John and Linda Fordyce

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We are so blessed to have a great family and so many, many good, loving friends who are concerned and praying for Linda when she needs it. Thank you!

Saturday, March 7, 2009

My Blog Has Been Confusing Everybody!

Yes, my daughters have convinced me that that the wonderfully clever way I was formatting the Blog since February 13 was confusing and causing folks to miss most information these last two weeks. Sorry about that. Instead of starting a new post with each entry, I just kept editing the one to have the whole week bunched together. I didn't realize it made it seem to read backwards. You might want to read back from Feb. 13 and see what you missed.

I tell Diane and Mindy frequently that the Blog was much more interesting to me when they were writing it.

Wonderful News

Thursday, March 5 Dr. Yuen confirmed our hopes that my elbow's little bald spot was closed in by the new skin growing there!!!! John changes, cleans and doctors the wound every other day between doctor visits. A few days back he saw the little black scab wash off and felt sure what we saw underneath was skin. Each day was more convincing and we are so happy that it's really true! And no infection!

Dr. Yuen sent us over to the orthopaedic clinic to make our appointment with very respected surgeon, Dr. Gruenwald, an adorably gruff brilliant man who is a little of a mad scientist type.
But when he looks under those bushy brows, he's really with me. I'll sse him Monday. My arm has to heal 2 more months before they can do this surgery.

Last week I noticed for the first time that my left hand is sitting a qrarter turn off of straight on my left arm. I've always had such big casts and splints on it that I didn't notice. I'm anxious to learn if they can fix that and if it will be a separate surgery from all the repair on and around the radius in my forearm.

This morning John gave me my LAST bag of Vancomycin. !!!!!!! No moe being tied to the iv pole an hour and a half twice a day.

Grateful to get out

When it's sunny, John gets me outside with Casey. I walk a few dozen yards out front and Casey runs back and fourth on our street. He is so beautiful running! After our appointment Thursday, John took me down to the hostel office for almost 2 hours. I transferred some files so I can do some work from home. It felt like a start. Took a while to get oriented. Then whe I got home I slept 4 hours without stirring!

Today is a big leap for me. Our hostel board is having a 24 hour retreat at board president, Greg Hart's river cabin on the Little Red River. 1:00 pm Sat. to 1:00 pm Sunday. What a great place to get out to! If we need to, we can drive home tonight, but I really want to stay over with everybody and enjoy the great breakfast planned. Wish us luck. We are all close and growing closer. I'm grateful I can go and won't mind napping while the're working if I need to!

Pagan Adventure Still Waiting for Calmer Seas
because their ride is a 21 foot fishing boat. That basin of ocean is so big it takes a long time to settle after various storms. Larger vessels could sail now, but not the little guys. This fisherman
habitually goes to an island in that direction but not that far. He's charging them 200 gallons of fuel to go the extra distance and drop Thom and Garrett and all their gear off on the beach!! Picture that!! We heard their main concerns woud be the wild boars and centipedes. Now I've learned the bulls are a threat if they don't know where to camp out of their territory. Thom assures me he's talking with the guy who runs the cattle up there to find out. The guy goes up once or twice a year to butcher and cure a few cattle for hinself and to pay for transportation up there.
I've been telling Dr. Yuen and his med students, interns and residents about this and they are so wishing they could do that, especially on burnout days.