Continuing the medical visits

Sorry I didn't add a disclaimer to the last post. Please know that dispite anything you read on here, I am home safe and well.

Mike called me the day after the ER visit and said that he was on his way to Utah to go to my dr visits for the week. I think he thought that Trish and I were having too much fun or something and not taking things serious. And since Mike was there instead of Trish there are no pictures for this week. Sorry.

Monday afternoon I had a DEXA scan. Nothing thrilling there. Very uneventful.

Tues I got to visit my GI dr. He is getting to know me; maybe better than he wants to. He gives me a hard time. He is a nice guy. I told him about my elevated blood level and my trip to the ER. This blood level is not supposed to be over 125 and mine was well over 1,000. He said that 1,000 is high but they don't get too concerned until it is 10's of thousands or hundreds of thousands. I do have a muscle biopsy in a couple of weeks. We will see if anybody figures anything out from that.

Wed I met up with my GI dr again. He did my scope. This is how it went from my point of view. I walked into the exam room and laid on the table. They gave me some happy juice in my IV. My world started getting fuzzy and spinning. The next thing I knew, the nurse was making me wake up. I hate that. I am sleeping so restful and they start yelling that I have to wake up. Then the nurse tells me that my heart had raced for about 7-8 seconds during my procedure and cardiology would be coming to check me out. (FYI:  I did not walk out of the exam room). 

My app't was at 11:30 and I left the hospital about 5:30. My procedure only last a half hour. I think I might have beat Rachel with that recovery time. I learned that about 2 minutes into my procedure, my heart started racing. I think they called it afib. Cardiology did an echocardiogram and an EKG. Everything checked out fine. They think the epidode was caused by medication. My dr was able to complete my procedure. That was good news. I'll bet he will think twice before doing another scope on me. (I guess I'd do anything to get out of those yucky scopes).  I do have to wear a heart monitor for a month to double check that everything is ok. Those same meds have never had that effect on me before.

At first my nurse was really low key and matter of fact about my heart episode. After my heart checked out ok, I guess she decided I wouldn't have a heart attack so she told me that I had them pretty concerned for a couple of minutes. My nurse was exceptionally nice. When they came to do a blood draw, she came over and held my hand. It made me laugh (to myself). How many millions of blood draws have I had? But it was very thoughful and sweet of her. She also stuck around until I was released. Fortunately for her, that was just a few minutes beyond when she should have quit.


After all that excitement, Mike decided that he had had enough fun for one week and it was time for him to go home and back to work.

Meanwhile, I had one more app't. Thur I visited with my friends at nutrition support. It's a good thing they don't charge by the hour because I was there for a couple of hours. The 1st 15 minutes or so was social. These people have helped me through getting started on TPN and all my complications for over 19 yrs. It's nice to check in with them and they still give me ideas about TPN and other things.

I finally decided that I had had enough fun and it was time for me to go home. But don't worry I have several more app't scheduled in SLC in the next month.

What a ride

Carl has been notorious for Sat the 14th bad luck. I guess that proves that he is a day behind. Anyway, I got my turn with his bad luck, but it did start on Friday the 13th. About 5 PM on the 13th I got a call from my doctor. I have an elevated blood level that we have been watching. She was concerned that it was still elevated and wanted me in the hospital. Of course it was Friday afternoon so we could not contact my SLC dr so he could give his input and help make hospital arrangements.  

My dr and I discussed whether I would go to the Elko hospital or go to SLC. I told her that since I had 4 medical app'ts in SLC starting on Monday, I would like to go over there. I also wanted to be in Salt Lake since this was not a common problem. She had no problem with that but stressed that I needed to get to the hospital soon. In fact she asked if I could leave in like 5 minutes. She was concerned with kidney failure. I told her I would be at the University Hospital in Salt Lake the next day. Sharon told me that I should be at the hospital in the morning so I wouldn't spend all night in the ER while they decided what to do. It made sense to me so I packed up and headed out at 8:30. Trish was kind enough to let me crash at her house in the middle of the night. Thanks to Lance and Steph for talking to me while I drove over to help keep me awake. It made the drive go quick too.

I woke up Sat morning and laid in bed for a while thinking how tired I was. Then I decided that I had just as well get up and get it over with or at least get started.

