New Year's Eve

Woo, hoo. The fun never ends. Spending a quiet New Year's Eve in her hospital room. I brought her a bunch of goodies to celebrate with, but she liked the flashing Christmas Tree glasses the best. — with Mandy Hushing and Kristan Attardi Hushing at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center Denver.

Snoozing

Mandy and I stopped by PSL for several hours after our walk at City Park. Kristan was pretty much asleep the entire time. Her nurse says she didn't sleep last night at all, so we just let her snooze. Then I noticed an email on my phone from our homeowners association president, saying that water was running down the hill from the direction of our house, and there was some concern that someone had a broken water pipe. So, I gathered up my things and rushed home. It doesn't appear that it was coming from our house, thank goodness.

City Park

Another gorgeous walk through Denver City Park, 28° and rising on this beautiful sunny day. Mandy was up for the walk, until she got out into the deep snow and froze her toes. It was funny seeing her ears poking up in the car window when we got back.

Progress

We saw a composite page with photos the wound care RN has taken over the past few weeks, and are pleased that K's wound is healing. We just need to continue encouraging her to keep eating, especially the protein, which helps so much with healing. - With Kristan at P/SL

Christmas Eve at PSL

It feels like a little bit of a party here with Kristan. She's in great spirits. The Carpenters are singing from their Christmas CD. Mandy and I are here of course. Lorene is still here, and shared my combo plate from Jerusalem. Amy came to visit, and brought some wrapped gifts, fun to open. And every once in awhile, a CNA or RN stops by, to say goodbye or hello, and wish us a Merry Christmas, as shift change occurs.

Morrison

Beautiful 37° walk along Bear Creek in Morrison. Just a little ice in the creek right now. Nice Christmas evergreen cuttings on the bridge. Found a geocache sitting out in plain sight, which seemed strange. Spent the whole time chatting with my big Sis - a very pleasant way to spend the morning. :-)

Long haul

I saw a pic of her wound today, first time since the surgery. Really large, really deep, really disconcerting. The good news, is that they say it looks better than it was. They are still estimating six months to a year before it could be healed.

deKoevend Park

Nice walk around deKoevend Park. Still some snow on these trails from last weekend.

Frosty walk

Walked around Denver City Park. Snowing lightly, and temp right around freezing. Mandy opted to stay in the car today. She's not a big fan of precipitation. We were glad the Zoo serves hot coffee. Funny. The snow and low light made the picture look black and white...

OK visit

A helicopter was lifting off just as I arrived; always fun for me to see stuff like that. She was wide-awake and in relatively good spirits, considering, and we chatted a little, before I headed off to my work's holiday party not too far away. She was told she may not be released until January. Probably not to home - more like a skilled nursing facility (SNF). — with Mandy and Kristan at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center Denver.

Good spirits

Stopped by PSL after our walk at City Park. She was in pretty good spirits. We'll be back later tonight...

Surgery done

7:55pm Dr Schnur says the surgery is done. She did well. The wound is quite large and deep. He took a lot of bad tissue. He had to take some bone. They took a culture, to look for infection in the bone. She will be in recovery another hour or so. Then they will take her back up to Select. So, my guess is she should be back up in her room sometime after 9 PM. Here she is, just outside the operating room, with her trusty escort Mandy, before going in.

DC Colorado tree light pattern 12/5 4:09 pm MST

https://www.youtube.com/whitehouse

Stage 4

They have pronounced the wound stage four, large and deep, down to the bone. She's started doing a better job yesterday and today, of drinking Nepro to build up her protein and get some carbs, which would give her some chance to heal. Today's doctor Wyrick strongly recommends debridement surgery, even though it will leave bone exposed. She's talked to K's wound, endocrinology, and nephrology docs, and the one who would do the surgery, and they all agree. It'll have to be better than it is now. K says the staff here are so much more professional. Mandy enjoyed her third visit, although she did have to wait for them to finish dialysis, before she could hop on the bed and cuddle up.

Transferred to PSL

Kristan was transferred to Presbyterian St. Luke's (PSL) long-term acute care facility this afternoon. They have a big job ahead of them, tending the wound, and getting her to eat, so her body can fight. On the good news front, Mandy got to visit tonight. — with Kristan Attardi Hushing at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center Denver.

Not making progress

She's eating a little more, but not enough. We've been agonizing and arguing over the sudden announcement that they will discharge her today unexpectedly, because she's not making progress. I think they've decided to give us some time to prepare, by sending her home tomorrow after dialysis. No idea how to ensure she gets good care at home. At least she'll be rid of the man across the hall, in the netted cage in his bed, who yells "help" every two seconds, all day and night.

Ate a little

She was in much better spirits this morning before dialysis. Although she still wasn't eating much. Dialysis tired her out. And so did the pain meds. But she perked up again, to eat a little Thanksgiving dinner -- turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry -- that our friend Jen sent over from the dinner she made today. — with Kristan Attardi Hushing at Swedish Medical Center.

Thanksgiving Day walk

You know the dog is having a good walk, when you have to go around the park twice, three bags aren't enough, and you have to move on to using seedpods to pick up stuff.

Better night

The RN this morning says Kristan had a much better night, slept well, didn't report any pain.

Struggling to be hopeful

Her pressure sore is really bad. Found out today, Wound Care wanted her admitted, so she can get stronger for a debridement surgery they want to do. Regular wound care is ineffective at this point. So the lack of wound care this past week becomes a little less maddening, with that information. But she hasn't been able to eat, so she's just wasting away instead. She did eat a little fruit and drank some Nepro just now -- a small victory.

About the same

No caregiver with her this morning, but since she's in dialysis, I thought I'd take my walk. How is she? Not a simple answer. She has been sleeping through the nights in the hospital, which feels like a miracle. She is very dopey whenever I visit. She complains that they are overmedicating her, but I think it's the sleeping pill they give her, which probably doesn't metabolize out as quickly, because her kidneys don't work. The neck CT scan showed no significant change in the past few months since the last scan. My guess is that the increased neck pain is caused by her sleeping in a bad position. She tends to lean her head over at an exaggerated angle, when no one is helping her to avoid that. The pressure sore seems worse than last week. Her leg sores don't seem any worse. One of her hands has really bad deep scabs on all of the knuckles, probably because she scraped her hand doing something. They are so deep and hard, that they must be causing her immense pain. That's getting much better, since I started putting tons of moisturizing lotion on both hands, several times during each visit. The bowel control problems have significantly reduced, since she stopped taking the chemo med for the CML. Unfortunately, the trade-off is that her white cell count is going through the roof. An Oncology doc stopped by yesterday, and mentioned that he saw blasts in the smears, which is generally bad, but might be mitigated by the fact that the WBC is very high because she's (temporarily) off that med. He said the medication for CML is very targeted, and should not adversely affect wound healing. So she should consider restarting that soon. Sorry if that's TMI for some, but I know others will appreciate knowing some of these details.

