So Long Maggie, my friend.

My friend, Maggie Walker

 July 3, 2012

I just received news this morning that my good friend, Maggie Walker died.  I think she was quite ill and my hope is that she is in a much better place.

I met Maggie when I moved to Owyhee, NV to teach Family and Consumer Science in the combined school on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation.  Maggie had been my predecessor.  She was transferred to Carlin and I took her place.   As fellow FACS teachers we became close friends.  We traveled to conferences together and were room mates often.  When I was transferred to Wendover she took over my job back up in Owyhee.  We knew each others students and our two groups did lots of traveling, conferences and sight-seeing together.

  Maggie and I had a lot of good times with the other "Home Ec" teachers in Elko County.  We shared teaching resources and shared a lot of good laughs as well.  Our lives were similar in that we both had lived on ranches during our married lives and had children about the same ages.  We differed in that she grew up on an Indian Reservation and had lived most of her life there.  I loved hearing her stories about her young life.

Maggie is on top of the world

After I retired and moved back to Colorado we stayed in touch.  One summer she drove up to the cabin with two of her grand children.  We had a fun time including a scenic drive on the Trail Ridge Road which scared her to death!

Picnicing at Grand Lake Colorado with JJ's family and Maggie with her grand kids.  Maggie is second from the right.

 One of my memories of that time was when she tried to braid my grandson, Darcy's, light blond very fine hair.  It just kept falling out and we had to laugh when she said "You just don't have the right kind of Indian hair!" .  She finally got the job done but it didn't last long.

Finally they are done messing with my hair!

Darcy's braids didn't last too long!

 I lost track of Maggie when she retired and moved to Reno to be with her son but former students kept me informed of how she was doing.  I did not know that she had moved back to Elko and am sorry that I didn't get to see her one last time when we were in Elko in June.

So long Maggie!  I will miss you.

Happy Fourth of July With A Lovely Summer Recipe

Ooooh!  Aaaaaaaah!  How I do love fireworks!

 On this day before the Fourth of July I am thinking about some of my favorite Fourths.  When I was young and living in Milwaukee I remember staying at home and making home-made ice cream.  We had the old fashioned hand crank kind of freezer and I remember taking turns sitting on it while Dad did the cranking.  Getting to lick the dasher after Mum took it out was a favorite thing for the whole family.

  After dark we would lay on blankets in the yard and watch the sky.  In those days every suburb and small town around Milwaukee had their own fireworks.  We lived on the outskirts very near the State Fair Park which had great fireworks.  Of course the biggest ones were down on the lake shore.  Anyway, we could see fireworks all over the sky from all these venues.  It was great.  After that we had sparklers for all the neighborhood kids.  Guess what, none of us ever got hurt but then our parents used common sense and stressed safety to us even back then.

Four generations picnicing on the Fourth of July in Twin Falls, ID.

Other memories include spending the Fourth in the old Laramie hospital 4 days after Danny was born, Watching home done fireworks in the mountains of Pennsylvania with my cousins at their summer cottages, watching some of our teenage summer workers on the ranch shoot off fireworks up on the Delaney Butte adjacent to the ranch, and going to Steamboat Springs with our grand kids and other relatives to watch the best fireworks around shot off the top of the ski jump mountains.  One year was memorable when a huge thunderstorm came up during the fireworks so we had the lightning show along with the fireworks over at Steamboat!

Erin, JJ and Ozzie at Steamboat Springs waiting for the fireworks on the Fourth of July

 Oh and who can forget running for your life up in the fairground grandstand in Walden when the volunteer firemen tried their hand at shooting off fireworks and wayward ones might come at you right into the stands!  There are so many different experiences now that I think of it.  I could go on and on.  One last memory was when I had students in Boston over the Fourth.  What a sight that was with all the small boats on the James River, the Boston Pops Orchestra playing in the Park with more that a million people along the river, on the river, and in the parks.  The music of the 1812 Overture and spectacular fireworks was overwhelming.  So much for the reminiscing now for a great hot weather recipe not normally associated with the Fourth of July!

