Labor Day Weekend

It's amazing that September is here, with the last long weekend of the summer. I have to admit fall is my favorite time of year, now that I no longer have to fight with school. I always dreaded fall as a kid in school & as my kids were in school. But I've always loved the warm, mellow days, beautiful leaves & cool evenings of autumn. You don't have to deal with the mud & cold days in the spring, or the hot, muggy days of summer, or the bitter cold & snow of winter.
Don & Nick have some online friends visiting, Melva & Ron Terry from Mississippi, & Gordon & Colin from Washington State. The Terrys are here for their son Kyle's wedding. Kyle is marrying a girl from Cache Valley on Monday. One of her parents, father I think, lives in Miss & her mom here. We met Kyle & Ashley earlier in the year.

We met them last night at Golden Corral for dinner. There were 10 people there, Ron, Melva, Kyle & Ashley, Ron's mother Trish & grandmother Wilma, Gordon & Colin, Matt (Ron's brother) & John, besides the 4 of us. Don, Nick & Eddie knew the majority of the people there from Runescape, an online game. They've known each other for several years. It was fun as they were introducing themselves by their user names. It confused me no end though as Don calls them by their given name or their user name, rarely interchanging them. They were talking about other friends that weren't there, so I had to ask for a user name, when the given name didn't mean anything to me.

It was fun. I've never seen Nick so animated with total "strangers." He was laughing & talking. It wasn't the usual monotone. They were talking Runescape though.

After dinner, we went out to their house. Check this link out, Logan vacation house rental. Don & I were amazed. It sleeps 16 & there must have been 10 people there already. I don't know if they saved any money over a hotel by the time they paid the deposit & cleaning fee besides the nightly fee, but it was sure nice.

Today, they came up to see the addition to the house, Nick's project car & the Mormon Pioneer Relic Hall in Franklin, the oldest permanent settlement in Idaho. Gordon & Colin from Washington State were on their way home as Colin has to be back in school Tuesday. He was homeschooled & now is in high school. Like Nick was.

Tomorrow there is a potluck rehearsal dinner in Hyrum that we're invited to. Mother's not going, doesn't sound like Don-Mike or Nick are going either, sigh. Tomorrow is Lasagna Sunday, but we didn't prepare for it. I guess if we don't go, we'll have to have zucchini dressing as that's the dish I was taking.

Monday is the wedding. On top of that, Mother is recovering from an acute asthma attack that took us to the Logan Hospital ER Thursday night. Since it's a holiday weekend, I worked yesterday, Friday. I should have finished the paper today, but I hit the floor a running this morning, & finally crashed at 4. I did not make it in to work. I've still got tomorrow & Monday though. We go to press Tuesday, but have Monday off.

At 6 I got up, went over to Mother's to give her another inhaler treatment, fixed her supper (nuked a TV dinner), & made sure she had the antibiotic, but not the steroids. I also went to the grocery store to buy more TV dinners & stuff for my covered dish for the potluck tomorrow & supper tonight. I took Mother's groceries to her, came home & fixed supper.

I stayed up until 3 last night waiting for Sam, our yellow tom cat, to come in. And so even though I had a 2 hour nap, I'm ready for bed tonight.

Mother's Day 2009

I walked so much yesterday that this morning I woke up aching all over. My back & hips ached & my legs just felt heavy. My neck ached because I left my contoured pillow at the hotel. On my way to bed, in the dark, I might add, I found a pillow in a stack at the end of the bed. I promptly fell sideways, catching myself. My leg was aching from trying not to fall on the scanner in the front room. I scraped it on a magazine holder. So much for trying to be quiet.

My legs were feeling heavy because I had a cat laying on top of them. I had another cat using my tummy as a pillow & the third cat was not on me, but near me.

I walked down to the dog three times today. Once to feed him, he's out of food again, sigh. Then I got back to the house & realized I'd left my walking stick down there, so I turned around & walked back down to get it. The third time was to take a neighbor down to see him. Mufasa did not like the neighbor. He snapped at him.

I also walked down to the city park again from Mother's. I had my walking stick today. I need it to steady me. I really want to get one of those cool carved ones.

Dare I admit we broke the Sabbath by going out to eat? Mother said she thought I'd choose to go to Deer Cliff Inn, they opened yesterday. Don-Mike started taking us to Ogden to Chuck-A-Rama. He turned onto Airport Road in Logan & I asked where we were going. He said Ogden. I said no, Golden Corral. I said I might have said Chuck-A-Rama, but I meant Golden Corral in Logan.

