Window Shopper

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Window Shopper is another of My wife’s earliest blogs (it was either the second or third, I’m not sure anymore). She enjoyed writing in it, sharing tips on shopping, saving money and passed on recall warnings and had a lot to say about things like the BS that’s been coming out of China in the last couple of years. Sadly this is the final entry that will be posted here. Shopping and such was her field, not mine.

This is so incredibly hard for me to write, so please forgive me if it’s more broken rambling than anything else.

My wife Lura went to be with the Lord last Tuesday, Dec 30 2008 at a little after 4:30pm central time.

I still can’t believe it’s true, I keep expecting to wake up from some nightmare induced by trying to sleep in the impossibly uncomfortable accommodations that White River Medical Center in Batesville provides for the family member who is staying with the patient. I suppose they might be passable for most people but I haven’t slept lying down for years because of sleep apnea (and before you mention it, I cannot tolerate CPAP, I’ve tried it.) and back pain, trying to achieve the sleeping position that I need was nearly impossible and always painful, never very restful. I didn’t get a lot of sleep and less rest.

She had fallen in a parking lot a few days before Thanksgiving when her cane slipped out from under her as she walked around the back of the car. She wrote several posts about that and a lot of what happened afterward on her blog “Off The Cuff” ( http://offthecuff.lurasbookcase.com/ ) and more posts on another of her blogs, “Window Shopper” ( http://shopper.purrfectdomains.com/ ) and in her last post on her Christian blog “God’s Topshelf” ( http://godstopshelf.com/ )

Even though she had hardly been scratched and as a hospital trip a few days later confirmed, had not broken anything, it caused her incredible amounts of pain. A couple days after that, along with the expected bruising, blisters started to appear about halfway between her left knee and ankle. The entire area was very painful and sensitive to touch. I had to “tent” the covers over the area so that nothing would touch it.

She ended up being taken care of mostly by me along with the folks from the home health care place who came out to check on her, take pics of the bruise and blisters.

The doctor had decided it was cellulitis and she was treated with antibiotics and strong painkillers. hydrocodone to start with and when that proved not enough, two 15mg MS Contin (morphine sulfate) pills a day. Other than that the only thing to be done was keep the leg elevated because of the risk of her having another blood clot like the one that she’d had last august. She didn’t have one at the time though, they checked for that when they took the xrays looking for breaks.

By the beginning of the 2nd week of December the home health nurse said she thought the blisters looked a lot worse and she took another set of pictures to show the doctor. Once he’d seen them he said that Lura needed to be in the hospital right away to get it looked at and treated.

On the 11th or 12th (It’s kinda blurred to me and I’m not sure of the exact day right now.), we called an ambulance to transport her to the hospital because getting her into the car to drive there would have been entirely too difficult and painful for her. Because the ambulance could not allow me to ride along with her because of something about their insurance and there wouldn’t have been enough room for me and what I had to bring along, my brother drove me to the hospital after they left.

Note: on top of all this, at that same time I had been dealing with crippling migraines and severe jaw pain for a couple of weeks or more and had a very difficult time with nearly everything because of them.

When I got to the hospital she was just arriving at the ER, after a seemingly interminable time for examinations and tests, they admitted her and we moved up to the PCU (progressive care unit).

I think it was the next day they took her to surgery. They had to not just open the blisters but it was necessary to clean out some dead and infected tissue. They applied something called a “Wound VAC” which is basically a vacuum pump that kept the wound (about 2 inches deep and 6 inches across) drained. I can’t tell you how much I hated seeing that hose coming out of the plastic taped to her leg, almost as much as I hated seeing that wound.

They then proceeded to take her back to surgery about every couple of days to check the wound, clean out any more dead tissue they could find and replace the wound VAC. The surgeon was actually pleased with how the procedures went as well as the progress she was making. Each trip to surgery had less junk to remove and they were satisfied that she was beginning to heal.

We both found it frustrating that no matter what, it was expected to be a long process with as much as three or four weeks in the hospital with these surgeries going on before they thought that she might have progressed far enough to go home and back to home health care. It’s also true that because she was diabetic (technically anyway, more borderline than anything) the healing was expected to be slower than for other people. I was told that complete healing and recovery would probably take as long as a year and a half.

By Sunday Dec 28th, I finally needed to go home for at least a day to do some laundry, clean up, get some real sleep and tend to a few household things. I had nearly become a walking zombie due to lack of sleep and a list of aches and pains to long to mention. Despite this very real need, I hated the idea of leaving her there by herself even for a single day because there were things that I was trying to help with that the nursing staff, good hearted though they were for the most part, were just too busy to be as quick to do certain things as she needed.

By the time I got home it was obvious that I was more than just sore and tired, I had come down with a rather nasty intestinal flu complete with a 100 degree + fever, chills and what I call “Explosive Diarrhea”. Needless to say, my one day stop at home got extended by several days.

I kept in touch by phone and she was continuing to do better. By Tuesday I felt better enough that I expected to return to the hospital Wednesday. I spoke to her on the phone that morning. She was tired but otherwise feeling good. She was scheduled for another surgery late that afternoon / evening.

A few minutes after 4pm I got a phone call from the charge nurse. Lura had been out of bed to use the bedside commode. They were helping her back to bed when she complained of being dizzy and collapsed. She told me that they had intubated her and were moving her to ICU.

I made two phone calls to inform family and put in a prayer request for her. When I hung up the phone from the second call, the phone immediately rang. (this was roughly half an hour after the first call) I saw the caller ID was the hospital and expected it to be the charge nurse again with an update. My blood ran cold when I found out it was a doctor, they never call patient’s relatives themselves, they have their office staff do it. I knew this couldn’t possibly be good news.

He told me that she had she had coded for 30 minutes and they were not able to revive her. He said how sorry he was to have to tell me this and the rest of what he said faded into a blur as I hung up to make the same two calls I had earlier to tell them this impossible news.

The next day when I went to the hospital to pick up her things I spoke to the charge nurse that had called me. She told me (sounding like she had been present for most of it) that Lura had regained consciousness for a minute or two after she fell and was awake and talking. Her heart was going slower and slower until she finally lost consciousness again and they started CPR.

I haven’t seen or heard anything official about the cause but the rest of the family and I have what I think is a reasonable theory. While in the hospital she had to be taken off of the blood thinner she was on because of the central line they had put in, the repeated surgeries and the wound itself. Combine that with the fact that she’d already had a blood clot in her leg last summer and was at high risk for developing them and it is very probable that a new blood clot had formed and very likely had broken loose when she fell.

I know that she did not suffer other than the pain and embarrassment of falling, especially in that situation. She hated falling and it was something that she frequently was worried about, especially since she had the DVT last August.

I’ll be posting this story on a few email lists and forums that she participated in and on her MySpace and Facebook pages. I will also post it on all of her blogs after which I do not expect to ever post on any of them again with one exception.

She has an enormous amount of Bible study notes that she has written over the years, a lot of which she had intended to use to write either Articles for her Christian ministry page “Lura’s Bookcase” or her Christian blog “God’s Topshelf”. Because I know she wanted this stuff posted I intend to keep those notes and as I go over them, post them on God’s Topshelf.

I’ll be doing it partly as a memorial to her but mostly out of respect for the fact that she wanted to reach the unbelievers as well as help believers, especially new Christians, learn and grown in The Lord and His will. She knew that we are living in the last days and fully expected the days of tribulation foretold in Revelation and the soon return of Jesus the Anointed One.

She also would not want me to sit and waste away in mourning and grief. Rather, she would prefer that I continue her (and my own) work in the Lord and reach as many as possible while there is still time.

Another reason for doing this is that over recent years my own efforts in this regard have fallen victim to many, many distractions, problems and even laziness that seem to flow like raging river through the need to get so many things done. Therefore I think that it’s reasonable to make an effort to at least set aside a few hours a week to be dedicated to getting back to doing the work that God has set for me to do.

I sincerely hope, pray and believe that her writings will touch the lives of many, bring the unbeliever to accept Jesus and bring Christians to a greater knowledge of Him and His Love and will.

I would also ask that when you speak of me and this situation, that you not say things like, “he lost his wife”. I have not lost her at all. I know exactly where she is and that I will see her again. Her pain is ended forever, mine will fade with time (a lot of it I think) and life will (*MUST*) go on.

As long as this is, there is much still left unsaid, however I have spent nearly the entire day writing this and my heart and mind are nearly spent for the day. It has been, without doubt, the hardest thing I have ever had to write yet it had to be written. She would have done no less.

in Him,

Edward Langenback

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A while back, I noticed a deal called Entrecard which uses the idea of traffic generation by way of “dropping cards” on all those who have the Entrecard widget on their blogs. Thought it was a great idea so I signed up. At first, traffic really did increase. Actually, if I did everything I could do, traffic would still be higher than it currently is on this blog.

What’s the problem here? With this particular traffic generator, you have to take the time to drop up to 300 cards a day per blog signed up. You can drop zero too. The idea is to generate the traffic and eventually find new readers. What usually happens is that I get a quite a bit less traffic than I give out, that is, I drop the required number but get less than a third coming back to me. If that was all the problem, I sure wouldn’t be talking about it. That’s just a matter of finding people who want to be on the blog. No problem there.

No, the problem is more in the nature of how Entrecard has changed to suit the few…themselves. A dropper gets what they call “EC” or Entrecard Cash. You get a point for each drop you make. The EC add up. And things weren’t too bad before this radical change was made. When you had enough EC, you were able to buy advertising on the other blogs depending on how much EC you had on hand. The more you have, the more you can spend on some of the really top ranked blogs. The downside to that was that you could never get in to their list. It was always full. Yes, there was a cap.

Today, it’s a completely different situation. I believe it has gone from bad to worse. Now there is no cap. So the price of the more popular blogs can be quite high, over 8000 EC. Yep, there is a problem there. If you drop 300 EC each day, it will take you a mountain of time to save up enough to buy advertising for ONE DAY on those really expensive blogs. At this point, it’s important to take note of this. When you buy advertising, you do not get the payback exactly. Entrecard takes most of your profit for themselves. In the real world, the lion’s share would go to the one who advertises and gets their payback on it. In Entrecard world, they get the big payback and the blog owner gets the shaft. The EC that rightfully belongs to the blogger is actually going to gather EC for the Entrecard company. Is this nuts or what?

Folks, the money is virtual. What the heck is that about? When the company gathers the VIRTUAL EC, they then put it up for grabs. Of course, the people who want the EC have to pay for it with REAL cash. You can get 1,000 EC for $9.50 and 5,000 for a whopping $47.50. And what do you get when you spend them? One whole day of advertising on another blog. One day. And as I stated before, there are blogs that cost over 8,000 EC to advertise.

Any comments here? Does this look even remotely sane? People are paying almost $50 to acquire a few EC that you can get for free. Granted, you really have to work for those little buggers but they are free. The problem is that it takes forever to gather them. Then you really do not get value for your bucks….either way.

Entrecard is definitely not all that. I will keep it for information purposes but it’s doubtful that I will spend a lot of time on site anymore. Just not worth the incredible effort it takes. Sigh.

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Once again, the recall list is growing. Seems that every day more and more items are needed to be placed on the recall list, most unknown to the general public. So, in an effort to get the word out to more people, here are some items from the latest recall list:

1) Schnucks brand spanish olives, 5.7 ounce jars. Brand name Mario Camacho. The officials believe that some jars contain glass fragments. The jars were distributed to Tennessee and Mississippi. The code on the jars is UPC code 04131819003. If you have purchased that brand and size jar of olives, please return them to Schnucks for a full refund. If you have any questions, you can call 1-800-264-4400 for more information.

2) Ahart’s Market, Allentown, recalls ground beef with a sell-by date of May 9th. A styrofoam tray was accidentally ground up into a batch of meat. This is strictly for Allentown. Please return the ground beef trays to the store on Allen Street for a refund. The styrofoam, they say, will not harm you or your family.

Most of the rest of the recalls are for things overseas. I am not reporting those here because I feel that we need to see only those for the United States at this time. There will be more recalls in the coming days.

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Much of the time, when people go to the dentist, they do not ask where the products going into their mouths come from. Might be a good idea to do so from now on. It seems that a good deal of the products that go in the mouth are coming from China. But the real problem is that the bridges and crowns that the dentist puts in your mouth may be tainted with large amounts of lead.

Now, if you have not been watching the news about China and the toys that were tainted with lead because you didn’t have kids, you might just want to pay a bit more attention this time. China has been sending us many items that were tainted or incredibly imperfect. The worst things were the tainted pet foods, heparin and the toys containing lead. Now, the dental products are also containing and tainted with lead. And this is what you put into your mouth. Are you aware what lead can do to a body? It will affect the kidneys, heart, eyes, immune system and your abilities in cognitive functions.

I guess that one of the worst problems here is that you will not know that the item, like a crown or bridge, was made in China. For instance, dentists will buy crowns from China for about $30-$50 and sell them to the patient for about $1200. The big problem comes when the things simply do not fit right. When that happens, bacteria will come in. Eventually, you would need root canal work done. Often, the contamination is not in the metal, like you would think, but in the porcelain parts of the crown and usually at quite high levels.

To put this into perspective, the Congress is trying to put a limit on the level of lead in toys at 90 ppm. One lady who had some serious problems with the lead in her dental work had 490 parts per million, much higher than the Congress wants for toys. And this is IN YOUR MOUTH!!!! Now the CDC does not think that this level of lead would actually pose a threat to health. Also they are not recommending anyone get previous work redone or delay getting dental work done because of this.

I will say that not everyone was experiencing this sort of thing but it does make one stop and think about what is happening at the dentist. Perhaps it is time to see that doctors and dentists are sometimes in it for the money too. For now, it would be best if, when you are getting crowns or bridgework done, ask where the product is coming from. If it’s China, I would say “No thanks, maybe next time when you have products from the US.”

My only question now is…..WHEN ARE WE GOING TO see that China is trying to take us down from within? China is trying to say that they are innocent. One item that comes here that has problems, okay, that could be a mistake. BUT, we have had product after product coming from China that is dangerous for us and for our children. When is enough…enough???? I want you to know that I am mad as hell and I do not want to take it anymore!!!! Chinese products MUST be inspected and rejected if they are tainted or dangerous in any way. And then, we must stop trade with them. I realize that it would be diplomatically bad to do this but when can we afford to lose our citizens just because we want to make nice with a foreign country??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

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For years, I traveled from state to state, working at my driving job. You would think that I would get tired of doing that day after day. I did not. It was great. I thought then that I was born to drive and I believe that I was. I love to drive. Of course, it was a pretty long trip most of the time.

I had some problems, of course. Strange drivers out there that thought I was in their way, people who would cut me off. What were they thinking???? For one thing, a truck cannot stop on a dime. For another, I might not even have seen them. That guy did not have kids in the car but I have seen ones that did doing some really dangerous stunts. It was enough for me to check and make sure I had some really great travel health insurance, I want you to know. These people were nuts!!

For instance, I was traveling north around Columbus, Ohio, one morning…in rush hour traffic. This guy comes up from behind, gives me the universal salute, gets ahead of me and slams on his brakes. It was all I could do to not run him over. For some time after that, he did the same thing over and over again. By the time he decided his little game was getting boring for him and he left, my brakes were almost red hot and soon to become useless. And there wasn’t a cop in sight. Naturally.

It was great doing the job I did because almost all goods going to stores are taken there by truck. I had a good job…except for jerks like that one was. Here’s a little thing to think about. Take the time to think about what might NOT get there by truck. The list will be extremely short. In fact, I cannot think of a single thing that does not, in some way, move by truck including those things like oil and gas. Can you think of anything? Right.

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I know that you have gripes about your job. Don’t we all? At this point in time, I am at home working instead of out there but I have had a number of jobs there and it ain’t pretty. What do you hate the most about your job? The boss and their attitude? Co-workers who steal your lunch? Or possibly gossip at the water cooler? I have to tell you that in my case, it was those performance reviews. ACK!

What am I talking about? Work evaluations to see if they want to keep you. I could not stand those things because they were always a bit slanted either for or against you depending on what your immediate supervisor thought of you. If you make nice with them, they either grab and keep grabbing credit for what you did or they simply hate you because you do a better job than they do. They know you want their job so they do what they can to discourage you. BAH!

Why not have your work speak for you in the numbers or the product, service or whatever you do. Why must we go through that nasty every month, two months, each week or whatever time of torture the company wishes to throw at ya. Nope. I want to say that I no longer have that problem. Well, except for the people who read my blog and give me a bad critique on it. And then there are my family members who think….well, that’s for another time, right? What’s that? You don’t like my post? I really can’t help that, you know. I simply write what I think, you see. What? You don’t like that? Sigh. Okay. (She mutters and walks slowly into the corner. She pouts. She sighs. She yawns. She goes off to bed. In the distance, you can hear snoring, a bark, a couple of meows and then it gets really quiet.)

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How many times have you been in a store and you needed something that the salesperson could help you with but decides that you are too this or too that for them to help? What has happened to “The customer is always right” meaning that if you want something, they could at least make the effort to do something for you or tell you why they cannot.

Most salespeople I run into are really nice and friendly. But there are those who simply will not be nice and friendly nor will they have a sense of humor at anything said. I do love people with a sense of humor because that makes them HUMAN! Salespeople who take themselves and their jobs too seriously are difficult in the extreme to have help you. They simply do not get it, do they? Why can’t we have sensible salespeople who like their jobs and love the public? I think that would be awesome! Don’t you?

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I worked in the trucking industry for about 8 and 1/2 years as an over-the-road trucker. For some of those years, I worked alone. Yes, I am female and it did work out nicely. Usually, I went from coast to coast in about a week or so. Then I went back again. I did not spend much time at home in those days but home was good to see, nevertheless.

On many of those runs, I would get so tired that I would pull off the road and go to sleep in a truck stop or rest area. Some days, there weren’t even those places to pull in to rest. It was a blessing, I believe, that the companies I worked for all trusted me to keep their equipment intact. In fact, I had one truck that was huge. It had the type of cab like the Condo Hotels on wheels, it was so big in the sleeper. You could actually sleep three in there comfortably. I did not!!! I loved the space.

I was thinking about this just today when we went out to do some quick shopping. We have noticed, as have you, that the prices on things are going up, up, up with no real relief in sight. And then I remember my time in a truck. Are you aware that almost everything you buy is brought in, one way or another, by truck? Are you aware that if the cost of gas or diesel goes up, the trucking companies have to pass that cost on to the companies who ship? Do you see what happens here? The cost of the diesel goes to the company who, in turn, charge the consumer for the added cost.

No, it is not the fault of the trucking companies, not really the fault of the manufacturers or the retail outlets. The fault belongs to the greedy oil companies who charge so much, not only at the pump, but the per barrel price too. Nevertheless just remember, when you are starting to cuss out the trucker that is driving by, that they are hauling the goods that you want to buy. I would say that 99% of all goods and products come by way of a truck. Makes you think, doesn’t it.

Happy Shopping!!!

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I was thinking about all those times when we bought batteries and more batteries. You know, I think we spent a lot of money on batteries for the longest time until we finally decided that although the rechargeable batteries are a lot more expensive to start with than those that are always on sale at or near the cash register they were going to save us money in the end.

How? Well, for one thing, they are rechargeable. Guess you didn’t see that coming? Of course, they do expire some day but while you have them, they sure do a lot more than the usual batteries that I have had experiences with. For instance, I used to work at a place where the best way to entertain yourself while you work (it was sort of mindless stuff), you could bring your own music with you. I had a tape player with earphones. It took four batteries that ran out about half way into the day. I could not use those batteries for very long. That got tiring quickly, I can tell you. When I discovered rechargeable batteries, I was really happy. My husband took his tape player to work as well. Those batteries simply needed to be changed out with the others that he had run out that day. Yes!!!

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Several of the teen or young adult movie stars are having problems coping with their lifestyles, apparently. See, I love the movies that some of them are in. For instance, Lindsay Lohan has some good movies out that I love to watch. As long as the teens can tell the difference between the star and the role, things should be all right. But that is not the case.

Teens idolize many of these stars. The latest fall from grace appears to be a tie between Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. This is truly sad. Both Britney and Lindsay have been in and out of drug rehab many times but because they go back to their already damaging lifestyles, not much changes. The fact that they are in the news so much shows how much the media focuses on them, a mistake in my opinion. I believe if the media would not report all of this, perhaps the young adults and teens would look elsewhere for their idols instead of focusing on those who cannot handle the heat but cannot get out of the kitchen without disappointing their fans.

See, to me, that’s a lot of pressure on those people. I do not condone the fact that they cannot seem to stay sober long enough to make it though a month. Yet, they have private lives themselves but the media does not appear to want them to have it.

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