2019 GHM Pres. Roylance Reunion

Hyperlink to a recording of my missionary reunion in 2019. 

2019 GHM Pres. Roylance Reunion

Pine Chicken and deer hunting

 My brother Paul posted this:  Oakley in a cabin, in Oakley canyon on the way to Smith and Morehouse I saw the cabin when I was a teenager mom took me and Chris up there and showed us the cabin it was falling apart Grandpa built it. 

I added the following: I saw that same cabin. Mom showed it to me. A creek runs behind it where grandpa made a ‘fish cage’ with green willows or some such stuck next to each other like an underwater jail. When he caught a mess of Brook Trout he would keep them alive in the stream and get a couple every morning for grandma to fry up.

Dad used to go deer hunting at Smith & Morehouse every year with the Frazier family deer camp. We would drive him up there, then so mom had a car to drive, spend part of the day with cousins then drive home, leaving him there.  We stopped at the cabin one year and mom showed me the tiny room they lived in. It did have a loft!

Dad would either get a ride home or we would drive up and get him and his deer. I remember driving down the canyon with a buck tied to the roof of the station wagon.

The year I had turned 12, I got to stay up at deer camp in the Uintah Mountains at Smith & Moorehouse. with dad and the Frazier Clan.  One of the first days he took me up on the mountain with him.  I was not trained in being quiet; seems that is actually what he was doing, showing me how to move without scaring everything with ears.  Toward the end of the day since, surprise, we hadn’t seen a thing, we were starting the long walk down the mountain. It was 30-45 minutes down to camp. And you needed to get down before dark. Suddenly dad signaled me to stop and raised his rifle. It was a 1918 Enfield 30.06, bolt action with open iron sights. No scope here. Just those stock, open sights. He had amazing vision. And even better rifle marksmanship skills. What he was aiming at was a Pine Hen, otherwise known (to me) as a Sage Grouse. Nice plump game bird, but tiny little bird head. I couldn’t even see it, but he did. From about 25 yards-that’s 75 feet- he squeezed off this unbelievably loud boom while I was trying to see what he was shooting at.  He instinctively racked another round in the chamber, my clue to stay put. To my surprise he raised the barrel and squeezed off another incredible ‘boom’! That 30.06 can take down a moose or an elk.  He had used it to blast the head off from a Pine Hen, and knowing they always hung out in pairs, had waited for the other bird to take a look to see what happened.  Hitting one of those tiny heads was worthy of serious bragging rights. He took out two, with two clean shots, one right after the other.  We cleaned those two birds and had roasted ‘Pine Chicken’ for dinner.  And I had one more reason to look up to dad as a quiet hero who said more with actions than ever with words. 

Back Surgery in the Middle of the Middle Georgia Covid Pandemic

I recently had a long awaited procedure, a fusion at L5/S1 level of my lumbar spine (low back joint weld for my more edjumcated buddies). To the many friends and loved ones expressing concern about my recent back surgery I want to say thank you all for your prayers and kind thoughts. According to my surgeon, Dr. Pahl, whom I highly recommend, the procedure went well. I don’t remember what he said when he came in to check on me and report the outcome. I was too groggy to remember. But my wife, Linda, The-Best-Wife-Of-All-Time, has sharp hearing and a good memory (not always convenient for me LOL). He told her the MRI didn’t show how bad my condition really was. A nerve root in one side had been completely flattened between the vertebrae. When the space was restored it also regained its normal dimension. That’s a real good thing which could result in not only reduced pain, but also recovering some of the lost feeling or sensation in my leg. What happened since is a story, which I decided to post here on the loving advice of The-Best-Wife-Of-All-Time. As opposed to a super-too-long post on Facebook. Short version: Let's just say things got really bad, and now they are much better, with a bright outlook for the future.

The great staff at the Jack Hughston Memorial Hospital kept me overnight, took really good care of me - kept me well medicated. I was able to walk with assistance and a walker, pass urine, and had a pain level reasonable and expected for that surgery. Arriving home I started all my pain and other meds. By Thursday I began to have fever, chest was getting croupy, and pain down my left leg became near to unbearable. As evening drew on we called the Dr. office - and of course they said go to the ER. All the hospitals around here are at or above capacity with Covid, so I did NOT want to go there if at all possible. My ADHD logic said-‘maybe that heated blanket is causing a false temp reading.’ Turned off the blanket, temp started to fall. I started being more serious about the breathing gizmo they sent home. Lung function definitely improved. Going into Friday morning was rough, little sleep, leg pain getting worse, abdomen tight, still hadn’t had a bowel movement. By midday leg pain a steady 8, spiking to 10 a lot. The Dr office was okay with not going to the ER given now normal temperature and improved lung function, but getting concerned about lack of bowel activity. They told Linda the pressure in the abdomen could be causing if not contributing to the lag pain. So she went to the pharmacy and picked up some laxative: suppository and oral-hoping to avoid an enema. 😞

