The Ranchsitter Report, Wednesday, September 11, 2013

I’ve told this story so many times today that I’m going to take the easy way out and just copy the email I sent out to family and friends at 8:30 Wednesday morning:

I won’t be going home today. The surgeon’s p.a. was just here to look at the wound and says it has to be reopened so the bad stuff has a place to escape. He says this is a common post-op complication. They have an OR booked at 3:30 today – it won’t really be surgery but they want to sedate me, otherwise it would hurt too much. Once that’s done, healing can commence and I should be able to go home in a day or two. 

About 45 minutes later, I sent out this email:

That earlier email I sent about re-opening the wound this afternoon? Everything has changed. The results just came back on the wound culture. The infection was caused by some rare type of bacteria. They’re going to switch to a different antibiotic that will kill it, so the infection should clear without having to reopen the wound. It should take about 24 hours to see if the new antibiotic is working or not, but the doctor is pretty confident that it will. The doc says the rare bacteria came out of all the dead gut that I was carrying around, not from anything external. So I should still be getting out of here in a day or two, and there won’t be any scalpels involved. I’d say that’s good news. 

Is it me or is my life starting to sound like an episode of "Grey’s Anatomy"?

While all of that was going on, I was receiving emails from Danni:

6:31 a.m. Neighbor Sue just called to let me know that her husband made it out on the road early this morning. He said it was difficult but doable. She is heading out in the next 30 minutes and will call me again to let me know how it goes for her. 

7:37 a.m. Talked to Sue from the feed room. She made it out! But it was very slow going with standing water at the bottoms of hills. Said the trip took her about 45 minutes. She said to go slow and keep it in four wheel drive. She says the longer we have now for the roads to dry out, the firmer they will be. No measurable rain here yet this morning. I’ll call Don now and let him know “Operation Get CeeCee to Ranch” is officially underway! 

The elaborate plan Danni had hatched on Tuesday was working. Morning Bray Farm Don would pick up long-time blog reader/ friend/ Ranchsitter #3 CeeCee from the airport and drive her to the 7MSN. Danni would then give CeeCee (who had never been to the ranch before) the one-hour ranchsitting crash course, then Don would drive Danni back to Albuquerque, where she would try to catch a flight home to Oregon. Piece of cake!

I’ll let Danni tell you the rest of the story.

***

I guess they finally arrived about 12:45ish. Don honked as he came up the drive. That’s such a happy sound! 

His truck had a respectable amount of mud caking all the right spots.

It was love at first sight for CeeCee and Smooch: 

The time together was too short: 

But Don and I had to hit the road before any rains started again: 

It wasn’t too bad for a lot of the way: 

But then we’d hit patches like this: 

Yee Hawwww!! 

It was AWESOME!

***

Me again. I've been staring at the screen for an hour trying to find the words to thank Don and Danni and CeeCee for pulling this off, just so my animals and the ranch are taken care of and I don't have to worry, but I can't find them... probably because I can't see through the tears that overwhelm me whenever I think about what wonderful friends I have. Thanks, guys.