Chemo and Christmas, Part 2

I left off as we had gotten to Bismarck on the night of of December 22. I was really worn out, but Angie still had to unload everything of Brooke's at her dad's. I don't think I could have helped if I'd wanted to, though.

On the 23rd, I woke up late-ish to get Heather some breakfast, but was still pretty tired. I didn't do much, and maybe caught a brief nap, but I needed to make one last shopping stop to Best Buy with Michael. Thankfully, that went very quickly.

I don't know that I really did a whole heckuva lot the rest of the day. Mom had to work, and I think I tried to work on "my chores" that get saved up for when I visit: fix up a couple of things with her computer, I put some plastic on a window, looked into issues with on of her TVs, and tried to figure out what is wrong with her phones.

It seems to me that Karen was making her delicious version of Mom's chocolate- and butterscotch-chip cookies. And I'm pretty sure I grabbed a few before they had cooled. And I tried my best to make and join conversations. But again I was pretty worn out, and was having an issue with shoulder and back pains.

It dawned on me that while my prescription of percocet would be just fine were I at home, being out of town threw a bit of a wrench in the works: with Friday being Christmas, I needed to call the clinic to see if I could get a new prescription pronto. Unfortunately, it's a controlled substance, so I have to pick up the prescriptions in person. After talking with Dr. Amatruda's nurse Michelle, I decided to try to minimize taking the percocets, and as a backup to try some of the 20mg oxycontins.

Ya see, normally 30 percocets can go a long way. But if I take two at a time at four hour intervals (say 3 times in a day) for 5 days, I'd be running out on Sunday night when we would be getting home. I didn't count 'em, but 30 seemed like a good guess of what I had left. Going by onesies and overlapping them a bit, I was taking about 5 per day, I think. But that wasn't really giving me much relief.

Angie spent much of the day visiting. I think her sister Darcy was going to be out of town after Christmas Eve, so that was one of the places she stopped. For Christmas Eve, Angie went to her folks' dinner and gift opening. I was still not up to leaving the house. But Dan came over to visit me at Mom's, which I appreciated.

Angie was done with her dinner and gift opening early enough that our gift opening and Mom's was not really affected much. With some well-timed percocets, I was feeling good after 10pm, so I trailed behind Mom and Karen, Michael, and James who had gone next door to Barb & Andy's. I had a pretty good visit over there and enjoyed many good snacks. Although I don't think I lasted an hour, it was very nice to get out of the house and visit with Bonnie and everybody over there.

Christmas day came with a lot of snow. I began to worry about the drive home -- we were planning to leave on Sunday. But the snow kept coming and coming. And I was still not feeling great, the old "worn out and tired" was getting old; the pain was becoming a pain. I was still rationing my percocets, especially since I was now thinking about leaving Monday instead.

I did my best to try to keep up with conversations and be sociable, but many moments found me sitting in front of Mom's computer in what was my original bedroom. It had become my place to try to weather the pain while waiting for the meds to kick in. I just couldn't sit still and carry on a conversation in the living room or kitchen as much as I'd try. There was certainly nothing more comfortable for a chair in that room, but the little 30-second distractions on the monitor kept my mind off of how I felt. And when I was starting to feel better I'd make my way back out to where people were. Late at night, I had a good talk with Michael and James, and we were later joined by Karen. Time marched on past midnight, but it was good to talk.

On Saturday I enjoyed a happy helping of leftover turkey and gravy and taters -- which Karen had fixed so well for Christmas dinner the day before. By no fault of the food, I had some kind of stomach issue later that day. I fell asleep watching some football, but I was really just feeling about the worst I'd felt the whole time. I mostly slept much of the evening, too, and eventually my stomach caught up with me.

I had been hoping to pack up on Saturday, but I could not bring myself to do it with all of the nausea. Since we really weren't packed up to be ready to go first thing Sunday morning, and given the still-snowy weather, we wouldn't be heading out on Sunday.

We did get to most of the packing on Sunday, and I was feeling better after the prior night's purge. We also had the opportunity to do more visiting. Angie was all over town visiting people all week. For me it was just taking the time to talk to Michael, James, Karen, and Mom. Which probably worked well for both of us.

Monday we headed out, Michael driving solo so I could play disk jockey for Heather in the back of Angie's Trailblazer. The roads were damn good considering the blizzard that had just blown through. We got back in time to watch the Vikings on Monday Night Football. Unfortunately, that close game ended in a Minnesota loss. I took Michael to the airport after the game: he had his flight back to Seattle early on Tuesday morning.

