Almost End of the World

May 30/08 4:24 p.m.

...it had been this morning for daughter No.2 and son-in-law, both their cars got damaged severely by a tremendous hailstorm with hailstones as big as tennis balls - and both cars are fairly new. O.k.,daughter's car is a company car, but nevertheless. And our son-in-law just carries a liability insurance,so...tough luck. They only live about 8 kms beeline from our place, but around here, except for some rain, nothing happened. If it would have beaten up my Mini
you could have seen and heard me cry! -

And I had been spoiled today, taken out for lunch by Montana boy who lives in Texas now. He had his joung assistant with him, who is in Germany first time in his life. His mother's family originally comes from Düsseldorf, small world. They are staying in a hotel near Essen, nothing to yearn for, but Düsseldorf and vicinity are packed on account of a big fair.

End of the World

May 29/08 12:50 p.m.

We have a popular Karnevalsong "Am 30. Mai ist der Weltuntergang..." (may 30th the world will go down...) and this morning at 11 a.m. I thought that this is going to happen a day premature. The sky turned a very bright yellow, like aflame, and then it became pitchdark, like in the middle of the night. A tremendous downpour followed, which again beat up my hanging geraniums, poor things dont stand a chance this season, every time they recover, they get beaten up again. Have been glad that I had been a slowpoke this morning, otherwise I would have been out with Herr Hund. So we sat out the storm safe and sound at home. One good thing, the rain cleaned my car of the desert sand, all I had to do, was hose it down a little bit additionally. And have been glad not having been among the clean, carloving Germans, who blocked the car wash saloons all over the places yesterday.
When I went out with Herr Hund later on I marvelled at the abundance of green exploding in our nature, a jungle world! But the air is nice and fresh now, not sticky like the last couple of days.

Taxi Drivers

May 27/08 8:58 p.m.



The taxi driver, who picked up moml yesterday and had made that sightseeing tour around the neighbourhood villages before finding our village and who would never have found our house, if I had not waited outside to wave him in and then could not handle his navi device for the return trip, reminded me of a taxi driver, we once encountered in Toronto. The night before leaving for Europe we stayed at a hotel quite a ways outside of the city. At night for dinner we wanted to have some seafood after all the meat we had been feasting on in South Dakota, so we picked a wharfside restaurant downtown, which was a moored, former passenger liner. Since moml could not wait the 5 min. it took for the taxi to come, which the hotel desk guys called for us, he insisted on taking one waiting at the parking lot. So we ended up with an, probably nearly blind, East Indian driver, who first failed to get where he should take us and finally decided to just make a run for it, all the time while driving putting his finger to his nose, pointing straight and right and left and mumbeling should I go tis-a-way or tat-a-way or maybe street, oh my, Toronto ise sooo big". I sat in the back blowing my cheeks to keep me from having a laughing fit. Finally he called his office and then started to ask other taxi drivers at red lights. He managed to get us there in the end and the ship turned out to be an old Tito times passenger liner which somehow must have gotten stuck in Toronto along with the waiters and all. And the waiter barked at us just like they did in the former east block, but the food had been good.
So, memories are made of this and the yesterday taxi driver had been a foreigner too. Nothing against foreigners, I am not prejudiced.

Made my Day

May 27 /08 8:13 a.m.

Traffic cones!! The damn gadgets which I so "love". Thanks, my friend! - Slept well back in my own bed but had the weirdest dreams about wanting to ride other peoples horses. Not that I want to in the real life, mind you.
Moml and his taxi driver made it to the rehab clinic, he is quite happy with the place on first sight. He had the hard task of unpacking a bag I had packed for him (first time in my life) and promptly claimed that lower part of one of the pyjamas (the favoured one) was missing. Like the credit cards in the hospital, haha, but then he "found"it, while Landfrau had been running around here, kicking furniture. - And now is the day today to move some furniture to get at the "dustmice".

On my own!

May 26/08 1:50 p.m.

And moml is on his way to the rehab clinic. Hope he ever arrives there, we had the luck to having sent to us a taxi driver who made a sight seeing tour across the surrounding villages before finding us. And me, I am looking forward to having my own bed again, moved out of the bedroom into one of our guestrooms, could not stand the patients breathing, sounded like he was dying, simply awful. And he had still that hospital smell about him, full of medication. But I hope all this will have changed when I get him back 3 weeks from now. Time will tell.

Still a Favorite

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May 24/08 3:50 p.m.
This has been one of my favorite songs in the late nineties and as a matter of fact still is up to today. Love that guy's voice!
Have packed m.o.m.l.'s bag today, so there will be no stress tomorrow. Have the feeling have climbed the Empire State Bldg. staircase once every day since I have my patient home so often have I been running up and down the steps.. Our house just is not so handicapped conform. Well, excercise, excercise. What does not kill us, makes us tougher.

Could be a Quiz

May 22/08 5:22 p.m.

Remember, 2 days ago, when I tried to transfer the meaning of the above gadgets, well, here they are, beeing used for fencing off at our riding stables, where a big tournament is taking place starting today till sunday. Great atmosphere and so relaxing ,having neither horse nor daughter taking part any more.

But - friends, what are the damned things called now, you telling me!

I'll be darned! - or..about Bones

May 22/08 7:28 a.m.

Look what I found, a video of our New Mexico friend Sid! Hey Sid, you have turned grey, age does not stop in front of "old cowboys"!
M.o.m.l. is back home (till monday morning) and holding out well. Sleeping on his back (he has to, till his "bones" are healed) is somewhat awesome.">

Downtown - Construction Site

May 20/08 7:08 p.m.

This city at the riverside is slowly but surely dying of traffic infarkt. Have never seen and sourrounded so many orange vested workers,who put up orange white striped ,whatever you call them, hats,bowling pins ? I would not know. Construction sites all over the place and the utmost has been beeing stuck in a parking garage, had the choice between clausterphobia or fumes poisoning, on accout of a mobile construction site, which slowed down the outgoing cars tremendously. And what crept in front of me on the way home? A slowpoke truck with construction equipment. And what kept running up and down our street,when I finally got home? A noisy device with a big sandshovel, because since two weeks they are digging up our street on account of new water pipes. Glory hallelujah, by then I could have thrown myself onto the floor and bitten into the carpet. -
Tomorrow m.o.m.l. can be picked up and taken home, and he will leave, i.e. beeing picked up, by the Reha Clinic transport service on monday. He has made good progress and the professor is very satisfied with him. Still , I am a bit scared if we can manage around here till monday, our house is not excactly handicap -equipped. Well, will take it step by step.

Sunday Song

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May 18/08 9:44 a.m.

There has to be something else than reports about sickness and pain, so ...here a nice weekend song for my faithful friends!

Funny Side to Everything

May 17/08 3:40 p.m.

Nothing can be so bad, that there is'nt a funny side to it. The side effect of our patient's (who, by the way is making nice progress) narcotics is, what I call his own home movie show in his head. A day ago Frankfurt daughter asked me about the mosque right at the parking lot (which can be seen from his hospital window) where all the moslems came out of in pouring rain and milling around on the parking lot. So I told daughter that I must have missed the place but would have a look next visit. - Could not spot any mosque and by asking our patient, he pointed it out to me and told me the same story,only as an additional feature he said, that there had been a ghost in a long gown coming out of the attic window and dancing on the roof. Fact is, you can not even see a building, there are big trees covering the opposite. - There had been other incidents, when we had been talking quite normally and suddenly he told me very funny things in between. At first I had been worried, but not any more after I learned the reason and that it would wear off .
I am glad he has no nightmares, have been told some patients have. So I rather listen to his "colourful" stories.

Testing the repaired Heart

May 14/08 6:20 p.m.

That's what we did today, m.o.m.l. and Landfrau. First of all, patient is doing very well and recuperating amazingly fast. the bloodpressure thing is still a problem (one which can be solved, I hope). But now for the "test". Wen I wanted to leave the hospital today, m.o.m.l. asked me where I had put his three credit cards.
Landfrau: I do not have them.
moml: I gave them to you, when I checked into the hospital
Landfrau: ???
moml: I clearly remember handing them over to you, where are they?
Landfrau, searching her purse and wallet,no cards -
and..I never got them.
moml: my god, our accounts are robbed now, look at home, call me right away!
Landfrau: calm down, they are not lost I'll find them.
moml. No, you wont, they are gone, they are gone, call me right away, if they are at home.

