Journey with Friends

Welcome my friends to our weekly issue of Journey with Friends.  This is a time that we come together for support, for encouragement, for fellowship – all with one single goal in mind – to live better.  Welcome to our journey to share our goals and our accomplishments and our disappointments and frustrations.

Together we can do this!

---

Hello friends. I write this post from my bed. Some of you may know while others don’t about my current situation. I came home from work early last Thursday not feeling so well. I was aching and coughing – a cough I might add is from the depths of hell. I couldn’t sleep that night and was having difficulty breathing. About 6:30am on Friday, I told my husband we needed to go to emergency care because it was getting worse.

Once at the emergency room, they took me straight back and hooked me up to oxygen and started breathing treatments. They took blood, throat and nose cultures, gave me liquid codeine for my cough and gave me steroids. After my second breathing treatment, I started feeling a little better.

That is until the doctor finally came back with my test results – flu. And yes I did get a flu shot this year. The doctor explained that the flu strain they were seeing wasn’t what the flu shot had. Yay me huh?  The doctor wanted me to stay the night but where do you want to be when you’re sick?  Your own bed in your own home. So they did let me go sending me home with a breathing machine.  I’m also taking steroids and ibuprofen. I was instructed to be quarantined with strict bed rest.

I originally felt like a bus had hit me twice. Now I just feel like I’ve been hit once. The aches and pains are still present but the coughing seems to be getting better.

Thank you so much for all of those that sent prayers, healing vibes and cards. I really appreciated them so very much!

 

Valentine’s Day Aftermath – a Note From My Daddy

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend with Valentine’s Day.  This afternoon I want to talk about great times with the big day of LOVE.  Think over the years – or if it was this past weekend – to your most memorable Valentine’s day.  What happened?  Today is the day to share and tell me about it.

I asked my mom and dad the same question.  They reminisced about all of the happy Valentine’s Days they have had.  There were many, MANY to pick from but mom and dad picked one that really meant a lot to them both.

They said years and years ago in a time way before they were married and they were still dating.  Daddy was working at the hospital on night shift 3pm-11pm.  Mommy was working for the school system 7am-3pm.  So during the week, they pretty much didn’t see each other physically although they did talk to each other a couple of times during the day.  And remember this was way before the cell phone era – snorts.  (I tell you my humans are older than dirt.)

So Valentine’s day fell on a Wednesday this one year and both were working.  They just knew they were not going to see each other at all.  But daddy – he is a romantic at heart that you wouldn’t believe.  He went by mom’s apartment before she went to work and put a GIANT Scooby Doo stuffed animal in the passenger seat of her car and left.  When mom came down to get in her car, (after she almost had a heart attack because she thought someone was sitting in her car) she oohhed and aawwed.  She got in the car and Scooby Doo was holding a giant heart box.  She opened the giant heart box and there was a card from daddy telling her sweet nothings, chocolate and a jewelry box.  She opened the jewelry box and it had one of the most beautiful jade necklaces that she had ever seen.  Of course she cried.  And then cried some more.  And then cried more and went to school wear she wore the beautiful jade necklace all day.

She had called daddy went she got to work and she made plans to see him at his job later that day for when he went to dinner.  So that night rolled around and mom met dad at the hospital.  Dad told mom he was taking her to a fast food restaurant called Arby’s.  Not a place they went to regularly but dad was insistent.  What she didn’t know was that dad had received information about something special Arby’s was doing that night.  That night just for Valentine’s Day, they had brought in a baby grand piano and hired a guy to play and give out roses to the patrons.  Mom cried again and said it was so romantic and thoughtful.

So there you go my friends, that’s ONE of mom and dad’s most memorable Valentine’s Day.  Now is the time for you to share one of yours – go.

.

UPDATE A NOTE FROM MY DADDY –

Hi everyone – Bacon’s dad here.  We would have loved to have said that this past weekend was the most memorable Valentine’s day for me and my bride.  And in a way, I guess it was.  Bacon’s mom has been fighting this awful cough since December.  The kind of cough that just makes you choke, can’t catch your breathe and she has even passed out from it once.  She went to the hospital in December and they gave her a bunch of medicines and sent her home.

Sunday morning when I got up, she told me she needed to go back to the emergency room. (And being a Sunday, we are very fortunate that the insurance we have has a built in ‘hospital emergency room’ right in the building.)  She was having difficulties in breathing.  We immediately went.  Once there, she got X-rays (we were totally afraid that she had gotten pneumonia) and they came back clear.  She had a breathing treatment and afterwards they put her on a fluid IV and gave her steroids directly in her IV.  They also drew a bunch of blood.  She started feeling a little bit better and didn’t cough for almost 20 minutes.  This was such fantastic news to us after she had been continuously coughing for what seemed like forever.  She got to come home after about 7 hours in the ER being looked at.  She started bruising up last night from the IV’s and where the blood pressure cuff kept coming on so often.  She looks black, blue, yellow and very sore.

Her blood work came back and lot of her numbers were low – iron, potassium, red blood count.  They gave her a bunch of medicines to get filled and start taking which she has.  She still had a really rough night last night sleeping.  Night time is the worse time for her to rest.  We are all taking care of her here at the Hotel Thompson.  I will be helping out Bacon in the next couple of days to get caught up on his blog visits.  So please don’t think we have forgotten about you – we definitely have not.

 

Oh Dear Piggy Heavens Above

Oh my friends something has happened.  Something BIG.  Do you hear me – B.I.G.  And it happened to Houdini.  But I’m getting ahead of myself as usual.  Some of you have missed mommy on your blogs, texts or emails.  You see mommy has been sick for a couple of weeks now.  In fact, last Sunday mommy had to go to emergency care.  She has been feeling icky and had this horrendous cough that just wouldn’t go away.  The cough was so bad Sunday that she couldn’t catch her breath and she passed out.  It was early morning and we were all asleep except for her and Houdini.  Fortunately Houdini woke her up by jumping on her and licking her face.  After that, mom and dad went to the emergency care.  After a lot of tests, x-rays, a breathing treatment and an EKG for safety, mom was diagnosed as having severe bronchitis.  She came home that afternoon with lots of medicines and has been resting every since.  We are all taking turns checking on her and nursing her back to health.

 I tell you all of this so you know where mommy’s head is – sick in a cloud.  Fast forward a couple of nights ago and little Houdini was playing in the front room with mommy watching from the couch.  Let me show you a picture of how cute, small and adorable he is 🙂  You’ll thank me for this picture in a few minutes.  I promise you.

Houdini was playing with his puppy – it’s a stuffed teddy bear.  He was pouncing at it, barking at it and pretty much attacking it like he normally does.  He looks like he is well… how shall I say it… humping it.  There you go – snorts.  Last month mom talked to his vet about the humping part.  The vet assured mom that it really wasn’t that but more of a domineering kind of thing of who is in charge.  Do you see where I’m going with this story?  Hold on – it gets better.

So, there he is in position ‘playing’ with his puppy when all of a sudden he whines and looks at mommy deep afraid.  Well that got mommy off of the sofa in no time flat and also woke me up to look and see what was wrong.  When she looked at Houdini, it looked like he had something stuck to his butt.  Mommy thinking was that maybe he had a little poo stuck back there and couldn’t get it out so she was going to help the little guy out – see what mommy does for us ❤

Well, she walked over and picked the little guy up, flipped him over and son of a nutcracker it wasn’t a piece of poo. She immediately told daddy that Houdini was broken.  Wacks my forehead with my piggy hoof – broken?  Mommy had no clue.  No don’t get me wrong.  My mom is a smart woman but she had no freaking clue of shall we say Houdini’s ‘manly’ parts.  We all started laughing so hard that daddy almost fell off of the sofa.  Poor mom – she was shocked that her little baby is now a man.  But then you should have seen Houdini’s face as well – he was scared.  He didn’t know what was happening.  And daddy was no help because poor mommy was out of it.  There she was holding Houdini with all of his junk exposed, she’s sick and coughing, worried about her broken baby and we were no help.  Daddy finally found his voice and told her what it was.  Mommy’s response?  Priceless I’m telling you.  She said quote, “Well it’s been so long since I’ve seen one.”  OMP (oh my pig)!  And then – OMP – wait for it and remember mom was on medication.  She said, “Oh my goodness.  I have the John Holmes of puppies!”  That’s when I lost it and started snorting and rolling on the floor.

Daddy never to miss a beat said, “Well what did you expect when you bought him his first leather jacket this past weekend?”  Oh have mercy!  I know this is something so simple – a part of nature if you will – but it was so hilarious with mommy being sick and taking medication.  It was definitely a priceless moment.

And yes, things did finally straighten up if you know what I mean – snorts.  She finally handed Houdini to daddy and told him it was that time for the boy to man talk.  So, daddy tucked Houdini into bed that night and he, me and Hemi got ‘the talk’.  Lord have mercy so that’s what that is – snorts and rolls around laughing.  Have your parents had ‘that’ talk with you yet?  My tummy is hurting from laughing so hard.  Gotta stop now.  Take care my friends!