Thursday, April 30, 2009

DIL Amanda Is In The Hospital

My son called this evening and his pregnant wife, Amanda, is in the hospital down in Alabama where they live. She started feeling sick on Monday, like she was coming down with a cold. She hasn't felt well all week. This morning she started not being able to keep anything down and she hadn't felt baby Riley move since 9:00 this morning. Nathan left work early to take her to the doctor. He sent her on to be admitted to the hospital. They started an IV and have monitors on her to keep tabs on Riley. Thankfully Riley is checking out good on the monitors. They said they think Amanda has a virus but they don't think it's swine flu. That darned son of mine said she hadn't started developing a snout! She was apparently feeling better already because she was hungry and they were going to let her try eating a graham cracker. They plan to keep her overnight and see how she is in the morning. If she's doing well she'll probably go home, if not they'll keep her another day. Amanda's 6 year old daughter Hannah is staying with Amanda's sister.

EDIT: I just got a text message from Amanda. She must have been doing better than expected because they've let her go home rather than keeping her overnight. She can't go back to work until the middle of next week and she's supposed to drink lots of fluids. I'm relieved! :-)
I've been thinking. LOL...well that could be dangerous! My gals at Dream Tags were after me to get on Facebook. I'd signed up on Facebook at some time in the past but I totally did not care for it and abandoned it. I found Twitter and much preferred it. Twitter seemed so much simpler since it doesn't have a kazillion apps someone is always inviting you to use. Well my new Twitter friends were also using Facebook so I finally gave it another try. Eventually I figured out I could just ignore the Easter Egg requests and such and block the applications. Ahhh, much better.

So anyway, back to my thinking. I've hooked up with a few of my old high school friends on Facebook. Elaine, Karen, Alice and I were closer then four peas in a pod through most of junior high and high school at Southern Wells. I don't' recall why but I drifted away from them our senior year. After high school they all went to Ball State University and I went to Wayne University of Cosmetology. I lost contact with all of them. I have no idea what ever became of Alice. Karen became a nurse and I ran into her five years ago when my mom had a knee replacement in the hospital she worked at. I used to bump into Elaine's sister once in a while so I knew Elaine was out west somewhere but couldn't remember where.

Elaine and I have hooked up on Facebook. It's been interesting learning of her present day life. She lives in Nebraska and runs a library there. I think she told me the population of the town is around 375 so I'm surprised it even has a library. I found a video of it and it's a nice little library but what a contrast between it and our library here in Bluffton. It really makes me appreciate what we have here. Elaine runs the library and is it's only employee. There has only been once that I've ever wanted a book that our library didn't have in it's collection and I've never given it much thought that it could be any other way. It just so happens that the book I'm currently reading is one Elaine's library doesn't own.

That got me to thinking about how we are so blessed to have such a large, beautiful and well run library here in Bluffton, and it's branch in Ossian. They offer us so many services and I'm sure there are several I haven't even realized they offer. One of the things I've come to appreciate to a great degree lately is the library website. It's awesome to have the card catalog online, be able to find books I'd like to read and reserve them online. While I've been confined to home I would pick out my books online and reserve them. Library staff would send me an email when they were ready for pick up and my husband would go to the front desk and the books would be handed to him. I've been able to read the books I choose to read rather than having to depend on someone else to try to find something they think I might enjoy.

I give a big thank you to the WCPL board and staff for all that they do for our community. We are truly blessed. They're located at 200 W. Washington St. in Bluffton and 207 N Jefferson St. in Ossian. Find them online at http://www.wellscolibrary.org. Get updates on their Twitter account, http://twitter.com/WCPLibrary and their Facebook page, Wells County Public Library on Facebook. And thank a librarian for all they do for you. :-)
Tuesday, April 28, 2009

National Swine Flu Situation Page

Hmmm....I tried embedding the National Swine Flu Situation Page in my blog. It embedded it but the space available wasn't enough to show the complete page and it gave no scroll bars so I'm editing the page out. You can access the National Swine Flu Situation Page at http://www.vuetoo.com/vue1/Situationpagenews.asp?af=&sit=4540&z=&np=&tp=14 Content on the page updates automatically and contains information from multiple web sites in one location. CDC, health, maps, RSS news feeds and more.
Monday, April 27, 2009

