Acccccck! My eighty year old deaf friend has complications! A new infection has set in!! He has more blood in his lungs and he can't be taken off the ventilator!! Now what will happen?

Last Thursday night, my deaf friend, who is eighty years old, had to have emergency surgery at Timpkin Mercy Hospital in Canton,..Ohio. His appendix burst and he just made it to the hospital on time to have the whole "mess' removed from his abdomen before blood poisoning set in.
Rosezelle,..his wife,..Mrs. "Usually-cool-and-collected" bawled me out, bawled out their son, bawled out their son's girlfriend,..and bawled out anyone or anything that moved or spoke. Everyone was bad to her!
I was supposed to be selling my story to another publishing company! She even called "The Rev' in Indiana and exploded at him about something. I was working with a "special needs" client and she called me at the client's house and yowled at me on the telephone. The client's phone was an old fashioned one and I could not raise the volume on it so I could barely understand what she said!
When we got to the hosp[ital, my deaf friend was already on the operating room table. His fever was over 104 degrees and he was very sick. The surgeon told Rosezelle that if the pus in his gut had not formed an abcess,..he WOULD have died from blood poisoning. They drained almost a pint of burst appendix and pus out of his gut!!
Everything was going well for him until blood started to pour into his lungs and he had to be put on a respirator with an endotrach tube stuck in his mouth and going down into his trach. Of course,..that was followed by a gastric tube to the esophagus!!
After he was returned to ICU, Rosezelle and I sat for two hours in the ICU unit waiting room from eight o'clock until ten pm,..We were waiting and waiting till the nurses would let us come in and see him. After two hours of waiting, I began to get pissed off as I knew that he had had to have been awake and conscious to have been brought back into the ICU at 8 pm!!
Finally, I really got pissed off and went over to the ICU room door with it's annoying little buzzer and instead of giving it one polite little "buzz," I leaned on it till a nurse came out to chase me away with a security guard.

I politely asked her, "We have been waiting for two hours to see Mr. Qualls. Why have we not been permitted in to see him? We have been sitting and waiting in this hospital for almost nine hours today and I would really like to know why we have had to wait out these last two hours and no one has ever told us why!"

The ICU nurse began the usual, "I only have to explain to family or medical personel...."

"I am a nurse!" I growled, "And his wife is the person, who asked me to find out why we have had to wait so long!'

"Well!" the poor nursie continued, "WE HAVE BEEN TALKING TO THIS MAN FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS AND HE IS JUST NOT RESPONDING TO THE SOUND OF OUR VOICES!! INDEED! HE IS GETTING SO AGITATED THAT HE IS PULLING AND HITTING AT THE SHEET AND WAVING HIS HANDS AROUND IN AN AGITATED MANNER...SO WE HAVE TIED HIS HANDS DOWN!! WE DIDN'T WANT TO GET HIS WIFE AND FAMILY UPSET WITH THIS HORRIBLE NEWS!!"

(STUPID BITCHES,..they tied his hands down!! How was he supposed to talk???)

"The man is D-e-a-f! That should be on his "flow sheet! Can't you read?" I hissed at the ICU nurse, "He has not responded to the sound of ANYONE'S VOICE in over seventy five years as he had encephalitis as a child and lost his hearing!! How the Hell can he talk to his wife and myself if you have tied his hands down?"

The nurses couldn't get us into the ICU fast enough after that!! Buck calmed down after he saw Rosezelle, but he was not speaking clearly as he had pulled so hard against the restraints that his hands and finger had swollen up!! The poor man was actually stuttering as he tried to fingerspell to us, his hands were shaking so badly!! He had only his right arm to talk with as his left arm was full of IV's. They also had an IV in his neck.
I shuddered to think back to the ugly days in the nineteen seventies,..when it was standard practice to put leather restraints on young deaf women, who were delivering their first babies,..rather than get an interpretor to explain to the young ladies just what would happen to to them as they progressed through their deliveries!! What was the reasoning for such cruelty? You don't have to pay a leather restraint like you have to pay an interpretor for the deaf and besides,..EVERYONE KNOWS THAT THE DEAF ARE JUST "DUMB IDIOTS,"...anyway!!
I went back to the hospital and did some major "BITCHIN!" I am pleased to say that while I while I did not foam at the mouth,..I am fairly certain that no one will ever tie Buck's hands down for the rest of this visit to to the hospital. I am also pleased to say that the hospital is paying for an interpretor, who starts today, and every nurse in the ICU is learning to fingerspell...as fast as they can!!