K at Swedish Hospital

They sent Kristan to Swedish ER from her wound care appointment on Wednesday. Several issues. She was admitted to room 4117B. 

iPhone woes

Very bummed that my mobile phone has gone offline. Won't boot either of the possible ways I know. When I push the power button, the little "I'm booting" logo shows up for 40 seconds, then the screen goes black again. Feels like something is very broken. Looks like I'll be taking a trip to the store tomorrow. In the meantime, I won't be reachable by texting or calling that phone. I've been pretty reliant on that device for communication, and health and financial data collection and analysis, among many of the other capabilities of the 350+ apps I have on there, so it feels like quite a loss. And just a *touch* of freedom...

Update Nov 3 - Could Murphy be on my side today?? The Apple online guy just told me through their Chat support facility, "your iPhone is still covered under AppleCare+ for another 3 days so any warranty repairs will be free and any accidental damage will be $49 for repair!" so I'm actually looking forward to my Genius Bar appointment tonight. — feeling hopeful.

Monday evening - Hooray, functional again! Very strange. They said the hardware was fine. They loaded new low level firmware to get it going.

I asked if one of the recent iOS updates caused this -- 8.0, 8.0.1, 8,0.2, or the latest 8.1, and they didn't think so. They said they've seen this phenomenon occasionally, and don't know what triggers it. No charge for the fix, though, which was nice...

Update Nov 4 - The last unrecoverable aspect of this, is the loss of the past week's app data, which would've been saved, if Sunday's backup had worked, instead of having the problem show up then. Everything from photos to financial records that changed since last weekend. Oh well, in the overall scheme of things, it's nowhere near as bad as it could've been, if I hadn't been doing regular weekend backups.

Update Nov 7 - After a dozen crashes and reboots since Monday's "repair", Apple replaced my phone. They ran diagnostics which indicated the Springboard App (the one behind everything) was having memory errors, and were going to reload the firmware again, but I talked them into replacing the phone instead. They advised me not to restore from backup, because of the risk of pulling a corrupted app back onto the phone. I mean, really? I have years of medical data I've been tracking in some of those apps. I am really bummed now.

Update Nov 9 - I couldn't stand it. I had convinced myself that memory errors had to be caused by hardware, so I bit the bullet, and restored from backup anyway. So far, so good...

Virgin Galactic / Scaled Composites Anomaly

Sad to learn that SpaceShipTwo was lost in today's test flight. Hoping for the best, for the pilots.

Here's a CNN story, and a SpaceFlightNow story on the subject.

Update 11/1: One pilot was killed, the other parachuted out, seriously injured.

Update 11/3: It sounds like it's looking possible that the braking "tail feathers" (stabilizers) were deployed prematurely, about 9 seconds into the boost phase. Ugh. It's not good, to have all that stuff hanging out in the breeze, when the breeze is going thousands of miles per hour.

GPS Launched!

We just completed today's successful GPS launch, with some really great rocketcam views!

Here's a SpaceFlightNow story with imagery.

Orbital Sciences / Antares Anomaly

Sorry to hear that Antares had a launch failure today. A not-so-subtle reminder that this is a risky business.

I was amazed to see them (Range Safety?) let the rocket fall back, almost all the way back down to the Wallops Island launch pad, before they destroyed it. I would think they incurred an unnecessary risk to the pad by waiting so long. Once forward motion is gone, you'd think they'd destroy it immediately at that altitude, so save as much of the pad as possible.

Here's a link to early SpaceFlightNow coverage of the story, and a later story.

Update 10/31: It looks like maybe the launch pad survived with minimal damage.

The initial investigation appears to be focusing on the first stage propulsion section, specifically the AJ26 Russian-made engines, although they're not talking about any specific cause yet.

Pressure sores

The Life Care at Home nurse is telling us that Medicare will no longer pay for daily wound nurse visits. So the nurse taught me how to dress K's pressure sores (yes, there are two, now) on Saturday, and I did my first solo wound dressing today. Went OK. It was nice to have Amy here, helping to find the necessary supplies. It's really frustrating, that we can't convince K to keep the pressure off these sores, until they heal. Even more frustrating to learn that Medicare won't cover everyday nurse visits, even though everyday bandage changes are necessary.

Nauseas Friday

K lost most of Friday to nausea and worse. She barely made it to this morning's dialysis, as every motion caused another wave of nausea. Then DaVita almost sent her to the ER, because her blood pressure was so low after dialysis. But it finally came up, she came home, and has been actually doing moderately well since then.

Pressure sore

Kristan's had a pressure sore for some time, and it isn't getting any better. It's getting closer to becoming a stage 4 wound. It doesn't help, that it's right where she sits, and she has nothing to do but sit, considering she's not allowed to use her prosthetics yet. The only good news, is that she's learning to lay on her side in bed, despite the discomfort from her broken neck, and that relieves one source of irritation on the sore.

Smacked her head

K fell and hit her head, when transferring from her caregiver's car to her wheelchair, on the way to a medical appointment. The doctor she was going to see looked her over, and decided she didn't need to go to the ER. We're supposed to be watching for concussion symptoms.

IOS 8 app fails

I updated my iPhone 5 to iOS 8.0 and have been pretty happy so far with the new features. However, it feels like I dodged a bullet, after hearing my friends complain about their difficulties with the 8.0.1 and 8.0.2 updates. I also am noticing more and more problems with apps that are being updated for iOS 8. One of my heavily used apps, Quip, no longer supports the paste function -- it's a really bad Fail, to have cut without paste. And now Facebook pops the keyboard up over the text that I'm typing.

Way too early

One of the problems with early-morning dialysis, is when a caregiver gets sick, like today, I need to get up at 4 AM (win!), get K out of the house by 5 AM (fail!), and get her to dialysis by 5:15 AM (also fail), so she can go on dialysis by 5:30 AM (fail but not by much). And I had an opportunity to get to work really early (win), without being lasered by police (fail), and getting a speeding ticket (win), and even stop for one of those expensive cups of coffee (win) along the way. Uh, oh, here comes that vehicle with the red and blue flashing lights on it, following someone who was actually speeding… whew, glad my natural inclination is to do the speed limit these days.

The good with the bad

The word from Kristan's wound appointment yesterday, is that her leg wounds are healed. Yay. They don't want her to use her prosthetics yet. 

However, she still has a stage 3 pressure sore that they are working on. Boo. 

New dialysis schedule

Big changes at the K&S household. Kristan changed her dialysis schedule to early-morning (5am!) on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Started last weekend. We're still struggling to adapt. There are definitely pros and cons to this. Every night could be "Date Night!", but then, every Tue-Thu-Sat morning is becoming a bleary-eyed, up-too-soon affair.