The County Highway....Again

I thought the county highway was done having stuff dumped on the edge of the river to build the road edge up. It was all leveled off the other day. Yesterday I was back by there and there's more stuff dumped! I just don't get how they're allowed to dump stuff on the edge of the road and let it fall down into the river. I would think the Army Corp of Engineering would have had to be consulted and I can't imagine first off that they would approve something that quickly and second that they would approve THAT method of fixing the problem. Boggles my mind....but then my mind is easily boggled.
Sunday, April 26, 2009

My Heart Cath Is Over

It all started when I was in the hospital from November 21st through December 23rd. While I was there one of the hospitalists thought he heard a whoosh in my neck and was concerned that I might have a blockage in it so recommended I get it checked out when things had settled down. At my next appointment with (Dr.) Tammy (Dunmoyer) I told her about it so she scheduled me for a bilateral carotid doppler to check it out. While she was at it Tammy also scheduled an echo cardiogram to check on my heart murmur since it hadn't been checked on since 2001.

The carotid doppler came back just fine. In fact the tech said it was so clear and showed up so well that I could be a carotid doppler model!

It was a whole month before we finally got the results of the echo. When we finally did it was a real shocker. It showed that I have Pulmonary Hypertension (PH), high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs and right side of the heart. Blood pressure there is usually low, from 20-30 mmHG. The echo indicated mine was 52 mmHg. So I was sent for a consultation with a cardiologist.

Dr. Gary Hambel said he classified my PH as moderate, not severe as the St. Joseph Hospital cardiologist interpreting the test had. He said at that level we wouldn't treat it, just keep an eye on it, have another echo in six months. What concerned him though was what I called discomfort in my chest mostly when I walked, kind of between an ache and a burn, and came to think was my asthma. He called it chest pain and scheduled me for a stress test. The stress test indicated I had an area of my heart not getting blood so a cardiac catheretization was scheduled. They were going to check the left side of my heart but I asked to have the right side checked while they were at it to get a definite pressure on the PH.

Friday I had to be at Lutheran's Heart Pavilion at 6:00 AM. My procedure wasn't scheduled until 10:00 AM but they said I needed to be there to get an IV started, they would give me something to relax me and if there was a cancellation I'd be able to go in early. I didn't get registered until 7:00 since they registered the people due to have procedures before me first. I wasn't given the drugs to relax me until about 15 minutes before my procedure, which was an hour and a half late. No problem for me, I worked on my computer, read, and since I'm a night owl and hadn't slept the night before, I slept. It was a long day for Gene though.

The results of the procedure were better than expected. It showed minimal narrowing and no blockages. My PH pressure was 42 mmHg, lower than the echo had indicated but still high. As far as the procedure, other than being tired and drowsy I haven't had any side effects. They didn't tell me I'd be bruised and sore from them stopping the bleeding when they removed the probes though! LOL Because they did both sides of the heart there were two different probes inserted. The one in an artery, the nurse was going to keep firm pressure on for 10 minutes before checking it. When she said firm, she meant firm! At 10 minutes it was still bleeding so she had to hold it another 5 minutes. The other one only required 10 minutes of pressure. The nurses pressed so hard that I'm extremely bruised and sore. I had to lay without moving my leg for six hours after the procdure. Not sleeping the night before came in handy then...I slept through most of that time. It was 8:30 before I got to leave to come home.

Since I've been home it's been a major production to get out of chairs and the bed because of the bruising and pain and I've more shuffled that leg along than walked. I've been in so much pain Gene suggested I take some of the Vicodin left from my November and December surgeries. I did and it really helped....since I mostly slept then. I have followup appointments with Tammy next week and Dr. Hambel in a month.

I'm still trying to get a wound in the incision line from December healed and with all that's gone on, the last few months have really been a heck of a medical experience. I guess it's better to get through these surgeries and testing now though. Gene will be retiring at the end of the year so there goes my health insurance.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009

What IS our county highway thinking?

