Another Post-op Anesthesia Funny from Carson

Today was the day that Carson went in to have the pins removed from his finger. Then anesthesiologist gave him the option of a nerve block or going to sleep. Carson chose going to sleep because he had already been poked once for the IV and he said "One needle poke is enough for the day." So off to la-la land he went.

Thirty minutes later the doctor is in the waiting room letting me know everything went well and that Carson is back in recovery. Fifteen minutes later the recovery room nurse calls to tell me that they are going to be transporting him down to the room where he started the day; they will pick me up along the way. Another 10 minutes go by and we are situated in his room.

The conversation with Carson during the next 30 minutes is like having a conversation with Mountain Man from "Duck Dynasty" except that Mountain Man does not talk in a continuous loop. The loop consisted of these two statements:

• "Man, I don't remember being so tired last time."
• "What are we going to do for lunch? I'm ready to go."

I had just about reached my limit of ways to patiently answer those questions when Carson asks

"How long did the surgery take?"

"About 30 minutes," I reply as he stares blankly at me.

Finally he says "You should have said, 'It's 2018 and you have been in a coma for 5 years'."

I laughed and said I would let him say that to me the next time I have surgery.

He says, "Oh, what do you have scheduled?"

As I am getting ready to answer, "nothing", he says,
"Boob implant?"

"No, no boob implant," I say in between chuckles.

"OK. Good" is his reply before he starts again with "Man, I'm tired. I don't remember being so tired the last time."

God Speed 455th Engineering Company and Come Home Safe

Mason Flemmer is the orchestra teacher at CVHS and GMS. He is also the company commander for the 455th Engineering Company. His company is being deployed for the 2nd time to Afghanistan. Today I had the opportunity to attend the Departure Ceremony for his company.

I haven't ever been to such a ceremony so I don't know if every ceremony has the same tenor, but I really enjoyed this one. It was a beautiful, warm late summer morning. The stands were crowed with family, friends, and other supporters. We were privileged to hear from CVHS's principal, an Iraqi Freedom veteran, a female officer, and the main commander of the division. Each one shared a message of hope, pride, and gratitude. They also encouraged the families of the soldiers to ask for help, to realize that asking for help is absolute necessity because their soldier can not do anything to fix a problem when they are across the world.

Mason addressed his soldiers and the crowd. He spoke of his pride to serve, the preparations they have gone through, and their dedication to fulfill their responsibility of finding and clearing out all the IED's (improvised explosive devices). He then led his company in the Soldier's Creed. Seeing those men (there might have been some women in the company but it was hard to tell from a distance and all looking similar) and hearing them in unison repeat the words of the Creed, brought more than a tear or two to my eye. And as the benediction was said and then the Colors retired, my heart swelled with emotion again.

I was moved by all of the speeches, especially as I looked around the stands to see all of the young children and more than one pregnant wife that would be without their dads and husbands for the next year. It really hit home how much these soldiers and families sacrifice for the sake of our country and to protect the world from tyranny. I went away from the ceremony thinking about our country, our privileges, our freedoms. I was so grateful for all that I have because of men and women like the ones in the 455th who, for generations, have believed in our country and have been willing to place the country above themselves to protect our freedoms.

Would You Rather?

Tonight was our ward's community service activity. We were working at a local elementary school, helping the custodial staff prepare the grounds for the first day of school. Carson and I arrived promptly at 6 o'clock, the activity's start time. With the exception of the custodian, the ward member in charge of the activity, and a mother/daughter pair, we were the only ones. Our promptness was rewarded by giving us the opportunity to pick what we wanted to do. The options were:

• washing windows
• moving/spreading pea gravel
• raking leaves

Which one would you choose?

Which one do you think Carson picked? And me?

Well Carson picked washing windows. I just shook my head, but at least he picked something and didn't complain about his choice. And he actually did a nice job with the windows.

I picked spreading gravel. There is just something about hard manual labor that makes me sweat that I find so rewarding. I told Carson that if I was going to be out, I wanted to feel like I had actually done something. Raking the gravel, getting a blister, sweeping the gutters...all activities that made me feel like I had been very productive.

Once Upon a Time...23 Years Ago

A cheerleader from Aberdeen married a wrestler from Elma.

But their story started a year earlier when the cheerleader caught the eye of the wrestler while they were at a drive-in movie. Mutual friends introduced them and then left them to talk the night away on the tailgate of a pick-up truck. The meeting occurred at the end of their senior year of high school.

The spent all summer spending time together. They went for hikes. They went on picnics. They went to church together and then took naps in the sun spot that was created by the sun shining through the skylight in the wrestler's living room. They went boating and skiing. Basically, if they weren't working, they were together. The cheerleader knew pretty quickly that her previous judgments about this wrestler were all wrong. He was anything but the conceited athlete she thought he was. He was kind and thoughtful. He made her laugh. He could wrap her up in his arms and make her feel safe and loved.

Summer days weren't long enough and soon it was time to say good-bye. The end of August brought the start of the fall semester at BYU and that is where the cheerleader was attending. The wrestler had heard that BYU was a marriage factory and he wasn't sure that he could live without this cheerleader. So one summer day in August as they were sitting on the shore of Flathead Lake, he asked the cheerleader if she would save the ring finger of her left hand for him. The cheerleader said of course.

And that is how the wrestler proposed to the cheerleader.

That school year was tough as they were separated by quite a distance, but they made it through. And before they knew it, it was August again. This time when August ended, they wouldn't have to say good-bye because now they were married.

The years have rolled by. There have been a few college graduations (that cheerleader really liked going to school). There have been a few moves and a couple of homes. Two children have joined the cheerleader and wrestler. And many happy memories have been created.

The Pain Has Mostly Faded

The soreness and stiffness is mostly gone. I can walk down the stairs without wincing. And I don't feel like death warmed-over so now is the time to document by most recent Spokane to Sandpoint Relay experience. If I don't, I'm afraid it will be like childbirth...once the pain fades and all you have are the good memories, you decide it will be a good idea to do it again.

Actually, with the exception of the physical discomfort and a late-in-the-race "oops" from the race directors, this year's Spokane to Sandpoint was a wonderful experience. I ran with an entirely new group of ladies and once school was out we did a lot of training together. Creating bonds and friendships is mostly why I run so I was very rewarded by agreeing to this crazy adventure. Together, the 12 of us, covered 200.2 miles in 31 hours.

I had 19 miles of the 200.2. My first leg was straight down Mt. Spokane. It was 5-miles of constantly engaging my core and quads, all the while wearing a lovely rainbow wig. Yes, I had the pleasure of drawing the leg with the "Wild Wig" contest.

I charged down Mt. Spokane proudly wearing that fancy wig with my neon green false eyelashes and the race was on for Totally Tubular.

Five miles later I made our team's first exchange and then promptly went over and sat in the creek. The water was cool and refreshing, but I'm not sure just how effective my 5-minute soak was. Oh well.

We were split into two groups of 6. I'm not sure what the other group did while their runners were running, but for our group (Van 1) we found time to have some fun and take some silly pictures.

Now, truth be told, these pictures were all taken on the first day after I first leg while were all still pretty fresh and excited. As the race progressed and we reached our last running leg, most of us looked like this

mostly hot, feeling a little out of it and wishing it would all end soon.

My second leg was a night leg and again, only a little over 5 miles. But again, it was a hill run. This time instead of going down for 5 miles, I ran up for 3 miles. Jen, our team captain, calls me a mountain goat because I do go up hill relatively fast compared to the others on our team, but I was not thrilled that I had all hills. And I particularly dislike hills back-to-back like I faced during the S2S. I missed my projected pace on legs 2 and 3 which irritated me greatly and left me feeling disappointed, defeated, and like I let the team down.

My third and final leg was probably my hardest. It was just .2 miles short of 9 miles. It had a short, steep hill right off the bat and then I climbed to a plateau. But even on the plateau, it wasn't flat. It was a false-flat that inclined and I had to run on forest service road. The road was mostly packed gravel, but washboardy and pot-holed almost the whole way. And you know, if what goes up also must come down, and my last mile was all down. I got to within 200 yards of the exchange and I wasn't even sure that I was moving in a forward direction. I tried hard to sprint to the exchange but my legs were like lead weights hanging from my hips. I'm sure I felt slower and worse than I actually was; at least I'm hoping that was the case.

Van 1 was a blast. We met some awesome teams along the way, some that were very inspirational. There was one team that we met that had registered with 12 runners and finished with 8. One runner dropped out about a week before the race started. One runner just didn't show up to the start and two runners dropped out after their first leg. That team just kept plugging away and did finish.

Van 2 was full of awesome ladies as well, but we didn't see each other except for at the major exchanges. That is probably only one of the bummers about this race...while one van is running the other is inactive and resting. I don't see any way around that though.

When I ran with some of the group the other day, they were already talking and planning for next year's S2S. And who am I kidding, this will be just like childbirth. I will do it again because the good memories outweigh the pain and pain fades (usually).

And There Was Some History on Vacation

Because I was such a good sport about all of the time we spent at the beach, the family did reciprocate and spent some time enjoying the history of Charleston with me. I think we would have visited more historical sites if a couple of things weren't a factor. First, the kids were pretty vocal about not wanting to walk around a lot of empty houses or museums or churches. I don't know if you have experienced dissatisfied teen-agers, but they can be a rather unpleasant lot and can ruin a good time. The second factor actually pretty much headed off the disaster of visiting too many historical sites and creating dissatisfied teen-agers.

You see, Charleston is pretty darn proud of their history and they charge you an arm and a leg for every historical site you could possibly want to visit. Well, the churches don't charge an admittance fee, but most of them weren't open to the public any way. That was pretty disappointing and not what I expected since every church in Europe that we wanted to visit was always open. Anyway, I'm cheap and the kids didn't want to see a whole bunch of things so I didn't waste the money.

We did visit two plantations. We visited Magnolia Gardens and Boone Hall plantation. If you are ever in Charleston, go to Boone Hall plantation. You get more bang for your buck. At Magnolia Gardens there is the basic admittance fee of $15/adult and then if you want to see inside the house that's another $8/person. And if you want to take a train ride around the property that's another $8/person. If you want to visit the Audubon Swamp, well pull out your wallet because it is another $8/person. It was insane how they charged you for everything. Boone Hall just had one flat admission fee ($18/person), but with that fee you got a tour of the house. There was also a train ride around the property. There was a presentation about the slaves that we could listen to without paying more money. And there was a presentation about the Gullah people--this was by far our favorite part.

Probably one of the biggest spiders I have ever seen. At the swamp in Magnolia Gardens

 A turtle in the swampy swamp

 Some wood ducks in the swamp

 Dave wanted to see a gator in the worst way. He wasn't disappointed.

 

We also took a ghost tour one evening which was fun as we got to hear a lot of Charleston history without having to walk through "boring museums." No pictures of any ghosts, though.



It Wouldn't be a Vacation without a Beach

OK, truth be told, when I was dreaming of visiting Charleston, I was not dreaming of going to the beach. I do not enjoy all of the sticky sand that seems to cling to everything. I have an irrational fear of  sharks and so don't go into the water much deeper than my ankles. But the vacation was a family vacation and I knew that the kids would enjoy being at the beach much more than they would enjoy staying at a historic hotel downtown.

So a condo on Folly Beach was the place for us. We looked out onto a tidal river that allowed us to watch the dolphins play and feed.

It also gave us a chance to see some beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

But most of all it gave Dave and the kids a chance to hone their boogie boarding skills.

Dave was a good enough coach for the kids that someone asked him to give them lessons. Dave politely declined saying he was just a dad out enjoying some time with his kids. At another time, a young boy was trying to convince his mom to let him go out as far as Dave and Carson and the mom said that the only reason Dave and Carson were out that far was because they were local and knew the waves.

No one was injured until the second to last day when Dave was stung by a jellyfish. That was also the same day he kicked a shark. But I was a good sport and still went in the ocean to take a picture with my hubby.

Folly Beach also was a great place to take a family photo. Well, the setting was beautiful, but the little biting flies that harassed us the whole time almost ruined the opportunity. I'm glad it didn't because I think the picture turned out pretty good. It was a nice way to end a fabulous vacation.

It Wouldn't Be a Vacation Without Fishing

When we were planning our trip to Charleston, Dave asked if we could do a little more low-key (meaning less scheduled/planned) vacation. I took a deep breath and reluctantly agreed to his request. Well funny thing, it bothered Dave to not have anything planned so he started researching fishing charters.

Now, I'm not a huge lover of fishing. Katelyn isn't a huge lover of fishing. But the boys both love fishing, so another deep breath and another reluctant agreement to Dave's chartered fishing trip. And that was the only "planned" activity of the trip.

Dave did a lot research for charter companies. He found a small outfit, Charleston Fish Rod Bending Company, that would take out just our family. Since it was just going to be the four of us and the captain, we were able to tailor the trip to what we wanted. When Dave set up the trip, he told the captain he had only to requirements: 1) Katelyn and I would catch a fish and 2) Carson would catch a shark.