Interesting development

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wants to develop new American made rocket engines. This could be a hugely good thing for ULA. NY Times article here

Short but fun walk with K

Kristan came on our walk tonight! She's using her Jazzy J6 Power Chair, while her smaller more maneuverable scooter is being repaired. Runkeeper says we went a whopping 0.5 mi. ;-) walk. We had fun, though.

Numb arm

When I woke up this morning, my right arm was numb, all the way down to the ends of my fingers. Not fun. :-( I'm pretty sure I just slept on it wrong. But it went on for so long (I was so tired it didn't wake me up), it's recovering very slowly...

Sunday update: Finally, all better! When I woke up in the middle of last night, the other arm was numb, but as soon as I moved, it went away in a few minutes. Much better! I could probably avoid this phenomena, if only I could sleep flat on my back without snoring.

Bad start to the week

We're sure starting off the week the wrong way, albeit with a good twist or two. K missed dialysis tonight, feeling beyond rotten and couldn't get going. Naturally, with today being Labor Day, there were no makeup slots available tomorrow. But, when I called back an hour later to confirm we weren't coming, an 8:30am slot had opened up, yay, a bright spot in the darkness. And her caregiver agreed to come two hours early, to help get her there on time, yay, another bright spot.

Going home!

We're finally getting her out of here! Discharge papers completed at 2pm. Packing up to go. K wants to stop at the gift shop on the way down to the car. So I'm running a load of most of her stuff to the car first.

Update 3pm: The Swedish Hospital gift shop just closed. Forgot it closes earlier on Saturday. K is really disappointed. I'm secretly ecstatic, but trying to commiserate.

Update 4pm: Finally leaving the room.

Update 4:30pm: Stopping at Jamba Juice for a little something to keep her BG up. They completely misunderstood her order, and served her something she couldn't stomach. So I went back for a plain OJ for her. With a separate large cup of ice. And a fistful of napkins. And a fistful of long spoons.

Update 5:30pm: Stopping at SuperCuts, so she can get a buzz cut. Closing them down.

Update 6pm: Stopping at Tokyo Joe's, so she will have something to eat for dinner, and we won't spend a lot of time at home before going to bed.

Update 7pm: Stopping at PetCo, to get snacks for Mandy, pet cleaning supplies.

Update 9pm: Finally got home!

Update midnight: I'm finally going to bed! She's still going strong.

Too Many Dumb Drivers

As I was driving to work this morning, and absent-mindedly becoming irritated at nearby drivers who appeared to have no sense of the driving laws or common courtesy, I was reminded of "Too Many Dumb Pilots", one of my favorite stories, from my favorite collection of Richard Bach short stories. The differences, of course, between pilots and drivers are numerous, including a huge amount of training and certification that goes into making someone a pilot. But the commonality of the "we have met the dumb guy, and he is us" holds true across both of these skills, and probably everything else in life, too.

Dog day

Mandy's having a "bring your dog to work" day, since K is at the Hospital and her caregivers have the day off, and there would be nobody at home to watch after her. So she's sleeping happily in my car, in the nice cool covered garage. I'm taking her out every few hours, for the occasional walk around the local area near work.

K at Swedish Hospital

K was just admitted to Swedish Hospital for the night, a room on the ninth floor. She was at wound care, and couldn't stop vomiting. So they sent her to the ER. Probably the Gastroparesis. The ER doc decided to admit her for at least overnight, so she can get the dialysis she is missing right now, and maybe they can do something constructive about these lousy symptoms that have been wrecking her life for many months.

Update Monday night: RN says she may be here a couple days. Will get dialysis late tonight, which is important, since she missed Friday, and was scheduled for this evening. The Anti nausea med they're giving her seems to be helping a lot.Nice to see her BG has been very nominal so far.

Update Tuesday morning: She sounds much better this morning. She got dialysis between 1am-5am, thankfully slept through most of it. It still sounds like they will keep her at least another day.

K at Rose ER

Early this morning K said she had fallen off her scooter in the kitchen, sometime earlier. She had scrapes on her arms and a fist sized hard painful dark black and blue stomach bruise / hematoma on the left side. The caregiver has been trying all day to get her moving, so they can go to Rose ER and have it evaluated. It's looking like the caregiver will have to leave about the time I get home from work, and I will be taking her.

8:30pm update: We arrived at Rose ER a half hour ago. Q&A is done. The usual IV is in, and they've ordered some tests.

11:45pm update: The Dr says the CT shows the hematoma is superficial. Sending her home!

This was our 2nd visit to Rose Hospital ER. Some of the people did recognize us from last time. We think our experiences at Rose have been consistently better than other places. That's 2 for 2.

Empty house

The movers just took the last of Ken and Freddie's possessions, and are backing their monster oversized moving truck up the hill. Mandy's pretty sure she doesn't like this revoltin' development.

Robin Williams

Rest in peace, Robin Williams. I hope your next life finds you relaxing on the beach, with someone else putting in all the effort to entertain you, for a change. You deserve a rest. What a surprisingly big part of my persona, are my memories of all the delightfully funny moments you brought me, over the many years, beginning with Mork from Orc. Thank you a million times.

Birthday free coupon

Playing catch up. Used my 5th birthday freebie, and got to have a special dinner together with Kristan too! No more whining, dang it. — at Red Robin Gourmet Burgers.

Launched AFSPC-4!

Finally! Liftoff of DV-368 carrying the AFSPC-4 payload (and two others), from Cape Canaveral SLC-37. Loooooong mission, will run into the wee hours... Happy Birthday to me.

Quip - love it

I don't remember how I found out about the Quip "collaboration" app and website, but we have been trying it out, and so far, it feels like a wondertool. It came into our lives none too soon. So helpful for coordinating between me, K, and three others who have smartphones.

New catheter not working

K missed dialysis last night, so I dragged her out of bed, and dropped her off at DaVita Dialysis Center, early this morning for a makeup session, on my way to work. I just found out her leg catheter isn't working, so they can't put her on. She'll need to go to the Renal Access Center, as soon as they have an opening, but her caregiver doesn't arrive until 10am. Yet another heavy sigh...

The good news, is that Lorene came early, and she got into the Renal Access Center. They replaced her catheter. We'll see how it works, on Friday evening in Dialysis.

Gravity. Wow.

Whew. We just finished watching the movie "Gravity", with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. I've heard it had some technical gaps, so I promised myself I'd suspend my disbelief, and unfortunately that worked all too well. I got so caught up in it, that when we paused it, halfway in, to deal with some real world interruptions, I had some difficulty pushing the Play button later, because of all the knots in my stomach. But I'm glad I did.

Wave, Freddie and Amelia!

I just figured out how to follow two flights at the same time on FlightAware... Very fun! Hey Freddie and Ken on Southwest 1472, in the B-737, wave at Amelia in N58NG, the PC-12! She's passing you, going the other way, 10,000 feet below you, and (way, way) off your left wing!

