Warning graphic medical topic. Do not read if you are squeamish, you have been warned.

I got a phone call this morning. “Dad is in the hospital, he has a nose bleed.” It didn’t sound urgent, and it’s not the first time. The medication he is on to help get the fluid out of his legs dehydrates him, this is why his kidneys are no longer functioning properly. Of course without this medication his legs would be so swollen it would lead to a host of other problems, the least of which would be the complete loss of mobility. He is already so limited in what he can do as it is. This medication also causes his nasal passages to dry out and from time to time he gets nose bleeds and has to go to the hospital. He is on blood thinners for his heart and of course  this exacerbates the bleeding. In the past he has had to have catheters placed in his nose and a balloon inflated to keep pressure on the vessel to stop it from bleeding.

If only it could have been that simple this time around. I know what you are thinking, that was simple? Yes, that was simple. This time he was bleeding from both nostrils and he was bleeding so heavily it was coming out of his mouth. He was choking and  gagging on it, and vomiting blood.  How bad was it? He had a transfusion today because his platelets are too low. That bad. Instead of a balloon catheter they cauterized the vessels in both of his nostrils to stop the bleeding. In addition to the nose bleed and complications thereof, his potassium levels are elevated and they are not entirely sure why. They think it may be related to yet another one of his medications. They expect him to be in for another week. When they told him that, the look on his face, I swear he was about to cry. He was just discharged eight days ago, and this is his third admit since July.

Dad was up all night and wouldn’t agree to go to the hospital until early morning. (wee hours of the morning) He knows once he goes in, he’s not going to get out right away. I understand that, totally. He was up all night with the bleeding. My fifteen year old nephew was spending the night and witnessed everything that happened. My mom left with the ambulance, called my brother and left my nephew at the house alone. He is fifteen and old enough to stay at home by himself. On the other hand, he spent an entire night watching his Grandfather coughing up and vomiting blood, then being taken away by an ambulance, and then left alone waiting for his parents to come get him, and he is only fifteen. Needless to say he is a bit shook up at the moment.

I am so grateful to have had Dad home for Thanksgiving, but we were supposed to have a surprise party for his birthday which is tomorrow. He’ll be seventy-five. If you can not get Mohammad to the mountain, then take the mountain to Mohammad. We are moving the party to the hospital and celebrating his birthday. I don’t work at this hospital so God help the nurse who tries to tell me we can’t do this. He needs this to keep his spirits up. Mom told him that we had planned this party for him and he was very upset to miss it. It brings back too many bad memories of two years ago when he spent Thanksgiving and his birthday in the hospital and then was directly admitted to a nursing home where he stayed until mid January missing out on Christmas and New Years with his family as well. It is so hard to watch him going through all this and be helpless to do anything about it. The most we can do is celebrate the time we have with him now.

There is a big Amish population in Ohio, huge actually. Many of our farms are now Amish owned. When my sister first moved down to a very small (two stop light) town, in a very rural (almost all farm) area in southeastern Ohio, there were no Amish. About ten years later and it is almost impossible to drive down a road without passing an Amish farm. When my friend Lori came out for a visit in October of 2007, on of the things we did was to spend a day in Amish country. Lori was delighted with all the horse and buggies trotting by.

We spent the day visiting all kinds of little shops, had a fantastic dinner at the Amish Door Restaurant, and stopped at an antique store. Lori is an expert antiquer! They had a sign out in the parking lot, I thought she was going to fall over laughing when she saw this!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A few years ago Lori came out for a visit, we mad the pilgrimage to see the super mother pumpkin . The Circleville pumpkin show held every year in Circleville,  this year’s pumpkin weighed in at 1635.5 pounds. a whopping 111 pounds more than the year Lori and I went.

I like the change in seasons. Every season has its own special thing for me.

The long sunny days of summer,

the renewal of life that comes with spring,

the big fat fluffy snowglobe snow in winter, (the best kinda snow)

my most favorite of all seasons is fall, when color blazes across the landscape.

On my official list of things to do is the annual Woollybear festival in Vermillion. The Woollybear caterpillars come out like nobody’s business in October. Last year i frequently found them along my hikes.

They’re so cute and fuzzy! The festival is hosted every year by our local weatherman/celebrity Dick Goddard. This is a photo of me with my eyes closed (or as Lori says sleeping with Dick) taken with Dick Goddard at an APL event last summer.

I was pulling into a parking place at work the other day, the person in the car next to me got out of her Liberty and commented on how much she liked my car. She said she used to have one of those Jeeps and kept it until she ran it into the ground. She said she only got rid of it because her husband insisted it wasn’t safe to drive anymore and they sold it and bought the Liberty. I told her my car needed a bit of work done on it, but I was going to keep it as long as I could. If it runs and has heat, those are my two criteria, otherwise I don’t care. She said since she got her new Jeep, she likes it, just not as much as the old one. She said since she sold the old one, two other people have driven it and she wished she hadn’t sold it at all. I told her  I keep hoping if I hang on to this one long enough, they will bring this style back. (wishful thinking) There’s something about Jeep owners. We are a loyal if not dysfunctional breed!

