As you get older . . .

What’s a good remedy for mental confusion, or whatever you call it when you lose track of what you’re doing? It happens too often to suit me.

I went to a seminar last week and took my digital recorder along; a nifty little gadget that can record hundreds of hours of music and speeches in reasonable quality. I recorded the meeting. I always put it into my shirt pocket, along with my small cell phone.

This week I wanted to do the same thing but I couldn’t find the recorder. It’s a tiny thing, about 4 inches high and an inch wide. The last time I remember seeing it was on the stand beside my bed.

It was Trash Day at our place and I dragged the kitchen trash bag around to the various waste baskets and dumped trash into it, including some from the waste basket right by the bed stand. I tightly knotted the trash bag closed and carried it outside by the lane—in the wind and rain. Then I checked all over for the recorder.

My wife Lucy helpfully suggested that it could have fallen into the waste basket. It gave me pause. The trash bag was already outside, ready to be picked up but I went out into the wind and rain again and retrieved it, brought it back to the kitchen and systematically emptied the contents of the trash bag into another, checking thoroughly through all the dust, hair, cardboard, papers, wires, a broken flower pot, wrappings, egg shells, plastic, and other nondescript flotsam, ad nauseam. It took some time. There was no sign of what I was looking for.

I went back down to the basement to look around my computer to see if I missed any spot it could be. As I thoughtfully went back upstairs, I reached into my trouser pocket . . .

The meeting went well. I recorded the whole thing in an effort to refresh my ailing memory ... if I don't lose it again—my mind or the machine.

Don't believe anything they say!

The caller, "Dave Foster" stated that I won $1,500,000 and a 2011 Mercedes. He asked if I was an American citizen and he noted that I had no criminal record. Married or widowed? I told him married. (He didn't ask if I was single.) I stayed with him and he helpfully described that I go to a Western Union payment center, like at Walmart, and send $1,850.00 to Rosalind Hawthorne at Carencro, LA 70520. I checked on the internet while he was talking. Then I hung up. I would have liked to follow through with getting as much information as I could but I guess I should let well enough alone. He tried to call back twice and I didn't answer. He may try to call again. He spoke careful English but sometimes his accent momentarily indicated possibly Chinese or Japanese.

This is about the fifth or sixth call from supposed sweepstakes companies in two weeks. I believe the total winnings was up to $15,000,000 and three Mercedes Benz.--and all the signs pointed to Scam Central Unlimited!

I followed up on one call, however. It was from a John Anderson who said that I won $2,000,000 and it was a legitimate win. I definitely would receive the money. I listened to what he had to say, and then he said that all I had to do was send them $385 to defray the cost of sending it through customs, etc. I played along just to see how much information I could get from them without me supplying any personal information.

He asked me if I had any credit cards. Yes, Mastercard and Visa. When I told him I didn't have any money he asked what my credit limit was on the cards. I knew one was $12,000 so I told him. He said he would send me a check for $12,000 and I could pay the money out of that and keep the rest, "just spend the money wisely," he said.

The next day a man with an accent called and asked if I received the check yet. I told him it was only a day later, the mail doesn't normally travel that fast. He called again a couple days later and when I told him I hadn't received the check yet he suggested I could use my credit card, or take a loan out with my car as collateral. I told him I don't work that way.

A day or so later he called again and, again, I had not received the check. He then said he would send it to me himself. What is my address? Well, parting from the caution to not give out information I gave him my home address anyway. That would be the only way I could get solid evidence. At one point he had asked where I banked and I gave him a fictitious name.

It was at that point that I called the local police and got more information about how scam artists operate. The detective told me if I received a check it may be legitimate but somewhere along the line the money would disappear to some secret account somewhere and the bank would not get the money and would hold me liable for the loss.

Finally a check came. It was in a small handwritten envelope, and the check was filled out with my name and signed by one of the parties listed on the check, but there was no amount. When the caller called again and asked, I told him I got the check but there is no dollar amount on it! He informed me that they did not know how much the government would charge for the distribution of funds and he would check now. In a few seconds he told me to make the check out for $9,500.00 and then I can put the money in the bank. He didn't say anything about paying the $385 that was mentioned earlier but he asked me if I was going to go to the bank NOW. I told him I'm working on it. I then gave the check with the envelope to the detective after making a copy of it in case the caller would call again.

