Granny Diaries

Okay - well that is the name of the book I am reading to help me understand how to be a correct 'Granny', but this post isn't really about the book, just thought it would be a cool title to an entry. :)
I went today to get my glasses that were repaired, as they were broken on Thurs, and after that on to get the an oil change on the car. Hey, lots of waiting, therefore, plenty of thinking time. (I did read the 'Granny Diaries' for part of the time, but am easily distracted by general thinking.)
It was snowing fairly hard while I was out and yet I drove thinking of several friends of mine, of Scooter - the greyhound who will soon be living with us hopefully, and other things not related to the activity my eyes and hands were involved with.
Yesterday during some emailing with a good friend from New Hampshire I found out she was recently near death while dealing with a medical episode that us dog folks would think is somewhat like torsion of the stomach. Okay - it wasn't the stomach, but was in the large intestine, where one little piece (can't remember what it is called right now) that is supposed to be attached is hanging loosly...and that gave it the opportunity to wrap around part of the colon and strangle it. She was working on trying to set up folks to hunt for a lost greyhound and was in a lot of pain. Soon after she couldn't take it anymore and went into the emergency room. She found the emergency room only had a skeleton crew on due to an outbreak of the flue. So she went in at 12:39 AM and no doctor could have a look at her until 6:30 am. Needless to say she was hurting quite badly and once they got her in and figured out what was wrong they really started working on her. Surgery, which she came through okay, but then infection set in and they had to deal with that. All in all she was in the hospital for nearly 2 weeks it sounds like. On top of it while she was in there, her dearest greyhound passed away and she wasn't able to be there for him. Very scary and sad. But she is getting past it thank goodness.

Then another friend of mine who just went through breast cancer treatment and is still doing well just got married a few months ago after waiting for her fiancee to come back from Iraq. Now it looks like he will be deployed to Afganistan. So lots of prayers for them both that this will not happen and he can stay put for a while.

I also just found out that a friend who lost her beautiful ranch in the California fires, seems like ages ago, just finally got a FEMA trailer. She lost everything, except most of the horses that were there on her ranch. Lucky for that, that's for sure, but she had absolutely nothing else. She is thankful for the trailer now but is so out of sorts in it, on bare land.... nothing else around it. Don't konw how long it will actually take for her to rebuild her life. Can't even imagine such devistation in my life and sure do hope I won't have to. However, wish there were more I could do for her.

Crazy - the way this world turns.... keeping things in perspective if possible, I guess there is more than just worrying about whether or not your kids will hate you because you are a PITA granny...just not even up there with the top ten problems. But I will still finish reading 'The Granny Diaries' cuz it seems pretty true to life so far, and rather funny! A break from the more serious places life puts us.
Happy St. Paddy's Day.