Empty nest Christmas


 
Well we had let's say an "interesting" Christmas Eve at our home. Oldest daughter and son in law visiting downstate IL with his family for Xmas this year. Youngest and her BF and kids here to spend with us and Grandpa (my dad) along with my brother and his wife on Friday eve (Xmas Eve). It was a wonderful night. Shirtsleeve weather. (low 50's in early evening). I was outside manning the grill and side burner. Cooking up lobster tails, and my special Bacala (cod with lemon caper sauce), sipping a scotch. My brother had the stove working his magic with the mussels and linguine. Delish. We sit down and have a glorious (almost 7 fish feast). Later just before coffee and cannoli come out, dad starts convulsing. Not sure what's going on. Luckily sister in law is a master degreed nurse. She starts taking vitals, pulse, sketchy, BP all over the place, high fever, and then upchucking. I'm thinking "something I did is killing my soon to be 95 yo dad. Finally have to call 911. Cherry Valley FD comes over nearly the second I was off with 911. They transport him to large hospital near by OSF. They keep him waiting HOURS run a test, but don't give any results and then finally after midnight tell my SIL and wife "no room at the Inn" we cannot take him in. He's now too weak for them to transport, luckily she gave him 1000mg tylenol to knock down the fever. And he finally is beginning to feel a little stronger. They (brother and SIL) now have to trasnport him themselves to the hospital near his home in Arlington Hts IL (nearly 60 miles)! Wife does not get home until about 01:00, meanwhile they get him to NW Community and they run tests. Finding a UTI because THEY could not make the commitment to keep him long enough after bladder cancer surgery to allow for fully healing! They give him a round of antibiotics through IV and some fluids. Finally at nearly 07:00 they send him out. By the time paper work is done she doesn't get him back to their house in Mundelein IL so she can watch him until about 10! Meanwhile now at about 07:30 my sister has to get involved now trying to find somewhere that has a 24/7 pharmacy. Finally has to go all the way from Grayslake IL to McHenry IL then get the drugs back to Mundelein before she can finally go back to her home in Grayslake.
Yeah what a Christmas :D
Now in spite of all this brother and his wife still manage to host everyone for a wonderful Christmas Day meal and dad's feeling much better. Now today wife and I get to drive all the way to St Jo MI to meet up with grandson's dad so GS can spend a week with his dad.
Did I mention we need some rest? :D
 
Steve Petrone said:
It is quieter. There is no conflict. Invite who you want or not. I must be getting old. I do miss having the rest of the family together tho. Cheers to all.
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We've been empty nesters for a number of years now, but the kids and their families are no more than 20 minutes away so they come over for Thanksgiving noon dinner and Christmas morning brunch.

But Christmas Eve is now just the 2 of us, and while it's taken me some time to adjust I actually don't mind. When I was growing up it was one of my favorite days of the year, as my dad and his siblings and relatives and their families would all get together for what was always a great time (at least it was always great to me). But now the older generations are almost all gone and we cousins have scattered, and we haven't had a Christmas Eve for a number of years.

Larry, I'm glad your father's on the mend. ER trips are bad enough at any time, but when one happens during a holiday everything seems to be somehow magnified.
 
LMichaels said:
Well we had let's say an "interesting" Christmas Eve at our home. Oldest daughter and son in law visiting downstate IL with his family for Xmas this year. Youngest and her BF and kids here to spend with us and Grandpa (my dad) along with my brother and his wife on Friday eve (Xmas Eve). It was a wonderful night. Shirtsleeve weather. (low 50's in early evening). I was outside manning the grill and side burner. Cooking up lobster tails, and my special Bacala (cod with lemon caper sauce), sipping a scotch. My brother had the stove working his magic with the mussels and linguine. Delish. We sit down and have a glorious (almost 7 fish feast). Later just before coffee and cannoli come out, dad starts convulsing. Not sure what's going on. Luckily sister in law is a master degreed nurse. She starts taking vitals, pulse, sketchy, BP all over the place, high fever, and then upchucking. I'm thinking "something I did is killing my soon to be 95 yo dad. Finally have to call 911. Cherry Valley FD comes over nearly the second I was off with 911. They transport him to large hospital near by OSF. They keep him waiting HOURS run a test, but don't give any results and then finally after midnight tell my SIL and wife "no room at the Inn" we cannot take him in. He's now too weak for them to transport, luckily she gave him 1000mg tylenol to knock down the fever. And he finally is beginning to feel a little stronger. They (brother and SIL) now have to trasnport him themselves to the hospital near his home in Arlington Hts IL (nearly 60 miles)! Wife does not get home until about 01:00, meanwhile they get him to NW Community and they run tests. Finding a UTI because THEY could not make the commitment to keep him long enough after bladder cancer surgery to allow for fully healing! They give him a round of antibiotics through IV and some fluids. Finally at nearly 07:00 they send him out. By the time paper work is done she doesn't get him back to their house in Mundelein IL so she can watch him until about 10! Meanwhile now at about 07:30 my sister has to get involved now trying to find somewhere that has a 24/7 pharmacy. Finally has to go all the way from Grayslake IL to McHenry IL then get the drugs back to Mundelein before she can finally go back to her home in Grayslake.
Yeah what a Christmas :D
Now in spite of all this brother and his wife still manage to host everyone for a wonderful Christmas Day meal and dad's feeling much better. Now today wife and I get to drive all the way to St Jo MI to meet up with grandson's dad so GS can spend a week with his dad.
Did I mention we need some rest? :D
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Dang Larry - That was way too much excitement, glad to hear everyone is OK after all of that.

