Double Yolker

42 years ago we lived in Alamogordo, New Mexico the only town close to Holloman AFB where Mr. Right was stationed. It was hard being almost 1500 miles from home and it became even more challenging when we were over the top with excitement to be expecting our first child. And it was hard for my parents too.

So Mom got an idea. She did a little research and found a small town - but not too small - approximately midway between their house in rural LaPorte, IN and our house in Alamogordo. Then Mom and Dad called and said we should meet in this little town. That way we could have a little visit and neither of us would have to drive 1500 miles.

So we did it. Mom and Dad had a camper on the back of their pick-up truck and Mr. Right and I had a VW. We agreed to meet at whatever gas station we came to in Stroud. Remember this was before cell phones or emails or instant messaging. Once we each started out early that morning we were inaccessible to each other until we all arrived at our destination.

So late that evening we drove into the first gas station we came to in Stroud and a few minutes later so did Mom and Dad. We all spent the night in that little camper and it might sound weird but it's one of my best memories. It was so good to see them and so worth the long drive.

In the morning, as she always did, my mom got up and started making breakfast. When she cracked open one of the eggs it had a double yolk. She was quite tickled as soon as she saw it and said this meant that we would have twins. Of course our firstborn was a singleton but eventually we had identical twin boys and I always remembered that double yolker that prophesied twins for us.

Several years ago I cracked open a double yolker. I was really tickled when I saw it and thought to myself that one of my children would have twins. As it turned out Beth carried her identical twin boys for nineteen weeks before they died in utero. It was a tragic and heart breaking time for our entire family but James and Jake will always be a part of our family. They'll always be loved and we all look forward to the day when they'll be with us again.

Yesterday, I cooked breakfast for Mr. Right. That's pretty unusual for me since usually I dig out a Hostess cupcake for him or some donuts left over from the last time someone visited; but this weekend he had a toothache and thought scrambled eggs would be something he could handle.

I cracked open the first two eggs and they were 'normal' but when I cracked the third I laughed out loud. Then I showed them to Mr. Right and he laughed too. Because look what we saw:

Now I'm not saying that someone in the family is going to have twins. I'm just saying to any of you kids who are reading this and would like to have twins, you better go ahead and get pregnant now. I mean some of you don't even have 4 kids yet. What?

Some Nostalgia

At Beth's last week, I heard her musing about what her next You Capture subject would be. One of the subjects she mentioned was Rustic and we talked about it a little but then she decided on Industrial instead. For some reason, though, my mind latched on Rustic and I determined to try to catch some Rustic shots for the next You Capture.

Two days before You Capture day, I mentioned how hard I'd been working to capture Rustic pictures and Beth reminded me that the subject was Industrial. Rats!

As it turned out a family emergency distracted me from even thinking about a post so it didn't matter; but today, as I looked through those pictures, I wondered what to do with them. Finally, I decided they belonged in a post because the first place I sought Rustic was an abandoned farm where I'd spent many years and hours and happy family events.

The house is long gone, torn down after my dad moved to a continuing care facility but that old barn still stands - although barely.

When we first moved here, it was a dairy farm. This milk house, attached by a hallway to the barn, was where the milk was cooled after each milking, where it was stored until the big tank truck picked it up each day, and where all those milking buckets and accessories were washed.

The silo was where the cut green corn stalks were stored and allowed to ferment before being fed to the milk cows.

Eventually, the dairy operation proved to be too much work for a family operation where my younger brother was in high school, my older brother in National Guard basic training, my sister and I worked full time in Chicago, and dad worked full time so most of the work was on the shoulders of my overworked but ever optimistic mom.

But still the barn was a hub of activity. Dad had a workshop here where he fixed, fabricated, and invented everything from tools and cars to farm equipment and household items. He did it all and his sons and grandsons worked a lot here too, spending endless hours learning from a man who had a lot to teach and a personality that made everything exciting and hilarious.
It's hard to believe that it could have deteriorated this much so quickly but I guess it just shows what neglect can do. And, I think more than neglect punches holes through concrete block - maybe target practice but more than neglect.

It probably started with the roof. Once it was no longer patched, the barn was vulnerable to the effects of the weather and pretty soon nothing could have saved it. The lightning rods with their weather vanes on the roof fans are still there though.

In a way, I hated to take these pictures because I knew they'd make me sad but there's more than sadness in my heart when I look at them.

There are thousands of happy memories. I look at the pictures and see my mom and dad - happy, hard-working, and perfect! I see family get-togethers where our children played so freely and happily and learned to love their cousins like siblings.

The house may be gone and the barn might as well be, but the memories are intact. Sometimes it just takes a picture or two to bring them out.

Doctor Visit

I went to the doctor yesterday, a doctor who specializes in hand, upper extremity, and microvascular surgery. I wrote about another doctor visit before and it wasn't good so it seems only right that I should discuss yesterday's experience.

I've had trouble with my left shoulder and arm for many months. I'm not even sure when I injured it but I'm pretty sure of how I injured it. There was this Wii fitness challenge where you had to lie flat on the floor and stand up using only one hand and do it 5 times in some short period of time. I couldn't do it. But I did. And I knew I'd hurt something when I did it.

Of course, I always think time will heal injuries of this type so I did nothing until I saw my regular doctor last Fall on another matter. At that time I mentioned that my arm (and shoulder) had been giving me trouble for some time. He gave me a cortisone injection and after the initial soreness it felt great - for about a month. Then it flared up again.

