Birthday

Happy Birthday to me!  Well today is my 50th birthday a real milestone in life. A day of reflection to say the least.  I am not having any mid life crisis or anything but I am reflecting on my life so far....  Births, School, Weddings, Divorce, Childrens life events, Injuries and Deaths.  I guess anyone of us can insert the names and dates into these events to make them relevant. 

Going backward, I will make an effort to visit my parents and grandparents today.  It will be a walk through the cemetary, but I am still going there.  Carole volunteers there, so I guess she has a better connection than I do.

The "injury" is just part of my life now.  I don't really have any lasting effects from it.  I do still have some tingling in the tips of my right hand and in the bottom of my right foot.  But, it doesn't bother me and it's been the same for the last several years.  I do have a much greater sense of brain injuries and people that do.  Your brain is important take care of it!  One of my sons friends has had three concussions and he is only 17.  Not good....

Under the children heading, I have had them move out, move back, have girl friends, go to college, graduate high school, attend proms etc.  I guess the politicly correct term is "significant others".  None are married and there are no grandchilren at this point, but they are all well rounded, grounded, hard-working, handsome young men with skills.  As a dad I am very pround of that, feels like my greatest acheivement....

The end of one chapter and the first day of........

Hallelujah,

Today we ended the tree saga. I hadn't spoke about it much before, but we had a lawsuit pending against the county. My wife was advised after the accident that she should consult a lawyer about our situation. Bob, as he will be called, came well recommended, she met with him, time went along, we both met with him after I got out of the hospital and he did some digging.. Ok, a lot of digging.

Depositions, investigations, medical records and a bunch more time passed. If you didn't remember I got hurt on Sept. 25, 2007.

They made a couple of offers, all below what we were asking, but offers none the less. We, our lawyer included hoped that they were beginning to realize that some mistakes were made. Bob told us more than once that we were not whiners and we told him that we would be patient. We weren't going anywhere I guess. Our arrangement said he didn't get any money until we did......

We even still have the tree limb in the barn.

Bob and his associates have racked their brains and told us that they could not come up with a way to force this to trail, even though he wanted to get us in front of a jury. In my mind there were some problems. Today, 2 1/2 years later I don't look like I got injured, and I probably never did. I guess it's hard to look like you have a brain injury unless it affecting everything else you do in life. Thank the good lord it didn't.......

I told my wife after I got out of the hospital I should have had a bandage around the top of my head so at least I looked injured. I don't remember anymore today than I did the week after the accident but my wife and sons have filled me in on most of the details and I have related most of them here for me to look back on later I guess.

So, were is all of this going.... Today, the 31st of March 2010, we received a small settlement from the counties insurance co. Less than we were asking, but more than we didn't have and some compensation for our lawyers time. And yes I'm glad it's DONE.

I don't appear to have any too large of lasting scars or problems I can't deal with. The emotional scars are there for all of us, myself, my wife and my kids. The accident, the situation, the time spent in the hospital give you a new outlook on life, friends, family and god. So take that into consideration the next time you are thinking about falling out of a tree onto your HEAD.

The trees are gone, there is a new fence and I'm alive, all good things. My motto today is "I'm happy to be here."

I would like to include a couple of peoples names that have done right by us through this whole ordeal. Bob, Dr. Loftus, Dr. Gross, Dr. Spinks, Dr. Bradshaw, the rehab. people at CRMC St. Joes and Upstate, Mercy flight, TFD, the Methodist church, and our friends and family.

vacation

This year we went to Ill. in July for a vacation and to see my wife's family, her mother and her father who was in a hospital near Chicago. Over the last six months he has been in one hospital, a nursing home, home for a couple of weeks, back to the hospital and then to a wound care center for treatment of a bed sore that he got at the nursing home... During this whole time he had not been eating very well and has lost a lot of weight unfortunately and he didn't have it to lose. They were giving him some appetite enhancing medicine which was helping imminencely and he was hungry all the time. During our time there, we usually try to do some things around the house that haven't been getting done for a variety of reasons. We fixed some lights, a toilet that wasn't working right, some spindles for the ramp we built the last time and new carpeting for the kitchen to cover up the bad looking old floor. We caught up with her brothers and their families too. On the last day, for excitement, we rode the subway from the airport to a White Sox baseball game. It was awesome for all of us, and we had good seats too.