The detective meanwhile checked it out. The check was drawn from a bank in Louisiana. The names printed on the check were legitimate, but the man had died, and his wife was now in a nursing home. The bank stated that there was trouble with that account and they closed it.

It was about this time that I was determined to have no more involvement with any more questionable phone calls. It was hassle enough to deal with this one in the attempt to garner evidence for the sake of diminishing the gene pool of telephone scammers. It was giving me a headache. The names of the persons involved were most likely to be fake too. And all this throughout the fact that we're on the DO NOT CALL LIST.

Sometime later I got a call which was evident to be a plea for a donation. I told him I was not interested, but he continued to ask so I asked where he was calling from. He told me an area which was over 50 miles away although the donation for within the county I live in. I then told him that I'm actually on the DO NOT CALL LIST. He replied that it did not apply to charities. I told him it did not seem to apply to anyone because I keep getting phone calls from everybody, foreign and domestic, and I then hung up.

With all the technology around, scamming is definitely out of control, and the ones most affected are the elderly who do not have the capacity to say NO, or just hang up.

Christmas 1996

This is an article I wrote years ago, and I realize it has been a long time since I contributed to this blog so I'll continue with this past history. Much of what I wrote has changed, my parents are deceased, the pastor of the church we joined has continued on to another pastorate, we no longer travel like we used to. Other than that, this is a piece of history in our life that bears remembering.

This year has been an interesting one. We started out with a cold, wet spring, and summer was relatively cool. Fall turned to winter weather pretty fast though but the cold snaps are interspersed with warm sunny weather, which is a little unusual for this time of year. Ohio usually starts seriously bedding down for the winter in November already. Personally, Lucy and I would like to fly south for the winter, or go into hibernation.

Early in the spring I had the idea to plant morning glories. Someone from work gave me a whole handful of morning glory seeds and we sprouted them and then planted them at every fence post along the driveway, and in back of the grape arbor, and by the telephone pole, and at the south end of the porch. Because we started late, they didn't take off right away but by July and August they were all blooming all over the place ... the ones our resident wild rabbit left alone.

We had a strawberry bed that was too old to bear much fruit so the plants were pulled and I started digging up the garden. The part I dug up was planted in tomatoes. We settled for pick-your-own strawberries at some nearby berry patches in the neighborhood.

This is corn and soybean country but they got a late start due to wet fields. In the spring you see a lot of plowing done with horses since there are quite a few Amish in the area. Plows pulled by five or six horses. The horse-and-buggy Mennonites just down the road use their steel-wheel tractors for plowing and planting.

In April, our Sunday School class gave a surprise 50th birthday party for Lucy. I kept the secret for two weeks or so and she was quite surprised because it was held at the church a week after her birthday. My 50th had gone by without fanfare a couple years before, but I do remember one thing--that was the day (in February) that I proposed to Lucy!

In June, Lucy and I became members of the Mennonite Christian Assembly congregation in Fredericksburg, Ohio. Scott Hochstetler is pastor there. The Hochstetler family got a newborn recently so Lucy and I catered a Fellowship Lunch to them on Nov. 24th. She spent all day in the kitchen on Saturday of that week baking bread, pecan pies, making candy, and preparing the main dish, Shepherd's Pie, letting me in the kitchen only to make the cranberry relish. On Sunday morning we transported it all to Fredericksburg and someone fired up the oven in the kitchen to warm up the food in time for lunch after church. We also invited a couple of widows and other friends to the lunch--15 in all.

Around August we attended the Jerry Yoder (Lucy's great-grandfather) reunion near Berne, Indiana on the Roman Schwartz farm. Lucy was the only one to represent Michael Yoder (her grandfather) at the reunion. Everyone brought a covered dish, and for the whole afternoon we feasted on casseroles and desserts of all kinds. It was a hot day but there was a nice breeze. I wore myself out pitching horseshoes for a couple hours. I didn't feel it until the next day; by then I could hardly walk. On the way home we visited with Lucy's cousin Eli Troyer's in Hicksville, Ohio.

