So a bit of good news today. My INR was 3.7. If you'll remember, that's the measure of how thin my blood is. We're shooting for 3.0 to 3.5. Two weeks ago it was 2.8. We've made an ever so slight adjustment and hopefully we've got this blood thinner mess worked out. It's taken a little longer than I had hoped/thought it would take, but we've finally gotten there.
It's now been 5 months since my surgery and I'm feeling great. I now feel better than I did before. I seem to have more energy, I definitly have a better appetite (as proven by my expanding waist line) and I've grown used to my clicking so that if I can't hear it, I'll sometimes stop and check to make sure it's still going.
I've been blessed beyond measure through all of this and I want to say thank you to each and every person who has been reading this blog. I think it's been a fairly sucessful endevor and I'm really happy with the way it's turned out. At this point, I think that what I'm going to do is archive this blog off and just start a new general blog about what DeAnne and I are up and what's going on in our lives. I don't know when I'll ever get around to this, but that's the plan as it stands now.
Till next time,
Paul
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Lord, I Was Born a Ramblin' Man...
Well, not really, but I did go on a trip last week. I went with my boss to Minneapolis to do factory acceptance testing on our new backup control center hardware. We left Tuesday and got back yesterday. All in all, it was a good trip. We tested everything we wanted to test and even a few things we hadn't planned to test, talked to our vendor about some new projects we might be doing and go to experience a little bit of an early winter. The highs were in the upper 50's most of the time we were there, so it was a good bit cooler than what we left behind in Alabama.
Everything went well though and I didn't have any problems flying or anything else. I had wondered if I would set off the metal detector, and actually thought it would be a little neat if I did, but I walked through and not a beep or a buzz sounded.
One nice thing was getting to see the trees up north. They had started to turn and were about a week or two away from being at the peak of their fall colors. Taking off coming back home was pretty awsome. Everything was a sea of gold and red and green. I'm glad we got to go this time of year. It's something you don't really get to see in south Alabama.
Flying also never ceases to amaze me and to put me in shear awe of creation. We had almost completely clear skies on the way home and I think it's the first time I've flown where you could see to the ground for pretty much the entire trip. The fact that we're able to do what we do just reaffirms for me that this world is no accidental result of an big explosion. Anyone who flies somewhere on a clear day and says there's not a creator must have looked out the window with their eyes closed.
Anyway, we're still working on getting my medicine level adjusted. We slowly inching closer to having it just right. I'm still getting checked once a week, but I think we're getting close to moving that out to maybe once every two weeks.
Other than that, there's not much going on. DeAnne's doing well. She seems to really be falling into a rythm with school and I think she's able to enjoy it more now than when school first started and everything was hectic and new to her.
I'll keep you posted on how the medicine is going. It's hard to believe, but it's already been four months since the surgery. Anyway, take care...till next time...
--Paul
Everything went well though and I didn't have any problems flying or anything else. I had wondered if I would set off the metal detector, and actually thought it would be a little neat if I did, but I walked through and not a beep or a buzz sounded.
One nice thing was getting to see the trees up north. They had started to turn and were about a week or two away from being at the peak of their fall colors. Taking off coming back home was pretty awsome. Everything was a sea of gold and red and green. I'm glad we got to go this time of year. It's something you don't really get to see in south Alabama.
Flying also never ceases to amaze me and to put me in shear awe of creation. We had almost completely clear skies on the way home and I think it's the first time I've flown where you could see to the ground for pretty much the entire trip. The fact that we're able to do what we do just reaffirms for me that this world is no accidental result of an big explosion. Anyone who flies somewhere on a clear day and says there's not a creator must have looked out the window with their eyes closed.
Anyway, we're still working on getting my medicine level adjusted. We slowly inching closer to having it just right. I'm still getting checked once a week, but I think we're getting close to moving that out to maybe once every two weeks.
Other than that, there's not much going on. DeAnne's doing well. She seems to really be falling into a rythm with school and I think she's able to enjoy it more now than when school first started and everything was hectic and new to her.
