In which special visitors come and help me eat my fruit arrangement

They're just so cute, it's hard to quit taking pictures!

A quick run-through continued

May 13 - Happy Mother's Day!  Last night I had every intention of getting out to meeting this morning.  Today, however, it looks like that won't be possible.  Mom stays with me since nobody trusts me to stay alone.  No telling what kinds of wild things I might do!  After lunch, I waved good-bye to Mom from my bed, and Jennifer took her to the airport to fly back to Illinois.  At least we got to spend part of the day in the same room together even if there wasn't much celebrating going on.  :-)

May 14-15 - R & R at the Hawkins'

Lots of lovely flowers

This may not look like much but it was quite an accomplishment to even feel like eating a little!

I did it!  

(Everyone was very proud.)

One of my favorite relaxing spots.

(You can tell I'm not spoiled or anything!)

A couple of my favorite red-heads came to visit!

Sierra helps Jennifer study Spanish

Spoiled?!

Even felt up to moving outside for a little change

It doesn't get much better than this - a spot in the sun, freshly washed hair and clean clothes, ice water and Calvin & Hobbes.

May 16 - Onset of (admitted) chest symptoms - pain, tightness, shortness of breath - bring about a call to the doctor and ultimately a trip to the office.  EKG is slightly abnormal.  Pulse skyrockets when changing from a sitting to a standing position.  Head is woozy, walk unsteady.  Possible dehydration?  Go home, drink 8 liters of liquids over the next two days and come back on Wednesday.  I can feel myself floating already!  Did you catch that?  8 liters!

May 17 - Daniel F. and Vaughn E. come to visit at the Hawkins'.  Everybody else eats pizza.  I sip broth and a multitude of beverages.

May 18 - Return to Dr. Reynolds' office.  Tests redone.  Decision made to admit me to the hospital again.  This time I get to go to the cardiac floor.  Echocardiogram.  Chest x-rays.

Welcome to Cardiac!

Don't forget Fleece!

Relegated once again to a shelf

My faithful friend, Jennifer

Another welcome visits from the little fire ants

Sierra wasn't too sure about everything, but we finally managed to get some cheese out of her.  :-)

May 19 - Stress test.  Don't ever have one of those just for the fun of it.  Dr. Vitt Leng comes in and says, "Stress test abnormal.  You have blockage.  We do heart cath on Monday."  After the initial shock, I ask some questions, clear some things up.  I don't have a blockage.  They want to make sure I don't have a blockage.  Okay.  I can deal with that.  Nurse brings me information about heart catheterizations.  Here are a few interesting facts I learned about the procedure.

• A left heart catheterization is a procedure that is done to look at your heart and its arteries.  During this procedure, a catheter is put into your artery and guided into your heart.  Pictures of your heart are taken, and the pressure inside your heart may be measured.
• There are several possible risks associated with this procedure.
• You may be allergic to the dye used during your heart cath or the dye may cause kidney problems. 
• The catheter may tear your artery and cause bleeding.
• You may get a blood clot in your arm or leg, causing pain and swelling.  The blood clot may break loose and travel to your lungs or your brain.  A blood clot or bleeding in your brain can cause a stroke.
• During this procedure you may have a heart attack.
• You may be given local or general anesthesia.  (I had local.  I was awake.)

The nurse assures me that a heart cath is a common and standard procedure.  "Often" the findings from a heart cath are normal despite abnormal stress test results.  This makes me feel somewhat better.  Now all that's left is more waiting.

Yeah for being clean!

Protecting the IV site

May 20 - All quiet except for the beeping of machines, semi-constant in and out of nurses and people who want more of my blood.  

May 21 - Heart cath day!  I haven't been allowed to eat or drink since last night.  The nurses wake me up bright and early (5:45) so I'll be ready as soon as the call comes that the surgeon is available.  Mom and Grandma R. arrive.  They left Illinois yesterday and drove like mad to get here before the procedure.  Other company arrives; my room fills up quite nicely.  Lunchtime comes.  People eat.  I'm not hungry, haven't been for a few weeks now, but I'd give almost anything for a drink of water.  1:00 The surgeon's still not at the hospital.  Something came up elsewhere.  There are 7 of us waiting for procedures.  I'm #2 in line here.  2:00 So much for all this effort to stay hydrated!  I'd even drink more broth with a smile if they'd just give it to me.  It occurs to me that if I was in prison, I could complain about inhumane treatment.  :-)  3:00  Surgeon has arrived.  Meds are given along with a sip of water.  Glorious!  Meds make me loopy.  I entertain all the guests in my hospital room.  Somewhere between 4:00 and 4:30 (if my memory serves me correctly), they wheel me away to surgery.  Meds wear off by the time procedure starts.  I'm wide awake.  Procedure ends up being common and standard enough and I head back to my room.  Dr. Leng informs us, "No blockage.  Heart is healthy.  No disease.  Good-bye."  I'm discharged from the hospital about 10:00 pm with instructions to go immediately to the ER if the cath site starts bleeding.  We drive the hour to Sumter and bed.  I kind of wish I had a video camera of my trip from the door of the house to my bedroom when we got home that night.  Joe S., the man of the home, offered me a cane when he greeted me at the door.  I laughingly took it and discovered after I had taken about half a step that I needed it for real as well as an assisting body on the other side.  After two rest stops on the way, I crashed on my bed.  Not sure I've ever worked that hard in my life!  :-)  

I'm going to be completely rotten by the time this is all said and done!

