Results, Mama and Brittany

I visited with the chiropractor yesterday and got the low down on my MRI results. All in all, it was not a good report. There seems to be a trifecta of issues I will have to deal with. First, there is a herniation in the disk between L7 and the sacrum vertebrae. In and of itself that would not be an issue. The bulge is listed as 3-5 millimeters. If that were the only problem it would be very easy to deal with. Second, since I am a little older now the disk is somewhat dehydrated – meaning it has shrunk. What used to be a12 mm cushion had now regressed to only 9 mm. Thirdly, and probably the real cause of the impingement is a “significant” arthritic damage. It was measured to be between 7 and 9 mm. Adding those numbers up, I have a nerve squeezing through an opening that is, at best, only slightly smaller than the nerve itself. There are several options but none of them deal with all three of the causal agents simultaneously.

Most significantly, I can change my diet, lose weight and add the herbs to my daily routine that help the body deal with arthritis. Additionally, I can exercise and strengthen my lower back to increase flexibility and limit further damage to the area. On the non-medical treatment side, I can go through spinal decompression to ease the disk injury and open the passage through which the nerve passes. That is probably a given at this point. On the medical side, I can go through pain management and treat the injured area with steroids injected directly into the offended area, via epidural IV. That would ease the swelling and give a temporary relief but is not a real solution unless it significantly reduces the herniation. Last, and least favorable, is to go through surgery to either fuse the vertebrae or clean out the damage I have done to myself over the years. I have an appointment with the medical doctor some time either Friday next week or Monday of the week following. I will get her opinion then. For now, I will take the long road of diet and exercise – which is something I need to do regardless.

I was at the chiropractor’s office for an hour and a half yesterday evening. Between the time we spent talking about the prognosis, the time I spent on the decompression table and the time I spent with a cold pack and the TINS unit, I got home just in time to get cleaned up and changed for church. I thought I was going to have to feed the animals after church but I met Victoria as I was leaving and she said she would take care of the feeding chores. The animals miss Mama when she is gone.

Mama comes home today. She is not thrilled about the drive in either direction but I like to think it is more enjoyable for her coming towards home – and me. She and Brittany got out of the hospital early yesterday morning. Brittany is doing well and seems to be in good spirits. The twins were doing very well last night as I talked with Mama after I got home from church. They were kicking up a storm in Brittany’s belly. Mama was enjoying that immensely. The two of them, Mama and Britany that is, were out in the back yard trying to repair a wind-damaged fence. They borrowed a screw gun from a neighbor and were repositioning fencing boards that had been blown off in a recent storm. With the weather predictions for today I would have waited to see if that was the only section in need of repair. But the fence separates the house from a busy thoroughfare and Brittany does not like the thought of easy access to the property form a public road; not that I disagree with that apprehension on her part. I would love to have witnessed the remodeling project as the two of them tackled it.

Mama told me that when she was in the house alone – Brittany was in the hospital overnight – the back door blew open in the middle of the night. That was as near terrifying an event as she has been through recently. Mama checked out the house and secured the door with every available lock, deadbolt and latch. Fortunately, Lucy (Brittany’s Chi-weenie) was on high alert so I know Mama would have been protected by fierce canine furor.

Continue to pray for Brittany and the twins. We need as many weeks as the Lord will give us in utero.

Brittany’s call, evening busy-ness

Brittany got the news yesterday morning at her appointment with the gynecologist that she would need to be hospitalized overnight for some prescriptive treatments for the twins because of the doctor’s concerns that the cervix was showing signs that the body could go into labor too early. Since she is there basically alone, she asked Mama to come up and help. So, Mama left yesterday in the early afternoon. I am still unclear as to the urgency of the matter and how the condition of her body at present will affect the overall health of the twins or the length of the pregnancy, but in high risk pregnancies - Brittany would be considered so even with a single child – there is not much discretion other than to follow the doctor’s orders. Steroids were given to help promote lung development and a magnesium supplement via IV was given to reduce the risk of one or another brain development issue. If all goes well she should be discharged today. From here on out it is a waiting game and a matter of constant prayer. The longer the twins wait to introduce themselves, the better.

