GEE IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK HOME AGAIN

Caution: Honesty contained below.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Part 1 of 3

Yep, been on the road lately...hanging with the fam. The Grandma Sweet (Mom) and Sister (Sherry Jo) part of the fam. We enjoy each other's company immensely, but never seem to have much time to spend together without a real good excuse, and usually with lots of other people around (Sherry and I each have 6 children - that's 7 boys and 5 girls to give you a more vivid mind picture). My brother Joe gave us one (a good excuse - come on, keep up...) by suffering a heart attack last week. Eventually we would learn that he was first taken to Plattsburgh's Champlain Valley Community Hospital, but was immediately transferred to Albany Medical Center where he underwent a heart catheterization and stent procedure to unblock a clogged artery. He seemed to get to a great place for the surgery according to this article that I found in the WDT this week. Note to self: scan and insert table of mortality rates here...if you're not seeing it, sorry. I tried twice and will try again at the end, but I won't lose any sleep over it. Trust me, AMC has great mortality rates. 1.03 mortality rate compared to the statewide average of 1.61. They even beat St. Joseph's in Syracuse.

His ordeal really started last Sunday night (Oct. 23) but because he is in prison, family notification was not a top priority with NYS (sidenote: I have never hidden the fact that my older brother was in a minimum security prison, however I also don't share or glorify his story because it's not MY story to share. I will say that he is saved now and serving God every day which is more than I can say sometimes, and that I love and miss him with all my heart). So, he ate some spicy food Sunday night and started feeling bad almost immediately. He went three days in this condition and didn't seek medical help until he collapsed Wed. night (he very nearly died right then). He stayed at CVCH overnight and was then sent to Albany on Thu. night. Friday was Surgery and "Hey maybe we should tell his family what's going on" Day. Unfortunately it was late Friday and no one was at their post to receive our return calls. The weekend staff was a nightmare to get info out of. We tried to go to Albany on Sat, but the nurses told us he was being sent back to Clinton on Sun. morning, so we were encouraged to hold off and wait to see him at the regular site on Monday. In retrospect it looks like we were given a lot of information, but in reality until this was over we didn't know most of this background information. All we knew at this point, was that back on Wednesday, Joe was taken to a hospital - somewhere - with severe chest pains. Saturday, we found out he was in Albany, but was being transferred back.

Monday I drove out to Black River (where my Mom lives) at 6:30 AM and spent the next 5 hours on the phone trying to get information as to where he was and how long he'd be there and if we could see him, etc. Evidently, part of the problem is that NYS doesn't like giving out that kind of information, because they expect the family will then show up and try to "spring" their loved one of out the CCU and head for the hills (yeah, with tubes and catheters, right?). But, nevertheless, AMC assured us at 12 noon that he wasn't going anywhere that day, so we all piled into Sophie (my car) at 2:30 PM and headed off to our grand state capital. We blessed God for MapQuest, and dave for printing it off and meeting us on the ros with it, and soon found our way there with very little trouble. We arrived at 5:30 PM, at which time we were informed at the information desk that Joe had been sent back to Clinton around 12 noon. Don't let the irony escape you my friends, these are your tax dollars at work.

So what were we going to do now? We had to kill some time because I 90 West had closed down due to a huge tractor trailer accident just as we were arriving. I looked all over for some news reference to it later, but found none, so the driver must have been ok. But he (I'm assuming, yes I know I'm a sexist) made a real big mess. When we left for home at 8:30PM there was still only one lane open going west. Anyway...three women alone in a strange city...what would you do? That's right- go shopping! We decided to make the best of a bad situation and find a mall. CrossGates! One of the largest on the East Coast! Woot! How did we find it? We stopped and asked a woman! Who was dressed up as a geisha at a Quickie Mart (and she had made her own costume! I can't imagine she'll work there long with such talents.). We were living on the edge! They had a great Dollar store there, but we also took time to have some dinner at the food court, price out a computer system for Mom at Best Buy, and take a walk though Macy's! Yah!

I checked out the directory while Sherry and Mom went into the largest shoe store I've ever seen, and found a couple of interesting sounding stores I wanted to check out. The dollar store, and a Mugs and More shop were also next to a store called Stadium, so when they came out we walked about five miles (it felt like it) looking for these places. If you click on the link up there, you'll see the shoe store was down by J C Penneys, and we were headed over to stores 131 and 132. I was excited about Mugs, thinking I could find some unique coffe cups for Christmas, but alas all they sold was tee shirts with pictures of faces on them. Directories can only help you so much. When we were done, we walked all the way back to Macys, checking out their restroom on the way out to our car, which I found with NO problem due to my finely honed navigational skills. We pulled out and got right on I 90W and started back home.

We hit Utica near 10:40PM and by then Sophie desperately needed gas. I passed a couple of places that looked inconvenient or too expensive and started heading North on 12, but then kind of panicked when everything went dark right away. I distinctly remember the sides of 11N being lined with gas stations headed out of Utica, but now there were none to be seen. So to avoid running out of gas, we got off at the next exit (Poland) because someone had written on their exit sign the word GAS. We followed their subsequent gas signs all over the pitch black countryside, until we were straight back into slummy downtown Utica! I am going to resist the obvious slam here at Poland etc., but if your mind goes there, what can I say! If you write gas on your exit sign - you should really have a station somewhere... So now we're back in downtown Utica, with no gas station to be found anywhere. Arggh!...it was dark...it was late...it was Halloween, and we were on empty...

Know you are loved,

MOM