Well, Captain Kevin Blair fulfilled those requirements and more in the 4 hours we were out. We had a blast and I'm so glad that I took that deep breath and agreed to the fishing trip.

The boys decided that the first bites were for us girls to reel in. So first up was Katelyn. And her first bite was a doozy!

About the same time the shark struck Katelyn's bait, I had a hit on my pole. Poor Captain Kevin...he had the two most inexperience fisherpeople on the boat with bites at the same time. That, unfortunately, led to a bit more of excitement than really needed to happen. He is telling me to "Reel! Reel!" so I can get my fish in and out of the way. I'm doing my best, but I didn't manage my fish very well and let it get around to the back of the boat and tangled around the anchor. As this is happening, he is also trying to coach Katelyn through landing her shark. He eventually told me just to put my pole in the pole holder and get out of the way. Katelyn is still fighting and reeling like crazy. You couldn't tell who was really winning the battle. She looked to Dave for a bit of help and he steadied the pole for her. That helped take some of the pressure off and she was able to get the shark up to the boat so Captain Kevin could grab it.

Dave and Carson were both anxious to get poles in the water after watching Katelyn and I get bites. So Captain Kevin got their poles set up and in the water. They both were fishing with regular poles with 10# tess line (I have no idea what that means except that it makes it more impressive when you reel in a shark on that kind of pole/line set-up).

Carson literally hooked into a shark. And that little bugger was not happy about it at all. Carson battled that shark for a good 20 minutes before he finally landed it and we saw the hook stuck in the shark's fin. I was tired just watching Carson work the pole and fight the shark. I think that Captain Kevin was impressed that Carson was able to land the shark, especially since Carson's finger is still jacked-up (the pins should come out in a couple of more weeks).

Carson also proved to be the sea trout master that day. He must have caught 15 trout. And since the boys were in charge of dinner that night, that proved to be a very good thing. Sea trout is very yummy to eat!

Dave, too, caught a shark, but unfortunately it broke the line just before Dave was able to land it. Dave did catch a flounder, a sea trout, a whiting (the 2nd "whiting" that he's caught), a sting ray, and got stuck on the oyster beds a lot!

So what were Katelyn and I doing while the boys were fishing? Well we still had our poles and were fishing as well. Katelyn doing a much better job than I. I managed to get a huge rats nest in my line that Captain Kevin worked very hard to untangle. He spent about 25 minutes working on that line, all the while the others on the boat were landing fish and he would pause to help them.

He had finally reached the give-up stage on my line and was just getting ready to cut the line when my bobber went under the water. He cut the line, handed me the line attached to the bobber, and told me to start pulling it in. I wrapped the line around my hand (no, I did not have on gloves) and started pulling. The creature on the end of the line did not like that so it pulled back. Well I wasn't going to lose this catch so I pulled even harder. And I won!

Yep, I caught a baby black-tip shark. It was so pretty, but still had some pretty wicked looking teeth! I had that head almost in a vice-like pinch so it wouldn't whip its head around and show me how irritated it still was with being caught.

More fishing, more dinner.

The trip lasted about 45 minutes too long for me. Fortunately at the last area we fished the dolphins were very actively fishing and I got distracted watching them fish.

It's Good to Have a Plan

I having been planning my retirement since the first day I was hired as a school nurse. I have planned on retiring after 20 or 25 years of service, or somewhere between age 55 and 60. That plan means that I have to have some sort-of plan for income beyond my pension for a few years.

Several years ago I decided that working as a nurse at the Yellowstone health clinic during the summer would be a great way to spend my retirement years. I love Yellowstone. Dave loves Yellowstone and he would happily follow. He could fish to his heart's content, maybe even get a job as a guide. I figured if the nurse thing didn't work out, then I would be just as happy being a park ranger or helper in one of the many gift shops and Dave could just keep fishing.

So as awesome as that plan is for summer, it just wouldn't work for winter. I don't love being freezing cold and Yellowstone is definitely freezing cold in the winter. Also, I'm not sure how much work is available in the winter. Obviously, I needed a plan for the winter months. I wasn't keen on spending winters at home in Spokane if I could help it, but Dave and I couldn't come up with a winter place that we could both agree on. Until this past week.

Enter Charleston, South Carolina.

After spending a week there, we both decided that this place could be our winter retirement plan. I want to work as a tour guide at Boone Hall Plantation.

I would get to wear period costume, talk about history of a very old house, and be warm. Dave could fish.

The next few posts will share sights and memories from last week's family vacation.