Mama Update, and Flat Stanley Enjoys the Stump Art

Mama was admitted to the hospital about midnight, after several hours in the ER, a CT scan, and some nausea/vertigo meds. Today she's had an MRI and an ultrasound of one carotid artery--it just so happened that she had the test scheduled for 2 p.m. today, so they went ahead and did it as an in-patient procedure. The neurologists' think what's going on is something called a subclavian steal syndrome which, as I understand it, means that the left side blood vessel's narrower than it should be, for some reason, and then it takes blood from where it's supposed to go from the right side's blood vessel. All of this adds up to not enough blood to her brain which is causing the vertigo and nausea. So, she's looking at surgery--we don't know when yet because we haven't seen the surgeon yet. She's feeling better with the help of anti-nausea drugs right now and is in decent spirits. She's absolutely amazing.

On December 29, I happened to remember that Flat Stanley hadn't seen the stump art yet, so I made it a point to drive through Ladd's Addition even though it was raining softly. You can tell by the big grin on his face how excited he was to see all of those little toys rounded up on the stump. I'm glad I was able to hold him up high for this photo.


I don't know all of these toys' identification; neither did Flat Stanley. We do like the photo below with someone I think might be the Hunchback of Notre Dame holding up the baby to that individual with the white wings. In those other photos from September, on yesterday's post, there was a blue bird on the nest instead--I believe it's now on the stump to the left of the winged individual. We talked about the change from a bird to a baby and decided that it must have something to do with Christmas and the baby Jesus.


You can tell how much rain we'd been getting from this photo--just look at that mud all around the stump! By the way, do you think I'm being accurate in calling this a stump? Or is it too tall?

I can't say how long that "Please Don't Park Here" sign has been attached to the tree, although I do remember seeing it at some point earlier in 2007. Both times I saw it there, a vehicle had parked at the curb, either not seeing or choosing to ignore its entreaty.

Flat Stanley thought the ladder as well as the climbing toy make the whole thing even more interesting. I took this close-up of the climbing toy from the sidewalk, wanting to avoid getting squishy gray/black mud in the grooves of my birthday shoes, a swell-fitting pair of black Keens. When I downloaded the photo, I was tickled to see the nail in the tree and the drops of water on the toy. That nail makes me wonder what had been there, now long gone.


Remember the nun in the September '06 photos--she's standing over that fireman with the saw cutting through the tree limb on top of the pirate. How creative is that! Anyway, as you can tell in the photo below, the nun has ended up in the mud beside the tree trunk and some discarded holly branches. I couldn't step close enough to get a better photo than this. I hope the next time I get a chance to stop that the nun has been restored to her former position--I think I can still see the fireman in the last photo.


Don't you agree with me that you can see the fireman's head and shoulders and part of his black coat with its yellow collar? And is that a scuba diver to the left of him, a turquoise blue scuba diver, complete with an air tank and a mask?


Flat Stanley and I have looked back and forth, at the September '06 photos, then at the December '07 ones. We've decided that the dinosaur got truly tired of that basketball player using his mouth as a basket and flicked that guy completely outta sight. Or they could be buried in the mud at the foot of the stump, for all we know. We promise to try to get by there at least one more time before Flat Stanley heads home to Mississippi at some point in February.

I'm at the hospital, using their dial up Internet. Thank goodness they have it! I cannot get my Gmail account to open, but I can do this which is a great big plus for me.