Update

I thought Sally was going to bring you up to date but I guess she had something else in mind.

Anyway, she's feeling a lot better. She gets tired very quickly, but what should you expect after major surgery? However, she finished cleaning up the kitchen and got us some lunch. But after that we were both so tired we took a nap. Now she's doing pretty well, has a little pain but is getting back to her ornery self, which means she's feeling half way between good and better. (Watch out for flying objects! Just kidding.)

On another note, I went to a meeting at the Stake Center in Gilmer last evening. The speaker was one of the Area Presidents and he discussed missionary work. He outlined what everyone should be doing from the Stake President down to the Ward Mission Leader as outlined by Elder L. Tom Perry. A lot of great information. Then this morning in Correlation Meeting we began implementing it.

Well gotta go,
Hasta la vista,
Howell

A note to one and all. Some of you are aware that I experienced a medical emergency last Sunday. Others are not. The following is intended to inform both groups so if you have heard this before, just ignore it.

While getting ready for church last Sunday morning I suddenly got what I would describe as a stomach ache that got worse and worse as time went on. Howell and I had eaten dinner with a friend Sat. evening at a Chinese restaurant and thought perhaps that I had some food poisoning. After finding that neither of the others were feeling ill and considering the fact that my stomach was hurting more and more, I agreed to go to the emergency room with Howell.

Soon after seeing the Dr. on call I was told that I had a mass of some sort above and to my left side of my belly button. Further, this hospital (remember we live in the country) had no surgeon on call and I needed to go to Tyler (about 100 miles South of here) because this mass was the cause of my pain.

It seems they told Howell and honestly, they may have told me, that they thought the mass was a hernia. In any case I wasn't in Tyler long before I was whisked off to surgery.

Howell has covered my hospital stay pretty well so I will leave that tale to him. Besides, I slept through most of it.

Do be sure to see the blog though and find out how I almost got my gall bladder out while I was there.

Back home

Yesterday went quite well. Sally had a pretty good day considering. She slept a lot which is good. About 4 pm a close friend brought in a bunch of KFC, so we had a very nice treat. She slept pretty good last night but she got up in the middle of the night feeling hungry and so she had a snack and then played on the computer for awhile and then went back to bed.

This morning she gave me a little scare though. I guess at first I must have been half awake myself as I didn't realize something was wrong. The phone rang and Sally answered it, or at least I thought she did, but she didn't say anything. I heard some clicks so I thought it was one of those recordings that have you press buttons to answer questions. But after awhile there was nothing so I got up to see what was happening. She still had the phone to her ear but wasn't saying anything. I tried to pull the phone from her hand but she wouldn't let me and she even held up her other hand signaling to let her be. So I figured a recording was still playing. A little later she hung up the phone, although only putting it partly on on the cradle. Shortly the phone rang again but she didn't answer it so I got up to answer it which is when I discovered it was only half way in the cradle. The caller wanted to speak to Sally, so I tried to wake her. Then is when I became really concerned. She was incoherent! When I asked her a question, all she would say was "what?" I couldn't figure out what was wrong so I called the doctor who said she was probably low on blood sugar. Duh!!! So I gave her some glucose tablets. After awhile she started responding and then ate some breakfast and then took the blood sugar test which was normal again. She's sleeping again now, but I'm going to keep closer track of her blood sugar from now on.

Keep in touch for more exciting episodes!

Howell

Hospital 3

Well, actually I didn't spend much time at the hospital today. When I got there Sally asked "where have you been?" She had been trying to reach me but probably each time she called my cell was out of bars. Anyway, she got ready to go home and that's exactly what we did. I didn't even get a chance to sit down, but then what's another hour and a half of sitting?

We're home now and have rested a little. She's feeling a lot better, but still walks like a drunk. We have to go back next Monday for a check up, but other than we're pretty much on our own.

Many, many thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers.

And I don't think she would mind a few short phone calls.

Howell

Hospital 2

She's feeling better today and the doctor said that if she had a BM he might let her go home tomorrow. We'll just have to wait and see.

However, she had a funny experience today. A tall, grey haired man in scrubs came in and started talking to her about her gall bladder and said that they would have to operate. At the time Sally was a little groggy and said okay. He said something about not being a good doctor if he didn't make her hurt a little so he punched her in the stomach, which is where her hernia operation was, so of course it hurt, then he left. A few minutes later her real doctor came in and she related the experience to him. He left to check it out. Can you imagine how the other doctor felt when he discovered he had been in the wrong room!

Hospital

Sunday morning, March 15th, after breakfast, Sally was hurting pretty bad and it just wouldn't go away. So I took her to the Emergency Room here at the Mt Vernon hospital. The doctor said he thought she had a hernia and transferred her to the hospital in Tyler where a surgeon was on duty. (She may have gotten the hernia by lifting a case of food at the cannery.) Tyler is about a one and a half hours drive from Mt Vernon.

After she got settled the surgeon came in and discussed the findings from the Xrays, etc. and arranged to perform the surgery. Then she was taken to the OR and a few hours later brought back to her room. The doctor said everything went well and that he was glad that we came in as quickly as we did because the hernia wasn't strangulated yet but it would have been if we had waited much longer which could have caused other problems too.

This took all day and I was plenty tired by the time I got home about 11 pm.

Today, Monday, when I got here she was a little groggy but she said that the doctor had been in and told her it would be a few days before she could go home depending on how well she recovers.

I've spent a lot of time today working on this blog and, you got it, that's what I'm doing right now. I think I'll go home a little earlier tonight.

Coco, our dog, sure misses Sally. He just mopes around and runs to the door whenever he hears a noise that might be her. Too bad he can't understand when I tell him she won't be home for a few days. He understands a lot but I guess that's a little much.

Serving Together

Since we are both retired we have lots of time to do whatever we want to do. Fortunately, we both want to serve in our church. At present we are serving a full time mission in our Mount Pleasant Ward. This involves calling, writing and visiting some of our less active members among other things.

In addition, we each have other callings in the Ward. Howell is the Website Administrator and spends many happy hours keeping it up to date. Sally is the Food Storage Specialist. This involves informing, teaching and sometimes nagging other members about the reason they need to have their own food storage.

As part of this calling we organize monthly trips to our regional cannery in Carrollton, TX. This project has been very popular and many of our members as well as a few non-members have availed themselves of the opportunity to increase their food storage. Howell is a true helpmate in this endeavor as he prepares a spreadsheet of all of the orders and calculates how much food will be canned.