I had a busy evening yesterday. Of course, I had to get all the feeding and evening chores done at the farm but I also had to get a bale of hay set out for the cows. With my back hurting the way it is it was a bigger challenge than I thought it might be. Most disappointing was the fact that I could not remember the combination to the lock on our neighbor’s gate so that I could get to the hay. I do not have his number so I had to call Mama to see if she could get it for me when she got the chance – which she did. Getting on and off the tractor is a challenge at the moment. The trip to get the hay requires that I get on and off the tractor a total of twelve times because of opening and closing gates. So, the routine is to get on the tractor and drive to the gate, get off and open the gate. Get back on the tractor and drive through the gate. Get off the tractor and close the gate. Get on the tractor and drive to the next gate. Repeat as needed. Setting the bale out takes an additional four mounts and dismounts before heading to the gate to get out of the lot. By the time I parked the tractor I just sat in the seat for a few minutes before I finally got off. But the cows are happy for the moment.

I generally take time Tuesday evening to do the music for the following Sunday and last night was no exception. I try to have it done in advance to avoid any surprises and to allow the musicians time to either practice or alert me to the need to change a selection. It is best to avoid doing it Sunday morning if possible. So far, that has worked out well. I also took time to get some chicken broth made for my evening meals. I actually cooked the chicken Saturday but I had not taken the time to process everything so that it would be ready to eat. By the time I got everything cooked up, packed up and cleaned up, it was time to get ready to go for my appointment with the giant magnet.

I left early on purpose even though I was pretty sure where the facility was located. It was not hard to find and it was not busy. I was the only one in the office as I waited. I got there early enough that the lady manning the desk was worried that I did not know that I was forty-five minutes early. I was hoping to get in before 9 pm so I could get home before 11 pm. Fortunately, it did work out that way. The MRI took about 45 minutes total and I was able to get started a little before 9 pm. I was home at about 10:40. I did not waste any time getting into bed.

I should hear the results this afternoon when I see the chiropractor.

Done, on the way, diagnostics

Last night Mama, Victoria and I finished our third of three tests to complete this semester of FBI. The test was over very familiar material so it was not too difficult and I am sure that all three of us did well. It is a relief to have a few weeks of Monday evenings free. Classes will resume in late August or early September. That will be the last semester required to complete the program. I am not sure how God will use the certificate in our lives but I am sure He will use the increased knowledge of the Bible over and over again. I am always amazed by the breadth of what we are able to learn in the short weeks of each semester.

I was up this morning at about the time Maggie and Aaron and the kids should have been getting on the ferry in Juneau. I was up for completely unrelated reasons but it was in an unusually opportune timeframe to really pray for them all…especially Aaron. He will have his hands full as they make the 3,000 mile trek to Wilmington from Seattle. They will be on the ferry until sometime on Friday. I am not sure of the distance but it has to be over 800 miles down the inland passage from Juneau to Seattle. Hopefully, they will have time to stop and see the sights along the way. It is difficult to imagine they will ever make the trip again, though it is impossible to say for sure. So, I hope they make the best of it as they go. Maggie has plenty of experience in traveling by car. Not that she always enjoyed it, but she has plenty of experience.

I am scheduled for an MRI at 9:15 tonight. Fortunately, the imaging lab is not too far from us and is in an area that is familiar to us. Mama and I should have no trouble getting there and back. Since it is so late in the evening, we will go early and do some shopping at a couple of local stores while we wait for my turn to get magnified and resonated. The timing is good, because I have an appointment with the chiropractor Wednesday afternoon after work and the receptionist in that office is confident that the images will be available at that appointment. That way, we will know what the path forward will be and I will know how careful I must be in the coming weeks as we implement a strategy for recovery.

