Ice storm 07

We had some freezing rain come throught Monday night (Dec 11) it did alot of damage in Clay county. There have been lots of trees broke off and power outages. Brian and I were pretty well prepared: we have a generator to run our furnace so we can stay warm, we're on rural water so we still have running water, and a propane water heater so we have hot water. We just can't cook or warm up any food. In fact, Brian told me not to open the refrigerator while the power is off so the food won't spoil as fast. Luckily, we only lost power for about ten hours, we were pretty fortunate many families have been without power since late Monday night and are still without electricity. We let a friend use our generator since we haven't really needed it except that one day. Its amusing how even though I know the electricity is off when I walk into a room I flip the light switch. DUH!!


Things we finally starting to melt off a little on Thursday but we had a snow storm come through Friday night. It dropped about 7in of powdery snow and of course the wind was blowing so the roads are drifted. Our road maintenance man usually leaves us till last, so it may slow us down if we need to go to town. Alot of people where saying we were suppose to have a "dry/warm" winter. Well they were wrong. Bunch of idiots, they look at the caterpillars in the fall and see how thick the wool is and try to gauge the weather, or something as equally asinine.





The ice was beautiful and I got a few good picts.

This is the electric fence.

The blue spruces that line the drive. They seemed to hold up better to the ice than the other trees. We lost quite a few fruit trees in the orchard and an elm and cottonwood in the front yard.

Brian thought there was at least an inch of ice.

While I was out taking pictures I could hear trees breaking off all around in the tree rows. It was an eerie moment. There was no wind and the ice insulates and muffles all the outside noises. So, in the distance, I could hear cracking and then a whoosh as the branches fell.

pics from the farm

Here are some pics from the farm. You ask, you recieve...a few months later.

sunrise

chasing a bumble bee

buff orpingtons
brown leghorn rooster and hens

the flock

Hey, that water is for the birds!

tiptoe through the tulips

enjoying the front porch and nice weather

Moles

I, like my siblings, have many moles. I went to the Dr. a few weeks ago to have one checked out on my leg. He said it was fine and to just keep an eye on it. While I was there, I had him look at some others that were large and annoying. They ranged in size from 3mm to 6mm diameter, were raised, and dark brown. He said they looked fine (non-malignant) but since they were so large and raised, it would be a good idea to have them removed. Good, that's why I brought them up in the first place. I made an appointment for Jan, 29 at 10:00a.m.

I really like my Dr. here in Clay Center. When I first moved here I was apprehensive about the quality of care I might receive. I have to say, I've always been impressed. For example, in my past experiences if my appointment is at 9:00 a.m. the nurse didn't call me back until 10:30a.m. Then I waited in the examining room until 11:30 before I even see the Dr. Once the Dr. is in the room she would spend 5minutes with me and off she'd go. That never happens with my new Dr. His office is usually on time, and they call and let me know when he's running late . If I'm already there and he's running late, I usually only have to wait 5-10minutes past my appointment time before they call me back. Usually Dr. comes into the exam room soon after the nurse leaves. He takes his time to ask about past ailments and how I am doing. He also likes to visit about everyday things. (He really is a talker anyway, he comes to our office and I usually clean his teeth. It's hard to get anything done because we both talk so much.) I really appreciate that my time is not wasted and I feel like he cares about my health.

I had five moles to be removed, one on my neck, one on my left upper arm, one on my right arm/armpit area, and two on my abdomen. It went something like this. He swabbed with alcohol, numbed a mole, cut it off, swabbed again, used a machine that cauterized the area (it reminded me of a bug zapper, and I did get a slight shock), swabbed again, and applied a bandaid. Pretty easy, except one on my abdomen he almost forgot to numb. He was talking, had the scalpel and started toward a mole on my side. I knew he hadn't numbed that so I asked, "aren't you going to numb that?" He did and it was fine. I'm glad I was paying attention. I really don't like pain.

Dr. asked if I wanted to send the moles for biopsy. I asked him what he thought. He said they are not malignant. (He's probably cut off tons of moles and I'm sure malignant ones are a lot different than non-malignant). I told him no, I agreed they probably didn't need biopsy. He showed me the now-removed moles. They sure look a lot different on a piece of bloody gauze than they did on my body.

It was nothing to have the moles removed and it really doesn't even hurt after. Some co-workers I'd told about having the moles removed made it sound like it was horrible. Especially the needle/shot. Big babies. Sure, it wasn't pleasant but I've had worse things happen before. Oh, and my appointment was at 10:00 a.m. and I was starting my truck and leaving at 11:07 a.m.