This is how Bob enjoys watching the fireworks at Steamboat Springs.  None of that fresh air for him!

This is a recipe that Carla came up with here in Phoenix where it was pretty hot even in late April.  We didn't want to heat up the kitchen and were too busy running back and forth to the hospital, so it was convenient to just stop at the store on the way home.  Of course when I am at the cabin I need to do the chicken cooking at home, but then it isn't that hot up there even in the middle of summer.

Carla's Curried Chicken Salad

Ingredients

1 broasted chicken from the grocery store 

1/2 - 1 cup seedless grape halves

1 apple cored and cubed

1/2 cup celery, chopped ( this is my addition--Carla doesn't do celery!)

1/2 cup glazed or sugared pecans, chopped

1/2 cup Craisins

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2- 1 tsp. curry powder 

1/2 cup whipping cream

Directions:

1.  Remove the chicken from the bones and cube.  I would guess you would get more than you need for this recipe so you could use it for enchiladas or fajitas.  Use about 2-3 cups of chicken.  Put it in your salad bowl.

2.  Cut grapes in half, chop your apple and celery and put these in the bowl with chicken.

3.  Chop your pecans into nice size pieces so you know what they are in the salad.  Add them and the craisins into the bowl.

4.  Stir the curry powder into the mayonnaise and then stir into the chicken mixture.

5. Whip the cream into soft peaks and then fold into the salad.

Keep chilled, serve and enjoy!

The whipped cream makes the difference in this recipe.  It is delicious.

So what are we doing tomorrow here in Phoenix for the Fourth of July?  Our plans are pretty quiet.  Watch Happy Feet 2, watch the Diamondbacks play the Padres on TV,  go to Outback for dinner and watch fireworks on TV.  Too hot outside and we can't see any fireworks from this part of town......

I hope everyone has a great Fourth of July holiday this year!      

What To Do With These Colorful Peppers

A big package of mini peppers has lots of possibilities.

Have you noticed those big packages of brightly colored red, yellow and orange mini sweet peppers in the produce department?  A couple years ago Marianne bought one of those bags at Costco up in Burlington, WA while we were visiting.  I wondered at the time how she was going to use all those pretty peppers up and also if they were really spicy hot.  I found out they are a type of sweet pepper and very tasty.  Bob loved to get a few out for snacking and before the week was out the bag was gone!  Bob would eat them whole without even getting the seeds out.  Actually they have very few seeds in them and are very crunchy and a refreshing treat.

Raw peppers stuffed with cream cheese.

Lately I have been seeing bags of these peppers in most produce departments of grocery stores wherever I have been ( like Phoenix, San Antonio, Laramie, Casper, Elko, etc.) Well, maybe not Bella's Market in Walden, but I haven't been in there for almost 6 months, so who knows!

When Carla and JJ were here in Phoenix with us in April we got a bag of these peppers and discovered a lot of ways to get them used up besides just eating them raw in salads and whole for snacks.

 Carla loved doing them on grill and I loved how they tasted.  She halved them, cleaned the seeds out, brushed them with olive oil sprinkled on some sea salt and grilled them for maybe 10 minutes.  Yummmmm!

These grilled peppers go great with steak on the grill.

We also came up with a stuffed mini pepper that cooks in about 10 minutes or less in the microwave.  Use your favorite stuffed pepper recipe and put about meatball sized amounts in each half of your mini peppers.  I'm thinking of doing a filling with Mexican spices and a little cheese on top.  Bake about 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven, toaster oven or maybe a little shorter time in the microwave.

My camera phone isn't doing well in this heat I guess.  These are the stuffed peppers.

A blurry picture of our stuffed mini peppers with cheese on top.  They were delicious.

 My students in Wendover used to do cheese stuffed long green mildly hot peppers (can't remember the name) on the grill.  So here they are done with the mini peppers.  Stuff with Queso Fresca cheese and grill for about 8-10 minutes.  Very yummy.

Cheese stuffed peppers and just plain ones on the grill.

This is the favorite cheese of many of my Wendover students.

Another snack option is the tiny pepper halves stuffed with cream cheese.  Very tasty!