I explained my reasoning for choosing Golden Corral. I didn't want to spend over $100 for a meal at Deer Cliff; I didn't want to go clear to Ogden. It had been a while since I'd been to Golden Corral & I like Golden Corral. The price has raised at GC, but it may have been for Mother's Day. They had carved turkey, ham, roast beef & steak. Don said the steak was better than the prime rib at the Borderline Grill in Franklin.

Nick took his car so he could leave when he wanted to & not wait for us. I wanted to go up to University Inn & see if I could retrieve my pillow. No luck. Darn it. I'll have to buy another one. It's a contoured one & is nice cuz I can sleep on my side with my CPAP on. I'll check at Cache Valley Oxygen because Mother gets a discount at CVO. They have pillows, just like what I had called CPAP pillows. The one I had was not called a CPAP pillow, but it's the same thing. It may just be cheaper to buy another one like I had that is not called a CPAP pillow.

Lent, Day 7

OK, I've been at this Lent thing for 8 days, counting Sunday. Still haven't been successful at either one of my goals, but I keep trying.

Report on "doctor day" in the city. I woke up at 9:35 & finally drug myself out of bed at 10, only because I wanted to tell Don-Mike something before he left. I was in bed by 12:15 last night, but couldn't seem to get to sleep. I was still awake at 1.

My appt. for the mammogram was at 1:30, but I had remembered 1 & had set my cell phone calendar for 1. We left a little after 11, & so we had plenty of time to eat. We ate at Golden Corral. I didn't have any trouble with "restaurant syndrome" aka IBS like I usually do. I was careful what I ate though. The spinach & Brussels sprouts looked so good, but that's all I did was look. I took the hydrocodone while we were eating. I wanted to be sure & have it in my system for the mammogram.

At the lab they took 3 vials of blood. I barely felt the prick & there isn't a bruise to show either.

Next on to the Radiology Dept. for the mammogram. I am certainly grateful for the pain meds. I was feeling no pain, actually I did, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it would have been without the pain medication. I am so grateful that Don took the time off from work today to drive us. My boobs are sore tonight. I'm thinking of taking another pain pill, but think I'll settle for ibuprofen.

There are no films of the right breast for either February or October 2007. I said I didn't think they took any of the right side in October because there was another lump in the left breast & they wanted to see what it was. She checked & the records showed they hadn't done the right breast in October. I said all of my surgeries had been done right there at Cache Valley Specialty Hospital, except the one where they implanted 22 needles in my left breast at Ogden Regional. I still have some of those scars. The films should either be at Dr. (Lee) Broadbent's office or at the hospital. I didn't remember taking any films to Ogden.

All I had to do was change gowns from the little cape-like thing to the full hospital gown for the chest x-rays right there in the Radiology Dept. Two x-rays, full & side views. So, now we wait for the results.

Mother & Don sat out in the waiting room while I had all this done. It only took an hour & 10 minutes. Since we were already at the Specialty Hospital, I checked with Dr. (Jeffrey) Bennion's office, the ear, nose & throat specialist that comes to Preston, to see if I could get a copy of Nick's sleep study from Idaho Falls, but since Nick is 21, I can't without a signed consent form from him.

On to the Regional Medical Arts Building at Logan Regional Hospital for Mother's protime. The INR level is 2.3, too thick again. How it can fluctuate from high to low in just a matter of days still amazes me. She did not feel good this morning & tonight when I went over to check on her, she came from the bathroom crying.

She thinks she broke her toe getting out of the bathtub Monday. She slipped. She has a bath mat, I don't know if it was in the tub or not. We saw a shower stool at Cache Valley Oxygen today when we stopped there to check on black crocs. She said the home health aide said she'd be sure they brought a shower bench tomorrow. I should have just bought it, but I didn't have enough money to do it.

I didn't take her to Instacare because they can't really do much besides x-ray it to see if she really did break it & then tape the toes together. She already has pain medication for the pain in her back & hips.

It is 11:40 & I'm not going to update Mother's Caring Bridge site tonight. I've done most of the reporting right here. I can just copy & paste tomorrow.

I slept almost all the way home from the doctor's & I'm still tired.