APRIL 1999~~~continued

Message to ME (A response to an unidentified person.):Respect
When you show disrespect toward someone, what does it get you? Absolutely nothing. It is a foolish waste of your time and effort.

On the other hand, when you show respect toward others, you in turn become more respected. Do other people "deserve" your respect? Not always. But respect is not some kind of award that is yours to grant. Rather, it is a means of communication and understanding.

By showing disrespect, you're investing yourself in the weakness of others. Why would you want to do that? Those toward whom you act with respect will show respect for you, and that can open many doors.

Invest in the strength of your own respect. You can certainly respect others without having to agree with the things they say or do. In fact, respectful disagreement can be a powerful catalyst for growth and achievement.

Think with respect, speak with respect, and act with respect toward others. It will surely make you more respected, and that's something which can pay steady dividends for a long time to come.
by: Ralph Marston

April 12,1999 - Windy weather; wind already blowing steadily all day as it has for the past several summers and wildfires in counties on each side of our own county. It is such a beautiful time for all the spring flowers and yet, so very dangerous when you consider the dryness along with the hot summery days. The pollen count of the oak and maple trees is the highest it has been in eight years. Many people are suffering from allergy reactions to the pollen. The outdoors is covered in yellow pollen and the worst pollen time for us is usually with the pine trees - that is yet to come.

I went with Tbird to her school this afternoon to meet with others that have been working on the Nationals. They had a packing party to double check each other as they carefully placed their endeavors of this past year in "The Box". Each different work had to be paper clipped together and then placed in a special folder. Each folder had to be packed in a certain order along with the videos in The Box to be mailed to Texas. It will be next fall before they know if they pass or fail…. But tomorrow after they are safely in the mail they will all be able to have a good night's sleep after all the months of work and stress.

There is stress within our family. A stress which affects us all. A stress which can change our whole family. I can only hope and pray that all will work out for the best for each of us. No matter how much love and devotion there may be, there are times that others are helpless to do anything, but support, pray and hope for the best and give all the love that's needed. We go through life believing that things happen only to others. One day it dawns on you - you are that other! God only allows us to take on what we can handle. It appears that there may be no end and yet things have a way of always working out. With time, surely, this too will past…. Life will be back to where it was, but only better.

April 13,1999 - Ah! The 13th of April, but not a Friday, so it should be a good, productive day. Alli calls to say that she is in a lot of pain and can't make lunch today with us. Another week and our time out together is put off again. She was in Hickory with her DH and when they got out of the car he slammed the door shut. Only then did he look and see that the keys were laying on the seat inside. A call to the company and they are assured that the man will be there shortly to help them retrieve their keys. She stood outside for nearly two hours before the man arrived. They failed to tell her that he had to drive from Wilkes County - a good 45 minutes drive at the best.

Plans are made for me to pick up Ms. Jay about 1 o'clock and take her to pick up her new glasses. Tbird comes over and together we double check everything as it is packed into The Box to be shipped by UPS for overnight delivery to Texas. We take Ms. Jay over to the doctor's office and then we all go over to visit with Mother for a short time. I follow Tbird over to UPS and watch Giggles in her car while she goes in to mail her package and then she is off for Asheville and I head back home to sew a little. It is just another average day.

I get the bright idea to get the recyclables ready to be carried out and that is when the day took a turn away from the average. All is going so well and then with no warning; in the bat of an eye; all is no longer the average. A new adventure is begun. Not the happy, enjoyable type; the "Oh no, not again" episode that I seem to be so famous for. I was bending over picking up a paper and the hip gave way. One second I am being productive; the next second there I am laying flat on my face on the floor! My right leg went over the bag of newspapers, my head knocked down the gate I use to keep Charlie Dog from flying out the door when it opens. I just lay still for a few seconds taking inventory of myself. It appears that nothing is broken, so I gingerly begin to collect myself and sit up.

