No more delta wave.

Just a quick note... I realized I never posted anything about my little operation that I had done back on the 16th (March).

Everything went fairly well... after they found a vein that is. They had to call in some ICU specialty nurse to get an IV in. Sigh. What do you expect when I've been fasting with no water?

They got me down there, proceeded to jam catheters into my neck and both large veins in my groin. Seriously. I swear the petite Chinese doctor hopped up on me to get more leverage for my neck. I nearly cried from an intense pain in my shoulder the entire time. Oh, did I mention I was awake?

My sweet personal nurse was kind enough to drape warm blankets around my freezing cold digits that were once known as hands.

Then the fun started. They got the catheters into my heart and then came the adrenaline. Next thing you know, my heart was doing swan dives and belly flops.

They did get it to go into that special rhythm, meaning 180-220 bpm, the short circuit that was the symptom I was supposed to have from this whole White-Parkinson-Woulf syndrome... but never did.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to tear up seeing as though I forgot how to breathe, I was freezing, and my shoulder was dead.

So my sweet nurse says, it's okay, they know what they're doing, and they can get it back to normal in no time.


Sure. After about 10 minutes (or was it 10 seconds?) of that, they reeled me back in from the deep end.... and ah, gave me more "happy juice," which I believe was their medical term for it.

And I slept like a baby. Meanwhile they were able to find where that extra current was passing through, and burned a tiny little spot in my heart to stop that. They fed me more adrenaline with no averse affects (good to know for the future), yanked the catheters and sent me on my way.


Next subject: peeing in bedpans while laying in a hospital bed.

Just kidding.

I couldn't get up for 24 hours. Muy disgusting. Ew.

However, I slept like a baby in the hospital... 10:30-6:00 and 6:30-8:00. Best sleep I'd had in months... maybe that was due to the morphine.

Oh yes, morphine, because of chest pain. Which I was still having after the surgery; no big deal, they said.

And still 3-4 days later. No big deal. Also a scary incident involving bpm of about 140, a hour of pto from work, and rushing to get an emergency ekg done. Nothing wrong, still no delta wave, therefore no problemo.

I'm feeling really well, back to what I was before the surgery and my neck insertion point just looks like any ol' zit. The groin insertion points are completely fine... there was some pain there too afterwards for a few days, but not serious enough I guess.

That's about it...

Oh, and Joel, Mary Jo, and Adam are on my nice list.. they visited me in my single bed, 5-star hotel room. And my work sent me flowers. They still smell good. :)

And the biggest relief: my delta wave is gone. My heart can rest between beats now.



Yay.

Health care. Soapbox warning.

So here's a couple excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article.

"Under the legislation, about 19 million lower-earning Americans would get tax credits to offset the cost of buying insurance, with the help stretching up to a family of four earning $88,000 a year. A further 16 million people would get insurance through an expansion of the federal-state Medicaid program to make it available to a family of four earning up to $29,000 a year."

"Tax increases needed to finance the program would hit a range of industries, from insurers to tanning services. Over the next decade, $108 billion in new fees will fall on insurers, drug makers and medical-device companies. Families earning more than $250,000 a year will pay a higher Medicare payroll tax, and see that tax expanded to investment income. High-value insurance plans will also be hit with a 40% tax starting in 2018."

Let me get this straight.

If you can't afford health insurance, government gives it to you. Or they fine you.

If you work hard for your money, you get taxed so the government can give it to those who can't afford insurance.

If you're smart and want to retire someday without government dependence (eg. investing), you get taxed so they can give it to those who haven't thought of that idea.

The people who are responsible for high medical costs in the first place (insurers, drug makers, and medical-device companies) are going to get taxed more... and this is supposed to lower health care costs?



As someone who extremely recently has dealt with the whole system, including insurance companies, emergency services providers, hospital services, and continuing medical bills, I say the program is warped. Something's wrong.

But this is not the answer.

Little Miss Busy

At least that's what it feels like.

Joel and I have been really busy the last couple weeks... mostly every day stuff, though. Joel's physical therapy is progressing along quite well. He's in a splint now, and only has to wear it at work.

My business class is heating up, although next week is "spring break" and there's no class. Thank goodness, because I'm 2 weeks behind in homework. Work has been busy the last week or two also.. other employees on vacation means more hours for me! That will really slow down, especially into April, which makes me really happy.

I've been doing quite a bit of "research" and marketing planning for Baseman Studios as well. Rolled out a wedding special until the end of March... also working on something for the seniors. I created some pretty sweet business cards, and came up with a new logo. Today I'm heading down to do a session with a newborn, so if you watch my photo blog, keep an eye open for that in the next few days. :)

We've had our workers/ministers with us a couple nights this week too, so that was really great. There were gospel meetings both nights though, so the visits were kept a little short.

My eps/ablation procedure is this coming Tuesday. I'm not really looking forward to being in a hospital for more than 24 hours, and realllly not looking forward to being awake and only sedated during the operation. If they put me to sleep, then my heart rests too.. which makes it nearly impossible for them to do what they need to do.

Turbs is going through a little naughty spurt (at least I hope it's only a phase), but I think most of it is that she wants to play outside now since it's not freezing cold anymore.

Next week is going to be great.. 50's and sunny! So excited!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Drippy Wednesday.

Somehow rain makes me want to snuggle up and take a nap.

How about you?

Ps. She got her stitches out yesterday... everything looks good! :) No more cone-head!

It's madness, I tell you... MADNESS!

:)