Friday Evening, July 16
Just as we finished one adventure, we began a new one when Leah and Ryan arrived from Liberal around 5:30. After visiting with Granny for a few minutes, we drove to Yantis for dinner at David and Lorri’s house.
After we had visited a while, we heard the doorbell ring and in came more friends from Liberal, Greg and Jennifer Turpin, also fellow members at Liberal First Baptist, whom we have known for many years.
With the arrival of Greg and Jennifer, we had a houseful of formal Liberalites, all from the same church, and it didn’t take long to have questions and comments bouncing off the walls as we tried to catch up on each other and mutual acquaintances.
Of course, the evening wasn’t just about talking with friends. As Baptists, we believe that food has a huge part in a gathering of this nature, and David and Lorri had certainly done their part in getting ready for us. David moved back and forth between the conversations and the smoker that was fired up in their covered patio. He was smoking chicken breasts and sausages, and the aroma had all mouths watering.
Barbara and I decided that we needed to get David and our friend Jerry Terpening together to talk about gadgets. David was using a new “toy” tonight…a sensor embedded in one of the chicken breasts that sent a wireless signal to a digital box on his belt. The box displayed the temperature of the meat and the time left until the meat would reach the programmed temperature to be done (according to FDA standards). What won’t they think of next?!
Lorri had prepared baked potatoes, salad, baked beans, chips and dips, and other assorted goodies to go along with the meat dishes, and when David’s buzzer finally went off, we settled around the table to continue our multiple conversations and help ourselves to yet another feast.
It had been a long day for us, so after taking second helpings of the food and talking some more, we begged out of the party and led Leah and Ryan back to Big V so they could get settled in for the night. Then, Barbara and I returned to Mineola where we said good night to Mother and immediately went to sleep.
Saturday, July 17
With Leah and Ryan settled in at Big V, we began the morning by planning a big breakfast here at Mother’s house. When the kids finally got here, we ate, cleaned up the kitchen, and then Barbara and Leah started on a project that Barbara had been looking at for some time-straightening out Mother’s linen closet. The closet isn’t very big, but it is packed with sheets, pillowcases, towels of every shape and size, and miscellaneous washcloths.
Ryan and I soon joined in the “party,” and soon we had everything strewn out across two rooms. When we realized that some of the sheets were either twin or king, neither of which Mother has beds for, we decided to open up every sheet, check the tags for sizes, and then fold the sheets back again and sort them by sizes, keeping the queens and full sizes here and setting the others aside to be taken to the Kindness Kottage with other items that need another home.
Michelle, Cousin Rob’s wife, was here with the kids for the day and came over with TJ to visit a bit before leaving two of the children with TJ for a few days and returning home with Arriana.
When the guests left, we had a little lunch and then Leah and Ryan went off on a tubing adventure with David and his family and Greg and Jennifer Turpin.
Congratulations to Paul and Stephanie, grandparents James and Susan in Hobbs, and great-g-ma Jean in Artesia as well as Eugene’s Great uncle and aunt, Jerry and Nancy!
Barbara and I took advantage of the almost empty house and had a quiet afternoon and evening until Leah and Ryan returned for snacks and a rousing game of Old Maid with a miniature deck Barbara had found in the Granny’s game drawer. None of us would make a game choice; so Barbara decided to be creative and to teach us not to leave the selection up to her! Once we finished a hand of Old Maid, we played another session, but this time of Rummi Cube which was more to our liking.
It was pretty much another normal Sunday for our bunch. We got up and got Mother moving around and fed and then headed out to Yantis where we met Leah and Ryan at the church. We went inside to join other church members for the weekly fellowship breakfast and then the kids went to a class that was taught this morning by David. Meanwhile, we went on to our regular Sunday school class.
David was really on fire this morning with another moving and thought-provoking sermon. He and Lorri have really made a strong and very positive impact on our church and community.
After the service we went back to Big V for the afternoon. After lunch, I went outside to do some mowing and burning before joining Barbara, Leah, and Ryan at the swimming pool. It was a hot afternoon, and the cool water suited us very well.
We returned to Big V after the swimming, I did a little more mowing in what we call our “front yard,” and then we had lunch, watched a couple of episodes of 2 ½ Men, and then I got ready to go back to the church for choir practice.
Barbara and the kids came to church a little before 6:00 for the evening service, and as soon as it was over, we all headed back to the house in Mineola to go through Mother’s nightly routine before sitting down to do some more visiting.
Monday, July 19
It was a busy morning around the place as we started running load after load of laundry. It never ceases to amaze us that we don’t seem to do all that much that requires a lot of changes of clothes, but there is never a shortage of dirty clothes…must be another of life’s little mysteries.
