Take That France

The American male swimmers did it!!!!! It couldn't have happened any better.

Home from Camp

Sondros and I got home from camp Friday evening. We both had a good time. Sondros learned to canoe and was able to canoe out to the island in Lake Independence. He successfully completed Polar Bears, which requires an early morning jump in the lake. He also participated in archery and made the target every shot.

I was the nurse for the 8 y.o. boys. We had 9 boys in the cabin, which is 2 to 3 too many. We were scheduled for 10 but one did not show up. An important part of asthma camp is doing education. It is a challenge at this age. One of my boys ended up being sent home for bad behavior. Another ended up going home early. His father was murdered 2 weeks before camp and he just needed to be with his Mom. He was a very sweet boy, I felt so bad for him.

I found several 4 leaf clovers. I have always had an eye for seeing 4 leaf clovers. The most I ever found in one day was 20, back in Cassadaga.

I developed an ear infection at camp. I have not had an ear infection since I was 25 y.o. and in the Navy. It really was uncomfortable.

We had only one storm at camp, during lunch on Thursday. We all had to go in the storm shelter. It was rather crowded, to say the least. The next day it was very hot and humid. My campers were all picked up on time, whew!

Now that we are home Sondros and I spend our afternoons in the pool. Sondros swam for 4 hours yesterday! I did laps for 2 1/2 hours. Tomorrow I am taking him and his friend Mitch to see Kung Fu Panda.

Off to Camp Superkids

I'm getting ready to leave for Camp Superkids. It is the oldest and largest camp in the U.S. for kids with asthma. It is run by the American Lung Association of Minnesota and held at a YMCA camp near Loretto, MN. I will again have the 8 y.o. boys, who are all 1st time campers. Each cabin has a R.N. There is a M.D. present 24 hours/day at camp. We do a lot of education on recognizing triggers and early warning signs, proper inhaler technique, and learning that kids with asthma can do anything other kids can do. So many kids, along with their parents, mistakenly believe the kids cannot participate in running and other sports. For the last several years it has been documented that our campers have fewer ER visits and hospitalizations after completing camp. For that reason many health plans pay for camp.

I picked up my grandson's Advair yesterday and the co-pay was $50!!! It was a $42 co-pay for an albuterol inhaler. One of the biggest problems in asthma management is medication compliance, along with improper inhaler technique. Well, with co-pays of $50 it is understandable how families cannot afford an Advair diskus every month. We are so in need of health care reform in this country.

Yesterday I saw a Tylenol display in a store. The sign said "skipping meals can cause you to have a headache" so stock up on Tylenol. Hello, wouldn't it be better to eat than to take a drug known to cause liver toxicity? A Tylenol now and then, OK but regular ingestion can ruin your liver just as badly as alcohol. The bottle size was 500 extra strength caplets. That should be a life time supply!!

I will be off line until Saturday 7/12.

Summer is Here

At last, after an unusually cold and wet spring summer is here. The weather this past weekend was beautiful. Low 70's, pleasant breezes, sunny. The kind of climate I would like year round. This week it is moving into the 80's, a little too warm for my tastes. I begin my days with a 5 to 6 mile walk early. I wait til about 6 p.m. or later to swim so I can avoid the melanoma causing sun rays. I love to swim, I should have been an otter.

Sunday I took a walk through Crosby Park, it was alive with dragon flies. I don't know what type of dragon fly is blue but they were everywhere. I need to get a dragon fly field guide (hint Emily,Alex, or Helen for Christmas or birthday).

I am typing with Galway on my shoulder. He is a very loving, but naughty, kitten. He loves to sit on my shoulder. At night he sleeps on my head. He has the same hair color I do. I think that is why he is bonded so much with me.

Congratulations to my grand daughter Katie. She just turned 4 and is riding a 2 wheeler bike BY HERSELF!!! No training wheels. That is pretty amazing for her age.

I cannot believe this is my first post for June!!! I will try to do better Arthie and Emily.

Let Summer Begin

Summer doesn't officially begin for another month yet but most of us consider Memorial Day weekend as the beginning of summer. Here in Minnesota we have had a very cool spring. We had snow several times in April and even once in May. The Memorial Day weekend was no exception. It did get very muggy on Saturday, leading to tornadoes. The nearby city of Hugo was hit, killing a 2 y.o. and injuring many. The next day it was back to 50 degree weather. I predict this summer will be similar to the summer of 1990. President Gorbachev visited Saint Paul that summer on the first Sunday of June. We stood in line to see him in our neighborhood. It was 28 degrees that day!! It was a very cool June and cooler than normal summer. This summer will be the same, in my opinion. Of course I'm not a climatologist but that is my prediction.

