Category Archives: Health

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (II)

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Five Favorites

Ko

Because “House M.D. is off the air… I am reading through the archives of Dr. Grumpy in the House. He’s a neurologist and talks about his more… interesting patients as well as reporting on boring medical symposiums, stupid criminals, and interesting war anecdotes.

Bi

Old Navy flip flops. I am a BAD pastor’s wife because I’ve worn these to church on a few (OK… MANY) occasions because I’m having to chase a 4 year old around. It’s also what I wear a lot of the time when I don’t have running shoes on and I can’t be barefoot. (I’m in a perpetually discalced state most days.)

Old Navy flip flops

Hiru

Louise Penny. I discovered one of her latest books randomly at the library and immediately checked it out to read. It takes place in a monastery where one of the monks has been killed over the chants they do every day as part of their daily prayers. Penny manages to write with a chiaroscuro-like view where you see both the inner darkness of the person as well as elements of light. It’s what makes her novels so excellent.

A Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

Lau

Frappucino love. Starbucks has a new frappucino or two out these days and I’m dying to try the Caramel Ribbon Crunch one. It’s one where it would have to be my breakfast because of the calories and the fact that it packs 3 meals worth of carbs. I must resist the temptation…

Caramel Ribbon Crunch frappucino

Bost

Arabic Easter song. A friend of mine who is an Orthodox deacon’s wife posted this on Facebook and I wanted to share it because it’s an amazing video. Lebanese Christians are effectively doing a flash mob to sing an Easter praise song which actually sounds less strange to my ears than much of the music coming out of the Antiochian Orthodox churches and the Coptic church. (Sorry Tasoni — I’m still getting used to your church’s music. It’s beautiful but it sounds… different to my Western ears.)

Go love up Grace and the others. Grace is hosting this week while entertains guests and enjoys the chrism scent on Mr. Charlie after his baptism.

7 Quick Takes: Blessings, Wait Wait Cinecast, and a Diagnosis.

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7 Quick Takes

Usually, I’m chomping at the bit to be first. Tonight, that’s not going to happen. I headed to the Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me cinecast tonight which is a birthday present from my AWESOME and WONDERFUL husband Jon who is staying home with Daniel while I go live it up. (My birthday isn’t until the 19th so you have 16 more days to shop! Hint: I love Barnes & Noble giftcards!) I got home at 10 p.m. and decided to take a shower before I got caught up on blogs/surfing/news and it’s 1:30 a.m. as I’m settling down to do Quick Takes (which are usually done in advance).

— 1 —

Orphans. Do you see these adorable kids?

BrettKaia

Brett (on the left) needs a mama and Kaia (on the right) has a family who needs help raising the funds to bring her home. If you can help out at all, click on their pictures. Please and thank you!

— 2 —

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me cinecast. It was *fabulous*. It was basically the live taping of the radio show but beamed to movie theaters across the country. It was nice to actually see what Tom Bodett looks like, to see Paula Poundstone now 20 years after she used to occasionally be on VH-1, and to watch Mo Rocca who looks so much older than he did in all the “I love the [insert decade]” shows on VH-1. (Yes, I’m aware that it’s been 5-10 years since those were made in many cases). Steve Martin was the special guest and I was a bit underwhelmed by him. Peter Sagal was fabulous and reminded me of a sexy Fortune 500 CEO. Carl Kasell looks elderly but I also remember him reading the news on Morning Edition 30+ years ago while getting dressed in my parents’ bedroom for school while my mom woke up and got ready as well. I’m totally glad I went!

— 3 —

God’s sense of humor. Last Saturday, Daniel decided to take some keys of the keyboard of my laptop while I was in the bathroom dealing with IBS issues. I was able to get most of them back on but some of the plastic pieces were broken so I called HP parts and ordered a new keyboard. After placing the order, I logged into my bank account to transfer funds around because Jon’s paycheck wouldn’t be there until Monday… and found a charge on my debit card for $73 (almost the exact price of the new keyboard) that I hadn’t made. Oh crap! I immediately called my bank and reported it. They were awesome, took all my information, gave me a claim number so I could file a police report, credited the money back to me, and started an investigation. In the meantime, they told me to go to my local branch and get a temporary debit card as mine had been compromised and would need to be replaced. I did have to wait 30 minutes to get a new one (which sucked because my parents were visiting) but I did get some of my murder mystery (A Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny) read and the banker I worked with was helpful. I filed the police report on Monday with my town’s police department and had two excellent officers work with me. My new debit card arrived yesterday and things seem to be fixed for the moment. Meanwhile, I’m having to watch my checking account to see if it has been completely compromised.

