More hunting pictures of Chad, Dan, Alfred&Shawn's mule deer

Chad & son's hunt in Idaho

Hello Dixon Clan

Here are pictures of mountain white tail deer hunt in Idaho.Chad & Danny arrived in Idaho on the 9th of November.Left to go hunting with Alfred & Iva's brother Yogi in the mountain's close to Elk City, Idaho.Weather was wet & cold. They spent a week in a wall tent up Newsome creek! Alfred shot a 5 by 5 point with a .222 single shot. Danny shot a 5 by 5 with Grandpa Dixon's m1-30.06 rifle. Both were very proud of there trophy size antlers.They tortured Chad by making him hike the steep mountain's and pay for being out of hunting for awhile!But all had a great time together & look forward to doing so again soon!

HOWDY

Howdy Y'all! I think I have finally figured out this blogging thing- way past my bedtime =) I just wanted to post a quick "Howdy!" from Texas. The kiddos are finally asleep (for the most part) and Roger is watching sports of some kind (those darned Mavs didn't make it as far as we'd hoped!!!!) so I am enjoying the computer to myself for a minute...
We've been watching the latest version of "Deadliest Catch" (the boys' favorite show), and it reminds me of my Alaskan relatives =) We are enjoying the blog site. The pictures and stories are great-- It's like one giant family scrapbook! With everyone so far away, it helps us keep "in the know". I'll post pics of the kids (when I figure that out) and I'm sure you'll be hearing from the rest of my "Clan" in the future.
Until next time...
Chris and the Southern Folk =) =) =)

Dad is back home

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted to let you all know that Dad has been released from the hospital, as of yesterday. He went through the bone marrow sampling at Providence Hospital, which he said went smoothly and was surprisingly pain-free. They drilled a little hole in the bone of his hip and drew out 4 or 5 cc's of marrow fluid. They will be testing it over the next five days, so he won't have any new information until then.

When I talked with him on the phone today he was sitting in the sun on the front porch taking his ease and enjoying being back at home. He was minding his own business - trying to figure out how to entertain himself without being able to read, watch TV, or walk very far - when Chad arrived with a surprise visitor. At first Dad thought it was me but quickly discovered that it was Alfred! He decided to pay a visit for the weekend and surprise everyone, including Adrian, who still doesn't know yet (unless he reads this blog) that he is in town. Alfred is also here to renew his electrician's license in Alaska so that one day he might be able to move back.

And Adrian and I and our families will be heading off to Homer this weekend. It is Shorebird Festival weekend and the first chance we have had to get out of town to see how the cabin fared over the winter. Susan and I are definitely excited it but my kids, particularly my daughter, would rather eat worms and die. Oh well. One day I hope she feels differently. Both of my kids have been under the academic gun these past few weeks as the school year draws to a close at the end of next week. They are a little on the testy side.

I will post some pictures of Dad, Alfred, and Homer later on.

Love,
Jed

Dad's hospitalization, update #3

Hello One and All,

I paid a visit to Grandpa at Providence Hospital today. He is doing well, in spite of the evidence to the contrary. Up until this past Friday he had been recuperating at home from the last hospitalization at Elmendorf hospital. He had been receiving home treatment by the visiting nurse who, once again, became concerned with the condition of his eye and his overall health. He was admitted to Providence because the urgency and the fact that his doctors at Elmendorf would not be available until Monday. Here is the latest installment of gruesome photos. Double-click on them for excruciating detail.

It may not be obvious, but even though his eye looks gross it is actually healing relatively well; especially considering the class of bug that got to him. And in that matter I have a little more information for you all.

The doctor in charge of him at Providence specializes in treating infectious diseases. He said that he had been infected with two bugs: serratia, and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), otherwise known as staph infection. The first is actually a secondary infection that sometimes happens to patients treated in hospitals. The second is the more serious of the two, and it what he is receiving antibiotics for. It is the bacteria that his foot was being treated for and that may be the source of the infection in his eye. Here is a link to more information about MRSA Infection at the Mayo Clinic's website. It is treatable, but is highly resistant to all but the most effective of antibiotics. The danger is, as I mentioned in my earlier posting, that his diabetic condition makes it very risky to treat him with such a potent drug and his blood sugar level must be carefully watched. He is getting tired of being poked for blood.

