Sunday, September 27
Wow! Jim and I must have been exhausted because we slept until 7:30. Not knowing whether Jimmy Clint and Jaycie were up, we waited for them to call us before going over to the hospital. About 9:00, J-Bird called so we hoofed it over there to catch up on the night’s happenings.
We found Jaycie in a delightful mood keeping herself occupied by “checking Jimmy’s monitors” and writing the results on the white board on the wall. Jimmy told us that about 4:00 this morning the nurses came in to check his vitals and the light woke up Jaycie who turned over and grinned at him. He said, “Jaycie do you know where you are?” She just grinned again, nodded her head, and turned over to continue her sleep. What a trooper that girl is!
If all continues as is, they will put a pacemaker in Jimmy tomorrow at 2:00. He was pretty exhausted so after Cathey came up to get Jaycie for cheer, Jim and I decided to go run some errands and make a stop at Becky’s so Jim could visit with her, too.
After picking Jaycie up from cheer, we headed back to the hospital with me dropping Jaycie and Jim off at the front door while I went back to the motor home to fix supper.
By the time I arrived back at the room, it was full to overflowing with guests; so after feeding Jaycie, Jim and I went back to Big V. Jaycie was spending the night with us again so we went back up later to get her.
Monday, September 28
It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten a kid up and ready for school! However, it was no big deal with Jaycie as she wanted to go see her Dad before we left. Being an almost teen-ager, Jaycie was not in a good mood though because her jacket did NOT match her clothes and it was too cold to go without one. Cathey has had too much other stuff on her mind to think about whether the jacket matched the outfit. Also, Jaycie decided that if she took her pony tail down, she wouldn’t be able to get it back right…she did it yesterday, but the jacket just messed her up.
Anyway, we left the hospital in plenty of time for me to take her by the house to find another jacket AND since it was one she adored, she even agreed to fix her hair!
Once back at the hospital, we all tried to wait patiently for 2:00 pm to roll around. Since Cathey’s sister, Laurie came in from Maryland for Cathey’s birthday and their sister-in-law, Wendy, was there, too, Jim and I found ourselves walking around since the room was so small.
2:00 pm came and went without anyone coming to get Jimmy. Finally close to 3:00, Jimmy was rolled up to the 6th floor where he was greeted in the hallway by a host of doctors, fellows, interns, and nurses. Not understanding a first what was happening, we finally were told that Jimmy had developed a fever within the last hour and Dr. Perez was not going to operate as to do so could cause an infection to get into his heart which could be catastrophic!
So, everyone followed Jimmy on the stretcher back down to his 5th floor room. All I could think of was how great God is! What if the doctor had been ready for him promptly at 2:00? What if his fever hadn’t been detected? This is definitely a sobering thought and one which requires giving God all the Glory!
To tell the truth, this event was so mind-boggling that neither Jim nor I can remember the rest of the day.
Tuesday, September 29
Happy Birthday to daughter-in-law, Cathey!
Happy 18th Birthday to Francisco in Puerto Rico!
If we thought yesterday was an early day, this one was even earlier! We needed to be at Jaycie’s former elementary school by 7:00 AM since she was being recognized for her achievement on the writing portion of Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) in the 4th grade. She and 17 of her classmates have been published in a book giving samples of exemplary writing. What an honor!
I went on up to Jimmy’s room where I found Cathey, Laurie, and Wendy entertaining Jimmy. As a small, silly birthday treat, I presented Cathey with 2 energy bars since yesterday she never got around to eating a single meal!
Jim made it back to the hospital before Dr. Perez came in to advise Jimmy about all the tests they had performed yesterday. The blood test showed that Jimmy had at one time in the last several weeks, Mononucleosis! This is what has been causing the “wiring” between heart and brain to act up. There is no need for a pacemaker at all! With that bit of confusing, but good news, the doctor said that he would be released from the hospital today.
Later when everyone was gone, Jim and I discussed with Jimmy what we should do. Did we need to stay in Lubbock? Jimmy felt that he should get busy getting his life on track and didn’t need us to do that!
Without telling him, we were truly relieved as money has become a major factor this month. With an airline ticket, rented vehicle, Jim’s flying trip in the Vibe and Big V to Texas, the budget was pretty much shot and paying for a RV spot somewhere just really would have hit the wallet! Not that we weren’t willing to if we were truly needed.
So…without further ado, we got Big V, and headed to the house to hook up the trailer. Since we needed to get gas, Jim said to wait to load the Vibe until after he had negotiated the gas pumps at Wal-Mart. After giving Big V a big drink and getting the Vibe on the trailer, we left Lubbock in our rear view mirror around 4:45! With any kind of luck, we should make it to Artesia before dark.
And…we did it! It was just about sunset as we approached Jean’s so we were able to park the motor home and get everything connected before dark (although Jim did discover the hard way that he was standing in an ant bed while he was unrolling the shore line to hook up to the electrical connection).
After a short visit to say hello to Jean, we fell into bed!
Wednesday, September 30
As much as I didn’t want to, I had Jim take me to the Laundromat this morning after we got breakfast at Sonic. Then he went back home to try to make heads or tails out of all the mail he picked up from Mineola.
This being Wednesday, we met the Terpening/Francis clan at Chaos for lunch. We hadn’t seen any of them in such a long time that we had a lot of catching up to do.
Thursday, October 1
Happy 12th birthday to granddaughter Jaycie!
For us, today was just a day to get acclimated to our setting. We had some serious house-straightening to do, as well as grocery shopping to stock the refrigerator and pantry. Other than that, it was just another day.
Friday, October 2
After a day of just getting our house and lives back together, we joined the clan over at Jerry and Nancy’s house for a Bulldog party. Our hometown Artesia Bulldogs were playing the Las Cruces Bulldawgs in Las Cruces tonight, but we all decided we’d just stay at home, listen to the game on the radio, and cheer our team from here.
This was a good gathering for us as we hadn’t seen Becky yet. The evening was filled with good fellowship, lots of cheering as it looked like the underdog Artesia team might make a game of it after all, and then the disappointment of falling short of victory as the 5-A Bulldawgs had their way with our team during the second half.
Saturday, October 3
“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” - Maya Angelou
From Artesia, our “Little” home on the prairie,
Jim/Dad/Gramps & Barbara/Mom/Grams