Why is this God’s sense of humor? If Daniel hadn’t broken the keys off my laptop, I would never have looked in my account and found the charge and the person could possibly have done worse damage.

— 4 —

Finally! I had to drop pages of health history off with the G-I specialist I see next week this past Wednesday and I scheduled an appointment with my regular nurse practitioner to go over my bloodwork from last week and get back on Singulair because allergies are kicking the crap out of me. Well, last week I had been telling her about all the health issues that I was having and mentioned that my period was being screwy after nearly 20 years of cycles like clockwork (except for pregnancy). She has been suspecting that I have some kind of metabolic syndrome so she added that panel to my lab order. Lo and behold, the panel came back indicating a high likelihood of PCOS which my neurologist (whom I loved and whom I miss a lot) had suspected 5 years ago when she first started treating me. (It was something she picked up on in my health history.) I’m getting in for an endocrinology consult ASAP and will probably also be going to bond with an OB/GYN as well (there will be an ultrasound needed) but it’s nice to know that my inability to lose weight and all that isn’t because I’m lazy — there’s something else going on!

— 5 —

Blessings. Tuesday night, I notice water on the floor of the laundry shed and a load of laundry on Wednesday morning exacerbated it. It was, of course, the morning where I was supposed to be running from 8:30 a.m. until Daniel was picked up from school at 1 p.m. so I expected all this to put hold when I called one of our deacons to deal with it. D, our deacon, cheerfully told me he would be over in 20 minutes and showed up with towels to mop up the water and a bucket to bail the water out of the washer. He took it apart and discovered the issue. While consulting with one of our elders (who used to be one of the deacons), they were en route to a parts store and passed a used appliance place. Well… it turns out that a new used washer was incredibly cheaper than parts and would function better. Our council president went and took care of buying it, the store delivered it, and took the old one away. Meanwhile, D took the clothes that had been in the washer back to his house and washed/dried/folded them before leaving them on our back porch. Given that I was out of clean underwear, convinced that I would have to hit up a laundromat, and deal with that plus Daniel, I was almost sobbing with gratitude to have clean clothes and most importantly CLEAN UNDERWEAR!!!!!! I thanked D profusely over the phone and told his wife M at dinner (it was Ladies’ Night Out for church) how incredibly grateful I was to her for D and how wonderful her husband is. Thank God for wonderful deacons and elders!

— 6 —

Promise Walk for Preeclampsia. You’ll see me start publicizing my Promise Walk in a few weeks but today, I’d like to draw your attention to my dear friend Kate.

Kate and Gus

(I stole this picture off her participant page. Kate, if you want a different one, email it to me and I’ll replace it post-haste.)

Kate is one of the reasons I’m involved with the Promise Walk. She’s heard me talking about my experiences with preeclampsia/HELLP Syndrome and her recognition of her symptoms meant that they were able to monitor her and she was able to carry Gus almost to full-term(?). Things did go south during his birth and a c-section was needed to keep both of them alive but knowledge of the condition was what saved their lives. She’s participating in one of the walks this year so that other women can be made aware of the condition and more lives can be saved. I am totally proud of her and I’d like to ask you to consider throwing a few bucks her way.

— 7 —

Wedding bells. One of the blessings of participating in the Quick Takes for the last two years is that I’ve been blessed to form friendships online with some pretty amazing women. One of them, Emily of A Day in the Life / Emily Runs / Fine Linen and Purple, is getting married tomorrow after an epic engagement (594 days!). Blessings to you and your beloved, dear one and I really hope that some of the wedding pictures involve a light saber battle because you *are* getting married on Star Wars Day. 😉

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Cartacacoethes, Baseball, and the Ring Theory

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7 Quick Takes

Before we start, please lift up some prayers for Jen (our usual hostess) and her son Joseph Thomas who was born on Monday and is in the NICU 30 minutes away with lung/breathing issues. We’re well acquainted with the NICU here at ::Meditatio:: and I hope Jen knows that my husband Jon, our son Daniel, and I are praying for her and her family.