Amelia heading home

Amelia Rose Earhart is starting the last leg of her adventure, a positioning flight to get themselves and the Pilatus back to Denver.

Earthrounders

Amelia Rose Earhart said: "We did it! We are earthrounders, Shane Jordan!"

Amelia has landed!

Here's Amelia Rose Earhart's flight track into Oakland International Airport, completing her 'round the world flight. She landed at 5:32pm Pacific time.  I was listening to Oakland Tower and Ground frequencies and heard her landing and fnal taxi instructions ... "welcome back!" ... "thank you VERY much!" And so it ends... the actual flight, that is. I'm sure she'll be busy with related activities for some time.

Congratulations, Amelia and Shane, on a completely successful around the world flight!

Amelia to Oakland!

Amelia Rose Earhart has departed Honolulu for Oakland! The final leg to complete her amazing recreation of Amelia Mary Earhart's round the world flight. Way to go, Amelia and Shane! And everyone who supported you! That Pilatus PC-12 NG is a beautiful, fast, capable airplane!

Nice Pacific pic

Amelia posted this really nice view of the Sun over the Pacific Ocean, from her cruising altitude of about 28,000 feet ... pretty spectacular. I'm sure my Dad saw thousands of these views, from his many DC-6, B-707, B-720, B-727, and B-747 flights around the world with Pan American. But it looks pretty unique and special to me.

Amelia over Hawaii

Amelia Rose Earhart is minutes from crossing over the Big Island, enroute to Honolulu! It looks like they'll get a nice view of most of the Hawaiian islands, as they descend toward their landing.

Update: Listening to Honolulu Tower at LiveATC...I just heard them clear her to land on Runway 4 Right - direct to the numbers! Amelia sounds so professional, clear and concise over the radio. Safe landing!

Amelia heading to HNL

Amelia is on her way from Kiritimati, Kiribati, to Honolulu, Hawaii! They just left Kiritimati Island, and are climbing out through 8000 feet, undoubtedly heading for their usual 28,000 foot cruising altitude. I hope that nasty looking storm in front of them, dissipates before they get to it!

Amelia Circling?

Presumably, they've spotted Howland Island, and are circling, since the Honeywell GDC page shows them heading back the other way. This must be a very exciting moment for her. 

Amelia approaching Howland Island

Amelia Rose Earhart is just a few minutes away from passing over Howland Island! She's on her way from Tarawa, Kiribati, to Kiritimati, Kiribati. Her namesake, Amelia Mary Earhart, with her navigator Fred Noonan, were on their way to Howland Island, and having trouble finding it, when they disappeared. The likelihood is that they ran out of gas, after wandering North and South for too long, and failing to find it. There were of course no Global Positioning Satellites in those days, so finding things out in the ocean required a lot of navigation skill, and luck too. Howland Island was pretty much abandoned, after being attacked during WWII, so there's no place for her to land there, these days. She'll have to be content with seeing it, as they go by.

Amelia to Australia

Amelia Rose Earhart is on her way from Seletar, Singapore to Darwin, Australia! They've got some interesting weather ahead, including two volcanic eruption ash clouds, to deal with. It sounds like their preflight planning has it all covered, so I'm beaming them good luck wishes, for the stuff that planning can't cover.

Catheter working

It appears that K's leg catheter is working normally. She got through her first dialysis at DaVita with no problems.

Home safe!

She's home safe! She finally came to bed about the time I was waking up.

Doing better

Better news: K's doing very well, alert, interactive, and chipper, and we just heard they plan to send her home today after another dialysis!

Amelia at Kilimanjaro

Amelia has arrived at Kilimanjaro International Airport, after flying from Sao Tome and Principe across the Congo!

She said they were contemplating the fact, that while cruising at 27,000 feet, they were still more than 2,000 feet BELOW the peak of Mt. Everest, which tops out at 29,029 ft. So, if you're in the right (or wrong depending on how you look at it) part of the world, you could be cruising at Flight Level 270, and still be at risk of crashing into the ground.

Admitted to Rose Hospital

She's been admitted to a room here at Rose Hospital, and is fast asleep. I waited to talk to her attending doctor before leaving. She is wonderful. I gave her the lowdown on management of her glucose, pain, sleep, diet, and she listened to all of it. It's good to know that there is a plan, to get her catheter exchanged, and get her dialyzed, tomorrow (today).

Update 9am: I overslept after last night's fun. I just talked to her nurse. She's still swollen, still sleeping, BG was ok at 7:30. Caregiver will get there in an hour. I'll try to grab some breakfast and head into work for the day.

Update 10am: It sounds like they're giving up on the jugular PermCath in her neck, since it's competing with her pacemaker leads for space in the jugular vein going to the heart. The new plan is to put a catheter in her thigh. Hopefully, it will work much better there.

Update 12:15: K is out of the procedure and sleeping in her room. It sounds like the procedure went well.They removed the jugular catheter and installed a catheter in her leg.

Update 2:40pm: L says K is already looking better, even without dialysis. This may be the result of better blood flow with the jugular catheter removed.

Update 3:20pm: They are taking her to dialysis.

Update 10:25pm: Well, the good news is, the new catheter in her leg seems to have worked just fine for dialysis today at the hospital. And, the edema is clearly getting better, even if it still has a ways to go.

Sudden Edema onset

Kristan developed a huge amount of edema and nausea in just a few hours, after getting home from surgery. By the time I got home from work, it looked awful. I called the Nephrology office, and the vascular surgeon who did this morning's procedure. Both agreed: take her to Rose Hospital ER, and let them figure it out. — at Rose Medical Center Emergency Dept.

Update 8pm: ER Doc has ordered X-rays, to look for fluid on the lungs, and blood draw for labs, to look for anything out of balance. Considering that she hasn't had a good dialysis since Wednesday, it seems likely that she will have several things heading for or past their acceptable limits.

Amelia in Sao Tome

Amelia's arrived in São Tomé and Principe, an island nation off the West coast of Africa! Today she flew from Dakar, Senegal.

New Fistula in work

Kristan is in surgery, having a new fistula graft installed in her upper arm. Should be another hour. It took surprisingly little effort to get her here (5 minutes early!) at 6:25am. We just had to start everything an hour early. Ugh. My biggest adventure so far, has been finding a nice big breakfast in the cafeteria on the Ground floor (not the First floor!), which feels a little like an underground lair. Her caregiver Lorene just arrived, so I can leave for work soon. Recovery nurse says another hour or so. BG is good. Yay. — at Rose Hospital Medical Center.

Catheter woes

Catheter. Failed. Again. Tonight at DaVita Dialysis. Darn! She only got an hour of dialysis, before the catheter stopped drawing blood. So much for "just reverse the leads." The nurse at DaVita says he called an order into Rose Medical Center, to have them look at the catheter, when she's there for the procedure to install a new Fistula tomorrow morning. I instinctively distrust this communication, but I have no way to cross-check it, until we get there tomorrow at O'dark-30.