The doctor also suspects a more subtle underlying condition for his frequent infection is that his bone marrow is not working properly to manufacture white blood cells. He said this may have been the case as far back as two years ago though they have they have not yet made any conclusion about it. It would, however, explain why he has been so susceptible to infections and so knocked for a loop when they occur.

Here are a couple shots of his foot and legs. This infection is definitely healing and is a very positive sign of recovery.

Please be reassured though that Dad seems to be doing well and is recovering, albeit slowly. Personally I would feel much better about having him receiving treatment at home than being in the hospital with so much other bacteria floating around. Even under the best of circumstances at home his antibiotic regimen will need to continue perhaps as long as six months. It is one persistent bug.

In other news, my daughter went to the prom with her boyfriend Brian. Here is a picture of the two of them:

She is, needless to say, growing more beautiful every day. I am proud of her but am far from ready to let her go.

And finally, for those of you who want more information on how to post pictures, I would be glad to help you out with specific tips by phone. Many modern digital cameras have the capability of taking huge poster-size pictures, which aren't easily viewable in a browser on a monitor. In general you can prepare your photos ahead of time by setting your camera's pixel size to "VGA", or no more than 1 m in size. If you double-click on Dad's photos above you will see the VGA size displayed on your computer screen. The photo of Brian and Megan is saved in a size of 1280 x 720 pixels.

When you are ready to upload the photo it will load into your post at the top of the edit window. Scroll up, cut it to the clipboard, then scroll down to where you want paste it. Right click and paste. It may seem tricky at first but practice it a little and you will get the hang of it. Call me if you want more detail than that.

I am glad to see the posts of the kids. Keep em coming!

Love,
Jed

Greetings From Texas

Junior and Gideon
Adrian, Cara, Chris and the Grandkids

at Mathew's hockey tournament.

Grandma and our princess.

Joe, Bev, and Junior (Wesley).

The Happy Couple.

Hi Ya'll,

Well here goes nothing. I thought we might try to breath some life into our family blog by making a new posting. Thanks to Jed for keeping things going.

First of all, our thoughts and prayers go out to Dad and Mom during this time of trial. The pictures look nasty!!! I'm glad he's making progress, but I'm sure it's driving him nuts to just sit and wait.

We finally joined the digital age just before thanksgiving with Joe and Beverlyn's wedding in Las Vegas in November. Sooo... I can now attempt to post a few picture for all of you to see. I wish I has some of Katie and Matt's wedding to post also, but unfortunately that was pre-digital. I'm trying to get everyone signed up so they can post also. Hopefully, Katie will post some when she has some time.

The pictures above are taken at Joe and Bev's wedding held in a little Chapel just outside Las Vegas. Would you believe, we had a bowling party reception afterwards! It was fun! Joe and Bev are both avid bowlers. They even brought their own balls with them.

I guess I need some education on how to post pictures. I can't get them to go where I want them. Jed!!!!!! What's the trick?

Anyway. The above are just a few pictures from Joe's Wedding, Mathew's hockey tournament in November, and Christmas 2006. I thought you might enjoy seeing some recent photographic evidence that we're still here. As you can see, Joe has inherited Grandpa William's hair genes!

All are well here. Matt and Katie are in the process of moving into a new condo in Miami in a couple of weeks. They finally sold their current condo after almost a year on the market. Miami real estate is crazy. She'll have to tell you about her experience. Apparently things like light fixtures, ceilings, flooring, faucets, etc. are considered add-ons in Miami, but appliances are included! Who knew! Katie is getting close to completing her courses and will get her Nurse Practioner's liscense soon.

Roger and Chris are busy with their family. The kids are very active in sports, church activities, and Gabriel is involved in community play productions and sings with the All City Choir. He has been in the Christmas production at the Meyerson Symphony center for the last 2 years. Chris and Roger spend most of their free time running the shuttle service.

Chris still teaches 4th grade in the Garland ISD and just completed her Master's degree in education. she takes after her Mom. Roger works for Paladin Consulting which is a recruitment firm for IT people. He just got a promotion and is doing well. He's also the gardener in the family and keeps us supplied with fresh veggies in the summer.

Mary and I are just keeping busy being Grandma and Grandpa. We enjoy our grandkids and love our empty nest! Mary still teaches 1st grade at St. Pius X School (22 years now.) She's ready to retire anytime. I'm working for a new concrete company in Rockwall, Texas which is a town just across the lake from where we live. I'm heading out into the country everyday when everyone else is heading into the rat race. I love it! Anyone need some concrete?