My local radio station has a club called the GFM. Grown-Ups For Miley! I am a proud card-carrying member. I have never seen Hanna Montana, but i have three Miley songs in my i-pod. My favorite, The Climb.

Still picking up glass in the living room from the HRC disaster of 10/1. ~sigh~

I received junk mail from Nationwide Insurance, on the front of the envelope the words “you’ve been pre-forgiven” were stamped in big blue letters. Wouldn’t it be nice to start every relationship out that way? You screw up, hurt someone’s feelings, and you’ve been pre-forgiven. Doesn’t sound bad eh?

It’s been all over the news lately, the government has now decided that women under the age of fifty do not need to have mammograms. (do you really want some fat cat without a vagina on capital hill making these decisions for you?) I have mix feelings about this, not looking forward to my first mammo, although I certainly understand the necessity. Of course they follow every news story with, your insurance may no longer cover your mammo, so I called today to  make sure, and dang it they will still cover my mammo. There’s goes my excuse for cancelling!

I have eliminated the words blame and fault from my vocabulary.

I have been eating veggie soup at lunch more and more often. Got kind of tired of salad on a daily basis. I have been mainly eating Campbell’s harvest select light soup. It says right on the label zero points for weight watchers, so I figured it can’t be bad. What I missed is that it also says great source of fiber. With my IBS I do not do well with high fiber foods. This explains why I have been farting like there is no tomorrow for weeks now! I really think they should add to the label, Campbell’s select harvest light, the soup that makes you toot!

“Only becoming conscious of old and unchosen patterns allows us to change them, and even so, change, no matter how much for the better, still feels cold and lonely at first because it doesn’t feel like home.” ~Gloria Steinem

And on the twenty first day of  November, in  the year two thousand and nine, we shall mark the occasion of when Pepper finally forgave me for going on vacation. (it only took thirty five days)

I love that my seventy two year old mother doesn’t undestand that my space and facebook are two different things, she calls it my face.

Got  a late start this morning, slept in, enjoyed breakfast, then got a mammogram. ~sigh~  It was a little uncomfortable, nothing you would volunteer for on a regular basis. Once it was over I headed home, walked into my parent’s house and headed straight  for Pop and planted a kiss on his cheek. It’s so good to have him home where he belongs. I spent the day with my Mom and sisters. We shopped, we ate, we movied. I got almost all of my Christmas shopping done. I still need to make a trip to the Steelers store in Grove City, Pa. I got my Dad’s name in our family drawing this year, I am sure I will have no trouble finding something for him there. I also volunteered to take my sister’s boyfriend out shopping to help him pick out her Christmas present. She said they went shopping together and he was disappointed because she knows everything she’s getting and there will be no surprises. I told him to take it all back, and he  and I will shop for her together. We saw the movie The Blind Side. I can not say enough about this movie, it was so good. (and yes somebody dies, although not a main character) It was very moving and it restores your faith in humanity to know that there are people in this world like the Tuoheys, it’s nice to know some people don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk.

I called my Dad in his hospital room earlier in the week. He answered the phone and I started asking questions. After a moment he paused and said, “who is this? ” (Are you feeling the love?) So when I called the house this morning to ask Mom if he was being released today, imagine my joy when Dad answered the phone.   I let out an elated YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Before he could ask, I told him “this is Jan!” (he knew better) I then proceeded to name my other sister and both my aunts before admitting it was me.

He’s home, after a week in the hospital, he’s home. It’s so hard to watch your parents age, to see your once indestructible father weak, and pale. This time around it wasn’t his heart, but things are not good. He has been having continued health problems. Heart attack in July, collapsed against his walker with chest pains in September, and now pneumonia. The problem with Dad’s health is that it’s never one thing. There are always multiple factors affecting his health care. He was in the hospital for five days after his heart attack before they did an angioplasty simply because his kidneys and diabetes were unstable. It’s the same thing this time around. Not only did he need to be treated for pneumonia, but his blood sugar levels were high and his kidneys are still not functioning properly. Even today when he was released, his kidneys are not good, just good enough to let him go home.

Dad was home for Thanksgiving last year, he had missed Thanksgiving the two years before that, so when i got that voicemail last Friday my first thought was, it’s Friday the thirteenth. My second thought was, he’s a bit ahead of schedule this year. One of my many questions for him this morning was, “did you get it all out of your system? Thanksgiving is less than a week away, are we done?” He laughed and said “I sure hope so.” I sure hope so too.  I know at the top of my list of things to be thankful for this year will be my Dad and the fact that I get to spend another Thanksgiving with him.

Thank you all for your love, support and prayers. I can not tell you how much it meant/means to me, and how truly thankful I am to have such wonderful friends in my life.

Every September there is a hot air balloon festival in my home town, literally across the street from where I live. I have my entire family up for a picnic, its tradition. We watch the balloons inflate and fly over my house. Two years ago one almost landed in my backyard! After the sun goes down and it gets a little darker, there are fireworks. The whole family sits out on the front lawn, (more often than not) huddled under blankets to watch.