring...LOL but come on!HEE HEE I have reset my profile and hope you stop by soon.
Today (well, Sunday) my one & only daughter is 31. I am getting too damned old. She has stopped by three days in a row "to check on me".When your kids start checking on you, shouldn't you start to worry? LOL I have been having some issues, but I'm not quite to the point where I need her to drive across town to check on me. I mean I love her to come visit. But that constant look of concern is starting to freak me out. I think she's scoping out her inheritance. LOL Just kidding. It's not like Tom, Richard and the girls aren't here...EVERY SINGLE DAY. LOL
Ever hear the kid's poem "10 little monkeys, jumping on a bed, one fell of an broke his head, Mama called the Dr and the Dr said, No more monkeys jumpin on the bed. " And it continues to count down till there are no More monkeys jumping on the bed. Well, I wasn't exactly jumping on the girls' bed last night, more like hopping off. The corners of there be are SO freakin sharp and I hit the side of my calf on the corner of their it. I'm now blessed with a purple bruise about the size of a baseball with a scab in the center. Ouchie.
I laughed under my breath at something 7 yr old Shelby said the other day. She scraped her back at the park, scratched her tummy sliding down something, skinned her elbow when she fell of her bike, bumped the back of head after a fall off the monkey bars....She seriously said to me "you know gramma if I get one more owie this week, I'm afraid it just might kill me." I did my best not to laugh out loud & told her that was a good sign, It shows she's going out there and playing hard. And a busy week it has been. Spring break is over and it's back to school in the morning.
Well, I'll check after this post to make sure that my blog is on my profile. Stop by anytime.
Luv n hugs,