Been busy hitting the books!!!!! 



Hope you all are starting to get some spring!  I'm ready for it here!  Coldest, wettest winter anyone can remember around here!  What's up with THAT??????  This IS Arizona, after all....SOUTHERN Arizona!  Sheesh!!!!!

Take care, everyone!  I'll see you soon!!!!

Spent the best part of my day in the ER yesterday (Sunday) after taking a fall while working in my yard and putting my left hip out.  I've had both hips replaced and THIS one revised once already!  Living out in BFE has its downfalls, as it took a while for the ambulance to arrive, probably because they had to round up the EMTs, as I don't think we have a full-time crew here.  Anyway, there's me lying there in the weeds and sand, etc., with the poo lying there beside me, comforting and guarding her Mama.  Thank goodness it's Arizona or I'd have likely frozen to death!  Well, they finally arrived and then it was a 45-minute ride to the hospital, AFTER the painful ordeal of getting me into the ambulance...thank goodness I was near the alleyway!  Then had to wait while somebody rounded up the med list...wouldn't you KNOW that hubby had been messing with my computer the day before and the list wouldn't convert in order to print? 

Anyway, so finally we're on our way!  I felt every bump, hill, turn, etc.  All they had on board for pain med was morphine, of which I took 3 "hits", one for each time the pain got to a level of 8 out of 10.  Each time it would bring the pain down to about 4.....sigh....endurable...and would last only about 10 minutes.  

Then I get to the hospital, where they stick me in a room and eventually people started coming in to talk to me....and it was FINALLY decided, after a trip to x-ray and an ordeal of having to be moved from the gurney to the x-ray table AND BACK, that they would try to put my hip back in place, under sedation.  But the chosen sedation was Propofol (remember Michael Jackson?) and the HOSPITAL policy was now that they had to have 2 doctors there or another sedative needed to be used.  Well, they chose Brevitol....and I felt every tug and pull...so much for THAT sedative!!!!!  Not only that, but I woke up, if you can call it that, and they hadn't got it in!!!!  I was in worse pain than EVER!!!!  Let me tell you, if I'm crying, I'm hurting, and tears were rolling out of my eyes and I was whimpering like a hurt animal, which is how I felt at that moment!!! 

OK, so now what?  Well, the doc says he'll give me some more morphine.....So I wait, and wait and wait and wait....then the x-ray guy comes in with a portable x-ray machine (WHY didn't they use that the FIRST time, dammit?), but I never do get the morphine.  

Then, after more waiting, the doc finally comes in with another doctor and, guess what? NOW they can use the Propofol.  So....out I go and in goes the hip AT LAST!!!!!! 

Ultimately, I get off the table and walk out of the place, the nurse who never got me the morphine barely walking me to the door and then basically shoving me out of it.

I tell you....we pay so much for health insurance and provision...You'd think they'd at least say "Thanks," wouldn't you?

Anyway, I'm up and about, but walking carefully!! 

You all have a wonderful week!!!!  And WATCH YOUR STEP!!!!

Some of this is just too weird!!!!!!

Though many people tend to think of men and poodles in this context...









In fact.........


Historically, poodles have been working dogs....but more on that later.  But here's a preview...








Including some VERY important heads of state....such as Churchill...



Chirac (former French President...but then, where else?  LOL)...



And...guess who?