I’m back…after a 10 week stay in various medical facilities.

I don’t know what Kimball has told you because they didn’t forward me the paper. I do know that she, Davis and Gwen did a fine job of keeping the paper running while I was flat on my back.

Kind of like my birthday, I only know what I have been told. I guess it started on Jan. 7. Kimball and our brother-in-law, Tom Gough, called the ambulance because they couldn’t get me up off the floor and into bed. The ambulance took me to Cedar County Memorial. From there they shipped me to Cox. I couldn’t walk and barely knew my name. A nurses told me recently I had gone septic.

When I woke up, I had fresh hardware on my right upper chest that was a dialysis port which they used three times a week for four-hour sessions to clean my blood since my kidneys wouldn’t do it.

I had an appointment with urologist, Dr. Alex Henderson, a pleasant young man who told me that the last time he saw me I was unconscious, had a tube down my throat and was dying, his words not mine. He said he performed emergency surgery at 2 a.m. to bypass the blocked kidney not knowing which was the culprit so he did them both. He was ready to remove the bypasses called stints and scheduled the surgery to remove the kidney stone that was causing the blockage.

By then, Kimball had moved me a couple of times, finally to Park View, Citizen Memorial’s rehab facility in Bolivar. Next she was looking at bringing me home and taking me to Nevada three times a week for dialysis. Meanwhile, Park View used Health Transit Service to take me to the dialysis facility in Bolivar three times a week for the four-hour painless blood cleaning except for having to sit still for four hours.

Park View became like home to me. I got to know that staff well. One evening during the meal, Kelsay, the nurse for the evening shift, came by my table and hollered, “Boo” loudly. My brain functions had been returning under the expert “brain coaching” by El Dorado Springs native Madison Mays. I replied just as loudly to the delight of the entire lunchroom crowd, “Your face would have been enough.”

Madison had not told any of her co-workers that she had been a member of a state champion basketball team. I kinda let that secret out and it went viral.

The Lord didn’t forget me. I didn’t even ask to get off of dialysis. The supervisor at the facility sent a maybe two gallon gas can looking device back to Park View with me and told me to collect a sample over the weekend keeping in on ice. I took it back on Monday and might hear something by Thursday. I didn’t, so the nice lady who always hooked me up to the dialysis computer asked her boss. He had been on vacation and didn’t know I had submitted a sample. He told her to hook me up while he checked with his boss. She had just started the blood flowing when he came back and told her excitedly: “Stop.” “Unhook him.” “He’s done.” Then they congratulated me.

I went to the lobby to wait for the Health Transit bus and called Kimball not realizing the significance of what had just happened.

When I walked into Park View, the staff was high-fiveing me, hugging and cheering. They were going to call Kimball but learned I had beat them to it.

Later Tim Francka, head of all the CMH nursing homes, told me that in his 42 years in the health care business, I am the first one he knows who got off of dialysis.

The staff at Park View helped me collect the sample and keep it iced down, but the Good Lord did the part no man or woman could do.

I don’t want to forget to thank you for your prayers. I don’t know what the Lord has planned for me, but I plan to be in church every Sunday.

Kimball picked me up Friday just before noon. Kelsay, the nurse I mouthed off to, was friendly as could be as she helped me get checked out.

I don’t want to forget Dana (DAY – na) Johnson, who I’ll call the Arranger. She scheduled every one of my doctor appointments in Springfield and the ride to and from on the Health Transit Service, the fleet of four or five small buses headed by Rick, who on my last trip to Springfield to get the dialysis port removed, couldn’t say enough good things about the service Dana provides.

Rhonda, the housekeeper, keeps the place looking festive with her seasonal decorations. As she was taking down Vanlentine’s, she was putting up St. Patrick’s doo-dads.

One of my health care providers at Park View, a guy name Huy (pronounce Wee), really wants to give a shout out to Gabby Morgan Kinnett and her sister, Stephanie Morgan Arnold. He worked up here with them for awhile.

I know I probably forgot to thank somebody. I seem to have regained most of my memory and brain function but not my balance so you’ll see me using a walker, at least for a while. KL

Facebook Comments