The girls and I had a LOVELY time in Nashville for Annie's birthday, last Thursday. I'll do a separate post for that with pictures, even though it happened before what I'm posting about here.
The storms last Friday didn't amount to much. I felt kinda bad for dragging Lon home with us, but it was sweet of him not to mention it, or rub it in that nothing actually happened.
Saturday was a little nuts. Not putting much detail up about that, here, but suffice it to say that things did not go as planned that day. But we were able to discuss it as a family and come up with some good solutions and plans. It was still an emotionally draining day. We didn't go to church, and didn't go do anything in the afternoon either.
Sunday morning started early with a phone call from Michael, the fellow who Annie is subbing for on his paper route, and will eventually take it over from him. She was supposed to meet him at 2:00ish to go help roll papers and ride along on the route to learn it. At 5:00 he calls and I don't even say good morning, I just say "didn't she show up?" he says "I dont' know if she did or not - I just woke up myself!" She HAD shown up, but got there a FEW minutes late and THOUGHT she saw him leaving his neighborhood, as she drove in, and so, didn't want to call since they have young children, and she didn't have enough gas to drive to the warehouse to see if he was there... So, she came home and he calls us at 5, wondering if the three of us can just knock out the route, because he has to be at work at his other job at 7:00. So Lon and I and Annie raced out, and ran his route. Got it done by 8:30, not bad. He usually tries to leave the warehouse by 4 with all the papers rolled. We got the papers from him at 5:30, only about 30-40 of them were rolled, and we were all done delivering only 30 minutes past the deadline. Two of us were madly rolling in the back seat while the other drove, and then, eventually we switched around and one was navigating, one throwing and one driving.
Since we were up, and running, we got home and got busy on the garden box projects, etc. Made good progress on that. EVENTUALLY I WILL get a picture up. Promise. It's raining today, so I'm not able to put the finishing touches on, as I had hoped to do.
About mid-way through the day Sarah was holding her cat, who has not been feeling particularly well the last few days. Just a tummy bug of some sort... we had thought to take him in on Friday, but were not sure he needed that, then after the vets had all closed, I googled what might make a cat start going poop other places than the litter box and what I read made me rather nervous - it said it could be a Urinary Tract infection which can progress quickly to life-threatening, particularly in young kittens. So, we kept a close eye on him. Sabbath - at about 10, I was thinking, well, our vet DOES have Saturday hours, maybe I should call, and see what she says. Turns out their hours are 8-10 and I called three minutes after they closed. So, Sunday, she went, at one point, and picked him up, from where he was resting, to cuddle him a bit, and he was SO limp and unresponsive I dropped everything and we ran him to the Emergency vet. $350 later and 20 minutes of sweating bullets that he might have FIP too, like Elliot did, he was diagnosed with a 'fever of unknown origin' and given a fluid infusion and some antibiotics and we took him home. Scary.
Oh, and I didn't mention that about 30 minutes before all of that hit the fan, Tommy started BALLING up in his room - apparently his hamster had died. No idea why for certain, but probably WAS a UTI on that one though. Poor guy - he took it pretty well, though, really, he was not that close to his hamster, it was not a very tame one. Still sad.
There was a gal posting on Craig's list that she had river-rock that she wanted removed, and we could have the rock. We need some, for the cob buildings, so we went and drug home three loads of rock. The little kids were AMAZING - Lon and I could not keep up with them, carrying the buckets they filled, to the truck/van. We got three loads. Probably $150-200 worth of river rock. YEAH!! Only bad thing was, apparently on the last trip home, Lon hit a critter of some sort. No one could see whether it was a fox, or a cat or a opossum. But the kids were kind of upset anyway.
Then we ran to the store to get a few things for the garden boxes and THANKFULLY Lon and I both went. When I ran my card it got declined. I checked the balance on my phone and it was FINE, so I figured my magnetic strip was just going bad. Lon had his card, and it ran fine. Still got that panicky feeling in my gut though.
On our way home from that trip, Annie called and said "Can you hurry home, Logan seems to be crashing again" - she thought he was not responding, etc. We were almost home anyway, and by the time we got there, he was fine, so apparently they had just woken him up, and he was just groggy. But I still got another shot of adrenaline in my gut. There were FAR too many of those that day!!!
Went home, and CRASHED. Slept WELL that night.
Monday was a tad crazy. When I checked my phone in the morning, I saw that there was a message from the credit union. Apparently fraud protection had shut my card down when someone was trying to use it in California at the same time that I had used it in Alabama. GRRRR. (glad for the Fraud protection people though!) and I would need to go to the bank to order a new one. Bother. So Lon and I ran into town, and got a few more things we needed to finish up the garden boxes and I went to the bank. We did get a lot done in the evening, but that meant that we missed the classes we typically go to on Monday evenings. It was good to get things done though. We were out on the deck, working on things, till quite late, and fell into bed exhausted again.
In the midst of all the business that was the evening, I apparently missed a phone call from my folks. Dad had apparently gone to the doctor for a routine appointment of some sort, and the Nurse Practitioner that saw him was concerned about his low heart rate. She called in the Dr, who happens to be a cardiologist, and he ordered an immediate (next morning) pacemaker insertion.
So, Tuesday morning, we were driving up to Nashville to take Lon back to work, since he left his car there, when he came home with the girls and I last Thursday. We made plans to go to the zoo, since it's a down week this week, from book work, and the kids have been wanting to go back when it wasn't so HOT. Lon was driving and I checked my messages at one point and saw the message from my folks. I called them immediately and caught them before they left for the appointment. He was supposed to be there at 8:00. Apparently they thought it was going to be a day-stay thing, I don't know, our conversation was interrupted by the poor cell coverage between here and Nashville. I figured I would check on them later in the day and see how things went.
We had a reasonably nice time at the zoo. And on the way home, I tried a couple of times, to reach my folks and see how things went. No answer at home. When we get home, I post on facebook, asking if I should be concerned or not, that they are not home yet, and several people say "it's usually an over-night stay thing" - oh. I tried calling their cell phone, but they probably had to have it turned off, particularly if he is in a cardiology unit. Mom did eventually call, and let me know that things went very well, that he was resting well, and would come home in the morning.
I spoke with her already today and she said she had spoken with him on the phone already and he sounded SO much better. He is having very little pain and seems to be in very good spirits.
We are all feeling like we dodged a bullet here. There is likely blood pooled at the bottom of his heart because it has been beating so in-efficiently, and it very easily could have thrown off a clot, causing a pulmonary embolism or a stroke He's on blood thinners, now, too. I told her to make sure he hears the Dr's instructions regarding 'takeing it easy' for the first few days until the meds can do their work. I'm afraid he will be feeling so much better he will want to get active, and if the blood has not thinned out yet, it could still cause a clot to break loose - so I got to play parent to my parents for what I believe was the first time, and I was telling Mom to make sure he LISTENS when the doctor tells him what he can and can't do. I suggested SHE ask the doctor to explain the risks, etc. And ask how long it will take for the blood thinners to have their full desired effect.
We are all hoping that he will have more energy now, and feel better. Life can sure take some interesting turns and twists. That was very unexpected!
Today is a rainy day, so we are relaxing. The younger three kids have dental appointments this afternoon, other than that, we are chilling today (and catching up on the blog!) (sorry that was such a long post!) I keep dozing off and dreaming that I'm driving the paper route and dozing off while driving. Perhaps I should catch another nap, here, before we go to the dentist. So, so, SO glad that this was already planned as a 'down week' from school work!!
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