Lucy and I took two week-long trips this year. In June we stayed in Medford Lakes, New Jersey at sister Jane's house while they were on vacation. My parents also live there. We took them for an overnight trip to the Souderton Retirement Community in Pennsylvania to visit with Mom's,sister Tilly Freed and dad's sister, Lydia Landis; and other friends and acquaintenances of years gone by. Dad is 86 this year and Mom is 75. They celebrate their 54th wedding anniversary on December 24. After we spent a few days with my parents we traveled to Myerstown, Pa. at the invitation of cousin Warren Hackman, Jr., who treated his employees to a chicken dinner at Kauffman's. We then stayed at his place and took him along to Wellsboro, Pa. where we attended his niece's wedding, Willard Hackman's daughter, Lorraine. On the way back to Ohio we traveled through the beautiful mountains of Pennsylvania, stopping in Belleville, Saturday evening, to visit the John L. Zook family. Ten o'clock p.m. is almost too late for a surprise visit so we stayed at a nearby motel for the night. The next morning I called them and they were delighted to hear from us and invited us to church. It's the first time we ever attended a Beachy Amish church. We then stayed for the noon meal, and then left around 3 p.m. for Ohio.

The second big trip we took was in September, going to Canada by way of Kentucky. We took a 6-hour drive south and stayed a couple nights at the Galilean Children's Home near Liberty, Kentucky. On Saturday afternoon we went with a group of the children and Jerry and Sandy Tucker on their bus where they put on a program near Guthrie, Kentucky, not far from the Tennessee border. Then we traveled toward Watertown, New York where we would attend the wedding of Maryann and Lloyd Martin's Loyal's wedding. We had a few days to travel and we stopped in Berea, Kentucky and had a pleasant visit with Levi and Miriam Yoder.

We stopped in Winchester, KY for the night and it was during that time that the tone of the trip changed drastically. I was saddled with a bad case of indigestion for a couple days. I drove 310 miles on an upset stomach all the way to Morgantown, WV where we stayed the night (Thursday night). If I didn't get better by morning, we'd execute Plan A, travel west to Ohio and home. Plan B, we'd continue on, taking I-68 east through Maryland to I-81 north through Pennsylvania to Watertown, New York. As it turned out, I nursed myself carefully sipping ice water every hour or so to alleviate nausea. At 4 a.m. I finally slept solid until 7:30, waking up hungry and in no pain whatsoever. We happily went with Plan B, arriving in Watertown in the evening. The next day was the wedding. We stayed overnight at Lloyd and Maryann's and then headed into Canada in heavy rainfall. We spent the next night at Niagara Falls and after some sightseeing the next day we headed for Ohio and home.

On a sad note, maybe most of you know, my dear sister Sally (Hackman) Lee passed away suddenly on November 23. leaving behind her husband, John, and her two daughters, Samra and Sharon.

We wish everyone a nice holiday season and a blessed New Year.

Wes and Lucy Hackman

The long arm of the law

On the 10th of May, 2010 I made a deal with “Jeff Heinz” who wanted to buy my red 2000 Ford Focus. He agreed to $2000 for the car, and gave me $200 down, saying that he will give $500 in two weeks, and another $500 two weeks later, etc. Because I was so anxious to sell the car I didn't see any signs, or didn't care to see, larceny in the deal. Like a dummy I signed over the title (without it being notarized, and without full payment) and they took off. There were three people involved. Two weeks later I tried to call and found out all the information he gave was false.

I went to the police, taking along as much info as I could find; pictures of the car, the VIN number and the note that Jeff wrote. Detective Metcalf checked it out and found that, now two weeks later, the car was still in my name, but it was sold to someone named Steve. Shawn was also mentioned. He was one I had talked to but he never got out of his car during the incident. The whole deal was done by Jeff, not the Jeff Heinz that he indicated on the slip of paper with his information. I should have asked for his driver’s license.

After getting no follow-up after the initial interview, I tried to call Detective Metcalf and even left a message but I didn’t get an answer either way. I finally called the sheriff’s department and told the person there about it and she looked it up, but also said that Metcalf just retired. They assigned the case to Detective Mack who, after I left a phone message, called me back the next day and clarified some details about what was recorded.

