Staff Sgt Jason Ross - Marine

Apologies to all, in that it has taken me a little longer than I should have taken to provide another update. Jason does  not, and did not have MRSA. He has a basic staff infection (which can still be very uncomfortable), and therefore it was not as serious an issue as we initially though. A culture was taken at Balboa, and as a result of the initial treatment and antibiotics he is doing quite well. He is still having to spend more time in bed, and he hates it, and the wounds are all getting better. The big challenge now is getting him back into the wearable. Not sure how long that is going to take, but I'm guessing in a matter of a week or so. On another front, Jason is scheduled for surgery in April, so again he will be required to stay down for healing, only this time it is elective. They are going to be able to go in and reconstruct his urethra and, assuming all goes well he will no longer have to deal with a catheter. This is something we have been looking to happen for a ...

Things have been going pretty good for the past several days and then yesterday Jason had to get over to the ER at Camp Pendleton. Seems he got an infection from MRSA, which is a type of staph that is resistant to most antibiotics. Well, it came in the form of a cyst and simply looked like a large pimple, very large. He was able to speak with his primary doctor at Balboa and she instructed him to get over to the ER and that's where they took care of it. Fortunately it was seen before it became a major issue, and in a matter of a couple weeks we should be all done with it. The down side on this is that they had to pack it with a medicated strip, so that it would heal correctly while at the same time helping it to heal from the inside out. Tonight I had to get Jason back over to the ER so they could make the change to the packing and it was quite painful for Jason. The medical team assure him that each day it would become less painful, and that this first one was the most painful. ...

Apologies for the lack of updates, over these past few weeks, but I have been busy with a few other things. Linda was off on a retreat, actually two, and that meant I was flying solo for a couple weeks. In the mean time things have happened, that are positive, and Linda came back feeling recharged and better - and that's good for me. First, Jason has been going to the gym now, for a few weeks, and the results are already showing up. I am happy to say that you can see some definition starting to show in his arms and shoulders, and he is feeling better because of it. Another positive side is that I have been going with him (most of the time) and I'm getting a little benefit from the gym as well (more on that later). The down side is that it is causing his overall body shape to change some and he doesn't fit in the wearable as he did before. This is causing some other challenges. The wearable is designed to "hold and lift" Jason so that the pressure on his wound ...

Over the past several months (almost a year?) we have been talking with Jason about him needing to get out and get some exercise at a gym. Well, yesterday he went to the gym ... the gym on Camp Pendleton that is connected with the Wounded Warrior Battalion. It was very good in that it gave him the chance to do some specific exercises, on specific equipment, that was designed to help him with his shoulders and back. He also worked on his core muscle group, and was very pleased with himself afterward. When he was finished with the gym he went over to see some of his friends at the EOD Company and even brought them a gift - a large bottle of his mead. Unfortunately the mead didn't make it. As he was entering the building he hit a bump and the bottle, which was resting on the power chair, fell off and broke. Needless to say, he was disappointed - as were the guys at the EOD company. He still had a good visit and will be bringing some mead again on the next visit (probably tomorrow). ...

Over these past several days, our household has been very busy, to say the least. Amazingly it all came together and we were able to get up to Livermore to pay our respects to the Ferea family, as they had to deal with the death of Ron, the head of the family. Jason was able to get some time with one of his closest friends, Matt, and I think it was really good for both of them. We also spent a little time with Margie, Ron's wife, and their daughter Megan. Linda and I (mostly Linda) had a special relationship with the family, as both the kids, Matt and Megan, were in Linda's child care, and then Megan even worked for Linda for a couple of years. Matt and Jason were in Scouts together, so that was another connection and we seemed to always have things going on with them. Ron will be missed by many. We flew up to Livermore, courtesy of Veteran Airlift Command (VAC), in a Pilatus aircraft, and it was a very smooth flight. After we landed, Jason made the comment that it was much ...

It looks like things are coming together so that we will be able to head up to Livermore, again, this weekend - Sunday to be specific. We will be returning on Monday, in the afternoon or early evening, so this is simply going to be a fast trip. The reason for the trip is so that we can pay our last respects to a friend of ours, Ron Ferea, who passed away a couple of days ago, and his funeral is going to take place on Monday. It was important for Jason to be there. Ron and Margie were married for almost 40 years, and they have two children, Matt and Megan. Matt and Jason basically grew up together, and whenever you found one of them, you found the other. Ron and I even took the boys to Japan to hike up Mt. Fuji - it was a part of a Boy Scout adventure (High Adventure at that), and just one of the many times we all did something together. I even had the pleasure of working with Ron on a construction project (Vacaville Kaiser Hospital), where he was one of the contractors working on the...

I remember when we were in a drought, wait, that was just a couple of months ago. We are coming up on the 25th day of this year, and it has rained, here in San Diego County, 22 days. The "average" rain fall for this area is about 10.45 inches, over the year. Last year we had 10.25, and this year we've already had about 6 inches (much higher than normal). I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that we are going to have a wet year... ;-) Things are going well, though, and we have not had any down time due to lost power, or flooding of the roads. Sometimes the network has dropped and the phones are not always working, but those are the only signs that the weather is a little more harsh than normal. Heck, we even had hail, and when that happened the girls were very excited. They were hoping it would continue and turn into snow... it wasn't that cold. Overall, the girls, and the dogs, loved the rain. The rest of us just had to deal with it and clean up the mud bei...