Monday Photo Shoot

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Snap some shots of the birds around you. Whether they're out your window or in your house as pets, let's see some pictures of your fine feathered friends. You can take new shots or use old ones -- but try not to use shot you've already used before. Also remember that although it's called the Monday Photo Shoot, you can put up pictures on Tuesday, Wednesday or even Thursday morning and still have them part of the roundup on Thursday afternoon.

OK John, here ya go... barely in time to be included, but you know, I'm playing nurse lately.  I saw this turkey vulture soaring in the sky when I took my walk yesterday.

 

grandchildren are good medicine

When Cliff first came out of surgery, the respiratory therapists stressed to him that he had to work with the incentive spirometer OFTEN.  It was painful for him, but he intended to get out of the hospital as quickly as possible, and he worked hard at it.

When he was out of ICU, he still used the contraption diligently.  One night nurse, Amee, laughed because she'd hear Cliff in the middle of the night using his spirometer.  "Nobody ever uses those things unless there's someone standing over them, forcing them to do it," she said.

Obviously nobody else was as determined as Cliff was to get home!

He's still doing it three or four times a day.  And as you can see by the pictures, the granddaughters consider it a new toy.

Don't you love the smiles?

Wednesday Diet report

I finally got below 160 while spending nights in the hospital with Cliff.  Today I'm 157 and 1/2.  Ten more pounds of loss would be perfect!  I've lost 30 1/2 pounds total.

Now for Cliff.  He went into the hospital weighing 237 pounds, which was a 40-pound loss since December.  Yesterday morning he weighed 227!  This morning I was a little concerned because he weighed 230, and we were told to report a gain of more than two pounds in 24 hours; however, I couldn't detect any edema in his ankles, and I knew the visiting nurse would be here.  She pronounced his lungs clear, and no edema in evidence.  Swollen ankles and labored breathing could be indications of congestive heart failure.

I had some cause for concern yesterday, too:  Cliff was getting dizzy every time he got up from a sitting position.  It didn't take me long to remember that this is a sign of low blood pressure; sure enough, we checked, and his blood pressure was 90 over 65.  I called the heart doctor's office, and they told me to quit giving him one of the pills he was taking.  His blood pressure is still pretty low today (110/65) but at least he isn't dizzy.

The home health nurse said Cliff looks great, his incisions are doing well, and she saw no reason to return unless we wanted her here again; we agreed.

There's something in that tree!

Cliff was in the shop, and the granddaughters were hanging out with him; I assumed he was watching out for them.  Then my son-in-law, Kevin, arrived, and discovered his youngest daughter was stuck in a tree in the front yard.  Of course I had to take pictures.

The picture of Marvin's house being torn down is taken from the view I have here at my house.  It'll be nice to have it gone.

Oh, on another subject:  Remember the stitches in my leg?  I had Cliff remove the stitches.  He did a great job!

misunderstood

Yeah, I'm frustrated.  And misunderstood.

Reading the comments on the last entry, people seem to think I am taking the blame for Cliff's heart trouble.  Folks, I am not.  It wasn't a lack of caring that caused me to ignore obvious heart symptoms, it was plain, old-fashioned ignorance.

When my friend Joanna gave me information that opened my eyes, I got Cliff to a doctor PDQ.

I wanted to pass along the favor that Joanna did for Cliff and me.  I want people to be aware of the symptoms.  If you choose to ignore the advice, and say to yourself, "I know people who did everything right and they died at age fifty," you go right ahead.  I've done what I could.

I did not do the previous entry to have my ego stroked or to be poor-babied.

Actually, I take much of the credit for Cliff's life being saved:  It was I who insisted we start walking in the pasture, where Cliff first had his chest pains, which in the long run got us to the doctor.  I was the one who practically FORCED him to keep his doctor appointment.  I am 100% responsible (ask him) for his losing 35 pounds before this happened, so he already had a head start on losing the weight that he needs rid of so as not to overwork his heart.

I may have put this in my journal before:  Cliff's heart doctor, the one who diagnosed him, told him he is actually a heart doctor's dream patient, because he quit smoking, he is losing weight, and he walks every day.  These are the things most heart patients refuse to do; Cliff can take credit for quitting the cigarettes, but he can thank me for the other two.

Feel better now?

and NO, I am NOT offended by the well-meaning comments.

No use crying over spilled milk

When I think of what Cliff has gone through, these past two weeks, I realize that it could have been prevented.

He had borderline-high blood pressure in his thirties.  By the time he was fifty, he was on blood pressure meds.  Our doctor told him when he put him on these prescription drugs to cut the salt out of his diet.  Cliff came home and told me this, but I more or less shrugged it off.  So did he.  Oh, we consumed less salt than many people do; we never use the salt-shaker at the table, for instance.  But I didn't do the research to learn just how much salt there is in everyday, ordinary foods; ignorance is bliss.

It was the same with cholesterol.  Surely it'll all work out, I thought.  We don't eat that many eggs. 

I have been known to accuse my dear husband of sticking his head in the sand when trouble comes, but it looks like I did a pretty good job of that myself.  Could I have prevented this bypass surgery from which he's recovering?  And the permanent damage to his heart caused by insufficient blood supply?

There's another thing:  Four or five years ago, Cliff had several spells of severe chest pains.  He went to emergency rooms three times, fairly certain he was dying.  He was given an exercise stress test, and it showed no problems.  I have no doubt catheterization would have shown heart problems at that time.

Anyway, I decided Cliff must be having anxiety attacks, since nobody was finding anything wrong.  The spells subsided, and he agreed that my diagnosis must be correct.

A few months ago we started going for half-hour walks in our pasture.  Every day, coming up one extreme hill, Cliff had to stop and get his breath.  He mentioned that he had pain in his chest... "right here", he'd say, placing his hand in the center of his chest. 

"Is it heartburn?"  I asked him.

"I don't know; it feels like my heart."

Tums seemed to help.  At first.  Then they didn't.

Do you see why I feel very guilty?  I had all these warning signs and made light of them.  I'm also a little angry that the doctors four years ago didn't delve deeper and discover Cliff's problem.

I suppose, if my friend Joanna hadn't come to visit, I'd have kept walking Cliff up that hill until he had a full-blown heart attack.  Joanna described what had happened to her brother-in-law when he was having similar heartburn episodes, and that's what got us to the doctor.

So all the learning and studying I'm doing concerning sodium and cholesterol is like locking the barn door after the horse got out.

I'm not one to berate myself for past mistakes, because no good comes from that; this entry is meant to help someone else.  Perhaps some of you can learn from my mistakes.

photos of our day

I can't say I've accomplished a lot today, except for educating myself some more on sodium content of foods, and cooking meals.  I follow Cliff around a lot, making sure he doesn't do anything he shouldn't.

Thanks to Travis and Tyler, we got the heifer calves loaded with no strain on Cliff; his brother, Phil, hitched up to the trailer and took them away. 

While taking my regular walk this morning, I heard a deep, throaty growl in the woods near the path, the sort of growl you don't want to hear from a dog because it means business.  Right after the growl I heard some baby yip-yip-yips... then another growl, then more yips.  My guess is that a mother coyote saw me and Sadie, and was forcing her babies to safety against their will.