— 1 —

The Ring Theory. This article was published in the L.A. Times and shared around Facebook this week. The premise is making a dot in the center (the person suffering) and drawing concentric circles outward representing different subsets of people ranging from the spouse/family to close friends to colleagues etc. The rule is that any negative comments can only be directed to the outer rings from wherever you happen to be while comforting words can be directed to everyone inward.

Example of ring theory
(HT: LA Times website)

Can I just say that I love this and wish I could have had it for some special people in Montana?

— 2 —

Search term fun. Thanks to the installation of the Jetpack plugin for WordPress, I can engage in sharing interesting search terms. The vast majority of mine have to do with famous brothers in literature because of a post I wrote 9 years ago while trying to find names for my mom’s boys. The interesting ones in the last three months have been…

gallbladder soy cheese
mentos tsa
darius rucker pat tillman memorial
i hate niacin
jack nicholson “as good as it gets” candy in jars
sergio romo tastic t shirts
spanking and fibromyalgia

— 3 —

Update on Ian. Some of you might remember me asking for prayer for Ian Brown, one of my college classmates. The last time I updated, he was dealing with sinusoidal obstructive syndrome which is a rare liver disease associated with his bone marrow transplant. The only hope was an experimental drug called Defibrotide which is only made in Italy. They procured some for him and after a 21 day course, he is doing MUCH better. The latest blog post had a picture of him walking to the local Farmer’s Market which required a 3 1/2 mile walk there and back. For those of us who know Ian, this is nothing new. He is the embodiment of “abundant life”.

— 4 —

Brett. This is Brett. He needs a mama.

Brett

Could you possibly be his mama? Click his picture to learn more about him.

— 5 —

Kaia. Do you have a bunch of loose change lying around? Want to use it to make a BIG difference?

Kaia's Kindergarten Fund

Click on the picture of this beautiful young lady (Kaia) to find out about how your loose change can help her family bring her home and let her go to kindergarten this fall.

— 6 —

Baseball. The Giants did not do well against the Cardinals last weekend (a 14-3 loss on the 7th was the most embarrassing) but they swept their series with the Rockies and have done well against the Cubs thus far. I’m kind of bummed that the games aren’t usually shown up here in Sacramento except on rare occasions but I appreciate that I can usually catch them online.

— 7 —

Cartacacoethes. A few weeks ago, Leah of Unequally Yoked mentioned the book Maphead by Ken Jennings. I’ve stopped and started it a couple times because I’m finding that I can’t be reading anything else at the same time and my local library seems to have cleared the backlog on my request list. I’m aiming to read it during my spare moments this weekend (which may just be Saturday night — Jon has Acquire the Fire and Daniel will be at a Respite Night). Meanwhile, I’m having major cartacacoethes.

For more Quick Takes, visit the fabulous Grace at Camp Patton.

Surviving the NICU

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For those who don’t know, Jen Fulwiler of ConversionDiary.Com had her baby on April 8th. He has some breathing issues (unrelated to Jen’s pulmonary emboli) and is at a different hospital with better NICU facilities. She’s out of the original hospital but Joseph’s hospital is 30 minutes away. Priest’s Wife of Fear Not Little Flock put together a post on surviving the NICU and I thought I’d share my own wisdom as the picture below represents life for us 4 years ago.

Daniel being baptized on April 10, 2009

[+] Be gentle with yourself. It’s hard having a kid in the NICU. You get to cry as much as you want. If nothing else, you’re post-partum and it’s in the job description. You also need to take care of yourself though which means that you need to make an effort to eat, sleep, and do whatever you have to do to be functional.

[+] Ask LOTS and LOTS of questions. If you have qustionas and the doctor isn’t around, write them down and ask him when he rounds. (Oh yes… find out what time rounds are and be present for them.) There are no stupid questions when it comes to your baby. Want to know why they’re giving your baby a transfusion? Want to know what your child’s blood volume is? (I’m not kidding — I did actually ask the last one.) Ask away.