Quite the Eventful Day

Thursday the 9th of December started out a fairly normal day. Angie had to open at the Zimmerman store, Brooke went to school, and I started my day getting Heather ready for school. Heather had had a bit of a cough for several days, but never had a fever and seemed fine otherwise. It was cold that day, and I couldn't find Heather's backpack, so I dropped her off closer to school and walked her in so I could tell her teacher she was missing anything that she might need in the backpack.

I had a bit of an appetite, and I wasn't going to pass on this increasingly rare condition, so I had some lunch about 12:30. I was surprised to hear Angie come in a few minutes later. To me it is a given not to call or in any way assume anything other than the fact that Angie is very busy during lunch hour when she is working. So I was not expecting her until closer to 2:00.

She had gone to work at the new Zimmerman, MN Hardee's greatly in part to the fact that she wanted to work with Barb. Barb was the manager of the Elk River store that Angie had most recently worked at. I was never very keen about Zimmerman because it was almost twice as far as Elk River that I already thought was a bit far.

Well, Angie had a story to tell about her day, but the short version is that Barb to "promoted" to a position in which she would not be managing the Zimmerman store. Needless to say, Angie was pretty upset. She has had issues with some of the other people, and at 3am I imagine the drive suddenly did not seem as short as it once might have. Really the only thing that was keeping her tolerant of working in Zimmerman was Barb. She told the new manager that she was going home and said she didn't care to work there anymore. It was sort of an ultimatum: she'd work in the Anoka store, but not Elk River nor Zimmerman; if that didn't work, she would be quitting.

After listening to the tale, I went back upstairs to continue working from home. Angie left the house about 3:40 to pick up Heather. About 3:55, I got a call from the school: they said Heather was puking and we'd need to pick her up from the nurse's office. I called Angie to let her know. And in the meantime, I scheduled an appointment for after-hours care, which wouldn't be until 7:00.

When Heather got home, she looked like heck. We took her temperature, but she wasn't above 100. But not even an hour later, I checked again and she was over 102. So the two of them packed up and went to the ER. I am not really supposed to be around sick people during chemo, so a hospital isn't the best place -- well, the waiting room at least. Besides, I needed to wait until Brooke got home from wherever. She had skipped coming home right after school like she is supposed to, and I had little idea where she was or how to find her (she has a way of making this the case).

As I waited, I tried calling Angie a couple of times. I knew that her phone needed to be off in the ER, but it's tough just waiting. Angie was able to sneak a quick call and gave me an update. I could even hear in the background that Heather sounded better after they were able to get her fever down. But she had pneumonia and they would be admitting her to the hospital.

Angie called several more times with updates, from the ER, from the room they were admitted to, and kept me up to date. During this time, I was still waiting for Brooke. And I was deciding that if we had flu?/pneumonia in the house, with me on chemo, and having just few out-of-the-ordinary (for me) coughs and a tightness in my chest, I figured I'd probably want to get myself checked as well.

And I waited and I waited and I waited for Brooke to get home. She was supposed to be home by 9:00, but I hadn't seen her by then. It was finally about 9:30 that she was making something in the kitchen that she made her presence known. She insisted she was home by 9:00 but went right downstairs. Sneaking out, skeaking in, she is never easy. Loud all the rest of the time, but not when I need it.

Well, I grabbed a bag with some things for Angie and quickly headed out the door. I stopped at McDonald's and grabbed Angie something to eat on the way. I came up to visit Heather fairly briefly and drop things off. She looked like she was doing a lot better. But apparently she was still having a hard time keeping food down.

Then I went to the ER. There wasn't a line, so things went somewhat quickly. But it was still a lot of waiting for test results. Blood draw and wait for the result. Chest Xray and wait for the result. They didn't find any pneumonia or flu, so that was good. But something in the results made them look for a possible blood clot in the lungs. I think one of the chemicals in my chemo has some clotting behavior to it. So they also got me in for a CT. Eventually, they ruled me pretty much okay, maybe with some bronchitis.

I visited Heather and Angie again briefly before leaving, but it was already 1am. They still looked pretty good, although trying to rest and not all that comfortable. I stopped at Walgreen's on the way home to fill my prescription, and in my wait time went for a quick look for something to eat. The only place open at that hour was White Castle. Not what I'd hoped for, since I hadn't eaten since lunch, I was damn hungry.

