More heart tests

Well that was an experience.....

Today in the next series of heart scans I had a cardiac MRI. These tests are very new to Canberra and apparently I'm the first patient to have one done. Yay me. Apparently cardiac MRI can detail where problems lay and "sort out" various anomalies of the heart, but because the things it can pick up are generally rare conditions cardiac MRI is not a commonly used tool and usually only available at research hospitals. It's also the most detailed heart scan currently available.

I thought it'd take half an hour or so. I got there and they told me it'd take about an hour. It ended up taking about 2 hours.

2 hours of lying in the MRI tube with the tube bit about 15cm away from my face. When I looked above me all I could see was tube, when I looked down toward my feet all I could see was tube. NOT good if you're claustrophobic. Luckily I'm not, but I initially did freak out a bit at it as I felt very trapped. They had all sorts of things on my chest, and a few straps fairly snug to hold the things so they wouldn't fall off, so the weight on my chest didn't help the feeling.

As well as that, they didn't tell me I'd be getting an injection so I was feeling dehydrated and it was fairly painful getting the cannular in. I hate needles...

So they're not sure if this will tell me anything more definitive, but if nothing else it will be an excellent reference point for any future tests.

Swimming and the joys of moving country!

I managed a nice swim yesterday with Aki at the AIS pool. I’ve pulled out of the swim legs for the triple tri as I’m flying out to America 2 days after the race and think I’m going to be pretty busy that weekend! I’m also constantly exhausted at the moment from either getting run down trying to plan everything, or from a virus and training is the absolute last thing on my mind.

So the swim was great, there was no pressure, we could just paddle around in the pool. I love the AIS pool. It’s always clean, you can usually be assured of your own lane, the water temperature is nice (once you get in!), and you can go and sit in the spa afterwards!

Aki’s fairly new to swimming, so I gave her a few pointers that people have given me over the years, and enjoyed just doing a nice easy swim myself. The spa was good as well – my back’s been a little achy, so I positioned myself so a good strong jet was aimed right where it was feeling sore, and it feels heaps better today!

Getting out of the spa though I realised how tired I was, and got home, had a shower, lay down for “5 minutes”, and finally woke up again 1 1/2 hours later when our neighbours came around for wine and cheese... When they left we still didn’t have the energy to do anything (Andrew’s been a bit knocked around with a bit of a cold) so once again, we failed to get some US Customs paperwork done that we really need to do, didn’t get the washing in before it started raining again, didn’t get to the shops, didn’t manage to get the wet clothes to the Laundromat so we could actually have dry clothes to wear today. Sigh...

I think we have so much to do still, but we don't seem to actually be achieving anything. I'm sure it'll work out in the end :-)

LC's gone to her new home

I ended up asking LC's new owner to come this weekend rather than next weekend as it was too heartbreaking everytime she sat on my chest, looked up at me and purred.

So he's just come and collected her. I'm sure she'll be happy in her new home...

Found a home for LC!

Yayyyy!!!! We found a home for our pussy cat! We didn't want to take her to America with us, because it would be stressful for her, and we're not planning on being home much which really isn't fair on her.

So I put a notice around on Monday and I had a phone call today from someone who wanted to come and look at her, and he liked her (who wouldn't, she's a gorgeous cat!) so will come and collect her the weekend after this one. So one last week with her....

The guy lives on his own so was looking for a cat for company, and seemed like a nice guy, so I think it should work out well. She's very sociable, and that's the sort of home I wanted her to go to.

Very soon it's going to kick in that we're going to be giving her away, there's going to be a few tears when we actually hand her over methinks. :-(

27 days until Singapore!

Wow, time is flying by!!

I have an aunt who's living in the Seychelles, and goes to Singapore to do "major" shopping. She was planning on going at the end of November to do christmas shopping for her kids and hubby, so my mum, another aunt and I decided that we'd go and join her to catch up and to see Singapore.

