The Most Frightening.

Nancy at Ah, Sweet Mystery Of Life asked the other day what frightens you. I obviously answered snakes and heights. I’ve been thinking about it a good bit, and although Nancy was talking about the little fears we can conquer, I got to thinking about the biggest fear. This is sort of a downer post, so I’m just warning you ahead of time.

In 1972 I worked in a charity hospital. I wanted to go into anesthesia and the fastest way to get there was by going to nursing school. I was working full time and trying to get through school at the same time. A part of each of our days was spent on the wards. Back in the early 70’s, men in nursing school were a rarity, and I found that when I was assigned patients each morning to take care of, I was usually assigned the big heavy people who couldn’t move. It wasn’t easy turning a 250-pound man to change his bed; to wash him, feed him and to take care of all the other stuff associated with a non-responsive patient.

There are many people I remember in those wards. People who I’m sure if they had more money would have gotten better care. But one I remember specifically. One day I was assigned a new patient. He was a man in his late 30’s early 40’s, and he was a CVA (cerebral vascular accident) patient. In other words he had a stroke. When I first saw him he had just come in and his wife and two children were by the bed. He was a nice clean cut looking guy and right off I could tell he was a farmer. His wife and children also looked nice and clean cut and the worry was obviously all over their faces.

I had four hours every day to usually take care of 3 to 4 CVA patients. This was always a total care situation, so my time was limited to say the least. With this patient I could usually spend an hour a day doing the things I had to, but I always felt with each of my patients it just wasn’t enough time. I talked to each of my patients, but with this one I talked a good bit more. I would always say if you understand me blink your eyes, move a finger, toe, just anything to let me know. He never did.

Over the weeks his family stopped coming as much and the regular staff at the hospital left him alone except for checking him from time to time. In the mornings I would find the night shift had done little to nothing during the night for him. I would always have to clean him all up because they usually didn’t even check to see if he had used the bathroom. He started loosing weight and from not being turned regularly he was starting to get decubitus ulcers (bed sores). This kept going on until one day I came in, and he was gone.

I’ve read novels and seen movies about people like this and ever since back in the 70’s the biggest most horrifying fear I have is to have a stroke. To not be about to move, but your mind is still working. To want to scream because this beautiful thing your mind, is now a prison. To be left alone hour after hour staring at the ceiling wondering if my family will come this day, this week or even this month. To probably be hurting from the ulcers on you body, to be hurting from lack of human contact.

I can think of nothing more horrifying than to be a prisoner in your body and to be left alone. When I went in to take care of that one patient, although he was non-responsive, I felt I could see the total consuming fear in his eyes.

This is what frightens me the most.

The Irony!

When I lived out in California, I used to go to some very good Chinese restaurants. I became proficient with chopsticks and really enjoyed eating at these places. We finally got a Chinese restaurant here in town about two years ago. It’s one of those chain types with the food being fair, tons of different choices and they’re pretty fast. I always wondered, since this is a small college town, why one wasn’t here much earlier.

A couple of days ago I went to get a pick up order, and as I walked in, the bubble burst. Wafting over their small stereo was country music. I stopped for a second and thought – WHAT THE HECK! Well really I thought something different, but I wanted to keep this clean. While waiting at the counter for my order, a guy comes in and asked what’s in Kung Po beef. He keeps pronouncing it like it looks, and the lady keeps correcting him. I thought to myself, you’ve got country music on your stereo, and you’re trying to teach a guy who has probably never eaten Chinese food how to pronounce it right. The irony was almost overwhelming.

I count myself lucky to have lived in so many different places, and known many people of different cultures, races and nationalities. Although we don’t have as many different people and cultures down here as a lot of the big cities, it’s is nice to see new people coming in, and to see the folk here trying new things.

I’m A Waver.

Down here when you’re meet a car on the road, a lot of people will wave at you. Not everyone does, but a good number of people do. Everybody has their own type of wave. I’m a fingers waver. While driving instead of taking my hand off the wheel to wave, I’ll lift my fingers for a wave. Since there are all type of driving styles there are different waves. You have you wrist waver. They will drive by resting their wrist on top of the steering wheel while driving and lift their entire hand to wave, but their wrist is still on the wheel. You have some people who sit so low in the seat that sometimes you can’t see their head, but you will see their hand pop up. Then you have the two handed, hand off the steering wheel waver. While keeping one hand on the wheel, they’ll lift their whole hand off the wheel and give you a good solid wave. My younger brother is one of those.

Fmom told me about one time she was with this brother and going down the road he would wave at everybody. One time Fmom asked him who that was he waved at. He told her he didn’t know. Fmom told him he must be running for some office because he waved at everybody. My point there is that waving get on some people’s nerves.

I had a boss once that was from Chicago. He hated it down here, and he would come in the office and complain just about every day of people waving at him. One day I got fed up with it and told him it must be hard for him with the waving down here. I told him I’m sure in Chicago you just step over the newest dead body in the street and ignore it. I don’t know where that came from, but needless to say he wasn’t happy. He did stop complaining about waving though.

