Guacamole

It's been raining since midnight.  I went to bed about midnight and when I awoke this morning I found an email in my email box from an emergency weather service saying that there will be flooding until 8 AM in my county.  Already 1.5 inches of rain have fallen.  

This doesn't surprise me.  It is was expected.  Last week when I looked at the pathway of Hurricane Jeanne the map said it would get to Central PA late Monday/early Tuesday.  (Thank you Deb for the wonderful maps and services you provide.)  Of course at this point it has been lowered to Tropical Depression Jeanne.  I still find it strange that it made it this far inward off the coast.  The effects here have been very mild, but it is still strange to me.  

I can't remember if this is more or less rain then we got with Hurricane Ivan.  If it is more, you will see more flooding pictures in Val's journal today, because her town floods more than mine!  I hope the flooding isn't that bad though, because I want to go to Sam's Club today.  I have a craving for some guacamole dip and some chicken.  And I need a temper pedic pillow. 

Once again there are many that I haven't heard from in Florida since Hurricane Jeanne started.  I am assuming that their power and cell phones are off and they can't call.  I hate this.  I will just have to wait.  Perhaps I will just have to start calling people tomorrow.  There are four family members (or should I say even whole families) that live in the Orlando area, and they are one of the areas that got hit the worse.  I will just have to wait and see how they fared.  I am sure if something drastic had happened I would hear about it by now.  

Yesterday my Dad, Valerie and I went to Baltimore, MD (Johns Hopkins) so Val could get checked out to see how she is doing since they put in her v/a shunt.  It was a long day.  It took about four hours to get down there.  Then we had to wait for three hours to see the doctor.  When we finally got in the exam room the nurse apologized profusely saying that a patient before us had fainted!  Then she proceded to ask Valerie a litany of questions.  Some of her notes were wrong; she asked Valerie why she had had two shunts.  Valerie had had only one shunt.  When she finished up she went and got the doctor.

She returned a minute later with two doctors.  Dr. Williams (Val's regular doctor) asked a lot of questions again.  Then he asked her if she wanted the shunt adjusted.  "What would that.." Valerie started. "entail?" I finished.  I was wondering if she would have to have surgery or if they could do it right there.  I think Val was wondering the same thing, lol. 

"Oh, you could just jump up on the table right here, and we would have it done in a minute," the doctor said.  "But first you would have to have an x-ray done, and then have the procedure done, and then one more x-ray."  Valerie told them her surgeon said her v/a shunt was nonadjustable.  "Not true," Dr. Williams assured her. 

To make a long story short (which is impossible for me to do), they ended up x-raying her three times to tell her her shunt was nonadujstable. 

Now my question is, why would they give her a shunt that you couldn't adjust if the pressure needed to be adjusted on occassion?  They were going to adjust it from 200 to 180 yesterday.  I don't understand.  Anyway, Valerie wasn't upset because she feels so tremendously better since she got her shunt.  So I guess she's not going to complain.

After the long x-ray ordeal we drove the four hours home.

Chelsea visited a college yesterday.  She loved it.  She is curious to see what her future holds.  Ahh, to be young and excited and well, confused, lol.