Well let me start this long over due reading, just think you will get 3 times the information on this one posting, you know it’s kind of like a 3 for 1 sale, like buy 1 get 2 free. OK enough of my analogy. Well to start with let’s talk about the Words of Wisdom I gave you on last posting. Come on guys you remember the part about the perfect place for a flower bed, well I am proud of our flower bed, we have transplanted about 21 Cannons, no not the kind that shoots. You know, I probably misspelled the word or did some kind of grammar blip but most of you know what kind of flowers I am talking about and if not, well you probably don’t know much more than I do about flowers. OK now that all of the guys are looking at me now with that head tilt, dumb look on your face. I’ll bet each guy out there understand the most important two words in the English language and that is “Yes Mam”. OK I said all of that to say them fancy named weeds are growing great. Why do I call them weeds, well let’s look at it practical. If you plant something you expect to be able to eat it or the fruit of it one day. If you can’t eat them well a weed is grown, heck look at the pastures the only thing that will grow in a drought is a weed and even the cows won’t eat them. Got to stop talking about eating even the thoughts of weeds are making me hungry.

I have a subject to talk about that now I can’t talk about because it ain’t 100% true any longer and ain’t that just great. I am now even wondering if I should say anything, well maybe not. OK I will say it this way, is God answering prayers in you neck of the woods. He sure is in Possum Kingdom because we have gotten over two inches of rain in the last 24 hours and they say more to come, Praise God.

What do you mean all I have talked about so far is nothing really, well what do you expect, some intelligent remarks. OK I know some of you are slow but go back to the address of this blog and tell me what does pelhamedlock.com and intelligence have in common, sorry to disappoint you!

OK let me get my soap box out and cry on you shoulder about how things are going………….. Well that thought did not work, you know they just don’t build soap boxes like they use to….. OK I found a Coke box and so far it seems to be holding me. In the last 3 weeks or so, I just have not felt as good as I did. You know kind of that sluggish feeling, I get up and I am tired and so goes the day. Claire says, does that surprise anyone, that the days I had been feeling so good I over done it and now it has caught up with me. Well I was in training for the Summer Olympics but I was told that I could not attend. It was nothing medical but that would have been a good excuse. I was going to do gymnastics and the uniform was to tight, that was the excuse, but the truth is they had to print the American flag over 50 times just trying to cover the slight love handles, but once it was finished I got it on. I had to warm up on the uneven bars so as I made my rapid dash down the run way and when I hit the springy ramp it went down but never came back up, therefore you should have seen all of the bars there they were uneven, bent and even circular. Anyway I went to the local doctor and I had lost another 4 pounds and he is studying on changing some of my medication, but I for the most part was fine. I did go to see the vampires on Monday 8/18/2008. The results came back and if high number were good I did great on some things. The one that I scored the best on was my Triglycerides, they are suppose to be 150 or less, I scored after two test 1136, I did not win a prize for that but I did win another ticket to see the vampires again this coming Monday 8/25/2008. The other winning numbers are glucose 137 (range 65-99), BUN 55 (range 7-25), Creatinine 1.81 (range 0.50-1.30), Carbon Dioxide 19 (range 21-33) Tacrolimus (Prograf) this is one of the immunosuppressant 6.6 (range 5.0-20.0). My dear Dru called to congratulate me on my high score of the triglycerides and just as I was going to thank her for the calling me she accused me of eating fried chicken, got to watch that Google Earth it is better than I thought. She did advise me that it was probably something I ate or it was some of my medication, so I had to give up some more of the red stuff in those little tubes and I will have to wait and see if I win another prize. Speaking of winning things, I grew this new thing that has gotten some attention. This started about 8/16/2008 with what appeared to be a busted blood vessel in my left eye. A couple of days went by and I then noticed something on my eyeball in the conjunctive area and covers a small area up to the iris, the colored part of the eye, for a detail drawing go to www.stlukeseye.com/StLukesEA.html
The doctor told me it was a pterygium or cancer, if it is cancer no big deal just like a skin cancer. Pterygium aka eye thing, usually refers to a benign growth of the conjunctiva. A pterygium commonly either grows from the nasal side of the sclera. It is associated with, and thought to be caused by ultraviolet-light exposure (e.g. sunlight), low humidity, and dust. The predominance of pterygia on the nasal side is possibly a result of the sun’s rays passing laterally through the cornea where it undergoes refraction and becomes focused on the limbic area. Sunlight passes unobstructed from the lateral side of the eye, focusing on the medial limbus after passing through the cornea. On the contra lateral side, however, the shadow of the nose medially reduces the intensity of sunlight focused on the lateral/temporal limbus. The doctor explained to me that it was small right now and I did not need it so the best thing to do was to remove it before it grew and would be more trouble to remove later. I have already gone through the pre-op and surgery is set for September 2, 2008 at Medicus in Anderson.

