Ups and Downs, but mostly Ups

There's been a lot happening here since I last wrote in March. Hard to believe it is now mid-April!

We had to make a second trip to Anchorage a couple of weeks ago. Rich had a scary incident in which he had a great deal of back pain, could hardly stand or walk, and was shaking uncontrollably.  I drove him to the clinic, where they rushed him back to the trauma room and hooked him up to all sorts of monitors. I think they were afraid he was having a heart attack and said his heart was beating very fast.  They stabilized him quickly and said it was not his heart, thankfully.  However, they wanted him to go back to Anchorage for further evaluation since his white cells were up again and obviously something was going on.  We again had bad weather and flew out the next day, back to Alaska Regional, where this time the diagnosis was "infectious colitis."  There's no way of knowing if it was related to the pancreatitis or just a nasty coincidence.  We were sent to a hotel for a few more days, he was put on a regimen of two heavy duty antibiotics and given a note to stay off work for 10 days.  We mostly laid around in the hotel but we did get out and walk a couple of times.  Here's something we saw on one of our strolls around downtown Anchorage.

So we came home and I went back to work and back to teaching classes while Rich had a little bit of a medically imposed vacation at the house.  Not that he was feeling all that great to call it a vacation. The bad thing about antibiotics (well, one of the bad things!) is that they can have lots of side effects and make you feel terrible, which is exactly what he went through for the next couple of weeks. Though he is back to work now and feeling much better, I wouldn't say he's 100% yet.  Hopefully this will all soon be well behind him.

Meanwhile, we bought a house in Dallas!  Our son in law Miles' parents live there and decided to design and build a new home for themselves. Back around the holidays, it was almost jokingly suggested that we buy their house. As they used to say on "Seinfeld," "yada, yada, yada, now we are homeowners."  The "yada, yada" allows me to skip over the months of frustration that we endured from mortgage companies, banks, retirement programs and the ridiculous requirements of the Patriot Act.  :)  Be thankful I am sparing you all the details!   But eventually it was all worked out, whew!  We are renting back to Miles' parents for a few months and then we will be renting it out till we are ready to settle down.  Still not sure when that will be, but I think we are more and more ready to consider moving after Rich's health episodes in remote Alaska with limited medical care.

And this sweet boy had his 11th birthday at the end of March.  He was the first to come into this world and make me a grandmother and what fun we have had with him ever since.  Happy belated birthday to our Aidan, who's great at riding dirt bikes, putting together Lego designs of all types and complexity, and putting up with Gigi hanging all over him. :)  We love you, Aidan, and miss you lots! Can't wait till our summer adventure!

 Speaking of grandkids, we're having TWO more!  Bonnie and David are expecting their third in August and Sarah and Miles are expecting their third in October!  We are very happy, especially since we thought we were finished having grandbabies.  So exciting!

Winter might have had its last stand, though we are never sure. It's sunny one day and snowing the next. But I've seen a few little flowers emerging in the yard, always a good sign.