This morning the doctors said that Ellyn's white cell count is coming down and that there are no serious infections in her incision so we could be getting close to the end of the hospital stay. They have a bunch of IVs going to get some nutrition into her and she is not taking as many pain killers as she could.

The bad news is she is on the phone with her friends and family more now. (ha, ha)

Finally, a truely good day.

Today was good, end to end. We both got a good night's sleep and Ellyn was pretty perky all day. She did not nap all day and her pains were at a minimum. Actually, she has skipped her pain medication now for about 6 hours. She had several visitors today and was actually laughing with many of them. She also chatted on the phone a few times and read several news papers. She also watched a few TV shows without falling asleep. Pretty good. We may have turned a significant corner here.

Last night was different, not necessarily better. Ellyn got up to use the bathroom and got another bloody nose. She had gotten one earlier here. This one persisted for about an hour and is still bothering her a bit this morning. A good thing is that she woke up feeling the best she has so far. Still not back to normal of course. That may not happen for quite a while.

Another bad night. The fluid removed from Ellyn's abdomin did not alieviate the pain and the new medication they gave her did not work too well. Neither of us got much sleep and they increased the dosages this morning. After a fitful time she finally was able to get a little comfortable and we both napped for a couple hours. Oh, I wish this was over.

Last night was a bad one. Ellyn was really in pain and they did not get to the CAT scan until nearly midnight. She did not get anything to eat or drink the whole day. Then they were going to wait for the scan results before giving her any pain meds so she was in pain all night. We got into a big fight and it was a terrible time for both of us. We got little sleep.

The Dr. finally told us they found that she had a fluid pocket on the right side and was going to have that fluid removed. We hoped this would relieve much of her pain, and she seemed better right afterward. However, now she still seems to be in pain. They are also trying some other pain medication on her to see if it will help her control her pain a little better. Time will tell.

And not today

Ellyn woke up feeling worse this morning. They took her back off food and are going to get her another CAT scan this afternoon to see if there is something they missed. She is a bit depressed and feeling like she will be in pain for a long time. But she has been moving around and walking pretty well so we hope things will improve soon.

Her friend Patti came in and said she was just visiting another friend, Pam Brooks, who slipped on the ice the other day and broke her arm in several places. Ouch!

Better today

So Ellyn was feeling a bit better last night. She had been having backaches and they seem to have gotten better, perhaps thanks to our good friend, Dr. Mike, who brought around some Biofreeze. It is kind of like Bengay only it provides a cold feeling instead of heat. It seemed to help her and so now she is a little more comfortable sitting up in a chair. We are trying to get her on her feet more and to get her O2 level up more. This morning they brought her solid food and will be taking her off of the IV after a final round of antibiotics.Maybe she will be ready to go home on Wednesday but we are not trying to rush it.

New Year Off to a Bad Start

Ellyn and I are not having a good start to the year. She had a recurrence of her diverticulitis from 1999 and ended up with a perforated bowel. She had to have about 12 inches removed and a colostomy bag attached. She will have to have surgery again in about 2 months to reattach her "plumbing".

We have been in the hospital now for 5 days and she may be here for another few, as she is not off of clear liquids or her IVs yet. She is getting pain medication and antibiotics through the IV.

It looks like a diuretic they gave here in recovery, lasix, has cause a loss of hearing in her left ear, which was her good one previously. It is not clear yet whether or not the hearing will be permanent.

2006? Already?

Dang, time flies, whether you're having fun or not. Here it is, the new year, and I have a resolution. This is the year I finish the remodeling. Actually, I told Ellyn I would get it done by spring. I am thinking March. We want the house all fixed up nice so we can have people over to celebrate our 20th anniversary of moving into thi shouse in September. Wow. The kids were 6 and 4. Now they will be 26 and 24. What a difference.

The job is going pretty well, although I am still not getting enough hours. I have started doing some of my own work on the side. I can't work in John's territory, but I can work in Danbury. I have done one job for Bonnie and have another lined up with Aurora's son, Bob.

We saw lots of friends and family over the holidays and have plans to go to Michgan for the July 4th weekend and visit with Mom and Dad as well as my brothers and their families. Should be fun.

Sadly, Brian lost his excellent job with TVGoS so is looking for something else. There seem to be lots of opportunities in the Boston area so he is going to try to stay around there. We gave him a loan to keep himself afloat until he can get something lined up. Hopefully right after the 2nd, he should start hearing from people.

Call me Mr. MCDST

Well, I finally took the tests for Microsoft Certified Desktop Service Technician and passed them both, so now I am a Microsoft Certified Professional. It doesn't do much for me in my current job, except that studying for it was responsible for me getting the part time IT job with CM/IT.

Ever wanted to write a strip for a web-comic? Now you can.

The OpenRMCS (Red Meat Comic Strip) is a web comic that anyone can write for. It features off color humor, random inside jokes, and hilarious characters that the entire Internet can work for.

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I'm in!

I got the CM/IT job I was interviewing for. I had to go to a couple of orientation sessions and take some certification tests but I passed everything and am ready to start working. Probably next week. I am also still working on the MS certification. I will take the first test next Tuesday. I postponed it once and have been using some self test software I purchased access to. This is helping me a lot so I hope the first test will go well. I do not want to have to take the tests more than once. One thing for sure, doing this studying made the certification tests for CM/IT a snap.

