outsidevoice

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A local high school girls basketball coach died last week from complications treating acute leukemia. His students did what most high school kids do in this situation, they spelled out “We Love You Coach [Name]” in styrofoam cups stuffed in the chainlink fench and went about trying to make sense of their own grief and [...]

Late Wednesday night around midnight the phone rang. We knew why the phone was ringing before we even answered it. (And, really? Does anything good EVER end up on the other end of the line when it rings at midnight? No. It doesn’t.) “Hi, Pam? It’s Maurice. Gene has passed.” And there it was. The [...]

My father in law has battled stage 4 lung cancer since a surprising diagnosis in April of this year. A few days ago, after several painful days in the hospital and his blessing, the family started hospice for him and was told it would only be a matter of days before we lost him. It [...]

Hi, Playgroup Dropout readers! Welcome to OutsideVoice. The Swimmy’s pretty damn cute, huh? Yeah. We like her, too. So, my Friday is more Fabulous because it appears my mom has turned the corner. Cautiously. But turned the corner nonetheless. But I will tell you that Thursday did not start out Fabulous (yes, capital “F”). At [...]

This was quite a day. I spent the day at home with The Swimmy today because she woke up with the seasonal cough, sore throat, stuffy head. Because of that, I couldn’t go up to the hospital because I was too afraid to bring any new germs into Mom’s ICU room. About 8am, I was [...]

I have this saying that I seem to use with abandon, “Every day is a new day.” I’m usually using it in a somewhat sarcastic way by giving it as an answer to the question, “How’s work going?” “Well, every day’s a new day.” I believe I’ll retire that phrase after this ordeal. Because, not [...]

Mom was moved to ICU today. When I arrived this morning, her pulse/ox was only at 88 (normal is mid-nineties), which means she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. After a chest x-ray that was ordered “Stat”, we got a radiologist’s report that things hadn’t changed much. Which in this situation was a blessing. Couple that with [...]

Okay, so I’ve missed more than one post in NaBloPoMo. And I might have not told the whole truth as to why. Mom is still in the hospital. It’s been a week as of Sunday. Her pneumonia / infection showed signs of improvement, then it didn’t. She’s going backwards. Whatever antibiotics / anti-fungals / anti-everythings [...]

Seriously. So, my mom has had to go back to the hospital – again. She’s got some mystery infection that is causing problems and they advised my folks to go back to the hospital so that an infectious disease person can evaluate her and run some tests. It seems that even though her white cell [...]