THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, REDUX

Once again I’m remiss in keeping postings timely.  This will be a real grab-bag of events from the past month or so.  Let’s start with something happy, like Mom coming out for a couple of months visit.  We love getting her out of cold Indy in the winter and hot, muggy Indy in the summer.  This time she arrived in early June.  The kids invited us up to the Bay Area for a weekend visit and the opportunity for Mom to visit with great-granddaughter Isla on her 6-month birthday.  We did the usual I-5 slog (thank goodness for books-on-CD), the Harris Ranch pig-out for lunch, and for the next few days Loni and Mom got some quality baby time in S.F..  That’s a 90-year spread in the right photo!

Music is a big part of John’s life, with his role as bass in a garage band, so it looks like Isla will get plenty of grounding in that.

Back home again, it was the 4th of July, and time to take in the local parade, which, in its annual sameness, seems like a Groundhog Day loop.  The different things this year were camels (nobody from PETA showed) and two high school bands from Minnesota, of all places.  I’ve never seen so many Nordic blonds in one place in all my life! You forget, living in the L.A. melting pot, how homogeneous some places still are.  The DooDah’s were once again resplendent in their shorts, although what possesses . . . ?  Yes, Mom is in a wheelchair here, as she can’t walk significant distances any more.  Let me tell you, despite the street shown, our town is NOT flat, and we live one mile from the parade route.  Oof!

The big excitement for us is that our street got repaved for the first time in the 40+ years we’ve lived here.  Other streets all around us have gotten better maintenance, but ours was considered so bad as to be a “failed” street and thus not economically repairable.  Say, what?  So other, relatively smooth streets got new topcoats and paving, while we continued to crumble.  Ah, but apparently we have some sort of city mucky-muck living down the street, according to the workman I corralled (news to us), and he’s the reason we are suddenly getting attention.  Well, all right, let’s hear it for pull!  They did a proper job, grinding up about 5 inches of old pavement, then putting down a silky-smooth new surface.  I was impressed with the choreography of the whole operation, from grinding to hauling away the debris to the rolling out of the new, all with huge machines.  They started around 7 a.m., and by 3:30 p.m. you could drive on it.  Amazing.

Ahhhhhhhh.  It almost feels weird to drive, especially on the scoot with its short suspension, on such smoothness.  I keep waiting for the jouncing and banging from the potholes.

OK, now for some ugly. John, Meghan, and Isla flew off to Phoenix for the 4th to visit with Meghan’s family.  On landing at the airport there, John went in to use the bathroom and stepped onto a standing-water floor.  His foot shot out and up and he went down hard and fractured his left femur up near the hip joint.  At 6’6”, he had a long fall.  The medics transported him to the hospital, where he had surgery the next day to insert a 20” (!) rod in his bone, along with a connecting pin.  As if this wasn’t bad enough, they found during the operation that his bones were extremely brittle.  The doc later said that he only sees this kind of break in 80-year-olds.  Yikes.  After a few days convalescence at the hospital and then at Meghan’s mom’s place, they flew back to S.F.  Since Meghan had just finished extended maternity leave, she had to go back to work, and John was not ambulatory and needed care, so Loni got to play “mom” again, flying up to arrive the same time as did they.  She spent the next two weeks there in mom seventh-heaven, hauling John around to his doctor appointments, cooking, and making sure Isla got to and from the day-care nanny.  As a postscript, the tests are inconclusive as to the cause of the early osteoporosis, so he’s going to get some kind of generic treatment for the condition.

Naturally, all this occurred just as we were to go up to Fallen Leaf Lake near Tahoe for our annual week at Sierra Camp, so Loni missed out on the fun.  Mom and I motored to Sacramento, where we overnighted to await sister Susy to arrive from Indy the next day.  I was amazed to see the new Sacramento airport.  It is huge, very modern, and appears to be quite efficient.  Not too sure about the remote gates that require trams to get to, but they seemed to move the crowds fast enough that day. While all the world was tied up in monster traffic jams on the I-80 due to road work, we were going to South Tahoe via 50, so we relatively cruised on up.  Fallen Leaf Lake looked to be full, so the drought hasn’t affected it yet.  However, there was virtually no snow anywhere to be seen, quite unlike other years. 

Susy and I sculled most mornings on the calm lake, except Tuesday when a storm blew in and all boating was canceled.  We got quite a bit of rain that day, and a beautiful lightning display across the lake (then not so pretty when it zapped right overhead).  Mom mostly supervised things around camp.

Susy tried something new for her, which was paddle boarding, where you stand up on a surfboard and make like a gondolier.  She caught on right away and, unfortunately, did not take a swim.

I went on two hikes, the first a little ambitious given that I’m now officially a COPD patient and am in the last month (and highest dosages) of my allergy antigen shots.  That one was Monday to Ralston Lake above the Echo’s, about 9+ miles round trip, all above 7,000 feet.  I was pretty bushed and wheezing by the end of that one.  Then on Thursday Susy and I and 6 others made the less strenuous (but still wheezing) trek up the Glen Alpine Trail to Grass Lake, which is quite beautiful and one of my favorites.  Barely noticeable in this shot is a ribbon falls across the lake, above and to the right of the big rock mass.

OK, now for the bad.  Along about 10:30 Thursday night, while playing team trivia at the Old Lodge, I began to have difficulty breathing and it quickly progressed to serious stuff.  I was sucking wind, sounding like a punctured concertina, and badly in need of getting to an ER.  I first tried my rescue inhaler, but no go.  So, poor Susy had to drive me through the night on unfamiliar mountain roads to get to the local hospital, Barton Memorial at South Shore, Tahoe.  Thank goodness for the GPS in the car, as it quite nicely got us there.  Once there, I was quickly admitted and given the usual gasper therapies:  oxygen, nebulizers, IV-drip- corticosteroids.  Once again (this is the 3rd time) my pulse-ox was down to the 70’s, when it should be in the upper 90’s.  Bah.  I am really getting tired of this.  I stayed in the ER until about 5 a.m., when they admitted me to the regular hospital until mid-afternoon.  I have to say I got very good care from some very nice folks there, and no one should hesitate to use their services.  Of course, they did mix up my Xray with the guy in the next bed, but I’ll give them a pass.  Because of what they saw on it, they wanted to give me a CAT scan, but I refused.  Later, they figured out their error.  No gruesome shots from the hospital.  I left camp without phone or camera.  All is relatively well now, but I’m still highly reactive to these end-game shots, and will be glad when they’re over.  Well, if they work, that is.

We came back through Oakland and S.F. to see the kids and to pick up Loni, as John was making excellent progress with his mobility.  Off the walker and onto crutches.  He can even drive.  Naturally, much time was spent with the World’s Cutest Baby!

One of the highlights of our visits always is the wonderful meals that we have.  Everyone cooks, and cooks well, so it is a treat to eat!

The dining room currently is occupied by the rented hospital bed that John was using, so the dining table was moved into the living room, where it fit just fine.  Salud!