Let it Snow

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I am enjoying a snow day more than I have since I was a kid going sledding on a school day.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but staying home from work is so delightful. And since we have no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

We were expecting a lot of snow yesterday, last night and this morning, enough to close the schools and most places of business.

Today’s snow day could not have come at a better time. 

There have been quite a few times in the past where my place of work was closed due to snow but, because of my job, I still had to go in and work. This week that is not the case. I was able to get everything done on Monday that I had to get done early this week, and other work that has to be done this week I can do from home, so today I am able to stay home with my wife Terry.

Terry has been down in the dumps lately. I’m not sure if it was the fact that she had been sick with the flu, bored and lonely now that she only works one day a week and I am gone so much with work, or the fact that every once in a while it gets to her that she has Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

To tell you the truth I am amazed that it does not get to her more often. But she is tough, tougher than I am. And it is a good thing.  (when the kids were little any time they would scrape a knee or get a bump or bruise and started to cry, I would always say to them “It’s a good thing you’re tough!” and most of the time they would take pride in being tough and stop crying. It became a running joke in our house when they got older.)

But Terry is tough. She never complains. And God knows she has plenty to complain about, and I’m not even talking about having to put up with me. But last week she was visibly upset about being home alone so much and it was killing me.

This is my busy time of year, working 70 hours a week. I try to take Terry with me on the road trips I have to take, and that helps a great deal. But during the day when I am at work she is all alone.

I try to keep her busy, every day giving her a list of things to do. And that helps as well, for the most part.

When Terry and I were first married I would get Sports Illustrated and read about half of the magazine, just the things that interested me. She would read it cover to cover, even the stupid stuff like sailing, curling, and fencing.

Now she reads the Bible every day.

She also used to read books, novels.

Terry does not enjoy reading as much as she used to.  It is tough for her to follow what is going on. She’ll read a few pages but by the time she gets to the end of a chapter she’ll forget what she read in the previous chapter.

When she reads her scriptures she uses highlighters, which helps her.

Watching movies also is not as enjoyable for her because she has trouble following the plot.

She has always been a big sports fan and watching games is still great for her. There is always the score on the screen so it is easy to follow and remember who is winning and how much time is left or what inning it is.

Her favorite teams growing up were the Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots and the Providence College basketball team. To this day she can still name the starting five and the sixth man on the PC team that went to the Final Four in 1972-73.

Over the years I’ve taken her to a few Red Sox games and she was like a pig in mud.

Her Patriots are in the Super Bowl next week so Terry is a very happy camper.

So today I will find many stories about her Patriots on the web and let her read them, and we’ll watch plenty of SportsCenter on ESPN when they are talking about the big game.

On Super Bowl Sunday our daughters will be home with their boyfriends to watch the game with us. It will be a great day. Over the past dozen years or so, when I didn’t have to work on Super Sunday, Terry and I always went over my friend Jack’s house to watch the Super Bowl. He always had a good sized party with relatives and old friends and neighbors and it was the place to be.

The years when the Patriots were in the big game, however, Terry had to watch the game at home. She used to concentrate so much on every play; she didn’t like the party atmosphere, where we would be having side bets on such things as:

this next play will be a pass or a run

which team will be the first team to get a first down

how soon will Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch grab his crotch (something he has been fined for several times this year)

When the Patriots were playing Terry was an intense fan and could not be distracted.

Not so much anymore, although she still loves her Pats.

And today is looking like it will be a great day too, since I am able to stay home with Terry.

Four years ago my son bought me a snow blower. Then we went three years without any snow. Last year made up for the previous three with numerous snowfalls.  Today I planned on using the snow blower but we only got a few inches.

Which made this an even better snow day. No work and also no inconvenience of a ton of snow.

Nothing like a snow day to make things so delightful!

Until next time, hope you have an unexpected day off in the near future.

Bud

One Flu Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and it was made pretty darn clear to me recently that it is cold and flu season.

