8 Random Facts

I was tagged by Scott from Scott Sands Alive to play a little game called 8 Random Facts. In this game you are supposed to put a blog post on your blog with 8 random facts about yourself. After you do this you are supposed to tag 8 more bloggers to do the same thing. Since I only know a few bloggers and Scott already tagged these people I am simply going to post my 8 random facts. So here goes. 1. I am a Cleveland Browns fan (please keep your snickering to a minimum) 2. I believe in the power of energy when it comes to healing 3. I was once told I would never be able to eat again but was able to within a few months 4. I once met three actors from the X-Files 5. I usually hate doing lists like this 6. My great-grandmother contacted me after her death 7. The best concert I have seen is a tie between U2 and Roger Waters 8. I lived in Canton, Ohio for 12 years and never once went to the football Hall of Fame.

A scary situation

Since I had had my bronchoscopy I was having trouble with the high-pressure on my ventilator going off. The doctors said I probably just had some plugs that need to break up. I guess when they look around down in my throat and chest there was a lot of old stuff that they needed to get out and not to mention the trauma created by the poking around. And I did get quite a few large plugs of mucus and old dried up blood. Then on Friday things began to get quite a bit worse. It started out with a lot of stubborn suction. Then it became more and more difficult to even use the ambu bag. At one point it would not work at all but luckily I repositioned and was able to get a little air. We figured the trach was probably blocked. On this particular day it was just me and the nurse at the house. My fear was that if she took the trach out and it was something more than simply the trach tube being blocked I would have been in real trouble. So we called 911 and she bagged me with great difficulty until they arrived. At one point my oxygen went down into the 70% range. After the fact my nurse that day said that if the paramedics had taken any longer she would have had no choice but to stop bagging me and just change the trach. So the paramedics come in and one of them takes over bagging me while my nurse gets ready to change my trach. As soon as it was changed it became easy to bag me and my oxygen saturation went quickly back up to near 90. After all that of course it took quite a while to get back to my normal range of the high 90s. After taking the trach out you could see how it was completely blocked in the end. And after sticking something through it we discovered that it was pretty much blocked through the entire tube. We ended up putting in a smaller size trach that I was using before the doctor told me to use the bigger one. I decided to let my through heal and keep the smaller trach in for a week and then I will try to put the larger trach back in.

A successful procedure

After about six months of not being able to get anywhere when it comes to taking care of the problem of my butt everything seemed to happen quickly within a two-week period. Anyway, to make a long story short I went to the hospital on July 12 for an outpatient procedure. I was scheduled to get a colonoscopy, bronchoscopy, and have what the doctor called Sentinel tags removed from my rear. The anesthesiologist had me have a very quick EKG followed by a stick to get my potassium level. The potassium was a little low but not so low that they could not go through with the procedure. The potassium was probably low because the day before I had to take a great amount of laxatives to prepare for the colonoscopy. And the EKG showed one or two irregularities. The one type I already knew about from the cardiologist but the other one was the first I'd heard of it. Because of that I have appointments to get more blood drawn and see the cardiologist later this week. Since it is difficult for them to start an IV on me they first gave me some gas when I got into the OR. They said that way my body would be more relaxed and the gas would dilate my blood vessels to make it easier to start an IV. It only lasted about 5 or 10 seconds before I was out but that gas was pretty trippy. At one point someone walked by and it appeared as if they had a trail behind them. My colonoscopy was clear, they removed the skin on my butt and did a bronchoscopy. When they did the bronchoscopy they replaced my Shiley 4 trach with a Bovina 6. I guess they had some trouble doing the bronchoscopy though. First they tried going through my nose, and then they tried going through my mouth, and when that did not work they finally took my trach out and went down that way. So when I came out of surgery there was a little blood in my nose and my tongue was swollen to the point that I could not keep it in my mouth. They even gave me some sort of steroid to get the swelling to start coming down. I thought that the bronchoscopy would have been the least of my worries given the other problems. The doctor was concerned after the bronchoscopy though. He said cancel I basically don't have any muscle or fat in my trachea, so it is basically just an open hole. The concern he seemed to have is over time possible perforation. Definitely not a pleasant sounding way to go. Since his specialty is not necessarily the trachea area he told me to find a specialist. Actually, all this information is second hand so I will know more when I go to my follow-up appointment on Wednesday. I was still out of it so the doctor explained everything to my family first. Since this is something serious it is a very good thing that I started having trouble with my low pressure alarm right before I was to schedule the procedure. Otherwise, I would have no clue about this possible problem. I do not know exactly what type of position they must have put my neck in but it is still bothering me. It has gotten a lot better over the past week and a half but not back to normal yet. It took me about four days before I was able to finally get my stomach to stop bothering me after the procedure. My digestive system was basically empty so as soon as I was able to get a good amount of food in me things started to get much better. My butt was sore when it came to using the bathroom but today started to get better with less discomfort. Now I just need my neck to completely stop bothering me and find a specialist for my trach. One little bit of good news is that a good friend of mine is going to come for a visit August 6. She is only staying for 2-3 days but it should still be a nice visit. Now I need to plan some things to do.

I do not have anything new but I just saw the trailer for the new Michael Moore movie which is called Sicko. I plan on seeing it and got a good laugh at some of the scenes in the trailer so I thought you all might like to see it.