[+] Be as hands-on as you can. My son Daniel had specific care times at specific intervals. Our NICU encouraged me to be as involved as possible with them so I would take his temperature, change his diaper, and do anything else they needed done. It was good for me because I got to know what his baselines were and learned how to do things like bathe him without having to take a class. It also helps you know when there is something going on that needs attention. Something I didn’t know was that blood oxygen levels for preemies should be between 85-95% — anything higher can cause blindness.

[+] Engage in as much “kangaroo care” as possible. It has been empirically proven that “kangaroo care” (skin-to-skin contact with mom or dad) is beneficial to your baby as it helps them regulate their temperature and breathing. One of the best memories I have is of Daniel falling asleep on my chest. I also had the experience of him puking on my chest and having to remove my bra because of all the puke. 🙂

[+] Get the number for the NICU so you can call if you can’t room in with your baby. We couldn’t room in with Daniel until the end so I’d call the NICU before I left for the hospital and then when I got home. (I had a 2 hour commute each way so my favorite nurse actually instructed me to call when I got home.) I even called at 3 a.m. a few times when I needed an update.

These are my thoughts 4 years later. If you have any wisdom to offer, leave it over at Fear Not Little Flock.

7 Quick Takes: Fundraising, Sergio Romo, and the Lions of Rome

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

GoFundMe. I’ve seen a couple GoFundMe sites among my blog reads this week. In the interest of helping everyone out, here are the ones for people I know or follow.

[=] Help the CDC team go to NYC! (OK… this is actually IndieGoGo but I’ll lump them into this category for the moment.)
[=] Help Little Bear have surgery to fix his paws. Little Bear is an adorable little house panther who was born with deformed legs. He won a contest to be on the cover of Modern Cat magazine and his mommy is trying to raise the money to get his paws fixed.
[=] Help to pay for Anna’s transplant meds. Anna got a new liver last fall and the co-pay on her anti-rejection meds jumped up to $300. She doesn’t get a choice on whether she takes the meds and her mom started the GoFundMe to raise some funds so that they can pay for them.
[=] Save Aquinas and More. Aquinas and More is an online store where you can get a number of Catholic things. Two things that make them special (and extra cool in my eyes) are the registries for seminarians and the fact that they will not sell anything made in China. If everyone who liked them on Facebook contributed maybe $10-20, they could re-open and do so better than before.

— 2 —

Forty Days to Forever. Brett will be the guest of honor on the blog at Forty Days to Forever on March 13th. Please share this if you have a blog. Thanks!

— 3 —

Kaia’s Kindergarten Fund. I’m doing a fundraiser for Kaia over on her blog called Kaia’s Kindergarten Fund. It’s super easy — all you have to do is save your spare change in a jar or bottle and when it’s full, take it to the bank to count it. I have all the information you’ll likely need over at Saving Kaia.

My collection bottle

— 4 —

He only looks illegal. Sergio Romo, one of my favorite players on the Giants, is playing for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic which is taking place in Arizona. What else goes on in Arizona? SB 1070 which lets police pull people over to check their citizenship. This is happening to Team Mexico during this tournament. Guys: read his shirt. He only looks illegal. 🙂

— 5 —

You mean allergies aren’t made up? I have a weird egg allergy that Daniel also shares — shots don’t do anything bad to us but we break out in a rash if we eat scrambled eggs. As a result, I can’t eat most breakfast items and I’ve managed to piss off at least one person because I can’t eat whatever they brought to church. (I barely resisted asking them if they’d like to pay for my Epi-Pens when they complained.) For that reason, this cracks me up. True, I don’t like eggs — they give me rashes that require Benadryl.

— 6 —

The Big Bang Theory. How completely awkward was the part of tonight’s episode where Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard were speaking to the middle school girls about science? I think I probably would have run screaming from the classroom and refused to do anything but be an English major. Then again, I did end up in the humanities…

— 7 —

Lent Madness. We’ve reached the Saintly Sixteen. Today was Janani Luwum vs. Jonathan Daniels. I’m kind of looking forward to the day that Ignatius of Antioch faces Hilda of Whitby so that the Lions of Rome will appear again in my Twitter.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

6 Quick Takes: Things I Hadn’t Realized I Had Given Up for Lent

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7 Quick Takes

Daniel came home from school grumpy and coughing on Tuesday… and had a febrile seizure in my lap at 12:45 p.m. on Wednesday. I found myself making a 2 a.m. ER run this morning (Thursday) and sobbing all the way up because I was feeling so alone in dealing with Daniel’s illness. (His fever had spiked and gone down by the time we got to the ER thanks to the Tylenol/Ibuprofen combo the on-call doctor told me to give him.) He’s doing fine now but I’m exhausted and having blogger’s block. For this reason, you’re going to get a light-hearted set of Quick Takes this week.

