Tehama Grace is Finished...last chapter

Autumn turned to winter. The grape vines had dropped all their leaves and stood dormant in the fields. The rains hadn't started yet and the days were still warm, though nights had gotten quite chilly. Little work needed to be done on the ranch and many of the hands had left to go back to look for work elsewhere.


Now that there were three women in the house, the chores got done quickly and the rest of the day was free to do with as they pleased.

Jesse and I usually took the horses out for a ride after the morning chores were done, then he'd go into town to work on Mrs. Shupe's house. According to him, she'd grown quite fond of him and had taken to calling him her grandson. She'd send him home at the end of each day with home baked breads and cookies. He'd share them with me and Shep under the big tree after supper.

Emily and I had settled into a comfortable relationship, though it was quite different from before. Instead of taking on a mother role, she acted more like she was my aunt or godmother and deferred all decisions on what I could and could not do to Mother.

Pa and Mother spent long afternoons driving around the countryside looking for a ranch to buy. Mother had bought another horse and buggy shortly after getting to Vina, not wanting to have to borrow Emily's again. Some days they were gone for hours, and I hoped they wouldn't choose a ranch so far away from Vina. I would miss seeing Emily, Jesse and Shep too much.

Late in the afternoon of one lazy day, while Emily and I sat knitting by the fire, I heard the sound of Pa and Mother returning up the drive. I put my knitting down and went out to meet them.

"Hello there, daughter." Pa took his hat off and waved it to me. "We've found her, all right."

"Her?"

"Our new home. Rancho Paraiso."

I clutched at my throat, happy that we would soon be in a new home, but hoping it would be nearby. I held my breath.

"We reached an agreement with the former owners, and just as soon as the money is transferred from Wells Fargo, Rancho Paraiso will be hours," Mother said, getting down from the buggy. "Let's go inside and I'll tell you all about it."

I exhaled and followed her into the house, my heart thudding against my chest wall.

Mother got a cup of coffee from the pot on the wood stove, and brought it with her to a chair near the fire where Emily sat knitting.

"Good news, Emily. We'll be out of your way soon. We've found a ranch to buy." Mother sipped at her coffee.

Emily didn't answer for a moment, and kept her eyes on the work in her hands. After a bit she said, "Going to be awfully quiet around here."

"You could go with us," Mother said quietly. "There will be plenty of room for you and Grace and I will need help."

"Mr. and Mrs. Gerke couldn't do without me."

"Well, certainly they would have a difficult time finding a replacement..."

Emily raised her hand. "No. I can't leave here, but thank you for the offer."

"Well then, we'll just have to visit often. We aren't going to be but a few miles away."

"Oh, Mother, where?" I was so relieved I couldn't wait any longer.

"Why, just a few short miles north of Vina, on the road towards Tehama. The Southern part of our ranch borders Vina Ranch. The east border of our land is the Sacramento River. We'll have about 13,000 acres. It was originally one of the Mexican Land Grant Ranchos, but now the family is selling off half of it. It will be just the right size for us to start our cattle operation."

I looked at Emily and saw that she had a contented look on her face.

"It will be good to have women friends as neighbors. I'm pleased." Emily put her knitting in the basket. "I'm going out to fee Shep, then I believe I'll retire to my room to read. You and your family have a lot to talk about."

Shortly after Emily left, Pa returned, followed by Jesse.

"Did you tell her all about it?" Pa was looking at Mother expectantly.

"Not everything. You and Jesse sit down and I'll make you sandwiches."

"Not for me, ma'am." Jesse rubbed his stomach. "I'm gettin' fat as a tick. Mrs. Shupe stuffs my face every time I go there."

"I could eat a bear," Pa said. "Give me his share."

"Is there a house?" I asked.

"Why, there's at least three houses. One main one. It's a big old thing, kinda like this one. A wood farmhouse. Then there's another smaller wood one, and a long old bunkhouse. We'll need a lot of help in the beginning." Pa took the sandwiches Mother handed him and bit off a big chew.

It dawned on me that Mother had mentioned a cattle operation. "What do we know about cattle?"

"Not a lot, Grace, but we can certainly learn and we'll hire the appropriate men to help us." Mother was gazing at Jesse. "I don't suppose you know about cattle ranching?"

"Me?" he asked.

"Yes, Jesse, you."

"Well, yes, ma'am. I grew up on a cattle ranch. I've wrangled since I was just a little guy."

"Then perhaps you'd like a job as our foreman." Mother leaned forward and looked into Jesse's eyes. "Are you man enough for the job?"