He called me Thursday morning and indicated he found the car but it will have to be towed. I told him I have a spare key, could I go with him? He called back later and agreed for me to go with him to Perrysville to hopefully retrieve the car. He would pick me up. On the way he asked a unit from the Ashland Police Department for assistance. He came at a designated spot until the police unit arrived and we drove to each place where the perpetrators lived. At that hour of the day none of them were home but there was enough information gathered to ascertain where the car actually was. It was now owned by Steve who worked in Mansfield. Det. Mack took me home and asked me to go with him the next day to the work place in Mansfield, “and bring your key along”.

But a half hour later I got a phone call from him. Steve himself will be coming to the police station in 20 minutes, could I catch a ride to the police station, second floor? Someone took me to the police station just 3 miles down the road and I waited in Det. Mack’s office and when my car came in it did not have the original license plates, but I was told it was still officially in my name.

Steve was escorted into the office and Det. Mack asked for details about how he got the car, and introduced me as the rightful owner of the vehicle. He had a legitimate reason to not suspect any illegality in the deal and Det. Mack took a statement from him while I was there.

Then word came that Shawn was also arriving. Det. Mack told me to go into the room across the hall and then Shawn came in. He’s a young man around 20 years old, tall, blond hair. Det. Mack had a preliminary interview with him and then had me come into the office. Since he had a lengthy discussion with the detective, Shawn profusely apologized to me for his part in the whole deal, of which he really did not have active part. He was not aware that Jeff, whom I dealt with, did not pay the rest of the money. Then Det. Mack had me go back across the hall again while he took a statement from Shawn. Steve and I waited in the other room.

Det. Mack told Steve that the car would have to be confiscated. He was willing to comply. Shawn, whom he knew for years, would take him home. (It was found that Jeff bought the car, had the title put in Shawn’s name, and then Shawn sold the car to Steve to relieve some debt Shawn owed Steve—so apparently Shawn was victim to Jeff’s scheme too. There was no profit made because they paid me $200 and Steve paid Shawn $200. So there is still a puzzlement in the whole transaction. Maybe a deal that Jeff made with someone else fell through, I don’t know.) Det. Mack said he would find Jeff and charge him for several counts. One of which was taking advantage of the elderly (me) since I’m over 65. (whimper)

We finished in the office and we all went to the parking lot. Det. Mack gave Steve a box and he retrieved all his belongings in the car and I now have my car back. Steve said that the car had a tune-up just a couple weeks ago. When it disappeared it had a little over 100,000 miles on it. It now has 107,000 miles. Det. Mack told me how to handle getting a duplicate title and he would look for the license plates which I originally had. Meanwhile, I am to take off the existing plates and they will be given back to Steve.

When I got home Lucy told me that Shawn had come to the house to ask where the police station was, and he had apologized to her for what happened, which was apparently out of his control.

There were a few God moments in the whole thing and it was marvelous seeing it all come together like it did.

Now, the job is to find the real culprit--Jeff. It may take some doing but Jeff had bragged to others about how he fleeced the owner of the vehicle. Loose lips will eventually sink a ship.

Another problem presented itself. I took the report of theft to Auto Title and it wasn't good enough. I would have to obtain the title of the car from the last owner, Steve. Since I was not really on close terms with him I would have to have Det. Mack work it out.

He had the title which Steve gave him and then he called Steve to come to police headquarters to sign the title over to me. I had an appointment for Tuesday and I called him up to alert him that I would not be available at the transfer. He thought it was OK, all he needed was the mileage on the car. It turned out to be 107,118 miles. As it turned out, I should have gone to the transfer meeting.

The next day I went to the police station to retrieve the title which was notarized but without my signature. Det. Mack witnessed my signature and then I was free to go to Auto Title to get a new title.

At Auto Title in downtown Mansfield, the agent noticed that the seller had put his name and address where the buyer's should be. Another bureaucratic fumble. She gave me a sheet of paper indicating that an error was made on the title and that the owner would have to have a notarized signature to indicate it. I was not a happy camper. I called the Records Department at the police station and complained about it. Bonnie suggested I call Det. Mack but I said he was probably not in his office. I called his number anyway. He was not in his office but he said I should take the title back and he would take care of it. I went to the police station again and gave the papers to Bonnie, and left. I was rather bewildered by the complications of it. I should have mentioned, why don't they just white out the address and put my address in its place.

