This afternoon we met with two professionals Lou liked. The PA was a tall handsome young man who checked her reflexes, etc. and Dr. Siadati did not try to talk her into having surgery. He showed us the MRI that plainly shows the compressed vertebra. He explained the options for injecting plastic with and without the balloon. Or, because the pain is becoming more bearable, continue to let nature heal. He said that sometimes the pain doesn't go away and then surgery would be an option. Lou opted to continue managing the pain for 4 weeks and scheduled a review for 2/28. She said that she felt pretty good tonight after the trip. After the doctor's office we stopped to visit Ike Neal and Sue at the rehab nursing home. He is doing good and plans to go back home Tuesday. We then had dinner with son, Mark, and drove on home getting back by 8.

We have achieved a medical breakthrough. We finally got Dr. Endsley to Fax a referral and Lou's records to the Spinal Institute and now have an appointment with Dr. Siadati at 2 p.m. January 31 in Fort Worth. Lou now has to fill out the paper work that I downloaded from their site which is fwbsi.com if you are interested. Hopefully we can schedule the surgery soon to relieve her pain. This morning she walked for the first time in a week and got all the way to the highway. It didn't aggravate her back too much. Tomorrow we will pick up the MRI films to take to Siadati next Wednesday.

If you want a complete history of the Comanche/Texan war read Blakely's COME SUNDOWN. I am at the point where the protagonist has just purchased war supplies for the Comanches as they prepare for the attack by Kit Carson's Union troops. Can't wait to read the battle stories.

We hopefully had a breakthrough in the logjam of getting Lou's records to the spine clinic in FW. Due to the ice storm everything got fouled up last week. We thought that Dr. Endsley had written the referral letter and that everything had been faxed to FW last week. I checked yesterday and was informed that the dictated letter hadn't been typed but would be by the end of the day. When I called to followup this morning I was told the letter hadn't been dictated. I then called our family doctor, Estes, office and they said that he could do it, but he also dictates his letters that are sent out to a transcription service. I was flabbergasted. I used to dictate all my correspondence at A&M but it was typed by a secretary and returned within the hour. But a few minutes later Dr. Endsley called and apologized. A dictation tape was lost in the ice storm last week. He prepared a handwritten referral and I was assured that they would Fax it by noon. I called and left a message with the clinic, but haven't heard whether they have received the records. I will follow up tomorrow. Hopefully we can schedule the procedure by the week of 1/29. Lou has been being very careful about her back and the pain has been much better. She plans to walk tomorrow morning and I hope she doesn't aggravate the pain.

Thawed out this afternoon. This morning I dumbly tried to drive my pickup to get the mail. I couldn't get back up the road. I got all the way up to the path thru the woods where I left the truck and walked to the pond and gave the deer some corn at that feeder. I had to walk carefully because it was slick under the snow. It started warming up and got above freezing this morning. I checked the rain guages and had 0.7" for the ice, snow and little rain today. This afternoon after my nap, I brought two more hand trucks of wood to the porch, walked carefully back down the road to the Tacoma and drove it into the garage with only a little slipping and sliding.

Lou says she hasn't taken any pain pills for the last 3 days. She still hurts but it is getting better. Fran Vick rescheduled the trip to the TIL Board meeting in Dallas from this weekend to Feb. 3.

Thank goodness for good neighbors. Bubba Thomas and his number one son came down from their hill (they live next place south of us) with a four-wheel drive truck and pulled my two-wheel tire-spinning Toyota out of the ditch and then when I could get no traction, pulled me all the way to the garage. Christians always help get the ox out of the ditch, and I am a big ox. Going down to the truck, I took my first fall on the ice. The snow covering the ice is tricky. It looks like it will crunch under your foot and hold up, but it is really slippery underneath. I had taken a walking stick that one of the kids had given me about 20 years ago and it helped a lot in getting up. No damage except to my pride.

Ski Halsell Hill this morning. You will have to carry your skis uphill. We haven't put in a lift yet and my pickup is in the ditch where I slid off the road in a vain attempt to come back from getting the mail. It may stay there for a while. We have plenty of groceries and firewood now. Had about 2-3" snow last night.