Is our county highway department even thinking? For quite some time North Oak Extended has been washing away along the guardrail by the river outside of the city limit. They've been filling it in with rock. Last week the edge of the street cracked north of the guardrail and was headed for the river, causing me to start harping again that it's not California going to fall into the Pacific, it's Oak Street going to fall into the Wabash River! Oak Street is a dead end so I've been worried that some day we're not going to have a way out. Anyway, Mayor Ted has been working on trying to open up the river more to avoid some of the flooding. So here's the county highway department having Habigs truck in loads of dirt and concrete and dump it down the edge of the riverbank! What kind of fix is that? Won't it just wash away too? Especially when the river floods?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

My First Storm Chase!

I had a new experience today. (Once again that was really yesterday because it's after midnight now.) I went on my very first storm chase! Well kind of. I did it from the comfort of my living room via the wonders of the internet. One of the people I follow on Twitter is Jason Foster (Twitter ID WeatherWarrior1). Jason is a storm chaser and his website is http://www.theweatherwarrior.com. This afternoon Jason tweeted, "Chase mode any minute, streaming live at www.weatherwarrior.net/TV.html. Currently SW of Petersburg." So I popped up that URL and waited for Jason, accompanied by Aaron, to take off on their storm chase with me in their virtual back seat. There is a chat room you can pop up next to the streaming video and you can ask questions, make comments and talk to others in the chat room. There was scrolling text beneath the video and I started to have problems with my motion sickness from it. I thought I was going to have to abandon the chase because of it, but I commented on my problem in the chat room and they saw my comment and were kind enough to turn it off for me. Jason and Aaron were trying to find tornadoes to chase in Virginia. There were several warnings issued due to possible tornadoes showing up on dopplar radar but we didn't get to see any tornadoes. We saw lots of clouds, rain and some hail. It was still fun and I'm sure if I get the chance I'll be in Jason's virtual backseat chasing storms with him again. Thanks for the ride Jason and Aaron! :-)
Monday, April 20, 2009

A Busy Sunday

It was a busy day today (actually it's 2am so it was yesterday, but I haven't gone to bed yet so it still seems like today). Gene wanted to know if I wanted to go to church this morning. I told him no, I thought by the time I got through the day I would be tired enough. We had the Werling Easter today at Gene's sister Mary's house. We missed Kim, she had to work. Nikki and Katie weren't there either. Everyone else that is in this area was there. Lots of good food and good conversation. We don't get together often enough so it was great to have everyone together. We have two babies in the family that I hadn't seen yet since I didn't make it to Christmas.

I intended to go by the Creative Arts Center on the way home. They had an exhibit of art from the county schools and my niece Sarah had something in it. I totally forgot it though.

After we got home from Mary's I laid down to rest before going to my mom's church's Mother Daughter program. I sat my alarm in case I went to sleep. I did go to sleep but the alarm didn't wake me up. I'd forgotten to change it from AM to PM! I have sleep apnea and hadn't put my mask on so I ended up snorting myself awake. I was only a couple of minutes late getting to the church but drove all the way in instead of going to my mom's and riding with her. I have to say I think they had the best favors ever. The theme was 'chocolate' so the favors were candy bars! The program was by Linda Aldridge, Huntington County Extension Director, who gave an interesting program on chocolate, complete with samples. They had a drawing to give away the centerpieces. They were boquets of miniature candy bars and chocolate cook books. No one in my family won.

While I was at the church and had my phone turned off my son called. After I got home I called Nathan back and he was watching TV coverage of tornado warnings near him. Birmingham's ABC 33/40, was live with storm coverage and even had a lot of live video of the storms. I follow them on Twitter and they are excellent about tweeting all the warnings and watches for Alabama. I wish we had someone up here who did as well. I checked their website and they had their broadcast streaming live. In fact Nathan was hearing it from my computer over the phone quicker than he was hearing it on his TV. If anyone on Twitter has an interest in following the weather from 33/40 they are ewarn on Twitter. I also follow their meteorologists, James Spann spann and Jason Simpson simpson3340. When I hung up from talking to Nathan they had had no damage at their place and following their weather, they shouldn't have.

My granddaughter, Hannah, missed school on Friday. She has infection in both of her ears and her throat.

I think I'd better be heading off to bed...I'm falling asleep while typing!
Saturday, April 18, 2009

Twitter Friends

Here's a collage of my Twitter friends.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

 
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