My Mom

My mom had her 59th birthday on May 3. She seemed to be doing very well. We had a party for her with friends and family and she was giddy. She was so pleased to have us there. A few days later, however, her pneumonia returned (for the third time). She was admitted back into ICU and is currently in an induced paralytic coma. She is on life support and is starting from the very beginning, only it is worse this time because she is already so weak. The doctors can not say with 100% certainty that she will pass away, but it is highly likely. She requested that people pray for her. I would request that you pray for her husband, Jim, and for my siblings and I during this time also.

Poached Pear Salad

This salad is soooo yummy, I adapted it from a local restaurant.
This will make two individually prepared salads.

1 red bosc pear (pealed)
1 TBS fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup dry red wine or dry white wine
3 TBS honey
1 tsp vanilla
red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar
olive oil
4 pieces bacon (cooked and crumbled)
maple sugar covered pecans or candied pecans (chopped)
soft creamy blue cheese
butter lettuce (any lettuce will work though)
salt and pepper

Peal pear and toss in lemon juice. Set aside. Combine water, wine, honey and vanilla in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the honey dissolves. Add pear. Cook for 15min, turning pear after 7min. Use a slotted spoon to transfer pear to a freezer safe bowl. Boil poaching liquid for 3-5min until thick. Stir frequently so it doesn't burn. Pour syrup over pear and place in freezer to cool, ~15min. Don't allow it to freeze! Cook bacon. Wash lettuce and arrange a circular bed on salad plate in. Add crumbled bacon, chopped pecans and blue cheese to each salad. Remove pear from freezer and cut in half. Place one half in middle of each salad. Take remaining syrup and put in a salad dressing container. Add oil, vinegar, water and salt and pepper to taste for the vinegrette dressing. Drizzle a small amount of dressing on each salad. Serve.

Mom's Doing Ok

My mom is doing better. She had a tracheostomy and is completely off of the sedation medicine. She can sit up, talk, eat and is working on standing and walking. However, she just contracted Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). It is an antibiotic resistant staph infection, that happens to be in her lungs. It is quite common among long-term hospital patients and is infectious.

Allergy Sufferers Rejoice!

If you suffer from seasonal allergies due to pollen or hay fever try taking 250mg of Pantothenic Acid twice per day. We have some type of tree on our property that causes me much sneezing, itching and nasal congestion and headaches every spring. Right now in fact. I started taking Natrum Muriaticum, a homeopathic for allergies and it helped, but then I read an article about Pantothenic Acid. So I have been taking 500mg every day and almost all of my symptoms are gone. I get a little itchy from time to time, so I take my homeopathics and between the two I am doing much better than previous years. Give it a try, it is certainly working for me.

Mom's Stable

Well, my mom is stable. I went to see her a couple of days ago and she had her eyes open. She is still intubated so she cannot speak and they still have her sedated so she has to work very hard to move her arms or open her eyes. She could hear me and understand me. I even saw her smile when I talked about the kids, even if it was ever so slightly. That was very encouraging to me. She closed her eyes for a bit while I talked to Jim, but when I said I had to go, she opened them again to say goodbye. The doctors saw some improvement on her x-rays a few days ago too. So she is hanging in there.

Carpet Massacre of 2008

Well, Andrew just loves to imitate Gabriel. So the other day he took his clothes and diaper off and tried to sit on the potty chair, which he calls "bathtub." I let him sit there while I went to fold laundry. A few minutes later Andrew came running in yelling "Mommy, help!" There was poo on his hands and running down his legs. So I cleaned him up and then went to find the rest. He had decided to go play in the 2nd bedroom when disaster struck. There where about 10 piles of pudding consistency poo all over the carpet. There was no way to clean it w/o rubbing it into the fiber. So I used my carpet stain remover and Oxyclean, but the stains are still there. So I am calling it the 2008 carpet massacre.

Update on my Mom

My mom has been put on a ventilator and is being sedated. She began coughing blood last night and could not breath with the machine she was on. She is also being given amnesia medicine so that if/when she is taken off of the ventilator she won't remember being on it. The doctors are still talking positively, of course they will until there is literally nothing else they can do. So at this point it is a waiting game. They still have not biopsied her lungs and still do not know what is truly going on. They are putting off the biopsy because it is surgery and is a great risk.