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.
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!
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.
This is Lloyd’s patented ‘i.v. protection glove’ for taking a shower and keeping your hand dry.
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Ok, that’s all for now. We have to tape Lloyd’s second lesson.