As I was finishing up with patients, however, I got a call from Delanae that our son had been confronted by her and admitted to behavior which is strictly against our rules. This also involved him skipping tennis team practices and after school weight lifting to go off with two of his friends. This was quite a way to end the day and meant that once I got home the evening would be consumed with dealing with this problem rather than the relaxing evening I had envisioned earlier in the day.

Stephen is now grounded at least until school is out (and as of tonight grounded from the computer and telephone for a week due to him already violating one of his new rules). He also is allowed to wear only what we pick out for him to wear, he must keep his room clean by our standards, and he has a new earlier bedtime each night. All this is to teach him some self discipline since he doesn't seem to have learned any up to this point in his life. Yes, we are being harsh by today's politically correct standards but his behavior could have long term effects if not corrected NOW. He has always had a hard time saying no to his peer group but he must learn how to do this. He says he is able to but he has not proven that to us yet. We have now lost our trust in him and it will take a long while for him to regain that. This also means he will not be driving for the foreseeable future. Of course, we will forgive him and hopefully he will learn from this episode.

Hopefully, I will get back to regular posts tomorrow, but no promises. Have a good rest of the week.

It looks like we will be going to Woodburn, Oregon for their tulip festival Saturday rather than the Skagit Valley here in Washington. I found out today, on the Internet of course, that their festival ended April 16 and the tulip fields were topped on Monday April 17. We do not want to see topped tulip plants so we will head back to Woodburn instead. Next year, we will have to plan the trip to the Skagit Valley earlier but we now know where it is, about 60 miles north of Seattle.

Work tomorrow will start early. I have three patients to see in the hospital then a meeting at 7:30 AM before I start seeing patients in my office at 8:30. That will make for a long day and then Stacey is performing in a school talent show tomorrow night. It looks like I won't be home tomorrow until after 8:30 PM. I will try and update this page tomorrow but no promises.

One last thing before I call it a night. My minister and good friend told me today that he had his Windows CE palmtop computer stolen from his vehicle last week but the insurance company will replace it. The Casio model he had is no longer available so it will be replaced with the new model that will be a Windows Pocket PC. This new model will have all the programs that Windows just announced and has 32MB RAM and a 133mHz processor. I am very jealous now and want one but it will have to wait until after the new septic system is paid for and I get a new desktop and .......

Tomorrow is Delanae's birthday. We will be going to Woodburn, Oregon Saturday to see the tulip fields and will stop in Portland on the way back for her birthday dinner. Tomorrow night Stacey is going to a birthday party for one of her friends so the adults and Stephen will be staying home, kicking back and relaxing. More details after tomorrow since I don't want her knowing too much information before tomorrow.

Thursdays are turning into very long days in the office. It is the day of the week when the largest number of physicians from my office are off so I get a lot of their usual medication refills and other things needing attention. As a consequence, I usually don't get out of the office until after 6:30 PM as was the case tonight. The talent show started at 7PM and I just barely made it in time. I have a couple of phone messages to return tomorrow and three more patients in the hospital to see tomorrow morning before another meeting beginning at 8 AM. Anymore I seem to have a meeting every morning and sometimes at noon also.

Enough for tonight. Tomorrow is another early morning. Pray that the weather will stay nice for Saturday's trip, today was beautiful here, or so everyone who came into the office said. We, who are trapped in the dungeon, cannot tell what the weather is like. Feel sorry for me yet????

The rest of the birthday has gone well. The flowers arrived this morning on time and she was greeted with shouts of jealousy from her female coworkers at the radio station. They evidently tried to tell everyone that I had sent the flowers to them not Delanae. My mother's greeting card to her arrived today, perfectly on time. Several birthday e-mails have arrived from readers and I thank you for sending them as I know she really appreciates them. Now, if we can just get her home tonight everything will be complete.

Now, for me today was busy as usual. I saw the three patients in the hospital this morning, two of whom were patients of one of my associates who was off today. They turned out to be really nice people and it was a pleasure to meet them and talk to them. One had had a heart attack while working around his yard. Being an EMT himself, he knew what was happening and called his buddies to bring the ambulance and take him to the hospital and chewed an aspirin. That turned out to be a stroke of luck since they had him loaded and moving toward the hospital within 20 minutes of the onset of pain. Immediately as they pulled out of his driveway, his heart decided to fibrillate and they were able to immediately defibrillate him. If he had not been on a monitor he would have suffered sudden cardiac death. As it is, he got to the hospital, was given thrombolytic therapy which limited the size of his heart attack and is now able to joke about knowing what a heart attack feels like. He has to stop smoking and lose some weight though, otherwise he will be a candidate to experience what a second heart attack feels like.

The other patient had a stomach ulcer start bleeding and needed blood transfusions until it stopped. The gastroenterologist was unable to see the bleeding ulcer through his scope but the ulcer stopped bleeding on its own, like most do. She will be on a medication to reduce the acid in her stomach but the blood tests for the bacteria that can cause an ulcer, Helicobacter pylori, were negative. She should be able to go home tomorrow and wondered when she would be able to eat Mexican food again. I told her to wait until next weekend at least.

Our bathroom at home is finished now. That is one more room done. Of course, Delanae had to buy all new accessories to match the new floor. The accessories are not covered by the insurance however. I would say that is one of her birthday presents but I don't want to stretch this too far. A swing for the backyard is one thing, bathroom accessories are something else. Oh, I didn't tell you about the swing did I? She picked it out and I bought it for her for her birthday, or at least that is what she told me.

I've eaten all the pizza I can eat, at least for tonight. That means it is time to end this and reply to a couple of e-mails before Delanae gets home. Pray that the weather improves here for us tomorrow.