Amelia Arriving Dakar

Amelia is already beginning her descent toward Dakar, Senegal, after flying from Natal, Brazil. And it seems like my day has barely begun...

No catheter procedure today

The doc here says one lumen is push-only (needs to be pullable, probably blocked by a fibrin sheath), but the other one is still push-pull, so the Davita dialysis people should've tried reversing the leads, when it didn't work the normal way. He's sending her home without doing ("saving her from") another catheter replacement procedure. Sigh. — at Colorado Renal Access and Imaging Center.

He says this catheter installation is complicated by having to run alongside the pacemaker leads in the same vein to the heart. Probably will never work very well. She needs a new fistula. Fortunately, she's scheduled for that surgery tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, we have to get her to a new medical facility (Rose), a 40 minute drive across town, at 6:30am tomorrow morning. Fortunately, we have good directions. Unfortunately, she has dialysis tonight, so we'll be up late. Ugh.

Amelia at Miami

Tracking Amelia Rose Earhart on her flight segment from Denver to Miami -- she just arrived! She did a good job of circumnavigating some nasty looking thunderstorms.

New fistula surgery

Kristan is scheduled to have vascular surgery on Tuesday, to create a new Fistula graft. Starting over, this time it will be in her upper arm. After it finishes growing in three months (or perhaps sooner), this will replace the jugular catheter they are using now.

Top 25 grammar and language mistakes

Ran across a great writeup on pet grammar peeves. Always nice to be reminded of good ways to do things. See my page on the subject in the sidebar, or follow this link.

Catheter Exchange

These guys called at 7:15 and asked if we could get here by eight, to do the catheter exchange to get her dialysis port working again. We almost did. Wow. But, so much for getting to work early, on my first day back from vacation. — with Kristan Attardi Hushing at Colorado Renal Access and Imaging Center, on the old Lowry airbase property.

I stopped for a hot drink at Starbucks in the nearby Albertsons, before starting the adventure of finding my way to work from here. Another wow -- I just realized the last time I was at this Starbucks, was with Mikele's husband Bob in January 2012, a month before I broke my ankle. Little did I know, that I was about to have that excitement in my life!

Fun stuff with Otamay

My Sis and I kept each other pretty busy, during her 2 week visit:

6/21 Breakfast on Broadway; drive O to airport
6/20 Le Peep; Walk Johnson Reservoir in Clement Park
6/19 Cafe Terracotta; Walk Downtown Littleton; more Gem hunting
6/18 Racines; Denver Museum of Nature and Science; Gem hunting
6/17 Hike to Devil's Head Lookout; Lunch at Jerusalem
6/16 Egg & I; Walk Northridge Park; Jamba Juice
6/15 Breakfast on Broadway; Walk Harvard Gulch Park w/Ken
6/14 Racines; Walk Denver City Park w/Ken
6/13 DW's 285 Diner; Walk Flying J Ranch Park
6/12 Blue Cow; Walk Morrison on Bear Creek Trail
6/11 Walk to Blueberry's
6/10 Breakfast on Broadway; Walk S. Platte River from Overland Park
6/09 Original Pancake House; Walk DeKoevend Park
6/08 O slept in; S/Ken went to Racines and Denver City Park
6/07 O slept in; S/Ken went to Egg & I and S. Platte River; Afternoon walk S. Platte River from Aspen Grove
6/06 Late night arrival!

Catheter collapsed

Kristan's jugular catheter has collapsed, so she can't be dialyzed. Damn, I thought those things were bulletproof. She texted me, to pick her up from dialysis early. She will need to go to ER on Sunday to check potassium, and and will need an appointment with Interventional Radiology on Monday, to figure out what to do about the bad catheter. The nurse at DaVita Dialysis said she'd try to schedule that appointment, but of course the IR people were gone for the weekend, by the time we knew about this. — at DaVita Dialysis Center.

Sister visiting

I'll be busy doing things with my Sister between June 6-21!

A day alone

Glad to come home and find that Kristan and Mandy had survived all day with nobody else at the house today. Her caregiver was dealing with overheating car problems, and couldn't come. K says she slept most of the day, then woke up to the very loud sounds of a major hail storm pummeling the roof. As it turns out, that was the same hail storm that had me in my car hiding under a tree on the way home. The quarter-size hail mostly shredded the tree, so now my car is covered in pieces of tree leaves and small branches.

Pretty Storm

This impressive afternoon thunderstorm developed rapidly, giving us a nice view from the deck, turned orange around the edges from the sunset, then drifted off to the East in the darkening evening sky.

Low Blood Glucose

Kristan is resting quietly at the Littleton Hospital ER. She had numerous low blood glucose events, at home overnight, not sure why. We barely gave her any insulin for a 300 BG before going to bed. Then gave her tons of carbs, trying to get it up, and it was very balky, staying low most of the night. She had a make up Dialysis very early this morning, and when BG was very low coming off dialysis, and not responding to treatment, they called paramedics who transported her here. She mentioned that she had fallen in the last 48 hours, and her head and nose hurt, so they are getting an X-ray and a CT scan.

Update 8pm: Doc said no surprises in X-ray or CT. BG seemed stable, so they sent us home. Yay. Mandy was very happy to see us, after holing up in K's closet all day. She wouldn't go out with Lorene, but jumped at the opportunity, once I got home.

Pretty clouds from Lee Gulch

Nice moist evening. Pretty post-storm sunset clouds. Happy bubbling creek flowing along the Lee Gulch Trail.

K needs a CT scan

Kristan will be on her way to a hospital soon, not sure which one. She fell early this morning, and is concerned about her nonhealing broken neck. She spoke with several medical people today, and they all recommended that she go to an ER and have it checked out.

Update 9pm: Argh. Deferred. We were unable to get going, after hours of trying. Decided to let her have a quiet night at home. Will try again tomorrow morning.

Update 2pm Friday: Sigh. Reframing… now the plan is to have a doctor write a prescription for a CT scan at a nearby radiology lab, and stop there on the way to Dialysis. If successful, this will make for a much more reasonable day, and she won't have to worry about the ER holding onto her for too long.

What a week

What a stressful week. K has only been home since Saturday the 10th, and has already had four days of off-scale-high blood glucose (BG), Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. We brought it down each time, with multiple large insulin injections over the course of the day, until it finally came back on scale, and then it would jump back up the next night. I suspect late night eating while I was sleeping. She went for so long with terrible hospital food, that I think she was inhaling the good food we had at home. Then she went low at 4am this morning, after trying to get more aggressive about BG management, and taking insulin for food she hadn't eaten yet, and never did eat. She didn't wake me up until it was getting bad, so before I got it under control with apple juice, she went into some of those jerky spasms we had seen at the hospital, when they really let her BG crash. Her caregiver texted that K just told the dialysis folks she had a seizure this morning (not true), and now they don't want to dialyze her. Heavy sigh...