I have also had a return trip to Charleston on Thursday August 21, 2008 with two appointments on Friday August 22, 2008. I made this a lone trip, but was able to see my dear friend Steve and his lovely wife Wendy. Steve is doing OK but has some issues with a fever with an unknown cause. My Friday morning started off at 0730 hrs at the Rutledge Tower for a chest x-ray and then upstairs to the 5th floor to see Dr. Sahn. I was escorted to the room and the interviews started, it was like I was being questioned for something and they were going to catch me in a lie. Then Dr. Sahn’s FELLOW came in and he started with some tougher question but was asking some of the same ones the other people asked. He could not resolve my issue so he went out, closed the door and came back in with Dr. Sahn. It was like OK you have done it now; I was going to have to answer to the boss. Dr Sahn and the FELLOW went through my medical history. Dr. Sahn stated that this had been going on for long enough and something had to be done. Recap what has been done for this pleural effusion, a VATS with talc in Anderson, 4 day later admitted to MUSC for 10 days, failed talc procedure, and on September 7, 2007 a VATS with a Pleuralx Catheter and have been draining about 1 liter out of left lung every three day. They have stuck needles in my veins with some glowing stuff, stuck needles in my belly with some glowing stuff and even stuck 6 needles between my toes with some glowing stuff. They had done 6 thoracentesis both in Anderson and Charleston and that got old quick. Now they feel that they must do something. The idea of cutting me came to their minds, to repeat the VATS with talc but the surgeon, Dr. DeRosimo stated he would not do the procedure because it would fail again due to the medication I am taking. Therefore all three doctors, Surgeon – Dr. DeRosimo, Pleural Effusion Expert – Dr. Sahn and Liver Expert – Dr. Willner talked and a plan was agreed on. The new plan was to stop one of my immunosuppressant meds and cut the other in half two weeks before the surgery. Now the plan is in place I have just got to agree and set a date. The surgeon stated that I only had a 50 / 50 chance of the
procedure working, but this was the only hope (short of a miracle from God but the surgeon and I both know God can do that) of getting rid of the catheter. If it fails this time I will have the catheter the rest of my life, some 40 plus years we hope. I am thinking about it but at least there are no time restrictions on how soon I have to do this. We are going to try to plan it around Claire’s work and Abigail’s school. I had to have the fluid drawn off again so they could send it off for some more test. I then left the doctors around 1600hrs and it was time to eat. I had promised Abigail that I would get her something, so off to the Market I go. I found Abigail some do-dads and off to the Charleston Crab House I went. I broke an ordering routine, I ordered BBQ shrimp and grits and boy was they lip smacking good. There was a bowl of good grits, lots of shrimp, some melted jack cheddar cheese and about 5 circles around the dish with some BBQ sauce and boy was it some more good.

I then left a rainy some what flooded downtown Charleston for the journey home. I was noticing the weather all the way from Charleston to Newberry the rain was steady, even sometimes slowing traffic down on I-26 to 40mph. I got through Newberry and the scenery changed from wet to damp to dry back here in Possum Kingdom. I even had to go to the river to check on the catfish because the fleas and ticks were getting bad on the catfish.

God once again has answered our prayers with the recent rains. It started raining here on Monday and until this evening we had received some 2” plus. Last evening we had a family cook out to celebrate Abigail’s birthday. I had to move the vehicles out from under the car porch so I could grill under the shelter. Let me tell you, since you mentioned food, I went to Sam’s and bought some pre-made fresh ground chuck hamburger patties, they were almost as big as a five gallon bucket and yelp that was some awesome eating. I then fixed some chicken and apple smoked sausages and they were awesome also. The cake was cut and the children played until it was time for all to go, it being a school night.

I have been telling you about the talk radio show that I was going to be on this Thursday well when you tune into WRIX 103.1 Thursday night you will be hearing Carolina football game, so my interview has been postponed, I will let you know when it is.

WORDS OF WISDOM – If you pray for rain and believe your prayer can be answered, carry your umbrella to show your faith because if you don’t you will get wet.

God Bless You,
Be careful,
Keep your umbrella handy,
and remember if you meet me and forget me you lose nothing but if you meet my God and forget him you lose everything.

Lightning