Well I got my two days of the stress test done. Tuesday was day one and they did the exercise portion. I had expected to do the treadmill test but they had decided to switch it to the chemical test instead. Boy was that a weird feeling! For a moment I felt totally paralyzed, even my lungs...talk about feeling panicked! That quickly passed though and the major thing I felt then was abdominal and lower back discomfort. Afterward I got a headache for a couple of hours.
When we left the hospital we headed to Cardinal Tattoo. I messed around with piercing my ears and trying to heal them for YEARS starting when I was in my teens. Good grade gold, sterling silver, hypoallergenic earrings....nothing was good for me. I'd get infections and could never get the piercings healed. Recently I discovered Maggie's Creations. Maggie makes and sells earrings out of pure Niobium and grade 1 Titanium, NON allergenic metals. I decided to give pierced ears a try again so ordered my earrings and decided on Cardinal Tattoo as the place I would get my ears pierced again. Stupid me didn't make note of the street address, just that it was on Spy Run Avenue near Fourth Street. When I saw Fourth Street Gene was in the middle lane and pulled the car left and ran into a truck in the other lane. Minor damage, no injuries...probably hurt Gene's pride more than anything. Still, the insurance adjuster came up with over $1000 of damage on our car. I don't know what the truck comes to. So anyway, I finally got in to Cardinal and Chad pierced my ears. I got two piercings in each ear. No tattoos. I tried to talk Gene into getting a tattoo of a naked fairy or a naked mermaid but he wasn't interested! LOL
Wednesday we were back to Lutheran Hospital for day two of my stress test, the resting portion.
Like I said in an earlier post, I really expected the problem was asthma so I wasn't too stressed out about having the stress test. Well yesterday (Thursday) afternoon I got a call that it showed a problem and Dr. Hambel wanted to do a procedure at the hospital, when did I want to do it. Hellooooo! I'm going to schedule a 'procedure' without knowing what the problem is and what the procedure is and why it needs to be done? The lady just repeated herself. It was about like pulling teeth to get any info out of her but I finally found out there's a portion of my heart that isn't getting blood and Dr. Hambel wants to do a catheterization to find out why. He's scheduling enough time to fix things if he needs to, such as put in a stent. I'm going up to have blood work and an EKG this afternoon and they're going to try to schedule the procedure for late next week.
Fun fun fun. God must have some big plans for me if he's keeping me around for all this instead of just taking me! Thankfully he carries me and I don't have to do this on my own. And thankfully I have Gene in my life. He is so good to me, takes care of me through the bad times and doesn't complain. I just hope things are all taken care of and I'm able to make it down to Alabama as planned to help out when my grandson, Riley James Helms, is born in July.
I'm ready for a few dull moments in my life! :-)
Midnight. The magic hour after which fasting seems to be required, no matter what the test is, no matter what TIME the test is. So I just had a turkey breast sandwich and some strawberries. Night owl that I am my third meal of the day is usually around 1-2 AM so I bumped it up to 11:45 PM. Midnight seems to be the time of day I want a cup of coffee or tea and I haven't been able to have coffee, tea, or pop since early morning. I'm dying for a cup of coffee, but I settled for two mugs of sugar free instant spiced cider. So now I'm all set, just waiting for morning and my appointment for a Cardiolite Stress Test.
It seems like things never work out quite the way I plan. When I was in the hospital in November/December one of the hospitalist thought he heard a woosh in my neck and was concerned I might have a blockage there, so once I was out of the hospital and things settling down he thought it should be checked. When I saw my GP in early February I told her so she had a carotid doppler set up. I have a heart murmur and that hadn't been checked on since 2001 so she sat up an echo cardiogram for the same day to check on that, not expecting anything out of the ordinary.
The doppler came out fine, the tech said she didn't know what that doctor thought he heard but my carotid arteries were so good she said I could be a carotid doppler model. So I thought I was free and clear.
It took a whole month to get the results of the echo back and boy was it a shocker! It came back that I have Pulmonary Hypertension. PH is different and unrelated to the hypertension most people have. PH is high blood pressure in the lungs and carotid artery. What little info I could find on PH did not sound good. The cardiologist I was sent to said he classifies my PH as moderate. It's unknown how it will progress, we'll have more of a handle on it at a six month recheck, but he's not anticipating that it will cause me many problems. If the pressure gets higher I'll probably have to go on medicine for it but as it is now I don't have to do anything.
