Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be All Right

I was going to title this blog "When Will It Ever End?" but that seemed too negative.  And then I remembered the Bob Marley song "Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be All Right" which is actually titled Three Little Birds.  It seems so much more positive and happier.  But deep inside (sometimes not so deep) I am thinking "When will it ever end?"

Courtney has been sick since mid April, well over three months, and much of it spent hospitalized.  This has been very long, difficult, and frustrating for her, but also hard on all of us as we worry about and try to care for her.



Sunday 7/29 - We had tickets to see Cirque du Soleil: Corteo in Nashville.  Judy and Shirley parked here at 9:30 and we all left together with Joe driving.  The cats were performing their own circus act with the ladder and climbing tree in the sunroom.


Our first stop was Carol Ann's Home Cooking Café.  We were a little early, which gave us time for photos.  They still didn't have the doors open after 20 minutes of waiting, so Joe went through the back door to the kitchen.  The new cook said he was running a little behind and it would be another ten minutes.










We didn't have time, so we moved on to Sonic where we all enjoyed big hamburgers for lunch.





We had to scurry to get to Bridgestone Arena downtown, and parking was a bit of a challenge, but we were seated and had ten minutes before the show began.

Shirley's Facebook comment about the production was on the mark, "It was amazing: acrobatics, music, humor....quite a show!!"

During intermission, Joe checked his phone messages and Courtney had said her vomiting had gotten worse during the day and it was enough of a concern that Mike was going to take her to Vanderbilt ER to see if they could figure out what was causing the vomiting.














About the time the show ended (3:30) Mike and Courtney arrived at the ER and said it was packed.  They triaged Courtney, installed an IV, drew bloodwork, and then sent her back out in the waiting room.

There was nothing we could do for Courtney's situation so we went to Daniel's as planned and dropped the yard tools off.  We gave Shirley and Judy a tour of his house before heading home.

When I went to bed at 9pm, Courtney and Mike were still in the waiting room, waiting.  Ridiculous.  I prayed that every little thing was gonna be all right.

Monday 7/30 - I was woken by a text Joe was reading at 1am.  Mike had just gotten Courtney home from the ER. 

Can you see who was at the top of the ladder early in the morning?  Stevie even has a way of making it look comfortable. 


I read Courtney's whole text message when I got up at 5:30.  Finally they took her back into a room about 9:30 pm (six hours after arriving), gave her IV fluids, and an anti-nausea prescription.  All who looked at Courtney seemed sure it wasn't pancreatitis since her lipase was normal and she had no pain.  The attending physician said that Courtney's case was very, very weird.  He reviewed her last CT scan and lab work before deciding anything.  Then they did a current CT scan which came back normal but showed there was still some inflammation from pancreatitis although it showed improvement from the last CT scan.  An order was placed for an "urgent" GI visit... but at the speed Vanderbilt goes, who knows when that would happen!!??? and they sent Courtney home.

In order to get last week's blog done and posted, I stayed home from Ballroom Aerobics.  (It turn's out it had been cancelled anyway.)  Maggie likes sitting out in the sunroom with the cats and I, especially when Joe isn't home.

Courtney reported that she had thrown up when she got home from the ER and again at 6:30 in the morning.  The poor girl.





Joe and I finished moving all the heavy furniture back out of the living room and later I got all the nick nacks and wall hangings down.  We also cleared quite a bit out of our bedroom.




I got to Mirror Lake Blast before any of my clan so sat with Patty and Mike.  Soon Patty and Therese, her friend from Iowa, arrived.  







Joe and Shirley were too tired to join us, but later Michelle came.  We enjoyed the food, beverages, and dancing.

Tuesday 7/31 - I finished getting ready for Tony and Larry, including moving my car out of the garage.  Stevie found a good spot to nap in the 'rubble' out here with me in the sunroom.  Pretty soon Monita, who likes to be with Stevie and/or I settled down near Stevie.








I got this blog started and was feeling pretty good about finally getting caught up.  Courtney also reported sleeping through the night and not waking to get up and throw up.  She did throw up later after her breakfast.

We had three pop-up showers including thunder so Maggie went back into the mancave with Joe.
The construction workers never showed up - ALL DAY LONG, ugh!  I had started a load of laundry but forgot to put it in the drier.
When I got to work, Mike had only had one customer all morning, but it cleared off enough that I had 16 people during my shift, including Joe, Patty, and Therese.
I remembered to dry (and fold) the laundry when I got home.

Wednesday 8/1 - It is hard to believe that July is over and many schools will be starting fairly soon.  Like most mornings, the cats and dog hung out with me here in the sunroom.  It is such a lovely place to sit, even with all the crap that is stored out here at the moment.








I went to Ballroom Aerobics, but it has been cancelled the next two weeks, so instead, I did my weight workout.  I did the whole circuit, (although with less weights) for the first time in like forever.  When I got home Monita was lounging here at the edge of the couch.

