Grandma Pinkie

Recievd word after a troublesome day that my final grandparent, Grandma Pinkie, passed away late yesterday afternoon. I'm grateful for the time that I knew my grandparents and grandma pinkie. I'm sadden to have known the pain that she had to endure this last few years yet grateful that she has now returned home to love ones and her eternal companion.

I think that my eternal companion's comments on facebook say it the best:

Attitude is everything! Grandma Pinkie passed away today. She's larger than life & enriched us in amazing ways. I'm grateful for eternal perspective! I'm choosing to spend a little time & think about what a GREAT day she is having being reunited with loved ones. Grandpa, who was her other half & has missed every single day & her mother whom she loved so much. So, Pinkie have a great day! We love you & will miss you.

Thanks Cheryl for those words of wisdom and gratitude. We love you Grandma Pinkie and we are grateful for the time that we did have here on earth to know you and have you as our grandma.

A Poke in the Eye

Thursday, August 12th visited the local eye specialist. It has been a good year since seeing him. Endured the dilation of the eyes and his initial exam was "mmm...oh...wow...mmm..wow look at that.... wow...mmm...a lots' hap pend with your eyes in the last year".

Okay, we were expecting some small bleeders and knew that I was having trouble with some hemorrhaging in the eyes. Let's go into the technician and have a scan completed for more details. Not a big deal. Oh, wait we need to do a IV w/dye to highlight the veins in the eye. Okay 1996 was the last time I had this done and yes I blacked out then.

Ensures everyone that I was over the needle in the arm fear and that I would be fine. I was right. IV was nothing. Sat up to the eye scan placed my chin in the scanner and begin to take the scan with dye running through my veins. One, two, three pictures and oh...the room begins to spin and I begin to sweat. Called time-out and pushed back with my head between my legs, took some deep breaths and felt back in control. Let's get this done the quicker the better. One, two..."Oh Hell" and everything went black. Yup, I passed out for all of about 5 seconds before being rev ivied. Had a sip of coke and finally endured the remainder of the test. Lesson learned. It's not the IV has it is the dye running through the veins that rocks my world.

Photos definitely show the need for some laser treatment. Doctor was hesitant to proceed however, after I had had such a rough time taking the photos. Ah, what the heck what's one poke in the eye more going to do.

First, poke was a shot of numbing agent to numb the entire eye area. Oh, I thought the pressure injected was going to bust my nostril. That was a trip. Next, Laser zaps..there is a bleeder zap zap zap and so forth. Some 3000 plus zaps completed the laser treatment or laser burns and finally one last poke with a Kellogg shot and my one eye was completed.

Let's see 3-4 days of swelling. Woke up on Friday the 13th and open my eye up. Okay all I could do was open the eye up to a small slit due to the swelling. It should be gone in a week or so. At least I wont' have to worry about going blind. Luckily for me I was able to spend Friday the 13th at home resting. Imagine if I had the surgery on the Friday the 13th what could have happened then.

A Day Outdoors

Invited Jenny and her children (our grandchildren) to come and spend some time with us yesterday up the canyon. We found just the perfect spot for young ones to threw pebbles in the river. Of course grandpa (me) told Adyson and Lexi to go ahead and throw all the stones in the river paticularly where those fishermen are fishing. Hm...okay, I was polite and asked them to wait for a few minutes that the fishermen would leave and they did.

While my princesses, and Boston played along the river bank and threw some stones in the river, Papa was able to put his new fly rod and reel to work. To everyone's amazement, it only took a few minutes and Papa was yelling "Fish On"! Funny I didn't see the other fishermen catch anything in the same hole.

Grandkids got a kick out of seeing Papa catch the fish and some of them even watch me let it go. Of course it was Boston my grandson. Adyson and Lexi were off in a fairy tale of their own and soon lost interest in the fish.

Ended up catching two fish for the day, landed one and had several good strikes. Finished fishing around 1:00 PM and we just sat in the picnic area and caught a few zzz's and Cheryl read.

Another wonderful day in the Great Outdoors! Thanks Aydson, Lexi, Boston, and Jenny for spending some time with us up the canyon.