Well, looked of course right awy at home, no cards, and barely had I entered the house, the phone rang. Have you found them? Me: ehm, no, but calm down, no I wont calm down, keep looking, (well, thats what I did, all the time). Finally I had the idea to look into his locked away wallet, and there, three credit cards grining at me,which I certainly had not put there.

But the repaired heart took the first test with flying colours.

Intensive Care the 2nd

May 12/08 11.11 p.m.

Waiting to get into intensive care is like trying to get into Fort Knox. You are happy when you finally made it, kind of forget why you want to get into there, till you see your patient, all cabled and beeping. Our patient today gave a quite improved impression, although he kept complaining about the nurses not looking properly after him and he had overheard the proffesor talking about some lump on his heart or his lungs, which I doubt, since the heart for sure now is a showpiece and the lungs have been checked before the OP. And the staff is really doing a great job, of course they are short on personal, for sure on a second holiday on account of long weekend. Hope they will move our patient to the normal ward tomorrow. Could not get hold of a doctor, understaffed too.
-Me, I'm batteling a summer cold, coughing my soul away. Aircondioned car and hospital does not improve matters. Keeping away from the patient , although don't think it is contagious, just an additional pain in the neck.
So, that is for all of you friends, keeping you up to date.

Intensive Care

May 11/08 10:36 p.m.

I simply admire the people, doctors and nurses, doing duty at intensive care. And that at low pay and irregular hours. Have been visiting that place now for two days and must say, it gives me the creeps. All that machinerie the patients are hooked up to, and most of them lying there like already gone. Fortunately our patient is quite talkative,even if you can hardly make out what he is talking about. One thing though, he worries - about the whereabout of his bag, the machine he is attached to and what have you . No wonder he has a bad heart . The doctors are quite positive, although his lung function has to be improved, but there he has to work along by blowing into several devices. Tomorrow is another holiday, on tuesday he should be moved to the regular ward.

My day today I passed running around in my car. This morning to a birthday party of an old friend, she is the mother of my godson. Had to use my tom-tom navigation device first try. We are not quite friends yet, halfway it put me in front of an icecream parlor, fortunately the place had been fenced off, I would have ended up at the counter. - little joke -
Then to daugther's place to pick her up for the hospital run, later on dropping daughter off again and driving home to look after "Herr Hund", who by now starts to develop hospitalism.
So I took him along tonite to son-in-law's birthday party, Barbeque, where he could fight with his buddy mad Max for dropped sausages. He did not puke in my car, good dog! -

So, tomorrow same routine, without the parties.

Done!

May 9/08 1:16 p.m.

For all of you who kept the fingers crossed: heart surgery operation went fine, 2 bypasses have been laid and the patient is now "sleeping" in artificial coma. Well, it's still a long hard way, but the first step has been made. Thanks for the support!

Waiting Game

May 6/08 5:11 p.m.

Back from my daily "routine drive" to ugly Krefeld. M.o.m.l. should have been operated on - take note of the should have been - tomorrow morning first thing. Everything had been set, even the shaving had been done, but then they sent him to the ENT section on account of his failing voice, and now the whole procedure has been postponed till further notice, i.e. till it has been made sure that there is no infection. Great? - And there is a long weekend coming up,where nothing happens anyway. I am pissed off insofar, as he is in the clinic since sunday nite with that voice and nothing has been done about it. Now we have to bathe in patience again,but one thing is for sure, I do not want him home again, you never know, with what he will come up then.

MEGA GAU

May 4/08 8:18 p.m.

There must have been not enough crossed fingers out there! m.o.m.l. 's heart is so to say a goner, only a bypass operation can help and that has to happen soon. Checked him into the hospital after the weekend leave tonite and hopefully things will start rolling next week. The heart surgeon leaves a good impression, he seems to like his job,which can not be said of all doctors. He really took his time to talk to us. So last nite we had dinner out with the daughters and families, we succeeded to cheer our patient up for a bit , I think, and today his sister and brothers came to see him, so the day did not drag till he had to check into the hospital tonite.
And once again our holiday trip had to be cancelled. But that can be done with a "topfit" man of my life later on, only it's a long hard way till then.