Ranchero cheese stuffed peppers ready for the grill.

Yummy grilled cheese peppers have Bob's seal of approval.

By the way, if you have leftover filling from the stuffed peppers you might try making mini meatloaves in a muffin tin and stick a cube of cheese in the center of each little loaf.  bake them for about 20 minutes in the oven.

Leftover meat stuffing for peppers makes great mini meat loaves made in a muffin tin.  They freeze well for later meals.

Mushrooms, steak and peppers done on the grill.

Hmmmm!  I wonder what to try next.....  I just saw a bit on TV about grilling a whole head of Romaine lettuce and that is the hottest trend today.  I think I have to try that one!

A Tasty Breakfast Treat

Alyssa, Natalie and Samara show off their "100 days of school" necklaces they made with candy.

 Annie and I have been going through a lot of the recipes she has cut out of the newspaper and came upon a really good breakfast recipe for a variation on French toast.  I tried it a couple times and think it is a winner.  Here it is:

Scrambled French Toast

From Phoenix Living, August 21 2010

Ingredients

3-4 slices stale bread with crust (French bread is delicious)

2 large eggs, well beaten

1/2 cup milk or cream

1/4 tsp. salt

4 slices crisp bacon, fried and crumbled

Butter and maple syrup

In a skillet, fry bacon until crisp, reserving bacon fat.

Cut bread into small cubes and place in a bowl.  In another bowl, whisk together eggs, milk and salt until well blended.  Pour egg mixture over bread cubes and gently toss with fingers or a spoon to coat all cubes.

Reheat bacon fat in the skillet.  Add soaked bread cubes and cook on medium-high, turning occasionally until cubes are set and well browned.

Crumble bacon and sprinkle over each serving.

Serve with warm maple syrup and plenty of butter.

May-June Happenings

We did some tye dying while in Casper.  Here Carla is dying some shirts.

 I promised to finish our Mayo Clinic saga and then never got back to it.  Here's "the rest of the story!"  On May 6, after the doctor gave Bob the OK to head to Wyoming to stay for a while with Carla's family in Casper, we all got packed up to leave Phoenix.  Carla, JJ, Bob and I loaded into our 1990 Lincoln Town Car and headed for Flafstaff.  Due to my great sense of direction and map reading skills, we ended up 45 minutes of city driving later, several blocks away from Annie's house!  Ozzie was supposed to meet us with his motorcycle in Flagstaff and was patiently waiting when JJ called him to tell him where we were.  He sarcastically wanted to know if we were going to stop back at her house for a bathroom break!

Annie celebrates her two new knees.

 The second try worked much better and we were finally headed for Flagstaff.  As
we got closer to that city, driving up the winding mountain highway the car started to do big jerking gear shifts.  Bob kept accusing Carla of not knowing how to drive and she kept insisting she wasn't doing anything wrong.  After all she had grown up in the mountains and knew how to drive in them.  Meanwhile JJ and I were in the back seat feeling the floor to see if it was getting hotter.  JJ kept seeing smoke from the back of the car when it shifted.  We were only about ten miles from meeting Ozzie and going about 45 mph on the interstate.

Bob is dealing with the heat the best he can.

We made it to the bottom of the exit ramp and could see Ozzie over in the filling station waiting for us.  When the light changed and Carla stepped on the gas nothing happened!  Just our luck!  Bob said try it again and it inched forward.  We made it and Ozzie took over and helped us to figure out what it was. The transmission fluid was gone so we dumped in several quarts, waved goodbye to Ozzie and JJ on the motorcycle, and we were headed for New Mexico.

Buddy is the welcoming committee at the dentist office.  I took this the day before her second knee surgery.

 We stopped a couple times to make sure the fluid was still OK and it was.  We ended up staying overnight in Grants, NM.  Bob was tired but did pretty well.  We pressed on the next day which was Sunday.  I was driving and shortly before Santa Fe the car started a jerking.  We had forgotten to check the transmission fluid that morning and so we made a pit stop at Walmart in Santa Fe.  They didn't have any transmission fluid but did have some stop leak type stuff.  We drove around town until we found an auto parts place that was open, added more transmission fluid and the stop leak fluid and were off again.  We checked our fluid again in Raton and it was OK.  We made it to Denver that night in the rain and were in Casper the next afternoon with no problems!

