Monday, January 8, 2018

Rod's Reflections for the Entire Year of 2017

I only thought the year 2016 was slow.  Far be it any one particular reason or a collection of many, my heart has not been in sharing things occurring in my immediate moments as reflected in many past postings.  They are there, mind you, but it seems a burden to write them and then post them on facebook.  Here I sit at home nursing a cold just five days short of my 7th decades 8th year birthday realizing there may be a handful of things I could gleen and share on my blog.  For those of you who read Alaskan Gold, you know I never finished it.  Thing is, I have visited that "mother lode" three more times since then and not a word of history was recorded.  Oh, me, the treasures we take with us to the grave if we fail to leave a written record for someone distant to take into their heart, your treasures.  So here goes.  Let me see how far back in facebook I can go and see what I can find to
share.


February 2017

Amazing the friends you gather throughout a lifetime. As I walked out to take my grand daughter to high school this morning, my mockingbird greeted me with his beautiful voice. Yes, my heart is down so he was right on time to lift me up. I am going to miss you Jerry! What an impact you made on my life the few short years I had the privilege of knowing you! There are too many. Just too many as the days continue to sift like sand through the hour glass of time. But it is our turn now.
                                           In Memory of Jerry Emile Breithaupt
                                             April 2, 1943  --- February 7, 2017
Posted February 8, 2017




I am a public servant for the city of Pineville. Like the fire department and police department I wear a uniform. I interact with the public daily in my work, taking pride in speaking to, acknowledging everyone I come into close proximity with. Nothing like Merry Christmas, happy new, Veterans Day, whatever. But folks? Forgive me, but walking past a male figure and telling him happy Valentine's Day just seems very difficult for me to do! So, to all of my gender specific friends out there? You know! Have a happy one.

February 14, 2017




I was raised to be a southern gentleman. My father taught me how to shake hands before I was 10 years old. To open doors for women, ladies or "older people," to include the car door of my daddy's car when I had a date with someone's daughter. Simply stated, to conveniently be of assistance to anyone that I happened by that may by chance need help with almost anything. A simple practice of courtesy? Yes. That's it. Well, today for instance, the dawning of the last remaining... chapters of my life defined the first few paragraphs. I was making the City of Pineville's bank deposit at on of the larger banks across the river in Alexandria. As I moved to exit the building, a well dressed younger woman stepped in front of me and opened the door for me. I laughed and told her, "it is my job to open the door for you!" She smiled and followed me out the door as we made our ways to our respective cars when it dawned on me?!? Still within speaking distance, I spoke to her one more time. "You know something, you just made me realize I am truly an aging senior citizen now! Thank you again for the door. After all it is official, I received my first social security check yesterday!" She just laughed and I went back to my office to check my blood pressure and blood sugar level.

February 17, 2017



March 2017

Paige, Your mother wanted me to text you and let you know she has a dead cell phone. It will not recharge or function. If you need her call your aunt Paula or Jansen. If they can't answer your questions then call Kennard. Our house phone is an option but I wouldn't bet on it as We never answer it. You could call my phone but I have caller ID so if I see it is you, I probably won't answer it. I am hoping you can make it a couple of days until her new phone arrives. You can find her at Super 1 over on the bypass tomorrow after half of your kids go to school. Do not just show up at our house as I have Ebola Cocca Pneaixier which is highly contagious and can kill kids, age 10 and under very quickly. Love, Dad!




May 2017


Not only is she beautiful but she is getting stronger every day. This is my baby sister, Nona.







June 2017

Looks like the tides have turned darkness! Now I'm the one giving out instruction and pointing directions!













I was visiting with the Ferguson Family during June of this year.  Every summer month gives resident Alaskans time to prepare for the coming winter.  Stewart rented a splitter and we spent a good part of the day splitting logs and stacking the cord wood.  Where he did most of the lugging and heavy lifting, he enjoyed a few photos of him directing his old man in what I was to do with these logs!!

Posted in June of 2017




Beautiful morning to start your day in. Nice brisk walk with Sarah, my daughter in law amongst the hills and valleys of her neighborhood. Yes, I thought about a med-flight a couple of times but managed the last hill without any kind of cardiac infarction.


Posted June 8, 2017





I am leaving DFW for New Orleans sitting in a window seat next to a very pretty, just graduated high school senior from California. She of course is sitting next to me and the isle seat is empty. I told her I get sick real easy and always throw up in the isle when I'm sitting in that seat. She asked if I wanted to move there and I said no. I tell her that looking out the window sometimes keeps me from getting sick. She has not moved!  I just can't help myself sometimes.