I got home a bit after 1:30. And I was disappointed with Brooke for being up downstairs and later discovering that one of the first things she did after I left was go into our room and grab Angie's laptop (which she is suppposed to ask permission for before every time she uses it). She has a way with taking these little opportunities to impress us with her maturity and failing rather miserably.

Friday morning I was scheduled to go to the clinic for lab work (meaning a blood draw). I didn't sleep well, and I was up by 7am, even though after trying to unwind I hadn't gone to sleep until after 3am. Well, I needed to let work know that I'd be doing my best to work from home. And I tried to call the clinic and see if I could skip out on the blood work -- if they could use last night's results from the ER.

I did skip it, my callback didn't come until 9:20, and I was scheduled to be there at 9:20. But Dr. Amatruda's nurse let me know that I didn't need to come in and that they could use the ER results. Or if anything, for me just to stay home and rest and if they need a different test that they'd call me back for Monday.

But in the process of discussing blood and test results, she let me know that the tumor on the 2nd thorasic had grown. And that a new one was spotted on the 12th. And, as a later call from the radiologists also mentioned, that there might be some cancer in my lung, but that they thought it was most likely mucus.

Later, Angie had called to let me know how Heather was doing. She also let me know that the school called and said the Brooke had some injury to her hand and that Angie needed to come pick her up. Angie was not happy about that, and looking at Brooke's hand later we had no idea why she needed to be taken out of school.

I was having a bit of a time trying to work, and had fallen asleep around noon or so. I missed my Friday call with my manager and felt pretty bad about it. Later I did call a co-worker about the software we're working with, but he pretty much tabled things until Monday.

Heather was released from the hospital in the afternoon. Brooke was of course grounded for not coming home after school the day before. So of course when Angie went to pick up some prescriptions, Brooke left and left a note saying she'd be back about 9. I had been upstairs and Heather was watching TV downstairs when Angie left (apparently followed by Brooke). It sounded "too quiet" downstairs, so I went to check it out and learned this situation. Again we were more than a bit unimpressed with Brooke.

But Heather seemed to be doing all right, and she kept herself fairly well entertained. I did my best to keep a sharp ear for her from the upstairs as I tried to simultaneously "kept an eye" on her while trying to keep my distance because of the chemo and the reduced immunity.

All in all, it was quite the eventful 24-hour period. Frankly, I prefer a less exciting routine.

Thanksgiving 2009

I was able to enjoy a very nice Thanksgiving dinner here, and my stomach was nice enough to cooperate. Angie had to do pretty much all the work, but she did a wonderful job. I think I only helped near the end with taking the turkey out of the roaster and carving it.

And the day after Thanksgiving I had my next bit of chemo. While I was doing that, Heather visited Santa. She enjoyed it a lot.

Heather wanted to get the Christmas tree up right away, and I wanted to as well, but I didn't have it in me yet on Thanksgiving weekend. Later in the week, I was finally able to summon some energy. But I only got the tree together before I was pooped. Heather and Mandy put decorations on in the meantime. I told Heather I'd need to take them off to put on the lights and the garland, but the didn't bother Heather at all. She just got to decorate the tree twice!

I went for the last injection of this round on Friday the 4th. Angie had to work that morning, so Noel gave me a ride to the clinic and back. I had an issue with my sink in the upstairs bathroom, and I imposed on him for a little help with it. We took a quick look and then ran to Menard's and back. I bought the part, but Noel did the install and I owe him much thanks for that.

During the time I was keeping him, he had mentioned that he was going to lunch at a nearby Chinese buffet. Now I'm normally not one to get my money's worth at a buffet, even before any of this chemo stuff, so he knew I wasn't interested. But I felt hungry, and I hadn't done much outside the house, so although it probably sounds like something quite inconsequential, I asked if I could come with.

I'll be darned if I couldn't put back my money's worth at the buffet. Really! Ask Noel. I thought I'd sneak in front and pay for Noel's lunch for all he had helped me with that day. I whipped out the card ... and was told "cash or check" only. I felt about three inches tall. Tony, who we were lunching with, picked up the whole tab. So another thank-you to Tony.

The Halloween Hall 'O Fame

I'd like to watch this with Heather. I packaged up the 5 videos I found here.

Disney Halloween Special from 1977 starring comedian Jonathan Winters.