It's all turned out *fairly* nicely - I was worrying for a little while there that America was going to happen too soon and I wasn't going to make Singapore, but now I'm off to Singapore on November 22, and fly from there direct to the US on November 30.

It should be good fun. We've planned some cool things, like the night safari at the Singapore Zoo, shopping, diving with the dugong and sharks at Underwater World, shopping, drinking Singapore Slings at the Long Bar of Raffles Hotel, checking out the temples, seeing the different cultural areas, oh and maybe some shopping... Hopefully a week is enough to see a fair bit of everything!

The only problem is that I can only take 20kg of stuff into Singapore on the plane, so when the packers come on the 14th of November to pack up our house, I'll need to keep with me a weeks clothes for Canberra, a weeks clothes for Singapore (which will be HOT), and then clothes for San Francisco (which will be cold!). I then have to hope all those clothes will weigh under 20kg (my shoes alone will be most of that!) and hope that our air freight has arrived by the time I get to America so I can get the rest of my clothes.

So much to do in 27 days...

Yawn

We haven't been managing to get to bed until 11pm or later lately - we kept getting distracted doing "America" stuff, and frankly I think we're both a bit blase about the whole work thing since we're finishing in a couple of weeks.

As well as that, I moved into a new area last week that's got a lot of really interesting international work going on, but completely under-staffed. So I'm very busy trying to get my head around a whole lot of new things in a short period of time and getting through a whole backlog of work that should have been done weeks ago, but they haven't had the time or resources to do!

This also means I haven't been able to get out for lunchtime walks (weather hasn't helped either), I haven't been riding to work because I'm struggling to get out of bed in time to even drive to work let alone ride! Because I'm getting to work a bit later, I'm staying a bit later and not getting home until about 6, at which point I'm knackered!

So feeling very tired, very unfit, and incredibly lazy, but trying to keep up enough motivation to at least do my job for just 12 more working days!

Pentax Optio WP camera

Does anyone know anything about this camera? We're looking for a compact digital camera that's fairly sturdy, and this one looks pretty good. 5 megapixel, 3x optical and 4x digital zoom, waterproof down to 1.5m, but reports say they've taken it down to 15m. In any case you can get a diving case as well.

Any thoughts?

Edit: We went shopping and ended up getting a Nikon Coolpix 5900...

California here we come!!!

We got our work visas for the US today!!!! WOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Andrew's got a job with Google (yes, THE google!), in Mountain View, California, which is about an hour south of San Francisco. We applied for the brand new E-3 visa that is available for Australians only and we finally got them back today all approved and right to go. The best part about the E-3 visa is that it gives your spouse the right to work as well, which is great for us!!

So I've applied for leave without pay from work, and hope to finish on November 11, and will leave on November 22 for my holiday in Singapore, then will fly from there directly to San Francisco.

The rest of this year is going to be just MAD! :-)

Pole dancing lunchtime Fyshwick???

Apparently someone googled for this and got to my blog. Interesting!

Sitemeter is so cool!! I love how it tells you who's been looking at your blog, how they got there, and if they got there through a search engine, what words they were searching for.

And no I haven't started a new career in pole dancing. Apparently Pole dancing lunchtime Fyshwick came from a variety of posts talking about running around the lake at LUNCHTIME, a friends daughter who does Irish DANCING, and some time I went to FYSHWICK to pick up something.

Ever since Andrew blogged about how crap I looked after getting my wisdom teeth out and linked to my website, which then went to a couple of popular Planet's that get read by lots of people around the world, my blog has gone nuts!!

Quite a few people are getting referred to me through search engines, my blog is now the second major site when you google worldwide for my name and best of all, someone found my Aortic Aneurysm information by googling for "Familial Aortic Aneurysm". Yeehaa!

Check up

I had to go to the GP today, so I asked her to check out all the stitches and everything while I was there to make sure everything was all good, and yes, it all looks good – yay! She did say that I have an ulcer on the swollen side near where the stitches are, and she said I’d probably already felt that. Nope?? Oh well, whatever!