Carla checks up on how her tye dye is doing.

We took the car in to the Ford garage in Casper and they found a crack in the transmission where the fluid is kept.  After a couple weeks of recovery for Bob in excellent weather (warm with no wind), the car was ready and we were able to head for home to our beloved cabin.  Six days later we were off to Elko for a graduation and then back to Phoenix for six more weeks helping Annie with her other knee replacement! With another little, but expensive, blip on the drive down we made it!  That's where we are now in 113 degree heat--but that is another  story!

Erin is sitting on their patio in Spring Creek, NV.  The view from there is terrific!

Bob and the Mayo Clinic part 2

Bob was back in the Hospital, this time on the top (7th) floor.

 As you can see by my tardiness in finishing up this saga, tomorrow's are pretty relative for us.  After being away since December 27 of 2011 , we are finally back at our beloved " cabin" in the Colorado Rocky Mountains!  We will only be here for 6 days but so far they have been very rejuvenating.  We have at least seen some sun each day and of course some wind, some rain, and just a bit of snow.  It has been chilly at times but not below freezing, yet.  Bob is acting like his old cranky self which we have all missed for several months!

I  am getting ahead of myself so I must get back to my story.  If you missed the first 3 episodes, refer back to these links:  How Our Winter Went , Annie's Knee Replacement , Bob and the Mayo Clinic Part 1

After Carla left on Thursday our lives settled down to trying to build up strength in Annie's knee and taking care of some things she wanted to get done before going back to work.  We were beginning to make plans for our trip back home.  We had 2 graduations in Nebraska and Rapid City and 2 Doctor appointments in Denver starting in 3 weeks. 

 A week later on Saturday, April 21, Bob was feeling so good he decided we needed to do a little shopping. He needed some cooler clothing. We were planning to come back to Phoenix in June and July to help Annie get her right knee replaced.

Bob and I went to a mall nearby and got him several short sleeved shirts  and a couple pairs of shorts.  He never owned any of these items before!  North Park summers just don't lend themselves to this kind of clothing for these tough old ranchers.  It was a lovely day and when we stopped at Fryes to pick up some groceries, Bob even decided to get his favorite lunch, a loaded hot dog--but he skipped the sauerkraut in accordance with his low fiber diet.  ( Fryes has food vendors out front on weekends.  They had some really good smelling ribs there the weekend before...).  We spent the rest of the day pleasantly, watching a ball game and enjoying the patio.  Bob headed to bed around 9 PM, his usual time.

About 11 PM I headed to bed  ( my usual time) and Bob was having pains in his stomach again.  He had tried all the things the doctors had recommended and even tried a couple of the pills for stomach spasms to no avail.  By midnight he announced that I needed to get him to the emergency room at Mayo's again!  Unfortunately he was going to win his bet with Dr. Frazier. 

Bob, all hooked up for the 3rd time!

At the emergency room we went through the same procedures they had done the last 2 times with the same results--small bowel partial blockage.  They put him in the hospital for observation after CAT scans, X-rays, stomach pumping, IVs (don't even get me started on how bruised his arm already was), and other assorted activities.  Needless to say, he didn't make it to his new room (later dubbed the evil room, although the nurses assured me it was the penthouse room on the 7th floor) until the next morning.  I didn't check it out that much at the time since it was 5:30AM and both Bob and I were pooped.  I knew Dr. Frazier was an early bird but I couldn't keep my eyes open much longer so I headed back to Annie's to get some sleep.  She was just getting up ( another early bird) and assured me she could get her own breakfast and just get some sleep. 

About an hour later the phone rang and it was Bob saying they were getting ready to take him into surgery ( Sunday morning at 7 AM??? ). I got up and headed over to the hospital.  I was just in time to meet the head surgeon and to ask him how long it would be.  He said they had no idea what they were going to find so it could be anywhere from 1 hour to 3+ hours.  We headed out to surgery.