Build your own custom video playlist at embedr.com

Heather got a bit scared by that last one.

Dad

In late July, Dad took a turn for the worse from what he had been like earlier when we had visited. His "Mr. Hyde" personality reared itself in a bad way on some doctor's visit, and since then he had pretty much been under 24-hour care. And he pretty much continued to go downhill from there, with only brief moments where the Dad we've known and loved all our lives was still with us for a smile or an attempt to put one on Mom's face.

Dad passed away Sunday evening. I have been praying for angels to be by his side to remind his spirit that he was loved by many. And I have hoped and prayed for relief from his suffering, Alzheimer's is such a cruel disease. It has been hard to watch him lose his mind. I am not relieved that he is gone, but it does give my sadness pause when I think of him in the grace of our Lord with his suffering now ended.


I was trying to write something here when I started this post on the 12th, and later I wrote 5 pages of something -- paper and pen -- on the drive back to Bismarck for the funeral. But the obituary that Mom wrote it much better, so I'll instead quote it in its entirety:

Donald Sinkula

Donald “Sinkie” Sinkula, 79, Bismarck, died October 11, 2009, at Marian Manor Health Care Center, Glen Ullin. Services will be held at 10:00 am Saturday at Parkway Funeral Service Chapel, 2330 Tyler Parkway, Bismarck, with Rev. Paul Becker officiating. Burial will be held in Sunset Memorial Gardens, Bismarck.

Visitation will be held from 3:00 pm until 9:00 pm Friday at Parkway Funeral Service, Bismarck.

Donald was born on December 8, 1929, in Mandan, ND, to Margaret Zingsheim and Anton J. Sinkula. He lived in Mandan, graduating in 1947. He worked for Bingenheimer Mercantile during high school. Donald enlisted in the Navy as a hospital corpsman, and was honorably discharged in 1949. He returned to Mandan to work for Bingenheimer’s where his interest in woodworking became his hobby as well, building for family and friends; furniture, a screen house for his children, and his own garage.

Donald was united in marriage to Lillian Maye Ruud on January 24, 1959, at St. Mary’s Church in Bismarck with Monsignor Feehan officiating. They celebrated their 50^th anniversary this year. Their marriage was blessed with two children, Karen and David.

In 1967, the family moved to Bismarck, where Donald accepted a job as Postal Clerk with the US Post Office and retired after 25 years. Collecting steins was a favorite hobby with themes of Space, Olympics, Sports, etc. ballooning to over 100.

Donald enjoyed spending summers at the trailer in Happy Acres at Pick City, being a neighbor with many friends from Bismarck-Mandan, as well as gardening. He was a sponsor in building the VFW Sports Center Arena in Bismarck, and supported the Musicians Association Band Shell in Mandan.

Donald was a 54 year member of Bismarck-Mandan Elks Lodge, a 38 year member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, member of Amvets, and the Disabled American Veterans.

He is survived by his wife, Lillian (Maye); his daughter, Karen Truong and grandsons, Michael and James of Seattle; his son, David and his wife, Angie and granddaughter, Heather of Coon Rapids, MN, and many nieces, nephews, and cousins.

He was preceded in death by his mother, Margaret; his father, Anton; his sisters, Margaret, Marcella, Martha, Dolores, Florence, Loretta, and Mary; and his brothers, John, Tony, James, Joe and Francis.

Memorials may be given to Camp Grassick through the Elks Foundation in Bismarck, the Central Dakota Humane Society in Mandan, or a memorial of your choice.

We will miss you Dad.

First Day of School!

The Tuesday after Labor Day was most certainly one out of the ordinary. Brooke started high school, and Heather had her first day of kindergarten! (I even managed to go to work for the first "normal" day in a while!)

Heather was very excited, and Angie was a bit overwhelmed as well. I managed to get a few pictures of Heather on this big morning.



Angie called me later and told me how she didn't want to leave Heather at the school, and how she cried for a bit. Our girls are just growing up too fast, I guess. It doesn't seem like it in the day-to-day, but when a big day like this comes along, I suppose all the emotion comes out.

Al's Bonfire

I've been behind lately, and a little short on words. Hopefully pictures will be worth at least a couple.

