Gee

In loving memory of Evelyn “LaVern” McDonald, or known by me as Gee.

Date of Birth
December 9, 1923 in Talpa, TX
Date of Death
October 19, 2009 in Plano, TX

Gee called me on Sunday and said she needed me to come over and I said “what’s wrong” and she said “I can’t get up and I can’t get down and they want me to go the hospital but I just want you to come over here”. So I told her I had been out in the barn with the horses so I needed to change clothes and I would head that way then she says “well make sure you put your face on before you come up here”. LOL I called Wilson and told him I was going over there but it wasn’t anything serious because she is concerned about my hair and make up. Then when I got there she was just sitting in her wheelchair and needed me to help her get dressed. She went to the bathroom and brushed her hair and then said she needed to go to the ER. I said why didn’t you let them take you earlier when they wanted too and she said “because if they (meaning her apartment) call for me the ambulance will come and get me and they will make me stay but if you take me they will just give me some medicine and let me come home”. I said “that’s not really how it works but load up”.
Well I had the rental truck because someone hit Wilson and totaled my Maroon F-150. We had already bought Wilson a new truck but I still had the rental and it was brand new so why not drive it. Well the rental didn’t have step sides on it so we couldn’t get her in the truck so she said “call the paramedics”. I called them and they came to get her. While they were helping her from her wheel chair to the stretcher a lady from the lunchroom came walking by with Gee’s lunch. Since she didn’t come down for breakfast and then didn’t come down for lunch they were going to bring it to her. Well Gee see’s the lunch room lady and says “is that my lunch” and the lady said “yes” and was were concerned about Gee but Gee looks at her and says “now I’m going to the Emergency Room and won’t be here for that lunch so you make sure I’m not charged for that”. LOL
This with the “put your face on” comment made me even more believe she was fine but I guess she was just being Gee.
We got to the hospital and she said she had an upset stomach and just wasn’t feeling well. They ran all kinds of tests and during all of this determined that she had a urinary tract infection, which we already knew, but the reason they admitted her is because when they would lay her flat she would become unresponsive. When they did the CAT Scan and the X Rays this happened. We have also known that she has had bad lungs for a while now but if she was sitting up she was fine. I stayed up there until around 5:30 when they said they were going to admit her. Mom said she would stay with her until they got her in a room.
This is the part that gets me. When I left I said “I will be back tomorrow during lunch to check on you but until then you behave”. She looked at me and said “I always know you I can rely on”. I said “I love you” and left. WHY did her last words have to be nice??? Why couldn’t she just been mean to me like always and made this easier for me. I know she is in a better place and she is with my Papa now but I have realized that she realized no matter how mean she was to me or how much she put me down and my Mom down that I was going to come back. That I would always be there because no matter what else she was my Grandma. Why she chose to unleash her fury on Me and Bev is still something I don’t understand but it was so much easier for me when she was just a hateful old lady. I know that sounds horrible but it’s true.
Anyway, they called at about 6 am the next morning asking Mom if she had a Do Not Resistate and Mom said yes and they told her she needed to get up there. We had just been talking to her less than 12 hours ago so Mom didn’t call Phil (he was gone on a camping trip to Lake Texoma with his church group). Mom got there and they had her on a bi-pap machine. Something just to push air into her lungs but not a ventilator. Mom called me and I came up there and I called Phil and told him and they packed up and came home. At first Phil didn’t want to turn off the bi-pap and understandably so, he had just walked into a mine field and we all had had all day to get use to the idea. Finally after talking to MaryNell, Jerry and Michelle he decided that it was best to let her join Papa. The respitory tech came in and turned off the machine, Mom and Phil left because they didn’t want to see her suffer, of course. The Dr’s couldn’t tell us that she would struggle for breath but they also couldn’t say she wouldn’t and they didn’t want to take that chance and I certainly don’t blame them.
Jerry, Michelle, Wilson and I stayed in the room. I didn’t really intend too but it all happened so fast. We all originally said we didn’t want to be in the room and Wilson said he would stay with her because he didn’t want her to be alone. I don’t know how I got so lucky with him but I sure did.
After they turned the machine off it only took about 10 minutes. The doctors had told us it could be anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Her oxygen level fell pretty quick and her heart rate and pulse was not too far behind. She just went to sleep. No suffering.
It was so sad to see all the monitors read “0” when all morning we had been watching those numbers so closely and gasping every time they would fall.
She had taken care of pretty much everything for us, she had prepaid and pre-planned her funeral about a year ago. That made things so much easier for Mom and Phil. Now we are left to decide who gets what and what to do with all of her things.
Mom is doing OK I guess. She won’t stop talking and Wilson says it’s because she doesn’t want to stop and think. The more she is thinking and doing other things she doesn’t have to realize what is really happening. She stayed in San Angleo and her and Cheryl are going to the rodeo this weekend. I am worried about her having to drive back on Sunday. She will be in the car for 5 ½ hours by herself and no where to escape too because that drive is boring as hell.
Phil is not doing so good but he was close to Gee like Mom was with Papa. I have also discovered that she told all of us things that she didn’t tell him. She had talked about death to all of us and mentioned it a couple of times in the last few weeks but never to him. She told us what she wanted to be buried in and how she wanted the service, but never to Phil. I think she tried to shelter him from anything that might hurt him but all of this he has found out in the last couple of days.
It’s been rough. I cried this morning when telling the girl in accounting about an invoice I needed to create. It just hits me and I can’t help it. Wilson said last night “you just look blah” and I started crying and said “I want blah to go away. I’m tired of blah”. But that is exactly how I feel. Not really happy about anything and not really sad about anything. Just blah and I hate that because I don’t feel like I am myself. I have only really found grief once in my life and that was with Papa and I have discovered I don’t really care for it, at all.
Good Lord, I talk about Mom not shutting up and look at me.

