Health

I have glue in my hair

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I had two health appointments last night and this morning: my follow-up sleep study to see how well I’m doing on my CPAP machine, and my follow-up cardiologist appointment to see how I’m doing after my surgery.

I didn’t manage to get all the glue washed out of my hair from the electrodes that were glued there for my sleep study last night. I had 16 of them attached to my head and face and other body parts. This time, though, I had fewer things to deal with; I had only one microphone glued to my neck rather than 2, and no breathing tubes, because I had the machine.

One of the things they mentioned, that I noticed, too; I have dreams again. I’m actually sleeping long enough to fall into REM sleep and have dreams, which I wasn’t doing before; their study showed I wasn’t getting any REM sleep at all. This had probably been going on for years actually, which you can tell if you look at the dreams section of my journal, where there’s a gap of about three years between dreams that I remember enough to write down. So the return of dreaming is a really Good Thing, as Martha would say.

The cardiologist’s appointment was really short and not much happened. I expected to have a electrocardiogram, but they didn’t do one. And Dr. Yee didn’t even realize I had the heart valve surgery; he had to take notes. He listened to my heart and said everything sounded good. I should be walking a mile a day, or biking, etc. I also should be able to lift whatever I normally lifted before surgery. I’m supposed to see him again in on October 17th at 9:00 am and they’ll do an electrocardiogram then, and then again once a year for the next several years to monitor how my heart is doing.

While I was in the waiting room, I was watching the health channel they have on TV — same one that I wrote about before, with the dog trained to detect a woman’s epileptic seizures before she had them, to warn her so she could prepare. Turns out the channel I was watching is Accent Health. Here’s a news article on the subject.

I made notes this time because the program today was on healthy eating; they said studies show that lycopene in tomatoes can reduce women’s risk of heart disease by 30% if you eat 1/4 cup of tomato sauce a day. I wonder how that translates to V-8 juice.

Continue ReadingI have glue in my hair

Back at Work

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I’m back at work today for the first time. Woo hoo! It hasn’t bothered me too much, so far. My sternum is still healing, so it still hurts when I move my arms a lot. But I finished up taking the Darvocet last week and I’m just taking Ibuprofen for pain. I can sleep a on my side for a bit before it hurts, which is really cool, because I can’t stand sleeping on my back. I’m still not getting the amount of sleep I really need because of sleeping on my back, but it’s better and in a couple weeks I’ll feel great.
Last week I visited Dr. Beckman and he gave me the all-clear to drive, come back to work, exercise and pretty much anything else. I can’t lift more than 25 pounds or mow the lawn. Or do anything like ride roller coasters.
So maybe next summer we can visit Holiday World. If you haven’t checked out their blog, it’s hilarious. The woman who writes is is their PR person and she’s very smart and funny. A good advertisement for their amusement park.

Continue ReadingBack at Work

I haven’t blogged in over a week

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That’s pretty unusual. I’m feeling a lot better; typing doesn’t feel like it’s pulling on my incision like it did before, so I’m not as uncomfortable. Stephanie went back to work today, so me and Spike are hanging out at home together, staying out of trouble. I already went for my morning walk, all by myself!! And I showered and got dressed and tied my own shoes. Woo hoo! I should be ready for kindergarten soon.
I don’t see the doctor until May 31st, so after that I should know when I can get back to work. For the time being, I’m catching up on my reading and TV viewing.
Lots of people have sent me flowers and presents and have come over and done really helpful things; I’m so grateful!! I am lucky to have such great friends and family.

Continue ReadingI haven’t blogged in over a week

Wow, I had open-heart surgery!

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I can’t believe it. I keep walking around the house thinking “wow, I had open-heart surgery. I can’t believe it!” Then I move wrong and I believe it, alright. It’s funny, the doctors and nurses keep saying “You’re not allowed to drive for four weeks! Don’t even think about it!” And I’m thinking I’d rather DIE than drive right now, so I can’t imagine what idiots decide to get behind the wheel like this, but there must be some or they wouldn’t give that warning.

For our Anniversary, David and Garrett made us Chicken Florentine with angel hair pasta in a clam sauce, and an excellent salad. Garrett came over and served dinner for us. It was sweet and amazing and I have to say it’s too bad that they don’t have their own restaurant, because I’d totally go there all the time.

They switched my drugs from vicodin to darvocet, and the freaky nightmares went away. I’m still getting used to sleeping on my back, though, which is not what I’m used to, so I’m having trouble sleeping. It’s getting better. It’s a long story about why, but Kathy helped switch my mattresses around and she built me a platform to help me get into bed. It’s so much more comfortable.

I’ve been watching the first (only) season of the TV show Wonderfalls. I bought it a couple of months ago and saved it for this occasion. I also watched part of the Incredibles, but I did that in the middle of the night when I didn’t want to go back to sleep because of the nightmares, so I need to re-watch it because I’m sure my ideas about it are skewed. But the premise of that film is really interesting. I’m not sure I agree with all of their message. I kind of want to talk to Andy about it sometime, because he loved it so much and identified with the movie so he saw it twice.

I haven’t played Xbox because it’s a bit too much moving yet. This is the most typing I’ve done in a while, because that’s not fun, either.

Continue ReadingWow, I had open-heart surgery!

yep, I’m home

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I’ve been home since this afternoon trying to take it easy. Just for the record, typing with a large chest incision is NOT FUN and I won’t be doing a whole lot of it for a while. Owwww! When Stephanie said earlier that my incision looks really good, she of course meant that in the relative sense. Because it’s really not pretty or anything. You wouldn’t want to put ribbons in its hair and go out for a Sunday drive with it. And lets not talk about the coughing fits at all.

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Psych!

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So I get a phone call at lunchtime (I went in to work for a few hours this morning): “Dr. Beckman just came in and he said I can go home!” “WHAT?! Oh, my God!” I hurried to Steph’s house to pick out clothes for her to come home in and rushed over to the hospital. Then her heart started beating irregularly and they decided to keep her another night.
They determined that the irregular heartbeat was not serious and was a common thing on the third day after surgery. Basically, her heart is all swollen and upset and “angry” because the doctors went in there and messed with it, so the swelling is getting in the way of the electrical pulses that tell it when to beat. They gave her some new drugs and hooked her up to telemetry, in which she wears a little transmitter that shows her heartbeat on a screen in a room across the hospital that’s always monitored.
In other news, Steph beat me at movie trivia this afternoon, 18-17. Loud Talker Guy is coughing a lot today (loudly, of course), so I felt bad for him, but I still shut Steph’s door for a while. And if you’re ever in the hospital at Methodist and you feel like ordering a beef burrito, I hear they’re spicy.

Continue ReadingPsych!