She also said that the lump in my cheek is just a hematoma (ie. a bruise/pooling of blood) and it’ll go away. Similar to say… when someone throws a hard ball and scones you in the leg, and you’re left with a lumpy bruise.

Anyone got any idea how to make it go faster? When I try to open my mouth further, it hurts where the lump is, so I assume that’s partially what’s stopping my mouth opening further (as well as general stiffness).

Anyone know any way of helping this break down??? It’s making doing normal things like talking, yawning, brushing my teeth and eating quite difficult/painful!

Retraction of comments

The bunny is NOT cute. The little shit peed on the couch. Then he knew he'd done something wrong obviously because I wanted him back i nthe cage and he kept running away from me.

When I finally got him he scratched the crap out of my arms with his back legs! Grrr!

In other news...

We're bunny sitting this week for our friends, and it's funny watching Jaffa (the rabbit) and LC (the cat) together! The cat is generally more worried about the rabbit than the rabbit is of the cat! Last night though the cat was in a playful mood and decided to stalk the bunny a few times. Generally she "pounces" on Jaffa, and stops short of pouncing on him and just licks his head a couple of times. Last night though, Jaffa hopped away once, and LC thought "hey he's playing!" and chased after him, and Jaffa freaked out and raced back to his cage!

I'm pretty sure LC was just playing and would never hurt him as she has never shown any form of aggression towards him ever, but I keep an eye on them anyway just in case!

Pics below are of Jaffa, and of Jaffa and LC chowing down together. Very cute!

Better again!

Went back to work today and felt fine. It hurts to laugh as my right cheek is still bruised and has a hard tender lump right where the bruising is. Incidentally, I've been trying to brush my teeth (still can't quite open my mouth wide enough to get a toothbrush to the back teeth) and using a torch to have a look at how things are going and check where the stitches and things are so I know where to avoid.

I discovered that there's stitches on the inside of my cheek right where the main part of the hardness is, kind of next to the tooth second from the back at the top. I have no idea why there's stitches there - surely there'd be no wisdom teeth anywhere near there!! I wonder if they've managed to gouge part of my cheek out, and that's where they've repaired it? It would certainly explain the pain, tenderness, bruising and the lump. It's also not on the other side, despite the top wisdom teeth being in similar positions.

I don't really care if they have managed to gouge a hole into me, I understand that pulling teeth can be a bit brutal, but it'd be nice if they'd told me the stitches were there!

I really don't want to be brushing the back teeth on the outside surface in case I knock the stitches.

Anyway, so things are going fine and I don't seem to have any dry sockets, haven't opened any wounds, don't seem to have infections from getting food stuck in the holes or anything bad like that. I've been very careful with initially rinsing regularly with salt water to help the healing, and now rinsing constantly with Listerine to keep my mouth clean as well as brushing what teeth I can. Fingers crossed it keeps going well! My follow up appointment is next Monday so I should know more then.

Me yesterday:

Post-operative instructions for wisdom teeth

NOW I find some great post operative instructions for wisdom teeth removal!!!

For anyone else who gets it done, read these wisdom teeth post operative instructions! These are really comprehensive and had a lot more information than what my surgeon gave me! Heaps more tips and answers most of the questions that I had while I was recovering that I thought were too silly to ask the surgeon about.

Getting better

Slowly getting there. I can lift the corners of my mouth into a lame smile, and my cheeks aren't as puffy. It still throbs a bit, and my eye is still getting puffier for some strange reason and looks more bruised as you can see from the photo below.

I still can't really open my mouth, but I'm feeling much better today than I have all week energy wise which is good!

I just have to make sure I keep on taking it easy and icing all day still and not do anything stupid!.