Mother had rehab from 11:00 until noon and then while she had her post-workout rest, we got busy with a family fish fry. Ryan and Leah brought three packages of fish that Ryan and the men in his family caught when they were here in May for their annual fishing tournament and campout.
After all the excitement and work of the morning, we all felt the need for some rest, so Leah and Ryan returned to Big V and Barbara and I stretched out for a nap.
Leah called around 4:30 to say that David had called them and Ryan and I were on for an evening fishing trip on Lake Fork in David’s pontoon boat. I quickly got dressed and drove the Vibe to Holiday Village to pick up Ryan and our gear, and then Leah drove back to Mineola in their car to spend the evening with Barbara and Mother.
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Ryan and I were expecting to go out for a couple of hours, but one fishing spot seemed to lead to another, and soon it was dark and David, Charlie (one of the men from the church), Ryan, and I were tied up under one of the bridges, dropping out lines for catfish and talking up a storm. It won’t go down in the annals of fishing as one of the greatest fishing expeditions on Lake Fork, but it was a wonderful night for the four of us as we shared in the beauty and quiet of the evening.
Oh yes, Charlie and I were skunked on this trip. Ryan caught the first fish, a catfish that was reasonably within the limit of being a “keeper.” David made the second catch, but didn’t want to have his picture made with it until I explained that when I wrote the journal article, we’d just tell everyone that what we were showing was his bait. Ryan then caught another little catfish, but after having his picture taken with it, he quickly tossed it overboard to join the other two.
Jim: As 11 o’clock approached, we decided we’d had enough fun for one evening, so we untied the boat, secured our gear, and David piloted us back to the landing where we loaded the boat on the trailer, pulled it out of the lake, and we all went our separate ways.
Ryan and I drove back to the house so he could pick up Leah. I went straight to bed!
Tuesday, July 20
My whole day was clouded by the thought that at 5:00 this afternoon I would begin drinking a preparation to clean me out for a colonoscopy tomorrow morning. Try as I might, I just couldn’t get it out of my mind, even though there was a lot more going on. I hadn’t even picked up my prescription yet, so while I was overseeing things at the house, Barbara and Leah went to the pharmacy to get it. When they got back, we filled the 4-litre jug with water, added some cherry flavoring (there were other flavors available, but none of them sounded good to me), and set the jug in the refrigerator to cool, since the pharmacist said the potion would go down easier if it was cold. To speed things up, I later transferred the jug to one of our coolers and packed it in ice to speed things up.
Speaking of plumbing…a couple of weeks ago I removed the toilet from our bathroom and tried to install new connections to the floor drain, but it turned out I just didn’t have the right tools to get the job done, s I finally broke down and called in a plumber that TJ recommended. He came in about 9:30 and went to work…eventually had to drill some new mounting holes in the floor to keep the toilet from rocking side-to-side, but he did great work and charged what I thought was a very low price.
Because I needed to stick around and write the check to the plumber, Barbara and the kids decided to go on over to Grand Saline to visit the Salt Palace and the peanut butter factory. I’m sure that all the company we’ve taken over there this summer must have really boosted their numbers!
At 5:00 I took one of the prescribed anti-nausea pill…what a great thought…this stuff that I’m supposed to drink a gallon of to clean out my pipes is also likely to cause violent eruptions on the other end of the line…what kind of sadist dreamed up this “potentially life-saving procedure?”
As I finished washing down the pill, Leah and Ryan finally woke up and decided they would go to Lake Hawkins so Ryan could see what it was all about. Since nothing was going on at the house (yet), we told them to go on and enjoy the evening, but they had to bring back photos for us to use.
Every few minutes Barbara would ask how I felt, and I would say was that I was getting tired of the stuff already. It appeared after a few drinks that the jug was still full and I wasn’t making any progress at all, which was unfortunate, because that meant several hours of this fun ahead. The instructions said that it would take an hour to an hour and a half to start achieving results. At an hour and a half my innards were so packed with the solution that I could hardly move, but there was only a faint rumbling, something akin to faint thunder that is way off in the distance.
At 7:00 the Roto-Rooter cocktail finally kicked in and I told Barbara that our bathroom would be off-limits for the rest of the night. I grabbed a magazine and headed for throne room where, like Carole King, I felt the earth move.
When I finished and returned to the kitchen for another drink (could there really be that much of the cocktail left…the jug still looked full to me), Barbara went into the bathroom to rig up a privacy curtain so Leah and Ryan would be able to take showers when they came home from the lake…just in case my need to go read another magazine article coincided with their need to wash off the Lake Hawkins sand.
Fortunately, I was between articles when the kids got home and they were able to get cleaned up and dressed without interruption. They and Barbara then had supper (that didn’t even smell good to me) and set about playing another round of Rummi Cube while I alternately swigged down glasses of the potent cocktail, stretched out on the couch to try to get comfortable, and made trips to the bathroom to “read another article.”
