"Gather ye rose-buds while ye may." Robert Herrick

"Gather ye rose-buds while ye may." Robert Herrick

Hello Friends!

Friends, Romans, countrymen...y'all. Foodies, gardeners, artists and collectors - let's gather together to share and possibly learn a thing or two in the mix.

Donna Baker

Showing posts with label heart disease. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heart disease. Show all posts

Friday, February 19, 2016

Best And Worst Of Times


This has been quite a week.  Dark days and days of light.


First of all, my heart tests have turned out well.  I am so relieved.  Couple of issues to find out about, but no heart disease.  It has been such a relief and I don't have to go back to the cardiologist for six months.

I was gone to the city for more than a week.  I hire someone to feed the animals or my husband does it when I am gone.  I came home this Wednesday night and all was well.  Teddy, my little man, stays in the house 90% of the time and can in fact open the door to let himself in.  The sweetest and most loving cat ever.  When he was born at the barn, I found him hidden in the shop behind a large shelf. His mother had moved her litter in there when the door was left open.  I found them just in time.

As Teddy grew, about 6 inches long, he would run as fast as he could to the 4 wheeler when we'd ride up to the barn.  From the time he was born, he just stole our hearts and loved us in return.  It wasn't long before he lived with us up at the house.



Here is Teddy in the catbird seat.  Don't know how many birds visited this day.




I love this picture of Teddy as he was balled up in the asparagus patch, playing while I tried to clean it out. Such a playful and loving boy. 

Wednesday night he was in my lap, purring and in my face.  Glad that we were back home. Even bugged the weenies too. He slept in bed with me and the weenies all night.  I put him outside at 8:00 am and by 9:30 I saw him lying on the patio.  I won't go on, but rushed him to the vet and she did all she could to save Teddy.  His lungs were filled with fluid.  The Dr. said from her exam and X-ray 3 things could do that.  Electrocution, heart worms, which are rare in cats or a fungal infection.  She said it was grave.  She tried all day to save Teddy, but he died last night.  She offered to do an autopsy, but it wouldn't bring my Teddy back.  I loved him so.  It broke my heart. 

I sent my husband to pick him up this morning and we buried him. I am going to miss him terribly.

The best part of this week is that my son got an internship this morning at 6:30 am when the results were released.  We've all been on pins and needles waiting on this process. He got his number one pick.  I'll go into the internship selection process later.  It is all computerized now and is a horrible system.  Four hundred students nationwide did not get a match and will have to wait another year to re-apply. He had to fly and drive all over the country to interviews the first part of the month on a salary that is below poverty level. 

 He and his wife are over the moon though.  They will have to move and sell their house.  I won't get to see my Penny Lane nearly as often, but they are so happy and if he is happy, I am happy.  He will do the internship and his post doc at The University of Oklahoma.  He will be working with the counseling center and also with the athletics department, studying the athletes for head injuries and traumatic brain injury.  My boy is ecstatic. After such a long road and hard work, he can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Life at its best and worst.






Wednesday, February 10, 2016

An Apple A Day


My favorite apple, the Red Rome.  I can find it at only one store nowadays.  They have replaced them with all different and new strains of apple.  They told me people want the newest ones.  Well, I want the old ones. They even have a grape scented one which does smell like grape.  Guess it is good for diversity, but I want my Red Rome back.

This tableau was a joke.  If you are old enough, you remember your grannie's Tupperware.  Don't know if it was sold anywhere besides the US, but every household had Tupperware.

I made this necklace to wear to my first visit with the cardiologist yesterday.  My sister went with me and said I couldn't wear that.  Then she dared me to.  I decided not to in case the doctor wasn't of a certain age as he wouldn't get the joke.

Well, he wasn't - a mere babe, young enough to be my child.  But, he made me feel better and scheduled a couple of tests.  Just waiting for the insurance to approve them. What I didn't tell you before, is I am at high risk for heart disease.  I have Syndrome X and am diabetic, etc.  Plus, one of my brothers had sudden cardiac death at age 45.  Another had a heart attack last month at age 49 and had stents put in.  My sister had a silent heart attack at 36 and has tachycardia.  I don't know all the abbreviations and such, but the family history is there.



Here is what was in the little tupperware bowl.  Aspirin. I thought it was funny, but now I find out that the little bowl was for pills.  Couple of things to pass on.  He told me not to take the whole 325 mg. aspirin, but a baby aspirin.  And,  the recent studies about Prilosec and heart disease in older patients is a misnomer as they still prescribe it for their patients to deal with the effects of their heart meds.  I was glad to hear that as I have been taking it for years and can't go without it.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

To Know Or Not To Know


Oh good grief!  I have always prided myself in the knowledge of medicine: I used to read medical books for fun, and in fact,  early on, wanted to be an internist. Anyway, cut to the chase.  Do you want to know the answers to medical questions regarding your health?  The queen of anxiety ought to know better.

In regard to my recent heart referral, I thought maybe I should know a little of what's going on in there.  Wrong. The reader in the posts' picture should have her eyes open wide after reading the page; bugged out as mine were last night.

I decided to look up entropy last night and watched a Khan Academy video on the subject.  Too technical though I got the disorder part spiraling into chaos (as I did also after reading all that stuff.)  So, next, I typed in entropy in relation to heart disease which took me to a site with scientific articles I think must have been for the professionals.  Still too much information so I hit on PVC's, which I have, and OMG.  They can lead to cardiomyopathy (no one ever said a word about that), then, I clicked on diabetic cardiomyopathy and shit.....  

I have decided I am of the ilk that doesn't want to know what is going on down in that chaotic closed environment.  Jeez.  It's enough to give me a heart attack.