Pray for Mama. Between her bad knees and my injured back, she is under quite a load keeping the farm running. The most difficult task is getting the feed to the proper place for dispensing to the animals. Right now, we have feed in several locations being stored for later use. As Mama uses the feed in each barrel it must be refilled. To get the 50# bags of feed to refill the barrels is a chore that I have largely done for her but she is hesitant to have me do it right now – I am not sure why – but it still needs to get done. I know we will be able to work it out and when needed, the Lord will supply the help, but she is stressing over it none-the-less.

I have hurt this badly in the past and a time or two, much worse. I think, from Mama’s perspective, it is different because the cause has been roughly diagnosed. From my perspective, it is a little different because I am not only dealing with the constant pain (nothing new) but also with the neural impingement issues – and the light headedness; which is still undiagnosed. When I am not paying close attention, I find myself stumbling like a ninety-year-old. So, I pay attention and hope the recovery is not long.

I need to get together with an instructor and learn Thai chi. If I start now and continue for the next thirty years or so, maybe I can get some of my flexibility back…maybe.

Medical visits, moving

I had not intended to spend half the day at the doctor’s office Friday but that is the way it turned out. I did request that Mama schedule an appointment with a medical doctor so we could try to pin down the issues I am having with my back as well as the dizziness I am battling. That appointment took until almost 2 pm. I did not know that she had also scheduled me a chiropractor visit for 2 pm until we were having lunch. That additional visit took until a little after 4 pm. Both doctors agreed that I am in pretty bad shape. The dizziness and the difficulty I am having breathing are still in question because my aching back stole the show. I will have to get those questions answered at some later time.

During the medial visit the doctor did an EKG which showed the same anomalies that have always been there – no surprises. It was during the time we talked that I told her that I have had to make a conscious effort to lift my feet up lately, especially when walking on uneven surfaces – like our back yard. That one issue finally prompted me to seek help. That sent off the alarms in her head which told her that the nerve impingement from the herniated disk has gone on long enough to begin causing the muscles in my lower right leg to be affected. I thought I was just not paying enough attention. But, I must admit that it did hurt every time I stumbled. Anyway, she wrote out several prescriptions and ordered some blood work – which I will get done today – from which she will determine a more defined diagnosis. I should be scheduled for an MRI this week to see the extent of the herniation but both doctors feel that I have let this go on too long. Perhaps they are right, but it is only at this point that Mama and I have the insurance needed to afford the medical treatments that may be required.

At the chiropractor’s office, we spent a good deal of time talking about the other doctor’s visit and when I related the foot drop issue the chiropractor had me sit on the edge of the table and raise each leg as high as possible. The left leg was not a problem to elevate. The right leg did not do so well. I was only able to lift it a little before the pain was too intense. He elected to do a cold therapy on me – which was quite painful for a few minutes it took my body to adjust to the cold pack placed on my bare skin. He did not adjust me because he does not know the extent of the damage to the offended disk in my back. I thought that a wise decision. So, this week, hopefully, both doctors will get a look at my spine via the MRI and see what the damage is. For my part, I do not expect it to be too bad. In other words, I would be very surprised if surgery is required. Since the chiropractor has a spinal decompression apparatus, I believe that is the route we will go. More updates soon.

Maggie, Aaron, Cathryn and Walter will begin the long southern migration to the lower 48 early tomorrow morning. Really it will be tonight at 1 a.m. which really is tomorrow technically but it will not seem like it to the weary travelers as they board the ferry to come south along the inland passage. Not only do they have a four-day ferry ride but they have to drive across the continental US from Seattle, Washington to the eastern side of the Carolina’s to take up residence in Wilmington. It will be a long process for the family so say a prayer for them for safety and strength – and finances to meet the needs at hand.

I will be in the office all week this week. The traveling starts again next week.

While I was away

I left with Mama from the church Monday afternoon after we had lunch to travel to Birmingham, AL to give two days of training to a client in that area. Fortunately, the weather was not bad on the day we flew out. All the storms were south and west of us. It was only a two hour flight. We were put on one of the very small jets so you either had a window or an aisle seat regardless of the row assignment. I have not traveled by plane for a while but as flights go it was not bad – cramped and a little too warm, but not too bad. The two days of class were easy and mostly fun since we were in a training center for a major company in the Bessemer area. On the second day, I had to catch a ride back to the hotel from the safety supervisor of the site because the team I had been traveling around with did not get back from their site and client tours until about 7 pm.

