Nurse Roda

When the nurse at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital showed Mary Ann and I how to change the open wound in Greg's arm, we looked at each other and said, "Can you do it?"

I think we both could, but... oh my gosh. The doctor said they couldn't stitch it (the wound) up, because it could become infected. It has to be redressed each day and that will be on going for a minimum of a month. On the drive to bring Greg home, Mary Ann exclaimed, "Roda is a nurse! I kept thinking, who did we know in the family that is a nurse!"

Our prayers were answered, because Nurse Roda was willing to attend to her first patient in the States. My future sister-in-law is caring for my future husband, her future brother-in-law, what a special patient/nurse for her first in the States. (Mind you, Roda was an equivalent to an RN in Dubai, so she's had many patients in the past.)

I'm grateful to Roda and so is Greg. He knows that I would do it, only it would take me hours to do what Roda can do in minutes, because I'm not nearly as efficient as she is.

Below are pictures of Roda taking out the medicated gause and then stuffing in the new medicated gauze. Greg sings the clown song as she does it, because it makes him think of a clown taking out tissue upon tissue from his mouth and you don't know how long it's going to be ~ same with the gauze! Eww...

If you look at Greg, you wouldn't think he was just in a serious car accident. But the bruises under his clothing.... I have NEVER seen bruises that large or that dark and covering from the back to the navel on his left side.

The bruises are like cries from the skin of what happened. It hurts me to see that on his body. I tell myself that the bruising is good, because his body is finally allowing it to show and that means the bruises can start to heal too. I'll post a few pictures, but I won't show the ones that show too much body, out of privacy reasons.


The first post about Greg's accident, I showed a picture of Greg reading one of my mom's students Get Well cards. Greg sent an email to my Mom for the students and I thought I would share it on the blog:


To Mrs. Grimball’s Class

First off let me take a moment out of my day to thank you for all of your kind thoughts about me getting well after my car accident and. That was the most thoughtful thing that has happened to me since the accident, and even though I am a grown man of 47 years, I still cried a little (don’t tell any of my friends). LOL

The fact that each of you took the time out of your day to help someone you have never met yet really touched me, and reminded me of a lot of good things that are still left in this world of ours.

I have been out of school for over 25 years… and that my last class was college of course. Since then I have lost touch with what happens in classes unless I hear it from my nieces or nephews, whom the youngest is 10 years old in Shreveport, Louisiana. Almost ALL of the news or images I have of school and young people as yourselves is unfortunately from the news and they rarely report anything good happening. All that you hear about is about bad news and tragic happenings. I guess that the news companies think that the public only wants to hear bad news.

Last year Ms. Aleta and I were going off on a trip to Tennessee together and we wanted to drop by to say goodbye to Aleta’s mom, your teacher. Even though it wasn’t your class that I met I must say that I was VERY pleasantly surprised at how the students were. They were all so eager to come up to the Promethean Board and show us, and Mrs. Grimball as well each other what they learned. Their enthusiasm to learn and be active participants in helping each other learn was nothing short of amazing. I knew right then and at that moment that things aren’t all bad in our schools. It made me realize that this country can and does have a much brighter future than what is portrayed on the news. It actually made me feel a lot better about the future of our country. Each one of you in this class today is part of the future of our community, our country and our world. This makes me very happy because obviously Ms. Grimballs class this year is just as good if not better than the last. What you did truly touched my heart and made me think of our future in a much different light.

I am sure that I will be coming by someday to thank you personally, but until then please know that that was a fantastic gift that I will never forget.

Thank you,
Mr. Greg O’Brien