In case one needs reminding, please be reminded that I am a "Border Line Anemic," who suffers from frequent nasty migraines. These cards that I have been dealt, add up to many limitations in my life. Always have. Always will. No big. It is what it is. I can deal. But, man! I just went from a respitatory flu/virus,3 days off, then into a stomach flu/virus & "I am sick & tired, of being sick & tired,"(my mother's lament & I imagine the lament of many mothers everywhere)

So, I keep being banned from the nursing homes which makes good medical sense, but the waiting & the self-imposed guilt are such pissers! I miss making my rounds with Rex to see the folks & friends & family. Rex misses it too. Dad spent all last night & all today with the hiccups which only subside when he vomits. These were his symptoms prior nearly losing him over Christmas. The family is concerned, naturally...but unnaturally, the docs are taking a wait & see attitude...the same thing that they did @ Christmas until one of the nurse's called the doc & said, "Look, I really think he needs to go to the hostital!" and only then, was he taken. At the hospital, they piddled around with nothing but more enemas of which the nursing home had been heaping upon him prior to his transfer...all of a sudden, after being in the hospital 3 days, they finally did an MRI & ONLY THEN rushed him to surgery 6 hours later...it was maddening. As it is now.

I've worked in hospitals & nursing homes. I have seen gross negligence, benign neglect, and true genius. Nothing is ever for certain. Only that the medical profession is still PRACTICING medicine...

uh oh more later...Bubba needs me & I gotta break off all of a sudden.
Blogstream keeps kicking me off, & then when things get going good, life kicks me off the Stream. gotta go. and geez....I got a headache. Crappola!!!!!

"If unable to dance, I will crawl..." says an old Dead tune...

When life overwhelms me, and I don't know where to turn, I hope I can remember to sing a song.

"Summertime" and the livin' is easy.

"One Thing Leads to Another"

"Hey Nineteen"

Fifty Four and there's so much more..

My dad's cancer has metastisized...moved out of his bowel & entered the lymph nodes. My fomer state of denial is now his. He is not a candidate for chemo or readiation. He's 83...he was dying anyway. As we all really are...dying. From the moment we start living, we start dying. We don't like to dwell on it, but it is what it is. It is inevitable for all of us.

It's how we choose to live-that's what makes it all worth the while...so we are told, and so I believe. I hope I can hold onto that belief...I hope that my Dad can remember it more often.

My sister Jan went into the nursing home Saturday to find things much as they were before the surgery. Dad was propelling himself in his wheelchair with his one good leg, crusing down the hall, griping and complaining. He's got a lot to gripe about, for sure...He's already asked the nurse to call the Dr & get himself some medication for erectile dysfuntion, now that he was back in the same room with his beloved Rene. He's a week & 1/2 out of major sugery, diagnosed with a tragic disease, and trying to keep his Rene happy. He told me years ago about her demanding that he ask the doc for Viagra & how embarassed he was to go tell the Doc what wasn't up. Now, he is less embarrased and she remains demanding. They took 3/4 of his bowel out, a huge arc of a scar, and he has a colostomy bag and another ostomy bag...he's outta the hospital 3 days and he's jonesing for Viagra. Jan is embarrased about it. Me, I hope that he is asking for his own purposes, and not just trying (again and again) to prove his love to the one woman who will never truly believe that he loves her. She is so certain that my dear ol Dad is still tom-cattin' around with other women that he always has to defend himself and try to prove his love, but she's demented, and it suits her to keep her suspicions, thereby prolonging her own dramas.

As I previously mentioned, Dad has sustained some brain damage from his ordeals...to him, this constant drama is life, and trying but never succeeding to please a crazy lady is how he plans to live out these last days of his life, and he won't have it any other way.

So what? We are all crazy, don't you think? Just different brands and flavors of crazy... But are we all happy?

