(1988-1992)

Enthusiasm is a volcano on who’s top never grows the grass of hesitation. Kahlil Gilbran.

9 July was another day of sadness for me. I lost my Josephine. She joined her friend Gigi.

3 days later I called a poodle breeder in Newport Beach, looking for another silver toy poodle. One had been born on the previous night. I immediately traveled to Newport Beach to write a check to put a hold on this tiny one.  I had to wait 6 weeks to bring her home to join Brie and Nellie. I named her Cherie Suzette.

In August of 1988 I traveled to Nebraska to pick up a car given to me by my father. While gone I had returned Cherie to the kennel where she was born, thinking that would be a safe place. It was not. When I returned and picked her up the next day she collapsed. I rushed her to emergency and she was saved after being on intensive care for 3 days. She had an intestinal infection and her Blood Sugar was down to 29.

In August I received another exchange student for a one year stay. She was from Finland. I had lots of fun with Essi and she enjoyed being in America. Not to mention, she loved my poodles. She departed to return to Finland in June. 1988.

In April 1989 I sold my home in Tustin, CA and moved to Nebraska with my 3 poodles.

On 29 June 1989, a friend and I traveled to LAX to join a group for a trip to Russia. We had a great flight to Helsinki, Finland. We arrived late Friday afternoon, spent the next day seeing the sights of this city then headed to the railroad station complete with food for the long over night trip to Moscow.  The rail tracks in Finland were nice and smooth. It was a different story once we crossed the boarder into Russia. I maintained lengthy notes while on this trip and perhaps I can reflect on those unusual situations at another time. We visited the following cities. Moscow, 3 days, a flight to Simferopol followed by a 2 hour bus ride to Yelta, for 3 days, then a bus ride back to Simferopol for a flight to Baku for 2 days. (Trust me you do not want to visit Baku if you can avoid it.)  As it was unsafe to drink the H2O in many places we often had to carry water from a city where the water was safe to the next city where the water was unsafe to drink. On the 2 hour flight to Baku, we had a greasy piece of cold chicken, sliced cucumbers, a large tasteless cookie and a cup of tea. When we landed and went to our hotel the lobby smelled like the Grand Canal in China. Gross. The condition of the hotel was about the same as the smell of the lobby.  Next trip was a flight to Kiev for 3 days followed by a flight to Leningrad, 4 days. People in this city were starving. Allowed one slice of bread per day.

We left Leningrad on a 5-½ hour bus trip to Tallin, making a pit stop half way through the trip. Our toilet consisted of roadside bushes.  Is anyone having fun? Yes we all had fun. It was a fantastic group of people and everyone rolled with the punches. If you are a complainer about the lack of comforts, do not entertain the idea of going to Russia. You must be tough to travel in other countries. Russia is only one of several, however the experience is fantastic and I am one that is always willing to explore other situations which in turn gives me tons of thanks for being an American. We spent 4 days in Tallinn. It is one of the most picturesque cities in the Soviet Union. It dates back to the 13^th century. People in the republic refuse to speak Russian. They will only speak German or English. In Russia tips in money are not given. Tips given are fashion magazines, lipstick, perfume, nail polish, blank CD’s, cassette tapes and other things not available in Russia.

Now my 3-week trip through Russia has ended with a ferry ride from Tallinn to Helsinki to spend 3 more weeks in Finland. Our host and hostesses are my foreign exchange student Essi and her great family. We all settled in a hotel for the night. The following day, the group returned to the US, except my roommate Wilma and myself.  Essi and her father picked us up for another new adventure in Finland.  We drove to their home in Pori, Finland.  Spending time with the family and taking some nice day trips to see the country. It is an interesting and beautiful country. Many, many beautiful lakes. We had a nice and relaxing time. Now back to reality.

I returned from my 7 weeks in Calif, Russia and Finland approximately 12 September. During this month, I had scheduled a dental appointment with a Periodontist. His office was difficult to find so having noted the officer of the Visiting Nurses Asso. Of the Midlands, I stopped there for directions. They gave me the needed information, but would not let me leave the office until I filled out an application. Apparently they were desperate for help. Well heck, I guess I could manage to work a couple of days per week and was willing to work on weekends. That was a difficult job and truthfully when I rang the doorbell I was never certain if a human being would answer the door, or perhaps a large rat or mouse. I have never encountered such squalor in my entire life and that included homes in some very upscale residential areas.. Not to mention drugs and people that were on welfare because they had made the choice to not work. I didn’t last very long, as I was instructed to document care in the negative, so the organization could continue to keep the patients on their care list. I considered that fraud and did indeed express my displeasure with this attitude, considering most of my years had been dedicated to teaching patients how to manage their own medical needs with supervision as needed. I will not ever compromise my ethics or standards so I resigned. The management was not real smart, as they did not have an ET nurse on staff and they had many ostomy patients and various difficult type wounds to deal with. I had done a great deal of teaching in this area with case managers to increase their knowledge so they would better be able to manage some of these difficult situations. If I were to describe some of the incredible difficult wounds and the drainage I might have somem consider looking for an emesis basin. I will tell one very special story. Three days prior to Christmas, I was asked to see an ostomy patient. I could hardly believe what I encountered. This lady was bed ridden with copious amounts of liquid stools.  I went to work, managing the entire situation (you don’t need to know all the nitty gritty), but I am proud and delighted to report I resolved the situation and she was able to get out of bed and celebrate Christmas with her family. When I visited her the day after Christmas, she was a very happy lady.

Evidently I live a charmed life, or so my sister-in-law thought. Very soon I was recruited by 2 hospitals to serve as an independent contractor as an ET nurse (WOCN). Then one day I went to have my eyes examined at an office near the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where I was working as a consultant.  I noted the nurse had graduated from the same college of nursing that I had graduated from. I left the office with an appointment for an interview and was hired a few days later. This was only to cover her pregnancy if a problem occurred as well as maternity leave. That turned into a 4 days a week job for 3 years. In between time I continued to fulfill the needs as an independent contractor. Some how I can always manage to find time to do what I love most. Always being there to take care of those in need of my ability to make the situation better.

During my spare time I took on the task of remodeling an old farmhouse, doing much of the work myself. Again, I lived a charmed life. I had a fantastic contractor to accomplish the things I was not capable of doing.

In 1991 I joined a friend of mine, Sharonann Gain, for a Panama Canal cruise, which ended in the Caribbean.  Great shopping in St. Thomas. And Sharonann was a great traveling companion. Tons of great fun on this fabulous trip.

In July 1992 I turned age 60 and my brother Chuck had a great big really special party for me at his home out on the farm in Elkhorn, Nebraska.

So this brings me up to 1992 and completes Chapter VI Part II.

Seems some or many are bored with my story, as I have not had a comment to my previous blog. However, I will march on because I made a commitment. I signed an agreement and I will not fall or fail to complete the agreement to the best of my ability.

If you are doing your best, you will not have time to worry about failure.