Today's Update - 19 Jun 2015

The Storms of Life

Me oh my oh.  Feel like I am living in Crazy Town.  My life is normally on the hectic side and I'm used to it and don't fritz out too much over it but gotta say I have made it to a whole 'nother level of crazy chaos these days.

Don't get me wrong, it is worth it.  My father's wound has shrunk so much even the doctors who brag on that hyperbaric oxygen treatment are falling all over themselves to get pictures of it.  In less that two weeks the wound went from a depth of over 5 to a less than 1.  The width went from an 8 to a little less than 2.  The length is still the same but generally speaking the length of the wound is usually the last to start shrinking.  Wounds like my dad has heal from the bottom up, then at the width as the swelling goes down and then lastly at the length.  The staph infection was really bad and in that same roughly two weeks he's gone from a white blood cell count of over 22,000 to a little under 8,000 ... in other words back into normal range.  They took the pic line out yesterday and he is now on oral antibiotics for two weeks.  He still had the wound vac but the wound is getting so shallow that it is mostly providing protection rather than getting much drainage off of the wound.  And yes, I know all of this medical stuff can seem gross but it is quite an education, one that I am finding extremely valuable.

I get told over and over that one of the biggest benefits is that we are managing to keep my dad's diabetes in check.  I give him a yogurt (probiotic) and a good meal for breakfast so that when he goes into the HBOT chamber his sugar is about 190 and when he comes out it is down to about 120 or lower.  His sugar has been averaging about 150 which has been unheard of for dad since he was diagnosed a few years ago.  Controlling his diabetes allows his body to regenerate faster.

All of this has been very hard on him.  He is very tired as his body is being pushed to constantly be at work ... healing, speeding up his metabolism, building new blood flow, rebuilding muscle, returning his coordination and cognition, utilizing the strong antibiotics effectively, etc.  They tell us he won't actually completely be able to regain his full strength for some months to come ... up to a year.  Between the double by-pass, valve replacement, necrotic gallbladder, and subsequent staph infection poor dad is lucky to be alive.  Thank the Good Lord Above for modern medicine.  Makes me more determined than ever to keep up with my own issues and be aware of the medical concerns that I may have inherited. 

One of the things that I've been doing is getting back to canning our own foods.  Thus far I've canned three different no- and low-sugar jams.  Mom and I also canned seven pints of pickled squash (I used yellow crookneck squash and Vidalia onions).  Today I hope to get started on canning my own no-sugar-added pineapple when I got such a good deal on pineapples (99 cents each from Save-a-lot).  Tomorrow or Sunday I want to see if I can find some green beans that I can snap and can.  I'd love to get about a bushel of them done but until I can find the beans I can't say how much I can afford to buy.  I'm going to try and can up some watermelon jam using both yellow and red watermelons.  I need to get some cantaloupe jam done as well.  Then I've got about 8 different juices waiting to be turned into jellies.  That doesn't include all of the convenience foods that I want to can like soups, chili, sloppy joes, spaghetti and pizza sauce, etc.

Believe it or not I've actually managed to get some writing and editing accomplished.  The updated stories are:
Up On Hartford Ridge
A Bunch of Wild Thyme
Dark Days
Emi on the Caloosahatchee
Zombies Aren't Real ... Are They?!
A Girl Called Jack

Thanks to "headlesshorseman" from PAW Fiction for the suggestion about the editing trouble I'm having with "Geek".  There's a hidden macro in there somewhere and the only way for me to find it is to show all of the commands and dig through it.  I found one but there is at least one more causing me grief.  Almost though, and I am ready to put that story to bed.

For today's vids I decided to include some good ones on making low sugar jams (an fruit roll ups) from scratch.  Hope you find them useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMS3l58QXIA

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx3ixTxyZPg

This one uses Pamona Pectin

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nzkv2xQffw

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ7ryFVCNhc