Frustrated

I just need to vent some frustration. I'm a dental hygienist, and I understand that some people don't like what a hygienist does to them when they come to the dental office. I agree, its a very uncomfortable experience to let someone get into your personal space(but hey, it's my personal space too), and put instruments into their mouths. Maybe it hurts to have a cleaning, maybe that person doesn't want to hear that their not brushing good enough, flossing enough, or coming often enough for cleanings? Has anyone ever heard of personal responsibility. It's like if the oil in a car is never changed, and the engine is ruined, is that the manufacturer's fault?

In our office we perform periodontal evaluations, which is basically measuring and checking the gums for infection and bone loss. We check for bleeding, mobility, recession, suppuration(pus) etc. We always inform the patients of the condition of the gum tissue and discuss how they can get it healthier if infection is present. Treatment can range from a combination of the patient doing better home care i.e. brushing and flossing daily, more frequent/regular re care, scaling/root planing therapy, or refer to a periodontist. It just depends on the severity of disease. You think most people who are coming to the dentist by their own volition would want to know what's going on in their mouth and how to make it healthier. Like if you went to the medical doctor for a physical, and your cholesterol was high. Wouldn't you like for the Dr. to
A. tell you
B. disc what lifestyle changes would help control/alleviate it
C.make a treatment recommendation? Why else would you go? Apparently most people don't consider their mouth a part of their body. If it's healthy or infected doesn't it effect their overall health.

This rant started because of what happened this evening. I went to a bar with some coworkers this evening, had a few Pepsi's and some fried mushrooms. About 9:30 p.m. in come some guys who know my coworkers and one guy, amazingly enough, is a patient at our office. He has an appointment on Fri, Jan 26. I don't know him, he doesn't know me. He starts whining and griping to my coworkers that he's coming in on Friday to get his teeth "scraped on." and she(the hygienist) better not be the same one he had last time. He stated of course it's going to bleed when "she" pokes and scrapes. In his opinion, he knows more than a hygienist does. Even though, I don't think he was a RDH(registered dental hygienist), and he sure the hell didn't spend four years in college learning about mouths etc. I attended Wichita State University for my degree, here is a list of the required classes to become a dental hygienist.

Prerequisite courses for admission to dept. of dental hygiene

Engl 101- College English (3)
Chem 103- Intro to Chemistry (5)
Biol 220-Intro to Microbiology (4)
Biol 223- Human Anatomy & Physiology (5)
Psych 111- General Phychology (3)
HS 331- Principles of Dietetics & Nutrition (3)

23hrs

plus the following

Speech 111- Public Speaking (3)
Soc 111- Intro to Sociology (3)

6hrs

DH Courses

DH 101- Preclinical Dental hygiene (5)
DH 104- Clinical Radiology (4)
DH 201- Dental Hygiene Concepts (3)
DH 202- Clinical Dental Hygiene (3)
DH 206- General and Oral Pathology (3)
DH 290- Oral Anatomy (1)
DH 295- Oral Histology and Embryology (2)
DH 301- Dental Materials (2)
DH 302- Clinical Dental Hygiene II (2)
DH 303- Dental Hygiene Concepts II (2)
DH 304- Dental Hygiene Concepts III (2)
DH 307- Ethics and Jurisprudence (2)
DH 310- Community Dental Hygiene (3)
DH 314- Intro to Periodontics (3)
DH 316- Pain Management (2)
DH 323- Clinical Dental Hygiene III (3)
DH 324- Clinical Dental Hygiene IV (4)
DH 409- Intro to Research for Health Professions (1)
HS 301- Clinical Pharmacology (3)
HS 315- Head and Neck Anatomy (2)

52hrs

I really hated my two years of actual dentally related classes. The anxiety and stress were horrible. When I die and if I go to hell, my hell will be the dental hygiene program. I, and my fellow hygienists, worked really hard to get where we are. We don't want to hurt people, but if the gums are unhealthy, it does hurt to have them cleaned. Is that my fault that some lazy person doesn't take to the time at home to keep their gums and teeth healthy? I love it when people say, "My parents had bad teeth, it's hereditary, and there's nothing I can do." So I ask them why are you brushing and why are you here if there's nothing that can save your teeth? People like that are idiots. I think they just want an excuse/justification not to floss or do further treatment to keep their teeth. I understand they may not have the finances for treatment, but floss is cheap and it just takes a few minutes. At least do the best you can to keep it healthy.

