First of all, Cliff had an appointment to take a stress test. He’s been wheezing a lot for a long time. When the insurance company sent a nurse to the house as they do ever year, I mentioned the wheezing. She listened for it and heard it. Sometimes he can be at one end of the couch and me at the other and I'll hear it. She told him he might have COPD and that we should see our regular doctor and see what they said.
The nurse/practitioner at the doctor's office heard it too. She said it could be something related to his heart, so before anything, she wanted him to do a stress test... not the nuclear stress test though. Cliff told her he didn't think he could do it because he gets out of breath too easily, and she said, "Well, let's try it and see."
But when she took his blood pressure it was 190 over 90. She quickly took him to the emergency room in a wheel chair. They took blood for some tests and did a chest X-ray.
Now, I don't normally post blow by blow details on Facebook when I'm in the hospital with Cliff, but I had already "checked in" at St. Mary's Hospital. When something seems like it might be serious, I wait until it's over to post anything. But I had already started by saying we were there, and after awhile, friends were asking questions and relatives wondered why we had been away so long. So I was updating my whole Facebook family was worried.
Five hours later Cliff got a room, and the top number on his blood pressure was 165, so it was heading in the right direction. My daughter and I bade goodbye and as soon as I got home, I went to bed. This morning when my daughter and I got to the hospital, it was 124 over 70.; in other words, perfect! They hadn't given him anything or done anything to bring it down, except his normal meds minus his blood pressure pill (of all things) but we will be seeing the cardiologist soon.
My husband looked pretty bad last night, and his face was red as a beet the whole time we were there. This morning, normal color. The grandson said Cliff hadn't felt good for two days. My crazy husband didn't tell me because I always make him go to the doctor. And so it goes.
And that leads me to my other story: Last night, sitting in the emergency room cubbyhole we occupied, I heard the "PING" of an Instant Message. Of course I was getting a lot of those at the time. I looked to see who it was and it was Jimmy Capps, the session guitar player whose Facebook page I follow. Cliff and I read his book and really liked him. "Cliff," I said, "you won't believe who just instant messaged me!" And I read the first lines the guy had typed to him. "I am not smart enough to know the right words to say how much your likes and comment has done for me. All I can say is THANK YOU from a very grateful soul for your love and support all along" 
It seemed like it might be Jimmy Capps, not that I would know, but if Cliff hadn't mentioned "scam", who knows what would have happened. He asked about my husband and I told him we were in an emergency room waiting for a room. He said, "Please don't tell anybody about this call." Well, I thought, of course that makes sense. He'd have everybody calling him. He wanted to give me his private number so he could "reach out to me" if I was having a hard time I could call and talk. I told him we have plenty of people around us to talk to.
I should have known by all this it wasn't him. Because guess what? I'm fairly sure it wasn't. I don't know if I would have realized it, had Cliff not said something. You see, I went to the Jimmy Capps Facebook page I follow and at the top of the page Jimmy's wife Michelle had put a warning: "If you get a message or friend request from “Jimmy Capps, it isn’t Jimmy. Someone has set up a fake account using hispicture. 😕 This is the only page he has, and it is a fan page. Thanks, ya’ll! Michele."
After reading that, would you believe he messaged me again today? That cinched it, and I told him, "I don't want you to contact me any more. My husband says you are a scammer." His answer? "OMG".
Sure, every seventy-six-year-old man types OMG when he is texting. a senior citizen who has a much younger, lovelywife isn't going to be wasting his time messaging old women.
But for a minute there, I thought I was going to be a special fiend to Jimmy Capps. I felt so special.
I'm fairly happy about it though, because it gives me a story for my blog.
Be safe on the Internet, folks. Don't be like Donna.
Yeah, with one thing and another, I haven't stopped to think about a blog entry. I've spent a lot of time getting used to my new computer. Saturday we had our tractor club's weinie roast at the local peach orchard. I took my guitar and sang. Honestly, Cliff seemed more nervous about this than I was. As for myself, I wasn't nervous, thanks to the church folks at Journey of Faith wanting me to sing there. That got me used to singing in front of folks again.
I sang three songs songs I wrote myself. And I read one poem. Now, here's the thing: I already knew that when you sing at an outdoor event with food involved, most people are eating and chatting (especially when you're on your own to introduce yourself). I knew most wouldn't be listening, and it it seemed as though NOBODY was listening, I had decided beforehand to stop at one song. However, as I sang and looked around, I noticed a few people really paying attention. So after the first song, I just sang to the ones paying attention. Some went on talking, which bothered Cliff, but not me. I had warned him of this! He was just on pins and needles, scared somebody wouldn't like my singing, I guess. Obviously he's never looked around when there's a music act at our town fair, because it's the same thing. Maybe half the crowd listens, if that. If everybody had seemed interested, I would have done another couple things, but I decided to quit while I was ahead. There weren't as many people as usual in attendance, probably because it was 32 degrees that morning with frost on the ground.
We did a tractor ride to Lexington, probably 7 or so miles from the orchard, to Anderson House. There are lots of Civil War bullet holes in the walls of the place, inside and out! On the way back to the orchard we went through the Macphelah cemetery to remember one of the club's founding members who passed away last winter.
I thought I'd lost a cat. Jake, Mama Kitty's son, didn't show up at chow time for a few days. When I mentioned this to the guys, Arick said a yellow cat had gotten run over nearby and thought it was probably him. But yesterday old Jake showed up, looking no worse for the wear. He seemed really hungry, though.
Cliff had a problem with the Oliver 1855 tractor, our biggest tractor. He said he was really afraid it would be some expensive, hard-to-fix problem; turns out he and Arick found the problem and fixed it without any expense at all, and very little trouble. They've also been working on Arick's John Deere lawn mower, and found whatever it was that had caused long-term problems with it. So that's fixed too.
Today Cliff saw a tractor on Craigslist that may be worth the money. It's in Payola, Kansas, over 80 miles away, but that's not so far to go look at a tractor; we've gone a lot further in the past! Arick thinks he and Cliff need a new project to do together.
There are lots of turnips growing with the other stuff in Arick's wildlife plot, so I've been helping myself to some. Cliff never liked turnips; he'd try them, but one bite was enough to make him "turn-up" his nose in disgust. There are only about half a dozen foods that he doesn't like. He is not very picky. But he's never liked turnips. I looked on Allrecipes.com and found 150 recipes that contain turnips! I wanted to see if there was anything I could do with them that Cliff would like. I also wanted to look for a recipe that would taste like my mom's turnips, and I actually found one. I passed over it a few times because of the silly name of the dish: "Thanksgiving Day Creamed turnips" (who cooks turnips for Thanksgiving?). When I finally noticed the word "creamed", I checked the ingredients and thought it might be what I was looking for. Mother served many vegetables "creamed"... carrots, peas, and sometimes creamed potatoes. I cut the ingredients for the sauce in half, though, because I just wanted enough to coat each slice, not enough so the turnips are floating in it like soup. Also, the recipe said boil the sliced turnips for 5 minutes, pour off the water, cover them with fresh water, and cook another five minutes. I didn't do that, because I was sure my mom didn't.
I told Cliff I finally found a way to make Mother's creamed turnips, and he took a small bite. Then he took another BIG bite, and about four more. "Yeah, I'd eat that," he said. Now that amazed me.
We've had three lovely autumn days, counting today, with highs around 60. Tomorrow sounds like the same sort of day. Nice days to hang all the clothes out on the line. There's just the right amount of breeze, and the sun is shining.
Enjoy this lovely time of year, won't you? I will get back to a regular blogging schedule eventually, I'm sure.
Your friend,
Donna
