Message board topic:

Karly has the flu.  Achey all over, sore throat, voice like Louis Armstrong, and a bad 103 degree fever.  Lots of liquid and a couple of ibuprofin later, her temperature is normal today.  Cheri wanted to take her to a doctor but none of the clinics are open today and nobody wanted to spend hours in an emergency room waiting room.  With her temperature down to normal today, I think she'll be fine.

Tomorrow Cheri has to go to the hospital in Columbia, early in the morning, meaning little sleep for me.  The older grandson will be here all day but it looks like no school for the kids.  We won't be here to get the kids off or pick them up.  The older grandson will be but he doesn't have a clue as to procedure so, the rest of us are going out of town.  As rough as Karly feels, I know she'll drive me crazy to take her to the Barnes & Noble up there.  I should never go to Barnes & Noble.  I just end up buying books, and I've got more now than I can ever read.  John

If she is still sick with a fever again, at least you can stop at the hospital with here too. ;)

I have not been to a BN in so long. There is just no good book stores in town and since I do not drive to Bozeman, Missoula or Great Falls (or have not in a while), no book stores. So I have to get along with BN or Amazon online.

This turned out to be a full and somewhat frustrating day.  I had to get up after about 5 hours.  No idea how many of those hours I actually slept.  It was down around 10 this morning.  It was an hour and a half drive up to the hospital.  (The hospital a few blocks away can't do everything that needs to be done.)  Finding our way around the twisting streets around the huge medical complex, we had a hard enough time just finding the first place she had to go.  Then we had to go to the cancer complex, but we knew that area fairly well.  I let Cheri out on the ground floor, then went around and around and around the multi-level parking garage, before we finally found a spot on the very top floor.

We took the "Blue" elevators, then the "Orange" elevators to where I thought Cheri would be...but wasn't.  So, I called her and took the "Green" elevators to the floor she was on.  We had a good conversation with her surgeon and determined she needed surgery on a kidney, sometime in April.  Thankfully, the cancer is only stage one and is very slow growing.  It's a coin-flip as to whether she'll lose the entire kidney or not, but I'm thinking she won't.  It's the same surgeon who removed her colon cancer and was apparently entirely successful.  He performs about 300 of these surgeries a month.  He left us all very optimistic.

After the medical business was out of the way, we went to the mall and visited, of course, the Barnes & Noble.  Karly picked out an $18 book, but for a change I managed to keep my hands in my pockets and didn't buy anything.  We've got a local bookstore, but it's waaay smaller than Barnes & Noble, and with a far more limited selection.  We had dinner at the food court, although Karly wasn't really at all hungry.  Then, the long hour and a half drive back.  Then... came the next phase.

Karly had been so sick, she had a 5:30 appointment at a clinic across town.  Cheri was too tired to mess with it so I was drafted to take her in.  We got there and I started to sign her in...but couldn't. It had to be her Mom or her Dad or Cheri, and I wasn't any of those.  They wouldn't see her.  So, we went to the grocery store then to the gas station, where I got gasoline for the second time today, then home.  Cheri was fit to be tied as she didn't know they wouldn't accept me to sign Karly in, and now has to set up another appointment in the morning.

After all this chaos, I finally got my chores done.  Fed Piggy, fed Taylor, took out garbage, wash dishes, cleaned the litter box, then clean me.  I'm finally done for the day.  John

Man, that was a full day!

I do not understand why you could not sign her in. So if I were baby sitting a child who needed to see a doctor badly, they would just let her suffer?? That is nuts!

I hope Cheri needs minimal surgery!

Yeah, I can't imagine why they couldn't take Karly in just because Cheri wasn't there.  Maybe because it was a clinic and not the hospital.  I really don't understand.  Maybe it was an insurance thing.  I don't know.

To add to frustration, Cheri called the clinic this morning to re-admit Karly.  The clinic was closed.

Karly does feel better though.  I got up this morning and heard her playing her recorder.  Since you have to blow into it, her throat, nose and lungs must feel better.  To my surprise, she's been working on the 3 Stooges theme song.  I didn't even know she'd seen the 3 Stooges!  John