Update a half hour later: Things are looking up. The dialysis nurse has decided to dialyze her after all. She had already decided, before I called and gave her the entire story from the previous hospital stay that *did* include a seizure.

Nice mountain view

Happy mountains this morning...

Nice view

Nice morning, after yesterday's big snow.

She's Home!

Kristan is home! Our friend Claudia from Omaha is in town, and just drove down to visit, after competing her dogs up near downtown Denver. Now Claudia and I are running out on an errand, to drop off yet another missing prescription at the pharmacy, pick up dinner at Tokyo Joe's, then pick up the filled prescription. We thought we were clever to plan this, to minimize wasted time. Hope it works!

Planning to go home

They're planning Dialysis for Kristan tomorrow morning. Then home! I decided to advocate for skipping the stay at yet another nursing facility, before bring her home. I think her complicated case is beyond the abilities of any nursing facility. Their difficulties (and ultimately, their lack of success) managing her food, pills, glucose, pain, outweighs the advantage of having full-time care available. Not to mention the disappointments of being away from her own home, and her "pack". — with Kristan Attardi Hushing at Littleton Adventist Hospital.

Perm Cath Installed

Lorene says Kristan is awake and alert. They say the PermCath installation procedure went well. — at Littleton Adventist Hospital.

Heading to IR

She says they just came to take her to Interventional Radiology (IR) on the second floor.

Moved her

They moved her off the ICU floor, which is a measure of their confidence that she is doing better. The Perm Cath procedure is deferred to Friday 10am. Lorene will be here with her. — at Littleton Adventist Hospital.

Painfully Funny

I had to laugh, when I got this in my fortune cookie with my Chinese dinner tonight. "The heavy chains of worry are forged in idle hours." I've been quoting/paraphrasing it all evening. So I wouldn't worry so much, if I just got off my ass and did some work to keep me busy... eh??

Coming around

She finally just got her first dose of Humalog fast acting insulin tonight, since the big event yesterday morning. Her BG has been drifting up, since the Lantus finished acting last night. Very nice to have them ask me to recommend the dose. She goes NPO (no food) at midnight, in preparation for a procedure to install a new temporary catheter, that can be used for dialysis after she leaves the hospital. I'm already campaigning to have them discharge her to home from here. Especially after the lost-belongings episode, we don't think the nursing facility was all that helpful.

Update 7:30pm -- She is awake and chipper, and gorging herself on delicious Chinese food, before the NPO no-food order kicks in at midnight. She has a Catheter procedure tomorrow, not sure when.

Really Scary

She just had the worst blood sugar I've seen. I showed up around 7:30am to stop by and say hi, on my way to work. She was jerking uncontrollably, almost unconscious, arms flailing and almost damaging her head. I called for the nurse to measure BG and a CNA showed up. BG was 39. Then she started foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled back, and passed out. They gave her IV D50 and BG came up over 200. Moved her to ICU 554. I won't be going to work today! — at Littleton Adventist Hospital.

Admitted

She was admitted to a room on the 6th floor in the North tower last night. They have her on an NPO (no food) order, as they're hoping to repair her fistula today. Had a low BG 31 this morning, fixed it with IV dextrose. — with Kristan at Littleton Adventist Hospital.

Kristan to Littleton Hospital

The DaVita dialysis center just called me at work. Kristan's fistula (the beefed-up vein in her arm which provides dialysis access) is clogged, again. It has already failed 2-3 times this year alone, and it's supposed to be good for years after a repair. She has been losing weight the past few weeks, and with the C.diff, maybe she's too dehydrated for it to work. They want me to pick her up and take her somewhere (where?! Who's open now?!) to get it fixed. But the Azura Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) is in control of her care and transportation right now. I told them to call Azura, but now I can't stop shaking from the adrenaline. Waiting for the next phone call...

Update 730pm: The DaVita dialysis people consulted with the Azura SNF people, who told them to call an ambulance and transport her to Littleton Hospital. They should check her potassium (the biggest factor for needing dialysis) and decide what to do after that. Should be at the hospital by 8:30.

Update 830pm: The good news is, she was in good spirits when I got here. The blood test for potassium showed that she doesn't need Dialysis urgently. They'll keep her overnight, since the fistula repair people only work days. She's also eating, and keeping it down so far, so that's good news too. I'm going home to take the dog out and then get some sleep. — with Kristan Attardi Hushing at Littleton Hospital ER.

Bad Fistula

The DaVita dialysis center just called me at work. Kristan's fistula (the beefed-up vein in her arm which provides dialysis access) is clogged, again. It has already failed 2-3 times this year alone, and it's supposed to be good for years after a repair. She has been losing weight the past few weeks, and with the C.diff, maybe she's too dehyrated for it to work.They want me to pick her up and take her somewhere (where?! Who's open now?!) to get it fixed. But the Azura nursing facility is in control of her care and transportation right now. I told them to call Azura, but now I can't stop shaking from the adrenaline. Waiting for the next phone call...

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/419393-overview

I do not perform well, when my honey is in trouble. And for the past decade, it's been a continual barrage of things not going well, so I pretty much fell apart, years ago. I read somewhere that stress adversely impacts memory, and I believe it. I can't even remember where I parked my car any more, much less all the medical things she needs to be doing. We keep looking at each other, and saying, "We need a Mom to take care of us!" And that reminds me, I need to run home and do what I can, to keep the dog alive. At least that's something that's working for us, so far.

Dodged a bullet

I'm SO glad I was using cruise control tonight, for that short stretch on 285 at the east end of Sheridan, where the speed limit drops from 65 to 55 to 45, all in a mile or so. That hidden trigger happy trickster with a laser caught me doing exactly the posted 45, instead of the 55 or so I might've been going without it. It's kinda fun having a radar/laser detector, which doesn't prevent tickets, as much as it contributes to that warm fuzzy feeling, of knowing you just dodged another bullet.

Cherry Blossoms at City Park

Here are some nice pics from this morning's walk around the lake at Denver City Park. We really enjoyed the Spring blossoms on the Cherry trees. There was a nice fellow walking nearby, who mentioned he was from Washington, D.C., and loved the Cherry blossoms, which he said reminded him of home. — at Denver City Park.

Patio lounging

Waiting with Mandy on the patio to meet with Kristan... No more sneaking Mandy in, since she startled the nurse the other day. I was told in no uncertain terms, that the dog policy is "No dogs in the facility, unless they are Service or Therapy dogs." — at Azura.