Giggle! I just thought of something! I'll bet none of my readers, who has not see an example of my press releases, has thought to go to google and look up my real name and looked at the "Stark State Informer"...article that I wrote for the student paper. That article shows my professional writing style and I how I place my content. I put it in under my real name so as to not attract too much attention.
Funny, no one knows just how quickly I relearned to type because of online challenges. Challenges are what makes me tick,..but not "stupid" challenges.

I have never sued anyone for copyright infringement,..but there is always a first time!!

I guess Odessa's book is selling really well in the Cinncinati area!

YEEEEEEEEES!

I can't seem to get the words down that I want to use for a review of it. My ass is grass if I don't think of something that will describe this autobiography in such a way that others will see it for the wonderful inspiration that it is about a human life!! I thought about using the same things that I said about it in this blog, but I want to say something "new" and "fresh" about it and I can't seem to come up with anything that would fit such a book about such a woman! Boy,..oh boy! Could I ever use some help with writing these reviews.

If all of the 'shit' that came down..had not come down the way it had in certain groups,..I could...as my original plan,...just send by snail mail,..a copy of the book,..that needs reviewed to someone else and then have them e-mail their reviews back to me and then,..send those reviews onto my news sources that I am a "stringer" for. Presto-magico! They have name credits for press releases and a small paycheck,..and I can move onto more writing and other things.

If I can get "Questing Truth" on the phone today,..I'll see if she needs a little money cause I can't do it all. Besides, I will enjoy seeing her name on some newsprint. After what she has had to put up with,..she deserves some paid "fun!" (And a little fame!!")

Draaaaat! I just wanted to add that I got the latest about Debbie from Jane. It seems that Debbie's husband had to divorce her as that was the only way that she could get any treatment for her brain tumor!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Two people, who love each other, have to split because that is the only way that she can save her life by getting Medicaid!
Jane looked at me in her weird little way and then started picking, "If you don't like such things,..then...DO something about it!!........!!"

YEAH! RIGHT!!

Oooooo-k! Today, I am going to sit down and write up my articles. I have to do it!!
I have been offline for so long and online for such short periods of time that I can't seem to get anything done!! I am so far behind on my work stats that if I ever catch up it will be a minor miracle!!
Stark County has been put under a flood watch because of all the rain!!

I went to the SHH and Deaf picnic at Sippo lake with William yesterday. I should have gone to the past few picnics. My hands are still sore from all of the talking that I did!!
Jane still makes her "killer" chocolate cakes.......so good...(groan!)....I ate four big pieces,..covered with razzberry sauce!! One couple,...(I won't say who???!)....brought another huge cake so that everyone would help celebrate with them....their fiftieth wedding anniversary!
Loren and Arnie,..after TWENTY YEARS,.... are finally engaged!!
Debbie survived the brain tumor, but Ralph divorced her. Debbie gave me her address and told me to drop by anytime!!
Jane got her professorship at Kent State University finally!! She has had her PhD in Physics for over five years now! I guess I got caught up on all of the necessary gossip!!
Jane and Debbie and I talked for over two and one half hours!! Several folks ordered books, and Jane embaressed the hell out of me by standing up and announcing that the book might be made into a movie. This,..of course,..embaressed the hell out of my son,..Bill!

William got a dose of what it is to be one of the few hearing people in a group where everything is said manually and voicing is only used for ideas that cannot be expressed on the hands. He wanted to go home before the supper meal!! I got him to stay by introducing him to an old Greek gentleman, whose wife has become hard of hearing!! My son and the old man were soon deep in conversation. William and I left the picnic after the first pontoon boat ride.

I was invited to go back to Deaf Church, but I just said that I would think about it. Still,..if I am to write accurately about certain events and if I am to introduce certain folks to the "Deaf Way.' and have them write accurately about their observations,..I must get back into the swing of the Silent Community,..myself!! Judging from yesterday's picnic,..that should not be..too hard!!

Except for the Self help For Hard of Hearing Picnic tomorrow,..I am going to be chained to my desk, writing with a pencil and paper, thanks to the prick, who sent me the e-card!! If 48 hours with the "necessary" work does not get the jobs done,..I don't know what will...!

