best laid plans

As we will be doing short trips to Purdue, Michigan State and Oregon State interspersed with stints at the U of I, scheduling things like home maintenance and medical things is a bit tricky. We came home to find that we need to reroof the house and we will most likely change some flooring (if you wonder why a retired person works part time.) Georgia got the last appointment with our beloved GP Dr. Dunn (read old posts for reference). With that came a couple of other special appointments that come with age. My annual visit was with the new physician we chose, whom I like very much. (though he is "just a kid"). With that we decided to take the carpal tunnel issue seriously. Waking up at night with aching hands ain't no fun (as some of you know). http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/common/pain/disorders/023.htmlIn addition, Dr. Nelson piled on the sleep apnea train that got started when I had the little fainting spell a year ago. So, here was the schedule: May 29- carpal tunnel surgery on my left hand; June 3- sleep study; June 12- remove stitches from hand; and early July-follow up on sleep study. That's just for me. Georgia is trying to schedule around back pain and sinus infection for allergy retest and possibly another spinal injection.
Everything was clicking along well. Even got the Greenview guy worked in to tell us why the 5 lilac bushes we planted last summer were dying. That ties in with the sudden change in plans. The lilacs were planted somewhat between our house and the neighbors to the south. If you haven't noticed, the weather has been a bit unusual this spring. I'm thinking maybe 5-6 days withouth rain since April??? It appears lilacs don't like their "feet wet", and with all the rain, the runoff from both houses seems to be soaking that area, thus "drowning" our lilacs. I am also nervous for some of our rose bushes since the sump pump has pretty much constantly been dumping water under the deck.. So what does this have to do with anything? The carpal tunnel surgery went very well. Aside from being in a sling for a couple of days and a sharp pain when I forget that I had surgery, I hardly notice that the surgery occurred; except for the fact that my left hand no longer wakes me up at night!!!! Glory Be!!
I'm going to have to take you on a little side trip. I find that a quick and easy method of spellcheck that is useful no matter what program I am using is to put the estimated spelling into the little Google box, then search. It tells me pretty quickly. Well, I was bothered by the double c and double r in occurred (above), so did my spell check. Up came the following article about a major climate change 5200 years ago; http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/5200event.htm
Maybe Al Gore should check this out. Also they might all take a look at http://www.answersingenesis.org/
which might clear up a lot of things if they can accept the fact that God does exist.
Back to my issues. The next scheduled event was the sleep study. http://www.talkaboutsleep.com/sleep-basics/viewasleepstudy.htm
As I left about 8:45, pillow and jammies in hand the weather was beginning to kick up a bit. I got there, got checked in, got my jammies on and was waiting for the technician when the announcement came about a level 2 weather alert. We all had to toddle out to a central hallway and wait for about 45 minutes til the alert was lifted. (We = me, 5 women, and the technicians. Supposedly it is usually more men than women, but not on this nite.) While sitting in the hall in my pajamas, I find that we are next to a surgery waiting room. I look up and there is someone we used to go to church with as well as a former pastor who were apparently supporting someone in surgery. (How do you explain to a former pastor why you are sitting in the hall with 5 strange women, all in our pajamas???) After that we started getting

wired. We just got me wired up when the phone rang, asking for George Kneller. I said, "I'm Steve Kneller and my wife's name is Georgia, does that work?" The technician said I had an urgent phone call from my wife. (These pictures are from the website above... This is not me... notice-no beard!

Another detour: Having experienced the agony of failed back-up sump pump a few years ago, before we left for Oregon, we had a water powered pump installed. http://www.pumpbiz.com/products/index.cfm?fuseaction=pump_series&series_id=820
We went to Oregon with me feeling secure that our basement was safe. With the recent deluge

after deluge, I still felt secure.
There I stood with things stuck all over my body and Georgia says, "the basement is flooding".. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

Apparently, the sump was working great, but the water was coming in from the other side of the house. I have a small "shop" in one corner of the basement (with no carpet). In the past during the heaviest of rains, a damp spot would develop, but no appreciable water came in. Well, tonite there was more and it had reached the doorway (carpet). So, we quickly removed all the probes and stuff and I hurried home. I had been concerned that the recent surgery might interfere with the sleep study... not so! Got home, pulled the wet/dry vac from the garage and started sucking water. Georgia had been working at it with a mop and bucket, so between the 2 of us, (her with a bad back and me with one funcitonal hand) we got the water back from the carpet. It seems all is well at this point, except that the sleep study will now be on July 1 and the follow up sometime in August. Still working on scheduling work at Illinois, work at Oregon State, and surgery on the other hand. How did I get anything done when I was working every day??? I've heard it many times, but see that it really is true. Let's see what did we miss this week? Ava and Aidan's baseball games, Mahala's softball games, Melissa's birthday and my sisters wedding anniversary (same day). That's as much as I am aware of. I find I use that phrase a lot lately. When ask a question, my reply typically includes, "as much as I am aware".... I wonder why!