Been a long and weird week.
The 4th of July was very very slow at work - I think we took 20 calls all day, and we had 4 staffed. Zzzz. Not a lot of calls the entire weekend, so it was nice.
Monday was hospital day. Jim went in for his laryngectomy surgery, and I had planned to sit with Mom in the afternoon. The actual operation started after 1PM (they were scheduled for 10AM) and I had to go to the dentist, so they started just before I got there. About 3, I went to get something for lunch, and while I was gone, the doctor came out and told my mom there had been a complication - Jim's BP had dropped and he'd arrested on the table. They shocked him out of the arrhythmia and closed up what they'd done, and stabilized him before coming out to tell Mom.
Yeah, that was a shock coming back from lunch.
We called everyone, and my brother and SIL and 3 of Jim's kids came up to the hospital. About 7ish they moved him from Recovery up to the CCU, and we got to see him about 8:30, but he was pretty much out of it.
Tuesday was test day. They ran an ECHO and a cardiac catheterization to see what may have caused the problem, and didn't find anything. The cardiologist was of the opinion that the drop in BP caused the arrhythmia, and so the laryngectomy was rescheduled for Wednesday. I went up and saw him on Tuesday night after work, and he was complaining that he wanted out of bed, so he was feeling fine.
Wednesday was laryngectomy take 2. No complications and no surprises this time. Thank you, everyone who was thinking about him this last week. I haven't been to see him yet - he's not really wanting visitors at the moment, so I'll see him in a couple of days.
Thankfully Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were uneventful. Note: The new Pizza Hut pastas are yummy! I liked the Chicken Alfredo (which used rotini noodles O_o) better than the red sauce version, but the red version was better on Saturday. I also finished Comfort Twinkle #1 and started #2. Pics at my
Flickr page.
Sunday, me and the motorcycle people (Paula, Art, and Mikey) went for a ride - we had lunch over at
King Louie's in Wood River (I had Ash in the car, too) and then up the Great River Road to Grafton. The Mississippi is at flood stage up there still, but is dropping. Ash was complaining because of the smell (hey, it's a river, fps) and there was a lot of brown earth - in places it looked like someone had drawn a line, above which everything was green and below, everything was brown. Ash rode with Mike from Grafton up to the lookout at
Pere Marquette Park, and we took some pics:
Yes, she's sticking her tongue out. Brat. The view is of Calhoun County, IL, and the river below is the Illinois. You can't see the Mississippi, as it's behind the hills, but you can make out the bluffs in Missouri in the far distance.
Mike and Art left us at this point, and we took the homemade root beer - did I mention that King Louie's makes their own root beer? yummmmmmmm - and some sweet corn we'd bought at a roadside stand back to PK's house, and then I kidnapped Ash to go over to Knit and Caboodle in St. Charles. The haul:
- 2 50g balls of Cascade Yarns "Fixation" (98.3% cotton, 1.7% elastic) in colorway #9980 Los Alamos (bright blue, yellow, orange, hot pink to red). Yes, this is the same color I'd bought before, and they were still on sale, so I bought more.
- 2 50g balls of SandnesGarn "Sisu" (80% wool, 20% nylon) in colorway #4503 (pink). Guess who wanted this one?
- 1 100g hank Trekking "Hand Art" (75% superwash wool, 25% nylon) in colorway Tundra (light pine to forest green, burgundy to ruby red). This one is for me.
- 1 100g ball of Plymouth Yarn Co. "Sockotta" (cotton/SW wool/nylon) in colorway #5613 (red, yellow, blue, white/green). Bold bright stripes.
We met Kesh and Panda at DQ, and they took Ash back as I went to the store for dip materials. I rescued a wandering boxer (dog, not person) on the way to PK's house, and then we cooked. Did you know that 12 people can make a lot of noise? Especially while eating!
When I got home, I found out that a friend's husband had had a massive heart attack in the middle of the night Saturday night. She's my age, and has 2 small children. I just don't know what more to say. Think about Alison this week, will you? She needs your good thoughts.
Today, I had an errand to run in South County, so I took the pooch with me to drive down. It was so nice out, I decided to go for a cruise - and ended up taking the Great River Road down to Chester, IL and then came back up US61 on the west side of the river. The Mississippi is very high down there still, and lots of places were obviously under water until very recently.
I stopped at a roadside park and took a few pictures at Bloomsdale:
Plu is enjoying the view. :) Yes, that's a picnic table he's sitting on.
Looks pastoral, doesn't it? What you don't know is that I-55 is right below - apparently the park is on the bluff cut above the highway, and you can very clearly hear the traffic passing maybe 200 yards away. Was a rather weird dichotomy of a view and the highway noise!
All everyone is talking about here is the A-B/InBev 'merger' - and Leno just joked that the Clydesdales will be sold to Sizzler. Oi.
New rumor is that the HBP trailer will be on Star Wars: The Clone Wars in August. Le sigh.
Albert Pujols and Ryan Ludwick are in the All-Star Game tomorrow for the Cards. Albert is the starting DH! Yay!
I think that's all for me. Hope your week isn't as nutty as mine was.
Cheers!
