The Mother I Never Knew: "They think it's scar tissue from a damaged nerve."

December 12, 1991

I'm at Portsmouth Naval Hospital waiting on Guy while he's having surgery. I don't know if I've mentioned the knot in his arm before. It's been bothering him for over a year and they finally decided to do something about it. They think it's scar tissue from a damaged nerve. He has no idea how or when he could have damaged a nerve. They are going to test it for cancer though. They were supposed to do this yesterday but he got bumped. There's some stupid rule in anesthesiology that they can only do five blocks a day (they're only doing a block on his arm, plus giving him something to relax him so he's out of it); he was #5 but the lady who was #4 had to have hers done twice and her second one counted as #5. They checked him into the hops. but gave him special liberty to go home overnight.

Thank goodness Dianna could keep Ez. again. Both days Guy had to be here at 6:00. He brought the car, Dianna came & picked me & Ez. up, dropped me off at the hospital & took her home for the day. It was almost 1:00 when they told us they couldn't do the surgery. It was after 3:00 before we finally got to leave. Guy was so upset. So was I. I'm just glad they let him come home last night cause we weren't prepared for him to spend the night. The dr. we talked to yesterday isn't the one doing the surgery but he was here & told me they had taken him down to anes. for the block about 8:00. He went in to see how it was going and said they'd just made the incision. That was 10:15 & it's now 10:33. He said it should be over about 11:00.

Meanwhile, I now have a cold. My sinuses were really draining Tues. when I saw Dr. Lazarus. Yesterday aft. I started getting a tickle in my throat. Last night I was wheezing a little & woke up with one side of my sinuses clogged up. I'm not wheezing though but my throat hurts, I'm coughing a lot and having to blow my nose a lot. I can't afford to be sick now that I have to take care of Guy & Ez. both. I've been using Hall's & brought some juice to drink but my sinuses are hurting. Maybe I'll run up & see if Dr. Lazarus wants to give me a prescription for any antibiotics, after I know Guy's ok.

Guess I can tell about the rest of our trip. I came down with a head cold on the way to LA. I managed to keep it from getting bad but not before Elizabeth got it from me. Thank goodness we kept it from getting too bad with her - we'd taken all her medicine with us. We used Pediacare Nite Light first because she had a cough. When the cough stopped we switched to Dimetapp. I think it took a little over a week to clear her nose up but she was ok by the time we got home.

The hardest part of the trip was getting there & back. The first night on the way there she let us know by screaming that she'd had enough. We stopped for the night just the other side of Atlanta. She did a little better on the way back - no screaming. But going from Louisiana to McCrory was hard because she was getting sick but we didn't realize that at the time. There was one night in McCrory that she hardly slept at all & I was afraid we'd have to cancel our plans to go to Searcy the next day. But she seemed to be doing better the next day so we went. We didn't go to see Miss Young. Ruth Burt's husband had died overnight & she was with her. (She'd worked in the office next to mine.) We saw Nancy Johnson but Alice Ann Kellar & Latina Dykes weren't there. We went by College Church to see Steve Edelhuber. I'd sent them a post card so they'd know we'd be in town then but they hadn't gotten it. We had to go by someone's house to see Lisa cause she was working there (cleaning house).