Just Another Day in the Life of a Home Health Nurse...

Last night I dreamed our backyard had flooded yet AGAIN, but this time was worse... ALL the shingles (and even the felt beneath!) had blown off the roof in the back of our house, leaving nothing but bare plywood. I didn't have time to worry about how soon the water would begin leaking from our ceiling, though, because two of my dogs jumped out the backdoor (which I had open while staring up in disbelief at my denuded roof) and began attacking the five or six alligators that had taken up residence in my watery backyard! I was scared to death my dogs were going to get hurt messing with the alligators, but Rivie was too caught up in the excitement of battle to hear me calling her and Shanachie has long been deaf from old age. Anyway, I was still battling floods and alligators when I awoke this morning! I shouldn't have been surprised that the morning began with thunder that made our wood floors vibrate and a torrential rainfall that had indeed flooded our backyard for yet the THIRD time in less than a month and a half! Fortunately, though, I didn't notice any Ozarkian Alligators!

When I reached the office this morning and picked up my day's assignment, I learned that Highway 83 had been closed down six miles north of Bolivar, as had D Highway (the only two routes I knew of to my patients' homes in Weaubleau and Wheatland) due to impassably deep water. A co-worker suggested I take Highway 13 North to Collins, MO and then travel back East on Highway 54 to Weaubleau and Wheatland. That worked fine to get me to Wheatland, but then THIS is what I encountered on the way to the my next patient's home:

This is Hickory Co 240...the road I usually take to reach the home of one of my patients! Needless to say, I did NOT take it today...I turned around and nosed my way along taking a very circuitous route down winding mud roads until I finally got there the back way!


Yup! No one was out on the Ozark roads today but the nurses, a few cows, and the alligators! (Just kidding about the alligators!...You know it is my HUSBAND'S fault that I dreamed about alligators!...He made me watch an episode of "Cops" last night right before I went to sleep that featured two Florida cops responding to a 911 call regarding a cute little rogue alligator in some poor soul's carport!)


Have to tell two quick "Rayna tidbits" before I close...
Grant picked the kids up from school last night and Rayna was jabbering ninety to nothing all the way home. At one point, she was going on and on to her father rather emphatically (of course!) about how horrible her day at school had been...things were so bad that she (in her own words) finally had to raise her hand and tell her teacher, "I can't even understand you..all these kids are being too loud". (That statement was SO "Rayna"...considering her classmates "kids" as though she is way older than all of them!) A moment later, Grant passed by a boutique, and, Rayna, catching sight of the prom gowns displayed in the window, exclaimed, "THAT'S the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life!! Buy me one of those and cut it in half so I can wear it!"