Nevada Missouri's Bushwhacker Jail

This was one of the only buildings that survived the fire that the Union set in 1983. This building served as a jail from 1860-1960. It was closed due to the many complaints about the condition of the jail. The jail not only housed prisoners but also the sheriff and his family. It was not a large building and even from the outside I could not imagine it being being both a jail and a home.  The curator led me to the side of the building where we entered the jail.  He said that just next to the jail was where the kitchen had been located, separate from the building.

This was the living room.  I was told that all the furniture was donated and used to recreate what each room would have looked like in the 18th century. The furnishings were all antiques.  The photos were of sheriffs. The wooden frame over the fireplace was actually made by an inmate and given to the sheriff as a gift.

The two bedrooms were on the second floor and we had to use a very steep and narrow staircase to get to the second level.

This is a photo of Fred and Sephronia Dawes. He was killed in 1919 and his wife became the first woman sheriff in Missouri.

                     This is the men's jail. The women's section was on the second floor.

                                                         Nasty, nasty conditions.

The sheriff's wife was responsible for feeding the prisoners.  These are what were used to serve the food to the prisoners.

                                            Here were some of her cooking utensils.

                    There was one toilet since removed and one sink to be shared by all prisoners.

This is the doorway into the jail. You would enter the jail from the side of the house. I was surprised how short and narrow the door was.

This is a photo of the women's jail upstairs.  It was much nicer then the men's. The museum was now air conditioned and I couldn't imagine being confined there in the summer heat. It would have been brutal.

I really enjoyed stepping back in time and when Rocketman saw all my pictures he was so jealous that he was not able to visit with me.  There is always next time.

Nevada Missouri and the Bushwhacker Museum

We left last Sunday after the family reunion and drove to St. Louis, MO which was the halfway point to Nevada, MO.  We got to see the Arch from the highway on our way to the motel. We were trying to outrun a bad storm so we didn't stop for pictures. Then the next morning we left for another 4 hour trip which would take us to Nevada, MO. The hotel was about a block from Rocketman's plant so I dropped him off Monday morning and decided to do some exploring.  I found these really cool murals in downtown Nevada.

 The only shopping was a Walmart which was sad because the actual downtown district was so beautiful with cute little storefronts mostly abandoned. I did find a museum which was under the library and decided to visit that. I'm a sucker for history so a museum was right up my alley.

A gentleman greeted me and introduced himself as the curator. He invited me to watch a 12 minute history of Nevada where I learned all about the Bushwhackers.  They played an important role in the Civil War which also led to the town of Nevada being burnt to the ground May 23, 1863 by Union forces.

                     These two pictures are wedding gowns that were donated to the museum.

                                                    This is a view of the museum.

 Dr. Hornback's family donated what looked like their entire household. It was like a step back in time.

There were also several donations by other doctors.

                                  I even found some Indian trade beads. I thought they were so cool!

                                  Lots of uniforms from all the wars were donated.

                       Even some wooden sandals from Japan from a U.S. solder.

This one really got to me. I wondered if that was how Mrs. Marquardt was informed that her husband had been hurt in the war. It seemed really cold to me but it was probably the best they could do at the time. I could not imagine receiving a postcard like this about Rocketman.

This is the artificial arm the Mr. Marquardt wore until from 1945 until his death in 2002.

So many wonderful things and when I finished, the curator asked if I wanted to see the jail which was a block away. Of course, I said yes and he got the keys to the jail and off we went. It was about a block away. More about that tomorrow.

Family Reunion & Ezra's 2nd Birthday

Last weekend Rocketman and I headed out on a road trip.  It started with a trip to Illinois for our annual family reunion.  I had just found out that my folks had never eaten a burger from 5 Guys so I remedied that first thing with dinner at 5 Guys. They loved it!

The reunion was at my sister's farm  home and I was surprised to find she had just gotten some baby chicks.  She's had chickens for years and said they were getting old and she needed to add to the crew. They were so cute.

Our daughter and her family also came down and stayed with my sister.  They love it there. This is Ezra just hanging out.

                          Noah got in some practice by feeding some of my sister's chickens.

                                               We also celebrated Ezra's 2nd birthday.

 

                  Ez got a new trike from my sister and her family. He loved it and so did his folks.

                    We got him a tent which also had a little tunnel opening.  He loved that too.

                                                Ez playing in his new tent with his Daddy.

                                         Mommy also got a ride on Ez's new trike.

This was only the beginning of our trip. Rocketman found out the day before we were leaving that he needed to get to a couple of plants, one in Missouri and one in Iowa. So on Sunday after the reunion we headed to St. Louis which was halfway to our next destination which was Nevada, MO. More on that next time.

37 Celsius = The New Normal

Rocketman soon developed a fever and I had a quick lesson in Celcius. Fahranheit was out the door and all the ear thermometers registered in Celsius. My Korean friends, Hannah and Jennifer, came down from Seoul to be with us every night after work. It is the Korean way to have family with you when you are in the hospital and they truly are family along with Hellena who had to fly back to Qatar after spending a week with us.

When it came time to leave the night after surgery, I felt Rocketman's head and it was burning up. I was surprised that a nurse had not come in to take his temperature the entire afternoon and as we were getting ready to go, I told Hannah that I wanted his temperature taken before I left.  She went to talk to the nurses and almost immediately a nurse ran (and I mean ran) into the room with an ear thermometer. It came in at 38C which is 100.4F. (Thank goodness for my IPhone for quick conversions).

They were pretty shocked at that and we were told that the doctor had to be told and he would prescribe medication. I was surprised that the doctor didn't have orders to cover something like this which can happen after surgery. I did leave for the hotel for a fitful night sleep and returned the next morning to discover that Rocketman's fever had gone over 39C (102F) overnight and he was asked to hug the frozen hot water bottle that you see above.