None of us is happy all of the time. It's a noble ambition, but it just dosen't work. Shit happens, brain chemistry chnges our moods and behaviors, our dear old Dads want to be a sex machine for unappreciative lovers...it's a tough ol life. I want to spend the rest of my life living, not dying, and in reality if I notice & if I try, I will be doing the best of both of them the rest of my days.

My Mom's in a nursing home, too. Her husband, Daddy Don died a year ago last Thanksgiving. She grieved, and for a short while, she became withdrawn, sleeping most of the time, through visits, through the days, and the nights. And then, she remebered cigarettes. And she thought she might like to smoke one, but as they wouldn't let her smoke inside, she'd have to get out of bed, & get down the hallways, and outside, get her cigarette out & lit...she befriended the staff who liked her pretty much all along. They stay on good terms with each other, and when they have time they take her out for a smoke. When she gets visitors, she wakes up & they take her out for a smoke. And she sings...all the way outside, during the cigarettes(s), and all the way back to her room, where she wants to go back to sleep. She tells me. "Sometimes they ask me to start singing, and sometimes they ask me to stop!"

I want to be a singer,not a griper. I want to make the best out of my life, taking it as it comes. I don't want to sweat the small stuff. Big worries are in actual fact, no worries...it is just how we approach, recieve and handle our worries that will dictate our happiness.

I want to dance every day while I can. "If unable to dance, I will crawl..." and I will purposely attempt to spend as much time as I can singing...when not unavoidably compaining.

This would be a prime example of concious living, purposeful living, doing the best that I can do, not having to prove anything to anybody, not having to defend myself from mistakes that I may have made in the past, learning how to live my life through example. I'm gonna die. I know that. But how I will live...that will be the truest testament to the fact that once, I was...

We were preparing for the worst of the worst, and yet, so far, we have been granted another miracle in my Father's survival. He was discharged back to the nursing home Thursday. He has tube & bags & complications, but he is back at his wife's side...the only place he can ever be happily miserable, and the only place that he wants to be. When push came to shove, and my step-mother had no viable alternative other than to be admitted to a nursing facility, my Dad admitted himself, so to be at her side. He could have stayed in his Assisted Living apartment; he was frail, but not yet nursing home material, He could not stand living without her, and got himself admitted just to be with her. It is wierd the way that history repeats itself if you let it. My marriage was filled with him falsly accusing me, while he was the one that was runnin' round You know that thin line that so many couples walk, that line of eggshells that threatens to shatter your heart from within...he has walked that line throughout his 25+ years of marriage to my Mother's ex-best friend. He cannot concieve of living life without her, though she has never trusted him throughout their relationship. That lack of trust was well founded, in years gone by. Dad's an entertainer, and women have always thrown themselves at him, and I remain fairly certain that he threw very few back. Rene & Dad both betrayed my Mother's trust and love in them, and now, they are still feeling the pain of the backlash, the guilt. And as elderly, feeble, and wheel chair dependant as they are, her Parkinson's has given her delusions and hallucinations primarily centered around Dad's imaginary trysts with the staff & the other residents at the home. She was never what one could call kind, and now, she is just plain mean (most of the time). It is a miracle that he is not in a lot of physical pain, from the sugery. But now, he's back at the home protesting his innocence to her constant accusations, and that's a different kind of pain, the misery of mental anguish. It is a pain that seemingly know no end, his love for her has alway been a package deal with pain., and he will always feel that this pain. Dad has brain damage and he cannot fully realize that her love comes at a high price, a price that he will alway struggle to pay. My lil sis Jan is at his side during these first coupla days out of the hospital, and will try to keep the peace between them. It must be Hell to my Angel Sister Jan, but she keeps showing up & staying most of the day. Jan, along with sister Kathy have let it be known that I cannot visit while I have this head cold which nearly every body seems to have primarily due to our latest instance of global warming. The days have a twilight zone feeling, with these January warm rains, mists and foggy drizzles. Most folk I see around at work, and in stores, are suffering from one sinus nightmare or another, and mine only makes it's appearances at night...yet, for the good of all concerned, I am not to visit Dad until all symptoms have subsided. My Mom's nursing home, as well as my Dad's are taking extra precautions as both Type A & Type B flus have struck there in epidemic porportions, and regardless of what type is contracted, I hear that both flus are particularly graphic and ugly to deal with, and I really shouldn't visit with my "border line anemia." So, I am staying away, but it is breaking my heart. I sat in my truck in the rain today & talked to my sis, and before I realized what I was doing, I started crying to her, pouting like a child, "But I miss my Daddy!"