4th of July Weekend

On Wednesday, Angie spent the better part of her birthday driving us to Bismarck. I'm not as flaky as I used to be in the vehicle, but she still insisted on doing all of the driving. We got off to a later start than we'd wanted, but of course she made good time. The cottonwood tree behind my folks' house was shedding cotton; Heather spent a little bit of time playing in this little bit of "Christmas in July". Angie dropped Brooke off for her summer visit to her dad's.

On Thursday we had a little bit of unfinished business to take care of. When we were back for Easter, we had gone "cemetery shopping". After some driving, we decided we preferred Fairview, but all we had done was a drive-through, more or less.

This time we needed finish what we'd started, which was actually buying a plot. I suppose it sounds a little strange, but it is a bit of a load off to have such things taken care of. I haven't been to many funerals, but I liked the view here and the grounds; I thought it was a nice peaceful place with a nice view.

I've been telling Angie that if I go soon that she can expect a long life and might fall in love again and prefer to be buried somewhere other than beside me. But she insisted and we went with the his/hers plots. After that, we ventured to a place east of town a little bit to shop for a headstone. Again she convinced me to go with a shared stone. So that stuff is more than half covered (I still have to have a foundation poured at the cemetery. And someday the final dates need to be handled.)

With that stuff out of the way, Angie got her Kroll's fix, and we got our knoephla soup. And a little bit of "oops, I forgot" remedy from Target. And by then I was pooped. We stopped home and I stayed back while Angie and Heather did more visiting in Mandan. After some rest, Dan and Sandy called and picked me up for a few beers at O'Brien's (I'm still drinking placebos.)

Friday got off to a bad start: Dad was having one of his "Mr. Hyde" episodes with his Alzheimer's, and he was pretty pissed about the person who had come by to help him with his lunchtime routine. He was pretty mad at me for a while too. Mom came home from work to help restore order.

That evening, we went to Flasher, ND to visit with Nicki Noonan's family. I even drove the 40 or 50 miles or whatever. It was the first time I'd driven much of a distance outside of the metro in quite a while. There, Heather played with Nicki's kids while the adults caught up a bit. I had to find a recliner inside a couple of times because I'd gotten pretty tired by nightfall. But we had a good visit and lit off some fireworks for a little while.

Saturday was the big day. We managed to get up at a reasonable hour to head to Mandan. Dan and Sandy had invited us to join them at her folks' place on 8th & Main in Mandan. It was a very nice location to see the parade. It was also nice to visit some more. Nikki and Mariah joined us later on, as did Jodi and Darin.

The parade lasted until a bit after noon. We ducked out of Sandy's family's get-together about then because Nikki and Angie wanted to take Mariah and Heather to see Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Angie doubted my traffic-navigating abilities, but I was able to get us home in time to drop me off.

Even though I was mostly just sitting at the parade, I was pretty tired by 1:00. The girls continued on to the movie, and I took a nap. I was asleep shortly after I flipped to a show on the History Channel. I slept for about an hour, but I was still groggy and slow for another couple. I believe I did manage to get Mom set up with a working cordless phone and a new digital converter box for a TV in her computer room. The girls all seemed to have enjoyed the movie.

After some supper, the three of us went to Darcy and Harley's to watch some fireworks. The view of Bismarck-Mandan from their place is quite spectacular. And this year a lot of their neighbors, as well as a lot of the town, had a lot of fireworks that they were shooting off. We could see the displays from the Capitol Grounds and at the Mandan Rodeo Grounds, but from quite a distance.

And again -- whoosh! The several days back were over quickly again. We did a lot of visiting and got things done that we needed to do.

Happy 5th Birthday, Heather!

It's a cold and rainy day today, putting a little damper on Heather's 5th birthday. We had been planning to go to the Minnesota Zoo today; Heather was even counting down the days. But alas, 55°F, the steady rain, and Brooke's freshly-broken ankle changed our minds.



The four of us went to the movie Up, which we all enjoyed. Later we went to Chuck E Cheese. Heather has been saying all day that she's having a really fun birthday. Now it's time for a little ice cream cake.

Heather's Perspective

I was feeling less than peppy the Sunday after chemo, and Heather wanted to take pictures. I turned her loose with the camera. A few days later she asked to do so again.



Click for slideshow.

Ahh, Saturday

Time for a little music break...

Family Portraits

The other day we received the pictures that we had taken over Christmas.



I forgot some of the details of our scheme we'd cooked up back in late December. But I think it went something like this: Karen, Mom, and I had decided to get a number of the pictures in 5x7, and 5x7's come 2 per sheet. So we were each going to end up with an 'extra', so to speak. Instead of that, we decided to 'short' one of the poses and trade for another's 'spare'.