Also, I have been digging out oodles of old newspaper articles about Miss Nellie and myself. Goodness knows...how long some of them have been stuck in my filing cabinets!! I remember that I stuck most of them in the journals, that I kept, while I was living with Nellie, but I must have stuck a mess of them in the filing cabinets,..too!
I am almost afraid to look up in the attic and see what I have stuck away!! Last night, I was looking at all of the academic awards that I won when I was in high school and thinking of all of the fun, that I had in college in the seventies...it...seems like a million years ago!!
I got a glimpse of what I called my gallery of boyfriends....heh! Quite a crew! Drove my mom nuts!

The thought of illustrating my own book is just too much. Bess keeps insisting that I can do just that! I have not done a portrait in years. My cartooning is just to joke and play around with friends for their and my own private pleasure. Showing other people my drawings I would consider an invasion of my own privacy.
"Why should I do this thing?" I asked her, "Drawing and painting is the me that I keep for myself!"
"You didn't feel that way twenty years ago when you lived with me!" she said back to me and handed me a picture of a panda bear, that I had painted for her years and years ago.
"Besides," and she had a look on her face that reminded me of a cat out to molest some sparrows, "Certain "egos" need crushing. I get tired of people, who don't really know or understand you, putting you down."
Now what in the hell is she talking about?

Bess is really pushing my patience to it's limit. She says that she went "temporarily insane" while she was planning her daughter's wedding, and now she wants to "arrange" a speaking schedule that will help us reach the right "people!"
RIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!
I groused at her, "Don't plan on fitting ME into a size eight dress to make me puke!!"
''My dear!" she says to me looking at my "comfortably round, full feminine figure with a withering glance, "You really DO need lose some weight!"
I threatened to hum the wedding march to her in public. Rosezelle told me to behave myself and think about what Bess has just "suggested" to me.
I AM thinking about it,"...Lose weight!
....Give up food.
....STARVE MYSELF!
..GO BACK DOWN TO A SIZE TEN
....CHICKEN A LA KING!
O-K! I thought about the idea and I don't like it!

What's that?

Publish my OWN DRAWINGS?

THAT is taking things a bit too far!"

(more tomorrow..or the next day!)

Cool!
We just got a script request from Onyx productions! This makes us pending with Universal Studios, Women's Television Network, and one OTHER,..whose name I am not allowed to mention. Buzzy Bee says that things go slowly..so I am TRYING to wait patiently to see what will happen next, but patience has never been my strong point!!
Bess,..bless her "socially climbing" little heart," has gotten us a speaking engagement with the local "Massillon Woman's Club!" I tried to thank her, but she would hear none of it. This will mean a LOT of good publicity for WALKING FREE and for the next book to follow it.
I am,..as usual,..behind on my book reviews and writing assignments! (Sigh!)

Bess was livid. I slid down in my front seat.."near the family!" Sally Sue's daddy led her back up the aisle.
Sally Sue's best friend, who had met Bess's social requirments for a bridesmaid,..suddenly ran up the aisle after Sally Sue and her daddy. I noticed the "best friend' was wearing a very plain..."LONG WHITE DRESS!" After about thirty minutes, the wedding march began again and Sally Sue and her daddy started down the aisle again...with her best friend's plain, long white dress on!
The marriage proceeded as planned. Bess slunk AWAAAAAAAAAAAAY down in her seat as her daughter was married, slipped out of the church quickly and quietly before the reception, and never showed up at said reception.
Sally Sue and her new husband were seen safely off to catch their plane to the Bahamas by a smiling daddy..and the widowed mother of the groom. bess has not been seen out in public.....lately,...she is probably busy...planning her younger daughter's wedding!!!!!!

