Weathering This Year

This has for sure been a year of hospitals, rehab and repairs for the residents of 3871.  Last mid-November Edna entered the hospital with pneumonia.  After 10 days, Edna was moved to skilled nursing for pulmonary rehab with a slight chance she could return to assisted living.  But it was not to be so we began the year with Gene's mom moving permanently into skilled nursing.  Then in late February, two days before my knee surgery, Edna was back in the hospital with pneumonia in both lungs, again about a 9 or 10 day stay.

I spent 8 weeks following surgery with in home and out-patient rehab for my knee.  All is going well with my knee now, thank the Lord and blessed health professionals.  The next challenge was Gene's knee and hip problem that began to really act up in late April.  Knee surgery in July followed by in home and out-patient rehab for 6 weeks for him.  He reached flex and extension goals more quickly than I cause he is tough.

In the middle of the mix of all the surgeries and rehab was the fireplace from hell repair.  Of course that started simply as replacing the carpet in a bedroom and living room.  By the last week of August we thought we had hospitals, rehab and the chimney all behind us.  But that was not to be.  Gene spent the last day of August and the next 4 days in the hospital with a clot.  He is doing good enough now that on Wednesday afternoon he mowed the front yard!

Then yesterday morning as we were trying to decide if we would work in the yard or do a project in the house another phone call.  Edna was unresponsive to the staff at the skilled nursing home.  So the decision was made for us.  We would spend the day in the emergency room.  Edna was a cognitive as she can be at this point in her almost 98 year old life.  Her mind could not figure out where she was and why she was there.  We would give her the information only to have her ask the same questions in just a few minutes.  The good news was she was responsive, knew us, our names and where Kenneth lives.  Bad news?  She has pneumonia yet again.

Today the weather was rainy and chilly.  I removed the remaining hose connections, rolled up all hoses and added support to the netting over the pond.  I did it in shorts and a tee shirt just because I was being a stubborn, old fart.  The temperature was in the mid 40's while I was doing the chores in a gentle mist.  I came in, put on a sweatshirt and have stayed in the shorts all day.

Gene changed the filters in the heating system and fired up the furnace.  There was the less than pleasant smell of heated dust in the furnace.  Supper, that is what a person that grew up in Texas on a cotton farm calls an evening meal, was simple, baked potato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches.  So here at 3871 we on the first of many cold days to come made it through the day relatively unscathed.  Pretty good for two senior citizens that have just been weathering this year.

Filters

About the most I ever thought of filters was when I smoked about a gazillion years ago.  Next was looking for the air conditioners filters for the uniquely sized air conditioning unit at 3871.  Well, and there was the brief period of filters on my sink and ice maker.

I have been filtering the news and ads for political stuff.  That has made for less stressful television viewing.  I was filtering outside noises so well at the hospital, I did not hear Gene trying to get my attention.  I do use paper coffee filters inside a metal coffee filter.

Greenfield filter.

Today was a look into Gene's abdomen to check on a Greenfield filter installed in 2007.  After the "event" that year the filter was installed as a precaution to catch clots that might form in his legs and travel to the lungs.  Well, it worked.  There was a clot caught in the filter.  The tiny pieces that made it to Gene's lungs came from that clot.  The tiny pieces were not of a life threatening size in the lungs.


So thanks to all the inventors that thought about filters more than I ever will.  I appreciate the good tasting water, coffee, filtered air and less noisy television.  But tonight I sit here thanking Dr. Lazar J. Greenfield, Mr. Garman Kimmel (an oil industry engineer) and one young motorcyclist.  Because of the death of the young motorcyclist, Dr. Greenfield began working toward a better way to prevent pulmonary embolism.  Working together Dr. Greenfield and Mr. Kimmel developed the Greenfield Filter.  For the entire story, visit
 http://www.facs.org/news/jacobson10.html

Gene still enjoying life because of Dr. Greenfield, Mr. Kimmel and a departed young man.