Anyway, a few days later I called up Mack and he had it ready for me. I took the papers to Auto Title again and the agent made up another title. But she gave me two receipts. She had to do it over because of a mistake she made on the title. As I went out the door I looked it over and found F. as the middle initial. I don't use a middle initial in my name. I went back and showed it to her and she to out the offending letter and everything was back to normal. She charged me $16.00 for the title.

The car sat in the lawn for awhile again. Finally someone came along and offered to buy the car. I asked $1500 for it. Maybe it was too low, but I have a karmic conscience about selling cars with high mileage so I ended up selling it for $1200. With the $200 the first "buyer" gave me, plus the $1200, I received $1400 for it and felt happy that it was finally gone. Now, when my ship comes in I'll be sure to get a brand new vehicle. Meanwhile, I have a 2004 Dodge Grand Caravan which suits our traveling purposes. It is a RampVan. Lucy needs a wheelchair accessible vehicle and that's what we have.

I must admit, I learned my lesson in leaving the car go. I went to the bank to get the title notarized, filling out my part, and when the buyer came for the car, we sat down at my kitchen table and she started to fill out the title. I quickly said, "Would you first write out the check please." She obliged and I felt better that I didn't have to say to anyone that the car was hers before she paid for it.

Second Kidney Transplant 2010

At the end of March 2010 I took a trip East to Pennsylvania and New Jersey to visit with my brothers and sisters for a week. Lucy didn’t want to go on the 500-mile trip so I went by myself. It was a trip that had many God moments, as I call it. Visiting people and even having my dialysis time changed to make things easier for the rest of the trip.

My dialysis times were Saturday and Tuesday but on Monday I called early in the morning and they had a vacancy so I had dialysis that day which let me freely visit for the rest of the day and then go home on Wednesday. It was a worthwhile trip and I felt that God was with me many times throughout.

The trip home was at night so there was not much traffic. I got home around 8 o’clock Wednesday morning.

A week later, on Saturday, April 10, I got a phone call at 7:30 a.m. from Diane, a nurse at OSU Medical Center in Columbus. There was a kidney available and Dr. Rajab says it’s a perfect match, would I be interested?

I hesitated, and Diane noticed it. I told her I was still stinging from last year’s experience when I had a transplant which failed due to complications. I was in the hospital for four months. I don’t know if I’m ready for another go.

But by the end of the conversation I agreed to have them go through with it. She didn’t know all the particulars about it but would let us know when she got more information. She called later and gave us more info and then I gave her my cell phone number.

Later that evening, around 6:30, she called again and said that the surgery would be at 8:00 a.m. Sunday, and I was to come to OSU tonight. It just so happened that Minerva, Lucy’s niece, had some business in Columbus and she took me down to the hospital, a 75 mile trip.

I checked in and soon got a room. Doctors, nurses, technicians, and aides came to get my medical history, which is extensive, and get vials of blood.

I had a Permcath placed a couple months ago which was used for dialysis and they used it to take blood from my system. I did not have a needle stick throughout my stay at the hospital.

Lucy wanted to be with me before surgery but didn’t know if she would be able to be there before 8:00 a.m. but then I got word that there was a delay until 10:30 and I relayed the news to her. She was on her way and relieved that she could be here to be with me, and then there was another delay, until noon. We just waited.
Dr. Rajab’s assistant came to tell me about the latest delay and I asked him about the kidney. He said he wasn’t at liberty to talk about it but he did say that it was from a young man about a third my age, and it was a perfect match. The kidney was coming from Florida and would be at the airport at 11:30 and a helicopter would bring it to the hospital.

Finally, I was taken down to the OR. Dr. Rajab was asked what the delay was and he commented about red tape. Where did that kidney come from? I never found out but later he did tell me it was imported. From where, he wouldn’t or couldn’t say.
I was wheeled into the OR and I don’t remember falling asleep but I woke up over three hours later and then was taken to the “Presidential Suite”, actually two rooms where one had the bed and the other had a cabinet with a large TV, a sofa and side table with a telephone. I was taken into the second room to the hospital bed. I don’t know if there are any other suites like that in the hospital.

The next step was administering the immuno suppressant medicine—intravenously. During the process my whole body contracted and I had almost excruciating pain, which they said is common during the first dose. There were three doses over the day and by that time there was no pain during the process. The next step would be to take pills for the rest of my life in order to keep the kidney from being rejected.
A nurse coordinator told me that, since the kidney is a perfect match, in a year I should be able to have the immuno suppressant medicine reduced quite a bit.