Serenity Rocks!

I have seen the new movie "Serenity" twice now and it is great! Gotta see it some more, not only because it is a great movie but because I have to support it so they can get the sequel. They are saying that to get a sequel, they will have to have $80M in US ticket sales. However, if they can make a sequel to "Deuce Bigelow", they can sure make a Serenity sequel. The numbers so far are here.

Just back from class

So I just spent a week taking a couple of MS classes to get my MCDST (Microsoft Certified Desktop Service Technician) cerification. The classes were interesting and now I have a little studying to do so I can take the tests, hopefully sometime next month. I would also like to take a look at the requirements for an A+ certification and see if I can also get that.

The fun part of doing these classes was they were given close to Brian's apartment so I went and stayed at this place for the week. We went bowling one evening and bought him a new mattress. Otherwise it was a pretty quiet week. I also got to see "House" and "CSI" in HD on his big TV.

These classes were paid for by the retraining money IBM gave me after I was "down sized" last year. I am also interviewing for a job with CMIT. I had a call today with them and will have a face-to-face interview on Wednesday. This is for a part-time job doing deskside support in Eastern Fairfield County, CT.

Summer's last gasp?

So today is one of the last (official) days of Summer '05. I wish it weren't so but at least we are having some of the most beautiful weather you could imagine for the holiday weekend. Today we took our kayaks out on Lake Lillinonah. It was ok but we don't like doing the big lakes and rivers like we do the small ones, where there are no speed boats and smoother waters. We did about 5 1/2 miles but had planned to go 9 miles down to Lake Zoar. However, we did not anticipate the dam between them (oops, who knew). So we went about 2/3 of the way to the dam and then came back.

Where the hell did the summer go?

Oh no, it is the end of August. I hate this time of year because I know that soon it will be too cool out to have our windows open at night and we will have to start putting the blankets back on the bed. Also, the leaves will start falling again and I will have to clean the yard.

One of the things I found at the Bridgewater Fair that should help with the leaf cleanup this year is the LG-BAGZ-IT leaf hauler. I am hoping it will be easier than using a blanket and wheelbarrow.

Today I spent a couple hours cleaning the gutters. Of course, they will be full of leaves again soon but at least I got the plants that were growing in them out. Actually, they probably contained a lot of good top soil. I was looking at gutter guard solutions this morning and came upon the truth about gutter systems. Seems gutter guards work better at keeping you from clean out clogs than at keeping out the stuff that clogs them.

I also spent most of the day listening to my favorite podcasts. TWIT (This Week In Tech) and The Signal (Firefly info) are among them.

Speaking of Firefly and Serenity, I am getting really excited about the movie coming on 9/30. I also need to get my DVDs back so I can watch the series and get Ellyn to watch it too, so she will be up to speed on it when the movie comes out.

Kayak Instructions

You can find my instructions for putting the kayaks on top of the van here.

Comics Reader for Windows

So I finally found Comics Reader, a Windows based comics collector which collects and displays daily comics in one page. His website says Windows 3.1 but it has been more recently updated. After installing, I ran the updater and it sucked in the latest fixes. I had to configure a few of my favorites and I sent the author links to the daily pages for some of the King Features comics, which only have archives for a few comics. However, most of them are available at the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer websites. You still have to follow links to see them, as KF won't let you display the image directly without a "referer" (whatever that is) but I still have the links on the page. An improvement over the bookmark list I was using before.

I put in links to the comics I usually read in the paper so I don't have to bother with finding the comics page in the News-Times each day any more.

Update

So Brian and I had a great time at the concert. The Johns put on great shows and Fogerty came out during Mellencamp's set to do a couple of songs with him. We left about 2/3 of the way through Mellencamp's show because Brian had to get to work the next morning and he had more than an hour drive. My ears are still ringing.

Ellyn and I just got back from spending the weekend in Boston with Brian. We went up Friday and came back last night. We went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Imax. The Imax theater was in the back of a furniture store. Very bizzare. We slept in the second bedroom of Brian's apartment. Very bizarre.

On the way home, we got stuck in bad traffic in CT approaching Danbury. Apparently there had been a bus fire on the higway and they had closed it for a while and then opened just one lane. Traffic was backed up about 12 miles. We took about an extra hour to get home.

Where was I?

Looks like I have not posted here for a few weeks. Let's see what has happened.

Brian got a new car after he totaled ours. Now he is on his own insurance and car payments. We are saving a bunch. Here is his new car.


Ellyn and I recently had a couple trips; one to Las Vegas for the second annual Tivo Community Forum Convention (TC-Con'05). A lot of fun and we did not lose too much money at the craps table. The second was a driving trip to Huntsville, Alabama for the wedding of Ellyn's cousin Marge's step-son Isaac. It was a lot of fun with stops to see Ellyn's brother Howard and his wife, Liz and our neice, Sarah, and stopped to see old friends Barbara and Joe Davidson and Art and Barbara Geen.

In the next couple weeks, Brian and I are going to see John Fogerty and John Mellincamp in concert and then Brian, Logan, and I are going to Stafford Springs to see the races.