It's been Rough

   It has been a rough several days.  

   A long time friend passed a couple weeks ago-one that Larry visited with a lot online. We knew him and his late wife from when we lived in Illinois.   Another friend that was our neighbor in Illinois before retirement suddenly had a heart attack with no warning and passed. His family is just devastated  The blessing in this is that he had called Larry on the phone and talked for over an hour a little over a week ago.

  On  April 1st late afternoon Larry couldn't breath, he felt like he was drowning. He had such a bad experience at the Lake Hosp that he would not let me call 911. I gave it an hour and talked him into letting the paramedics check him out, and I promised again he would Not go to that hospital.  All his stats were good but they suggested the hospital for a checkup.  There are two hospitals in Jefferson City that are just a little over an hour's drive. So he chose St Mary's Hosp.  That ended up being an excellent choice. They had doctors on staff in the emergency area, a cardiac doctor on call, they ran lots of  tests and  x rays. Soooo much security too-never seen this before-a metal detector we had to walk through and police everywhere. We learned this is a new hospital just 10 years old and is a catholic hospital. We have always found most of these to have excellent care and food. The food was "real" food here not frozen and reheated bad quality foods. The rooms were large and spacious like a hotel. Modern design within the hospital.

  Larry had fluid around his heart and in his lungs. Larry has had congestive heart disease since 1999,  so this has gone to the next stage and is much worse now. Recovering from the fall and being stuck in bed for so many months has not helped his condition. I think also the trip to the drivers license place was a bit too much along with our steep steps up and down. That has been a bit of a setback afterwards. He has lost a lot of weight, no apatite now, and is freezing cold at night.  I need to figure out how to keep him warmer and make foods he really likes.

 Our friends here at the lake that live 5 minutes away drove me there and then the next day to pick him up. We are so grateful for them.  Larry doesn't like hospitals and wanted to go home. They wanted him to stay another day or two. So when we brought him home the next day, he was very very weak from no sleep and everything else. Today we had a telephone visit with his cardiac doctor we have had here in Missouri-he is a 3 hour drive away in Springfield Missouri now since the move to the lake house.  He agreed with us about one of the dosages of medicines was too much that the hospital prescribed. So I feel better about that. They wanted him to take Lasix everyday and that will damage kidneys-we were told that years ago when he first started taking it-only as needed.

  I just needed to write this down and "talk to someone" so that's why I am posting this.  This is life, and will always have it's challenges and heart breaks.

  The good news where we live we missed the golf ball size hail and tornadoes, but not the 2 1/2 inches of rain and strong winds. On the way home from the hospital that night we drove through a wicked storm getting home-made it home just in time before I got full blown car sick.  We have been cold and windy all month so far.  Today the sun is shining with no wind so far. a good thing.