Gas here is up to $3.85.9 per gallon. So I will be mostly staying close to home this summer. My car required $1700+ in repairs earlier this month, followed a week later by a flat tire. Any money I had saved for a vacation is gone. I have a 2001 Taurus. I would trade it in but it only has 50,000 miles so I want to keep it for a few more years.

Why do gas prices always end in .9 cents? Nothing else is priced that way. I don't get it.

Tomorrow I test for the TSA, the folks doing security at our airports. If I make it through all the hoops I'd be working part time at the airport as a screener. I think it would be an interesting job.

May 1st 2005: 3 Years Later

Today marks the 3rd anniversary of what was almost my date of death. On May 1st 2005, a Sunday, my sons checked on me because they knew I had not felt well on Saturday. I had been in Ireland earlier in April. After returning from there I was tired beyond any jet lag I’d ever had. I worked on Friday and went to my usual Friday night crop, which I ended up leaving early because I was literally falling asleep while cropping. I was also having sharp abdominal pain. That night and all day Saturday was a blur of shaking chills and over whelming fatigue. Sunday they found me and called 911. I was admitted to the hospital in critical condition with pneumonia, septic shock, and DIC (Disseminated intravascular coagulation). I was dying. remember Jim Henson, the puppeteer? He died from the same thing. I was in and out of being conscious. While semiconscious I prayed to God saying if it was my time then take me. I prayed to Fr. Oscar Romero asking him to intercede on my behalf, that I wanted to live but I would accept whatever was God’s will. Well, I did survive. Had I died I never would have met my 3rd grandchild, Armando. Katie would not have remembered me, being only a year old. And Sondros would have missed me terribly. I have been left with a lot of lung damage. My health has never returned to normal. I ended up having to retire many years earlier than I planned to. But I am alive and I am glad. Thanks be to God and Senor Oscar Romero for his intercession.

Waters Edge Retreat Center

I spent a 4 day weekend at a great scrapbooking retreat. A group of us from Creating Keepsakes Member Board decided many months ago to get together for a weekend of cropping and scrapping. Gena, aka HiMommy, found information about Waters Edge Retreat Center on line. It is located in the boonies outside the small town of Santiago, MN. It was a great place for such a retreat. 11 of us from Minnesota and Iowa, and Sarah from California, spent 4 days together. I had met 2 of the women previously at Saturday crops at The Scrapbook shop in Saint Paul. The other women were all friends waiting to be made. We took turns making meals, having signed up ahead of time for a particular meal time. It was amazing how well we all got along, united in our hobby of scrapbooking but otherwise representing different careers, religions, politics, etc. One weird but true fact was NONE of us smoke. I think that is why we got along so well. You know, birds of a feather flocking together.

I worked on my 1989, 1990, and 1991 photos and scrapbooks. I had put off doing those years because they represent difficult years in my life, covering the time period after my divorce when I became a single mother of 3 children and we moved to Minnesota. I was able to date the photos with the help of my diary and date book. We sure did go to ALOT of Twins games our first few years here. I completed 22 pages, fewer than I had hoped but a respectable number. I think Bethany did 30 pages. Most of us did somewhere in the 20's.

On Friday a group of 5 of us toured the Creative Memories factory in nearby Saint Cloud. Creative Memories is really the company that contributed the most to the hobby of scrapbooking taking hold the way it has. Scrapbooking has always been around but they took it to a new level with archival products easily available. They encouraged the combination of scrapbooking and photography. I had always kept scrapbooks since 4th grade when the Salk polio vaccine came out. In college I began combining my photos with my scrapbooks. In 1988 I was introduced to Creative Memories at a genealogy conference. I became hooked then. CM really got its start through genealogy. It offered a way to preserve your family stories along with the photos. I have always used CM albums, they are by far the best quality of any on the market. Now that there are a bzillion companies selling various scrapbooking products I do use other products but I tend to stick with CM's basic style of keeping it simple but telling the story.

It was interesting to see the albums made. They are all made in the United States, what a unique idea. The factory is clean, organized, and well run. Yes, CM albums cost a little more but it's worth it to get a well made USA product.

It was a good weekend to spend inside because it was really a yucky weather weekend. It was cold, rainy, and then snowy. Yes, snow!!! We only got 1-2 inches where we were. Up north got 18 inches. That is so depressing for the last weekend of April. The retreat center is located along the Saint Francis river. It was really a very pretty location. The river got quite high during our stay. We were glad there was a stone retaining wall and slight incline between us and the river.