Posted June 14



August 2017

Interesting short story.  I visit my primary care physician on July 13th. You are losing weight he says! I walk 12 to 15 miles a week I tell him. Keep up the good work he says. Anything else? My legs have Edema. Fluid he says, take this lasicks and I'll set you up with a cardiologist! July 31 I see my old cardiologist for the first time since 2010. He said, ya got some time for some test? I said, I reckon so! The games began. EKG or EEG? Get em mixed up. Then they body slam me on a table and put this sonogram on my chest, complete with baby lotion. Neat I said, is that a alive in there? Yup, she said! Dang, I said, wiggles a lot in there, glad I can't feel it or it would aggravate me to death! Again she said yup. Then they stick this needle in my hand and flush it with saline and inject some nuclear medicine through it. Gonna hurt , I asked? Nope, he said, be still for 10 minutes with your hands above your head while this thing takes pictures of your heart. I stated to him, this means I'm radioactive? He said yup, just A little. After this we jump on a tread mill he said it will only take 6 minutes. I said, I walk 12 to 15 miles a week. He smiled and keep increasing the speed and grade until my heart rate reached 131 BEATS PER SECOND!! More nuclear meds in the hand port and back for another 10 minutes of heart pictures with my hands above my head. Do you know your tongue can actually reach your belly button? *sigh* after all of this, I am told they are going to fit me with a holster! I asked, how did yaw know I carried concealed ? I then told them I had a good holster but I appreciated the offer! Another nurse said, this holster is for a 24hour heart monitor. Ya gotta bring it back tomorrow after 11Am. Oh!! Couple of observations here. Diodes. Know what they hook them to? All 7,000 of them? Real sticky things they stick on your chest! After they wax off the hair I cultivated for 66 years with a dull razor. The 24 hour heart monitor thingy? Only 7 diodes but those sticky patches? No wax on wax off! Push 4 of them into the uncultivated hair. I thought, God?! He said, don't have to worry about pulling them off for 24 hours, so I went back to work. Know how fast 24 hours passes? In the rest room of city hall I tear these E6000 glued on patches from my chest complete with skin the hair once grew in! I placed the monitor, and what looked like my scalp into a baggie and presented it to them on time. Tuesday they call me! Congrats. You passed the treadmill. Two hours later they call from the same office and say congrats, we found nothing with the nuclear medicine stuff! I smile. Told them I walk 12 to 15 miles a week! And then Thursday comes. Rod, they said? Yes, I replied. The monitor you wore for 24 hours showed some inconsistencies and the Doctor wants to do a heart cath to see what's going on! We will check scheduling and call you back tomorrow and tell ya when. I said, you have the wrong number. She laughed and hung up. Friday came, so did Saturday and Sunday. Monday and Tuesday came and no calls. I know I was fine. Prolly was more a case of wrong patient than wrong number. So Wednesday, august 9 at 1245 pm in the middle of my PBJ crackers, my blue tooth announces an incoming phone call. I said, hello, and she said, hello darlin! So at 5 am or just 5 short snores from now, I will climb out of bed, put on clean pannies and rush over to the surgery center on Bolton avenue and see a friend who is have a knee replaced. Then I fast forward to Cabrini Hospital day surgery where I will have my heart cath performed as to ascertain what is obviously a mistake by a faulty 24 hour monitor that expressed incomprehensible data when I turned on the microwave to heat my peach oatmeal! Did I tell you I walk 12 to 15 miles a week? Hmmm. Hope these cardiologist don't have a weekly stint quota!!

Posted August 10, 2017



On August 10 I reported to Cabrini Hospital for my heart cath.  I knew when I went in there would be nothing discovered by the procedure.  I was that confident.  Upon completion, however, they informed me I needed three possibly four, bypass graphs or open heart surgery.  I was incensed.  I was in the best shape I had been for years.  I knew what angina pain was.  I had angioplasty done to my left interior descending or the widow maker in 1993.  Here I am with no pain when I walk 6 miles in 105 degree heat index?   I re-hydrate and keep going.  No way I needed this stuff.   I wanted to go home.  The surgeon comes in and tells me.  If you want to go home, I will not stop you.  In fact, I will not even be upset with you.  If you are lucky, however, you will feel some angina, faintness or weakness and you will come back and let me take care of your problem.  If you are less lucky, you are going to have a heart attack and damage will be done to the heart muscle I cannot repair.  In worst case scenarios, your heart will stop and you will be dead when you hit the ground.  It happens to many times.  In your case, this can be avoided.