Well the suppository functioned as advertised-I will just leave it at: spectacular results. When I told an ER nurse (that’s still ahead) that I thought I passed what seemed like a large baked potato she nearly fell on the floor laughing-I think you have to have different sense of humor to do that job. By now evening is near spent and the left leg pain keeps getting worse. Called the Dr office and, you guessed it-advise you take him to the ER. Still fighting the idea, hoping the lack of pressure from abdominal distention, and by golly those 10mg Norco’ I’d been taking every four hours on the dot should most assuredly kick in by now…not to mention being in a waiting room with 20 or 30 Covid patients not yet gowned and drowned with sanitizer, well I didn’t go. That night. By morning I could not find a position where my leg didn’t feel like the sciatic nerve was hooked to one of those arc welding machines you see the bad guys torturing the good guy in the movies with. Called the UHC nurse line-believe it or not -she recommended; go to the ER. The pain was so severe I felt sub-ambulatory; no way Linda could help me into the car and in to the ER entrance, so I called 911. I was told in a blessing before my surgery that I would witness many small miracles on my journey to recovery. One named BJ walked into my bedroom and assured me he would get me into the ambulance and to the hospital without making my pain any worse. This 300 lb. gentle giant was true to his word. I found myself on a gurney in the hallway just outside the window of what appeared to be some sort of central command center for medical staff. Once in a while I could see reverse black marker being written in some codes on the glass. Covid patients had pushed our 60 bed capacity ER to nearly 100. I was politely informed that no rooms were available and likely wouldn’t be for a while by the triage nurse, in spite of my acute pain level. Some pain is so severe that you can’t remain silent no matter how brave you think you are, and I’m sure there is a medical term for involuntary loud noises when your brain decides THAT will make the pain more tolerable. It was after one of those as quiet as I could keep it nonetheless noticeable sounds I heard myself making when the next miracle occurred. A nurse stopped what she was doing and brought back a training nursing student who was actually quite skilled at the whole blood letting/getting thing. She told her to get my IV going, draw needed blood samples-yes, right there in the hallway, and gave me morphine. Technically, she asked if it would be ok with me for her to give me some morphine. I assented vehemently. I had started to feel dehydrated as it had been a couple of hours since I had been able to drink anything. Now I had a bag of saline solution flowing into my arm with blessed morphine. Not so thirsty anymore, I asked if she had already injected the morphine. Yes. Wow, still a 8-9-10 pain making me cringe and cry. Somebody rolled a portable x-ray wagon up and took a chest X-ray. Wishing more than ever I could get into a room to be able to make those involuntary sounds’ I was so happy to hear “May I give you some Toradol; it may help with your pain?” Yes please! Unfortunately it didn’t do much, took the edge off a little, but no major improvement. What did happen was all that saline was crashing like a waterfall into my kidneys, which in turn were dumping it into to my bladder. Next small miracle: I flagged down a nurse and told I would be happy to make a large donation into one of those little jugs for bedside use, but preferred to have at least a blanket for some privacy. She returned with the aforementioned jug (marvelous invention, the technical term for which is: urinal) and started wheeling me down to an unoccupied room that had just become vacant. She closed the door and waited outside to avert any accidental exposure. After removing my ‘donation’ she returned to say they were just going to keep me in this room for now. Time passed. A doctor came in and asked a few questions. Fortunately Linda had placed the discharge folder from Jack Hughston Memorial Hospital in my tote, which he gratefully took. Another nurse came and informed me that an enema had been ordered as first order of business. The EE doctor had call my surgeon who was still under the impression I hadn’t had a bowel movement since Tuesday. I cleared that up real fast. By now I had not only one but a few bowel movements behind me-the Dulcolax had performed very well.

Okay so now we needed ultrasounds of both legs. In the meantime, since I had had so little pain improvement they gave me an IV steroid. The results from the ultrasound came back ok, they said my blood work was all okay, so now they were discharging me with a prescription for pneumonia and a diagnosis of sciatica. Honestly, my pain level had subsided to a 6-7-8, but I thought surely they can’t be sending a patient home with that kind of pain. Yup. They sure did. Main question was “who is picking you up and how long till they get here?” “Oh, do you want to wait inside (with 30+ Covid patients not yet gowned and drowned) or would you like us to park you in your wheelchair by the driveway?”

Outside please. I have pneumonia? "Yeah, we gave you a prescription for it, see"… Can I get it filled here? "Nope you can go to Walmart, or wherever tho’". So I left knowing that I had real bad leg pain and apparently pneumonia (probably from Thursday). When The-Best-Wife-Of-All-Time started questioning me about all the time, expense, etc. Just to find out what I pretty much already knew, I simply told her “Hey, they didn’t kill me. Can we go home now.”