We hosted my BIL and his two Labradors.... for almost a week. It was a lot of fun, but my liver needs a break from all the drinking. We had whiskey about 4 nights in a row. Last night I couldn't do it again so stopped after one beer and maybe 3 glasses of wine. I'm going to try to dry out a little bit this week.
 
Barb and I were alone for Christmas eve and day. My son and his wife live in California along with their five kids they were having his wife's parents over for Christmas dinner and invited us to come out, but Barb had to work Christmas eve, so we declined.
Our daughter who now lives down near Phoenix went to Idaho to spend the holiday with her in-laws. So will see the kids when everything settles down again.
Actually, it was kind of nice no stress just had a nice dinner and relaxed.


Larry, that had to be a tough day and night for everyone, but glad to hear your dad is getting better.
 
LMichaels said:
Well we had let's say an "interesting" Christmas Eve at our home. Oldest daughter and son in law visiting downstate IL with his family for Xmas this year. Youngest and her BF and kids here to spend with us and Grandpa (my dad) along with my brother and his wife on Friday eve (Xmas Eve). It was a wonderful night. Shirtsleeve weather. (low 50's in early evening). I was outside manning the grill and side burner. Cooking up lobster tails, and my special Bacala (cod with lemon caper sauce), sipping a scotch. My brother had the stove working his magic with the mussels and linguine. Delish. We sit down and have a glorious (almost 7 fish feast). Later just before coffee and cannoli come out, dad starts convulsing. Not sure what's going on. Luckily sister in law is a master degreed nurse. She starts taking vitals, pulse, sketchy, BP all over the place, high fever, and then upchucking. I'm thinking "something I did is killing my soon to be 95 yo dad. Finally have to call 911. Cherry Valley FD comes over nearly the second I was off with 911. They transport him to large hospital near by OSF. They keep him waiting HOURS run a test, but don't give any results and then finally after midnight tell my SIL and wife "no room at the Inn" we cannot take him in. He's now too weak for them to transport, luckily she gave him 1000mg tylenol to knock down the fever. And he finally is beginning to feel a little stronger. They (brother and SIL) now have to trasnport him themselves to the hospital near his home in Arlington Hts IL (nearly 60 miles)! Wife does not get home until about 01:00, meanwhile they get him to NW Community and they run tests. Finding a UTI because THEY could not make the commitment to keep him long enough after bladder cancer surgery to allow for fully healing! They give him a round of antibiotics through IV and some fluids. Finally at nearly 07:00 they send him out. By the time paper work is done she doesn't get him back to their house in Mundelein IL so she can watch him until about 10! Meanwhile now at about 07:30 my sister has to get involved now trying to find somewhere that has a 24/7 pharmacy. Finally has to go all the way from Grayslake IL to McHenry IL then get the drugs back to Mundelein before she can finally go back to her home in Grayslake.
Yeah what a Christmas :D
Now in spite of all this brother and his wife still manage to host everyone for a wonderful Christmas Day meal and dad's feeling much better. Now today wife and I get to drive all the way to St Jo MI to meet up with grandson's dad so GS can spend a week with his dad.
Did I mention we need some rest? :D
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Glad to hear your dad is doing well. Be safe in your travels.
 
Had 3 of our 4 Son's over with the girlfriends and the grand pups.
Wife made Lasagna and I made Italian Beef.
 
