Well, our winter home was NOT on wheels this year. You know how it goes…life happens. We ended up spending the winter (from hell) right here at home in Washington. This winter we broke all kinds of records for amount of snow on ground – sure, since we had to stay home. Go figure.
We ended up staying here as Terry had some health issues that scared the hell out of us – but I’m happy and grateful to say – ended well. He began with atrial fib, which resulted in several months of blood thinners while they tried to use medicines to regulate his heart rate. When that failed, they hospitalized him to stop his heart – and then they used the paddles to ‘shock’ him back to life and his heart into a normal rhythm. (The doctors all made this sound like an every day occurrence, but believe me, it was a lot more than that to us – (gasp)!)
We came home from the hospital believing the procedure was a success, but we had been through so much stress by this time that we decided to spend the winter at home to be near T’s own doctors. Turned out to be a good idea as that evening his blood pressure and pulse crashed and he ended up taking a helicopter ride to the emergency where his pulse was in the 20s at the hospital. No easy feat that trip down. The ambulance had to take him 4 – 1/2 miles down our dirt road to a place where the chopper could land. (One small drawback to living on a mountain.)
Terry is fine now – feels strong and well. His heart is strong, his arteries all clear, however he has a small electrical ‘glitch’ and his heart doesn’t fire quite right. There are no restrictions on his activities and the doctors assure us that unless THEY are the ones to stop his heart, it isn’t going to stop – although they tell us that ‘down the road’ he will need a pace maker to even things out.
I was pretty sure that they were going to have to replace MY heart before we got through all this. I tend to stress big time – I worry and I have to know EVERYTHING. T’s cardiologist said he’s never had anyone ask so many questions. (I assured him that if his wife ever had a life threatening female problem – he’d have as many questions!) Actually, although I started out not caring too much for him, I changed my opinion. He’s great with us…..spells out everything and treats us with not only great medical care, but respect, which is important at a time like that.
I’m going to tell you first – it was BEAUTIFUL up here this winter. White as far as you could see and one of the most gorgeous winters I’ve ever seen. And having said that, I am going to add that I hope it’s the last one I spend here! I told Terry that he better start shopping for a good cardiologist in Arizona – because next fall – I’m out of here! And he’s with me on this one.
The wet/cold makes me sick every year – bronchitis with fever, cough, etc. for three weeks every winter (might have had something to do with the fact that I was smoking again, but we won’t mention that). And then plowing with the John Deere, much as T loves it, got pretty old. And believe it or not, even on 50 acres, you can run out of places to put snow. And now digging trenches to keep the rivers of water from washing us across the road, is also losing its charm. I’ll leave you with a few glimpses of what it’s been like here on our mountain.
There’s no doubt it was beautiful.
And then the snow slides off the steel roof and nearly buries the house!
If you look closely at this next one, you can see my fingers in the bedroom window!
And you do remember, don’t you, that I have a pond under here somewhere!?
Hope the winter has treated you well. I’ve missed blogging and looked in on you every once in a while – but with this off again, on again service we have on the mountain – it takes me a day just to get one post done!