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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 6 June 2011

Latest Update: Sunday, 11 June 2011 12:50 p.m.


Monday, 6 June 2011

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Happy Birthday to Bob and Al. It being D-Day we orchestrated a small invasion on the Mexican place on our side of town. Al picked up mom and dad, Frances came by here and picked up Bob and I came from across town after my haircut.

Bob has his kit web site up and running. Please spread the word.

I am reading one of the Kate Ellis books Bob ordered for me for my birthday last year, The Blood Pit, published 2008. I had not been able to find her most recent three in the US so I finally had Bob get them for me.


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Tuesday, 7 June 2011

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Wednesday, 8 June 2011

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Not much in the news except for the heat. The temperatures are more like August then the first of June. Hot and muggy. I went to the Y last night. After we ate dinner I watered the plants and my red dogwood bush. It was almost wilted from the heat. As I have mentioned before, Bermuda grass loves this weather. It's really high though, even in this heat, the other grass has grown some. I need to mow but I'll wait until the high moves on and hopefully brings in some cooler air.



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Thursday, 9 June 2011

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I took dad back over to High Point this afternoon to get his new hear digital hearing aids. It was very interesting to watch them be installed. The audiologists had the hearing aids connected to her lap top while she installed them in dad's ears. The small speaker device sits atop the ear with a very thin line connecting it to the actual piece that goes in the ear which is roughly the size of a small pea. Once they were in she tweaked the devices to his ears based on the tests she did last visit. Once the aids were no longer connected to her laptop she did different tests to see how they felt hearing wise, etc. They are actually not turned up all the way. For the first week they are at about 80% to give dad a chance to get used to "hearing" things as well as his own voice when he talks.

We had dad call Bob on his cell phone for a test. He could hear really well. While on the phone Bob warned dad a bad storm was approaching Winston. We could hear the thunder while we were in the hearing place.

It started raining as we made our way back toward 311 to come back to Winston. When I turned onto 311 from 68 we could see the wall of rain coming. I had my first experience driving my new car in a heavy downpour. Being used to the heavy, rear wheel drive Trooper, I was not sure how this car would feel on the road.

Once we got back to Winston we picked mom up from volunteering at the hospital to go for some dinner. I brought Bob back a takeout. We did not get much in the way of rain at our house but the temperatures dropped from about 98 this afternoon to the mid 80's.


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Friday 10 June 2011

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Another hot and humid day. We took Colin to the vet's this afternoon for his last round of puppy shots. Sue said it would be okay to start walking him down the block and back but not to take him off anywhere for another two weeks. He weighed in at 35 pounds. Since he is only 4 months old he should reach 70 pounds by full adulthood. I will get some new pictures this weekend.

Bob checked the Trooper before we left. He discovered the resevoir for the radiator fluid was low so he added some water. It still over heated on the way out to the vet's and on the way back home. I hope it is just low on coolant. We will take it over to Merchant's in the morning to have it looked at.

The skies were pretty dark just south of Winston as we headed back from Clemmons. We hit the thunderstorm about a mile or so from the house. I had planned to mow when we got home but just as we got in the bottom fell out. It's still thundering and raining; from the radar it looks like we may have more coming in.



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Saturday, 11 June 2011

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I took the Trooper to Merchant's this morning. They added coolant and put pressure on the system to check for leaks. They could find one but that does not mean there is not one somewhere else. For now, we can keep an eye on it and add coolant when necessary. From there I went to the drug and grocery stores.

We had a little over an inch of rain from last night's storms. With the Bermuda grass so high and still a little damp  I used the bagger to mow. Then I edged and patched a place in the front lawn near the sidewalk with seed and fertilizer. It's small enough I can keep it watered during the hot weather to see if I can some grass to come up there before fall. I've patched it several times in the fall with little success.

I finished up around 1, just as it was getting really hot. It's to be another hot one today with a chance of thunderstorms. I am supposed to take mom and dad to the baseball game tonight for a 7pm game. Will have to wait to see how the weather plays out for that.

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Sunday, 12 June 2011

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We had another half inch of rain yesterday evening starting around 5:00 just as I was leaving to pick up the folks to go to the baseball game. It was not raining on their side of town but just as we parked in the lot and starting walking to the area where the concessions are located and our seats, it started to pour down. A friend of my parents went with us this time since Frances could not go. One of Dash volunteers brought mom and dad plastic chairs to sit in behind the last row of seats of the section where our tickets are located while Brian and I bought foods. I took one of the seats about two rows down from the top which was under cover of the upper deck to eat since those seat holders had not shown up yet. The rain finally quit allowing the game to start about 15 minutes late.

At the top of the 7th inning I went up to use the bathroom, get a drink, and a funnel cake to share with dad while Brian go himself a drink. When I came back down to our row instead of finding them in their seats dad was being wheeled up the steps in a rolling chair with his head bandaged. While I was gone a foul ball came their way. Mom yelled at dad to duck which he did. He put his arms over his head and leaned over toward my seat. But the ball struck him on the back top of his head. I hurring back up to follow them around to the first aid station. They Dash people and medical personnel did an excellent job in attending to dad. Once they cleaned the wound, took his blood pressure, and felt around for any serious injuries they determined he was okay but should to the hospital for a scan.

While I went to get the car to bring it around to the back entrance to the park they wheeled dad down to meet me. Off to the emergency room, we arrived around 10pm. They checked him in then sent him back out to the waiting area because all the beds in the ER were full. There we sat for an hour an a half before they called him back. Thankfully he was not hurt worse. I called Frances as soon as we got to the hospital to let her know what happened. She came down later on. Al, a motor coach driver, was due to back from a trip around midnight. He showed up at the hospital around 12:30. It was well after 1am before he went for his scans. If you have never sat in a hospital waiting room on a Saturday night, you have no idea of what you see and hear. ER's are clogged up with people using them as doctor's offices making it very difficult for seriously injured and sick people to get seen. The scans came back negative. The hospital had valet parked my car, so the attendant had to go get it from the parking deck. He walked Frances to her car: Al was parked in an ER parking spot nearby. I transferred their stuff into Frances' car, she took them home, and I headed home arriving here at 2:30am. I took me about an hour before I finally was able to fall asleep. Because the volunteer there and all his medical records are at Baptist, he will not go to the other hospital emergency room. I have never been to Baptist and not spent at least four hours or more waiting for mom or dad to get treatment. It is a situation that sorely needs to be looked into when you send injured, sick, and hurting people out to a waiting area where family members are waiting.

I took Colin out when I got home. When he goes out during the night he usually wants to come up in bed for a few minutes then jumps down to sleep on his bed by Bob. Instead, he slept on the bed by my feet all night. I am not sure if he missed me or if he just knew something was wrong. Bob took him out sometime earlier this morning but he let us sleep until 9am. I just called dad, he is fine.

More storms in the forecast for this afternoon. I ironed this morning then cleaned house. Not sure I up to much more than that for today.



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