O-k! Sally Sue is married off now and what a wedding!! Who is Sally Sue? This young gal is the daughter of one of my best friends, who is much more upwardly mobile than I would ever hope to be.
Sally Sue's mama...I'll call her Bess,..and I were once roommates at Malone Colloge...long, long ago,...long ago! Bess went into computer science. I went into high school teaching. Bess lives in a gated community. I live in an Amish community. Bess decided to marry her daughter,..Sally Sue,..off in style.
As I am very good with the "aaaaaahs" and the "ooooooohs"......especially with old friends and since the book has been out for a year and a half and has been rather successful in this area,..Bess decided to let me admire her skill in putting together her daughter's wedding. I have over the past few months..watched poor Sally Sue go through her own version of hell as she followed her mother's directions as to how her wedding was to be arranged.
One of Bess's stipulations as to me being allowed to observe her daughter's wedding was that I was not to incite Sally Sue to rebellion or even suggest that Sally Sue had a mind of her own and perhaps could arrange her own wedding.
I watched poor Sally Sue diet down from a slightly chubby size ten to a starving size eight for a frilly, lacy four thousand dollar wedding gown, complete with French lace veil. I saw Bess calling her society friends to get their daughters for Sally Sue's nine brides maids. I saw Sally Sue suffer through pre-wedding parties and showers..not allowed to eat cake so that she could be thin enough to wear her mama's four thousand dollar wedding dress. I saw the crowd of four hundred people, wining and dining on hoer'd'oves..ie..fish eggs and olives and little hot dogs, dipped in bbq sauce in a huge room next to the cathedral in which poor Sally Sue was to be married.
I assisted Sally Sue into her wedding dress and watched the poor girl with the seventeen inch waistline,..drool as she watched her guests, gobble down snacks and martinis..before her wedding, and then,..leave to get their seats to see the grand sight of Sally Sue's getting married.
"Ok!" thinks I, "The poor girl was allowed no breakfast just so that she could fit into that damned dress! She's starving!"
Then I says to poor Sally Sue, "Hon! If you want to duck in there and get yourself a nibble of something while I go to the john,..be my guest!!"
Sally Sue ducked into the snack room, and I went to the john. Sally Sue's stomach was making strange rumbling sounds as she set off on her trip down the aisle. Halfway down, the beautiful red carpet,..Sally Sue shot gun barfed down the front of her four thousand dollar wedding dress.

(I'll finish this story....tomorrow!")

A final note for the day:

I yodel loud and long when I am "left out' of something or some group. I have gone to bat for 'civil rights"..in all catagories and try to'stick up' for those I consider "cheated by life and fate." It has rarely if ever occured to me till now that there might have been people, who feel that I have let them down in certain ways..at times. this is one thought,..which will occupy my time tonight.

I am hoping to go back to college this fall. I don't know if my average is high enough to qualify for my source of school money, however. Just why I want to go back to college is something that I am trying to figure out just about now.
I keep saying that I want to study social work, but writing seems to be the place where my greatest success lies right now. On the other hand,..the writing is not bringing in enough money to pay for itself right now and I am having to support myself with my practical nursing. I also occasionally teach sign language classes on the side for a little extra money. Somewhere in here lies the key to what I should actually be doing with myself.
The trouble is is that I want to do EVERYTHING!
I am looking back over some of the loose newspaper articles that I did not file away into my albums.....six years on Ohio Governor's Council On People With Disabilities, one DAY on Ohio RSC's State Consumer Advisory Council,..(the one that I never returned to because of the inconsistancies between state and local levels.), Outstanding Young American Woman..(three years in a row!), Outstanding Alumni of Malone College for 1983, two excellent write-ups in the Malone Magazine: AlumiNews,....and on and on and on. These give me great satisfaction,..but......something is missing. I can paper the walls of my house with my public service and academic awards,..but these are not enough.
I have been invited to the local Self-Help For hard of Hearing and Deaf Summer Picnic and for the first time in almost ten years,..I am going with my entire family. Perhaps,..my question is not,"who am i?", but "What am I?"

What a hell of a day! My husband saw some of my e-mail, and now we will have no computer or internet in the house!! He won't even allow a web tv device.
I have to use (shudder) the library..next door! Still,..considering since I have been to the land of"IBEENHAD," I guess things could have turned out worse. I could have gone back to what was once my favorite scifi bboard and posted about "HOWIBEENHAD," but I don't really think that would help anything and just cause more stink. The sixty five year old went through the roof when he saw the e-card from "Hell."
I won't go into the gory details. I had to convince him that it is REALLY necessary to use a computer to put out books for Densmore Reid Publishing so I am glad that he won't speak to his cousin,..who is the Librarian and ask her not to let me use those computers. She knows my husband and is sympathetic to my cause. I miss having a barn. It was easier to hide "forbidden" stuff..in the barn!!

Sigh! Is it lawsuit time again?

I don't know, but will soon find out. Doesn't anyone know or understand the meaning of the words: "copyrighted charactor?"

Again, I'll soon find out.