I met a number of nurses that I had seen the year before and they were glad to see me. To them, I am a model patient, their favorite, some said. They were quite pleased with the progress I was making and by Friday I was ready to go home. They took the Permcath out of my left shoulder, and then holding the site for a half hour to prevent bleeding, placed a bandage over where it had been.

On Friday they got a wheelchair to take me down to the lobby to go home and as I passed by the nurses’ station, they all—all 10 of them—stood up and wished me well. I almost cried.

Lucy was waiting with Minerva, her niece, who was driving, and I finally was home and starting a new life, as it were. Retired, no dialysis, and trying to find how to handle it all.

Trip East

I had a hankering to visit family sometime in March or April. My brothers and sisters are in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Traveling east I could at least accomplish two out of three. Since I was on dialysis it meant I had to have arrangements for dialysis in New Jersey. I could have opted for Pennsylvania at Grandview Hospital in Sellersville, PA, where I was born, but I settled for two treatments in New Jersey. My usual treatments are on Monday, Wednesday, Friday but the Social Worker told me that there was only room on Saturday and Tuesday. It was OK with me. I had initially asked for a Friday morning treatment because I wanted to attend a Passover commemoration at the church I used to belong to before I came to Ohio.

On March 31 I took off. Since Lucy didn't really want to go that far I rented a car, a 2009 Mazda, and took off around noon Wednesday. I had had dialysis in the morning that day so I was ready to travel. The next treatment would be Saturday, rather far away from Wednesday for a dialysis patient but I did it before. I just have to watch my fluid intake.

My wife Lucy had given me a GPS unit for Christmas and I took it along. It was great to just put in the address to which I wanted to go and it would take me right there. I traveled east from my place on Park Avenue East and took Koogle Road toward I-71 and it took me all the way to I-76 to the Pennsylvania border. I wanted to take Route 80 so I wondered what the GPS would say. When I arrived at the junction of 80 and 76 it told me to continue I-76. I ignored it and took Route 80. Route 80 has no tolls, I-76 had loads of tolls.

But at the next exit it told me to take it. Curious, I took the exit and then realized it wanted me to turn around. I got back onto 80 and ignored its pleas to turn off at several exits I passed. I then called my cousin Warren and asked what exit I should take off of 80. It was a couple hundred miles away. I told him I should be there by 8 p.m.

It was a long drive and I came to the exit indicated and traveled another 100 miles through towns and over hill and dale. It was quite scenic but I grew a little tired of driving but I kept going. I stopped for a bite to eat at a drive-through.

At long last, as it was almost dark, I arrived at my destination, Hackman Paving, and looked at the clock. It was 8:00 o'clock. Warren told me he was going to be in church so I made myself comfortable in his house and waited for him to arrive, and fell asleep. It had been a long day.

He finally showed up around 10 p.m. and we sat and talked until midnight. I then slept in the guest room and had a good night's sleep. My itinerary was to visit a couple places while in Lancaster County, but first Warren got his crews off to their asphalt paving jobs and then we went out for a leisurely breakfast.

The Martin's Pretzel Bakery in Akron is owned by Warren's brother-in-law and sister and I went there to visit with cousin Kathryn. We had a nice conversation and then I took off to visit with another family before heading for New Jersey by way of I-76 which is the toll road.

I don't know what time of day would have been best but when I got off the Turnpike I had bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles to the Ben Franklin Bridge to New Jersey. My brother-in-law told me later that the Schuylkill Expressway is always crowded. I don't wonder, there are more cars on the road than ever before and the existing roadways just can't take the volume.

I finally arrived at my sister Jane's house and settled in. My parents had lived there before they passed on and the rooms were about the same as what I remembered when I had visited with them.

This was Thursday and one thing I wanted to do was to have a haircut. Years ago I got the best haircut in Maple Shade and I looked in the phone book for barbers and hair dressers and found one that had been near the place where I had the haircut before.