All in all we had a good time, the planes worked out right and the rental car was more than we could have asked for. It was good to see her family, even though her father is not good and in the hospital.

barn and call

They tore our former dairy barn down this week. I stood on my lawn and took some pictures and quite honestly tried not to dwell on it too much. A lot of things come into play here though. The barn had been added on to several times and had a few things that made it not to useful. Many places made for serious challenges, the layout and the height in some places made it important to use the right kind of equipment inside. I did think about my ancestors a bit here. My grandparents, my parents and others built that place over three different times from the 30's to the 70's. And today it's gone. Well it will be really interesting to see what develops for a new facility over the next several weeks. I am sure that even though it will cost, for the long run it will be much more useful.
On a different topic, two of the different jobs that I perform have different ways of dealing with people. The team leader position at work is a motivating, quarterbacking, training position. I'm not the boss or do I want to be. The assistant fire chief position is different. It's still a leadership position, I have to make decisions, lead the team and deal with the people problems. I'm sure that your wondering were this is going. I couple of night ago, I get to a simple rescue call and on the front porch of the house when I get there, two firemen are nose to nose arguing. The EMT's were taking care of the problem and I tried to diffuse these two guys. One guy, a commissioner, an officer, didn't want the other guy there because he said he didn't live in the district. The other guy, hadn't done anything wrong, said he lived with his father during the week to get a ride to work and his mother on the weekends. To make this thing work what the chief on the scene says has got to go. There is just no other way. I'll talk to the CHIEF and we'll deal with it. It was not a good situation to be a part of.

breathing is a good thing

Yesterday just for fun...I had a septoplasty, they fixed my deviated septum. My snoring was getting unbearable to my wife and it was time.
They told us when I got moved from the fifth floor at Upstate to the rehab floor that I had a broken nose. It would have been nice if they had fixed it while I was laid up and in the hospital a year and a half ago, but I know there were bigger things to worry about. So, I wanted to get it done at some point. The insurance co. decided that it would cover it too, per the pervious injury. A bonus....
I jumped through all the paperwork, the blood tests, the ekg and more paperwork and a couple of different doctors. I this process I saw a PA at the ENT office who looked up peoples noses for a living. UGH.. Well I guess she wouldn't want to breed cows for a living either.
In my conversation with the anesthesologist I told him my biggest concern. It was simple, I just wanted to wake up aferward... I simple request.
The hospital called and wanted me to come in early. I did and they pushed me along an hour early. No waiting. I woke up as planned, a little grogy though. They told my wife I had hives really bad during the surgury and they think I was allergic to Kaflex. In a couple of hours I went for a Wopper and then I spent the rest of the day resting with this weird bandage under my nose to catch the ozzing and their is some packing up there too. Beleive it or not I'm seeing the doctor on Saturday morning to take this packing out. I'm really stuffed up, but the doctor's office says it's just the packing. My nose is a little swelled up too. The doctor wasn't sure how straight he could get it, but he said he could scrap the cartilige from the inside and I could go back to work in 5 days. They get this packing out and I'll feel alot better. I don't have black eyes, but I feel like I have a bad cold. I'll decide next week how I made out, but I am sure that the breathing will be better 24 hours a day.

Tuesday night

Just a simple Tuesday night. I had got my new truck outfitted with all the fire stuff (radio's, red lights and headlight flashers) and then what was bound to happen happened. We had a house fire. I suited up and rolled down the road and was the second to arrive. As it turned out I was in command too and it was ripping. Soon after I got there, our rescue went to a car accident on our road. I didn't give it a lot of thought, I had enough to worry about... About an hour into the whole thing one of the other chiefs came up to me and said it was my wife in the accident and she was going to the hospital. I took a few minutes went and called the hospital. They connected me to her and she assured me she was OK just alittle banged up and sore. I took a minute to thank the lord and went back to the fire. The brotherhood was at full strength and one of the other fireman's wife's was at the hospital with her. I felt better already. The crew that I was leading was doing an awesome job and the fire went out, the house is repairable and nobody got hurt. I huge bonus. Well, as it turns out she was getting home a few minutes after I left. She slowed to pull in our driveway, a left turn and got hit Tboned if you will, by a firemen going to the house fire, who passed on the left. The sheriff on the scene asked if she needed a tow and she said she laughed and said she was in our driveway. He goes oh you live here.... So now she's filling out forms up the _____. I hope in the short run we will get enough money out of the insurance company's to replace it. Just another Tuesday night.

Life events

Sometimes I just write about stuff. Life things I guess.. A few things going on in my life. I'm working on getting my nose bored out, router routered I guess. I sleep fine as far as I'm concerned, but my wife says sometimes it's noisey, really noisey, almost unbearable, in her words. The Dr. says they can certainly open it up, because the one side is almost closed.. We didn't know it at the time of the accident,but several weeks after the fact they mentioned it. I wasn't concerned about, they had bigger things to worry about. Unfortunatly, if had it had been taken care of at the time the insurance co. wouldn't have made us jump through so many hoops. But, I think we'll get there, maybe in May.

I got a new to me used truck this week, which is cool. The last one I had, had 203,000 miles on it and it was time to move on. I drive about 35,000 miles a year for work, so I need something dependable for sure. Me and my son spent 2 hours taking my fire stuff out of the old one, radios, lights etc. Today I arranged for a company to put it all back in the new truck for me. It seemed like the right thing to do, so I know that it will work right when they get done. I'm on my fourth truck in March of 09. Two ford rangers and now the second Dodge dakota, the first three had over 200,000 miles. That truck is my office and I live in it daily while I'm at work. These are life things, not life changing, but like the song " sounds like life to me".