Well, I need to cut this off. Sorry for the arrangement above. Maybe next time it'll be better after Jed educates me. Come on ya'll, let's blog!

Duan

Dad's hospitalization, update #2

Hello all,
Yesterday evening I stopped in to pay a visit to the Old Man. He was already entertaining Mom and Greg and seemed to be in good spirits. I learned a bit more about his infection and how it got started. He said that one day he got an itch in the corner of his eye. He idly scratched at it gently, and it went away for a little while. Later though he felt it itching again and scratched at it some more. As this went on through the evening he felt the area around his eye swell a little. By the next day it had swollen all over the top of his eye. At that time he was receiving daily visits from a home nurse. When she saw it she declared that they needed to keep an eye on it (no pun intended I'm sure). The next day the swelling had spread all around his eye and she promptly called the doctor and arranged for him to go into the hospital that same day.

The swelling continued to worsen over the next two days. The physicians thought that the infection was cellulitus caused by an infected tooth. The following day they removed a bad tooth, but the infection did not go down. They took some samples away to perform some lab tests, but the results would not be available for a day or two. Meanwhile they were growing concerned that the swelling might affect his hearing permanently, so they were getting ready to do some more surgery on his left ear. No one was in favor of that choice, so we were all relieved when the lab finally delivered the results the same day he was scheduled for surgery.

The lab positively identified the infection as a tough resistant strain of staphyloccocus bacteria that will require a lengthy course of antibiotic treatment to eliminate. They began administering the treatment immediately and are keeping him in the hospital for observation. In order for the treatment to be effective it must be delivered consistently and aggressively, and treatments are expected to continue for as long as six months. It is a powerful antibiotic and is risky to administer to a diabetic patient. It must be given with special regard to his blood sugar level so as not to overwhelm his liver. Therefore the staff must take a blood sample before the treatment, and then take another one immediately afterward. This process will need to continue after he is released from the hospital, which may occur later this week if all goes well.

Once he is home it is likely that he will need to have a pik line inserted through his vein and into his heart to simplify the administration of the antibiotic. He is unhappy about this prospect, as he just had the last one removed not too long ago. But we are hoping that it will not prove necessary.

Here is a photo of his eye that shows the reduction in swelling. The dark scabs you see above and below his eye appeared shortly after the swelling began. They are beginning to heal and slough away, and hopeful will disappear soon.

We remain hopeful that the swelling will soon pass, but due to the complications brought on by his diabetic condition the infection will take a long time to heal.

I thought you should also see the foot that was the source of his last hospitalization. It was well on its way to healing when this setback occurred, and as you can see it has some sort of scabbing from infection.

With any luck it will resume healing with course of antibiotics.

And finally here is a picture of mother with one of the very attentive nursing staff members.

Mom seems to be handling everything ok, but I can tell that she is worrying about dad. In spite of it all she spends much of her time cracking jokes and - as usual - asking about the nurse's children and such. Dad is getting a fairly steady stream of visitors, and not just family. He greatly appreciates everyone's calls and concern, and sends everyone his love.

Regards,
Jed

Dad's latest hospital visit

Hello Family,

As you all know Dad has been in the VA hospital out on Elmendorf AFB lately. He has been receiving visitors from our family in such a steady stream that the guard at the Boniface Gate doesn't even need to ask who we are there to see; she just smiles and shakes her head. He is improving day by day. If you didn't know, he had contracted a staph infection in his left eye which somehow spread throughout his face and down his neck. At first the doctors thought is was cellulitis due to a bad tooth, and removed a rotten tooth on his upper left jaw. When the swelling didn't go down they began to talk about performing surgery on his left ear, but I don't know what they were intending to remove. Before that happened, however, the tests from the lab came back confirming that staph bacteria was causing the infection, so they began a course of antibiotics that is having a very positive effect.

These pictures were taken at his request on Friday April 19th. He just wanted to document the condition of his eye before the swelling completely went away. It was much worse even a day earlier.




I have not spoken with him today, but I heard that he was moved to a new room that is more private than the four-person room he was in before. The phone number to call is (907) 580-1997 if you want to talk with him. He is in good spirits but does get bored laying there day after day.


That's all for now. I will update you a little later on his progress.


Jed