Trish promised me a ride to the hospital with lights and sirens. She was the siren. RRRRRRRRRRRRR  RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR  I was the lights (dang budget cuts).  Traffic was light and we thought we could cut the lights and sirens but then Trish decided to run a red light in downtown Salt Lake. We were forced to go with lights and sirens again. We were prepared that if she got pulled over, we would just explain that we were on our way to the hospital. That should have been obvious with the lights and sirens.

We arrived at the hospital safely, but that wasn't really Trish's fault. We stopped to take a couple of pictures.  

We were trying to decide which one of us should be the patient.  It's been many years since I have been in the hospital, but my experience still paid off.   I WON!!!!

Then the wait began. There was a sign on the wall explaining the dress code. Purple is house keeping, red or blue are CNAs or admitting people, white is nurses and black is doctor. We waited 2 to 3 hours for someone in  black. She finally found me!!!  (Yes, our family spends way too much time in hospitals. I'm trying to be serious and talk to the dr and Trish pulls out the camera).  I thought if we were obnoxius enough, they would get us out quicker, but I think my nurse was actually quite entertained by us.

Sorry that this picture is not centered. Molly fixed them for me but this one was out of order so I moved it but couldn't get it centered. (Don't yell at me Molly).

The doctor's decision was that since my kidney function is totally normal, they had nothing to warrant hospitalization. So after spending over 5 hrs in the ER, they sent me home. 

But not before we got to eat. Yep, that is a $1,000 box lunch that I am eating. Trish is eating one also. That's what I got for my $2,000 + visit. Oh and they gave me an IV also.  

This is what I did when I got back to Trish's house. You will notice that I had some company also.

After a rest, I was ready for dinner. Trish was grilling zucchini. I gave her a little help. You might notice the spatula in one hand and the other hand turning the zucchini. Yep. If you use the spatula, the zucchini fall through the grill but Trish insisted that I have a spatula.

I need to thank Lance and Molly for giving me lessons on getting my pictures on the blog. Now hopefully I will get other pictures on here so I don't forget how to do it. Molly and Lance almost wrote the captions on here for me. Maybe that will be a project for another day.

Oh and stay tuned. This is just the 1st installment in my report of my dr visits in Salt Lake. Don't worry about me, I feel fine. I have follow-up tests scheduled in a couple of weeks.

How cold is it?

I took out a bag of TPN this afternoon and it was frozen. I told you it is cold here. I need to remember that when it cools off, I need to adjust the temperature on my fridge in the garage.

I didn't even open my windows today. Fall is officially here at my house. We're supposed to get down to 35 tonight. I'm not expecting much of a harvest this year. Oh well, I guess that's what I get for being neglectfull all summer.

BBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

It's cold! I had to close all the windows in my house and still thought I might have to turn on the furnace. I think the electric blanket will be sufficient and my flannel pajamas.
It isn't supposed to get that cold tonight, only down to 36 or so but it is chilly. I covered my garden. I hope it survives.

GI Dr

I spent a week in SLC entertaining several drs. Stay tuned for more details. My GI doc got to do his first upper scope on me (lower scopes are not an option). He was impressed with all my polyps. I forgot to warn him of that. He also wanted me to see Dr Burt at Huntsman who is a nationally known authority on FAP. On my way home from SLC I get a phone call. It is from the hereditary colon cancer registry (or something like that) at Huntsmans. The girl would make an awesome telemarketer or maybe she was one in another life. She started out saying that my dr requested them to contact me and then proceeded to tell me about the registry and on and on and on. I finally was able to tell her that I was already involved with her registry. Well apparently that was not part of her script so she went back to her agenda. It was very irritating to me. At one point she asked if I knew whether or not I had had genetic testing done. DUH!!! Yes, I would hope I would know whether or not I had genetic testing done. I made an appointment for genetic counseling mostly because I have been needing to update my file with the registry. I sure hope this girl is only the receptionist and that she isn't involved in my appointment or I may have a rough time.

I'll pay any medical bill in my mail box

A year ago a bill from the U of U Med Center arrived in my mailbox. I set it aside and a couple of days later went to open it. (Put off the agony for as long as possible. The funny thing was that I didn't think I owed them anything. Just before I opened the letter, I noticed that it was not my bill. It was addressed to someone down the street from me. Wheew!

