I don’t remember much of the actual move to Eyota. That first year is a blur. I was getting used to IBM and working in a big plant. We had bought a house that had a lot and a half. Us and the old guy who lived next door (Karen, do you remember his name?) each owned half of the lot that was between our houses. That way, it took both of us to sell if someone wanted to build a house between us. This gave us lots of room. We were able to put in a really nice garden in that spot. We had good intentions, but gardening never did seem to work very well for us. In the 18 years, we lived in Eyota, the garden got smaller and smaller and finally disappeared altogether.
I won’t be able to write the next 18 years in chronological order. I’m just going to put down memories as I think of them. Then later, I’ll try to unravel everything and put it in order.
Minnesota was not good to me, health-wise. I had never been sick hardly a day in my life until I came to Minnesota. Our first Christmas, in 1976, I suddenly got what felt like the flu. I had trouble breathing and ended up spending several nights sitting up in my chair in the living room because I couldn’t sleep laying down. After several days of this and not getting better, we went to see the doctor. I don’t think he put me in the hospital right away, but the first or second week week of January, 1977, I was in the intensive care unit at Olmsted Medical Center in Rochester. I spent a week or so there and then they decided that Mayo could treat me better, so I was transported over to St Mary’s Hospital which is part of the Mayo Clinic Complex.
I eventually spent 5 weeks in the hospital. I had what I refer to as the three “P’s”, (and I have to look up each of these to get the right spelling), pneumonia, pleurisy (Pleurisy is swelling (inflammation) of the thin layers of tissue (pleura) covering the lungs and the chest wall) and a pulmonary embolism (which is a blood clot). The pneumonia caused my lungs to fill up with fluid. There was so much that they had to drive a hose through the wall of my back and into my chest cavity so that it could drain out. To this day, the spot that they drove the hose into me itches. Every day, I itch back there like it never healed properly. Weird.
The rest of the life-changing illness tomorrow.
Dad