MOVING TO CALIFORNIA

     We are moving to California, now that my husband is getting better.  It means that I will have to do all the driving, but I don’t mind.  

     First we are going to Oregon for a Birthday Party...Mine.  I will turn 80 this year and my husband prepared a lovely party at my favorite hotel in my home town.  All my friends will be there for cocktails and dinner.  I can hardly wait for the day we leave.  The moving van will be here next week and we will be on our way.  

     After the party, and a little rest, we will be driving to San Jose, CA which will be our permanent home.  It is so beautiful there, warm, sunny every day, and very little rain in the summer months, but a lot of rain in the winter.  We are just an hour away from San Francisco, so we drive up there often to enjoy the sights.  I can hardly wait to get home again.

     Our trip to see my grandson’s graduation turned into a seven week stay in the hospital for my husband, but all is well, and so is he.  

     The VA hospital did a wonderful job of caring for my husband in Intensive Care.l  Those nurses were Everyday Angels, as they looked after him for three weeks.  I can’t say enough nice things about the Veterans Hospital...it is fantastic.

     The next three weeks were at Promise Rehabilitation Hospital, where they got him back on his feet.

     We have put our home, in Utah, on the market for a very low price, hoping to sell it fast.  The Real Estate agent is showing it tonight for the first time.  Sure hope it sells.  It gets very expensive keeping up two homes, both in Utah and California.  But if it is meant to be, we will sell it.

     The people are knocking on the door right now, so I will cut this short and write more later.  Wish us luck!

A Long Hospital Stay for Hubbie

     The past repeats itself!  There I was sitting in a hospital with my second Husband who has the same thing wrong with him that my first Husband had...peritonitis. 

     We were traveling from Oregon, after my grandsons graduation, and he got sick.  He started throwing up and we thought at first, that he got ahold of something bad at the cafe.  But, as the hours went by, he started to have pain and I told him it sounded like his appendix.  He told me it couldn’t be, that he had his appendix out a long time ago.  Well, when we finally got to the VA hospital in Salt Lake City, UT we found out that he had an appendix and it had burst, making a cesspool of this body.  They took him into surgery at 1:00 a.m. and cleaned out the infection that was running throughout his peritoneal cavity infecting his organs.  They washed it out, hoping that they got it all.  All this through four little incisions in his abdomen.  He was one sick little man.  The doctor told me that he would not be going home for quite some time.  

     That was seven weeks ago.  He was in ICU for three weeks, with peritonitis and double pneumonia and on a ventilator to help him breath while they cleaned out his lungs.  He had aspirated into his lungs, somewhere along the way, causing the pneumonia.  It was touch and go.  I wasn’t sure that he would make it.

     As if that wasn’t enough, I had no money...a few dollars that he had in his wallet, but not enough to do much.  Thank goodness for credit cards.  I tried to get some of his money transferred to our account, but it wasn’t going to happen without his signature and he wasn’t going to be able to write for a long time.

     My husband and I have only been married a little over a year and his investments are under his name only.  This is when I began to make a list of things to be changed...a long list.

     I was just recovering from the shock of not being about to pay my bills when I received another shock, one that made me so mad I could have chewed nails.  My husbands son took our car while we were in California, he did that frequently, but this time he gave it to his stepson to drive...wrong thing to do...and he was in a four car pileup, reducing our beautiful Cadillac to scrap metal.  To say that I was mad, when they finally got up the nerve to tell me, would be a gross understatement.  I was livid, furious, and any other adjective you can come up with to describe my anger.  As if my husbands illness wasn’t stressful enough, they had to unload another problem for me to handle.  When we got married my husband said that was my car, and now it was totaled.   

     This was the time I said to myself, “You can handle this alone, since nobody wants to help.  Just get on with it.”  So I did.  I took care of the car, unloaded our personal things, talked with the insurance company, and finally received a check for it.  All this while driving 80 miles round trip to the hospital everyday and sitting with my husband for 8 to 10 a day.  When he needed me most, I was there.  

      Now that my husband is home and beginning to walk again...and write his name again...we are moving all our things to California and get away from the place that brings back nothing but sad memories for me.

      This is why I have not been writing my blog for the past two months.  I will do better in the future...Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.