For anyone that may be interested...

It seems that there may be some people out there still reading this and they know a certain young boy that befriended my wife during a difficult time of her life. This young child brought comfort to her when all else was going wrong and I will forever be grateful for that. So I am going to explain just what is wrong with her and if anyone who reads this and knows who I am talking about can explain it to him I know she would appreciate it. What she has is Osteomyelitis, which is a big word for bone infection. The bone becomes infected by a bacterium that is transported by blood. The bacteria itself occurs naturally in the gut of all people. It seems that because of Tam's chemotherapy in her abdomen area her immune system is supressed to the point where she cannot fend off this bacteria. The infection started out as necrotizing fasciitis or mistakenly called flesh eating bacteria. The bacteria does not actually "eat" her flesh but rather a byproduct given off by the bacteria is a toxin and causes the flesh to dissolve into an abscess. It has become apparent as we look back over the past year that all her infections were related rather than independent incidents. Last May she had an abscess on her tailbone, followed by the one on her abdomen in October and now this one. February of 2005 she fell on some ice while in South Dakota and broke her tailbone. According to my research the infection can be from any type of wound, even one that you don't know you had. Once she became infected the bacteria just kept spreading and traveling throughout her body. It is also the cause of her stroke from last fall. That is called Endocarditis, or infection of the heart valve. The infection caused a blood clot which in turn broke loose. The bacteria in question is Streptococcus. Her version is Strep B. Antibiotics will never get rid of this, surgery is always required. The mortality rate is 25% so there is a real chance of her not surviving this. If she does survive, she will never be as she was. As we know right now she will either have a flail hip (no bone in the leg, it just hangs there) or be amputated at the pelvic bone. That is known as a hind quarter resection and it is fairly rare. It is more involved as not only is the leg removed but also half of the pelvic bone so there is no support for half of your body. I am amazed at her spirit and humor she keeps with all this. Pain is her constant companion, and no matter what I do for her, I cannot ease it. Whenever I feel like things are too much I only have to think of her and what she cannot do to know that my obstacles are not very large.

This is how I am feeling right now....

Yankton leader Strike-the-Ree said "The white men are coming like maggots. It is useless to resist them.... Many of our brave warriors would be killed, our women and children left in sorrow, and still we would not stop them." **

 

Each day I watch my wife die a little more and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

 

From Wikipedia

 

Be careful what you think you want.....

Over 20 years ago, in high school I had my personal tormentor. I have written about him in the past but I will not post his name anymore. He was a bully and it took me 20 years and a painful loss (at the time it was a loss) to get me to look at many things about my life. Why I was who I was and how I came to be that person. He was a large part of it. I had wished for a long time for him to suffer. I learned this past week that he did. Was it retribution for what he did to me? I sincerely doubt it and if it was I surely would not have wished this kind of suffering on anyone. For some unknown reason I did a google search on him and I found out some news that has disturbed me. This person was a grade ahead of me and his brother was a grade behind me. His brother had the same first name as myself and he never bothered me, not once. I didn't even register on his radar. So why was his brother such a bad person as to cause me to wish bad things on him and his brother was not? I know the answer. These young men's family were genitic marvels, muscular, athletic, powerful young country boys. But my tormentor was the runt of the group, much shorter than even his younger brother. I believe he was tormented by his older siblings and he took it out on me because I was no where near his strength and he knew I was afraid of him. I finally left all that behind. But this past week I found out his younger brother died 3 years ago. It has disturbed me to find out that my tormentor did ultimately suffer. Suffer more than I would ever have wished him to. As my wife lies in a hospital, possibly having less than six months to live I am confronted with the knowledge that sooner or later we all have to face that which we do not want to. Be careful what you wish for because it can come true in the worst of ways. I forgave him long ago but that does not absolve him of what he did to me, yet I would never have wished that kind of suffering on him.

Testing something new...

I just read about a new photo hosting sight called allyoucanupload.com. It is not a destination sight but rather a hosting sight. No sign up, no login. Simply upload your photo, copy and paste the url you are provided into your blog or wherever you want it to show up and your done. No size limitations, no bandwidth limitations. I was with photobucket a few years ago before they got really big and it was ok but with donations and cap limits it wasn't perfect. This might be the perfect thing, next to Blogger of course since I can upload them directly to here. Someday I will host my own sight and this would be perfect since I can upload all I want. The following picture is hosted on allyoucanupload.com.

It is one of my favorite photos I have ever taken.

What's all the fuss about??

Last night I finished reading The Davinci Code" and I am just wondering what about it has so many people so worked up in a tizzy? I understand what is it is saying about Jesus and religion in relation to history, but come on, it is just a book. A fictional book. I take no more offense with it than I do with the movie "National Treasure". This was a story that took a factual historical situation and created a fictional story about it. The same with the movie "Titanic". Now even if the author of the book was trying to say it is a true story, it is how we, the readers percieve it that matters. I have no thoughts about it being true, I just read a good book that made good use of metaphors, riddles, and suspense. Nothing more. People should stop trying extract meanings that are not there to begin with. I know how my relationship with God is and someones fictional tale about it is not going to change that.

---

Well, today we go see the surgeon again, most likely to decide Tam's fate. It seems to be coming down to death or amputation. Of course we don't want amputation but that is better than 6 months of the worst pain imaginable followed by death. I have taken a couple of days off to be with her while these tests and decisions are being made. Sometimes there are situations more important than money and this is one of them. Our life is about to be changed forever and we want to make the very best decisions we can.

---

My daughter will be happy. I was able to retrieve her property from the detention center. She called the other night (it is a very hard thing to earn a phone call, I was very proud of her for being able to do it) and spoke to Tam the whole call. She apologized for some things that she had done. That needed to happen in the healing process of the last several years. I saw her for a couple of hours Sunday and she I beleive she is finally getting it. She is figuring out just how much everyone loves her and what it means when we get to see her. She made a statement that she is going to do whatever she has to do to get her time done and get out. She has a dream of owning her own comsotology business and I am going to do what I can to make it happen. I don't want to put her down for her dreams because they are hers, not mine. I have told her for years to figure out what she likes to do and then learn how to make money at it and she is doing that. She tells me she will get assistance for college and I will do whatever I have to do to help her get that. We have decided not to move from our two bedroom so that Tam's mother can stay close to her daughter. When Jess gets out we will transfer to a three bedroom.

---

It is less than two weeks before our anniversary and I am planning nice evening just the two of us. Of course it will be at the hospital but I am bringing in a nice dinner and of course some flowers. As part of my employee of the month award I received a $50 gift card to TGIFriday's and I will use that to bring the dinner to her. It may be our last one together so I want it to be the best I can do under the circumstances.

      More of this sad day. Fortunately no one was hurt. 

A close call

  Just 2 house's down from my parents home (and next to my old home) our neighbor lost everything.