Seeds and Caves and Hospitals

Wednesday June 1, 2011

Today was the day that Linda and I would leave for Memphis with Doug and Patsi but Vicki is expressing concern about Tom. Vicki is a truck driver and has to leave on a run today. Tom has heart issues and was dizzy and short of breath in the morning. Linda and I decide to stay another day and catch up with Doug and Patsi later. After everyone has left Tom is going to bed to rest while Linda and I do some local sightseeing. Our first stop is at a replica of an old town which has been built by a seed company. Naturally the seed company has a store there and we check it out. They have seeds for everything, they have seeds for 21 different variations of okra and even more for onions. It is a very impressive store. From there we go off in search of a sign I saw about a cave. It is almost all the way back to Springfield. This cave is privately owned and is very impressive. It is not busy so Linda and I get a private guided tour. It turns out that there are over 6000 known caves in Missouri and over 4000 in Arkansas. By the time we get back to Tom and Vicki's house it is 4 PM and Tom is still in bed resting. The internet repairman was there while we were gone but Tom didn't hear him so the internet is still not repaired. Linda made sandwiches for us. Tom is doing a lot of coughing and finally at 8 PM he says that he can't breathe and needs to go to the Springfield hospital. He says that the ambulance must come from Springfield and that we can drive to the hospital before the ambulance can arrive. So away we go, it's 60 miles to the hospital and it seems like it takes forever to get there. It turns out that Tom has pneumonia in the left lung. We have already called Vicki a couple of times and updated her on what is happening. We return to the house at midnight and will come back to the hospital tomorrow with clothes for Tom.