Taking the Scenic Route

My SIL is in the hospital tonight getting ready for heart surgery tomorrow.  She has a part of her heart that is fibrillating uncontrollably.  They are going in through her groin tomorrow and going into her heart, finding the nerve that is giving off the false signal, and frying it. (the nerve, not the muscle tissue)  It isn’t an easy surgery, and there is no guarantee they will find the right nerve and there are some other questions the surgeon isn’t sure about going in there.  The surgery normally takes about an hour, but given the complications in my SIL’s case, it could be several hours depending on what they run into.

THEY ARRESTED THE SUB-HUMAN THAT MURDERED MOM’S NEIGHBOR!!!!

I got a call yesterday from my co-worker who had heard that they had arrested the sub-human who murdered mom’s neighbor. He is also charged with several sex and other crimes against elderly women in another town. Mom was so relieved, as am I. He lived in the town that our bead shop is located. He had told his 10-12 yr old that he had a ‘girlfriend’ in the other town, and that’s where he was going. He’s about 45 yrs old. I’m sure there are more details out there, I just haven’t heard them.  

And….DDIL’s meds didn’t help, they caused problems. So the KC cardio gal is going to do an ‘oblation’ (Sp?) next Monday. If I understand right, they will go up both groins with a scope, into the heart. They will find the nerve that is sending the bad signals and ‘kill’ it. The cardio does about 2 of these a day, so she knows what she is doing. DDIL’s added obstacles include the pace maker wires and her coumadin/blood thinner. They will keep her in the hospital for several days post-op.

I inadvertently created a new obsession in Zane.  Yesterday we were doing a study of “Maps” and I was a bit of a loss as to how to enrich it because he already knows what maps are (the lesson was “What is a Map?”) and knows how to use a basic map (like in games, or at the zoo).  It occurred to me that he might not understand directions, so I added that on to the lesson.  I explained that north is up on a map, drew a compass on the board, then realized I should apply it more concretely, so we headed outside and I drew a directional compass on the patio in chalk.  I tried to direct him to “face north, face south” and he seemed a little confused.  I then went out to the fence and wrote the direction on each fence and stood in the middle and showed him the directions again.   You could see the lightbulb flip on in his eyes.  To help him get it into his brain a little more, I modified the “listening game” we often do (a Simon Says type game that helps him develop his receptive abilities) to include directions.  For instance:  “run to the south fence, jump 3 times”, “jump to the east fence, then to the north fence”, ect.  The only problem was he didn’t want to stop playing it.  He kept begging me to keep playing “Map game” all day.  Later in the day I added “NE, NW,…” to each of the corners, and he seemed to get that right away.

Today, going to ST, I remembered that our truck has a directional indicator on it.  We had gone over the map to go to ST yesterday (he also wanted to know where Dillons, Target, Walmart and church were), and I think the road map clicked in his brain today.  During the drive I heard a blow by blow every time I changed directions, finishing with “go to the east” when he exited the car door to go into the front door of the building (which was, of course, to the east of where we were standing). 

Maybe I shouldn’t have taught him directions.  lol.