We had run out of fruit and milk and I had to get to town today. I was worried about the ice still on the roads with their grades and debated using the Avalon with the new tires or the pickup that already has a few dents in it, being a farm truck, so I tried the pickup. I thought about putting some of the heavy oak firewood in the bed to put some weight on the tires, but finally just got in and started down hill. With my foot on the brake, I slid into the ditch, stopped, took it easy and eased back on the road and weaved my way down the hill. I made it around the curve at the Halsell House and as I got to the creek, I gunned it to get enough momentum to get up the last hill to the highway and voila' I got the mail. The next trial was getting back up the ice and I got enough momentum that I made it through the ice spots and felt more confident that I could make the grocery run. The highway was clear although I saw what looked like glare ice on parts. Downtown Cross Plains was clear and I made Kiwanis, bought groceries, went by Lawrence Farm and got another bag of sunflower seed and tried a suet bag to help the birds get some energy. The back yard has been swarming with one robin, lots of cardinals and finch, plus the normal doves, tufted titmouse, and chickadees. Plus the squirrels and fox. It never got above 30 today, but we got some melting off the back roof even though there was no sun out. I have walked carefully in the grass and haven't even slipped. Usually I take a fall or two in this kind of weather. Where there is no grass on the ground it is like a skating rink.

Lou is managing her back somewhat better, but it is still a problem. We haven't gotten the surgery appointment yet. Fort Worth has been backed up by the weather also. Sue called me about 12:30 saying she was going back to FW to be with Ike. She has been stymied by the weather here in CP.

I called Kathy. She and Val both had the day off with their schools closed and will have tomorrow due to the ice in San Antonio. They aren't getting any snow yet, but it is predicted. We are on the edge of the predicted snow belt. I am still worried about trying to get to Dallas Saturday. Hopefully we can make the TIL board meeting.

I am enjoying Blakely's COME SUNDOWN. It is the history of the Civil War in New Mexico right now. He has intersected with Sul Ross and another who became Governor of Texas. He has friends on both sides of the battles. He is serving as scout to Kit Carson and fighting the battles against the Texans trying to take the Colorado gold fields. I am learning a lot of history of the battles in NM. The book has a lot of action combined with history and philosophical observations. Great read. I am about half through.

It has been an interesting weekend. Mike Blakely's protagonist in his book had a relevant comment on worry that I tried to use all weekend. We kept worrying that the power would go off in our all-electric home and it would freeze the pipes, etc. Yesterday they lost power for 45 minutes in Cross Plains, but we kept going. Friday I had a load of firewood delivered and not a minute too soon. I fired up the fireplace Thursday night when the norther came in and have used all my old wood and several hand truck loads from the new stack out at the driveway. It is a slippery walk up there on the ice coated grass. Don't dare get on the glazed walkway. I haven't fallen yet, but have slipped around. I feed the birds their sunflower seeds each morning and they really appreciate it.

This morning at 2:12 we finally lost power. I got up and opened the fireplace because the blower doesn't work without electricity, started a fire in the upstairs wood stove and went back to bed. The power returned about 4:30 and we appreciate the workers for Taylor Electric who braved the ice storm to restore it. The clouds cleared during the night and the temperature dropped to 19 degrees, but that isn't bad compared to the 15 below in Wyoming reported last night by Candy Moulton in Lou's conference call with the WWA board.

Lou is learning how to lower her back pain by being careful how she uses it. I will call again in a few minutes to try to schedule her surgery in FW. The doctor we wanted is going on vacation and won't be back till March so we will schedule the next available one who is rated highly also. They are saying the week of Jan. 22 or 29.

Today Lou got the results of her MRI by the head of Rehab at Hendrick hospital. She has a collapsed #3 vertebra with fractures in it. It is collapsed 50%. The solution to have vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty, both inject a quick setup plastic that stabilized the fractured bone. One uses a balloon insert to lift the bone before injecting the plastic material. We have called Dr. Vechtel, the surgeon in Fort Worth who did this same surgery for Mary Kathryn's mother and she got immediate pain relief. He also worked on Mark (I think it was his shoulder) and they were pleased with him. We left a message on a recorder and are waiting for a call to schedule a meeting. Other options were to let nature heal the break, but Lou said the pain is too excrutiating to wait the more than three months for nature to heal. That would also require an uncomfortable back brace. The good news was no comment about this being a result of cancer, an offhand comment that has caused a lot of mental stress after going through cancer treatment.