Our newest addition

Introducing the newest member of our family. It's a "new to us" 2007 Ford F-150, Texas Edition (whatever that means). We've had it 12 hours and so far I love it. Ha We did find out when we got home last night that there were no tags on the truck, paper or otherwise, so I have to go back tonight to pick up the paper tags. The rental, a 2009 Chevy Silverado, is not due back until Monday so I got me a new truck for the weekend!!!

A day from hell

Last week was no so good.
Well this was our Thursday morning!!! The maroon truck was Wilsons. “Was” is the key word in that sentence. First let me say he is fine. A little sore today but fine. The guy in the white car pulled out in front of him and hit him in the front right tire. Knocked the tire off and sending him into on coming traffic. Instead of hitting the on coming cars he went for the ditch. The white stuff where the tire should be is sand bags covered with chicken wire. They are doing construction on that road and they put that there for flood control.
Needless to say they called today and said the truck is totaled. As you can see the passenger door is closed at the bottom and not at the top. The bed is into the cab,
the tire is missing, the front axel is broken, the windshield is broken, the air bags deployed, etc. Get this - the guy who was driving the other car just got his car back from another accident he had!!!! You could tell he wasn’t all there. When he hit Wilson he
walked over and asked him if he was alright and then said “I have to call my Mom”. He said he never saw Wilson. I felt bad for the guy but he could have seriously hurt my husband. The Highway Patrol gave him a ticket for running a stop sign. It’s a felony
ticket because he caused an accident. I didn’t even know they had felony tickets????
Now we are searching for a new truck, or at least new to us. New trucks are so expensive, hell used ones aren’t cheap. We went and looked last night and I think I am going to have to go and leave Wilson at home. LOL He looks at something and says “I want that one”. I’m like “No, we can’t afford that one” and he replies with “well we can figure it out”. NO WE CAN’T!!! I told him I’m gonna have to just bring home a picture of a truck and say “do you like this one?” and then just have him sign the paperwork. It doesn’t help that the truck they gave us as a rental is a 2009 Chevy Silverado 4 door that is fully loaded. I was scared the insurance company wasn’t even going to pay off the truck but what they are offering right now will pay off the truck and give us about a five thousand dollar down payment so that is not too bad. The only problem we have now is your Wilsons credit. He has no credit which to a dealership is worse than bad credit apparently. That may be a challenge for us.
Guapo is doing better I guess. On Thursday when we finally got home from the wreck Wilson walked out to check on Guapo and he had pulled out his own drain plugs and now there is a huge hole on his shoulder. There is not any skin to stich it to so it’s just going to have to heal on it’s own. I can tell you he is getting more and more irritated by the day at the whole situation. Frankly, I am too but what are ya going to do. He’s my baby and I have to take care of him even if he is a pain in the ass. I think the vet is just going to give us some more antibiotics to put in his grain so hopefully it won’t get infected. **crossing my fingers**
Also on Thursday Wilson got into it with Kevin. Kevin (the ex-wife’s husband) called and said Garrett was sick and Wilson needed to go get him and take him to the doctors. Wilson said “Man, I just got home – I got into an accident this morning and I need to check on a sick horse – can you give me just a minute.” And Kevin said “you just need to man up and be a Dad and go take your son to the doctor”. Now, this is where I would have lost it but Wilson is a much better person than I am because all he did was hang up on him and then call Garrett to see what was going on. I would have told that morally bankrupt piece of shit to kiss my ass and then proceeded over there to show him how I planned to “man up”.
Anyway, the whole story is Lori had gone into labor the day before and they were all at the hospital and Kevin didn’t want to take him to the doctor, his friend Dave couldn’t take Garrett to the doctor and Kevin’s parents (who are in town) couldn’t take Garrett to the doctor so Kevin decided he had no other choice but to call Wilson and when Wilson couldn’t drop everything at that exact second he spewed his “man up”.
I told Wilson what I thought it was from the beginning and come to find out – I was right (I really enjoyed typing that last part). Garrett wasn’t really sick, he just wasn’t getting any attention. They had let him stay out of school the day before and stay the day at the hospital and all the attention was going towards that new baby. Well the next day when they were all going to the hospital and he had to go back to school he decided to say he was sick. Wilson called him and asked him what hurt and Garrett told him his stomach hurt and he couldn’t sit down but his head hurt and his throat hurt and he couldn’t breath. There was just too many things that had nothing to do with each other. He was crying and Wilson could barely understand him. Wilson went and got him and took him to the doctor and they said all he had was “allergies”. After the doctors appointment he went back to school. The sad part about this is – Garrett has just become the extra kid for them. Now they have a baby that is “theirs”. Garrett does a lot of stuff for attention and this is going to be just the beginning of things getting worse. That is just my opinion.
So basically Thursday sucked. LOL
But this too shall pass. It always does and just when I think we have gotten past all the crappy stuff and back on track something else crappy will happen. It’s just life. Guess that’s what makes it interesting. J Better than the alternative.
Onto a happy subject. I went to the baby doctor on Friday. I had to have a procedure done to check and make sure all my tubes were open and ready for business (HSG). They are thank goodness. I think between Wilson and I we have had every test done on the face of the earth and frankly I am ready to get this show on the road. Tomorrow I have to have a blood glucose test done – I guess they are testing for diabities? I have to go in at 8 and have my blood drawn, then drink something and go back 2 hours later to have my blood drawn again. Sounds fun huh?
Our real appointment with Dr. Rodriguez is on the 28th so I will know more then!!!!

This week will be better --- it has to be.