After this retreat thongs, white weiners, ring bologna, and lemons will never have the same meaning again, LOL. Sarah from California received quite the education from us midwest girls. We plan to get together again next April at the same place. We wanted the same weekend but another group already signed up for it so we'll be going a week earlier. If it snows again then Sarah isn't invited to any retreats after that.

Pain

The operative word for yesterday was pain. I have had many eye surgeries over the past 4 years and this was, by far, the most painful. Even when I spent 5 days with radioactive seeds sewn into my eye I didn't have this much pain. I wasn't at all prepared for this degree of pain. The Vicodin hardly touched it but it did make me get sleepy so it helped that way. I have a lot of bruising, which I was hoping to avoid this time but no such luck. I know someone else who had the same procedure done and had almost no bruising. It probably doesn't help that I've had radiation to the area, that always changes the tissues. Add to that I tend to bruise more easily I guess it would be a surprise that if I didn't bruise.

Trying to get my post op appointment is proving to be very frustrating. The clinic number provided on the discharge instructions was incorrect, it was a PT clinic. I called the plastic surgery appointment number and after much repetition of my name and dob I was given an appointment time but then told oops, the computer says too many people are scheduled that day. So I may end up removing my own sutures. Dr. Fletcher used a running stitch so it's like unraveling yarn, once I cut the retaining knot, which is held to the bridge of my nose with a piece of steri-strip the whole set of stitches can be pulled out. I'm supposed to get a call back once someone figures out how to over-ride the computer. Computers have their place in medical practices but really, a pencil and a notebook worked just as well, and cost a lot less.

I'm off the my local scrapbook store to get things ready for the retreat. I leave tomorrow.

The Last Eye Surgery

Tomorrow I will be having what I hope is my last eye surgery. I have scar tissue from radiation and several previous eye surgeries. It causes my lid to have a significant droop, reducing my field of vision. It is covered by insurance because it was caused by radiation and involves the visual field cut. I have to have the procedure done in the hospital rather than the day surgery center because of my latex allergy. It is still day surgery. I have to be at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. That is really early now that I am retired! Surgery is at 8:30 a.m. and is scheduled to take 2 hours! This rather surprised me, I hadn't expected it to take that long. I hope I don't have as much bruising as I usually get because I am going to a scrapbook retreat for 3 days this weekend.

The retreat is at a place in Santiago, MN. The house is set up as a crafting retreat center, used mostly by scrapbookers and quilters. It looks very nice, with 34 acres of scenic land. Hopefully it won't rain the entire weekend so I can take a few walking breaks throughout the weekend.

My daughter and her family are on vacation in Orlando, FL. This is their first vacation in 2 or 3 years. They drove from Wisconsin so they could visit Emily's birth family in Birmingham, Alabama. They had a good weekend visit with family and after a day of rest yesterday are spending today at Sea World. Katie is 4 y.o. so the perfect age for an Orlando vacation.

My older grandson is anxiously awaiting the arrival of his baby brother, who is due any day. Sondros is so excited about finally having a sibling.

My baby grandson stays busy getting new teeth and refining his walking skills. He is so darn cute. It's hard to believe he's almost a year old. His birthday will see family coming from Colombia.

Happy spring to everyone!!

A Ray of Sun

Today started out as another cold, dreary day but at 1:30 p.m. the sun made an appearance. What a difference the sunshine makes. It's not here for long but by next week we should be enjoying its presence more. We are due for a major snow storm beginning late tomorrow. Duluth is under a blizzard warning. I can begin to understand a little how my German great grandmother must have felt in March 1888. She was a new immigrant from Marktgreitz, a small village in Bavaria. She was living in New York City, in the Bronx. After a week of unseasonably mild March weather the storm began. It ended with 40 plus inches of snow in the city. The whole east coast was paralyzed for many days. My great grandmother had never experienced such a storm in Germany and she wanted to return home. Of course travel in those days wasn't what it is today so she never did return. But she talked about that blizzard for the rest of her life.

Speaking of travel, how would you like to be flying AA this week? I feel sorry for all the travelers unable to get home or to their destinations thanks to all the canceled flights. Two years ago this week Sondros and I got stuck in the Boston Airport overnight. We were returning from Ireland. Our Northwest connection from Boston to Minneapolis left without us. It was not a comfortable night.

The babies saw the vet today. Galway weighs 3 lbs! His paw size already shows he is going to be a big cat. His sister Clare weighs only 2 lbs. They got their first immunizations. Their leukemia tests were negative, whew! The bill today was $196. Is it any wonder so many pets aren't immunized! Each of the big cats have an appointment next week to get their shots updated. I have to take them one at a time.

That's Clare inside the Coke carton.