We celebrated by eating at the Lytle Land and Cattle Company Steakhouse along with the cutting horse contestants. Ken and Dixie Welch were eating with her parents plus a couple of I think her sister's beautiful young daughters. Both her mother and sister were competing in the contest. We talked to Ken about how cowboys handled fractures and they just continue to work, because, like my son, they are in pain all the time anyways. Lou is using Tylenol and the generic Norco when the pain gets too bad. She walked to the highway this morning, but the pain has made her decide to quit walking until she has surgery to remove the pain. From the sound of the weather forecasts, I may not be walking for the next several days if it is icing.

For more info look at http://www.spine-health.com/topics/surg/vertfract/vertfract01.html

Lou spoke to the North Fort Worth Women's Club book study group Tuesday morning. She reviewed her latest book, Jane Gilmore Rushing by starting her talk with quotes from Quotable Texas Women. The group has 24 members and most of them were there with a couple of husbands included. They start with coffee and refreshments and I was in hog heaven because one of the goodies was chocolate candies made with potatoes. I also enjoyed talking to several of the women who were long time General Dynamics employees and we discussed the B-58 days. Some of them went back to the B-24 which means there were older than me. I did fly in a B-24 when I was released from WWII and caught a flight from Ogden, UT back to Oklahoma on a plane being flown to Arkansas to scrap. Lou gave a great talk and the members were disappointed that we didn't bring books to sell.

We then had lunch with Mark and Mary Kathryn and were joined by Sue. We followed Sue back into FW to visit her husband, Ike, in the rehab facility where he is recovering from having a new knee installed. We drove home so that I could attend the Church Building Committee meeting.

Speaking of books, I finished a book on the Ark of the Covenant, one on the history of technology in ancient times that argues there have been highly developed civilizations with aircraft, electronics and atomic weapons. But I was notified by Amazon that Mike Blakely had a new novel out and I am now reading Come Sundown by him.

We had a great time in Round Rock celebrating the Sheppard/Dromgoole wedding, finishing our Christmas exchanges with the Wilcox side of the family and visiting Lou's cousin, Claudia, in Georgetown. Lou is taking buffered aspirin and Norco when necessary to make the back pain manageable. It is a good thing the Sheppard's only had two kids and both are now married. Both weddings were the largest I have ever attended. We enjoyed visiting old friends and making new ones. At the reception dinner, I sat next to Rob, a Longhorn dating an Aggie from Dallas. Rob had just gotten his law degree from SMU. My son, Mark, was at the table. Both he and I have Master's from SMU and I have a UT degree so we had something to talk about. TU had won their bowl game that afternoon. We got to play with our great-grandchildren, Christopher and Brent.

Sunday Kathy had arranged a visit with Claudia and Jerry Buster. The first time we have been to their home. They live on the edge of a golf course and Jerry gave Kieth a bag of golf balls. He says he collects them by the dozen every week. He is still flying RC models. We ate lunch at a restaurant named Wildfire a year and three days after the wildfire destroyed our church and parsonage along with 116 other homes in Cross Plains. We are looking at a cost a little more than our available funds to rebuild our church. I asked Jerry about the Baptist Church that we had passed driving in. Jerry said they have a $3 mil budget and a $12 mil building debt after spending $8 mil on a new education building. We may have to raise our Methodist CP sights.

To follow up on Lou's back problems, we met with a back specialist, Dr. Endsley, who told us the radiologist had found a small crack in a vertebra, but when he examined her, the pain seemed to be lower than the Xrays indicated. So he asked for an MRI to get a better diagnosis. Today Lou had one done in an open machine and suffered no claustophobia, but an hour on her back in the machine was very painful. We ate chinese food and came home. She is taking Norco generic and getting some relief. We will go back 1/11 to get the diagnosis. Tonight we are watching the Mavs at the Spurs and the first half looks like the Spurs game. Lou will give a book review Tuesday morning to a book club in Fort Worth and we will have lunch with our kids and visit Ike Neal who is recovering from a knee replacement operation. Then that night we have our first church building committee meeting of the year.