And here's all the photos for the whole wisdom teeth extraction recovery

Update

Well, 2 days later and I'm not feeling any better. Much worse in fact. My face is really swollen to the point that I can barely fit a teaspoon into my mouth to eat. It's a struggle to get a toothbrush into my mouth to brush my teeth. I still feel nauseous, probably from all the drugs I'm taking (a nice mixture of Nurofen, Panadeine Forte and Amoxil).

My face is just aching at the moment and has been most of the day and no amount of ice, cold face washers or drugs is helping.

We were quite worried this morning as my eye was getting swollen and they'd said it wasn't good if that happened. The doc had a look in my mouth and said it was all good, and hopefully the swelling should start going down tomorrow.

I bloody hope so, I can't stand this for much longer.

Me this morning:

Beauty... and the beast!

Well the local anaesthetic wore off and things are a little more painful now. The right side of my face has also puffed up a fair bit too!!

Here's some before and after photos (before photo is after my wedding hair and makeup trial so it's a little glammed up, but it's a similar pose).

Teeth out

All done!

It all went pretty fast. They wheeled me in, put the IV thingy and started pumping drugs in straight away. I had the IV sedation stuff where you're just mostly asleep for it.

I remember them putting the local anaesthetic into my mouth which wasn't particularly comfortable and I have a pretty vague recollection of them actually pulling the teeth out and counting the 4 teeth, then the next thing I remember I was waking up in a different room.

It was definitely a lot better than general anaesthetic. I felt just a bit groggy when I woke up, but not nauseous at all. There wasn't much oozing from where they took the teeth, but I have a face full of gauze just in case, which I'll take out soon. I'll also start the drugs soon. Hopefully it will all be good!

Now what to do with the rest of the day....

Losing wisdom tomorrow

This week should be very quiet - I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. I have to get them all out because the bottom 2 are impacted, and the top 2 are a lot bigger than the space they have to come through.

So I've got the whole week off, and have got heaps of DVDs out for the week, so will have a very quiet week of lying around in front of the telly. I've just done the shopping so have stocked up on jelly, fish fillets, creamed rice, soup and other yummy easy to swallow whole foods.

Can't wait.....

Busy weekend

We left Canberra early on Friday morning to drive to Sydney for our appointment with the US Consulate to apply for our work visas which we didn't yet get due to a glitch in paperwork, hopefully it'll be sorted very soon).

We stayed in Sydney Friday night at my aunts, woke up Saturday morning to hear the wind blowing an absolute gale, then after trying to get back to sleep, I heard a big cracking sound, and turned around in bed to see a big flash of light. I jumped out of bed and looked out the window and a half a tree had been blown over into the power lines. So that was the end of the sleeping. It was about 6:45am and we had no power, so couldn't do anything important like have a decent shower, have a cup of tea, toast or anything like that which was a bit of a pain.

It was an interesting morning though talking to all the neighbours and sharing stories and so on. One of the guys had moved his car from right where the tree fell 10 minutes before that because he didn't feel it was safe there - very lucky!!!

We finally left mid-morning and drove to Newcastle where we caught up with other friends, which was nice. We stayed with them for the night, then on Sunday morning we drove to Woollongong to catch up with other friends who recently moved there. They're not in Woollongong itself, but a bit north right near the beach in an absolutely gorgeous house with beautiful views of the ocean!

We stayed with them for a couple of hours, then finally got back to Canberra about 6pm last night.

Poor Andrew pulled a muscle in his neck (or something similar) on Friday night - probably due to my aunts sofa bed which isn't the comfortable bed in the world, and he couldn't turn his head to the left, so I did all of the driving from then on.

It was blowing a gale everywhere in NSW it seemed and it was a struggle just to keep the car on the road in some places and we kept getting blown around, so I had to really concentrate the entire drive on both Saturday and Sunday so that certainly made life interesting!

I was absolutely exhausted by the time we finally got home!!

2500m continuous swim

I had a nice swim at the AIS last night. It was nice and quiet, and by the end there was only 2 of us using the entire pool!