"I put in a good word fer ya son," Pa said, then took another bite of his sandwich.

I noticed Jesse blushing in pleasure. He looked at the ground and rubbed his palms together in thought. "Yes, I s'pose I am man enough at that."

"Well then we've got us a deal," Mother said, extending her hand to him to shake. "We'll move in early December. You can come when you're ready and once we all get settled we'll plan out our operation."

"Ma'am, this is just about the best thing that's happened to me in many a year, and I thank you. I'm going to call it a night."

We all said our good nights and Pa decided he was going to retire as well. Mother set to cleaning the kitchen, then got out her book to read.

"I'm going out to check on Shep."

"All right, dear. Don't be long. It's dark outside now."

I got my shawl from my room and wrapped it around my shoulders. The moon was full so the path that led to the old oak tree was well lit.

Shep was lying on a pile of leaves underneath the tree. He was snoring softly but woke when I approached, his tail thudding on the leaves sending them into the air. I settled down next to him and took his big head in my lap. He sighed contentedly as I scratched his ears. Maybe Emily would let me take him, but then again he was a good watch dog and she was here alone a lot. I was sure Mother and Pa would let me have a dog of my own. I had a horse, and a dog was less trouble than a horse. We would need dogs on the ranch to help with the cattle, too. Why, I'd have lots and lots of dogs.

Most importantly I had my family back together again. It had been a long haul, but we'd made it. And Jesse was coming, too. Not as my husband as he'd wanted, but there was plenty of time for that in the future. I looked into the sky, saw a shooting star, and made a wish.

TEHAMA GRACE

Here I am, in Ireland, flying a Harris Hawk. Such fun. Lots has happened since my last post. We had our Ireland trip, came back, I had carpal tunnel surgery on my right (typing) hand, then came down with severe asthmatic bronchitis. Whew! Much better now.

The good news is, the http://www.textnovel.com/ contest is almost over. I almost have Tehama Grace finished as well. (Now that I can type again). Wish me luck in the contest, please! If I win, I get $1000 but more importantly, a chance for agent representation and a chance to get published. That would be wonderful. I love Tehama Grace and believe in it. I could do a whole series of Grace stories! Maybe I just will.

TEHAMA GRACE/TEXTNOVEL CONTEST FINALIST

Hi Everyone,

My novel Tehama Grace is now a FINALIST in the Textnovel Contest. I'm so excited. Please go to http://www.textnovel.com/ and vote for my story by signing up and clicking on the little fist. Thank you all so much.

Darkness

I feel the darkness descending on me. It's been away for a long, long, time, but now I think I'll allow it to visit for a bit. I'm in need of a bit of introspection. It fuels my creative energies. Like Hemingway. Not to say that I'm really like Hemingway. Just dark right now like he was. I've been shelving my negative thoughts at the advice of the positive minded gurus I listen to on the radio. Sometimes you just have to let the sadness in. This is a sad world and I've witnessed more than my share of sadness. Not in my personal life per se, but in the lives of others that have touched me.

Since I started working for hospice 16 years ago, I've kept a journal of all the patients I've cared for. I finally stopped adding to the journal, there were just too many deaths, but last night I looked through it. All those faces came back to me in an instant. They haven't been put as far away as I thought. All that pain and suffering.

TEXTNOVEL CONTEST

Woo Hoo! Both of my novels were noticed in the Textnovel Contest. Bless Us Father received an Honorable Mention.

TEHAMA GRACE is in the semi-finals. Please, please, please go to http://www.textnovel.com/ and vote for Tehama Grace. Be patient, sometimes that website loads slowly.

Thank you all!


(This is me, borrowing a grandchild.)

SOMEONE PLEASE SCRATCH THAT ITCH!

My evening shift was going along smoothly until the nurse’s aide ran into the medicine room to tell me she wasn’t going anywhere near one of the patients she was assigned to because there were worms all over his bed. I stopped what I was doing, locked the medication room door, and went to investigate.


The patient was a young man in his early twenties who’d been in a motorcycle accident. He'd suffered a severe head injury and numerous broken bones. The unit I was working on was the amputee and fracture ward, so once his condition had stabilized in the acute care hospital, he’d been transferred to us for rehabilitation. He was recovering some from the head injury and was starting awaken from his coma, but not enough to understand where he was or what had happened to him. His right leg was in a cast from his toes to the middle of his thigh and was suspended in the air by traction that was connected to pins running through the bones in two places.