The last day (Thursday) we were all up and out the door by 6 a.m. so we could meet a client about two hours away. The intent was  for me to get a tour of their facility – where I will be instructing three days of classes over the period of the week-long safety seminar. That left us about two hours to tour the facility and visit with the client in preparation for the week being planned for late September and still make it back to the airport in Birmingham to catch our flight home – which we did. However, the flight home was delayed about an hour due to weather over Dallas, diverted in route due to weather over Dallas, and delayed prior to approach due to heavy traffic coming into Dallas because of the other delayed and diverted flights. The pilot explained the we “were in a very long line of traffic.” Not too upsetting, but it took us four hours to make a two hour flight. It is a good thing I did not have Mama waiting on me at the airport. She was not feeling well to begin with; having her wait an extra two hour at the airport would not have made it a pleasant homecoming for me or her.

While I was away, Mama and Norman loaded the feeder pig for her trip to the meat market. Mama was a little hesitant to take the pig because she was a really good pig to work with; calm, laid back and safe to work around. Nevertheless, we needed to have her processed so she could begin to feed us instead of us feeding her. Her weight was about 440 pounds. Mama did well getting her ready. It took them over an hour to get her loaded because Mama and Norman did not know the process of getting the pen ready for loading. I normally block off the back of the pen, both sleeping areas and as much as I can of the interior area so there is a natural tendency for the pig to look out at the loading chute into the trailer as the widest space available to run to. They eventually got there, but they were not able to start there. I guess Mama never noticed what I had done before we started to load a pig out of that pen.

Mama also informed me that the live trap I had set in the garden had finally trapped a squirrel. I was not sure if it was ever going to work but it did. The only disadvantage was that I was 1200 miles away. As far as I know the squirrel is still caught in the trap awaiting my final sentencing. At least he has something to eat during his capture – even though it is his last meal. The squirrels have multiplied this year and I have had to lower the head could on our little property. So far, I have culled eleven or twelve and it does not have seemed to affect the impact on the overall population. Eventually it will, but for now they are still thriving and eating our garden, dumping the bird feeders and getting into places that they should not get into, like our car engine compartments.

So, the hunt continues.

The week in retrospect, looking forward

It is difficult to step back thorough the past week and do a summary when I have trouble remembering what happened yesterday.; but I can try.

With OSHA training taking all my time Tuesday through Friday last week, I did not get a lot done at the farm; besides, I have not felt well all week. I missed work Monday because I was feeling so poorly. (I passed the exam at the end of the OSHA class, so that was a relief.) I did manage to get the well at the barn running properly. It quit on Mama Tuesday morning. I replaced the control box on Tuesday evening but it did not work as expected. It kept clicking because the relay in box, which sends power to the pump pressure switch, would not reset when the circuit was open. In other words, when the pressure switch shut off because it had met it’s set point the relay would keep trying to keep sending power over to the switch. It did not hurt the operation of the pump but I knew it would quickly fry the relay. So, I pulled the control box back off and got another one on Thursday. When I tried it, it did the same thing. At that point, I knew it was something I had done in the initial wiring – but I could not see a way to do it differently.

I took back some hours on Friday by taking the afternoon off. The first thing I did was pull the control box – which comes apart in two pieces – and wired in the relay from an old control box that had worked properly until the capacitor went out. When I put that relay into service, it worked perfectly. I am not sure what the difference is, but we are leaving it as is for now. It is a great convenience to have water at the locations that well supplies, especially since the garden has needed constant water through the past week. Even though the nights have been cool, the afternoons seem to bake the plants and by evening they are withered to the point of Mama and I thinking we have lost them. We have been watering every evening to keep them healthy. We are not alone in that, everyone we know is fighting the same battle.