I was not disappointed. I finally looked decent, with the hair dresser trimming my hair not too short. I would look better for the get-together Friday evening. I spent the rest of the day visiting with friends. One was in a retirement home and she was so glad to see me. I believe it was about 25 years since I saw her last and I didn't recognize her anymore, but she said I looked familiar and when I said my name she gave me a hug, glad to see me. My sister Jane had visited with her a few times.

The next evening we attended the Passover commemoration at a resort and I met more friends I hadn't seen for years. I was rather popular with them when I had the kidney transplant last year and they were quite supportive with their prayers and best wishes in spite of the outcome, which was kidney failure due to a huge blood clot that could have done me in.

The dialysis was scheduled for 11 a.m. I woke up at around 6:30 and thought about the plans for the day. Then I noticed the cell phone blinking. It was a voicemail wondering where I was. I had an appointment at 6:00 a.m. and I was nowhere to be seen, he said.

Six a.m.?! I quickly got everything together and, thanks to my GPS found the place pretty quickly. I stopped at a 7/11 for a sandwich and figured to have breakfast during the treatment. I sat in the waiting room and took a couple bites of my sandwich; and that's all I was able to have until after the treatment.

I was escorted to my place in a large room where there were dozens of chairs and dialysis units, with people having their treatment. I was hooked up and then given papers to fill out for insurance. I asked if I could eat the rest of my sandwich and the answer was no, and he explained. One time a woman was eating something and she passed out during treatment. They had quite a time clearing things out so she would not choke and they made the rule, no more eating during treatment. I figured I could live with it.

When treatment was finished I weighed myself and found that I lost about 10 pounds! That must have been a record. I usually get cramps if too much fluid is taken out. But I did not feel any ill effects and I left feeling pretty good.

The rest of the trip was a series of events, God moments, and one bedeviled moment when I was tinkering with my camera at my brother Ron's house in Harleysville, PA and all the pictures I took in New Jersey disappeared...forever. (sigh)

After visiting with Ron I left for home, stopping at Newmanstown to stay overnight at cousin Warren's place. I left there around 1:30 in the morning and the trip was pleasantly uneventful. Little traffic. Good weather. And by around 8 a.m. I arrived at home safe and sound.

I told Lucy I would like to make these trips twice a year. She does not wish to travel so far but I can always rent a car.

Kidney Transplant 3

This is the third installment of the story of my hospital stays between January and May. If you're sensitive to medical stories, read it at your own gustatory peril. I eventually recovered. One of my body parts didn't.

I finally had a kidney transplant which worked fine. I had asked the doctor if I could have the same setup I had since I was three years old but he told me it was not feasible; I would be subject to infection since I was taking immunosuppressant medication to keep the kidney from being rejected.

I settled down to getting used to the new setup—a urinary pouch. It filled up pretty quickly and sometimes it was so full I thought it would burst. I emptied it in time though and continued to recover from the operation. At times I forgot to shut the pouch spigot off and I would find my gown wet, and also my own bathrobe. A nurse obligingly cleaned it for me—twice! This was something I had to get used to. When I was made aware that a lot of people have this setup, it made me more empathetic toward that lifestyle. You can get used to it and nobody notices. However, the pouches last only so long and every few days—maybe up to a week—it has to be changed. There was a wound nurse who changed it and I watched her so I could get the technique down pat.

But there was another problem that was presenting itself. I was getting a sore on my abdomen, about where the surgical procedure had been. It developed into a larger sore but I was sent home and in the care of Home Healthcare nurses. Lucy helped to change the pouch every few days.

The nurse would take blood samples to send to the lab for checking my condition every couple of days. It was difficult lying in bed so I sat on the armchair in the living room overnight. I still had a ways to go to feel comfortable.

Then one day I decided to go down in the basement to my computer. It was a mistake. When I went back up the stairs I was extremely out of breath and needed to sit down quickly. Something was definitely wrong. Lab tests showed I was low in hemoglobin so I was ordered back to the hospital—a 70 mile trek. They wanted to check if I had internal bleeding.

This was in February and there was snow on the ground—lots of it. We found an ambulance that would take patients more than to local hospitals. It got stuck in our lane. Fortunately, our neighbor on the other side of the street had a tractor with a snowplow and he graciously moved snow around to let them drive about 100 feet into the lane. The EMTs asked if I could step up onto the ambulance. I couldn't, so they put the gurney on the ground and I lay on it and they hoisted me in. It was a long ride to Columbus.