The waiting area.  I took this on another day so there actually were people in it this day.

 Since it was Sunday, the parking lot was relatively empty, I saw very few people in the lobby or on the floor and when they showed me into the waiting room for families I was literally the only person there.  No grey ladies, no volunteers, no families.  Just me.  The nurse said "Oh, it will fill up fast in a couple hours"!  I settled down for the wait.   I called the family and Annie to let them know what was going on, got out my Kindle and settled in.  After an hour or so the piano music started. The waiting room was on a balcony 2 floors above the piano in the atrium.  The piano player was a volunteer and they played a lot of show tunes and old classics

The piano is in the lobby of the atrium.  It is in the back left corner.

and was quite soothing.  Still not one person had come into the waiting room!  After three hours and some reading and dozing and still nobody in the area except me, my kindle, and the music, I started getting text messages from everyone asking what was happening.  Carla informed me she had a plane ticket for Phoenix and would be there the next late afternoon.  Meanwhile I still hadn't heard or seen anyone.  He hadn't exaggerated about the + after the 3 hours!

About 2 :30 that afternoon the main surgeon( Dr. Gray) came into the room and sat down with me to explain what all they had done.  Everyone up to this time had assumed that the problem was adhesions from the surgeries Bob had as long ago as 40 years.  We all had disputed this from the beginning but figured these Drs. had seen more than we had.  They did not want to do surgery before because another scar would cause more adhesions and it was tricky to find and clean up as much scar tissue as Bob has.  They felt they might have to do more than arthroscopic surgery if they ran into problems and that would not be good.  Well, they started with the arthroscopic surgery and it all was going well until they got to a spot on the small bowel that they could not get.  They had to do a 12 inch long incision where one of his old incisions had been to see what was going on.  They found one tumor on the small bowel and another on the inner wall of his skin.  Dr. Gray said they were pretty sure the one on the small bowel was cancer and was the culprit in all the problems Bob was having.  They removed several inches of the small bowel, checked out his liver and all the rest of the system but found nothing else.  They felt the other tumor was not malignant but of course, knowing Bob's history, they were having both tumors biopsied.   Bob was doing fine and would be in recovery at least 2 more hours.  They would be taking him to the same "penthouse" room after recovery. 

The "penthouse room"  AKA "the evil room"!  The chair in the foreground is where we slept.  A window behind me looked out on the helicopter pad several floors below us.

I was so tired by then I went up to the room and asked a nurse if I could sleep in the reclining chair in a little alcove in the huge room.  There was even a love seat and several other chairs in this room.  A nurse brought me a warmed blanket and tucked me in.  I got a nice little nap and before I knew it Bob was back in the room and hooked up to all kinds of tubes.  He was completely out of it and I was assured he would be until the next day so I should go home and get some more sleep.

The next day Bob was still very dopey and he was having quite a bit of pain which he could use the push button every 8 minutes to get more morphine.  He was so out of it he just kept pushing the button like men do with the TV remote until he'd get some more.  Later a nurse told me he had hit the button 468 times in the last 6 hours!  I stayed with him until it was time for Carla to arrive.  She and I went back for awhile but left around 7 to get some dinner and some sleep.  That wasn't going to happen!

About 11PM Annie's phone rang.  It was a nurse who put Bob on to talk to me.  He was on the Magic Carpet Ride for sure!  He begged me to come and bring the police!  He insisted " they" we conspiring against him and we were all in great danger.  Please get the cops and come get him.  I asked him to get the nurse on and she said he had been trying to call 911 and trying to get out of bed.  I said we would be right there.  By the time we arrived a Dr. had come and settled him down and he was asleep when we got to the room.  Carla decided to stay with him at the room and I should get home and get some sleep.

The next day and for most of the rest of his stay it was a wild trip like on magic mushrooms.  Carla and I were upside down, the bed was  hanging from the ceiling, the room was evil, a diabetic group was trying to experiment on him, he was on a snowplow plowing snow in Northern Arizona, there was a big hole in the floor at the bottom of his bed, we were all laying on the floor, and he was on a stage coach out in the desert.  Carla and I were plotting against him and had him tied to the bed ( not a bad idea but not true).

