Friday, December 16, 2005

 

Friday, Dec. 16th, 05 remembering a past winter

Snow, snow & more snow. Guess I should be glad the sleet didn`t last very long . Easier shoveling snow than chopping thru ice and easier walking in the snow than sliding on the ice.
I remember a storm back in jan. 1994 when we had snow, covered up by a thick layer of ice, then more snow, more ice and more snow and a third layer of ice. Couldn`t open my garage doors as there was too much ice in front of them. Walt and I were too sick to do any shoveling or ice picking. We thought we had the Flu. While we were sick, my younger bro passed away. We spent our days at his home trying to help his wife and kids. It was quite hard trying to help without getting too close and making them sick also. A couple weeks later we started feeling much sicker. Then one day I awoke where I had fallen asleep on the couch and dragged myself off to the bedroom. But when I got there I found Walt in a semi coma. It was early morning and I heard my sons car starting up next door at my daughters. I ran to the door, yelled to him to get his sister and hurry as I needed them. Daughter called the ambulance while I kept working on Walt to keep him breathing. No more than he hit the Hosp. he went into a full coma. We all stayed at the hosp the first two days. The third day Walt came out of the coma. Later on he told me that when he saw me standing over by the window he thought I was an Angel standing there. He thought I was dead on the couch when he went off to bed and he didn`t care if he lived or not. The Doc had wanted me also in the Hosp, but I refused to leave Walt`s room till I knew he would be ok. The third night I agreed to come home for the night as long as one of the daughters remained at the hosp to let me know if her father had a set back. My youngest daughter came home with me- she drove me home and insisted on staying over night with me. The next morning when she woke up, she told me she had migranes before, but never one like this. Thats when it all came back to me. Before Walt and I got so sick, I was trying to convince him that the furnace wasn`t running right, but he said it was ok. One of my sons stopped in shortly after we awoke, so I asked him to go check the furnace. He came up stairs asking me to come look at it. I was so weak still that he walked down the cellar stairs ahead of me so I could lean on his shoulders while climbing down the stairs. When I got to the furnace and showed my son how to unlock the door ( Walt had replaced a broken latch). When he opened that door, the soot was so bAd that there was only a small opening. I had my son turn off the furnace and I called a furnace man to come clean and adjust the furnace. When the repairman arrived he told me that he was missing the end of his program and he better be back home in time to see his other program. Right then I wanted to tell him just where he could go, but I knew our lives depended on me getting the furnace fixed, so I kept my mouth shut. After that I found a new furnace man and when our fuel co. called the next year about cleaning, I told them I had someone else more dependable to do it for us. Actually the new one was an old school friend that used to live across the field from where I grew up and him and his bro used to hang out at our home. He retired and today I have his son cleaning both my furnace and the one in the house next door..
As you probably have guessed by now, we never had the Flu, what we had was Carbon Monoxide Poisioning. Walt spent three weeks in the Hosp and all that time the Docs couldn`t figure out what had made him that sick that he almost died. Now, I knew what it was and thank God the Hosp hooked him up to oxygen as soon as we got there. They also had him hooked up at home and in the Ambulance on the way to the hosp. Everyone knows that oxygen is the only help for Carbon monoxide poisioning.
Not one year has gone by since that year without us having a furnace man clean and adjust our furnace. We bought a new furnace as soon as we could afford it and I still have the new one cleaned and adjusted before each heating season.
I never want to feel that sick again. I Thank God for letting Walt live and for giving us 8 more wonderful years with him. One thing that helped us all was knowing we thought we were losing him back in 1994 and he made it thru and we had the pleasure of spending those 8 years more than we ever thought we would have. But, I think the carbon monoxide caused even more damage to his lungs and made the emphazema much worse. He had worked in the mill for over 37 years and we felt the chemicals caused the lung disease.
While I was spending the first two days staying at the Hosp., my youngest son and one of my brother`s son`s chopped thru the three thick layers of ice using an long handled ice cutter and an ax and made it possible to open my garage doors. They also cleared out enough of the driveway for my car to drive out. The fourth day I drove my car to the hosp, but was still too sick and found it very hard driving back home that night. So, after that I let one or another of my kids drive me down and back.
All of my brothers kids showed up at the hosp. to help my kids when things were at their worst. Just lost their Dad and still they came to be with my kids when they almost lost their Dad. Shows how close that younger bro and I always were and how close our kids were to each other.
Family is everything thats truly important.

Comments:
Dot
You have some wonderful writing there. I am learning more and more about you, about what type of a woman you are even from far away, your love for Walt, a lot of other things too.
I lost a sister in law too in the same way on their honeymoon time. They have selected a cold country for that, finally ending her still young life in the morgue. They found her husband in a coma too, he was trying to help her life when he went in to a coma.
Yeah, family is something that you can't replace with.
I have given a squezed up reply for the comments on my post.
Thank you for the comments in my post.
 
Carbon monoxide poisoning is a big concern when it involes dil furnaces and they should be cleaned on a regular yearly basis.
I remember the ice storm here it must have affected you there because you are not that far from me. I remember the freezing rain coming down for 2 days and shutting down the whole city.
Alot of elderly people were stranded at home with now way of eating because their meals were supplied daily.
I do remember a couple of blizzards we have had in the past aslo shutting us down.
The weather is changing drastically. I think global warming is a main factor
 
hello dot. how are you today? that was a scary story. you just never know what life is going to hand you. i enjoyed talking with you yesterday. it is always good hearing your voice. i am not that great at typing. i still type with two fingers. i can at least find the letters now.
 
Jac, What a heart breaking thing to happen on someones Honeymoon. There was a young girl in her 20`s who lived in a trailer on the back of her parents property. Her husband worked nights and they found her the next morning. It as also carbon monoxide poisioning. She lived a few streets from me. You just never think you are sick from your furnace. The house stays warm like the furnace is working fine,so you never get suspicious. It is a silent killer.
 
Walker, it wouldn`t surprise me if the bad snowstorm you are remembering might have been back in the winter of 1955-56 as that was one real bad one. It almost completely covered my doorway, was just about 3 to 4 inches to peek out. I stood in a kitchen chair to even see out. A few years ago we had enough snow that my son`s car was completely covered where he had it parked in our lot next door. I took pictures of that.
You are so right about the weather changing a lot the past couple years. Seems much colder than it used to and they are getting snow much further south now.
 
Mr Haney, it was nice talking to you and also great talking to your wife. She has such a pleasant voice. As for typing, I mostly use just three fingers these days. Boy, my typing teacher would have failed me if I had typed like this in her class in High School. But with the arthritis and the left little finger frozen in a 45 degree angle my fingers don`t place correctly onto the right keys like they used to. So, it doesn`t bother me if you use just 2 fingers as today I don`t do much better. I am pretty fast with the 3 fingers ( 2 on the left hand and 1 on the right hand), but sometimes they slip and hit two keys at once and I have to go back to erase and redo.
Yes it was an even scarrier ordeal to go thru.
 
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