Travel to MI yesterday pretty uneventful. The little RAV4 Hybrid returning 35+ mpg at speeds never under 80 and approaching 90 at times! Damn people drive way faster and worse than they should. Driven in Germany where speeds are even higher but they're so good at obeying traffic laws you don't even notice the high speeds. But damn especially IN. People are insane. Whipping around 3 lanes at far more speed than others were at! Anyway the only thing that made me unhappy about the RAV is the damn factory NAV system I paid A LOT of $$$ extra for. Useless turd of a device. Thankfully had Google Maps to fall back on from wife's phone.
Thanks all for the well wishes on dad. he's doing better. They have to do something about the issue he's having from the surgery though. The US healthcare system is a sad state of affairs is all I can say
 
Glad to hear your Dad is feeling better and I hope you can get the follow up for him he needs. You better find time to slow down yourself. We don’t want to see you under the weather.
 
Christmas eve and day were just the wife and myself. Spent the time preparing for son, daughter and grandkids the day after. Great time, but we are getting too old to host the holidays. Today, we just vegetated. I think it is time to pass the torch.
 
Kids living away (and cancelling all travel due to Covid etc) and family having extended and split families of their own, it get's harder every year to have everyone together. This year was especially quiet. We have actually turned Christmas dinner in the past where we WENT to be with family, to an annual Chinese Food take out dinner with just the two of us for the most part. Still enjoy the season and try to make sure everyone is safe, happy, and where they need to be...not where they feel obligated to be.

If there is one thing getting older has taught me, is that I can be happy getting together ANY day with friends and family...I don't need an actual (commercial?) holiday combined with it.
 
LMichaels said:
Travel to MI yesterday pretty uneventful. The little RAV4 Hybrid returning 35+ mpg at speeds never under 80 and approaching 90 at times! Damn people drive way faster and worse than they should. Driven in Germany where speeds are even higher but they're so good at obeying traffic laws you don't even notice the high speeds. But damn especially IN. People are insane. Whipping around 3 lanes at far more speed than others were at! Anyway the only thing that made me unhappy about the RAV is the damn factory NAV system I paid A LOT of $$$ extra for. Useless turd of a device. Thankfully had Google Maps to fall back on from wife's phone.
Thanks all for the well wishes on dad. he's doing better. They have to do something about the issue he's having from the surgery though. The US healthcare system is a sad state of affairs is all I can say
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Am really happy to hear that your father is doing better. Yes the healthcare system in this country is struggling, and things need to be changed and improved upon, some of the troubles nowadays are our own fault. The medical staff is being overwhelmed.Two days ago our neighbor was rushed to the hospital for what at first was thought to be a heart attack. They admitted him but he is in a bed in the hallway. Like so many hospitals around the country, COVID patients are stretching people and resources to the breaking point. And we have all seen the numbers. On a less serious note, we have a new RAV 4 also. Absolutely love the car and the mileage it gets, but what in the name of all that is right and good was Toyota thinking when they designed their navigation system? The nav system on our older Prius was so much better.
 
Sadly here is what my wife and sister in law observed. The staff was taking people who were obviously indigent and or "illegal" ahead of folks in there like my dad. Also not asking them to fill out paper work and so on while my SIL and wife had to busy themselves with form after form because dad could not do it.
I observed the same thing a few years back when I was in that same E room with a horrible bout of food poisoning with what turned out to be all 4 of the awful bacteria (campylobacter, salmonella, E. coli, and listeria). I guess I don't do anything unless I do it right. It was so severe the dr who finally treated me said I had permanent damages to my digestive tract. Imagine all this from an avocado btw.
But yet I too observed people walking in and being taken right in while I had to sit there in terrible pain/discomfort, and watch while people walked in off the street and got treatment. While my wife had to help me wade through mounds of paperwork.
So yeah it is a sad state of affairs we have.
As for the RAV4 Nav system. Gotta agree. ***? Had I known how bad it was I might have opted to save a few thou $$$$$ and bought the XLE rather than the Limited
 
Gee Larry, that wins the “Holy Cow Award” for Christmas drama!
Had I known you were going to be in St Joe (it’s Joseph not Josephine), I’d have tried to come and meet you for a minute! Glad your father is improving. I know what you mean about “THEM” moving patients faster than they should, it cost my sister in law a leg and eventually her life. Don’t get sick in Alabama is my credo!
 
Timothy F. Lewis said:
Gee Larry, that wins the “Holy Cow Award” for Christmas drama!
Had I known you were going to be in St Joe (it’s Joseph not Josephine), I’d have tried to come and meet you for a minute! Glad your father is improving. I know what you mean about “THEM” moving patients faster than they should, it cost my sister in law a leg and eventually her life. Don’t get sick in Alabama is my credo!
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Well you may get the chance next week Sunday. Turns out my daughter's "understanding" that Blake's dad was going to drive him back all the way was a "misunderstanding" (at least according to him). So odds are Renee and I will be back there next Sunday PM. UGH. Not a drive I relish. That loop through IN is a ROYAL PIA.
 
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