Rocketman was miserable. The doctor had also prescribed a stool softener which he had been taking for a day before we were told and it had caused horrible diarrhea which is no fun with a catheter. Rocketman was in and out of the bathroom too many times to count and sleeping on a too short, much too hard mattress was not helping.

We occasionally had a nurse that spoke some English and when we found out that one of the pills Rocketman was taking was a stool softener, I immediately told her that he will not take that pill and she went to okay it with the doctor. That pill didn't reappear but it still took another day for the diarrhea to stop.

Rocketman and I would take walks down the hospital hallways which was a pasttime for many Koreans especially the ajosshis (older Korean men). Rocketman would push his IV and catheter stand with one hand and hold onto me with the other. He just wanted to get out of the hospital. I still felt he was too weak. But we made a pact that if his temperature got down to 100.5F that we would check out and I also required one day of him out of the hospital resting before we attempt to return to the States.

The only breakdown I had was while Rocketman was lying in the Emergency Room. We were both worried about what the total bill would be and if we had the funds on our VISA to cover it. We weren't sure if our credit limit would be enough for everything. I could not get reception in the hospital so I went outside to call the card company to see if we could get our limit raised. I went through three levels only to be told that Rocketman would have to say "yes" in order to get our limit raised.

I explained our situation, being in South Korea, having to prepay for all services, needing surgery... I finally lost it as I spoke to some manager. With tears rolling down my face and off my chin, I kept saying, "Don't you understand? I'm not in the United States where I would have other means. I have to pay for services upfront here in Korea. It was all to no avail and I had the manager on the phone while I returned to Rocketman's bedside. We finally were able to get Rocketman to say "Yes" and they raised our limit a measly amount.

It was during this first full day in the hospital when I ran into a lovely woman named Rhoda. She was American and had been on a tour of Korea when a family member became ill. They were on the same floor as us. Can you believe it? We shared our stories and it was wonderful. She really saw me at some of my darkest days and gave me a shoulder to cry on. Do you know that they even offered to help with our medical bill if we needed that? We checked in with each other every day.

They had given us a bag full of hospital things like a towel, tooth brush, toothpaste, soap, razor and a cup. We soon realized that the nurses were there to take vitals and administer medication. I took care of washing Rocketman on a daily basis. I finally realized I needed to buy some towels to help with the process. It reminded me of the work I used to do as a nurse's assistant at a nursing home back when I was 15. It felt so great to see how much better Rocketman felt once he got clean. But the fever persisted.

I was also in charge of changing Rocketman's hospital clothing and bedding. There was a cart at the nurse's station which contained clothing and bedding. I finally figured out that it was self serve. It was so different than the States but I quickly adapted. They did have a cleaning lady that came in everyday to wash the floors.

Rocketman's surgery was Friday, May 3rd and on Saturday I ran into Seoul for a few hours to see my bojagi teacher and to do some quick and I mean very quick shopping. I was back at the hospital by two. Stay tuned to hear all about my shopping in Seoul.

Surgery - Korea Style!

This is a photo I took of Rocketman's hospital window which we called the "suicide window." We were told the window only opens a few inches to prevent suicides.

When Dr. Ahn, the urologist, finally agreed to remove Rocketman's kidney stone he didn't garner any confidence with his choice of words. He told us that it would be a very difficult surgery since the stone was so close to the kidney but he would try his best, but that he might fail. He told us this without an interpreter and with very good English. When I asked my Korean girlfriends about this they were not surprised at all with what he had said. A doctor would never be confident when speaking about a surgery because of the uncertainty of the outcome. It was like he didn't want to make any false promises.

I told my friends that doctor's are just the opposite here in the States. Even if they think the patient may have a terrible outcome, they try to be very positive and upbeat. Dr. Ahn seemed nervous and unsure, which, of course, made me a nervous wreck, and Rocketman, well he just wanted the stone out.

We were waiting in Rocketman's hospital room when a flurry of nurses came in to wheel him out for surgery some two hours before it was scheduled. I was left to wait in the room and thought it would be an hour or two before I saw him. I prayed, I watched television and I looked outside the "suicide window" as the hours ticked by. Finally, after three hours he was wheeled in and was very alert. I was surprised when he said that they just finished the surgery and wheeled him back to his room. No recovery room.

He was in a lot of pain and he wasn't loopy like he had been after surgery in the U.S. He also came back with a catheter. Dr. Ahn and his entourage came to visit a few hours later along with the interpreter. He brought us all out to the nurse's station and proceeded to tell us what had went on. It indeed had turned into a difficult surgery. When he added air to Rocketman's ureter to add the stent and to remove the stone, he tore the ureter. He had to stop the surgery and add dye to Rocketman to see the damage and sure enough, he had a photo to show us the tear and the dye leaking out.

He went on to say that the stent went in and he used a cage to try to capture the stone but the stone went back into the kidney. I could tell that this was bad news. He said he was able to capture it and crush it but pieces had scattered, even being trapped between the ureter and the stent. The pieces that he left were small and he was sure they would pass except he didn't have an answers for the ones trapped.

During this time another patient, an ajjosshi thought it would be nice to stop and listen to what was going on. He didn't seem to mind that it wasn't any of his business and it just infuriated Rocketman. Also during this time, a nurse decided to empty his catheter bag in front of everyone. It was the strangest thing.

Dr. Ahn told us that Rocketman would be in the hospital another 4-5 days to recover. Rocketman wasn't having any of that and I really thought that he would be ready to leave the next day. I was basing all of this on the similar surgery he had in the States eight years previous. It would turn out that I was wrong and so very wrong. Here we thought the removal of the stone would end Rocketman's suffering but instead it was only the beginning. Stay tuned.

I took a video of Rocketman's hospital room: