Doc's Progress Notes
Week of July 3, 2000
Last Updated: 7/9/2000 at 9:38 PM PDT
Monday Tuesday
Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Most Recent Update
I warned you that the posts over the weekend might be very short. The last three days have been a blur. Sunday I was busy admitting critical patients, one of whom died today. It was expected as he was ninety but his family was still not completely ready for it to happen when it did. He had multiple medical problems and had really lived longer than his physicians expected. We managed to keep him alive for another twenty-four hours as he had requested.
The family living with us will be moving out soon. There is a message on the answering machine saying that their apartment is ready for occupancy. They went to the Oregon coast today with Delanae since both she Wendi were off today and I had to work. I don't think they know their apartment is ready yet. Today was cloudy, rainy, and the high was in the high 50's at the coast so I imagine the kids did not get to play on the beach much. Here it only got into the low 60's with clouds and rain all day. Hopefully, the weather will be a little warmer for the fireworks shows tomorrow night.
Tomorrow, we are planning on going down to Vancouver, WA for the big fireworks show there. Unfortunately, there will be no shuttle buses into the viewing area at Fort Vancouver this year so we will have to find a place to park and walk there. I don't know what kind of parking is provided. We will go down fairly early to be sure we get a place to park fairly close so we don't have to haul chairs and blankets too far. Earlier in the afternoon I am hoping to go to the lumberjacks' competition here in Longview at the lake. I went last year and had a lot of fun watching, much more than I expected to have. Delanae didn't go with me but maybe I can talk her into it this year. Hope all of you have a great Fourth tomorrow(and a safe Fourth).
No update.
Yesterday did not go exactly as planned. First off, Delanae, Wendi, and the three kids did not get back from the Oregon coast until 12:30 AM yesterday morning which meant we all slept very late yesterday. Then, Delanae got up not feeling very good so we cancelled the trip to Vancouver and made plans to go to Lake Sacajawea here for the fireworks show. I went off to the lumberjacks' competition as planned, without Delanae, and had a great time. There was a huge crowd there, more than last year and there were more competitors from around the Northwest.
After I came home from the competition and took a nap we helped Wendi move her stuff from the various places where it was stored into her new apartment. We were not able to move all of it so the rest will get moved today. After that, it was time to go down to the lake for the fireworks show. Even though we got to the lake less than one hour before the fireworks began, we still got a great position for watching the fireworks. They were very good and some were very LOUD which pleased everyone. I thought the show was as long as the one two years ago there but I heard a couple people grumbling that it was not as long as the year before.
With everything else going on yesterday I took a break from writing this journal although, to be truthful, I think I simply forgot that I had not written a post yesterday until I got up this morning. This is my regular day of the week off so I will be doing lawn and garden work today which I was not able to do over the weekend since I was busy at the hospital. The sun is shining today for the first time since late last week. The joke here in the Northwest is that summer starts here the week after the Fourth of July and ends about two months later. The beginning after the Fourth has certainly been true in our experience since moving here but it ends usually in October rather than September. September the last two years has been really nice and hopefully will be this year too since that is when my mother is coming to visit.
Maybe more later today and if not have a great day.
No update later yesterday because we were helping our house guests get moved into their new apartment and they spent the night there last night. Delanae and I were remarking how quiet the house was last night after they were gone. We have ten whole days to have a quiet house until our kids get back from their visit to the midwest. We have found a couple of things already that Wendi and her kids forgot but we will get them back to her. This morning we both woke up with sore backs but nothing severe for me. I do have some sore muscles however.
We ate the first products from the garden last night. My snow peas are really making lots of pods and they are sweet and delicious. I picked them yesterday and they will need picking again this weekend. We may have to give some away but I think we will try and find out how to freeze them. I have pictures of the first crop but have not had a few minutes to post them yet, I will get to it. The rest of the garden is doing well.
One of my partners is hospitalized in Portland in premature labor. She is much less than thirty weeks along so they are stopping her labor and she will have to stop working eight weeks or so earlier than she had planned. That means there are some call slots between now and the middle of September that will have to be filled by the rest of us. That probably means I will have to work at least part of a weekend that I had not planned on having to work. My only hope is that the baby is fine, along with the mother.
My partner, that I wrote about yesterday, is hospitalized in Portland. She is 27 weeks pregnant (a normal term of pregnancy is 40 weeks) and went into premature labor. The labor has stopped for now with medication but she will probably have to stay in the hospital until the baby is mature enough for delivery which will hopefully be around 32 weeks. That means she will be at bedrest for five weeks there and may have to spend a lot of that time with her head lower than her feet, again to prevent labor from beginning again. For now, she is doing as good as can be expected. We are still struggling to cover her call days and weekend but we will manage.
The lovely Marcia Bilbrey has come through with vital information about how to prepare snow peas to freeze them and still have them come out edible when thawed. Thank you so much for the information and I would offer you some fresh peas if you were to come close enough to Longview during your trip to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland to drop by the house.
Tomorrow, Delanae and I are setting out on a driving adventure. We are going where we have never gone before and aren't sure what exactly is there. We have been told that a drive across the Narrows bridge just west of Tacoma is a great way to spend the day so we are going to try it. I know Bremerton is west of Tacoma so we may see some Navy ships and the Olympic Mountains are beyond that but we have never been there. Details tomorrow night on the big adventure. See you later.
We saw some BIG ships today. We did indeed drive up to Tacoma then crossed the Puget Sound over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and drove up the Kitsap Peninsula. We ended up on Bainbridge Island which is directly across the Sound from Seattle and is where one of the ferries from Seattle runs. We walked down to where the ferry docks and one was just coming in and a lot of people were waiting to get on to go to a Seattle Mariners baseball game tonight at Safeco Field. We then drove out and found a place to go down to the shore at a park called Ft Ward. Getting back to the main highway proved tricky as there were no directions back out to the main road from the park and it was not on the map we had. Eventually we found our way back to the main road although we took a few wrong turns before getting there.
We then headed back down the Kitsap Peninsula and through Bremerton which is the home of a naval shipyard. That shipyard is right on the highway and was where we saw three carriers either being built or repaired. I think they were being built but there was no way to tell for sure except to stop and walk up to them which we could not do. There is also a submarine base near there which we did not get to go to as we could not go everywhere today. I hope to go back sometime and tour the museum there, probably without Delanae as she showed no interest in going there.
Dinner was at a chinese restaurant we found in Gig Harbor and was excellent. It was in a strip mall right on the highway. I had seen a pizza parlor there and drove in when Delanae spotted the chinese restaurant and said why don't we eat there. We did and it was excellent. We were unable to eat all the food so we brought home some to reheat tomorrow or another day. All in all, a pleasant experience and the meal was a great way to end the day. Even the weather cooperated by not raining and actually being sunny late in the afternoon.
Tomorrow, our worship team sings so I have to be at the church early to set up. Also tomorrow I have to pick snow peas again as there are more pods ready now than there were Wednesday. The plants seem to have exploded after I picked the others. I will probably give some away to friends but will also try and freeze a bunch for this winter. My tomato plants look good, the corn is coming up, and I replanted some beans and they are sprouting. It is about to be our dry season so I will be watering every day until they are all harvested. I must go to bed now since I have to get up early tomorrow and want to watch the Wimbledon men's final before church tomorrow. See you later.
Yesterday's update was written last night. I was unable to FTP it to my hosting service's server however until today. No word on what the problem was yet but obviously they were down. Everything seems to be working fine now.
Today was a great day for running and walking. After a nap this afternoon and picking snow peas and weeding the garden, I went for a run with the temperatures in the mid to upper 60's and cloudy. Perfect for running. After that I met Delanae and the dogs and we found some logging roads near our house and went walking and exploring. We wore the dogs out. The roads will make great mountain bike trails for some other weekend. Our neighbor across the street just got a mountain bike and told me Friday night that he wants to go for some rides. He and I are both rank amateurs so we should make a pretty good pair. Once I get some experience I can tackle harder trails with more experienced riders. Hopefully Delanae will also be able to ride the trails close to us with me.
I did not get to watch much of the Wimbledon men's tennis final. I was up to watch it but I saw very little tennis and a lot of rain delay. I had to be at the church at 8 AM today to get the stage set up for our team so had to leave before they had played much live tennis. I understand that Pete Sampras won and broke Roy Emerson's lifetime Grand Slam title record. Pete now has won 13 Grand Slam titles and should be saluted as the greatest all around tennis player ever. That achievement is just mind boggling given today's players. Even if he never wins a French Open title that should not detract from his greatness.
Tomorrow morning begins with a meeting. The rest of the week has a meeting every day I believe. One meeting seems to begat another meeting. One week soon I will have a meeting every day early I am sure. I have one patient to see in the hospital in the morning as of now. I also need to find out if I will have to work next Saturday in the clinic covering for my partner hospitalized with premature labor. Hopefully, someone else has volunteered to cover Saturday and I can cover another weekend. The kids get in late Saturday night and I would like to sleep in Saturday morning so I can be relatively fresh when they get in Saturday night. See you tomorrow.