Ever since my wife Terry was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, I have been what is called a ‘caregiver.’  That name took on a whole new meaning recently when I had to care for Terry once she caught the flu.

There is one thing you have to understand. Terry does not get sick. The last time she vomited was when she was pregnant with our now 26-year old. Even about 20 years ago when we both got food poisoning from eating Reuben sandwiches at a diner, I was sick as a dog and she had a little more than a stomach ache.

That’s not normal.  But, luckily for me, I rarely have to take care of a sick spouse.

Terry, on the other hand, has had to nurse me through quite a few illnesses over the years, although she shows absolutely no sympathy when it comes to hangovers. Fortunately, there have not been that many of them.

Last week I was coming home from a road trip, a rare trip that Terry’s schedule did not allow her to accompany me, and I felt a cold coming on. By the time the three hour drive home was over, I was sick. Could not stop coughing.

The cough slowly worked its way up into my head and a full-blown cold was in place.

I tried to stay away from Terry as much as I could, so I spent the first couple nights in the living room on the couch. Notice I didn’t say I slept on the couch. I wish!  That was the worst part of the sickness, not being able to sleep. My breathing was labored, with a wheezing element to it, which kept me awake at night. The one thing I really needed, sleep, I was not getting.

After the third day I developed a fever.  That’s when I knew that the flu that a lot of people at work had and that I was able to avoid, had finally caught up to me and bit me in the butt. I really knew I was sick when a couple of beers went untouched for over a week in my refrigerator.

Although sick, there were three days out of four that I HAD to go to work, at least for a half of the day, and that, along with not getting much sleep, allowed the flu to linger. It was a solid week before there was any sign of it letting up.

And even though I had done my best to stay away from Terry, she eventually began coughing and became bed-ridden.

Fortunately I have great kids, so when I had to work several evenings my kids took care of Terry. Making and feeding her soup, buying her meds and liquids.  Waiting on her. They have much better bed-side manners than I do.

I often tell Terry that she is ‘one gross girl’ as I clean up her used tissues and help her change her clothes. I say it with a smile and it makes her laugh.

Thank God Terry has such a good disposition in life. It takes a lot to bother her. Maybe that is why we’ve lasted so long as a couple.

So now she is getting plenty of rest, she is drinking plenty of fluids and she is taking flu medicine.

About 10 years ago flu shots became popular. I got one, and a day or two later I developed a bad cold.  The following year I got another flu shot and, sure enough, I got another cold. So that was the last time I got a flu shot. To me it wasn’t worth it.

With my latest experience with the flu, I’m thinking getting a shot might be worth it. I think I will get a shot next year. The cold it may or may not have given me was much better than what I’ve been through the last two weeks.

But just last month the CDC warned that this year’s flu vaccine may not be effective against all strains of the flu virus.  Medical tests have shown a “mutated” strain of influenza not covered in the vaccine.

Influenza. That just sounds bad. Like Polio. Or anything that ends in pox.

Those shots are recommended by WHO (World Health Organization, not Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend).

But recently I read that more than three-quarters of Americans who got this season’s flu shot could get the flu virus anyway, according to U.S. officials, given a mismatch between the flu strains covered by the shot and those actually causing illness in people.

So the shot this year is only 23 percent effective overall. Since they’ve been doing studies on the flu shots 10 years ago overall effectiveness of the shots have ranged from 10 percent to 60 percent.

Get that shot back up to 60 percent next year and I’m in. If 60 percent was good enough for me when I was taking tests in school, than it is good enough for a flu shot.

Especially since this year, when the shots are not even hitting their own weight (baseball term).

Until next time, hope you don’t get the flu.

Bud

Happy New Year

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I wanted to wish you a Happy New Year.

As you are probably aware it is customary to wish someone a Happy New Year the first time you see them after January 1. But what is the cut-off date? What if you don’t see the person until the end of January?  Or later? Is it okay to wish someone a Happy New Year and Happy Valentine’s Day in the same breath?