I'll keep you posted on how the medicine is going. It's hard to believe, but it's already been four months since the surgery. Anyway, take care...till next time...
--Paul
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Hello, Hello...
Is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear...bah...enough of that. So it's been over a month! Man, a flurry of activity and then I seem to drop off the face of the Earth. If anyone is even still checking this, then let me say I'm sorry for neglecting you.
So how am I doing? Overall, I'm great. In fact, I think that I'm not better than I was before the surgery. I'm still limiting my physical activity, but I'm able to pick up pretty much anything I want to now. We also still don't have my blood thinner regulated, but Dr. Kerr's only making me get it checked once a week now, so that's something to be grateful for.
DeAnne is busy as ever with school. She's having a good year and she seems to be enjoying her class even if it does wear her out sometimes. I'm going full force at work myself. We have a big project that we're about to move into implementing. As part of that, me and my boss will be making a trip to Minneapolis at the end of the month. 2 days travel and 3 days at the vendor's site. I'm looking foward to seeing if I set off any metal detectors. According to St. Jude's (maker of my valve), I shouldn't, but they said that there's always a chance that it could set one off. I just have to have my little ID card they sent me handy.
Other than that, we're just cruising along with the usual. Visiting family from time to time, working and just having a good time. DeAnne's been after me to post another picture of the dining room featuring our new light fixture. I'll see if I can't get around to that sometime in the near future.
Take care,
Paul
So how am I doing? Overall, I'm great. In fact, I think that I'm not better than I was before the surgery. I'm still limiting my physical activity, but I'm able to pick up pretty much anything I want to now. We also still don't have my blood thinner regulated, but Dr. Kerr's only making me get it checked once a week now, so that's something to be grateful for.
DeAnne is busy as ever with school. She's having a good year and she seems to be enjoying her class even if it does wear her out sometimes. I'm going full force at work myself. We have a big project that we're about to move into implementing. As part of that, me and my boss will be making a trip to Minneapolis at the end of the month. 2 days travel and 3 days at the vendor's site. I'm looking foward to seeing if I set off any metal detectors. According to St. Jude's (maker of my valve), I shouldn't, but they said that there's always a chance that it could set one off. I just have to have my little ID card they sent me handy.
Other than that, we're just cruising along with the usual. Visiting family from time to time, working and just having a good time. DeAnne's been after me to post another picture of the dining room featuring our new light fixture. I'll see if I can't get around to that sometime in the near future.
Take care,
Paul
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Just When You Think You're Through With the Sticky Pads...
...they go and stick more on ya'.
Went back to Dr. Kerr today. The leg's doing better. He's mainly worried about it getting infected so he's pumping me full of antibiotics. My INR was a little higher today so we didn't change the dosage on my coumadin. Hopefully now we can get down to once/week with checking it and I'll catch a break on getting stuck.
The only other news is that when I went in Monday, my blood pressure and heart rate were a little low. We went to taking the beta-blocker once/day instead of twice and after talking to Dr. Mayer, they decided to put me on a 24-hour monitor to see how I'm doing. So I get to walk around with a new accessory until 11:20 tomorrow. I'm sure all the ladies will be jealous. Anyway, if my heart-rate is still too low, they're going to take me off of the meds and if it's fine, we're going to stick to once/day and if it's too high, then we go back to twice/day. No big deal, it's just a little annoying to have to wear this thing.
So it's been an interesting week thus far. All this plus school started this past Monday. It's been a long time since we've had this many updates in a week. I don't know that that's necessarily a good thing but that's the way it goes sometimes, huh?
--Paul
Went back to Dr. Kerr today. The leg's doing better. He's mainly worried about it getting infected so he's pumping me full of antibiotics. My INR was a little higher today so we didn't change the dosage on my coumadin. Hopefully now we can get down to once/week with checking it and I'll catch a break on getting stuck.
