Wednesday; Long Overdue...

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

And so it begins again.
This blog entry is the first entry that I have made using Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, since my laptop hard drive had crashed a matter of weeks ago. I guess, in all honesty, I have been putting off using the software because of the long training that I had to go through the first time that I installed it and I didn't want to have to just sit here and go through that all over again. What I learned when I opened it up for the first time this morning, is that the software updated itself and its searched through my MS Word documents in My Documents folder, as well as looking at the sent e-mail messages that I had sent using Outlook. From its gathered information, it created a profile of how I write and it has used that to begin my profile, as opposed to my reading, as from before.
So with all that being said, I'm using the dictation software now to make this blog entry.

I just looked at my blog site and realized that it has been over 14 days since I have sent in a reasonable blog entry, and I feel like a schmo. Where I will go from here, is to do my best at recalling the more significant events over the last few weeks, as opposed to trying to recall each and every thing that had taken place; I know there's no way that I could pull that off, especially with my memory being how it still is these days.
I think as I begin, I will just share the different memories that I recall as I recall them, instead of trying to lock them down to a timeline; that will be easier.

Today is Wednesday, January 14, of the New Year 2009, and it is probably the fifth day in a row that I have woken up with an upset stomach, only to see it get worse after eating breakfast. Even today, I needed to lie down after eating breakfast and take a nap for an hour or so. CC and I are thinking that it is due to a new blood pressure medicine that my primary doctor put me on last week, called Norvasc. Now, Norvasc is not new to me; I was on it for a few years, somewhere between 2000 and 2003. I switched out for different BP medication because the Norvasc had created swelling in my ankles and my feet and my calves. So far, this is not happened with me yet, but I'm keeping an eye out for it. It was last week, when my primary care physician had his nurse call and schedule an appointment for me to see him regarding me beginning a blood pressure medicine (Norvasc) as well as a cholesterol medicine, due in part to my blood pressure readings the last number of times that I had come to see him in the office (my BP was elevated each time that I had come to see him) and the last number of labs that pertained to my cholesterol, showed that my cholesterol numbers were elevated. I believe I saw him on Tuesday of last week; the appointment went fine and I had no attacks or elevated stress during the appointment itself. This past Friday, just three days after seeing the doctor, I was feeling very poorly in the morning and when CC called on her break while at work, I had shared with her that I was feeling yucky and she asked what my symptoms were. After sharing those symptoms with her, she suggested that I take my blood pressure reading, and tell her what the numbers were. The numbers were definitely high (180/110 -- 198/115) and so I called the advice nurse with Kaiser and she asked that I come in to the ER to be evaluated. It so happened that my parents were driving up that Friday morning to come and spend a long weekend with us, and they arrived while I was finishing my phone call with the advice nurse. When I got off the phone with Kaiser, I asked my parents to take me to the ER in Roseville, and we spent the following nine hours or so in Kaiser Roseville's ER department. Since my last visit to Kaiser Roseville's ER, they completely rebuilt and added on a huge ER department with five or six different wings dedicated to ER patients, and they increased the number of ER doctors so that patients don't have to wait as long to see an ER doc as they had to in the past. Along with that, they've created a facility where patients do not have to lie on gurneys in the hallways anymore, which is a huge blessing. When we got to the ER that morning, there was virtually no one in the waiting area, and no one in line. After registering, a nurse promptly walked out with a wheel chair and took me into the back and put me into one of the rooms to be triaged by the nurses on duty in that station.
Typically when I go into an ER, it's because of HK PP, and I seldom remember anything of the visit, but this time, I remember most all of the visit because the issue was related to blood pressure and not my disease. It is also worth noting that their computer system is now one single software system, no longer two separate software systems that have to talk to each other to share information, which has always been a pitfall in the past visits; my doctor would have all of my allergies listed, as well as problem medications listed, but the ER system did not get that information, so we would always struggle with the ER nurses and doctors regarding what medicines I could have and what I could not have, most significantly being saline, insulin and albuterol. On this visit, when they put my medical number in, apparently there were warnings that came up letting them know that I could not have saline, in particular, as well as some of the other medicines, which positively shaped the outcome of my stay. I still have issues of timeliness dealing with seeing the doctor and getting appropriate attention from him, but the experience was nothing like the past, and that is a good thing. As it turns out, they really didn't do much of anything for the high blood pressure, and it seemed to come down on its own, especially after receiving a dose of IV Ativan medicine, which helped to shut down an occurrence of spasms that began when I got chilled while being taken on a gurney to the x-ray department and back. As is par for my course when it comes to an ER visit, I don't remember much of anything after getting the Ativan or going home or getting into bed or going to sleep.

