Sunday, March 22, 2015

Sunday March 22, 2015...SPRING SPRUNG - again

Well, Spring has once more come to the Midwest and I really appreciate the 70 degree weather.  It wasn't a harsh Winter here at all - not like it was back East - but it is still nice to anticipate the greening up of the grass and trees.  That's the one thing I miss most in the Winter - the green and lush grass and forests.  Perhaps that's why I love the mountains and their evergreen pine forests?  We've tried to plant some evergreen trees in the backyard, but it is too wet and clayish for them to take root.  Someday, we will have to figure out a way to drain the water out of the hollow back there.  An underground rock formation has a slight rise at the edge of our property and that contains the moisture in the low spots.  

My son-in-law has come back home from working the oil fields of Wyoming and Colorado.  The work out there is diminishing with the advent of cheaper oil.  So Chuck is home and has a night job picking up roll-off containers around the Crown Center and Plaza areas.  It's tough work for truck drivers and their hours are long,  But at least Chuck is home with his family.  We all missed him while he spent those long years in the oil fields.  He wouldn't get to come home except for a few times a year and he had to work 7 days a week from dawn to dusk.  Now he works from dusk to dawn but he gets off a couple of days a week.  It's good to have him home.

Last year was a medical year for most of my family.  I'm really hoping that this year all will be well.  My grandson, Zachary, will be 16 this year.  He is a fine young man with a good head on his shoulders.  And he has tall, broad shoulders.  Zachary is already over 6 feet tall and taller than the rest of us and still growing.  It's fun to watch his personality developing and his interests to expand.  It's an entirely different world for him to approach than the world that I approached when I was his age.  When I was 16 there were ample part time jobs available and many of my friends and I worked at them for spending money.  Now those types of jobs are not available and many kids get into trouble trying to find some way to raise money.

Beth is still fighting a myriad of ailments, many very debilitating and painful, with her Hepatitus C and Fibromyalgia and Kidney Stones and Migraines.  It seems that when one symptom leaves, another develops.  I feel for sorry for her and wish that I had a cure for the pains that she has.  I keep hoping that someone will come up with a way to relieve her symptoms - in time.  

Deborah has a new job in IT in Burlington, Iowa.  She has moved a lot in the last few years, but I'm hoping that this move will let her settle down for a while.  She seems to really like her new place of work and the job itself.  It's nice to hear her happy!  She has had a lot of stress the last few years and deserves a break.  Maybe she can explore the region and rekindle some of her past interests and hobbies.

I'm surviving the nightly peritoneal dialysis with little complications.  I feel that I have some control of my life right now and that this system will give me the bit of freedom that I seem to require.  When I had to go to the clinic for dialysis 3 times a week, it really beat me down.  I basically lost those 3 days of time each week and felt that I couldn't really schedule much activity around those days.  I was also very tired those days and had to rest a lot.  Now I perform dialysis at home, in bed, at night while I sleep and wake up refreshed and ready to go.  What a great change.  It does limit you on travel, because of the equipment and supplies, but it is worth it.

I'm looking forward to a wonderful Spring, green and lush and maybe even a wonderful Summer.