Finally, during the follow-up for my Christmas season illness, I mentioned it again and told him I just wanted to rule out anything really dire like bone cancer so he sent me for an MRI. The MRI showed some rotator cuff or tendon damage - not severe but damage just the same. So he sent me to Dr. Anderson at the Bone and Joint Institute in Valparaiso.

What kind of woman am I? When I called to make the appointment, I was asked which Dr. Anderson I wanted to see - the husband or the wife - both with the same specialty. Every instinct in my body said that I wanted to see the husband. Why? I don't know. I guess it's old school thinking. Somehow it felt like a man would be more appropriate for bone and joint problems - or something - I don't know. Anyway, Dr. Anderson, the wife, was the first available (a bad sign? or just a victim of people with archaic thinking like myself?) so I felt compelled, reluctantly, to choose her.

My appointment was less than a week away and I received a ream of papers in the mail to fill out along with instructions on every single little item that I needed to take with me. Ugh.

But, as I filled out those papers, I began to appreciate the logic of it all. Everything that I needed - medical history, prescriptions with their strengths and dosages, and insurance names and numbers - was right here at my fingertips. Further, I had time to get the pictures from the MRI so that I could take them in too.

I walked in for my appointment and felt like the most organized person in the world. The ream of papers also had an appointment card and an address along with driving instructions so I was there in plenty of time too.

I sat down with a really good magazine and enjoyed a cappuccino from the machine in the waiting room. Then I had x-rays and a visit with a nurse. That visit was followed by a visit with the Physician's Assistant which was followed by a visit with the Doctor herself. I liked her. I liked the whole experience - except for the painful injection in my shoulder where I personally don't think it should have been. (Apparently a rotator cuff injury can hurt down into your arm where I'm experiencing the most pain. We'll see how this plays out.)

Anyway, I was so impressed with the facility that I opted to have the prescribed physical therapy there, too. It's a bit of a drive; however it is near Beth's house so that mitigates the extra gas expense, right? (Fair warning, Beth)

I go back in about six weeks so we'll see what happens.

(The doctor did say it could be treated with easy outpatient arthroscopic surgery and I couldn't help but wish they would just do that because it's hard for me to believe that torn tissue will repair itself with physical therapy but here I am making judgments again. Supposedly I'll develop some muscles that will take the strain off the damaged tissue. But, do I really want to go around with damaged tissue for the rest of my life? Won't the problem come back when I quit doing the bothersome physical therapy?)

See I really am like my Dad. He never agreed with doctors either. The only difference is that I don't argue. I just wait and see.

And, like I said. We'll see in about six weeks.

When Life Throws You A Curve

When I wrote my last post on August 31st, I had no idea what was in store for me in only a few short hours. I was looking forward to choosing a winner for my little giveaway celebrating my 100th post at 10 pm that evening and I was eagerly looking forward to getting back to a normal schedule following our return from our jaunts to Louisville, KY and Colorado Springs CO.

That afternoon, I went to Beth's house to be there when the kids got off the school bus. She had a doctor's appointment that all of us were excited about.

Shortly after arriving home, my brother called and said that the nursing home had called and that our dad had taken a very sudden and very definite turn for the worse. I checked my messages and, sure enough, they had called me too. Mr. Right and I jumped in the car and headed over there right away. I was pretty confident that I would get my dad to respond to me because he always did. When we got there, we found him in a very deep sleep. No one said "coma" but I wonder now if it was.

They said that they had wheeled him into the dining room for lunch but that he'd fallen asleep in his wheel chair which was not real uncommon. What was uncommon, was that when they tried to wake him to eat, he wouldn't wake up. They took his blood pressure which was 70/40 and his oxygen saturation levels were real low too. They put him into bed and administered small doses of morphine to "ease his journey" and called the family. It was shocking to see him like that but they told us he had 24 to 48 hours and we figured a lot could happen in that time - maybe even something good. But then my brother, my sister, and I made a decision to get dinner and while we were gone, Dad left too. He was 95 and I've heard lots of people say that death can't be unexpected when someone is that old, but his was.

Friday evening I stopped in to see him and he was wonderful. He smiled, joked, responded in every way and when I left I felt happy and optimistic that he was getting stronger and better. So to me, I had lots more time to spend with him and lots of time to be a better daughter to him. His death was, to me, unexpected. Shocking. And mostly just so disappointing. I just thought, maybe unrealistically, that we had more time.

My dad was a good man and a good father to me for 63 years. I'll always miss him just like I'll always miss my mom. And I'll always wish I would have and feel like I could have done more. Is there ever 'enough' when it comes to repaying our parents for all they've done for us? Probably not. But I know that in their eyes we weren't lacking. In their eyes we were their children and that's all they asked from us. I hope.

Now back to that little giveaway. I apologize for taking so long to get my act together. For several days, we had 20 people living in our house and the logistics of that are enormous especially when it's unexpected and unplanned for. That's my excuse. One night though, one of my daughters cut out the names that I had written and put them in a bowl. Another daughter drew a name and the winner was Kiki.

So Kiki, I hope you'll visit my site soon to check for the winner and when you do that you'll send me your email address so I can get all the information I need to get your prizes to you. If I haven't been able to contact you within 10 days, I'll draw again from the same pool of names to pick another winner. Bear with me, folks, I'll get this right yet.