That is, in the above album, I only have 3 of the 5 (I believe) pictures that I wanted. And the same should be true for both Mom and Karen. So I'm going to trade my second Me-Dad-Mom-Karen for Karen's Mom & Dad.

If I remember correctly, I might also be trading my second Karen-Michael-James to Mom for her spare 5x7 of Everybody. I could be wrong there, though. I hope somebody had this written down.

The Christmas Whoosh

Tuesday morning we (Angie, Heather and me in one vehicle, Michael and Brooke in another) got off to a late start. We hit some weather along the way and didn't get into town until evening. My sister Karen, younger nephew James, and Karen's friend Jay had a far worse ordeal as Seattle had all but shut down for a couple days to deal with the snow. Instead of leaving Sunday, they couldn't get out of Seattle until Tuesday. But their connecting flight from Denver left before they could meet it, so they didn't make it in until shortly after noon on Christmas Eve. She wasn't happy.

Angie, Brooke, Heather, Michael, and I started the Christmas Eve festivities in Mandan at Darcy and Harley's with some contraband snacking before dinner at Angie's folks' house. After dinner we opened gifts.



Brooke went to her dad's for her continued Christmas Eve gift openings, and we returned to my parents' house. Karen had been busy wrapping the presents she had shipped to Mom's and fully intended to wrap days earlier. And we all but turned right around and unwrapped them.



Santa brought Heather more goodies Christmas morning, but Daddy (yours truly) was sleeping in and didn't catch any pictures. Angie and I went to visit her brother Marv and his girl Jill for an hour or two in the afternoon. And then we tried to get the Sinkula Christmas dinner going. The turkey wasn't cooperating very well, but eventually it all came together. And Daddy got stuffed.

Later that night, after playing a bit of Blockus, Angie found two dogs playing in the snowdrift. They didn't appear to belong to any house in the near vicinity, so I called the number on the tags. It turns out they belonged to my old buddy Troy, who had just shipped overseas in early December. I emailed him, saying, "Small world, huh? Two dogs from Tennessee bump into two Twin Cities residents in Bismarck."

On Friday, I also got a nice surprise in a phone call from my friend Mark's wife Lisa. We chatted briefly, as Angie, Heather, and I were off to meet up with Angie's friend Tanya, her husband, and her four boys at Kroll's. Later I returned to my attempt at being Mom's PC tech support. Eventually I had success getting her B&W copier/printer working again -- but not before spilling toner on the white carpet. I did call Mark later and did a quick catchup of what now turns out to be over a year since we had last met up in Fargo.

Meanwhile, Michael volunteered to join Angie to visit her friend Nicki in Flasher, ND. Meanwhile I continued trying to figure on Mom's printer issues; hours later I threw in the towel and talked with Karen and Mom for a bit. I managed to figure out "the other secret" to Mom's "secret" chocolate (and butterscotch) chip cookie recipe.

The snow picked up Friday evening, but I was dead tired. Angie called to note that they were leaving Flasher about 11. I made it maybe a half hour, but zonked out shortly thereafter. The phone rang a little after midnight, and caller ID showed it was from Angie's cell phone, but she left no message. I tried to wake up enough to call back, but I got no answer. Shaking off some cobwebs I went outside to grab a smoke and watch the falling snow accumulate. I called again about 20 minutes later and still got no answer. So I called some Highway Patrol number and checked the weather radar online. After a couple back-and-forths with the HP guy, Angie called and said that they were just leaving Buck's, where Michael wanted to make a quick stop. I called the HP back with the news, and returned to grogginess.

Saturday we were having family pictures at 10 am, so we had to get everybody up and dressed "early". We managed to get everybody there on time and the sitting went well, but of course it took longer than expected for Mom, Karen, and me to make all our selections. Finishing up just after noon, we stopped at home to grab a quick bite to eat and then get ready to head out to the Elk's.

From 2-4 we were celebrating Mom and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary. I really enjoyed visiting with many of our old neighbors and meeting some of the people Mom has worked with. We thought things turned out very well.



After cleaning up, "us kids" and our kids wandered off to Midway Lanes. We invited friends Dan and Sandy to join us, and we all had a really good time. And then it was time to pack for home.

