Nelson now in regular room

Nelson has moved out of ICU into a regular room and is doing so well. His pain has been very easily managed today. He even went 2 hours past the 'allowed' time tonight. He could have had a pain shot at 7 p.m. and didn't ask for it until 9 p.m.   I take that as a good sign.  I am so proud of how well he's handled everything so far. He had a really rough first night (last night) but has made a remarkable turn-around today. He said when they got the drain tube and packing out, it was the best pain relief he's ever felt.

He's been walking down the hall and even that was before the pain shot. He had to go find his favorite nurse that we met last weekend. Tonya is her name and she is working on the other side of this floor. Not one that we'll see much of while we're here. She's an LPN studying for her RN degree and she will make a top-notch employee at whatever she wants to do. She is caring, sympathetic and being very pretty doesn't hurt either haha

The quality of care at this hospital is fantastic. Everyone from every department has been very kind and caring. Room 344 could use some decor additions but otherwise, it's a great place LOL!

Thank you all for the prayers, support and love that you've shown us. I am overwhelmed by how many people have responded to my requests for prayers. My Facebook, email and cell phone have all gotten a good workout this week. I hate to see my cell phone text message bill. I have a limited plan because I rarely use the texting feature. This week, however, I've been on it several times a day and sending to several people at once. Wonder if Nelson's medical insurance will cover that? LOL

God Bless You and please continue to pray for us; prayer WORKS!

Bypass update-Day 2

Nelson ended up having 5 bypasses. Ignorant me thought there were only 4 possibles so I definitely need to do some research on that. He's doing great now and they even pulled the breathing tube several hours early. He was 'over-breathing' on top of the respirator so they were able to get that tube out early. He says that tube is no fun at all.

I saw him about 1 hour ago (he's in ICU) and he's doing good. His pain is under control for the moment. They have him doing breathing exercises and he said he feels like he has a ton of bricks on his chest. He's still groggy but alert for the most part. He was able to tell me he loved me which, as you can imagine, made me feel TONS better. I hope they move him to a regular room by tomorrow morning... and if we're really lucky, later today.

I'll update later today. Thank you so much for your continued prayers. The support and encouragement we've received is so appreciated. I'll never be able to say thank you enough for what it's meant to me to feel so much love from so many people. God is truly good and is blessing us daily in so many ways.

Thanks again for everything and I'll be back later with any further news. God Bless You!!!

Quick update on Nelson's surgery

Had a whirlwind weekend. Nelson had a heart cath scheduled for this past Friday. We 'thought' we'd be home Friday night either with a clean bill of health or with stents. Nope. He will be having bypass surgery this Wednesday, the 27th, at the Baptist Hospital in Oxford, Mississippi. A great heart doctor, Dr. Purden, and gifted surgeon, Dr. Deese, will be taking care of him. Of course, we're nervous and a little scared but our faith is unshakeable. God is good and is The Great Healer!

Nelson is not hurting at all. We're told he's an ideal candidate for this procedure since he's in such great health and has no heart damage from prior heart attacks. 

He and I both ask for your prayers as we go through this next few weeks. I'll be in and out checking emails from time to time for the next week or so. I hope to be able to get online from the hospital but am not sure of that. We're definitely taking the laptop for him to have the DVD player at least.

I told Nelson he was only carrying 'MY' heart in his body anyway so he better get it repaired and keep it that way :-)

Thanks for all the good thoughts and prayers. We appreciate them more than we're able to express. God Bless You!

Still here...

Weekend was too short but my oldest son (my Marine) was here for a visit that we definitely enjoyed. My fibromyalgia was flaring a bit too much for me to get any fun stuff, i.e. art, done so that was a bummer. I just didn't have the energy to get much of anything done. The fatigue is slowly getting better but still have the stiff, achy feeling. Not the worst flare I've ever had and for that I'm thankful. I did go to the dr. today and get my meds going again. Anyway, enough of that.

Work has been really busy and we're glad of that. It was so slow in the car business for so long that this upswing has us very encouraged that the economy is on the mend.

My youngest son, Blake, is 25 years old and has not been able to find anything as far as a job goes and it's past time he was out on his own. He's thinking of joining the Air Force and we've done a lot of talking about that. I'm certainly not against it; I think any young person who feels led to join the military is serving a higher calling than many of us are ever called to do. Of course, I'm concerned about the chance for them to be in combat but when it's all said and done, I just want them to be happy and fulfilled in their life's choices.

