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November 20, 2015
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
By the time this entry is posted, I'll be in sunny Florida. So I am trying to get a jump on this week's entry and write something early before I leave.
Last Friday, I was in Silverton with my oldest granddaughter Ashtin while she was having Anterior Cruciate Ligament surgery on her knee. The surgery took longer than the doctor had planned, as he wanted to use her own tendons to patch the ACL, but one of them snapped in two and he ended up having to use a cadaver tendon. While that was a problem, it was a good thing that it broke during surgery and not afterwards, as she would have had to repeat the surgery. Even so, the operation went well and her knee should now be stronger than ever. She was one starving girl by the time we left the hospital because she hadn't had anything to eat since the previous day. She wanted a Cheese Burger (of all things) so we drove by the Dairy Queen and she ate that. Teenagers!! While she came through the surgery OK, over the weekend it was touch and go as far as attitude goes. She was in a lot of pain and couldn't feel her toes or the bottom of her foot because the doctor had deadened the nerves for the surgery. She was really concerned that she would never get the feeling back in her foot again! But, by Sunday, the feeling was coming back and she was starting to feel like her old self again. Unfortunately, the meds that she was taking to help with the pain (Oxycodone) left her itching and blotchy, so the doctor changed to something else (Percocet) which then made her sick to her stomach. But by then, she didn't need any meds for the pain, so she just quit taking them. I spent the weekend with her and drove back home on Sunday afternoon.
I arrived home just in time to catch the 2:00 p.m. performance of the play that Dave was in. There weren't very many of us in attendance at the matinee, but Dave did a really good job with his parts. I was real proud of his performance. They did two separate one-act plays. This is a publicity photo that they took to put in the program. That black suit was what he wore in the first play. In the second play, he smiled a lot more and was dressed in his bathrobe. Maybe they should have used that photo instead!
It has been raining and windy all week and I am so glad that I am out of here for a while. Some of the main rivers down here (there are five of them just south of here in addition to ours) are at flood stage and the water has completely covered the island in front of our place. There are detours in two or three spots along Highway 101 because the road is flooded. We had to drive into Portland for Dave's doctor's appointment on Tuesday through all the wind and rain. In the afternoon - on our way back home on Highway 26 - we had to stop to remove a tree that had fallen across the highway. We also drove over a lot of fallen branches and through some pretty deep water on the highway. I was glad to get home safely after that. In the past six days, we have had about six inches of rain, with more than and inch and a half falling while we were driving to Portland and back on Tuesday!
As I said, we drove in there to see the oncologist and she was very pleased with the results of his treatment. She gave him another of his hormone therapy shots - two down and two to go. He gets those every six months.
As I mentioned, I am now off to Florida where there will be sunshine and sand. I am really looking forward to having some fun time with my two daughters while we are there and also watching my granddaughter Paige play in her soccer tournament in Boca Raton. On Wednesday, I was packed and ready to go, so we left early. On our way in to town we stopped at a shoe store in Hillsboro to get Dave a new pair of dress shoes. His old ones are at least 30 years old and don't fit any more. They were worn down and were killing his feet. He really didn't want to buy new ones because he hardly ever gets out of his jeans and doesn't wear them very often. However, he has to wear the dressy ones for the performance and those old run-down things had him limping at the end by the play! So it was pretty easy to convince him to stop at the shoe store. As long as he was spending money on shoes, I took advantage of the fact that we were there and found a new purse. I needed one that I could carry more stuff in for my trip!
From the shoe store, we drove to Lara's place in West Linn and went to bed early. We had to set the alarm for 3:45 a.m. so we could head for the airport at 4:15. Leslie and Paige met us at Lara's and we all piled in the car so Dave could drive us to PDX. Our flight left Portland at 6:00 a.m. and took us to Salt Lake City where we waited for a couple of hours before we caught our connecting flight to Orlando.
We got into Orlando right on schedule and went to pick up our rental car. Once we did that, we set out to connect with some old friends of ours from when we all lived in Hillsboro. Stan and Terrie were our neighbors and friends for over 30 years until we moved to the coast and they headed for Florida. They invited us to come to their house in Mount Dora for dinner and a place to spend the night. Today, we'll head back south through Orlando and on to Boca Raton where Paige will join her teammates for the week. The girls and I will get a hotel and stay in town there for the night.
Since I won't be back in Oregon until late very late on Thursday next week, I'm not sure when I will be able to update this journal. If you don't see an update at the usual time on Friday morning, you'll know that I'm probably sleeping in! I will get it posted online as soon as I can. I promise! In the meantime, have a good week and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
