Flooding!

Here are some pictures of the spring flooding in the area near my parents house.   I have also included some older pictures of the same areas so you can see the comparison!!

These show the flooding at Lake of the Prairies in Manitoba where my parents have their trailer.

This was taken a couple years ago.  Do you see the boat upside down in the grass? 
Look for the red strip straight up from Sam's redhead...

I am now standing just above where that boat would have been.  The entire beach area is gone!



Near that beach is a boat launch area that is now completely under water. Notice the tiny white speck in the water just past the blue and white dock....

...that little white speck is this sign!  YIKES I certainly won't park there!

 

 To the left of the boat launch area is the fish cleaning shack.  Do you see that bit of bush in front of the shack?  I used to part the van by that bush!

 

A few miles down the lake, the parking lot and fish cleaning shack are flooded.  The trees on the other side of the shack are supposed to be on the bank of the lake!

Close up of the shack

Another place I won't be driving my van!

At another lake many miles away, this is my Aunt and Uncle's boat house.  Thankfully the water did not come up high enough to get in the cabin but it was very close.

Nope, won't be driving there either!


Many, many people were effected by this flooding. Including my parents.  While I was there water started coming into the their basement...what a mess!

When it rains it pours!

Yesterday was my turn at the hospital with Papa.  When I got there I found out that he had been moved from ICU up to a regular room!   Of course, this is good news because he is no longer sick enough to be in ICU!  However, I quickly realized that the big change will be with the level of nursing care he will be receiving.  I was there all afternoon and there was very little contact with the nurses.  He is still incredibly weak and still cannot get himself in and out of bed on his own so I am concerned about that.  However, it might make him do more for himself which will hopefully increase his strength.  Anyway, I was thinking that we would have to spend even more time at the hospital to help him out.....

Then we found a bunch of water in the basement late last night!  Mom hauled out the shop vacs and we vacuumed and sucked up gallons and gallons and gallons and gallons of water and it just keeps seeping through the floor.  Places that we had just sucked up are soon sopping wet again.  The worst offender was the hole in the bathroom floor that is still there from when they had to fix a crack in the basement wall.  I would guess that this hole held about 5 gallons of water.  We would take all the water out of it and it was full again within 30 minutes! So every 30 minutes one of us were in there emptying the hole and sucking water out of the carpet - neither of us slept much!  Then this morning mom called a friend to help her set up a sump pump in the hole, then at least we wouldn't have to worry about that - just the water seeping up through the floor...sigh... 

Of course I have the strangest kids in the world and they thought this was all very exciting and soon had all their pant legs rolled up like mine.  Then they started running back and forth on the wet carpet singing "Slippety Slide, Slippety Slippety Slide".  I seriously need a nap!

No more tubes and wires!

On Saturday we were treated to one of the worst blizzards many people around here can remember - including my 89 year old Grandma!  Sunday we were completely blocked in until a family friend was able to get to us with a Bobcat.  However, even though we would have been able to get out of town, most of the highways between here and the city where Papa is in the hospital were reporting that travel was not recommended.  So obviously we were not able to get to the hospital on Saturday or Sunday.  My mom was able to talk to Papa on the phone once and then he even called us on Sunday!  That was a surprise!!

So after two days of not seeing him at all, my mom went in today.  She said that he has been taken off of oxygen completely!  And all his IV's and whatever other wires he was attached to have been removed as well.  That is simply amazing to me as just one week ago he was in a medically induced coma and was on a ventilator doing most of the breathing for him!!!  A walking miracle for sure!

Well, speaking of walking - he actually is not doing much of that yet.  He is still very weak but is slowly and steadily improving.  The physical therapists were there twice today and got him up to walk a short distance.  At one point he was seated in a wheelchair and asked mom if it was locked.  She said that it was and asked if he wanted it unlocked, which he did.  He managed to take himself for a little spin into the hallway!  Progress!

The complaint of the day is that he is not eating enough, so we are praying that he will gain a bigger appetite so that his strength will come back more quickly...