Another view of  "The Evil Room"

  What a trip!  he insisted the room was evil and all kinds of groups of people were floating through it up on the ceiling. The bed was hanging out the window and there were bad things going on in the room.  It just wasn't right.  I believe the feng shui of the room was wrong.  The Chinese are right about this I am sure.  The bed was facing the wrong way in the room and of course the drugs didn't help the feeling.  The very last day he was in the hospital they moved him to a room closer to the nurses station and he felt much safer!  Of course he was finally off the morphine, too.  Bob will never be a good candidate for a drug addict!

Meanwhile JJ and Ozzie had gone to Laughlin for a motorcycle rally and Annie and I were going to meet them in Wickenburg and bring JJ back to help us out with Bob!  We didn't know how or when we all were going to get home.

The next  Friday (the day we had been scheduled to leave for Colorado and 1 day after his birthday) they discharged Bob from the hospital.  Looking back I think we would have been better off to wait another day but at the time we were all happy to get him home to Annie 's.  He was still on the low fiber diet and things were going along OK except there was a little redness around the lower part of the incision but there was no fever and the Dr. seemed to think it was just part of the healing.  JJ was experienced at the packing since she had helped with it when her father-in-law was ill.

By Sunday night (it always seems to be night--have you noticed)?  Bob was acting weird again, feeling pukey and not doing much talking.  He was not running a fever but the redness had spread and we decided we had to take him back to the emergency room!  So Carla, JJ and I took Bob back to Mayo Hospital emergency room for the  third time (4th visit to an emergency room since getting to Phoenix).

Hall to the Emergency Room.  A familiar path for us to take at night.

  At least this time they didn't pump his stomach!  It was going to be a long wait again since they wanted to do another CAT scan and only 2 of us could be in the room with Bob.  So Bob insisted 2 of us go home.  JJ said she would stay and Carla and I jumped on her offer and headed for home.  We were pooped!  The CAT scan looked good.  The incision was infected and they removed staples from the bottom 2 or 3 inches and they packed it and sent him home.  We needed to pack it 2 times a day so it could heal from the inside out.  By Tuesday the rest of the incision was looking red.  Bob drew the line at going back to the hospital, but we called the Dr. and he said since he was going to see him on Friday they would take care of it then.

By Friday Bob's incision looked very red and he'd wasn't feeling that good.  Dr. Frazier took out the rest of the staples in the incision and while casually chatting with Bob and with Carla and JJ hovering above the incision, he took his gloved finger and ran it up the incision like he was gutting a fish!  Bob yelped and the 2 girls nearly lost their breakfast!  I had been hanging back so was glad not to have had a front row seat!  We now had the whole 12 inches to pack twice a day.  The Dr. also confirmed that the biopsy on the small bowel tumor was cancer but the other one was not.  He felt sure they had removed all the cancer, though.  The good news was that Dr. Frazier didn't see anything wrong with us leaving for Colorado the next day as long as we had a Dr. to check Bob wherever we were going.  Our Phoenix stay was finally over!  Annie had been back to work for a week and was doing fine. 

Bob's incision all neatly packed and healing up nicely.  Taken on May 29, 2012.

Now for the trip home, our adventure was still not over!!!

 

Bob and the Mayo Clinic Part 1

Spring in Phoenix.  The Saguaro cacti were in bloom with their little hats on.

 To continue with my chronicle of our Phoenix adventure, I need to back track to the first week we arrived, about April 4th, the day Bob was discharged from Paradise Valley Hospital. (See my past blogs if you missed his stay;  How Our Winter Went and Annie's Knee Replacement.  just click on these titles to get caught up).  As I mentioned we were not convinced he was cured but bought all the medicines and followed the diet they gave us even though it was kind of crazy.

The landscaping around the Mayo Clinic was beautiful with all the different cacti in bloom.