I know this guy was probably drunk and so more verbal. But even so, this is what many people think but don't say. In any case, he wasn't even chagrined when my coworkers informed him that I am a hygienist, and I will probably be the person working with him on Friday. He may not remember any of this on Friday, but I will. If his perio eval reveals crappy home care and infection then I will inform him of the condition of the gum tissue, recommend daily flossing, discuss re care length and recommend scaling/root planing if needed. He can do whatever the hell he wants from there. I know criticism and negative comments aren't fun to receive, I obviously don't like it. I've tried many different ways to broach these subjects with patients but it never fails they take it as a lecture and that the hygienist is "yelling" at them even if it wasn't like that at all. They must not have ever really been chewed out or they would know the difference. I could go on for hours on this subject. I just needed to get this off my chest. I think what it really comes down to is personal responsibility and most Americans are definitely lacking in that area.

Back porch remodel, "what or why the hell did they do that for?"

Anyone who's ever remodeled has uttered this phrase, "'what the hell did they do that for?". Well this is a classic example. Brian and I started remodeling the back porch today. We moved all the stuff off the back porch Saturday and started demolition on Sunday. We decided to start with the floor since it was uneven and needed to be insulated from underneath. The people we bought the house from gave the floor a "face lift." They shimmed, put down some plywood, underlament, and some stick down 1'x1' vinyl floor. Here's Brian removing the plywood.

Here are the shims. As you can see, the floor is very uneven. It bows in the middle, but it's hard to tell in the pictures. Brian and I wondered why (the hell) the previous owner didn't tear out the floor and insulate. He sure did alot of work with the shims and they didn't even help. The floor has had that bow since we've been here. Looks like the porch settled on the North side, which would be the outside wall. At the most, the shims are four inches deep.

So under that layer of vinyl "tiles", plywood, and shims was another layer of plastic "tiles" and plywood. (Actually, there were two more layers of plywood, so all together three layers of half inch plywood, what the hell?).

So, we keep on working and get down to the original tongue and grove pine planks. Which were at one point painted blue. Around the edges we could see remnants of all weather carpet (the kind that looks like fake turf) which was also blue. (Blue is a recurring theme for our house. When we moved in every room had either wallpaper with blue designs, blue carpet, or blue linoleum. All of it at least thirty years old.) Go figure the original floor was blue. And we also found out why the floor sagged despite the previous owners efforts. (Although, we kind of had an idea because Brian had asked around about our house. Roger at the lumber yard knew about this surprise on the back porch. Can't guess what it is. Try an old hand pump well filled in with sand. (Why the hell not cement.) NICE. It smells nice too, like mildew and dirt.

At this point we still have some plywood to tear up. When we were removing the last piece on the southwest corner we found a trap door. Goody. Brian thought he was now going to be able to get under that part of the house and to the plumbing in the bathroom (another why the hell neither here nor there). I thought we would find a jar of money some depression era farmer had hid. We were both wrong. An old cistern tank. A pit under a supporting wall of the house. WHY THE HELL DIDN'T THEY FILL THAT IN? IN FACT, WHY THE HELL DID THEY EVEN PUT THAT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE? WHAT KIND OF IDIOT PUT A HOLE BENEATH A WALL, WHY THE HELL? The tank isn't in good shape and it's weak. It's rusted through on the north and dirt from the utility room is eroding into the tank. out from under the the house. I told Brian if the structural engineer who inspected our house had seen that, there's no way we would have got the loan.

We were not expecting this. It throws a wrench into our plans too. Brian called our neighbor (who builds houses) and Randy is coming over tomorrow to look at it. We'll see what he thinks. Probably going to either fill it in with sand and cement and put a cement slab for the floor, or tear off the porch, fill in the cistern tank with cement, and build new porch with cement slab for floor. We'll see what happens next. That hole is definitely creepy.

"no place like home"

Christmas was great but there's no place like home. Brian and I both took vacation the week between Christmas and New Year. We were only home three full days out of ten days. Needless to say, I didn't do any of the projects I had planned for the week. We were in Onaga, Ks Saturday, Wichita, Ks Saturday evening, stayed in Wichita/Goddard until Tuesday, home to Clay Center late Tuesday, off to Hannibal, Mo Friday and back home to Clay Center late Sunday. It's just nice to sleep in your own bed, relax on your own couch, and shower in your own bathroom. There's no place like home.