The others finished their dinner, games, and snacks long before I finished my Roto-Rooter. Ryan and Leah said their goodbyes and headed back to the lake to get what would certainly be a better night’s sleep than I would have. Barbara sat up with me and worked at the computer (we had a ton of pictures to download and organize), while, like the Energizer Bunny, I kept going, and going, and...
By 11:15 I could see that there were only a few glasses of the drain cleaner left, so I changed the frequency to a glass every ten minutes (Barbara had checked the instruction again and saw that they said every 10-20 minutes; I had split the difference at 15 minutes, but decided that I was too tired and sleepy (this kind of business takes a lot out of a person) and went with the 10-minute intervals to get through sooner.
With the last drink gone at 11:45, I went to bed and read a bit while waiting for the need to read another article (I also almost finished the latest AARP magazine cross-word puzzle this evening) and see if I could get settled in for the night.
Surprisingly, I did get some good sleep, waking up at 4:00 for another visit and offering to the porcelain god, and then fell back asleep for another hour or so.
Wednesday, July 21
The alarm went off at 6:30 this morning and I went off shortly thereafter. Surprisingly, I felt pretty good this morning, but was still dreading the “scope on a rope” procedure ahead of me. Since I couldn’t have breakfast (not even a cup of coffee…especially not a cup of coffee!), I got cleaned up and dressed for the occasion. (Leah and Ryan were coming in this morning to take Granny to her rehab appointment which was a tremendous help to us all.)
Barbara and I left the house at 8:30 and drove to Sulphur Springs after stopping at a local donut shop so she could have an apple fritter for breakfast…I wasn’t even tempted.
I had already pre-registered at First Surgery Suites, so the registration procedure didn’t take all that long when we got there and in a few minutes one of the nurses was leading us through the clinic and back to a bunch of partitioned cells. I was given a hospital gown and told to put it on and fasten it in the back. The air conditioning was working quite well in that part of the clinic, so everything that was showing behind (which was everything) stayed plenty cool.
I took a book to read while I was waiting, but never had a chance to open it as a couple of different nurses came in to get information, check vitals, set an IV line, etc. Soon, they were wheeling me to the anesthetist and Barbara was heading out the door.
The anesthetist came in and asked a few questions and then picked up a needle and shot something into the IV line. In a matter of very few seconds I was starting to feel pretty good. The last thing I remember is the anesthetist and nurse laughing when I said, “Hey, that stuff is really good. Do you think you could put it in pill form and sell them out the back door?”
I don’t know how long I was out, but the next thing I knew, a nurse was calling my name and I was wide awake. I asked where I was and when they were going to start and she smiled and said it was all over. About then, Barbara came into my little cell and we waited for the nurses and doctor to come in and unhook me and give me news about how I was.
The doctor stopped by and said everything went well. He found a small polyp and clipped it out to be sent to a lab for a biopsy. He told me he didn’t think it was anything to worry about…if it came back serious, I would return in five years. Otherwise, I will wait another ten years before having this experience again. I asked Dr. Boyd what was in the cocktail preparation and he told me he doesn’t normally tell anyone much about it, but the base is ethylene glycol. I looked at him and said, “But that’s antifreeze!
Dr, Boyd then went on to explain that what they use for the drink is an inert form of antifreeze that draws all the fluids out of the linings of the colon and digestive tract and sends them hurtling down the track. He said there are several solutions on the market, but what I was taking is 90% effective, where the others are 70% or less. He said that there’s not much of anything worse than telling a patient that after all that misery of the night before, they couldn’t get a good picture and they’d have to do it all over again.
When the doctor was finished, a nurse wheeled me out the back door where Barbara picked me up and we headed back to Mineola and my first meal in 12 hours…and boy was I ready for it!
Leah, Ryan, and Mother were all waiting for us when we returned home. Leah and Ryan had just returned with Mother from her rehab session, so we all got cleaned up and sat down to a fine meal. I discussed as much of the morning as was more or less acceptable at the dinner table and said I share details later for anyone who wanted to hear them, but I didn’t have any takers.
This evening Barbara mowed the front yard. They told me at the clinic that I couldn’t do yard work or dishes for a couple of days because of the possibility of infection around the IV area. I didn’t argue with them when they said it, and I didn’t argue with Barbara when she reminded me of it.
When the lawn was mowed, we showered, put on our pajamas, and made an early night of it…very tired and sleepy after the excitement of the last 30 or so hours.
"Could you write me a note for my wife, saying that my head is not, in fact, up there?" – Comment by a patient to his physician after undergoing a colonoscopy
Home and happy about it,
Jim/Dad/Gramps & Barbara/Mom/Grams
