February 21, 2025

Jerry is back in the hospital for the second time in a month, for the same thing -- a drug-resistant UTI.

The previous antibiotic infusion was finished on Feb. 15. On Tuesday, Feb. 18, the night nurse called me at 10:30 p.m. and said they had called EMS to get Jerry to the hospital here.

We were in the middle of a blizzard/snowstorm/extremely low wind chills (-25 to -35). Ugh. I told the nurse I wouldn't be able to get to the hospital due to the bad weather, plus my car isn't in good enough working condition. She said they would tell the ER to call me with updates. I guess I fell asleep axhausted at 2:30 a.m.

I woke up suddenly at 10:30 a.m. on Wed. Feb. 19 and realised I hadn't heard from anyone. I called down to the nursing facility. The director of nursing said two nurses tried to call for updates on Jerry ... and the ER nurse said they weren't giving out info and hung up on them!

I finally learned Jerry was in an observation room and was able to talk with his nurse. She reiterated what I already knew in my heart was going on. As of yesterday, he's been admitted and will probably be there for several days yet again since they're doing antibiotic infusion again.

I was going to go see Jerry this afternoon, decided to dig my car out of the snow and see if it would make it to the hospital. For the fourth time this year alone, we had another snowstorm, this time we got 8-10 inches, so a little less than the worst one at the beginning of January. Yes, I found the snow was drifted up on the car all around - that was such hard work for me with the small garden shovel I had in my car trunk. Apparently our management can't help all of us older folks with removing the snow around our cars, just a driving path through the parking lot and out to the trash bin. 🙄

But, as usual... car problems happened on the way. I had to stop at Amanda's (DIL) anyway to pick up the paintings by Kara (17yo granddaughter) and Symere (great-grandson - son of granddaughter Madison). John and I think the water pump and radiator are still frozen - temps here have been sub-zero in the 20s for days.

These are the most wonderful paintings from Kara and Symere (with help from his mommy) ever! The letter from Aero ("hope you are feeling better") has grampa in his wheelchair, and the yellow paper is the "envelope." Notice the "hospital building" on the envelope where Aero put grampa on the top floor in a bed.

Grampa Jerry likes to fish, so the girls chose fish as the theme. Aero just wants grampa to get better, as we all do.

After letting the car cool, I went right back home. Son John will get me tomorrow and let me go see Jerry at the hospital for a bit. I'm so sick of car trouble and not being able to do anything about it. Well, I will rant here... but you can ignore me. This is just an outlet for me to say what I feel. Just don't tell me "hang in there, it will get better." If you knew our lives, everything has been on a constant downhill slide since forever and a day. We've had to scratch and claw our way the whole time.

It has been a hard year already. Yes, I'm giving the problems to the Lord. Jerry's been in nursing facilities before, but this time I'm having the "separation weeps." And for the first time, we weren't together for our birthdays (mine last month, his this month) or Valentine's Day. Not that we've ever done anything special on those days, but not being together has been hard on me for some reason.

Some days I feel more beat down than others. But the Lord is my strength and I get through.

The other day, I was cleaning out and rearranging some drawers in the bedroom and found a lot of old prayer notes from church that I wrote on small pieces of paper and stuck in an old drawing diary from quite a number of years ago.....

"God's intention is that we never retreat; that we pray for boldness in the storm and keep moving forward."

"In Scripture, prayer is the 'doing something'."

"Romans 8:28 ... Pain has a purpose - we either move toward God so He can give that pain purpose, or we move away from God, and the pain amplifies, grows, and takes over your life."

"Let God work in you through the situation you're in."

I know that the last two were written shortly after the time my oldest son, Jeff, died in Nov. 2013.

Well, I'm done for now. Hope all is well with you and that God is blessing you immensely.

I'll keep you updated on Jerry. Just send up a few prayers here and there for him.

Diana