Lots O'Forms

Forms, forms, and more forms. I stopped on my way home, to visit K at Dialysis, after a long day supporting the Delta IV WDR countdown. I had started helping her on Monday evening, with all the "new patient" forms they wanted completed. I was at a loss to answer many of the questions, so she took over. She must've fallen asleep immediately after I left, because today very few of the forms were completed. That's probably a good thing that she slept, because she's in serious neck pain during most of her waking hours now. Today she said she had a "level 10+ pain incident" when she first arrived at DaVita. So, I took a stab at completing all of the forms tonight. It's kind of scary, acknowledging for her, that she understands everything they've said in there, especially what they will be doing to/with her, in the case of a facility emergency. I guess I'm falling back on the fact that she's completed all these forms before, when she first came here. — at DaVita Dialysis Center.

Envious

I'm jealous of my neighbor, who just brought home her new Apple iMac computer on Monday. It's so clean and uncluttered, super fast, and has a really nice 27 inch display, not to mention all the nice bundled software.

Her husband is still clinging to his almost fanatical assertion that the Macintosh is just a toy, that "comes with absolutely no software that I would ever use." His opinion is based on his experience at the Apple store 3 years ago, when the salesman told him it didn't come with a word processor or spreadsheet software, but it did come with iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie. He was less than thrilled, since he doesn't mess with digital music, pictures or movies. I've been telling him since then, that the Mac did come with the two applications that he uses most of the time -- the web browser and email client. And considering that his PC didn't come with a spreadsheet program either, and he's been using the free OpenOffice (also available for Mac) all these years, his conclusion seems really confusing. He says I just like to argue.

Back at Dialysis

She's back at the local DaVita Littleton Dialysis. After months away, they need a dozen forms completed again. I'm visiting on my way home from work, but I won't have to come back when she's done, and drive her back to the skilled nursing facility. It's nice that Azura (who has changed their name to PowerBack) is now capable of giving her rides both to and from dialysis, even on her evening shift. I may actually get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. — at DaVita Dialysis Center.

Transfer to SNF

They are transporting Kristan now, to Azura skilled nursing facility (SNF). She had barely gotten out of dialysis, and hadn't eaten all day, after being sick in the morning, when they started rushing her to get ready to leave. It will be interesting to see, if they get her to Azura too late to make arrangements for her pain medications tonight. The good news, is that Amy and I looked at Azura back in 2012, and thought it would be a great place for her, except they couldn't handle transport to and from her late evening dialysis. Apparently they have a new contract for transportation, and picking her up at 9pm is no longer an issue. — at Azura of Lakewood Rehabilitation Suites.

7pm update: She's beginning to settle in.

New doc seems awful

Kristan's got a new hospital doc, who has changed her back to an untenable diet. The old doc was working with her, and trying to get her BG and pain under control, before discharging her, but now he's gone for a few days. The new Doc doesn't seem to care about managing BG or pain, she just wants her discharged, and out of there. Sounds like she'll be discharged to Azura skilled nursing this afternoon.

Italian dinner

I'm picking up a wonderful Italian dinner, to take to K in the hospital. She is furious at them, for not letting her eat anything palatable. And today, Romano's is donating 25% to Project Angel Heart for every meal eaten here. They're making a special take out exception for us, because I'm taking the meal back to the hospital. — at Romano's Italian Restaurant.

Still at Littleton Hospital

Lorene says no discharge today either. I'm thinking that's good news.

I'm picking up a wonderful Italian dinner at Romano's Pizzeria, to take to the hospital. And today, Romano's is donating 25% to Project Angel Heart for every meal eaten here. They're making a special take out exception for us, because I'm taking the meal back to K in the hospital.

Terrible news

This is really bad. K said they're talking about discharging her to skilled nursing very soon, offered three possibilities. Neuro Doc was supposed to call me, but hasn't. Nor returned my call. Last I heard, they were discussing possible neck surgery to address the nonunion.

Update: This just plain sucks. They are proceeding with discharging her today if possible. The neurosurgeon won't try another surgery, because her ongoing chronic medical issues may not allow another surgery to heal. The doc reading his notes says he mentioned "listhesis". He said the fracture line is not grossly unstable, which I guess means she is safe to transport out of there. The Therapy dept says she can't do basic things well, can't stay on task (and presumably isn't safe to go home), which is why they're recommending discharge to skilled nursing rehab.

So she will be wearing a neck brace indefinitely. Any further treatment would be a "multi-level approach". They left the possibility open, of working with Dr Guillot, the other neurosurgeon, on an outpatient basis.

They gave her a list of skilled nursing rehab facilities to look over, and apparently she's selected a few to consider -- Holly Creek, Azura, and Life Care Center at Littleton is her last choice, since she has experience with their Aurora facility and didn't like them much.

5pm Update: Holly Creek did not accept her. I think they don't have a bed available.

Life Care Center At Littleton has declined to accept her. At first they accepted her. Then she told them that we still owe Life Care at Aurora some money, and they reversed their acceptance into a denial. If only life Care At Aurora would send us the itemized bill that she has been asking for, for the past six months.

10pm Update: No discharge today. Maybe tomorrow. The doc says he wants pain and BG under control before discharging her. She says pain is nowhere near under control.

Nonunion?!

The ER trauma doc who called me last night at 12:30 AM to give me status, said that re-reading the CT scan, they were not sure K's neck has a new fracture, after all. The Nephro doc who stopped by earlier today, said the latest diagnosis in the chart is "Nonunion", which would not be the result of a fall or other trauma. Still not sure what's next, other than getting dialysis this afternoon.

Admitted to Littleton Hospital

Kristan was admitted to Littleton Hospital last night. Her nurse this morning says the current diagnosis from the CT scan is "Odontoid minimally displaced fracture". K thinks she had a fall while she was at Swedish Hospital in the past month. She will be seen by a neurosurgeon today.

And now, off to ER

Not even 24 hours after arriving home, K is heading to the Littleton Hospital ER. She has been complaining of a very painful and "crunchy" neck when she moves her head around. Lorene says they are skipping her first dialysis after coming home, and going to ER soon. They called the office of her neurosurgeon, who did the surgery to fuse her neck in 2012, and both he and his backup are out of the office until next week. They recommended going to ER for this.

She told her doctors at Swedish hospital about this multiple times, and they were not even a little bit interested. I think they have a one-track-mind approach to resolving the primary issue for being there, and letting people deal with anything else once they go home. The problem with that thinking, is that it took two months to get her home.

Update: The X-ray indicated vertebrae C3-5 are not well aligned. But it could just be the angle they took it. So now they're taking her off for a CT scan. No MRI allowed, because of her ICD.

Update: The trauma doc Dr Pico says the CT scan indicates a new fracture in the C1 area. Don't know the next step. They're checking with the neurosurgery office. I came home to check on Mandy. Soooo tired...

Update: Back to hospital for a minute. They'll be checking her potassium to see if they need to dialyze her tonight. No news from neurosurgery.

She's home!