So then comes the next kicker. I'd started sometimes getting what I can only explain as between an ache and a burn in my chest, especially when I'd walk. I figured it was the PH but the cardio says not. He's concerned that I could have a heart blockage so that's why I'm having the stress test. It's gotten worse in the last couple of weeks and I think I know now what it is. Asthma. I can go months, even years without asthma problems, but it appears I could be headed for another bad spring and summer with it. I'm glad I got a new inhaler while I was in the hospital.
I haven't worried too much over the stress test since I think it's asthma and not my heart that is causing what I'm feeling. So stay tuned for more news. It's in God's hands and things will come out the way he wants things to come out. No matter what the result, he is with me. I just wish he could put a cup of coffee in my hands right about now!
It seems like things never work out quite the way I plan. When I was in the hospital in November/December one of the hospitalist thought he heard a woosh in my neck and was concerned I might have a blockage there, so once I was out of the hospital and things settling down he thought it should be checked. When I saw my GP in early February I told her so she had a carotid doppler set up. I have a heart murmur and that hadn't been checked on since 2001 so she sat up an echo cardiogram for the same day to check on that, not expecting anything out of the ordinary.
The doppler came out fine, the tech said she didn't know what that doctor thought he heard but my carotid arteries were so good she said I could be a carotid doppler model. So I thought I was free and clear.
It took a whole month to get the results of the echo back and boy was it a shocker! It came back that I have Pulmonary Hypertension. PH is different and unrelated to the hypertension most people have. PH is high blood pressure in the lungs and carotid artery. What little info I could find on PH did not sound good. The cardiologist I was sent to said he classifies my PH as moderate. It's unknown how it will progress, we'll have more of a handle on it at a six month recheck, but he's not anticipating that it will cause me many problems. If the pressure gets higher I'll probably have to go on medicine for it but as it is now I don't have to do anything.
So then comes the next kicker. I'd started sometimes getting what I can only explain as between an ache and a burn in my chest, especially when I'd walk. I figured it was the PH but the cardio says not. He's concerned that I could have a heart blockage so that's why I'm having the stress test. It's gotten worse in the last couple of weeks and I think I know now what it is. Asthma. I can go months, even years without asthma problems, but it appears I could be headed for another bad spring and summer with it. I'm glad I got a new inhaler while I was in the hospital.
I haven't worried too much over the stress test since I think it's asthma and not my heart that is causing what I'm feeling. So stay tuned for more news. It's in God's hands and things will come out the way he wants things to come out. No matter what the result, he is with me. I just wish he could put a cup of coffee in my hands right about now!
One Easter dinner down, one to go. Yesterday was my family's dinner (lunch) at my mom's house. Gene's family will have theirs next weekend. His family is much larger than mine so they don't normally try to have family dinners on the actual holiday.
As usual we had waaaaay too much food. My mom baked a ham and my brother-in-law Bob brought some of the haddock fish he caught up in Alaska and baked it. We had a green bean/wax bean/carrot mixture, corn casserole, sweet potato casserole, swiss and bacon mashed potatoes, rolls, pickles, spiced apple rings, deviled eggs, cherry cheesecake, iced tea and coffee.
In the afternoon on the scanner we heard the fire department called to a field fire two miles down the road from my mom's house. My brother isn't a fireman but if there's a fire close he will go see what he can do. It was a small fire and he had it under control with a scoop shovel from his truck by the time the fire trucks got there.
Another sign of spring...my nephew Brad has his first Little League practice today. Niece Sarah hasn't heard yet when her team will start practice.
My husband Gene is on vacation this week. I always enjoy having him home. We have no special plans this week other than I'm to have a two day Cardiolite stress test. I say what I have is kind of between an ache and a burn...discomfort. The cardiologist calls it chest pain. He says it's not a symptom of my recently diagnosed pulmonary hypertension and is concerned that I might have a blockage. I think it's my asthma. We'll know more soon.
It's after 4am and the home health care nurse will be here in about 5 hours so I guess I'd better get some sleep!
As usual we had waaaaay too much food. My mom baked a ham and my brother-in-law Bob brought some of the haddock fish he caught up in Alaska and baked it. We had a green bean/wax bean/carrot mixture, corn casserole, sweet potato casserole, swiss and bacon mashed potatoes, rolls, pickles, spiced apple rings, deviled eggs, cherry cheesecake, iced tea and coffee.