Cliff Hanger

It was a rainy morning and continued to do so, even with some thunder, through the lunch hour.  I had gotten word that no workers would come this day.  I busied myself in the garage, sorting through paints and saving the cans that were still good, and making sample smears of several of them.  I also started painting the corner cat shelf.













I met Jan at the barn and we decided to ride down Chestnut Hill Road to see how precarious it was and if there was a way we could get into the Glade coming from this direction.




It was not necessarily a comfortable ride, but certainly doable.  Our horses were awesome and the cars that passed us were very respectful and slowed, moving over to the opposite lane.  But, Chester and Boz lead the way down the road, which made us nervous.


I met Patty and Therese at Legends for the Chicken Pasta Buffet.  The line for the build your own stir fry was long, but well worth the wait.  We stuffed ourselves.  This beautiful sunset was ending as we left Druid parking lot.

Thursday 8/2 - I had not slept well, too many worries but most of them trivial.  I was concerned about the new house paint not being the exact same color as the old.  I was trying to decide what to do about the cats and their non-stop licking.  Stevie was losing more hair and Monita had made a sore on her belly that was getting bigger.  I was also processing what to do if the workers didn't come again and kept thinking that Joe needed to hit the road earlier than originally planned.




This is the fruit pizza Therese and Patty had made.

I woke Joe up earlier than he had planned to get up, and had him help me move the rest of the heavy bedroom furniture (except bed and large dressers) before he left for Nashville.  Our room is quite bare now.  The place was ready for construction work, but I had to leave for my job before the guys showed up.  I locked the cats in the sunroom and the dog in the mancave.

It was cold, overcast, and sprinkled three times so I had no customers.  I did mop the pool office really well, and also did a lot of reading.  I also got word that Courtney's two Dr. appointments went well.  They thought that her vomiting was probably due to a combination of factors: her general susceptibility to nausea, some lingering pancreatic inflammation, a new fluid cyst in her abdomen, and the various traumas to her digestive system over the last few months.  It was recommended she take an over-the-counter histamine-2 blocker to reduce the amount of stomach acid produced at night.  Her portal vein thrombocyte was also gone so she was taken off blood thinner.

The cats and dog immediately started exploring the living room that Larry and Tony were finishing up plastic wrapping when I got home.  The cats loved running and sliding on or going under the plastic.








I wasn't home long before heading back out the door to go to Patty's house.  She and Therese had invited Shirley and I for dinner.  We enjoyed yummy chicken quesadillas.  After chatting while letting our full bellies rest we dug into the fruit pizza.  Oh boy was it delicious.


It was almost 10 pm when I got home, but I still took time to put a final coat of paint on my cat shelf.  This is what our garage currently looks like... construction mayhem, but every little thing, is going to be alright.

I had washed and dried our sheets but still needed to make the bed before getting into it.  And then I crashed.

Friday 8/3 - The 127 yard sale shoppers (Therese and Patty) had gotten some little ladders made out of tobacco drying poles, so I borrowed one to see if it would work as a cat ladder up to the shelf.  As I was holding it to take this photo, Monita started up it.








It was a quiet morning here on the porch.  The cats made themselves at home amid more rubble.  I left at 10:30 to shop in town and the workers still hadn't arrived.


On my way in, while stopped at a light, the truck behind me rolled into me.  Ugh.  Luckily very little damage was done and I decided to just let it go.  I was trying to 'pay it forward' or work on getting good karma.  My first stop was the paint store to get the color lighten on the 2 and 1/2 gallons left in the 5 gallon bucket (which they did) and to buy one more gallon.

A few other stops and I was home at nearly 2:00.  Larry and Tony were hard at work.  Patty, Therese, and I went to the pool to swim and sun, but that was cut short by a big pop-up downpour that lasted quite awhile.  It was almost 4:00 when I got home and the workers were packing up because of the rain.  Nothing had been done inside.





We three ladies met at Reds for dinner at 6:30.  Then we moved into the bar area to listen to some Karaoke.  The singing wasn't too great but we still had fun.  Michelle came to join us a little later.

Saturday 8/4 - I hadn't gotten a photo of the work progress from the day before because it was raining and then it was too dark, so I took this picture before going to work at the pool at 8:45.

I may think this place is a mess, but Stevie likes the additional 'play ground' equipment (video).

It was a beautiful day to work at the pool, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Patty and Therese came right near the end of my shift.  It was tempting to stay and hang out with them, but I needed to get Maggie out for a walk since she hadn't done anything just before I left for work.



Maggie and I walked for an hour.

Patty picked me up at 4:00 and we headed to Hebbertsberg for the town dance.  Michele and Connie were waiting there for us to arrive.








Shirley was also there and performed with the sweet T's.







This was Hebbertsberg's last dance for the summer so it was packed, and there were a lot of people dancing.  It seemed that everybody had a great time.

Bob Marley also sang "Don't Worry, Be Happy"  a good song to lift one's spirts when it seems your troubles are too much.  Music, singing, and dancing are good therapy.