  Bob seemed OK and helped me run around doing hospital visits to Annie and getting groceries, medicines, etc. Just about 2 weeks after his first hospital stay, he started getting some stomach cramps. We immediately called Bob's gastrointestinal Dr. in Denver (we still didn't have a primary Dr. In Phoenix). We didn't get to talk to him but his nurse relayed the info to him and from what little he knew, he prescribed something for intestinal spasms as needed. By the time we got the medication the cramps had stopped so Bob didn't take any. Of course, this all occurred late Friday so the Dr. wanted an update on Monday. The weekend went by with no more pains so Bob didn't take any of the medicine and dutifully reported to the Dr. on Monday. We arranged to give him a call if it recurred.

This hall was a familiar path for us!

  Meanwhile we had about decided Bob should go up to Denver if this kept up. Carla was driving down to Phoenix to help me with my 2 patients and to drive Bob up to Denver if need be.  I would stay and help Annie who had not even been home from the hospital a week when all this started! Carla arrived Monday and all was well. About early afternoon on Tuesday, Bob started acting weird and we knew the stomach troubles had begun again. He tried the pills for stomach spasms but no dice!  Annie mentioned that Mayo Clinic was only about 10-15 minutes away so Carla loaded her dad up and took off for the emergency room there.  I called the Dr. office in Denver and they said that was the best move.  At home, Annie and I continued with her CPM and exercise regimen. Carla kept us posted as they again did CAT scans and put a tube in his nose down to his stomach. It was gross and poor Carla had to handle it without me there. She stayed with him while they checked him into the hospital for observation but again diagnosed it as a small bowel blockage which would resolve itself.

Bob and his nose tube along with several others.  He had it in for 4 days this time.

 Carla got back about midnight after Bob was settled into his room. JJ and Ozzie arrived to see Bob on Thursday on their way home from Micah's. JJ had bought a new motorcycle in San Antonio so we now had a car from Colorado, a car from Wyoming and 2 motorcycles in front of Annie's house. The next day JJ and Ozzie left after making sure the Drs. had everything under control. That night Paul and his girlfriend, Ash, arrived in her little white Cube with the big eyelashes.  (Ash, I need that picture you have!) It was getting so crowded out front that they had to park across the street in front of the neighbors. They spent the night with us at Annie's, visited with Bob the next day and then Carla took them out to one of the casino resorts to stay on Saturday night. While there, Paul dropped a few quarters into a slot machine and won $1800! Lucky guy! I had been spending time at the hospital and running back to Annie's every 3-4 hours to keep her on schedule and get meals ready.

The Paul and Angel Harvey Atrium.  This is the entrance to the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Scottsdale.

  I finally got to talk to one of the doctors and also the nutritionist. We still didn't know what the plan was for Bob but the main doctor for his team agreed with us that he couldn't continue living like he had been with them pumping his stomach every 2 weeks. So you can imagine our shock when the surgeons recommended a " conservative" approach of no surgery and just diet and exercise. We all argued with the young resident surgeon that brought us that news and we weren't very polite about it either! We discovered that the surgeons do have the last word and finally a more experienced one had a talk with Bob explaining why they didn't want to do the surgery and left it up to Bob to make the final decision. Meanwhile we did some research on the Internet and were mollified, too.  We would give it a try. Sunday was Easter and by afternoon Bob had eaten 3 meals with no problems and they sent him home! Not before he made a small bet with the surgeon that he would be seeing him again in about 2 weeks.

A view from the 3rd floor down into the atrium.  This was the floor Bob was on.

 Carla stayed until Thursday and she got to do some shopping and looking around in Scottsdale. We also planned a "field trip" for Annie to a casino and another one to "The Keg" for dinner. She and Bob both enjoyed the outings but none of us were as lucky as Paul. We sent Carla home and all went well for another week. Bob felt good and Annie was improving daily. Time was slipping by and I was beginning to think maybe Bob was going to lick this after all. As many of you know or can guess, this was not the case!

A patient and family lounge that overlooks the atrium.  You can hear the live piano music wafting up from the first floor here.

 Check back tomorrow for the shocking conclusion to this story.