Saturday was Trade Days. Mama was excited about it because Leslie Ling, Cheyenne, Yilin and Mr. Plumley were all going with her. She was excited that I might be going, but I backed out. I was still not feeling well and did not relish the chatter and questioning that goes along with such an excursion feeling the way I did. They all had a good time at Trade Days while I went to get the doors Mama had ordered. Since we needed to get the doors picked up on Saturday and it was in the opposite direction from Bowie, it made sense to me. Plus, it gave me something to do on my own.

Mama, et. al., had a good time looking at all the stuff Trade Days offers; so much so, that they came home with two rabbits – big rabbits. As I understand it, Leslie gave them the buck and they bought the cage and the doe from someone at Trade days. Now I have to build rabbit hutches and nesting boxes and buy feeders and waterers. Not something I was planning on doing with the very limited spare time I seem to have at the moment. Right now, we have the cages sitting on top of a set of shelves I threw out of the well house. Neither Mama nor Victoria were delighted with the set up but it is all I could do with the advance notice I got.

This week I will be traveling – starting this afternoon. I should be back in the office Friday. Next week I think I will be traveling again, but I am not sure as I write this note. The following week – the end of the month – I will be in Houston at a conference. This is a bit more than I bargained for but I accepted the assignment so Mama and I will endure hoping things slow down a little.

Friday when I am back home I hope to see a doctor to find out what I have been wrestling with for the past several months.

Another full weekend

Mama and I had quite weekend. Since I got back from my traveling after 7 pm on Thursday I got to take off the afternoon to balance out the hours for work. I took the time to make some wood tops for a couple of the feed barrels that had no lids. The wood was salvaged from Victoria’s house – now the Burns’ house. While I was working on that I heard a horn blow in our driveway. When I went to investigate, there was a man waiting by his pickup. He saw the “Beware of Dogs” sign we have never taken down and took it to heart. He was a salesman from a paving company looking for a place to use some extra blacktop left over from a nearby job. I have been approached before with the same offer but I let him talk. After a lot of discussion, he got down to a price I could live with – one Mama and I could afford – but I would not commit without talking it over with Mama. Well, she pulled into the drive at that moment. After we talked a bit we decided to let him do the work. So, within a few hours, we had a new blacktop drive. It loops all the way around the circle and connects with the concrete of the drive at the garage. There was a plan to do the carport/shop but there was not enough material to complete that after some of the low spots in the circular drive had been filled and leveled.  I am not sure if concrete may actually be a better choice in the long run, but the price quoted to me was hard to pass up at that moment. For now, the site is prepared for either, which is a nice change from the clutter that had been there.

Saturday I spent a lot of time getting the well house cleaned out. By the time I had worked there for a couple of hours I had a huge load of trash to go to the dump. I did find a couple of the things Mama had been looking for. She was relieved to have them back. On the other side, we had to throw away a lot of items that the rats and mice had nested in and soiled beyond recovery. None of the items was a great loss; which leads me to question why we had been storing them in the first place. Now, everything in the well house is packed in totes which seems to deter the rodents from setting up homes in them. There is still a good bit of clean up and rearranging to be done – as seems to be the case with everything I start on – but I am pleased with the results for now.

Later that afternoon, I took the mower that Mike brought us and chewed up the leaves that we have piles up in several places; most importantly in the garden. It worked well enough to get that done but I will have to do some repairs to it to get it to work well enough that Mama can use it. I never did get the bagger portion to work properly and at one point I hit something that blew the cover off of the side where you would normally make the change from mulching to bagging. So everything blew out the side discharge and covered me thoroughly. Needless to say, I did not get everything done with that that I had planned to do, but I could only take so much of the dirt and dust covering me.

Even though we had been under the threat of severe storms all weekend I took time to water the plants and the garden before I went to prayer meeting with the men of the church. Everything needed a good dousing and it did not look like the stormy skies would give us any rain so I took the chance of overwatering as opposed not giving our plants any water at all. It turned out to be a good decision. Even with 80-90% chances of rain predicted, we go nothing here.

All in all, it was a good weekend.