"Post No. 525"

I was never so glad to finally be back home after staying over a week in various hospital rooms, 45+ miles from home and without any means of transportation outside of "my feet".

Back on the 15th. or so, my mom complained that she'd been a bit sick-at-her-stomach all day, and thought it was from some fresh corn a neighbor had given her. The next day, I took her down to the local emergency room and the doctors there decided to admit her for a couple of days for observation. On the 18th., she started hemmoraging blood so bad that her blood pressure almost bottomed out; I nearly lost her that day. She was taken by helecopter to Hardin Memorial Hospital in Elizabethtown, KY. (45 some miles from here). My wife had packed a bag for me in anticipation of having to stay at the hospital, and we hit the road. There they stablized her condition and the next morning my wife went back home so that at least one of us could continue working. Of course, she took the car with her.

Through micro-surgery they discovered mom had a large, bleeding ulcer. After many pints of blood, scores of i.v.'s and platelettes and so much more they had her ready for surgery and used a tiny scope to locate the area that was open, then attached eight clips to close it. She stayed in the CCU unit area for several days.

From that point on, however, she made a remarkable recovery, able to eat solid food again and sent to a "step-down" regular hospital room. In fact, by the 25th., her doctor told her she was ready to go home, but he was concerned about how weak she was and wanted her to regain her strength first. They wanted her to stay yet another week in E-Town, but mom was already antsy for a place closer to home. At (nearly) 84 years of age, she's still fiercely independent and misses her job at the library and her normal routine.

First we attempted to get her a room at the T.J. Sampson Hospital in Glasgow, KY. (about 15 miles from home), but they wouldn't admit her saying that she had to have been a patient for them to take her. Then we called the Hart County Nursing Home right here, 2 miles or less from home, and they said they'd have a room for her by Monday. When she heard that news it was as if a great weight was lifted from her and her smile from that news brightened her room like a nova explosion. Needless to say, we were BOTH VERY happy! She'll be taken there for a couple of weeks just to build back up her strength before going back home, and it's close enough I can check on her every day. I know shell be in the best oif care there as it was where my dad stayed during his whole term with alzheimers and they're all VERY nice people.

So I told a neighbor (when they called to check on mom) to call my wife and tell her to come get me last night, and here I am back. I missed a full week of work so I'm going in tomorrow (using this day to try to catch up on things), and not sure when I'll have another day off again as I'm going to volunteer to work for others who had to come in in my place when I was gone; try to make up for that lost time.

The first thing I did when I returned was take a good, hot BATH! (For a week I'd been washing off every day in the men's rooms in the hospital.) Then I called numberous neighbors and relatives to up-date them on mom's condition and all, and then I answered and/or deleted something like 60 e-mails that had built up. (I'm still working on that now.)

While in E-Town and without a vehicle, my distance to travel from the hospital was pretty limited; in fact, the distance I could go away from it at any one time was whatever I could walk. One day I walked in one direction about a mile to a little shopping center with a Roses Department Store, etc., and back. There was a Wendy's Restaurant close by where I got a burger or two there along the week.

Another day I walked in the opposite direction to an antique mall and I purchased a couple of dozen comic books pretty cheap to have something to read. Remarkably, I found a few that I actually had on want lists, such as the two issues I needed of the DC limited series, Time Masters, plus from Star*Reach Pub.s, copies of both Cody Starbuck (by Howard Chaykin), and Parsifal (with P. Craig Russell art) from the late 1970's.

Other books included several issues of the 1980's DC series, Arion, Lord of Atlantis (of which I'm trying to fill in a set), an odd issue of Checkmate from 1988, the last issue of Justice League America that Maguire drew (1992), the only issue I needed of The Question Quarterly (#5, from 1992), a Slash Maraud limited series #1 (by Moench & Gulacy, from 1987), 3 misc. issues of the Pacific title, Starslayer (by Mike Grell, and including a No.1), a couple odd issues of Swamp Thing from the early 1990's, and a copy of the Epic-Marvel Timespirits #1 with Yeates artwork (from 1984), plus a couple of odd, cheap duplicates that I'm amazed I didn't buy more of since I had no list to check or go by when I bought them.

There were plenty of books awaiting me as well when I got back home that came in the mail, such as that copy of DC's Showcase #27 (1959) the first app. of "The Sea Devils", a Captain Sinbad #1 from Gold Key (1963) which adapted the Guy Williams movie and had Russ ("Magnus Robot Fighter") Manning artwork, a Blackhawk #133 (1959) with the first appearence of The Lady Blackhawk, and my selection from the SCIFI Book Club of Mouse Guard Fall 1152 by David Peterson. Haven't had much of a chance to do anything by glance at any of this. In fact, I still haven't looked thru all of those issues of Marvel's Tales to Astonish with "Ant-man/Giant-Man/The Hulk" from the 1960's that I got in last week.

So eventually, I'll have much to review, as well as giving my opinions of the new "Hulk" flick that I finally saw recently.

"Stay Tuned".

And, "P.S.", in an attempt to just get this posted I really haven't checked it for typos this time that much so please look over that.