Don’t forget to go love on Brett and Kaia.

— 1 —

Sleep. I’m a night owl by nature but the last week has been harsher than usual in terms of insomnia. I’m having sore joints, headaches, and neck pain because I’m so tired but none of it is helping me sleep better. I need my NP to call in some Trazadone for me or something. Then again, I might sleep well tonight given how long I was up yesterday.

— 2 —

Coffee. OK… so technically I haven’t quite given this one up. I’m having to cut down on it because I can only drink it with milk and I keep forgetting that I’m lactose-intolerant. This doesn’t work well for my stomach. I can also only drink my lattés cold because the hot milk actually does worse things to my stomach that lactase pills don’t even cover.

— 3 —

Having unscratched arms. The house panther likes to lie across my chest and rest her front paws on my left arm. The only problem: it had been a while since her last mani-pedi. She got one on Monday night so all the scratches on my arms are healing and largely scabbed over. (Yeah, I know you love that picture.)

— 4 —

Patience with stupid people. OK… I actually never had this but fasting makes me crankier and less inclined to put up with stupid remarks. No… it would not be good if the next pope is from Africa so you can call their critics “racists”. No, Benedict XVI is not retiring to avoid arrest on child rape charges stemming from the sex abuse scandals all over the world. No, the meteor in Russia was not a result of Americans trying to prove global warming. [sarcasm] Why yes, the supermajority in California was a direct result of vote tampering. How did you know? [/sarcasm]

— 5 —

My ability to come up with Quick Takes. Writing these is like pulling teeth. It might be the extreme sleep deprivation, the lack of a life I’ve had this week, or the current phase of the moon. In any case, it’s irritating.

— 6 —

The show Hart of Dixie. I’m woefully behind (it competes with two other shows I watch) and yet I haven’t made an effort to catch up on episodes since December. It might be that I’m irritated that Zoe is settling for Wade or something else — I’m not entirely sure.

OK… there is no seventh Quick Take. I need sleep.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: January 27, 2013

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY January 27, 2013

Outside my window… dark now but temperate today — maybe high 50’s or low 60’s?

I am thinking… about the calls I need to make tomorrow morning.

I am thankful… Daniel is home.

In the kitchen… dishes to do.

I am wearing… blue shirt and light blue striped pajama bottoms.

I am creating… afghan squares and blog entries.

I am going… to hope Daniel’s pediatrician hasn’t left UC Davis and we can get in with them next week.

I am wondering… about too many things tonight.

I am reading… Bliss by Kathryn Littlewood. It was a freebie on Friday and looked interesting. I also just finished re-reading The Buzzard Table by Margaret Maron and am of the opinion that I’ll be starting to stock my NOOK with her works because she’s so brilliant.

I am hoping… Daniel can go back to school on Tuesday.

I am looking forward to… Morning Prayer on Tuesday and my massage on Friday.

I am learning that self-care is important.

Around the house… vacuuming to do. Gah.

I am pondering… the Salon.Com article that all my pro-life friends were quoting this week. Having read it, I’m not quite sure where my heart and mind are with regard to it. On the one hand, the author *did* make those statements. On the other hand, I think a number of people missed the point.

A favorite quote for today… ??Crying is all right in its own way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.?? — C.S. Lewis

One of my favorite things… Coca-Cola. It is sooooo bad for me but I love it.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Morning Prayer on Tuesday, WIC on Tuesday afternoon, work on editing Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, massage on friday afternoon.

A peek into my day… I finally got my giveaway items staged for my day on Forty to Forever. It’s a coffee cup from Peet’s, a pound of their Fair Trade blend, some Pepperidge Farm Lexington cookies, and a copy of Kisses from Katie.

Giveaway for Forty to Forever.

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook