Thanks to all for the concern about my recent hospital stay, I am truly grateful for your kind words, thoughts and prayers! I am truly blessed!

I wrote the following a s a response to my nosey niece Lisa, who wanted all the dirt on what actually happened to me! Thanks Lisa! I love you!

So here goes:

Saturday a week ago I woke up at 4 am with a pain right below my left knee. It actually woke me up, it was like I had hit my shin but I was laying in bed! Being old and all I assumed that I must have bumped it earlier and just didn't remember..I attributed this to my on going battle with CRS syndrome (Can't Remember Shit!)

We had to go to Austin Saturday afternoon because we volunteer every year to help Jann (Dian's identical twin) at the Cap10K (One of the largest 10K running races in the US. They had over 18,000 people this year!)

At this race, the city of Austin provides several EMT's. I didn't know, but Dian had told Jann about my leg pain and had asked her to check with the EMT's about it on Sunday morning.

Dian and I were in our golf cart around 7 am preparing to go do our job of monitoring the race course and assisting any runners that may injure
themselves when Jann called Dian on her cell phone.

Dian turns to me and says: "Honey they don't mean to alarm you but they all say you should go to the Emergency Room right away".

Well, it was hard to argue with that, so I got my happy ass in my car and went to the ER!

They were great there and diagnosed me with a "Superficial Vein Thrombosis" (blood clot) after doing an Ultrasound and some other blood tests. They said because it was in a 'superficial' vein that it was not life threatening! Woohoo! Big sigh of relief! So they released me and we went home later that day.

The ER Doc told me to follow up with my Doctor within 3 days or if anything changed! The morning of the 3rd day (April 1st) I woke up with additional pain and redness above my left knee, I called my Doctor and they said come over right away.

After an exam they ordered a "Stat Ultrasound" and sent me to the closest place that could do it and that was North Cypress Medical Center.  That was the first time I had actually heard a doctor use the word 'Stat', I assumed it was only a TV word!

The girl that did my Ultrasound was very thorough. I knew something was up because at the end as I was leaving she said "Now Mr. Johns you take care of yourself and take it real easy till you hear from your Doctor". I asked how long that would be and she said it usually takes a couple of hours for the Doctor to read the Ultrasound and make a diagnosis.

So I went home and waited. Within 15 minutes of getting home, the phone rings and it's my Doctors office asking where I am. I told her I just got back home and she said something like "Oh, I had hoped they hadn't released you"!. And then she asked me how long it would take to get back to the ER? Well, that was a bit of a surprise! I told her I could
get there in about 15 minutes and she said that would be really good.

She told me to pack a few things and she would call and tell them that
I was on my way. She also told me to tell them I was there for a DVT or
"Deep Vein Thrombosis". I knew from Googling that DVT was much more serious than the superficial variety!

Tyler was home from school so I got him to take me to the ER.
The hospital ER was packed but apparently they treat DVT's with a bit of priority. They admitted me right away!

All the ER 'rooms' were full and they were putting patients on gurneys in
the hallways. I was on a gurney in the ER within minutes. Unfortunately
they had no beds available yet so I ended up staying in the ER from 4pm to about 11pm!

It was interesting to be in a busy ER for so long, several drama's unfolded as I laid there. The most heart breaking was a woman in her 50's that was brought in. It looked like a scene from the ER TV show...EMT's surrounding her cart actively performing CPR. The whoosh, whoosh whoosh of the 'bag' was something I had never heard before. Her husband was with her. They took her into one of the trauma rooms and pulled the curtain. I could still hear the 'whooshing' for about 10 minutes and then there was silence. After a few minutes the hospital personnel slowly and solemnly filed out. And I could hear the husband sobbing. She had a massive heart attack. Apparently they had been performing CPR for at least 45 minutes!

After a while, two younger guys showed up and the father met them in front of the trauma room and obviously broke the news to them. It was their two sons. It was absolutely heartrending.

