Back to Work

Ellyn at least. She started back part time on Friday and started driving herself yesterday. Now I have to start making some progress here at home when I am not working. I had a bunch of jobs in the past week and have some more lined up for early next week. Meanwhile, I have the bathtub torn out of the bathroom and am about to plumb in the drain and shower heads.

Home!!!

Whew, finally. After a horrible 16 days, we are in our own home again. Now comes the chore of getting Ellyn comfortable and well again. She is resting in her own bed now and I am happy for that. I will be glad to sleep in a decent bed again for the first time in more than 2 weeks. Whew!

Nor today but tomorrow?

Maybe. Doctors are hopeful, as are we, and Ellyn is much more comfortable sitting up in a chair since they removed nearly a liter of fluid from near her lung. Now she just has a pain from the incision they made to do the draining.

Nope

Not today. Ellyn had the CT scan and they found fluid on her lung. So they drained it and now we will have to stay at least one more night. Groan! Another night on the rollaway. Looking forward to getting into a much more comfortable bed.

Going Home?

The doctors thought we might be able to go home today, but then they thought up some more tests they could run. Ellyn had another CT scan this morning because she had a high heart rate and they thought she could have a pulmonary embolism due to blood clots in her legs. That was negative but they did find some fluid near her lung. We are waiting on a doctor to check that out.

I went home for about 4 hours yesterday to clean up the bedroom for Ellyn's return, since that is where she will be spending most of her time. I also put her chair from the addition up there.

Euphoria and dread

The surgeon this morning said Ellyn could go home tomorrow. Her white cell count was normal in yesterday's blood test. However, this means I have to go home today and ready the house for her. Lots of clean up to do. Ellyn is not quite as happy about this as I am, because she reminded me, it only changes the location of where she is in pain. She is still uncomfortable sitting up, although she is strong walking around and certainly not in as much pain as she was. She has said it sounds funny to her to have people asking about how it feels to have been in the hospital for so long because, for her, the first ten days or so were just a fog and only for the past two or three does she remember with any clarity. Actually, it has all kind of flowed together for me too. In some ways it seems a lot less than two weeks and in other ways, it seems like forever.

It will be wonderful to sleep in our own bed again, although I may sleep in the other room for a while, as Ellyn may be too nervous about me sleeping in the bed with her. The possibility of me rolling over and hitting a sensitive spot might be too much for her.

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.

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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.