So, to deal with the stress, I tread. Personal best last night was 112 minutes to tread 5 miles. Legs ached mightily all night, and I may have over done it, as I was dizzy with some minor respiratory difficulties after getting out of the shower...it was a rough night. I took tonite off as Fri. nite we kinda have a date night. We watch a movie with the dogs gathered cozily around us, have popcorn, share jokes and enjoy each other's company. Tomorrow, though, before football starts, I NEED to tread again and hopefully set a new personal best without the drama that plagued me last night. I NEED to tread...for the endorphins, the slimming, the health, the diversion...

We've came so close to losing him, so many times. Long before I was a twinkle in my Daddy's eye, he was wounded in WW2, then later, for about 12 days, he was a POW. He's had at least 3 major strokes, and many moderate and mild ones as well. He got drunk with his friends & fell off his bar stool smacking his head on the floor, resulting in a subdural hematoma. I believe he stays because he knows that he is so well loved. All that stuff in the past is in the past, we all just chuckle & shake our heads now at his Lance Romance days-gone-by. That is who he was, it is not who he is now. Who he is now is my Miracle Dad, bewildered, frail, aphasiac, and helpless, but my Miracle Dad, who glows with love for his family and radiates love with his music. He can no longer play, of course, but he can close his eyes, smile and remember, and he can still conduct his imaginary orchestra with his good hand, and still pull on the hearstings of the many people who love him so very much, Look Ma, no hands...

Bubba & the dogs have long since crashed & I am wandering weary a bit my own self. So, it is off to bed with me, looking forward to the morrow, happy for today.

I like to live in the present whenever I can pull it off...today, I could. I never ceased to be chARMED WHEN REMINDED THAT WE CALL THE PRESENT is a present. Today was a gift from God.

DAd's pneumonia hAS CONSIDERABLY lessened._(geez...migraiine with ice packs is making for some intresting printing & words-bear with me, here.)

hE WAS SO AWARE, TODAY. iNTUBATED WITH a sense of humor. I played a Duke Ellington CD, he was conducting the music with his restrained good hand, smiling around, smiling around the intubation tube. This was such A GOOD DAY for him. My migraine raged & I just rolled with it, my heart soaring as I hummed & sang softly with the music. squeezing my hand 3 times..."I LOve YOU". he wrote on a clipboard asking for football on the tube.

he's in big pain(well over 1/2 of his bowel removed) but gets frequent small doses of sister morphine(not on a drip).

HE IS SO BRAVE. SUCH A FIGHTER. TODAY WAS SUCH AN UNEXPECTED GREAT DAY. HE was concerned for my headache, many times indicating for me to rest my head, without letting loose of holding my hand. they may extubate him tomorrow or Wed. if he continues to do good like this.

I gotta rest my migraine. today was a miracle, tomorrow, of course, remains a mystery. everything and nothing has changed...today, they changed for the better., I believe.

thank you for your thoughts & prayers, Streamsters...today, God said"Yes"

gotta rest. and breathe. and sleep. and take tomorrow as it comes...as do we all.

Blood gases show that he prob had a heart attack, though the ekg looks good. Spiked a temp. Moved to ICU. Docs say we kids need to pace ourselves. Not happening

Bubba & I are leaving for town. It's my turn to take the watch