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Day 13 - Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Monday night - I stayed at the hospital after the angiogram results to see how that was going to go.  Nancy, Norma's sister, and Jon Munson, our nephew, were there with me probably until about 10:30 p.m.  We decided it would be best if Jon drove Nancy's car back home as one of our other nieces, Ginger Perkins, needed Nancy's car to come back in to get Nancy the next day because Nancy had decided to relieve me and do an all-nighter with Norma while I went to the Chicago condo.  I had a great night sleep.  Nancy hung in there for the night shift for Norma and the rest of us.  Norma had a particularly active night and kept Nancy and her nurse very, very busy.

There are some common repeats that happen over and over again such as "I need to get up to go to the bathroom."  Even though she has a catheter, she has a sensation that she has to get up and go constantly.  You'll tell her that she has a catheter and she'll say okay and then thirty seconds later she wants to get up and go.  As I explained to our good friend, Jim Chesney, it's kind of like talking to a two-year old who has their mind made up and they want to know why they can't do it - but you can distract a two-year old.  In this case, it repeats and repeats and repeats.  It's a good thing because she's active and wants to take care of business but it has a tendancy to become very tiring for the people who are caring for her.

Another theme is "I need to go upstairs and take a shower."  She was asked why and responded "We're going out."  We asked what are you going out for and she responded "Ken and I are going out for Tai food and I have to get ready."  Now Norma and I have never gone out for Tai food but I really can't wait to go is how I'm feeling about this so I'm all for that.

Even though she is in a hospital bed, she wants to go upstairs to our bedroom to go to bed and she's constantly thinking that our little dog, Scooter, who is 3 1/2 pounds and 17 1/2 years old, is with her in bed and she wants to make sure he's okay and isn't falling out of bed.  That's kind of a common theme with which we deal.

We've gotten to the point where we're calling her Houdini because she's gotten quick and good at getting out of restraints.  She's good at diverting you to go to one side of the bed while she's reaching around to the back side of the bed to untie restraints to get out to do whatever she thinks she needs to do.  That's what happened to Nancy Monday night.  I got a great nights sleep.  I probably slept from about 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday to about 8:30 a.m.

I checked in with Nancy and she was kind of tired so I came down to relieve her.  Another niece, Becky Bicknell, was coming in to help from about 10:00 to 1:00 that day so I took Nancy back to the Chicago condo to see if she was able to get some rest.  Then I came right back to the hospital to spend time with Becky and then Ginger showed up a little after 10:30 a.m. so we had enough family members here to watch over Norma.

Nancy was ready to go by 3:30-4:00 in the afternoon and wanted to come back down and be with Ginger so I could get some more relief so I went back to the condo for about three hours to kind of freshen up and get ready to come back and do the night shift from Tuesday night to Wednesday until noon or 1:00 p.m.

When I got back, Ginger and Nancy said Norma had been sleeping for about three hours from about 6:30-9:30 p.m.  I relieved them and they went back home.  I'm happy to report that Norma had her most restful night probably since she's been here.  She pretty much slept until 4:00 a.m. when they came down to take her for a CAT scan.  It's given me a chance to dictate this on the phone so we can give you an update of where she's at.  Testing continues and Norma is still smiling through this.  She's a wonderful woman and I'm very proud of her.

For the first time, I had a chance to read all the Guest Book stuff and I have to admit I sat here and just wept.  I could not believe the outpouring and the prayers and the faith that everybody has and it just covered me like a warm blanket.  I just can't thank everybody enough for what you're doing for us and our family and how important friends and family and everyone that's involved in this is to us.  I am still overwhelmed by this and I want to give special thanks to you Marti and I want to give special thanks to Debbie for holding down the fort and taking care of this.

I also want to thank Dan Pearson for setting up this wonderful web site for us to be able to communicate.  It saves a ton of phone calls.  It lets people be connected.  It gives me a chance to tell everybody how I feel and report on Norma so prayers can continue.  That is so important to us and I want to thank him for that.

I also want to thank Dale Roberts for calling me and telling me that he had a friend who had a condo in Chicago that was available that we could use.  That has been a lifeline for us - a chance to stay close and get some rest, clean up without waiting in a waiting room with other people where you really don't have a lot of privacy.  It's just been awesome.

I want to thank Drs. Dave and Kalpana Bicknell who also offered their home at any time to me.  They are family members and Dr. Mike and Becky Bicknell's brother and sister-in-law and they've been fantastic as well as have so many others. 

I especially want to thank my Mom for taking care of Scooter and the cats and holding down the home front and still driving in and visiting when she can.  She would like to be able to come more often but she's kind of stuck taking care of Scooter.  I want to thank my brother Terry for his love and support, especially during those first few extremely difficult days. 

Norma's brother Ralph has really, really been a rock for me because he drove up from Tennessee right after this happened to Norma and spent several days here helping me and taking over some shifts so I could get out and take a breath.  He had to go home to take care of some business but he's on his way back up this morning and should be back this afternoon to help out.   Norma's Dad has also done what he can to be there and lend his support.

I also want to say a big thank you to our nieces and nephews, Becky, Ginger, Chrissie, Jon and Eric who have been a great help and support.

I hope I haven't missed or overlooked anyone.  I hope you all know how much we appreciate everything that has been done for us.

It's been great to hear from old friends such as Dave Corrie and Dick Gove, as well as current friends.  Dave Corrie got me started in the life insurance business and I can never thank him enough for giving me the opportunity to do what I do for a living.  I get the opportunity to not just help others but to end up helping ourselves for "walking the talk" and doing what I do for a living by doing the same kind of insurance planning for us as I've done for others.  That's going to give us a lot of comfort as we go down this road.  Dick Gove is another who was also a mentor and helped keep me in the insurance business in the early years by giving me encouragement.  It was nice to hear from them and so many other friends.  It's just been an awesome experience.  That's my update for today.  So many thanks for the blessings we have.  We're very encouraged so continue the prayers if you will and thank you for everything.  God bless everyone! We thank you for everything.  Tell your family you love them because you never know when you might have the opportunity again and that's so important.

After the CAT scan this morning, they brought her back about 5:00 a.m.  She continued to rest and sleep well.  They just got her up to brush her teeth.  One of the doctors came in and asked her some questions and she knew she was in a hospital and she knew it was February of 2008, which she's been pretty good at.  That was good!  The CAT scan results were about the same as before.

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