I was only 20 feet away from all this profound sadness.

Throughout the next few hours I watched as other family members arrived and the Husband repeated the same agony, breaking the news to the other family members and friends. I was amazed at the way this man comforted everyone when he was in so much of his own agony. And finally about an hour before I was taken up to my room, the funeral
home people showed up and removed the woman's body. The family had stayed with her the whole time.

In a span of 6 hours I was a passive witness to a family's whole world being turned upside down.

Sorry for the sidebar, but it had a profound impact on me.

Now back to ME!
No one in the ER had told me specifically to not walk around so I went to
the bathroom and then wandered over to the nurses station to ask some
question. The nurse looked up at me and said accusingly "aren't you the
guy with the DVT?" And I said "y y yes" and she then says (rather
sternly I might add) "what are you doing walking around! I don't want
to be the one standing over you beating on your chest trying to revive
you! Now go back and lay down and stay there!"

Talk about questionable bedside manner! Well, I must say it got my attention and brought into focus for me the seriousness of what was going on! I was transformed into the 'model' patient!

While I was in the ER they started an IV and gave me the first of what was to be 13 shots of Lovenox in my stomach! That was a surprise! I ended up getting 2 a day for six days plus the bonus while in the ER! Lovenox is an anticoagulant and then they started me on Coumadin (a blood thinner).

I got in my room Wednesday night around 11pm and was told to stay in bed and only get up to go to the bathroom.

My days consisted of being mostly flat on my back with my biggest decision was what position to lie in next. " Hmmm, let's see, should I go for the left side now or be really daring and go for the right side fetal
position!"

This was my daily routine:
I got a stomach shot at 9 am and 9 pm every day.
I had an IV of Clendomycin (antibiotic) every 6 hours.
They took my vital signs, Blood Pressure, Temp and Oxygen saturation every 4 hours
And every morning at 4am they took blood to check my INR level.
Normal
INR (blood thickness) level is 1, they needed mine to be 1.9 to 2.5.
They wanted my blood to be at least twice as thin as normal to stop any
more clots from forming.

The real highlight was the Hospital! It's like a freaking nice hotel! All private rooms!

And the best part was the food! The food vendor was Luby's Cafeteria! So I got to order from a special menu of all Luby's Food!! It was
de-freakin-licious!!

I'll be on blood thinners for at least 6 months and I'll have to be real careful about injuring myself. I have to wear a 'medical alert' bracelet that says I'm on blood thinners in case I'm in an accident.

Anyhoo, that's the 'short' version!! Bahahahahahaha!

james

This is a bizarre story. Sunday before last I was standing in my yard talking on my cell phone to a friend and this baby squirrel appears at the base of a tree about 8 feet from me. I told my friend on the phone that this was cool, the little guy was just sitting there watching me. After a few minutes the baby squirrel starts coming towards me. I'm amazed and tell my buddy that I think this squirrel is going to come to me. To my utter astonishment, he does come to me and hops on my right boot and sits there. I was telling my buddy this as it was happening. He didn't believe me, so I told him I'd call him back after I took a picture with my phone.  I was trying not to show too much excitement so as not to scare him away. By this time he had crawled up to my knee and was looking up at me.
To make a long story longer. That was 8 days ago and he's still here. It appears my neighbors dog may have killed his mother a few days before that. And he was just hanging out I guess waiting for her to come find him.
I took him to my vet who helps me with all our animals and he said he's in good health but just needs a safe haven until he's old enough to be assimilated back into his natural habitat. He eats well, (PetCo has a "Squirrel Mix" and he likes apples and peanuts). I've also been online and read up on the process for getting him ready to go "home". The vet says he will probably always be around our house. We keep him away from all our other pets so he won't develop any "trust" issues when we return him to his natural habitat.
Anywhoo, he's a kick. And if anyone has experience with squirrels like this, I would welcome any comments or suggestions.

Here are some more pics of him here:

Roscoes Photo Shoot