I ponder my options. It is 6:20 PM. Do I try to crawl over to a chair and get up by myself? Do I perhaps attempt to get the phone and call someone? Tbird is in Asheville - 60 miles away. Allan is in Marion about 40 miles away. Wes has an appointment; do I interrupt his meeting? My neighbor has a broken ankle. My cleaning lady is coming at 6:30. When I move, my right knee does not feel too good. I opt to prop up against the refrigerator with an ice bag from the freezer on my knee and wait for my cleaning lady.

Oreo is very upset about my fall as well as Charlie. Oreo promptly goes out into his fenced in area and paces back and forth. He does not usually go out like that for long. When Lady comes, he runs in to me for a second and then runs back outside barking at her. The front door is locked. She suspects something may be wrong and goes around to the back door, which I had left unlocked. Once inside, she brings my royal throne to use to climb up on, but when I move my right leg, I know that it is not right. Feeling of it, there is excessive swelling. We decide that I would be better off not to try to use it to get up. She makes the necessary calls and gets Wes, who calls the ambulance, which takes me to Hickory to the Emergency Room to get checked out.

To make a long story short, x-rays showed that the joint itself was not damaged or out of place. There was evidence of soft tissue damage and by this time, my knee is swollen to about the size of a basketball and the color of a dark grape. There is talk of maybe having to have arthoscopic surgery to see what may be going on inside. The final verdict: immobilizer, ice, keep elevated, stay in bed except to go to the bathroom using the wheelchair or walker and call Dr. D to have him check it out in the next day or two in case there is ligament or muscle damage. It has been 15 months since surgery on this knee. I am averaging one fall per three months during that time. At least this is the first one that required the ambulance and hospital/doctor routine. Once again there is talk of a lifeline….

It is after 1 AM and here I type passing the time away. My pain pills have not had much affect on me as of yet. Wes is here with me for the night. Tbird is to come tomorrow and she will make the doctor arrangements for me since she will have to take me. I can think of many other things I would much rather be doing than this, but at least I have my Christmas appliqué that I can work on and then all this genealogy avenues to check out……

April 14,1999 - Such a day; such a day!! If the phone rang once it rang 60 times! There was no time for boredom or keeping busy. Mother called shortly after 7AM followed by many, many more throughout the day. Word spread quickly about me knee and everyone wanted to know what I found out about it. I actually will not find out anything until after 2:50 PM tomorrow which is my appointment with Dr. D. He could have seen me this morning, but Giggles had her two month checkup and baby shots. She has gained up to eleven pounds, seven ounces, and is now twenty-three and a half inches long, with a hint of red hair growing on her head.

Wes left the front door open for me this morning. Alli came for a short while this morning and brought a beautiful silk rose. I thought it was real when I first saw it. Ms. Jay brought out some fresh broccoli soup she had just made and tuna sandwiches and sat and ate lunch with me. As she was getting ready to leave Tbird arrived with Giggles. She stayed with me until nearly nine PM. Wes is here for the night again. I am being well cared for and dared to make a wrong move….Tbird even took Mother's wheelchair back to her and picked up mine so I could use it and elevated my leg as I am supposed to do…. I have stayed in bed all day today and kept it elevated with ice packs. Some of the swelling has gone down. There is still a stinging sensation in the side of the knee. My elbow and arm actually are bothering me more than the knee.

After the surgeries and what I was taught in Rehab, getting around with the knee has been a cinch. I am just very thankful that I know what and how to do with it. The elbow and shoulder are not as easy to deal with, and there is swelling even in my hand today. Dr. D. will have to check it out tomorrow when I go…..

April 15,1999 - I have to call the hospital early this morning to have them get the x-rays ready and waiting when we run by on our way to see Dr. D. We have figured out that the best way for us to work our mobility is for me to carry Giggles and Tbird push the Wheelchair. It was my choice to use the walker. It works fine for me at home, but other family members will feel better if I agree to the chair, plus I can manage the baby for my daughter and cut out the need for a third person to help out. Once we are out of the office, we will ride over to the school and pick up the boys before I get home again…. It is a busy, busy day….
I'll have to add more when I return home this evening.....

