Latest update from Flagler Hospital in St Augustine Florida

Just a few minutes ago, all bandages and drain tubes were removed from my Newly repaired knee. It was rebandaged and looks good.

We did our therapy, which included 150-200 ft of walking with a walker, which is better than most people do at this point. We are waiting the arrival of PTs so can do the PM therapy.

The painblock is effective so pain so far is not too bad.

This our first effort to update the blog and if it works, great.

Sent from my iPhone.
Sorry for any typos.

Sent from my iPhone.
Sorry for any typos.

Dad's surgery went fine

I talked to mom about an hour ago and his surgery went well and he is resting comfortably(?) in his room.

He is in room 8017 of Flagler hospital. He has his cell phone with him and mom is likely in his room with hers as well.

Will update as further news is available.

Sent from my iPhone

The last chapter

As I am writing this, I am waiting for the hospital to call to verify some information. We went through the chemical stress test, the testing of the carotid arteries for blockages. none found. We do have this little problem of atrial fibrillation, which is being taken care of by drugs. I can never feel it but I guess I have it. The biggest danger with this is that there is always the possiblity of a blood clot forming and traveling to the brain and asing a stroke.

Anyway, we have cleared all of the hurdles, and surgery to install a new full knee replacement is presently scheduled for 9:45 AM Thursday morning, the 9th day of December. Wish me well.

The cold weather(29-32 degrees in the morning, high 40's) is slowing down our outside work, but we have still kept busy.

We were going to make another trip to Seaworld, and Busch Gardens, but since the Real seasony stuff does not occur until later in the month we may not manage, pending the mobility situation.

We went to the Jacksonville lighted boat parade, which was excellent with about 80 boats patricipating. We also did the Palatka boat parade which only had 14 boats, but they were also well done.

Jane was at Thanksgiving at Normas', but apparently not feeling well, as she put herself into the hospital on Saturday. We visited on Sunday and she was doing better and went home on Monday. We saw her yesterday, and she appeared to be fine.

Later this afternoon , we are going to Alfies to help celebrate Janices birthday. Two weeks from today is mine. lets hope we are not in a hospital this time. Until next time, everybody have a good holiday season and we will be in touch. Since Heidi can access this blog, we will probably have her post a few words as to our progress over the next week.

More Updating

I did not mean to imply that Life is all bad by yesterdays comment about the last year being a nightmare. In fact, quite the opposite is true.

I neglected to mention that during October, Laura celebrated her 70th Birthday on the 10th, and we celebrated 49 years together on the 27th of October.

Lester and Sue went back to Mayville yesterday and they will return in early January. There is a possibility that Ray and Luella will come down for a while and they will stay in our motorhome
which has been somewhat neglected during the past year.

During our free time prior to the surgery, we plan to go back to Seaworld, then Busch Gardens. We will also do some of the maintenance work around here, since I am the most mobile since last year.

We have a Thanksgiving Dinner at the Senior Citizens today and Thursday, we go to Normas.

Have a good Holiday everyone.

catching up again

Hard to believe Oct 18 was last report.

We have been very busy, at times, and in general have enjoyed very nice weather. The AC was used a little, as was the furnace, which developed a little problem, which was quickly resolved. It is great to let mother nature provide the heat during the day and cool things down at night, so sleeping is easy.

Before Lester and Sue got here, we took criket to the air show at Jacksonville Naval Air Station.
The Blue Angels were sensational, there was a jet truck that did 300 mph, and lots of stationary planes. The show was excellent, and there was only one problem. 100,000 people trying to get out of a packed limited access military installation at the same time. We sat for an hour in line without moving one inch, and it took 2 hours total to get out. At the time it was frustrating, but it still was enjoyable.

With Lester and Sue here we have been on the road a lot. We went to Volusia County Fair and watched/listened to Brenda Lee, who is now 65 like the rest of us. She put on a interesting show for the old folks.

!We went to Seaworld one day, they have a new bably killer whale (one month old) who was swimming around with its mother. We finally learned what the different critter is that is part of the Blue Horizon dolphin show. It is longer and thinner than the dolphins and darker in color. For those who are interested, it is something called a false killer whale.

We have been to numerous flea markets, and several home shows.

The music scene is firing up again with the return of the musical snowbirds. Between the Senior Center and Jay opening up Lou's Ponderosa again, we have jam sessions twice a week. We just attended River Fest in Ormond Beach, and earlier we attended the Jamboree at Barberville. It took us a while to find it but there is lots of of our kind of music in this part of Florida.

We got the tire problem on the boat trailer resolved, and checked the motor out, bought a new depth finder, cleaned up the boat and dumped it in the water. It is behaving very well, but for some reason, alligators are hard to find. We did do some shrimping but they are basically gone and it takes a lot of throws of the casting net to get enough shrimp to eat.