I approached the bed and noticed he was extremely restless and agitated. When I pulled the sheet back to inspect his leg, I found there were indeed many crawly things coming out of the top of the cast, hence the source of his agitation. Maggots. Hundreds and hundreds of maggots had hatched and were now crawling around on his skin and out the top of the cast. There were so many of them they were now falling onto the floor.

Three of the nurse’s aides were standing nearby, watching me expectantly. I told them they couldn’t just leave him like that and the worms were not going to hurt them so they needed to clean him up. I went back to the nurse’s station to call the doctor, and when I turned to check on the aides, the three were still huddled together and looking at me like I was crazy.

I placed a call to the doctor, an overworked and crabby resident who probably hadn’t slept in days, and told him the problem. He wasn’t familiar with the patient and didn’t think the situation was in any way urgent enough to bother him with. He told me not to worry about the maggots, there was probably an open wound under the cast that was infected, and the maggots would clean the wound out by eating all the dead tissue. He said to send the patient to the cast room the next day to have the cast removed and replaced.

Glancing back over at the young man who was writhing in bed in obvious discomfort, I knew this situation may not be urgent to the doctor but it certainly was urgent to the man lying in the bed. I went back to the medication room and opened a corner cupboard where I knew little used medications were kept. I took out a can that had been sitting there for months and looked at the label. Ether. I’d heard stories from older nurses about using ether to kill maggots in wounds, so I made a decision. I took the can back out to the patient’s bedside, opened it, and poured the contents inside the cast. Within seconds, all of the maggots outside of the cast were dead, so I assumed the ones inside were dead, too. The young man settled down and went to sleep after the nurse’s aides came to change his sheets and make him comfortable.

He went for a cast change the next day and I feared that when I came back to work there would be many questions about how the maggots had died. To my relief, no one asked me anything when I reported for duty the next evening.

Happily, this young man recovered from all of his injuries and was able to walk out of the hospital on his own. I’m sure he had a long recovery period, more because of his head injury than the broken bones, but hopefully he went on to live a full life. And I hope he stayed off motorcycles.

THE NIGHT I'LL NEVER FORGET

In the early 1980’s, I spent many nights working in the intensive care units of hospitals in Orange County. My children were small and I’d found a way to work and still be home with them during the day when they needed me. My husband would come home and care for them in the evening on the nights I worked. My shifts were twelve hours long, from seven in the evening to seven in the morning, and I was able to make the same amount of money two days a week that I made in a forty hour work week at my prior job. I worked for a nursing registry that sent me to different hospitals each night, and this particular night I was working in Garden Grove.


Each hospital had their own distinct way of handling the registry nurses. Some of the charge nurses would assign the registry nurse the easier patients to care for and give the more complex patients to their own staff. Other charge nurses would give the registry nurses the most difficult assignments and let the regular staff take it easy.

The charge nurse in the Garden Grove Hospital assigned the most critically ill patient to herself, which was a tremendous relief to me. The patient was a twelve year old boy who had been hit by a car earlier that day and suffered a horrendous head injury. His head was swathed in a huge white turban of gauze and his eyelids were bruised purple and swollen shut. Drainage tubes emerged from the gauze and were connected to a glass bottle which was filling with pinkish liquid indicating it was cerebral spinal fluid mixed with blood.

A tube was inserted through his mouth and into his lungs, and connected to a respirator that did all the breathing for him. Intravenous lines ran into both his arms and a foley catheter kept his bladder empty as the clear yellow urine slowly drained into a bag hanging on the side of the bed.

The boy didn’t move a muscle, and the charge nurse rarely left his side. The ICU was a tiny one with only four beds, so we were all in close proximity to the critical situation and were there to help when the need arose. She would call one of us over to stand guard when she absolutely had to take a bathroom break, but the rest of the time she was the one right there with him.

His parents and older sister wandered in and out all night long. They’d stand by his side and stroke his hand, speaking softly to him, crying and hugging one another.

Around three in the morning, the boy’s heart monitor and blood pressure readings changed significantly, letting us know that he was dying. We rushed to the waiting room and called for his family to come in. They stood at the bedside as he died, weeping uncontrollably. His sister cried out, “Do something! He can’t die. He’s the only brother I’ve got.”

Oh, how I wish we could have done something. All we could do was watch and weep ourselves. It was out of our hands. I can’t think about that little boy or his family without tears coming to my eyes still.

I walked out of the hospital at the end of my shift and thought I would never set foot in one again. Be still, my soul.