I woke up the next morning, Saturday, feeling very tired and exhausted and somewhat beat up, however, my blood pressure numbers were not nearly as high as they were the previous morning, though they were still higher than they should be (170s/100s).

My sister and her family (everyone but Sterling) came up later that Saturday morning and spent the whole day with us in a familial celebration of Christmas, something we were not able to do at Christmas time itself. I think that Saturday went very well, considering everything that had happened the previous Friday, and I was able to make it through breakfast, lunch and even dinner/dessert before having an attack shortly after taking a series of family photos altogether. The attack hit pretty hard and pretty quick; I remember talking with CC in the living room, standing next to our video cabinet, when all of a sudden I was no longer able to stand on my own and began to fall. The voices I remember hearing next to me were those of CC, Missy, and Erik (my nephew). It was a very crappy way close out my Saturday night, especially because I was not able to see my sister and family off as they left to go back home to the Bay Area.

Sunday morning I woke up feeling par for the course, but we were all able to go to church that morning, all of us being me, CC and the kids, along with my parents. We have decided to return to Capital Christian Center and make that our home church, even though it is about 20 to 25 minutes away. The service was good, and it ministered to me; I was glad I was there.

Monday and Tuesday were both unremarkable days, though I was able to go to physical therapy on Tuesday, and Mark went ahead and had me do some exercises along with the stretching, which certainly helped my self-esteem probably more so than it helped my body; who knows?

The week before last week, the week of New Year's I think, my good and very dear friend Brian Kunz was able to come up and visit us for a day and a half. He is such a joy to be with and such a good friend. Though the visit was fairly short, it was enjoyed nonetheless. He is the one and only, "Uncle Brian" to my kids since my days at Menlo Park Presbyterian where he was my right-hand man during my tenure there. Brian is a pleasure.

As I had suspected might become the case, since Christmas day, I have spent more time on the Xbox, as far as free time goes, than I have sitting down and paying attention to my e-mails and phone calls and blog, I'm sorry to say. I realize that that reads as though I have spent all of my free time playing on the Xbox, but that is not the case. The primary user of the Xbox is Joshua, and I would be second in line to him. The whole Xbox, Nintendo, game Station, PlayStation, Wii are all platforms and systems that I am not familiar with, as far as use or approach. Josh and Missy have picked up the use of the Xbox instantly, because they have been raised in the digital age. I, however, was raised in the analog age. If I wanted to play a “video game”, I would have to go to movie theaters or pizza restaurants where they had arcade games that you could go and play. And the controls for those games were not universal, as they are with the PlayStation's and Xbox's and such now. I am definitely intrigued by Xbox Live, a feature of Xbox, which allows gamers to use their Xbox system to play with other Xbox users over the Internet without having to leave their living room or make a phone call, necessarily, to connect up with a friend and play the same game together. I am definitely hopeful to be able to figure that out more effectively and be able to connect up with some of my friends, but the challenge for me in gaming with friends is going to be that I'm not heavily competitive and do not enjoy competing against friends in “do or die” battles and the like. Hopefully I can find some kind of middle ground there and not end up frustrated with the whole process.

I experienced mixed feelings when it came to sharing in the blog that we were able to purchase an Xbox for Missy and Joshua to be able to have this past Christmas. Most everyone who reads this blog with any sort of regularity, knows that we have been struggling financially for a few years now, since my departure form FOPC and loss of incomes respectively. The only way we have stayed afloat in the midst of all of this turmoil has totally to do with God and His mercy on us, and His graciousness towards us as well as having to do with gifts and graciousness on the parts of family and friends. If it had not been for some miraculous financial gifts that we had received just prior to Christmas day, our Christmas would have been far, far different. I guess I just don't want people to think that we go around and blow money on toys and games whenever we are blessed with gifting from others. The gifting we received, we were told, was specifically intended to be used for Christmas gifts for us and our kids, and we did just that, as well as were able to buy gifts for family as well, and if there is anyone who is reading this, that was involved in that giving, please, please know that all four of us were touched very deeply and that CC and I are forever grateful to have been able to afford gifts for the kids this past Christmas; we cannot think each of you enough.

I think this is probably the best place to close out this entry; It’s time for some sustenance, so for now, be blessed, and I will look forward to NOT going another two weeks before sharing more.
Peace.