The only other news is that when I went in Monday, my blood pressure and heart rate were a little low. We went to taking the beta-blocker once/day instead of twice and after talking to Dr. Mayer, they decided to put me on a 24-hour monitor to see how I'm doing. So I get to walk around with a new accessory until 11:20 tomorrow. I'm sure all the ladies will be jealous. Anyway, if my heart-rate is still too low, they're going to take me off of the meds and if it's fine, we're going to stick to once/day and if it's too high, then we go back to twice/day. No big deal, it's just a little annoying to have to wear this thing.
So it's been an interesting week thus far. All this plus school started this past Monday. It's been a long time since we've had this many updates in a week. I don't know that that's necessarily a good thing but that's the way it goes sometimes, huh?
--Paul
Monday, August 07, 2006
One Day I'll Learn...
...to keep my mouth shut. No sooner than I post about how well I'm doing than the next day, everything goes to pot. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but still. Anyway, I've got an incision on my left groin from where they took some vein out to repair my aorta with. Yesterday I noticed that it looked a little bruised at the end of it and then today I get out of the shower and it's bleeding. So I got on the bed and held some pressure to it and once we got it stopped we put a band-aid on. I was scheduled to get my blood checked today, so I went early and asked the nurse when she was drawing me. They asked me to come back in a little later to let Dr. Kerr look at it.
So I went back to the doctors latter this morning. Turns out my blood pressure and heart rate were a little too low for Doc's tastes and he wants to back off on my beta blocker. He said that the problem with my leg wasn't a big deal, that the area is high-stress from the movement the leg makes and that the skin is thin there anyway. He said it should close up in a day or two and just to keep some bactoban on it and keep it dressed.
So after no real news, I've had a fairly exciting day. My INR (blood thinness measure) was lower today so that was the one bit of good news for the day. Now if we can just keep it steady, we'll be doing good.
Hopefully this leg thing is minor and it'll just heal up and we won't have any other problems. I really think that the dog may have stepped on me while she was in my lap or while we were sleeping or something. That's the only thing that I can think of that would cause something that looks like this. But that's besides the point.
So there you have it, two posts in two days. That hasn't happened in a while. Hope you enjoyed them.
--Paul
So I went back to the doctors latter this morning. Turns out my blood pressure and heart rate were a little too low for Doc's tastes and he wants to back off on my beta blocker. He said that the problem with my leg wasn't a big deal, that the area is high-stress from the movement the leg makes and that the skin is thin there anyway. He said it should close up in a day or two and just to keep some bactoban on it and keep it dressed.
So after no real news, I've had a fairly exciting day. My INR (blood thinness measure) was lower today so that was the one bit of good news for the day. Now if we can just keep it steady, we'll be doing good.
Hopefully this leg thing is minor and it'll just heal up and we won't have any other problems. I really think that the dog may have stepped on me while she was in my lap or while we were sleeping or something. That's the only thing that I can think of that would cause something that looks like this. But that's besides the point.
So there you have it, two posts in two days. That hasn't happened in a while. Hope you enjoyed them.
--Paul
Sunday, August 06, 2006
The Report Remains the Same
Nothing new to report on this week. We still don't have my blood thinner regulated. We had several good weeks where things seemed to be normalizing and we had decided it was safe to go down to checking it once a week and then Friday it shot up real high (too thin), so now we're back to as often each week as it seems necessary. Hopefully tomorrow it will be better.
I'm sure you've all noticed that as things have improved, the frequency of the posts to the blog has slowed. In all honesty, I'm not quite sure what to do with it now. The general idea right now is to keep posting from time to time and to leave it up in the future for anyone who happens to stumble upon it. However, as many family and friends have made known, there are more than a few of you that have come to rely on the blog as a means of keeping up with Dee and I. As to that, I believe that I may start a new blog on which to keep you all updated as to what's going on in our crazy lives. Thoughts/comments on this idea would be much appreciated.
That's all I got for now.