At the hospital again I was given blood transfusions and bed rest to recover. Meanwhile, the sore on my abdomen was getting more pronounced and when one of the residents came around I pointed it out to him. When a whole team of doctors and attendants came around again the resident pointed it out to the nephrologist in charge. The doctor said that it should be kept moist with ointment, and they left the room. I was sitting in a chair just then and I stood up and suddenly noticed a wet spot on my gown. I checked and the wound in question was leaking.

This is not a nice story to tell, and don't bother eating lunch while you read this, unless you not too sensitive about it. I was not happy about this new development. A nurse was still in the room and she called the team back and she was instructed to put on a pouch. That would be two pouches I would have to deal with. I was not happy. As she put it on I asked her if she saw a lot of this kind of wound. She said it was not too common but she did see quite a few of them in over 30 years of nursing. Arrangements would have to be made to deal with it. It was apparently a leak in the intestinal wall where they had taken a portion to create the diversion. It was fortunate that it leaked to the outside. A leak toward the inside would have been disastrous.

How they dealt with it was to put me on intravenous TPN, a protein fluid (it looked like milk) that would be my breakfast, lunch and dinner (breakfast, dinner and supper) for over two months. I was hooked to the IV machine for almost four months.

Meanwhile, I kept myself in pretty good spirits; especially when people came around—doctors, nurses, and nurses aides. They took my vital signs at all hours of the day and night. They wanted to make sure the kidney was functioning OK, and they could ascertain the condition by the numerous lab draws. I developed fits of coughing and a nurse would come in, mostly at night, and give me respiratory therapy. I felt I was gradually getting worse from something and I soon noticed that my urinary output was less and less.

I also developed dry heaves, gagging. The nurse would give me medicine for it but I often had these spells. Fortunately, that's all they were. I was the only one in the room, but sometimes at night I felt that there was someone else there, "No Never Alone". One time I did get into a depressed state and I cried like a baby, until I felt a hand on my shoulder. No one was there.

My legs started to swell. I had exercised every day by taking walks but then I suddenly couldn't walk. I lay in bed for weeks. They told me I had a huge blood clot, from my right leg to the liver, via the vena cava. The vena cava is a major vein to the heart. and that seemed to be the reason the kidney was not functioning as well. They took me to the OR and tried to put a filter in to keep blood clots from getting to the heart. They couldn't do it; it was clotted in that area. What would they do next?

One day, when the team made its daily rounds, the nephrologist explained everything to me. The whole room was full of his team and a couple of nurses. He went into detail about everything that was happening to me. He spoke with a foreign accent so I couldn't follow everything he said, but what he was saying became overwhelming and I started to get a little emotional, enough for the whole room to tense up but everyone was empathetic. After they left one of the nurses stayed behind and asked if I understood everything. She spent some time explaining everything he had said and I felt better for it. The doctor had said that I was one of his healthier patients.

Every day for a week they took me to the OR and systematically dissolved the blood clots. The mantra throughout the whole ordeal was "this is going to sting and burn." It would sting for a few seconds and I sort of got used to it by the seventh day. Maybe I was sedated a little—maybe—but I was awake through the whole process. Besides that pain, it was painful for me to be transferred to and from the operating table, which also lasted only a few seconds. I told them I would have to hold my leg while they transferred and it wouldn't be so painful. I had broken my left leg twice, in 2005 and 2007, and that was partly the reason. I also have a bad hip. Why me, Lord?! I had been walking with a crutch since the first break. Now I couldn't even walk. My legs were swelled up to huge proportions and I eventually noticed that there was very little urinary output. I knew I was in for the long haul.

I had to deal with the pouches. One day there were five pouch changes because of leaks, and when your digestive juices hit your skin, you can get a hellavu rash—witness diaper rash on babies butts; the same principle.

The doctor was sympathetic to my plight and he ordered that I could have juices to drink, to counter the monotony of eating nothing. Of course, it meant emptying the pouch oftener. I was not in a good situation, but I kept my spirits up and sought to learn all the facets of my medical anomalies and recovery. The nurses and aides liked me a lot.

I'll continue the story in the next writing. There's only so much you can remember about being four months in the hospital. That was in Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio in early 2009. What a way to start out the year!