LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

Lauren

Booooo!

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Stupid everything....grrr

“Boooo” as in “Terrible!  Horrible! No Good!  Very Bad!”   We are just experiencing a series of plagues, I think.

I started to list them all, but that’s just too much whining.   Let’s just say that this has been a bad week all around.  Too much going on and not enough time to deal with it.  Lloyd’s health, lots of driving around, our basement at school flooded during Tuesday’s torrential rain and then got stinky, and I’m nowhere near ready for Saturday’s conference.  Lloyd’s bummed because five hours into making his video lesson for tomorrow, his computer crashed and lost all the information, dang it.  

Bright side, though!  Things could be much worse!

 

“Where does he get those wonderful toys?”

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By far and away, the best part (that is, the only good part) of this whole ordeal is that I’ve had to do a little shopping.  Lloyd’s supposed to weigh himself everyday to make sure he doesn’t suddenly gain weight.  (If he does, it means he’s retaining water – making it hard for his heart to beat, or that he’s grown an extra leg or something.  You think you could figure that out without a scale.)  I really wanted to get one that measured body fat and all that stuff, but the buttons looked hard to navigate.   I went with a simple digital ‘weight only’ model.

So shiny.. I hope a raccoon doesn't steal it.

I also bought one of those Grandpa pill counters.  He has three different medicines to take, so this was so cool!  Each day pops out of the weekly tray.  I also spurged and bought a completely unnecessary pulse monitor.  Yeah, it’s for him so we can see what activities make his heart beat slower/faster, but really I wanted to wear it to prove that housework can be called exercise.

Oh, how I love gadets!

Home again, home again, jiggety jig.

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Well, we’re home. Lloyd called me at school around 10 and said that they could discharge him today! I shared that will the preschoolers who were busy making ‘Get Well’ cards. (Actually, some of them were making ‘Thank You’ cards – oh well.) I got to the hospital around noon, and things looked fine. They said someone would come and talk to us, then he could go.

A very nice physician’s assistant came in and went over what we needed to know.  I’ll never be able to get across how this sounded, but read it as if you were a preschooler and a grown up was teaching you a big word.  Not condescending, just ‘big-word-y’. She said, “Now, I’m hear to tell you about your condition, which is called (holding up the folder of information with the title) ‘Heart Failure’.” Zoinks!!! Again, she wasn’t weird, it was just that first sentence It sounds much, much scarier than it is. One of his ventricles is just a little weak, so he needs medicine to help it get stronger  (I think I talked about that before.) She said that since he’s so young and in pretty good shape, he really just needs to take it easy for a while and restrict salt from his diet. We went down the list of foods high in salt and….. well, let’s just say that snacks are right out. We scored bonus points for not eating out very much, although it’s due to my cheapness rather than health maintenance.

We asked to visit with the doctor again, because what he told Lloyd about ‘take it easy’ and what the nice p.a. said seemed very different.  Well, as we all know, seeing the doctor is a tough task. We finally decided to just go, and ask questions over the phone tomorrow.  As of now, we’re going with what we believe they recommend – Lloyd’s going to take this week off, then go in next week and just teach his 7th grade math, not the high school stuff.

So, we’ve unloaded the car, put the stuff away, I made a fairly salt-free dinner that was loaded with three different kinds of Mrs. Dash, and now I’ll show some pictures. If you click ‘continue reading’, all those pictures will come up  Lloyd’s folks and my folks have dial-up, so it’s tough to load pictures.

Here’s Lloyd, waiting for the ambulance from Lincoln.

Is that the recovery position?

Here he is after getting checked in.   Note the time – we’ve been up for 4 1/2 hours. Dang it, Saturdays are for sleeping in!

Ho hum

This guy did not think it was amusing when I asked about taking pictures. I think he thought I was asking for a print-out, because he kept saying, “I think this printer doesn’t work”. Anyway, he didn’t know I took this picture. (Don’t tell him.)

This was the cool couch I ‘slept’ on Saturday & Sunday night. The photo is for demonstration purposes.ÂI really had a pillow and cover.

It's so gadgety!

This is Lloyd’s patented ‘i.v. protection glove’ for taking a shower and keeping your hand dry.

 Water has no chance!

Ok, that’s all for now. We have to tape Lloyd’s second lesson.

Update 2

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He’s up and about, and doing well.  He had to lie still for six hours after the catheter was removed so he wouldn’t mess up the clotting of that wound.  We had some visitors during that time: Beth stopped by on her way back from Missouri and brought some ‘Dishes of Happiness’ – some yummy candy for Lloyd an pop for me  (Thanks, Beth!) Then the Kollipara crew dropped by with more goodies!  Ian and Brighton drew some wonderful pictures, Stephannie made up a box of candy, pop and games to keep Lloyd occupied, and Samith provided Lloyd’s lifeline – a wireless internet connection for the laptop so Lloyd can check his baseball scores! (The hospital computer we’ve been using blocks that site.) Thanks to them, the six hours passed quickly.  (Although, Lloyd can tell you his ‘peeing lying down into a bottle’ story later.)

This evening he showered, put some clothes back on, and we videotaped his geometry lesson for the 7th graders.  He used the whiteboard in one of the conference rooms, and it went quite well!  I hope they like it. 

We’re heading for bed.  Tomorrow I’ll go back to Seward to teach in the morning, then back here.  We’ll keep you ‘posted’!

Heart Cath

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IMPORTANT: Read the post below this first.

We named this post ‘Heart Cath’ because ‘Shaved Groin’ might have put you off.  So, it’s a little more serious now. The doctor came in and said he’d like to rule out myaparacarditis (spelling?), where the actual muscle is affected, not just the sac.  That involves doing a heart catheter. (spelling?)

Zoinks!

So, we watched a little nine-minute video about the procedure.  I said that wouldn’t be necessary, since I watch lots and lots of medical shows, but they insisted.  It was very informative, but they put some nut-job in charge of the soundtrack.  It had sad, slightly creepy ‘beginning of the horror movie where the innocent family is moving their belongings into the doomed house’, haunted-music-box music.  It washard not to laugh.

The nurse informed us of the risks, and they were ready right away!  Lloyd had to strip down to his gown and socks, and they took him to the cath lab.  He said it was very interesting, but he’s resting now and I’ll let him describe it later.

After about an hour the doctor came out and said that he does have a little myaparacarditis, but it shouldn’t be a problem. His chances of getting better are quite good.  They’re going to get him on some medicine and keep him here for a few days to watch him.

That’s all for now.  I appreciate you leaving comments rather than calling  – our cell phone batteries are pretty low.

More updates later!