--Paul
I'm sure you've all noticed that as things have improved, the frequency of the posts to the blog has slowed. In all honesty, I'm not quite sure what to do with it now. The general idea right now is to keep posting from time to time and to leave it up in the future for anyone who happens to stumble upon it. However, as many family and friends have made known, there are more than a few of you that have come to rely on the blog as a means of keeping up with Dee and I. As to that, I believe that I may start a new blog on which to keep you all updated as to what's going on in our crazy lives. Thoughts/comments on this idea would be much appreciated.
That's all I got for now.
--Paul
Sunday, July 30, 2006
And Now for Your Regularly Scheduled Update...
I seem to be on a once/week schedule with the updates. Sunday must be the only day that I have time to post. Anyway, I'm still doing well. I think we've just about got my blood thinner regulated. The last 3 or 4 tests have come back slightly low, but close enough to the range we want that we haven't really changed the way I'm taking the medicine. Hopefully we can get the number up just a little bit and then we'll be set and I can quit having blood drawn 2 or 3 times a week.
As to how I feel. I think I've reached a point now where I have begun to actually feel better than I did before the surgery. It's going to take a bit more time to get completly over it, but things are going well and I know without a doubt that I'm going to feel great in a couple of months.
In other news...DeAnne's home improvement drive continues. We bought a new light fixture for the dinning room yesterday and spent all evening hanging it, determinging that it was too low, taking it down, hanging it back up and finally wiring it.
That's about it for this week. Work is still going well. We're busy as ever. Dad came out Friday and cut the grass for me. I'm still a few weeks out from being allowed to use a lawnmower or a weed eater again.
Till next time...
--Paul
As to how I feel. I think I've reached a point now where I have begun to actually feel better than I did before the surgery. It's going to take a bit more time to get completly over it, but things are going well and I know without a doubt that I'm going to feel great in a couple of months.
In other news...DeAnne's home improvement drive continues. We bought a new light fixture for the dinning room yesterday and spent all evening hanging it, determinging that it was too low, taking it down, hanging it back up and finally wiring it.
That's about it for this week. Work is still going well. We're busy as ever. Dad came out Friday and cut the grass for me. I'm still a few weeks out from being allowed to use a lawnmower or a weed eater again.
Till next time...
--Paul
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Also...
As a side note, the last post with the picture of the dinning room was the 50th post for the blog. Nothing really major, but I thought it was worth noting...
--Paul
--Paul
Saturday, July 15, 2006
This One's For You, Courtney
We made a trip to Mobile yesterday to see Dr. Mayer. Everything went well. It was actually the shortest visit I think we've ever had at his office. We didn't wait long to be taken back, they got my blood pressure and weight (both good), and then before we knew it, he was coming in to see us. He listened to me and went over the PVC incident from a few weeks back and then told us he wanted to see me again in 6 months. The greatest part, he told me I could drop the low-sodium diet and go back to eating what I wanted to! Domino's here we come...
So after we were done at the doctor's, we went and saw Courtney and Edwin and had a great time. Courtney got on to me for not posting more often than once a week, so I'm dedicating this post to her. I also promise to get some pictures up of the dinning room. We've still got a few spots to touch up, but it's nothing that would be visible in pictures.
That's about it. I'm back at work full time now and everything's going well. It didn't take long to get back into the swing of things. It's been pretty busy, but I've not been overwhelmed. I feel really good overall. At least as good as I did before the surgery and Dr. Mayer says that by the time 6 months rolls around I should be amazed at the difference in the way I feel compared to then and before the surgery. Alright...off to make some pictures...
--Paul
So after we were done at the doctor's, we went and saw Courtney and Edwin and had a great time. Courtney got on to me for not posting more often than once a week, so I'm dedicating this post to her. I also promise to get some pictures up of the dinning room. We've still got a few spots to touch up, but it's nothing that would be visible in pictures.
That's about it. I'm back at work full time now and everything's going well. It didn't take long to get back into the swing of things. It's been pretty busy, but I've not been overwhelmed. I feel really good overall. At least as good as I did before the surgery and Dr. Mayer says that by the time 6 months rolls around I should be amazed at the difference in the way I feel compared to then and before the surgery. Alright...off to make some pictures...
--Paul
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