Kristan is finally home, after more than two months in the hospital. They were really working to get her home, because her Medicare hospital coverage has been exhausted. Mandy is very happy to see her home. As are we all. She had a lot of bags of stuff to bring home. I brought her scooter home yesterday, so Lorene wouldn't have that big klunky thing to transport.

Maybe home Thursday

The Rehab dept is looking at sending Kristan home Thursday! We're struggling to establish a practical caregiver schedule. NOT simple. She says she wants her privacy, during the times when the Rehab dept is insisting that she needs constant supervision at home, and I'll be at work.

Snowed all night

More lovely Spring weather. It looks like it kept snowing all night. The driveway even needed shoveling. According to the news on the radio, the ski resorts got a foot. I miss my downhill skiing days.

The latest web security fiasco

For those of you madly running around changing your passwords on the hundreds of websites where you have accounts: it might be wise to consider checking first, to see if they have patched their OpenSSL library. If they had the problem (not all sites did), and have applied the OpenSSL 1.0.1g patch (not all sites have), they should be advising you to come back and change your password. If they have the problem, and haven't applied the patch yet, you could be giving away your new password too.

Here are some references I've been reading and re-reading...

• "The Heartbleed Bug", announced in April 2014.
• Affected/unaffected sites, or "The passwords you need to change right now".
• Heartbleed Bug Site Checker

Mobility!

Kristan now has her Revo scooter in her room at Rehab. I just disassembled it, and transported it over there, reassembled it, and rode it into the hospital. Mandy had fun riding in my lap! I don't think they realize what they've let themselves in for. I can picture her zooming all around the place, checking out everywhere that she's had difficulty getting people to take her. — at Swedish Hospital.

Moved to Rehab

Kristan has been moved to a room in the Rehabilitation department, as of this morning. I see on their wall calendar, that she'll be having regular sessions of Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, and even something they call "Spa", which I would love to find out is something fun. They hope to get her to a point where she can go home soon, within a week or two. Which would be good, considering that her Medicare hospital coverage just ended. — at Swedish Hospital.

Saluting 19 generations of programmers

I saw an interesting article on Info World's website, about different computer programming languages and the developers who have used them. It took me a long way back, down memory lane, so I thought I'd share. You need to click on the NEXT button, after you get to the first page.

Staying longer

It appears the surgeon and ID doc are getting what they want, and she'll probably be here another couple of weeks, to get some attention from the Rehab department. Even if Rehab balks about taking her (and they're hemming and hawing now), staying in the hospital will save her 24 transfers a week, just for the trips to dialysis. — at Swedish Hospital.

Long live the queen

I received an interesting email, showing a sequence of photos of Queen Elizabeth, with the American presidents that she has met.

I unsuccessfully attempted a copy and paste, from the email to the Blogger app on my phone, but it didn't transfer the pictures properly.

So, now that I'm invested in the topic, here's a website that shows a similar set of pictures of the English Queen with a series of American Presidents.

Mandy on FaceTime

Mandy participated in her first FaceTime call, this evening. Mandy was the silent one in the conversation. She really did seem to know that Kristan was on the other end of the call, though. She cocked her head this way, and then that way, like the old RCA picture of the dog listening to the gramophone. Pretty cool. And very cute.

Better day

Kristan says today was a better day. They chopped the highs and lows off the pain curve, and kept it sorta level. The MD and OT are still at odds, over whether or not she can have rehab in the hospital. At first we were told that she might not qualify, because she was too weak to stick it out through three hours of rehab every day. Now she's hearing that the OT thinks she's doing too well, and qualifies to go straight home. The doc and we are very concerned that she will hurt herself, with all the transfers required, once she gets home. In the hospital, going to dialysis means wheeling the bed over to the other side of the building and back, which is much safer, than transferring from bed to her scooter, to the car, to a wheelchair, to the dialysis chair, to a wheelchair, to the car, to her scooter, and finally back to bed. Eight transfers, versus none, seems a lot safer to us. "Can't win for losing." — at Swedish Hospital.

Post surgery

She says there's no drainage from the healing surgery site today, which is great. But she's been having moderately wild blood glucose swings. Their new sliding scale leaves a lot to be desired. Basically, they wait until the BG gets a little bit high, then slam it down with a huge dose of insulin, that is a great risk of driving her incredibly low. She realizes that, and feels rightfully compelled to eat a huge amount of food after they give her insulin. — at Swedish Hospital.

Saturday snow

Saturday morning, walking buddy out of town, dog cuddled up under her blankets in the car, snow in the forecast, a few flakes already coming down... I'll settle for a piping hot cuppa coffee, eggs and a waffle, at The Egg & I.

And... it's snowing! Delicate fluffy flakes drifting down, doing loop-dee-doos and other fancy aerobatics.

First look

Just had a first look at her left leg. Her surgeon and infectious disease docs arrived to look at it, shortly after I got here. Bandages came off for the first time in a week. They say it looks very good. Must be a relative thing. Her surgeon made it clear, and we agree, that she should get rehab in the hospital, until she is more safely healed, and there will be less concern about her attempting to transfer, and seriously damaging the new surgery site. We celebrated by getting into some of the stuff I just brought her from the grocery store. — at Swedish Hospital.

PT's opinion

Kristan's PT said there's no reason she shouldn't be able to go home soon, as far as she's concerned. She's just looking at Kristan's mobility, arm strength, and ability to use the new slide board techniques she's teaching her. She's not considering the healing process. That part is up to her doctor.

Miserable to better?

Downs and ups, ups and downs. Kristan's day started miserably, but I'm hoping she agrees it got a little better later on.

Wow, I can really tell Daylight Saving Time is here. I'm walking out at 7 PM, and it's still sunny out. — at Swedish Hospital.

MH370

I read an interesting theory by Keith Ledgerwood on Tumblr, suggesting that if someone took over MH370 in flight, they could have intentionally tucked up close to another passing scheduled airline flight (he named SIA68 that was nearby), and in their no-emissions stealth mode (except for that pesky ACARS ping), flown for hours, undetected by all the civilian and military radar along their new route. They could have peeled off when passing through an area not covered well by radar, and landed at a secluded location of their choosing. This would have had to be well planned and executed to be accomplished successfully, but it seems like a legitimate possibility worthy of some consideration.

Then I found this rebuttal.

Windy snow

Wow. The snow is really blowing through here right now. Wind 36 gusting to 51. We get any more precipitation, and I'm calling it blizzard conditions.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Oops. Forgot to wear something green to work. Stuck a green 3x5 card in my shirt pocket. Kludgy at best... Really geeky at worst...

My old friend said, "What...you couldn't find a green pocket protector ;-) Ha!" Oh, now THAT really takes me back...

Busted

Busted. Tonight's RN let us know in no uncertain terms: Dogs are not welcome in the hospital. Mandy doesn't come back to Kristan's room after tonight.

Kristan is putting on a pretty darn happy face for us, regardless of what she's going through. — with Kristan and Mandy at Swedish Hospital.