Christmas Cookies

Christmas 2009 draws to a close as I spend Saturday driving my kids from Iowa City to Chicago for them to hop a flight back to Nashville. This holiday season was spent  with the family at my folks place in Van Horne; along with Jared, Haley, Beth, John, Emmett, Christine, Dave, Larry, Lou and my fav GF, Angie.

I was surprised that the remote helicopters I picked for for my kids went off like nobody’s business. They eventually attempted to terrorize my cat, Spengler, but he soon lost interest after several bombing runs. Mucho kudos go out to John and his lofty gift to Jard: one of those mini-digital video cameras. SWEET! A shout-out goes out to my brother-in-law, Dan. If it weren’t for him, neither I, Jared or Haley would actually have their OWN domain name. You ROCK!

New Years Eve was spent playing 5-hours of Rock Band at my theatrical-com-padre Vicki’s house. Ask about her last trip to India. On second thought, DON’T ask her. In the mean time, I’m gonna’ put on some Modest Mouse.

Here’s a few pix from the trip to Chicago. So long, 2009. I hardly knew ya’.

It must have been a freak of nature or a massive aligning of the planets that allowed my University of Iowa Spring Break to coincide with my kids school break. But nevertheless, it did happen and my kids and I were allowed a weeks worth of chilling around my parents house for seven days.

As usual, it was a fairly relaxed week in Van Horne. This was a particularly different Spring Break, as we were getting accustomed to the new life my Mom and step-father, Larry, are getting used to themselves following Mom’s release from the University of Iowa Hospitals.

Haley did what she does best: bake. Not only did she mix together a wonderful pan of brownies, but she slapped together a batch of chocolate chip cookies that barely made it through the night without being entirely consumed. I spent a considerable amount of time in front of my PowerBook G4 laptop; programming a Java-based peer-2-peer Chord network simulator. What? Yeah. I’m a geek. Ask me about it later.

The week ended with the kids and I hooking up with the gaming friends (including Brian and Danuuc) of mine at Gamerz in Cedar Rapids. As has been typical since last October, the night was spent fragging our beloved friends in an all-out competition of Battlefield 2. I’m not sure why we like this particular game so much. Perhaps, it’s the right mix of pace and patience. It’s not the ‘twitch’ game that Unreal Tournament is, and not as mind-numbing as multi-player Quake 3 can be.

Jared held his own, switching teams more often than I switch subjects in the middle of a sentence. Well, that’s an overstatement. As the night wore to a close, both Jared and Haley teamed up with me against a more experienced three-person team. We did just fine as far as I am concerned. Apparently, my daughter is a veteran of Gears of War, so her ‘Medic’ persona worked well with my ‘Support’ and Jared’s ‘Sniper’ perfection.

Now if I can only get a job that pays well enough to fortify a basement full of gaming PC consoles.

We can only hope.

Spent the weekend over at the folks place to see how mom was adjusting to life in the real world. It was good to see her back in her natural environment: napping on the couch.

Mom is a bit uneasy on her feet, although that didn’t keep her from walking around the living room, checking out the snow outside, turning on the fireplace, organizing magazines or flipping through the assortment of Get-Well and Birthday cards sitting atop the entertainment center. Usually, she’s scooting around with a walker which has tennis balls surrounding the normal rubber-feet on the front. That way, she can just walk without having to lift the walker off the ground. I don’t know who thought of that, but its pretty ingenious.

Her sister, Barbara, called Sunday afternoon and they chatted for almost an hour. There’s talk of my sisters coming over during various weekends, to watch over mom while Larry is out bowling or attending an insurance conference. She’s ready to drive, but mom’s lack of upper-body strength means she won’t be able to drive anything without power-steering. Maybe in a couple weeks.

Her appetite is better. Most likely, it’s because she’s no longer on any diet restrictions, so she can munch on as much pineapple as she pleases. She’s stuck with a two-month memory gap, so her natural instinct was to think she needed to be at the office; helping Larry with end-of-the-year financial management of their independent insurance business. When we told her that it had already been done, she shook her head and commented, “I can’t believe it’s been that long.”

Mom doesn’t remember much of the ordeal, which is probably for the best.

Update as of Feb.8, 2008: from Larry Albers
I picked Mary up yesterday afternoon at Vinton and she is now at home from her long escapade in the Hospital. She is managing the home very well with the assistance of a walker, as she is still somewhat unsteady when she is without it. She is doing more on her own by the hour, but still needs rest frequently. It will probably be several more weeks before she can do almost everything independently and with some endurance involved. Meanwhile, I have become “head cook and bottle washer, etc.”, which is better than the alternative.

Again, thank you to all who showed their caring ways with gifts, flowers, food, cards, phone calls, well-wishes, etc. and especially prayers as we are still blessed with her presence.

~Larry Albers
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Latest update as of 1/9/07 @ 11:00p.m.
Finally… a good 24 hours. Spent some time with Mom tonight and she was more alert and talkative than she had been the entire week. She kept saying to herself, “I just need to quit worrying.” When I asked her what about, she replied, “Everything.”