I guess you can imagine what was going through my mind.  I could not believe I was at this intersection in my life.  I still had too much to live for.  Didn't I?  Linda was crying, and I am flushed with anger and deeply concerned at the same time. I thought about my Dad in 1966 having a stainless steel valve placed in his heart that gave him another 30 years of life.  My mother who had bypass surgery that gave her years of life and my oldest sister why had undergone two open heart surgeries in her 72 years of life.  Did not my baby sister just a few weeks before this have two stints placed in her heart?  For some reason, I took a back seat to my desire of going home and relented.   From here on, is a recoup of messages collected mainly by Linda of the next few days.


Getting ready for surgery by noon today.  Rod is a bit apprehensive, so please pray for peace in his heart.

Posted 11 August before surgery by Linda


Four bypasses done and his chest is being closed now!  Thank you Jesus for a successful surgery!

Posted 11 August after my surgery by Linda.

Day 2 post op finally dawns and Linda post on facebook, "Hallelujah, The tubes came out and he is feeling better all ready."  What she didn't tell you was this cute Red Head Nurse Practioner came in with a rather healthy looking guy and she said, "Mr. Ferguson, we are taking the tubes out this morning.  It may be a little uncomfortable but you will be glad to get rid of them."  Tubes. Drain tubes.  One under my lungs and the other under my heart placed there in surgery to make sure excess blood would properly drain from my chest cavity!  Here we go.  She grabs one and starts this slow pull.  Words I cannot print in my blog came to my mind!  I thought for sure my heart was on the end of the last one she pulled from the deep recesses of my soul!  Oh yes.  Hallelujah!  I do not want to go through that again without being under anesthesia!!

All of this was done a scant hour or two after the first walk since surgery.  Oh my.  Have I mentioned they want me to have a bowel movement?  Dear Lord.  Help them to understand that if I have a catheter, a bowel movement is the last thing on my mind?

Posted August 13


Man with a purpose! All the tubes and catheter are out, shaved, and spit bath done! Feeling refreshed finally...  Bowel movement!  Then you can go home!  Every meal they are forcing
 








I actually felt pretty good when this picture was taken.  I lived in four hour intervals which was when they fed me food and gave me oxycodone that helped me exist comfortably during these four hours segments.  Of course this was augmented with dilaudin which was administered intravenously.  During my feed and drug sessions they introduced milk-of-magnesia into my diet.  You need to have a bowel movement they said.  You can go home when you have a bowel movement, they said.  I ate, took and dealt with what ever they gave me but noticed when meal time drew near, I asked for my oxycodone because it was making me nauseated...  Imagine that.

This picture was taken by Linda on August 14. 


My first chance to respond to my friends that had kept up with me the last few days. I would like to share with all of you my sincere appreciation for your concerns and your continued prayers. What an interesting trip thus far. And thank you God, for allowing me to continue! Oh, did I tell you that I walk 12 to 15 miles a week?  In the wee morning hours of day 3 post op, they introduced some kind of nuclear laxative.  It was in a small glass container and the RN told me to do what I could with it because, as he said, it taste awful.  I drank half the contents with him watching at breakfast. He told me when I have a bowel movement they would let me go home.  Oh cheers!  Lunch came and I was feeling ill from the oxycodone when I finished the rest of the nuclear laxative.  The clock was ticking and something deep inside sent my mind a message saying, soon! 


He was true to his word.  Within 2 hours of this surprise, the picture here was taken.  A short 50 some odd hours of having my chest opened and four grafts placed on my aging heart to give me move time on this earth, I am being sent home...
Waiting for the wheelchair so we can head home!!
 









So here I am, getting ready to go home!

Posted September 15, 2017


He's had a tough day today. Lots of pain and mood swings! He's hanging in there cause we know better days are coming!! We both appreciate all your prayers and comments to us. Thank you all for your friendship!!!  Linda has been very good at keeping our friends updated on facebook.  I was in pain and mood swings was Linda's was of saying I was not a good patient.  The Oxycodene was making me sick.  I could not rest well and nothing she put in front of me seemed to work including the outdated soup.  I actually felt better when I was in the hospital and just could not understand what was going on and when would I ever start feeling better?  The idea of taking the Oxycodene for pain made me shiver and actually went as long as I could before I would take one.  I was again at an intersection I did not want to entertain.  Hurt or not hurt, eat or not eat.  Regardless, I could not sleep and every minute turned into an hour. As the 10pm hour of the 16th approached, the worse fear I had gripped me as my mouth began to salivate.  I grabbed my red heart pillow and headed for the closest restroom.  I carefully placed this pillow between my stitched chest and the rim of a toilet seat and started to throw up.   I don't ever remember any pain that was worse. I simply could not control myself.  I do not remember when the 16th of August turned to the 17th, but I do know it finally came.