I'll break this off here and resume with a new post so as not to totally overwhelm you.  :-)

Oil change

I'll take a quick break in the health saga to share a quick little encounter at the oil change place that Jennifer and I found amusing.  We arrived to find that we were the only customers currently there.  This meant that everybody on the premises was at our service.  I think there were four young guys there if I remember correctly.  We both got our doors (car doors and the building door) opened for us.  One explained all the things they could do for us while the others did what we asked.  Finally they were all done.  As they opened the door out of the building for us, one of them was reciting the list of services performed.  He ended the list with, "And there's a mint on the dashboard."  When we got in the car (doors opened by them), we discovered that his report was completely accurate.  There was a mint on the dashboard.  Jennifer and I somehow found this incredibly amusing.  Maybe there were budget cuts or something.  We decided to save the mint and share it later.  :-)

A quick run-through

Well, in the interest of time and sparing you, the reader, I will breeze through (or at least try to) the rest of the "sickness segment" by way of a kind of timeline.  We'll see how it goes!

May 6 - Decided to try and make it to Union Meeting in Camden.  Made it there, convinced Jennifer I really could be in the meeting since I was already there despite some possible physical evidence to the contrary.  Made it through meeting.  Got home and went to bed.

May 7 - Scheduled a new patient appointment with a doctor in Pamplico for Wednesday.  Began experiencing symptoms similar to pre-ER visit.  Arranged for doctor appointment to be NOW.  Dr. Reynolds orders a second CT scan and schedules another appointment to see her on Wednesday.

May 8 - CT scan  (No vile drink this time!)

May 9 - Follow-up with Dr. Reynolds.  She gives me two options.  1. Hospital admittance  2. Visit to surgeon for further evaluation  I choose option #2 as I'm not at all interested in going to the hospital.  Jennifer and I go straight to Dr. Hughes' office, picking up a hard copy of my CT scan results at the imaging place.  Dr. Hughes doesn't think there's any need for surgery, and after conferring with Dr. Reynolds, decides to admit me to the hospital.  So guess I could have chosen option #1 in the first place!  The main problem at the moment seems to be severe dehydration.  I get to a room on the observation floor of the hospital and am hooked up to an IV, which they have trouble getting hooked up due to the fact that they can't find any veins!  After that, I'm nice and settled in and ready for some more waiting and seeing.  :-)

May 10 - Third CT scan that involves drinking more yummy stuff.  Since I'm not really able to eat anything at this point without feeling sick, this is definitely not a treat.  I'm supposed to drink three bottles of the stuff, but I'm doing well to manage to get two down in the allotted time.  They tell me that's okay.  Good thing they didn't tell me that to begin with; I might not have finished two!  Lots of company today.  These people who barely know me are flocking to my room, bringing me flowers and cards and puzzle books.  It makes my eyes watery thinking about it even now!

If you've made it this far, you deserve a picture, even if it's not a very good one.  

Fleece waits patiently on a shelf to know what will happen next.

After CT scan, I am moved to the 9th floor.  I'm now an official inpatient!  My company moves with me.  

Excuse the disgusting foot, but I had to show you my two little friends who so kindly massaged my feet with lotion.  They were especially excited about getting to wear gloves!

May 11 - Mom arrives.  I am discharged from the hospital in the afternoon, and the three of us (Mom, Jennifer and I) head to the home of some of our friends back in Sumter for some much needed R & R.  (The hospital definitely isn't the place for that!)

Mom lounges in the hospital room

Lovely flowers sent from co-workers

Mom and Jennifer "go nutty"

May 12 - Mom and I make a trip across town so I can show her where I keep my extra things (as well as the rug that I had finished for Kyle and Kalynn's wedding present) and then to pick up our mail and see my little red-headed friends.  Then she treated me to Sonic for Mothers' Day.  (There are several things wrong with this picture, but anyway...) Whew!  I was ready to head back to bed after such a big day!  

Completed rug

Rug close-up

The next four pictures are a series.

Back "home"

Well, I guess that's it for this installment.  I must break for lunch, but hopefully I will be back this afternoon!

Yes, I'm still alive!

When I did my last post, I had every intention of catching up more quickly than I've gotten around to doing.  I'm going to give it another go today, but whatever happens this time, be assured that I'm alive and well, and maybe some day you'll get the "whole" story.  :-)