April 16,1999 - Friday! I have survived the week! It was a long Thursday afternoon. In fact it was nearly 8PM till I returned home… What with Tbird having to pick up things for DynoKid's birthday snack at school, having to pick up the boys from the after-school program and then go by and get their Dad so he could pick up Tbird's car that was being worked on, but it was not ready yet….. I was more than tired…. So was all the rest of the crew.

Good news! My right knee is just extremely strained. It should heal and be all right. I can leave off the immobilizer some. Good news! The Dr. is setting up an MRI for my lower back to see exactly what is going on in it. He plans to get me up and using my new knees without having to fall around. Good news! He put a shot of cortisone in my right shoulder and surprise of surprises it is actually feeling a little better even now. Just hope that it speeds up healing it and nothing else will need to be done to it.

I must admit that this episode has flared up my psoriasis, but that is to be expected no doubt. All day yesterday, new blisters were popping up around my elbow which is swollen and bruised. Probably the swelling is contributing to that more than the jolt and as much as the stress would do. The elbow is keeping me from doing very much because it is my right one and it is the one I use mostly for doing things. I have over the past several years done a lot more with my left hand, but sewing and cutting is not one of them. Again, typing on my lap makes using the laptop easy for me to use. Using the regular computer is much more painful, in fact almost impossible because it affects the whole arm when I sit at it and work.

If anyone is around long enough today, I will attempt the Spa. The hot water should do me a lot of good by now.

Oh well, I am eager to be doing something productive; why not try doing a little on my log cabin blocks! By propping up the right knee on a chair and using my left foot for the pressure foot I accomplish quite a bit on some of the squares. I find as I work that the cortisone is working in my shoulder and it allows me to do more than I have been doing. I do watch to see that I don't stretch it into the bags of scraps like I did when I hurt it. I place the two bags on my left side away from temptation.

The call comes from the hospital that my MRI is scheduled for next Thursday evening at 7PM. In a way that is probably good because the family will not all be at work and surely one of them will be able to go with me. Who knows my knee may be working enough that I could possibly drive myself. It will not be at the same hospital but at another one that is further away…. a good 45 minute drive from here. They have a better machine in a building designed especially for an MRI Facility.

April 17,1999 - Yesterday was a day I spent mostly alone. I got a few calls except for Mother who called and called and called…. She is lonely and keeps calling to tell me the same things over and over. She keeps forgetting that I can not drive, or that I cannot come to pick her up to come home for a while so she can sew some. She is happy to have her own wheelchair back. I am just as happy to have my own back here at the house. I suppose I will leave them this way. A lot of days the people at the center were not putting the extensions on the chair to elevate her leg anyway. A lot of days it is lunchtime or later when she gets out of bed.

The doctor said I did not need to wear the immobilizer all the time. I didn't wear it at all Friday. I think it is probably more important to use it if I would go out or have to walk without having places to touch for balance. Meanwhile bending the knee some will help keep it in working condition.. The spread of the blue and black is tremendous now. It will take a while for it to work out. Just hope someone comes around long enough that I can get into the spa for a little therapy and heat.

Ms. Jay called to tell me that Lap Quilting was on at 11 AM this morning. I enjoyed watching it because Georgia Bonesteele is beginning a whole new 13 week series. She has been on Sunday afternoons for quite awhile and I just hope I can remember to watch on Saturday mornings now. I also got to watch The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. I love how easy he made painting seem. It is a lot more challenging to me that how he has shown it through the years. He is missed now that he is dead. I know that his son has carried on the tradition of painting in the family, but it is still a different touch.

April 18,1999 - The leg and knee doesth hurt. I have not put the immobilizer on it because it seems that I should be working the artificial joint and keep it in motion. The amount of purple is much more than I care to have. It actually looks worse than when I had the surgery on it. At least a lot of the swelling is gone. It is more the size of a small soccer ball instead of a basketball.

My aunts bring me a sub from subway for lunch. They call to say that they are with Mother and do I want them to bring me anything. I hate to have to ask for things, but agree for them to stop and get me a sandwich since it is in the same general area. Anywhere else would be several miles out of the way. Ms. Jay brings me the two Sunday papers to peruse through during the afternoon. Allan brings Buddy by later in the day for a short visit. Other than a lot of calls from Mother and one from my brother, the rest of the day was filled with just resting and letting more of the swelling go down in both my legs. The left one is finally getting back to normal from the swelling it has been doing. Tbird said maybe it is a blessing in disguise that I had to elevate my legs and slow down so. It was late when I checked my e-mail and some of the guestbooks on my sites. I've got to get busy and work on a new one for one of my pages.

April 19,1999 - Just as one day happens to be one of rest and relative quiet, the next is just the opposite. Having not been able to drive around and do things, there are some things I need to get done. Tbird comes over and we head out to get some of the things done. I do use the immobilizer to help support my knee - just in case.

As it seems we have a lot to do we opt to get our lunch and eat it in the car at the walking park. It is such a beautiful place now with the white and pink dogwoods, azaleas, Judas trees and other spring flowers at their peak color. We sit in the car on the upper parking area and look out over the pond and the walkers as they pace themselves around. There are the power walkers with arms pumping and knees marching, the ones jogging with dogs and having to stop every little bit to investigate new smells, walkers/talkers just moseying around enjoying the topic of the day, and those that stop and rest on a bench or the wall on each round. Today, I did not see any of the ducks and geese in the water. Perhaps they are nesting in the upper corner of the pond.

We go by the doctor's office to pick up my back x-rays to take when I get the MRI. It takes longer to go in and pick up the pictures than it did to see the doctor the other day. They apologize for our having to wait so long. I sat in the car with Giggles while my daughter waited in the office. I got to enjoy my granddaughter during that time and observe the people going in and out of the offices around. It's interesting to watch people. No two people ever do the same thing the same way. Some go with the flow and others can't seem to take time to even be careful. I also enjoyed the pansies and other flowers and the trees each with it's own personal colors displayed for Spring. Spring is just a softer color array of fall when you take time to observe the new growth coming forth.

That extra time there put us behind for the rest of the afternoon and we were unable to get some of the things done. We did get to Wally World and pick up a few things and we were able to stop by the garden center in Rutherford College and get some plants to put outdoors. The only plants I plan to have are to hang around the Spa area. Since it is mostly shade, NascasrKid picked out some pretty red and pink begonias for me to use. Now to get them planted and hung.

April 20,1999 - So much to want to get done and so little accomplished. It is very hard for me to have to ask others for help, yet I know that I need to if I want to get much accomplished. That means swallow my pride and be determined to get the deed done instead of relying on myself and allows others to assist me. The grandsons will be back this afternoon for a short while. I will let them help me get the begonias planted. Then I need only have Allan or Wes to hang the containers for me around the railing of the porch where the Spa is. That shall me my outdoor room this summer. It is on the side of the house away from the road and noise and what few houses are around. The one house that is in view does not have anyone at home all that often and they usually are on the deck on the back of their house. That makes for a cozy little get-away for me.

I should be able to get in and out of my rockers this year. Just sit and rock and take in the sounds of nature around. The only thing better may be to be sitting under the umbrella with a good book, plenty of sunscreen, sunglasses and hat, a drink to sip on, watching the people and water at the beach. It's been awhile since I got to the beach. I may have to break down and go for a few days this summer at least. My last visit there was when our family went together to Ocean Isle and rented two houses close by each other for a week. I could also just go out to the lake with my aunt off and on through the summer and sit on her screened in porch or down on the pier on the water. Or, I will probably get to my brother's house on the lake and take advantage of his swimming pool. Last summer I did not even try to go swimming there. He has some floats where you can just doze off in the sun and enjoy the warmth of summer as you float around in the pool. My grandsons love when I take them down there… There's the church pool at camp as well.

It is much easier to dream of other places and things then to take charge of incidents at hand. The day is half gone and I have done next to nothing. The cable is being updated today so it is off. That is not a real problem with me because I am not an avid TV viewer. It is just a noise that keeps me occupied as I move from place to place. For one of the few programs, I was actually able to watch all of the Delaney Sisters' First Hundred Years movie on Sunday night. It's very seldom that I know the beginning, middle and end of the same movie. This one, I watched and thoroughly enjoyed. I could identify with some of the things that took place in the movie and think back how things used to be and how much they keep changing from year to year. Charlotte, NC back in the 60's had school problems dealing with Afro-Americans. Now it is once again in court over the same type problems. Either way things go, there will always be some that have difficulty with the remedy. There is no clear cut answer to please everyone.

My Lady comes this evening. She has been kind enough to call and see how I am doing several times this week. Maybe she is the one that will work out and stay with me. I shall not try to get the recyclable ready. I will wait and let her do them and carry them out. I would like to try and walk to the mailbox, but guess I need to wait and have someone here when I do it. I am determined to get my bed changed and washed before she gets here.

I just simply can't sit around and let others do everything. I need to get back to work on my log cabin squares. We have our meeting on Monday. I'm not sure just how we will get to it, maybe I can get Tbird to take us and pick us up. She needs to go not far from there and get Giggles registered for Daycare. She is on the list, but has no name or date of birth just yet. Even so, there is an 18 month waiting list at the preschool. It is the same one that her brothers attended. We mentioned to Cotton that she needs to check out the waiting lists in her area for daycare when her baby comes. She probably will need someone for half a day the way she and her hubby have their schedules. It's hard to imagine that getting your child into a quality care place takes so much time. Allan and his wife were lucky to get Buddy into a new church center that was just opening up. He was about the third one on the list. That was at Christmas, and already it is full, too.

April 21,1999 - Such a horrific night! There are no words to describe or to comfort those involved in the tragedy in Colorado. This is something that touches the lives of the whole world and even from past experiences, no knowledge to prevent the tragic lost of young lives. We are appalled at the terror that strikes in the safety of our children's everyday lives. A tragic event that repeats itself in no particular pattern. An indication that something is wrong, very wrong with the environment our future adults are being reared in. We are sorrowed at our own lost and the effects left on those who are the survivors. Imagine how much worse it is for those that are caught up in wars around the world. Their world is even more horrific than our own. The magnitude of the terror is so much greater. It is all so much larger than anything we could imagine.

The shooting, bombing and terror of Denver has touched me closed than one would think since I live so far away from the area. If it had happened some years ago, it may have been affecting a part of my personal life as well. There was the time that I had to make the decision to give up my daughter and allow her to live in Denver. At the time she left home, there was no guarantee of a time she would be able to return home. She was born with asthma. It seemed at times that the whole family was breathing to help her as she struggled for each breath. The verdict came that if she did not improve there was a chance she would not live to adulthood. Her only chance at life was the hospital in Denver. After struggling with the pros and cons of what to do, we drove her out there at the age of twelve. She was admitted into the hospital as critical. We had to take five days to drive her out so as to change the altitude slowly and give her time to acclimate as we proceeded. Our pastor anointed and prayed for her before we began our journey. Our prayers were answered. She was able to return home after three and a half months in the hospital as moderate and able to care for herself. She has been able to live a wonderful life since then. While she was in Denver, she attended the school just across the road from the hospital….. Yesterday could have been her at another time…..

Lady and I have seemed to get along quite well together. I so hope that we continue enjoying each other's company and can work together. She worked in my bedroom for me last night and it is so much better organized. She enjoys Charlie following her around keeping watch of what she does. She put Charlie's bed up off the floor to clean and when she was getting things back into place there was Charlie sitting by the chair where his bed was, looking at it and waiting for her to get it down for him. Once it was on the floor, he climbed in and looked at her as if to say, "Thank you."

I had to call my dentist today and touch base with them about when I may schedule for another attempt to get my crown done. It will have to be in May. I was scheduled to go the day after I fell, but Wes called at 11PM and left a message of what had happened to me. This time I inform them that I will have Tbird to call and set up the appointment just in case she has to take me. I am not at all sure when my knee will be working on it's own reflex enough to be safe driving myself again. As of now, it doesn't feel at all well. After moving a few things around yesterday, it made was a bad night of spasms and pain as it is now and a week has passed since I fell. At 3:30Am I was still awake… looking for that magical position of rest and relaxation.

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