In the afternoon on the scanner we heard the fire department called to a field fire two miles down the road from my mom's house. My brother isn't a fireman but if there's a fire close he will go see what he can do. It was a small fire and he had it under control with a scoop shovel from his truck by the time the fire trucks got there.
Another sign of spring...my nephew Brad has his first Little League practice today. Niece Sarah hasn't heard yet when her team will start practice.
My husband Gene is on vacation this week. I always enjoy having him home. We have no special plans this week other than I'm to have a two day Cardiolite stress test. I say what I have is kind of between an ache and a burn...discomfort. The cardiologist calls it chest pain. He says it's not a symptom of my recently diagnosed pulmonary hypertension and is concerned that I might have a blockage. I think it's my asthma. We'll know more soon.
It's after 4am and the home health care nurse will be here in about 5 hours so I guess I'd better get some sleep!
It's Easter and along with that comes lots of memories. When I was a kid we always went to Great Grandma Blair's house for Easter. It was a large family so there were lots of people there. Aunt Grace always brought an angel food cake covered with green coconut for grass, Peeps chicks and jelly beans. Everyone brought Easter eggs for our hunt. My great aunts would sit with lists of names of who was going to hunt and write names on all the eggs. A couple of the men would take the eggs out and hide them. Children and adults all hunted for the eggs with their name on them. Occasionally we would have snow or rain so would have our hunt in the barn. Once in a while someone would find an egg in the barn that obviously wasn't from that year so the question would go out, "When's the last time we had the Easter egg hunt in the barn? What year is this egg from?" We always came home with dozens of eggs so had lots of dishes including eggs that next week. One thing my mom always made with the Easter eggs was creamed eggs on toast. I always looked forward to that. After I married I only got to go to the Blair Easter every other year. My (ex) husband's family didn't have an Easter Egg hunt so I missed getting to have my creamed eggs on toast. It was a LONG time before I figured out I didn't have to have Easter eggs to make it, I just needed to boil eggs! The first time I boiled eggs and made creamed eggs on toast I looked at it for the longest time trying to figure out what was wrong with it because it didn't look right. I finally figured out it was because my egg whites were really white. When made with Easter eggs the dye would bleed through the shells onto the egg whites so there were always pastel colors sticking up out of the sauce. The creamed eggs look really bland when made with boiled eggs instead of Easter eggs! Those days are long gone. As the family aged we stopped having those family dinners. Now even all my great aunts and uncles have passed away. This year we'll be having Easter at my mom's house. There will only be eight of us. My son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter won't be able to come up from Alabama to have Easter with us. I will miss them. Happy Easter everyone...and remember the true reason we have Easter, that God's son died to save us from our sins. What a wonderful God we have.
I'm a grandmother. It took a long time to reach that stage in my life because my son didn't marry until the the age of 30. Then I became an instant grandmother. Hannah was five at the time, six now. I truly love her so it bothers me that I constantly find myself calling her my step granddaughter. She's a wild child, full of spunk. She intimidates me. I always expected to grow into grandmotherhood slowly as my grandchildren grew from babies and we slowly got to know each other. I never got to cuddle this little girl as a baby. Never got to hear her coo and see her blow bubbles. Never got to hear her say her first gibberish words or see her take her first wobbly steps. I hear about the things she does, but she lives three states away from me so she's really still a stranger to me. So how will we get to know each other and how am I going to get comfortable with being her gramma? That is something that has weighed heavily on my mind. For starters the phone calls to and from her parents need to happen earlier in the day, at least once in a while. When she's already gone to bed there's no chance of those 20 second conversations with Hannah where she tells me things like, "I'm going to give the cat a bad haircut!" I'm going to start making little movies on my webcam that I can email for her parents to play for her. Things like reading a story to her. Then she can get to know me better. Then this summer we will really get to know each other when I go down to take care of her while her mom is in the hospital having baby brother Riley by cesarean. By then I expect the step to have disappeared from my vocabulary. And when I go down, I'll be taking something special to her. My grandfather passed away when I was 7. I don't remember him well, but I have something very special. I have a small child sized kitchen cabinet and table that he made for me. I've always cherished those because he went to the trouble of making them himself just for me. Some of the toy dishes I played with are still in the cabinet. So these special toys of mine are going to be my special gift to this special little girl. I hope that she treasures them as much as I have.