More runaround

I finally got my computer on Friday, June 8. It arrived without a monitor though. I guess they neglected to tell us that the monitor was on back order and would not be available to ship until Monday the 11th. So that part arrived this past Thursday. Luckily the monitor from my old computer worked as a temporary fix even though it made everything appear huge on the screen. It took me all weekend I think to figure out how to do things and get everything just the way I like it. And then it took me another day after receiving the monitor to adjust the rest. It has a nice large LCD monitor which allows me to comfortably have several windows open on the screen. The other day I was even able to watch a DVD in the corner while I was checking some e-mail and surfing the Internet.

On Friday night the 8th the low pressure alarm on my ventilator kept going off as I would drift off to sleep. After dealing with that throughout the night called the respiratory company and they had me turn now down the sensitivity on the low pressure. That helped somewhat but then it started doing it again and we tightened up my trachea ties and finally I was able to get some good sleep.

That seemed to be the end of it but then it occurred once or twice throughout the week and several times I woke up either with a headache or short of breath and also I was having difficulty talking properly. So on Friday I called my doctor and the first thing they say is to have the company check it again (the vent). What they sent to the respiratory company said that my ventilator kept shutting off. I don't know how they got that.

Anyway, the company is supposed to come and check it out again on Monday. But in the meantime all of the problems I have been having have have resolved themselves. On this past Friday I was being suctioned and got a considerably large plug out and after this is when I started to feel better. You would think that that would have caused high pressure to go off. I don't know if that was the cause or a coincidence but I am doing much better.

As far as getting my colonoscopy and tags removed I was told by the G.I. doctor that they were not comfortable doing it on me in my area. They recommended I have it done down in Miami at Mount Sinai Medical Center. I think I have a tentative date scheduled for the end of July but I am still not sure what I am doing and if I doing this. I am looking to get more information as to what type of risk it is that they are or I am looking at. I don't know if they are just being overly cautious because of the muscular dystrophy or if there is something else. This is something I am going to be finding out before I decide to do anything.

Catching Up

First of all, my father was released from the hospital on the 24th after a heart catheterization found no blockage. He was sent home on blood pressure medication and cholesterol lowering medication. He is now back to his normal activities and now both himself and my mother have stopped smoking. They did remarkably well during the first week using the patch and nicotine gum. But this weekend they were starting to get a little irritable. Still there doing a lot better than the last two times they tried. On Sunday the 27th we ordered a new computer which is to be my birthday gift. Seeing it has not arrived yet it will be a belated birthday gift but I am quite excited about it. It is a great price for such a fast computer. It is using the fastest chip that is made by AMD at the moment. That is due to arrive at the end of the week. On Friday which was my birthday (June 1st) I went out for the evening. We left the house (one of my nurses, a friend of hers and myself) around 3:30 in the afternoon and went to Ruby Tuesday for lunch/dinner. I had my usual which is Creole catch which is just grilled tilapia which comes with rice which I always replace with mashed potatoes. It was delicious. I think I only had one bad meal at the place. My nurse had a BLT and her friend just ate from the salad bar. Altogether the total was only $40, not bad for three meals. After dinner we headed for a local strip club. The last time I was there all the girls seem to be on drugs but we decided to give the place another chance. This time all the girls seemed to be clean. It was still rather early when we arrived and I was not very impressed by the girls. They were all rather rough looking. After we were there about an hour they had some girl from Penthouse magazine perform. It was okay but you could tell she really didn't want to be there. It seemed like after that some better looking girls started dancing. There was only one who I would consider gorgeous, a nice Asian girl. I wanted to get a private dance from her but she was pretty popular and busy. So I got one from a very attractive blond girl. Not really much to write about it was just a typical night at a strip club. The whole thing gives rather boring after several times. Which is why I only go once in awhile not to mention money. It was an early night though we were back home by a little after 9 PM. I had a good time though. I currently don't have any plans yet for the next several weeks besides playing with my new toy. Also, I am still working on getting the colonoscopy and tags removed. I keep calling the doctor's office to make sure documents were faxed. Seems like a bit of a run around but am closer to getting things resolved. Hopefully it will not be as long before my next post.

Hypertension

Well, after a busy but pretty good week last week, we are off to a rocky start this week. I am fine but my father is the one having the trouble. On Monday evening he suddenly got a very severe headache to the point of having to lie down. When the headache had not gone away in the morning he decided to take his blood pressure which was close to 180 over 140. So needless to say he went to the doctor who in turn sent him to the ER. What concerns me is the fact that he was nearly in an accident about two weeks ago and hit his head. He was riding his electric bike home (which goes about 20 miles an hour at the most) when he heard a car getting extremely close and moved the bike out of the way. When he swerved the bike hit the curb and he fell off. He hit his head but luckily he had his helmet on. He also had a hole above his lip. The next morning he looked at the helmet and it was dented. But being the typical male refused to go to the doctor. The next morning he had a bad headache but it eventually went away. My mother told me he had a few episodes of high blood pressure the past week or so. Anyway, at the ER they took a lot of blood work, an EKG, a chest x-ray, and a catscan. They also gave him to doses of a drug to lower the blood pressure which gave him a bad headache so they had to give them something else to relieve the headache. We still do not have the results of the scan and they admitted him to the hospital overnight. So we will no more in the morning.