Today I was going through my mail and opened a bill that was being sent to collections and this was the first time I had even seen the bill. I was in the car heading to the Dr's office to find out what was going on. As I was backing up I looked at the letter one more time and noticed that the bill wasn't even addressed to me. And it was for the Nevada Diagnostic Imaging not Elko Diagnostic Imaging. Wouldn't I have looked like a real idiot if I had taken that bill in to the wrong office and asked what was going on. DUH???  Dang mailman needs to be more careful.

What day is it

First, I am happy to report that the garden did just fine last night. According to my thermometer it only got down to 44. It is supposed to be warm again for a while. But I now have the tarps out and ready to go back on it when they are needed.

I have my pills in those handy little pill boxes that have the days of the week on them so old people can keep track of all their pills. I am learning that they work best if the old person knows what day of the week it is before they take their pills. I have several incidents to support that. The worst case was a few days ago. It was time for my night time pills. I dumped out the pills that were in the container for the day. I didn't really notice what I was taking and started popping them into my mouth.  Right after I put the second half of pills in my mouth, one of the pills stood out in my mind. It was my thyroid med that I take in the morning. Remember I said this was evening. I took the pills out of my mouth. I had swolled a calium which I take morning and night and a priloc which I generally only take in the morning. No harm, no foul. I knew something didn't look right with my pills. I was on the wrong day and those were my morning pills. I guess my next step is a container that separates the morning and evening doses.

All you young whippersnappers reading this can just wait because your day is coming. I won't be around to laugh at you, but your kids will. And I assure you that they WILL laugh at you.

Frost Warning

It is Aug 23 and we have a frost warning for tonight! It is supposed to get down to 37-38 somewhere in there. Dang! I'm just barely beginning to start my harvest. Good thing Mike came home tonight and told me to cover the garden. I had no idea. All I have to say is it is way too early to be covering the garden. I had no great expectations for the garden this year, but I didn't expect a total bust.

Hike to Lamoille Lake

This is old news but I wanted to let everyone know that I took a hike to Lamoille Lake last month. It was our cub scout pack meeting. We had someone in worse shape than me and several young children besides all the 8 and 9 yr olds so we took lots of breaks. It was a nice, exhilarating day out enjoying nature. The hike was 4 miles up and 2 miles down. Yep! I measured it and I'm positive that's how it was.

geocaching update

After my and Mike's 1st geocaching attempt on Mon, the score was 0-2. Not so good. So Tues I found one that a couple we know did for their young children. I thought if young kids like Jr Primary age) could find it, then we should have a good chance. Yep. We found it. So now I was confident and went back out today. Today's score was 0-2. I was frustrated. These were supposed to be easy caches also. I took my gps to the successful location and discovered that my gps coordinates did not match up with the ones listed for the cache. Mike was holding the gps when I located it and I guess he didn't check it out. I recalibrated the compass. I will go back to my cache that I can find and see if it matches up now. Right now my assessment of geocaching is frustrating. 

adventure

Mike decided we need to go for a ride tomorrow and I decided that we need to do some geocaching. I can get a cub scout award for it. Long story but it goes to one of my ribbons celebrating 100 years of BSA.

So we were looking on-line for some geocaches along our way. We put in our coordinates and the geocaches that came up were in China. Ooops. I think we did something wrong. So I'm not sure where we might end up tomorrow.

We did find a map of our area with geocaches on it. And I was able to plug them into Tom Tom. So tomorrow, Mike and I and the dogs and Tom Tom are going on an adventure. It could be interesting.

For my cub scout award, I actually have to find some BSA geocaches. I can't find any near me here, but I found a couple near Logan so I guess that will be on my agenda when I go to Utah in a week.

Trish, I tried to find one near you, but no luck. It would be fun to have a partner. But we could do some regular ones if you have time.

I won ........ sort of

When I started with my weeding project, I was supposed to start in the front and work my way back. Somewhere along the way I got distracted and did the side of the house before the front was totally done. The worst thing about this is that eventhough the yard looked much better, that's not what I saw. When I sat at the kitchen table and looked out the window, I could see my little patch of weeds. Today I finished off the weeds in front so it is now safe to look out my front window. (But how long will that last).