So waving down here is just something a lot of people do. It shows they’re friendly, and sometimes it shows they have a sense of humor. Have you ever been waved at by someone, and immediately stop thinking of what you were thinking about and begin wondering, do I know that person.

Something To Be Proud Of.

I just found out about an Alabamaism I had never heard about. Here’s some info from Wiki:

The Vulcan statue is the largest cast iron statue in the world and the symbol of Birmingham, Alabama. The 56 foot (17 m) tall statue depicts the Roman god Vulcan, god of the fire and forge. It was created as Birmingham's entry at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri and is the largest statue ever constructed in the United States. It is the second-largest statue standing in the United States behind the Statue of Liberty.

The ism I’m talking about is a saying called Moon over Homewood. It seems the naked posterior of Vulcan is pointed toward an upper middle class town called Homewood. Thus the name, Moon over Homewood. Hey and ya’ll thought we had no class down here.

I usually don't pay attention to this, but I just looked at my site meter counter. I'm 8 visits away from 10,000. It ain't hockey, but Wooooo Hooooooooooooooo!

It appears my 10,000th visitor was someone from the mid USA. Whoever you are, and to all of you that have stopped by, THANK YOU. :)

Smoky!

It appears the brothers and sister decided this weekend was the weekend for everyone to come home. All the presents Fmom was going to get on Mother’s day she got this weekend. I think she likes that better. Having the kids come to her instead of going someplace else to celebrate. We did luck out on one thing. My brother and his family are members of a local bar-b-que club. So since he was part of the group serving this weekend, he got a lot of bar-b-que to bring home. He dropped off two packs to us. Fmom was saying that one pack was for my oldest brother that couldn’t make it, but I don’t think that pack will make the wait until my brother get back here.

I just took George out and we’ve got smoke again. I don’t know if it’s coming again from the GA/FL fires, but it fairly thick. I just looked and the fires there are about 485 miles away from us. Hard to believe the smoke came that far. This is a picture I just took of the pond. It ain’t fog.

Click to enlarge.

I'm hoping we get some wind here soon to clear this out, but the weather is saying wind will be light and variable. We might have this around for a couple of days. Not really good for FMom's asthma, or anyone one else for that matter.

Hope everyone is having a good Monday.

Juggling At The Speed Of Song.

This guy is one hell of a juggler. Juggling to the sounds of the Beatles.

Enjoy......

Update.

I finally got Fmom to the doctor yesterday and she was running a fever and she was having trouble with her asthma. Her doctor gave her an antibiotic shot and a prescription for more antibiotics. He said at her age with her asthma and running a fever, he was more concerned about possible pneumonia. With the shot and a couple of doses of antibiotics, Fmom appears to be feeling better this morning.

I’ve been making few changes on the site and I have a few questions for the more hmtl inclined than myself:

1. I put “Recent Comments” down below the blogroll. I’ve got so much room on the right and left that I would like to take the “Recent Comments” out of the page section and put it on either the right or left side. Any suggestions?

2. OK I guess only one question.

The only other change I made was in the color of the comment’s box in holoscan.

Hope everyone has a good Friday.

Drought Conditions.

I knew it was dry around here, but I just found out this morning that I’m living in an extreme drought area. I saw something on the news, and I went to the US Drought Monitor web page. It actually surprised me we are in a drought area. When you live around a lot of pine trees and things that stay green even in winter, then seeing how a drought is effecting the area sometimes isn't as clear.

The local news said we would need at least several bouts of two to three steady rain days to get back to normal. We are having rain right now, but it will pass on through. After that, I don't know when we'll get rain again. One thing that struck me odd is the local news was saying our best chance to catch up on the rain deficit will be during Jun-Nov. How can you catch up on the rain deficit during the hottest parts of the summer? Two words - Hurricane Season. Now I don't live on the coast, but most hurricanes that hit down there do bring us a lot of rain. However, the coast is far from recovery and some areas probably never will recover. I want rain, but not at the expense of more hurricanes battering down, well anyplace.

I've always liked to be a little bit ahead of the curve, so for years now, I don't water my lawn and if I can get away with it, not too many plants around the house. I know my neighbors think "God I wish he would take care of his lawn,", but I just look at it as good stewardship. To me water is a precious resource that most people take for granted. I think what brought that clearly to me was when I lived in San Antonio.

I rented a house there and the owner told me during the summer to make sure I watered the foundation of the house. I was surprised by this and asked him what he meant. Out there during the summer, the heat and lack of water will make big cracks in your yard. If you don't water the foundation of your house, then it will crack. I had seen many houses made of brick that had what looked like repaired cracks going up the side of a outside wall. I never paid any attention to it until my landlord told me to water the foundation. I found out that repairing cracked foundations is a big business out there. I also found out that in a city of over a million people there is only one aquifer that gets very low. You have to conserve out there.

I don't intend to let this house get a cracked foundation, but I can reduce my water usage by not worrying about the lawn. Actually I really like this idea. Doing something I consider good and being slackerly at the same time. Sometimes things do come together.