Posted August 16, 2017
When Day 6 of post op came, it made a promise to me it would take its time to pass.  When I realized that I was not going to die, I told Linda I had to go to the emergency room for help. 2 am Thursday August 17. Do you know we can make the 20 minute drive from our house in 12 minutes? To Cabrini ER? Rodney has been nauseated most of the day. Started throwing up about 10 pm. and finally agreed he needed to go to the ER at 2am. Ekg and nausea shot has been done. Having a-fib again. 3am and waiting to see what's next!  I can't remember exactly what happened when we got to the emergency room other than me pleading for help to stop the dry heaving and pressure on my chest.  I seriously wondered if the power of these convulsions would break the grafts placed on my heart that was in and out of A-Fib.  Somewhere along a post 3am nightmare, something was given me for nausea and an Dilauden was again introduced to my system along with saline to help eliminate the pain that had consumed my body.  I thank God I finally drifted off to sleep.  My new pain medicine?  Hydrocodone. 

We're back home with a change in his pain meds and additional nausea meds. After running several test they came to this conclusion! Only after I told them more than once that it's the pain medicine. Don't have a medical degree but I know pretty much the symptoms. Doctors just don't listen!! 

After this experience I truthfully tell you that the hour I left that emergency around 10am on Thursday, the 17th of August, my healing actually started.  I want to tell you that the healing progress from that moment could be measured in hour increments , but for sure every day and for that I am thankful.

Posted August 17, 2017 


 
 


Posted August 18 by my wife, Linda.



 
Awakened this morning day 17 post-op. At my request, Linda prepared a light breakfast of oatmeal and roast beef. Yes, I am a finicky eater! I raised the window in my bedroom and have laid back into the comforts of my pillows, listening to the steady pelting of rain from Tropical Storm Harvey. How could I dare complain about my misfortunes as I get stronger every day, while there are so many that have lost everything as a result of this storm that is now comforting me?? Where the peace of falling rain comforts me, I am reminded that in my present state of contentment, I find a sense of guilt knowing that my "now" should not even be mentioned in the same cogitated thought process that so many are suffering in physically, emotionally and spiritually!! I just cannot logically embrace their state of mind as yet another day plays out her conscious moments in each of us as she moves to put every experience we find our self engaged, in our soon to be distant past.

Posted August 28, 2017






September 2017

Ate a few spare ribs with my friends Steve and Sheryl Bell up in Downsville in Union Parish. Linda killed a million love bugs going up and tried to kill me when we got back to Pineville! Idiots do run stop lights! Just glad Linda's reflexes were fast enough to keep us from being hit!
 

Friendships that last a lifetime are well worth cultivating.  The most productive gardens are worth the time you have remaining.  And yes, those are pork ribs. Labor day spent with a long time friend and his family in Downsville, LA is priceless. 

Posted September 4, 2017




At four weeks post op, I had already built my strength up to walking close to 4 miles again.  I felt wonderful.  I boarded a plane in New Orleans, LA and spent the next 2 weeks in Fairbanks, AK with my son and his beautiful family.





October 2017

As I made the deposit for the city of Pineville I could not help but notice this moth. A green moth. A tiny green moth. Only other green moth I have ever seen was a Luna moth 50 times larger than this one. I don’t know why but I was amazed by the color, size and the unexpected presence of this tiny creature. Yes, that is my thumb.

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For some reason this moth intrigued me.  Caused me pause to look closer and ask why God stopped me from my routine to sorta, gawk?  And I still ask myself, just why, I felt it important enough to share with people on my wall?  I only had 1 share and 7 likes. 

Posted October 4, 2017





I gave her the pressure washer and told her I wanted KBear to go away!!  This is my oldest granddaughter, Mckinzi.  I had printed Kbear into my dirty driveway with my pressure washer and asked her to make it go away.  If you want to know what this child has been in my life, find the time to read that short story I posted in January of 2014.  It is called Dawning Truth.

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I called this child Kinzi Bear for years after she was born and call her Kbear today.  Until I pass from this earth, she will always be my Kbear.  What a blessing.  She lives with us most of the time and is in her senior year. 

Posted October 15, 2017






Garret finally got to the meat and he is happy! Gabby it holding over the best she can muster! I need two cats and a couple of pit bulls to clean the floor after they eat! Still can’t watch them sometimes but my new heart tune up makes it a lot more tolerable!
 


Upon reflection three months later, I must admit I should be grateful they can litter my floor with what God has blessed me with.

Posted October 17, 2017





December 2017

Earth’s closest satellite presents herself a scant 24 hours after her super moon debut on December 4... Rising at 65° on the horizon, her radiance painted the clouds in a milky white while accenting the dark branches of my bare Natchez White Crepe Myrtles. The soft prayers of insects surrounding the near distant reaches of my home is the background music of further distant urban noises of traffic, barking dogs and the soft vacuum sounds of crowded airliners passing over me ...at altitudes 5 to 7 miles. I think of someone looking down from that altitude with their face placed against a window as they see the mass of central Louisiana lights and wonder what city they pass over. Pretty much the same way I stared at the lights of a solitary house sitting in some remote Montana spread, wondering if some unknown person was turning their head upward as to locate the flashing strobes of my passing airliner as we disturbed his peaceful existence. I breath deeply now as I prepare to go inside while listening as the soft breeze makes the pine needles sing as it passes through. Did I mention it is beautiful out here tonight?
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Posted December 4 from my home.




Linda Sent me an email a couple of weeks ago of an email I sent to my sisters and other select friends, December 24, 2008.   I was actually a Sunday School Teacher at Donahue Family Church at the time and I was totally unaware of this until Linda forwarded to me.  Though I would include it 9 years later in my December 2017 blog entry. 


TO:  My Sisters and their Family, Sunday School Class Members and their family, selected friends and their family
 
FROM:  Well, you figure that out.
 
Ah yes...  I do exist on the eve of my 57th Christmas realizing that memories of the first Christmas and possible second one along with the third or fourth is probably erased forever...  However I do recall bits and pieces of those early Christmas days in a two bedroom house at 308 Georgia Street in Monroe, LA.  Santa came every year and the smell of tangerines/oranges to this very day takes me back to that snapshot in time.  Always cowboy guns or something big and lots of boxes of those easy to peal tangerines, oranges and other fruit there under that tree.  Actually got my first bike there as well as experiencing my first  White Christmas!  That stuff is so fun and awful!  I remember dressing for half a day just to spend 10 minutes in that stuff?   Goodness... Snow in the south. Sounds good but can really do without it.
 
Then our family moved to 413 Beasley Street and that big house into I guess a real blue collar neighborhood.  Now those were great times!  I even looked forward to getting clothes as a Christmas present.  It was there that nieces and nephews entered the picture and oh my goodness those wonderful Christmas Dinners at Momma's house.  Alwa;ys Mommas house now...  Daddy just lived there.  This is where we grew up by the way..  Well three of us did, one was grown before we left Georgia street if I remember correctly, but any way, it got to the point that big ole place was just too small for all of us.  Amazing how those sweet nieces and nephews grow into big people!  *gack*  Always wondered why they didn't go somewhere else.  But oh those Christmas days.  We sit around in the living room while someone plays Santa and gives out all the gifts!  How did Dad always afford gifts for everyone?  Even when our family continued to grow!!  And grow we did.  Right out into our own homes with our own families.  
 
Mom and Dad passed away and 413 Beasley Street became the property of someone else.  308 Georgia Street, Somerset, Faith Drive, Azalea Court East and whatever that street Nona and Paul lives on became the gathering places of those that use to gather at Mommas house.  The sound of little naked feet slapping on wood and tile and the excited voices of our children faded over the years in these new gathering places they too called mammas house even though daddy just lived there!  New voices and the shuffle of padded feet in fancy pajamas and carpet introduced themselves to us every year!  Goodness, are we blessed or what as those that called us momma and daddy were now being called mom and dad?  Hey, i've adjusted well to my new name.  To those that choose to use it anyway.
 
And as we grew the cornerstones of 308 Georgia Street became the foundations in different places but always with the same memories.  New life, new memories, generations becoming newer generations build on these new foundations called mommas house until those cornerstones began their own foundation? Are we really in the Winter of our life?  And as we gathered and gather still we have been so blessed to have shared with those we so loved.  Those that have gone on before us.  Those that we love  that are far away or doing things differently than we did when we were them.  Our spouses becoming our best friends?  Mine sure has...
 
The laughter.  The memories.  Family.  We do all of this every year without the fan fare of Angelic choirs on that first Christmas morning in Bethlehem complete with the stench of manure and urine that existed that 2000 years ago in that barn half a world away.   Since then He has been at every Christmas gathering we have celebrated and stood alone against the wall smiling at us as the smell of dressing filled the house.  Always has he been there for us in our times of sadness and sorrow.  Oh my, how I wish I had taught that to my kids more and more as they grow older.  I no longer influence their life or decisions.  But I'm still in momma's house.  I just live there now. . 
 
I love you all. 
 
Happy Birthday, Jesus
 
Rod Ferguson