Thank you, everyone, for a great Christmas. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Beginning of the Christmas Whoosh

Michael, my older nephew, flew in from Seattle in Saturday's cold, snowy weather. He is palling around town, and enjoying the midwest winter, first with some Army buddies in the area. They went to the Vikings-Falcons game yesterday, and he dropped by our house to visit tonight.

We opened the "stays-here" Christmas gifts tonight.


Click for full-size slide show.

Tomorrow we are heading west into the wind and snow that seems to accompany about every other Christmas venture home.

Life Goes On Around Me

After the surgery on Wednesday, I had been feeling able to walk by myself already by about 4:30 -- just a couple hours afterwards. In fact, when they took me to the parking ramp in the wheelchair, they'd wanted Angie to swing the car around to end up right in front of me. But since it would have meant navigating the up-a-level/down-the-exit-side wanderings, I just got out of the chair and walked past the 20-ish cars to catch up with her and make exiting the facility easier. This was the start of me perhaps not taking it as easy as I should have been doing.

Having made it to an upright position for sitting, it was a bit uncomfortable trying to return to a prone position. And since sitting in front of the computer clicking and reading and tapping at the keyboard does not feel like any kind of exertion, I think I'd begun being a upright perhaps more than I should have been for the past couple of days. Come bedtime, finding a comfortable position lying down was a bit difficult. And since I usually sleep on my side, but mostly on my stomach, sleeping only on my back was making my back quite sore. So it was even easier to resume a sitting position.

But as the Vicodins dwindled through yesterday, I tried harder to get comfortable lying down. And this morning I had to have Angie do a morning routine with Heather while I slept in. The result is that the area on my right side that has intermittent twangs of brief, sharp pain has receded a bit. (Or maybe I'm feeling the sore back competing for attention a bit more?)

Anyway, I may be a stubborn old cuss, but when all else fails I'll do what I believe I'm supposed to be doing. Or at least I'm more inclined to lie down a bit more than I have been doing in the past few days.

My Distractions

Angie probably wouldn't care for me discussing her health concerns here, but I'll try to summarize: for a couple of months she has been stressed and her cycle has been way out of whack. The other night she finally sought medical attention and was prescribed the pill to try to set her cycle straight. This seems to be working in its initial start.

It snowed the other day, and at least I knew enough to ask Brooke to shovel the driveway while Angie and her friend were gone to the hospital -- she would have really been after me if I'd done it even though the first round was a fairly light dusting. When Angie finally returned home from the long medical visit, the first thing I heard was, "Who shoveled!?"

I knew better in part because I'd already sneaked out and driven to the drug store to fill her prescription for her. I was still taking the Vicodin, but that dose was wearing off and I'd gotten familiar with the effects in the previous days. And besides -- I needed to get out because once again my fake beer supply was gone.

In the meantime I've been spending a lot of time maintaining some of my online haunts. On Facebook more folks I know have been appearing, and I'm doing what I can to maintain on online presence there. But it's been as my alter ego, High Plains Blogger, where I've been doing many of my wanderings and updates. In particular, I've been rather engaged with Twitter as HPB. I really try to keep these two sides of me a bit separate, but since that's what's been keeping me busy lately, I'll make this brief mention.

Heather picked up a bit of a cold the other day, and we've given her some children's ibuprofen to nip in the bud some minor fevers and orneriness. That appears to be working as well. Brooke went to a movie with her boyfriend last night, and today they and some friends went to Cheap Skate for an afternoon of rollerskating. I've been instructed to ignore the fresh snow and let Brooke shovel again once she returns from skating.

A view from the garage.

Cripes, this post was been filled with a lot of random thoughts. 'Tis the season to be scatterbrained, I guess.

Before I forget, I'd better say an early "Happy Birthday!" to Dad, who will be 79 tomorrow. I hope I had gotten the cards out in the mail earlier this week.

September Football Sunday

The weather here is absolutely gaw-juss.

Slide show.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Mommy's Flowers

The new flowerbeds in back are looking good. Unfortunately, the flowers in them are not. The ones in front look much better.

Heather's 4-Year-Old Portraits

We just got them today.


Slideshow

Father's Day at Como Zoo

Today we went to the Como Zoo for a couple hours. It was Brooke's first time in the zoo -- we had tried previously but gave up on trying to find a place to park. We almost did the same today, but found a spot a long walk away.

Slideshow

Heather's 4th Birthday

My oh my, how time does fly.

Slideshow