Well once again we had this urge to go and see if the sun was shinning in Charleston, I guess you could say my body had that urge. Well I will try to stay on track and tell you what is going on with me, but you know me and somewhere along the road I will fall of the turnip truck but it’s always fun getting back on the truck. To some people this statement made no sense and you have no idea what I just said and to some others you felt like you was right there with me and almost fell off the turnip truck with me, now that I have confused my darling wife twice, I will give you an update.

In the past couple of weeks I have not felt 100%, but you know for a fat country boy from Possum Kingdom 70% is passing or just getting by and anything above that is extra effort. Well the fact is I just did not feel good. Last Friday I became quite aggravated because the bandage covering the Plural-X catheter was causing some irritation. On Saturday it had gotten to the point of being very uncomfortable, so I changed the bandage and observed a red area around the area. On Sunday, which was the scheduled day for draining the fluid from my left lung area, we then knew what was going on, I had an infection. On Monday I was advised that I needed to go to Charleston and see the surgeon in the event the catheter had to come out. Claire, Abigail and myself loaded up the van and off to Charleston we go. To give you a visual, close your eyes and think of Granny, Ellie May and Uncle Jed loading the truck and going on a road trip. OK now that you have that visual we will move on with the story. Now when we arrived in town after a long rough ride, still keep the visual, I went inside to check us in a new motel, at least it was new to us, you know we wanted to just try it. So I and my old hat wobbled in the fancy lobby of this motel to check in. I was standing there thinking we ain’t got nothing like this in Possum Kingdom, but I do my visual inspection and felt a little better because they had a concrete pond in the front and a sprinkler system. I then got my room assignment and that did not help a lot because it was on the 7th floor and I knew that kind of jump out the window would leave a mark, but thought between the concrete pond and the sprinklers we could get out if we had to. OK enough of check in, I got to tell you about supper. I should tell you one thing that we liked about the information we had read about this motel was they served 3 meals a day and the one we always stayed at only served breakfast. OK so we check in about 2130hrs and the supper hour was over at2200hrs, so we had to hurry! Well the fun for me was just beginning, we walked down to the restaurant, which was so fancy I had to ask if this was the restaurant, and it was. We went and started to set at the first table we saw, but that seemed to bother the nice lady trying to get us to sit at a booth, you know a fat boy at a booth with fixed benches can make the meal uncomfortable. OK for the grossly under weight people, if you were at the range of above normal weights when you sit at a booth your belly, table and bench all become one. Anyway we sat at the table we chose and she handed us the menu, things went down hill after that. Claire wasn’t feeling well after the long ride, she was the designated driver since I was on drugs, pain meds, so she left Abigail and myself to eat alone. The waitress came back and said I am so sorry, your are here for dinner, I said no supper and she said I must change the table because it was set up for breakfast. Now there was all I needed, you know dishes, to eat and drink with and even some left over. The nice lady insisted that she had to change the setting from breakfast to dinner for us. She gathered all those dishes including the napkins and returned with another pile of dishes, many more that we needed, I even insisted that she take the small fish bowl back so they did not have to was extra dishes, because I was not going to drink out of two glasses and that fish bowl one would not hold much and you could not get that manly grip on it like you can a Mason jar. We started reading the menu and it was wrote in English, but they were doing so much with flour, dead critters and a small mess of vegetables, that gave all of the good old food new names, it scared us. We decided on what to eat but we did not see it on the menu, so we asked. The waitress agreed to fix it our way, Abigail wanted some shrimp and mac & cheese. I saw something on the menu that sounded good, but there was numbers besides the writing (ie. 6 or 24 and ect.) and I decided that was how you ordered, you know by the number! Well I was wrong, so if you ever go to a restaurant that has just numbers beside the words, don’t order by announcing the number, because that could be the price. Any way I got a coupon when I arrived and it was good for for a drink and flat bread. Well I had to ask what flat bread was, Mama always fussed if you mashed the bread because it would become flat. I agreed to have the flat bread with some grilled shrimp and a side order of a lot of words because I did not know what that stuff was, but is was free with the coupon. The time came for us to order the drinks, so I ask what kind of drink the coupon was good for. The waitress looked at me and started with the beers, wines and all of that stuff. I ask could the coupon cover the Mountain Dew drink Abigail ordered so she said yes and I ordered water. We then had some down time so we went out and looked at the cement pond and on the way I even found a big chunk of marble with a hole in it and it had lava rock in the hole and fire with no smoke coming out of it. We then returned to our table to await our freshly prepared meal. I got a plank for a plate with a thin crust pizza on top with a good flavor of shrimp and other stuff. Abigail on the other hand got a great big plate of macaroni with maters and green beans and some really big shrimp. Abigail said our blessing and we began eating supper. We had a great talk with the waitress and even about her brother just finishing the police academy. We retired to our room with two great ole big beds, and really pretty furniture and so much furniture, they even had two tables that fit together to make a computer desk. The TV and fridge were both hiding when we arrived but after a short game of hide and seek we found the TV and fridge hiding behind some doors on this big pretty thing, I guess it was an entertainment stand? We then retired to bed and arose the next morning after a good night sleep, but we packed up and deceided if the doctor wanted us to stay in town we were going back to the motel we had been staying at. We arrived at MUSC to have X-Rays before seeing the doctor. He came in without much delay, had the bandage removed and he started poking and mashing. Now keep in mind, no visual this time, I had taken a small amount of drugs before I went and I found out real soon I did not have near enough on board to take care of the poking and mashing he did, but I survived. He said the infection was just around the surface area and not in the chest cavity or in the catheter, which was great. He put me on oral antibiotics and wants me to come back in two weeks. We ask, what was his long term goal, as he was the one a referral was sent to for a repeated VATS with talc procedure. He replied that there was no need to repeat the procedure, because it failed one time and he was sure it would fail again. He told me we had done well keeping the catheter clean for all of this time, 9 months. We talked about other long range procedures such as a shunt. He stated that I would not like that because I would have to push on the same spot everyday about 100 times to pump the fluid out, and it would get sore. Therefore my understanding was get use to the catheter, because the catheter was the best thing to treat my plural effision with. He finished hurting me and after we left I got to thinking. The biggest thing I remembered was my small hope of going back to the work I loved so much was now over and I know I should have learned that by now but I always h
oped, but God has another plan for me. I have to pray for God to keep my eyes and mind open and seek his will. God has blessed me so much I have nothing to complain about.

Well the time has passed and my writing skill has not gotten any better so with that I will end. Remember when things don’t go your way and you feel like nobody cares, know for sure God cares and so do I.

Remember, if you meet me and forget me you loose nothing…..
If you meet my God and forget him you lose everything……..

Make things right with God, sign a donor card and tell your family, you can help save lives long after you are gone….

God Bless You,

Pel