I just got home from the hospital, I have been there since monday. Friday Rita got sick to her stomach, she woke up sat. and was feeling just fine, I thought she caught the flu bug that has been going around here. Well monday comes around and she goes to work (feeling ok). Well I get a call from her work place, she works for the state (DFS). They say she is very sick, throwing up etc. She said she would try to get home. She works about 50 miles away. Well she gets about 10 miles from her work and can not get any farther. She calls me up and she needs to get picked up, she is at one of those road side rest areas. Well I'm on call so I have someone cover my shift for me. I get to her and she can't hardly move, she is pucking big time and has started pucking blood, well the old EMS instints kick in. and I take her to the ER. The doctor on call has her transfered with no hestitation to Sedallia, Mo. (Bothwell Reg. Health Center). We tryed to Air-Evac her out but the weather has them socked in. So she went in an ambulance. To make a long story short(er) what happen was she sprung a small leak and her bowel had some how gone up and got stuck and about 1/2 of it was blocked. Tues they went in a fixed it up. She is very stable now and doing better, her pulse was about 180 before the operation, BP was normal and her extremines was cold and abdoman was hot, and her kidneys was starting to fail. She is still at Bothwell, she will be getting out of CCU tomorrow and getting a regular room on the 3rd floor. I go on call tomorrow and will not be off till Wends morning at 0600. Now the lesson learned here for all of my friends here who have had the Bypass done (She had her's May 18th), if you are sick get to the ER (stat) Well that is all for now I will keep you all updated Bill

Headsets: They are going to start replacing our headsets to ones with squeal protection but they are only buying the over the head model. Many of us are over the ear wearers only and I for one not only hate the headset head one gets with the other kind, but it also gives me a headache to have the pressure on my noggin. Monitors: We get new monitors for the CAD but the screens are too bright at many stations. So bright, in fact, that the grey looks white and there is no contrast to the entry screens and such. Our retinas are burning! So in order to combat that we have to change the properties/desktop settings to go darker on colors. Wellllllllllllllllll, that requires us using true color, but hey - we are not allowed to go above 256 colors, so pretty much everything we are able to use is either too dark, too bright or too light. Computers: We are getting new computers for the CAD as well. Our old ones are 400 mhz!! So they are suppose to install them this month. We inquired about the old computers and if we could have them set up at each console so we could network them and be able to use them for quick references, word processing, email and other such things we still don't have the ability to do. Noooooooooooo - they have to send all the old computers to Salem. Why? Well, no one quite knows for sure, but I do know that they sell surplus items on eBay and I think they plan on taking the 20-40 used ones and lumping them on a pallet where someone will pay $100 for them all while we are left with zero functionalilty again. I mean, if we want to type a memo, we have to get up and go use a computer where there is Word. Then we have to save it to a disc (which is hard since all the hard drives tend to be hidden behind consoles) and take it to the supervisor's console where it can be printed off. Try doing that when you are working. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!! Dina

You go girl!! Let us know how it turns out! Pam

Way to go!!!!! Enjoy yourself.

I am about 45 minutes NE of Greenville. My fiance works for Pitt Memorial Hospital on their MICU trucks. Our center handles about 35,000 calls per year, Fire, EMS and LEO. I have 10 full time staff members. The area is very large, but rural and poor. The people here are good folks, hard workers, and doing all that they can to get along and make a living farming. Congratulations on your book!!! I wish you the very very best with it!