Time travel?

I started out the month of April in North Carolina and was thrilled with a beautiful spring.  I took pictures like these in our yard and our neighbor's yard a day or two after the first day of spring...

Our house is in the background and is the view from my bedroom!



It was even warm enough to dig out some shorts!

but then I came to Saskatchewan and apparently travelled back in time to the middle of winter.  We woke up this morning to this...

We knew it was snowing but we didn't know how much because we couldn't even see through most of the windows!



All the snow was gone when we got here about a week ago.  This is all fresh snow!!



I am thinking it will be at least a couple days before I can drive my van!

This is at least a 4 foot drift!

maybe I should have packed more than raincoats and rubber boots?

and I had to exchange my flipflops for Papa's snowboots!
We were all dressed up and ready to go out into the snow storm...



We were not out very long, it took us longer to get dressed than we were outside. 
They were not impressed with being out in a snow storm!

 Oh and yes, I did check the calendar and it is in fact April 30.  So nope, not time travel just a reminder that anything can happen with the weather in Saskatchewan!  And yep I am really missing North Carolina right about now...

strength slowly returning

I have not posted for a couple days because there has not been much change with my dad.  He was taken off of the breathing machine on Tuesday and has been breathing fine and has not been in any pain.  His meals have been slowly changing from clear fluids to this evening he had a sandwich.  Progress!!!

He has also been getting some strength back, although this is a very slow.  When I was there on Thursday he managed to pick up a glass and take a drink of water and put the glass back down without any assistance.  When he put it down he kind of smirked and said whew that was a pretty big job.  I laughed and said yes indeed it was.  Of course what you don't know is that there is a family joke about pretty big jobs and being pretty busy - and it would take too long to explain and wouldn't be nearly as funny so I won't bother you with it.  The point is that his sense of humor is there and we are seeing him come back.  At one point he was even humming along to a song on the radio. 

The downside is that many of his comments are kind of strange and he is often very confused. According to the nurses he is suffering from sleep deprivation and one nurse even called it ICU-itis.  At this point we are praying that they can find a good medication to help him get a few nights of good restful sleep and the confusion will go away. 

progress

Today was a really good day with a great big step in the right direction.  My mom and I have been taking turns going to the hospital and today was my day.  I got to dad's room early in the afternoon and he was awake but still on the ventilator.  His nurse told me that they were waiting for the doctor and then they would take the breathing tubes out. 

This particular nurse is one of our favorites and I had some good phone conversations with him while I was still in North Carolina.  Anyway, I was somewhat amused by his obvious impatience with the doctor!  Well, he soon cornered the doctor and I was kicked out for quite awhile.  When I returned the breathing tubes were gone and he was only using a breathing mask.  This mask provided him with moist air as his throat and vocal cords would be sore for awhile.

For the next couple of hours he was on this mask and he could have ice chips.  His voice was very raspy and even though he tried to talk a little it was very hard to understand him.  Later they took the mask away and he was put on oxygen with just the nasal prongs.  Then we could understand him a little better and his voice was coming back a bit more. 

Soon his gourmet supper arrived - juice and blue jello!  I know my dad well enough to know that jello of any kind would not be appealing.  However, we joked that because Papa had blue jello that the kids would be wanting blue jello and he agreed with that!  He ate some of the jello but was more interested in the juice and kept asking for ice water. 

He had been completely sedated for an entire week and so he is still very weak and it is going to take quite some time for him to get strength back, but today was a huge step in the right direction.  And I when I was about to leave I said "I Love You Papa" and then I heard the 5 most wonderful words ever "I Love You Too Sweetheart".   Precious, precious words indeed!

2 steps forward

Today was another good day for my dad.  He was off of sedation and breathing on his own longer than yesterday.  This is very good progress and they are thinking about taking the breathing tube out soon!

When my mom left this evening they were sedating him again for the night so that he can get some good rest.  Maybe the tubes will come out as early as tomorrow.  Now that would be a huge blessing!