Mom’s mostly worried about my step-father, Larry, and their independent insurance agency in Van Horne, Iowa. I kept reinforcing to her that what she really needed to do was: eat, rest, get healthy. I told her that Larry was doing OK and that their employee, Amy, was doing her best to hold down the fort during Mom’s absence.

Mom had removed her feeding tube all on her own… AGAIN! So, in order for the doctors to NOT replace it, she’s been informed that she needs to eat. She had a little bit of left-over chocolate cake from her evening meal. Mostly, she ate the frosting. I can’t blame her… the cake was kinda’ dry.

Mostly, we talked about her physical therapy, which involves her getting out of bed and walking the halls. Mom’s comment was, “Gosh. It’s so hard…. I hurt everywhere.” I massaged her feet and she mentioned that the middle-toe on her left foot was awfully sore. It didn’t look swollen, but I had Emily, Mom’s evening nurse, to take a look. I’m not sure if she saw anything unusual.

Hopefully, we’ll have many more days of improvement such as this. Let’s all cross our fingers and say a little prayer.

~Dennis
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Since my last post, the health issues with my mother have gone from REALLY bad, to horrible, to promising. Let’s see if I can break this down in a language that everybody here can easily understand.

My mother went into the hospital November 23; the day after Thanksgiving. She had been feeling horrible and had been talking about going to the hospital to get a check-up. That Friday, she simply was NOT acting herself, so my step-father, Larry, took her to St. Luke’s in Cedar Rapids and was transferred to Mt. Mercy in Iowa City. Her heart-doctor at Mt. Mercy concluded that she was in far worse shape than he had expected and quickly transferred her to the University of Iowa Hospital (also in Iowa City).

By the middle of the next week, Mom was feeling better and the doctors were determining what the course of action would be. They had initially determined that her blood-pressure was not high enough to push blood through her kidneys, which meant that she had slowly become internally toxic to herself. What was to come, would either be a small repair to her heart or possibly a heart-transplant (which at the time she was not eligible since she was not ill enough).

Then, all hell broke loose. By Tuesday night, she had had a head-ache all day that would NOT go away. By Wednesday morning, CAT scans were ordered. By Wednesday night, the decision was made to go into the back of her skull, install a tube, and hopefully drain the blood that had filled the surrounding tissue because her blood had become too thin to stay within the capillary walls.

This had now become SERIOUS! Family was called. My sister, Michele, flew-in Thursday night from Minneapolis (8 1/2 months pregnant) and my step-sister, Beth, drove in the following Friday morning (of course, I’m writing this the day after Christmas, so my time-line is a little hazy).

They punched a hole in the back of her skull to drain most of the collected blood and placed another smaller drainage-tube into the top of her skull to drain any fluids along the forward portion of the brain/skull wall. Surgery took 8 hours to complete.

Since then, it’s been a roller coaster ride. Mom spent 17 days in Surgical ICU before being released to a private recovery room, where we held a small Christmas Day party with Angie, Larry, Christine, Dave, Uncle Al, and Aunt Ruth.

Throughout much of Mom’s recovery, she’s been in-and-out of consciousness on a minute-by-minute basis. Most of the time, she’s been coherent, but on occasion she makes little sense. The family (along with the doctors) doesn’t believe there is any permanent brain damage from the ordeal that landed her in SICU in the first place. The consensus is is rather simple: She’s been in ICU for WAY too long and her body is too weak to make a speedy recovery.

So, for the time-being, Larry will be driving to Iowa City on a daily basis. I join him mostly during the evenings and during the times when either Larry cannot make the trip or has to leave early.

Everyone has been very supportive and we are fortunate to have as many friends and family to help out when necessary. Cross your fingers, because we are going to be here for a while.

OK. The truth is… I am stressed-out beyond belief. This is not the typical ‘finals week’ stress, but the kind of stress brought on by the tragedies occurring to the person you love. My mother has been in the hospital for the last two weeks, stemming from an issue with her heart. It’s tough to describe the situation without going into the history of the problem.

My mother, Mary Albers, contracted Rose fever when she was 19 years old. Since she survived the illness, but her heart took a beating in the process. To put it in non-technical terms: Her heart valves don’t close properly. Since I’ve been aware of the problem, my mother has undergone 3 open-heart surgeries to correct the life-threatening issues. Over the past 40 years, she has had 2 valves replaced with pure stainless steel, which is only noticeable during quiet times, when you can actually HEAR my mother’s chest ‘clicking’. It is quite awe-inspiring, to say the least.

A few of my good friends have met my mother and it is flattering to hear how much everyone enjoys her presence. She’s got this ‘take it as it comes’ attitude that is quite refreshing. Not to mention a laugh that can be heard from blocks away. One would hardly think that behind her facade, is a woman who has been in constant poor health, despite the way she comes off. Wait… not ‘despite’, but IN SPITE of her condition. She’s the kind of person I strive to be when I am her age.