When we got here we checked with the surgeon who took x-rays and said to go ahead and use the knee, excercise it and come back in 3-4 weeks. I was able to walk some in a very wobbly fashion, which still felt great to do. It has been 5 weeks and we went back to him today. Let me preface this with the fact using the knee did not work, it started to hurt in some situations, and about the 1st of November, it became more and more obvious that "it is time". The x-rays showed that additional deterioriation was taking place and he said " Do you want to do it before or after Christmas". We said "before'

Surgery to install a new knee joint is now scheduled for Dec 9. He said I will be in the hospital for 4-5 days and then recommends going home for rehab (to stay as far away from other people who may be housing "bugs"). So now, on Wed, we have to go to St Augustine to see a heart Dr, our own GP DR , and have bloodwork done. In the morning we have an appointment in Palatka to have Lauras' ear canals cleaned out so she can hear again.

Assuming no problems show up in the blood tests and pre -opt, we go back to the surgeon on Dec 7 for paper signing, etc. Then we go back to St Augustine to pre-register with the hospital, then the surgery on Dec 9. Wish me luck on this because if we have any problems that cannot be rectified in time, the next available surgery date will be Jan13. I do not want to wait that long but whatever happens, happens.

This whole deal started Dec 18, 2009, so whatever happens, it means I will have gone, in essence, a full year without being able to walk. I am ready to walk.

Before I finally updated this thing, I looked at Kat-nap and Mohr Life. There are some beautiful pictures of all of the kids. If you have not been reading these blogs, you should do s

I promise to keep readers of this blog informed of our progress through the steps that are (hopefully) going to end this nightmare.

Busy, Busy Busy

It has been several weeks since we last wote. Thanks to Heidi for aleting you to our safe arrival in Satsuma.

During the last week of September we were really busy, getting ready to come to Florida. Lakeside and the Vikings were done by the middle of the month. While shutting down Ripley, we managed to have our early Christmas at Heidi's on the 24th, our last physicals with Dr Bodkin on the27th, had my broken tooth crowned on the 28th, had a trailer tire repaired, and then endured what seemed like 10 days of cold and rain to load the trailer and car. We got everthing together and left Ripley about 11:00 Wenesday morning, the 6th of October. After about 3 hours of travel in the rain, it stopped, and we haven't seen any since. Nothing but warmer weather and sunshine.

No problems on the road, we stopped at lexington, Kentucky. The next morning we completed the trip to Clinton, Tennessee, which is about 25 miles North of Knoxville. We went to the motel, we had reserved and left Ki-Ki and some of our stuff at the motel. (as I am writing this, I am monitoring the Jaquar- Titan game. It is now 17-0, in favor of the Titans and Trent Edwards, formerly of the Bills is now quarterbacking for Jacksonville)

After checking in at the motel we went to the Appalachia Museum, where hundreds of school children were enjoying the music and special events. We were surprised when we uncovered the trailer and then the Criket to find a full grown yellow cat sitting on the Criket. With Heidi's help we learned there was a vet right across the street. We had them check for a chip but no luck. Anyway , we still have that cat which has turned out to be a nice animal. I guess we are adopting it.

After 3 nice days, of music and sunshine we left Sunday afternoon about 3;00 and headed towards Augusta, Georgia, winding up in Newberry S. Carolina. Monday we went to Augusta to visit Ricks specialty vehicles, where Crikets are made and sold. It was very interesting and informative. It turns out that Rick was at a video shoot with Jim Kelly of the Bills. Rick had customized a Criket which was sold/auctioned to benefit Jims Camp Fund. Jim also had one customized for Jill. We have a picture of the one that was sold/auctioned and it was very nicely done. On the way out of Augustus, we had and overheating caliper on the right front. We stopped at a transmission place and they went overboard to replace the caliper, at a reasonable price and sent us on our way. This delayed us enough so that we arrived here about 9:00 that night.

We have things together, water on, hot water on, phone on, and part of the reason for the timing of this update, was the lack of internet. It was supposed to have been on Wed, but was not completed until last night. I love AT &T. Now I can catch up on paying bills, etc. Heidi gave us her old I-Phone 3 and we have been enjoying it. Soon we will try to send pictures.

One of the boat trailer tires was flat and we are struggling to get it fixed so we can get the boat into the water so we can catch some shrimp while they are still running.

Today, we went to see the orthopedic surgeon and he was surprised at how good I was, physically. He took x-rays and said the plastic piece was holding up very well, and depending on how things go, I might be able to go a long time without having surgery. So we are going to exercise it with water aoerbics, and riding the stationary bike. and see what happens after 4 weeks. We have been careful not to cause a problem requiring a quick trip for surgery. So we shall see what happens.

We had fish at Alfies last Saturday, with Jane , Norma and Buford. Janice could not join us but eventually we will get together.

Hopefully, our reports will be more timely in the future, and we try to include pictures. See you all soon.