Hopefully my next post will have proof that I really  have been working in my craft room and have accomplished something besides a pretty good-looking background on a canvas board. Which is all I have now :-)

Have a great week and God Bless You

More free images from the Dumas book

Still bitterly cold here in Mississippi but we're hanging in there. Got the gas logs blazing as well as the central heating unit. Got a small fan placed to pull heat from the logs to the other end of the house where I'm sitting now. One end of this house is just harder to heat or cool than the other end. And this end has the central unit in it. Oh well, I'm no engineer so I sure can't figure out that anomaly.

We had lots of snow today but none of it stuck to the ground. It was pretty coming down but I only saw it in momentary bits of time when I went to the front of the dealership for work reasons. The main office is in the middle area of the building where there are no windows. No wonder we get so cranky sometimes LOL!

Here are four more images from the Dumas book mentioned in a couple of posts back. Remember to click on the image here to bring it up in full-size. They are a little over 1 MB in size each.  Have fun with them and if you create something using them, I'd love to see it. Stay warm and safe and God Bless You!

Mississippi Weather Update

It's danged cold! My gosh, we are not used to prolonged periods of frigid temps like this. We've seen a few snowflakes around here and a little ice. As long as the ice doesn't bring down power lines and all the other horrible things it can bring I'm fine with the snow. But pipes are freezing all over town. Luckily we're old enough to know better and have prepared for that as best we can. There is a winter freeze warning and severe winter weather advisory in effect.

We have no neighbors that need us to check on them but sadly, there have been deaths in Mississippi due to the freezing temps. If any of you are dealing with cold weather (and most of us are) please, please check on any elderly neighbors or anyone else you can think of that might need it. Alot of people are just not equipped to handle weather like this.

No images to share tonight; I'm cuddled up staying warm and about to head for bed. Seems I'm an early-to-bed type more and more often lately. My plan for this cold weekend is to play in my craft room and post more of the images from the Dumas book.

Everyone stay safe and warm; God Bless You!

Free images 1 & 2 of Dumas' book illustrations

Free for personal use. Scan of page from 'Works of Alexandre Dumas'. No copyright information available.

Free image of Dumas book cover

This is the scanned cover of a book titled 'Works of Alexandre Dumas'. The book is falling apart and I will be tearing the pages out to use in collage work. I'm scanning the illustrations that are in the book as well and will share them on here as well. Not all at one time though; I'll space it out. It'll give me something to actually blog about rather than just rambling LOL!

I do not know any of the details regarding the publisher or the copyright information as the first few pages of the book are missing. I found this book in a local 'antique' (pronounced as 'junk') shop a while back. I LOVE going in there because you never know what you will find. I don't know how often they actually get anything different but they move things around often enough that I always 'see' something not yet discovered. For personal use only since the copyright info is unavailable. Or if you know more about it, please let me know and I'll post it here. I'll probably use the book covers someday when I decide to try my hand at an altered book. In the meantime, I'll be using the pages of text and the images for collage work. There are enough pages here to keep me busy for a long, long time haha!  While flipping through the book tonight making sure I got all the illustrations, I decided it would be fun to just randomly choose a page spread and find a phrase that leaps out at me. Then create a collage around that. The first phrase that jumped at me is on pg. 237 'Excuse me, but there are some moments when I am half mad.' If that doesn't beg to be turned into artwork, I don't know what will! It describes me so well too :-)

We went shopping in Jackson yesterday and I found a few things at Hobby Lobby (of course). I LOVE Hobby Lobby's clearance racks. I never miss out on finding something there. Plus had a good selection of stamps on sale as well as their scrapbook paper. We went to a new shopping center that we'd heard about at Flowood. It's really nice and filled with interesting shops. Some weren't open for the New Year's Day holiday but most were. Nelson had LOTS of fun at Bass Pro Shop and bought mostly clothes rather than fishing goodies. Strange but true :-) And of course, I found a bookstore. This time it was Barnes & Noble at some fancy-schmancy shopping center north of Jackson. I told Nelson we didn't come close to looking like we belonged in that ritzy-looking place. Found out green money was all they really cared about anyway :-)

Enjoy using the image if you like and please let me know if you do. I'd love to see what you do with it. Enjoy the rest of the weekend and God Bless You!

Happy New Year!!

Just a quick post to wish all of you a happy New Year. I hope 2010 is filled with blessings, love and laughter for you and your loved ones. My family is so blessed and we are grateful to our Lord for all the wonderful gifts He has seen fit to give us.

We are planning to  go shopping later today and just enjoy being off work and spend time together. Hope your weekend is loaded with all good things!!!

God Bless You...