Monthly Archives: March 2009

Today’s mail brought a catalog from Sam’s Club. Curiousity got the best of me even though the cover was a bit on the disgusting side – with seafood on ice that looked too much like it had just crawled out of the water.

I hurried past the pages of raw meat and seafood body parts, but lingered on the beautiful photographs of fresh produce. I am afraid that Sam’s wasted their advertising dollars on me. All they managed to do was make me anxious for our local farmer’s markets to start.

Local farmers sell freshly picked produce at the markets in our area. Somehow vegetables just taste better when purchased from the person that grew it. Corn on the cob, green beans that still snap when broken, green peppers, tomatoes, onions…and of course there is always a vegetable or two that is new to me.

Well, my sister’s plans to take her husband home this weekend have not worked out. He is in surgery now. Complications caused by the blood thinner…they are putting a blood clot filter in his groin so they can control the blood clots another way. He will not be going home until sometime next week. I am wrapping up a few details here and heading to the hospital to lend some moral support and see if there is some way that I can help. All prayers are appreciated.

I am always behind on blogging…probably always will be. I tend to be a nose down kind of person – there are things to do, so no time to write about them. So, true to form, here I am filling in the blanks about my brother-in-law’s accident after he is on the road to recovery.

Last week my sister’s husband, Scott Bartels, had friends and family helping him tear down the old barn on their property. He was on top of a load of tin that was piled up in the back of a truck trailer.
Nobody heard him fall. They found him laying unconcious on the concrete that he had hit head first. He was bleeding from his nose and mouth and the first people to find him thought he was dead.

That was how my sister realized something was wrong. A man told her that he thought Scott was dead.

To make a long and emotional roll coaster of a story much shorter…he was then strapped to a board and taken by ambulance to their local hospital. After tests and initial treatment, he was taken by helicopter to a trauma center.

He has fractures to his neck, back and chest. Two of the fractures are especially troubling because they are front and back and a shift in the wrong direction could sever his spinal cord. Several days into his treatment there were complications because he developed blood clots in his lungs – a very scarey set back that promptly got him moved to a more closely monitored room and put on blood thinner.

Fast forward to today. He is still hooked up to wires and tubes and oxygen, along with the brace that keeps his head and neck immobile; but was able to wear his turtle shell type back/chest brace and attempt walking today.  He may get to go home Friday or Saturday if there are no more set backs. As long as the two braces prove effective he will live in them 24/7 for 3-4 months instead of having spinal surgery. Praise God for this miracle!

 
I have been reminded once again that there are only a few things in this life that are truly important. They are all people. My sister would have traded anything she owns to keep her husband alive. I love her so much that I would have, too. Everything else is window dressing that we can manage without.