There is an old Scottish poem called Auld Lang Syne which translates to “old long since” but more or less means “long, long ago”, “days gone by” or simply “old times.”  The first line of the song, “For auld lang syne” could be translated as “for the sake of old times.”

Growing up, when Dick Clark was still hosting American Bandstand before he rocked in New Year’s Eve, I remember Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadian band would perform Auld Land Syne on television New Year’s Eve.

Since then I enjoyed Dan Fogelberg’s sampling of it in his Same Old Lang Syne song and before that I think I heard Jimi Hendrix play it when he was Live at the Fillmore East. (I was never heavily into Hendrix although his National Anthem is my favorite rendition.) And I remember when Billy Joel played in the old Spectrum in Philadelphia around Christmas time he played Auld Lang Syne toward the end of the show.

Auld Lang Syne always seemed like a sad song to me instead of a celebratory one. This is the time of year where we should be celebrating, both all of the good things that took place in 2014 and the promise of better days to follow in 2015.

Looking back, my initial thoughts on 2014 are not good. After all, a year in which there is an Ebola outbreak, a terror group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) makes itself known and you are told your best friend has an incurable disease cannot be looked at in a positive way.

Being told my wife Terry has Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease back in the spring was the worst thing that has ever happened to me. However, I am trying to look at the year as a whole and decide if it was a good year or not.

On the plus side of the ledger, I can now bring back Cuban cigars for my friends when I visit Canada, a friend of my son’s competed in the Winter Olympics in Sochi and Terry and I had some great trips together.

We went to Montreal for a family reunion that had over 30 people in attendance, including all nine of Terry’s siblings, some of their spouses, her mother and a few nieces and nephews.

We went to the Jersey Shore over a half dozen times, where we took long, pleasant walks in the sunshine while breathing in the fresh, salty sea air.

We traveled to New England a few times, visiting the home where Terry grew up and the park where she won many tennis trophies, along with visiting her relatives.

And of course we traveled to Kauai, Hawaii, for a tremendous week in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

In addition to the trips, Terry and I spent more time together this year than in any other year since we met in 1978.

So for that reason alone it has to be in consideration for being thought of as a good year.

Terry even travels with me on many of my work-related road trips. So far this winter she has gone with me to Philadelphia, New Rochelle, NY, Hartford, Connecticut, Staten Island and Poughkeepsie, NY.

However, the reason why we had all of those great trips, the reason why we spent so much time together this past year, that is way over on the other side of the ledger.

It is never a positive when you are told it is Bucket List time.

Most people hate it when the alarm clock goes off in the morning and you have to get out of that warm, comfortable bed to face the hard, cold world.

I guess sometimes we all need a ‘wake-up’ call. We get stuck in our ruts and forget about the big picture. We forget about our priorities. We forget about what is really important.

That is one thing that Terry’s diagnosis did for me. It woke me the hell up.

I wouldn’t say I was taking Terry for granted, but I was certainly taking our time together for granted. We planned on and looked forward to growing old together.

Now I am told that is not going to happen.

So we tried to make the most out of 2014 and I think we were successful. We did a lot of great things and we did them together.  We learned to appreciate things more.

If the weather did not cooperate and we had to cancel our outdoor plans, instead of being upset we couldn’t do what we had planned, I was happy that I was able to just sit around the house watching television or putting a jig saw puzzle together with my best friend.

I used to hate jig saw puzzles but Terry likes them and, as country singer Blake Shelton says, “I like doing what she likes.”

If nothing else, 2014 was a great learning experience.

Looking forward to 2015, I doubt I will receive any news as traumatic as the news I received last April. That’s the good news. The bad news is that with every passing day we get closer to the point where Terry’s meds will stop working and her brain will start to deteriorate more and more.

I guess we all have to learn to take the good with the bad. 2014 had plenty of both.  I just hope 2015 has more good than bad.

Until next time, Happy New Year,

Bud