It's great to do laps and not have to worry about overtaking people, or have people tapping your feet. You can just put your head down and swim.

So I was just planning to swim for 45 minutes. I thought I'd do a 1500m swim just to see how it went then do some drills or something.

At about 800m I was thinking maybe I'd have a drink break at the 1000m mark, then do another 1000m and stop then. But when I got to 1000m I checked my watch and realised I'd done 1100m and I was feeling really good, so I figured I may as well keep going to the 1500m mark.

When I got close to 1500, I stopped for 5 seconds or so for a drink of water, then just kept going, and as I got closer to the 2000m mark, I figured I'd just keep on going!

It was getting close to 8pm and Andrew was cooking dinner and I said I'd be home by 8pm, so I just swam through to the 2500m, and jumped out of the pool and raced home so I woudn't be too late for dinner.

I was getting tired toward the end of the 2500m, but I didn't seem to get tired until I'd decided I would definitely stop at 2500m. It's just a mental thing - while I was just seeing how far I could get I felt great, but as soon as I decided I would stop soon, my stroke got short and choppy, I wasn't kicking as well, and I was hanging out for it to finish.

So next time I want to do 3500m continuous so I have that confidence for my triple tri swim which is now only 6 1/2 weeks away!

I love long weekends!

We had a fun weekend – I love long weekends :-) Friday night we went to the circus, well it wasn’t so much circusy... There was heaps of acrobatics, and multi person juggling, and unicycles and cool stuff like that, but no clowns or elephants or that sort of stuff! A friend was performing in it and she was really good!

Saturday we pottered about getting things we’d been putting off for while and went to a dog show that was down the road from us. We’re more cat people than dog people, but there was plenty of noise happening so we thought we’d check it out. It was HUGE and there was sooo many dogs! There was a category that we saw for 3-6 month old Chihuahua puppies, and while I don’t like Chihuahua’s, the little puppies were soooo cute! We also chatted to an owner of a gorgeous Great Dane – now THAT’S a dog!

Anyway, on Sunday Andrew went climbing Mt Tennant in the Namadgi National Park with a friend, so I went and walked the 10k Mt Ainslie loop. It was a beautiful warm day with a bit of a breeze and I had my iPod just loud enough to hear, but not so loud so it drowned out the sounds of the birds chirping – it was lovely!

My heart rate was higher than I expected given that I was walking, and averaged 137 for the 10k. From the carpark at the end of Phillip Ave, I find if you go left and tackle the steep uphill first the rest isn’t too bad, there’s more downhill then uphill from there and the last half is nice and flat, but if you turn right, the first half is flat, and when you’re getting tired, the last half has a lot more hills, is more uphill than downhill and the last long hill is loooong! I turned right as I didn’t want an easy walk, and my HR got up to 166 on that last hill and I couldn’t go much slower!

Anyway, so I did it in 1:40 (exactly!), and it was a good enjoyable workout which was nice. I was hanging out for some fruit towards the end, and the more I thought about it, so I went home via Woolies and got some watermelon, pineapple, pears, apples, strawberries, kiwi fruit and oranges as well as some natural yoghurt and made myself a huge fruit salad that was soooo tasty! Andrew finally got home about 6 hours after he left feeling very stuffed, so what was left of Sunday was pretty quiet!

Monday we went to Tumut 3 power station (about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Canberra) which is part of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme – the largest power station in the scheme. We did a tour of the station and also drove around all the bits accessible to the public – the dam itself, the pipes and other techo stuff that I can’t remember... It was cool though, apparently the Snowy Hydro is one of the 7 modern engineering wonders of the world or something. The way the whole thing works is very impressive! The day would have been much better if we didn’t spend a long time on the way back (on a “short cut”) driving on a dirt road... I HATE driving on dirt roads, especially when it’s fairly narrow and windy, and when you look over one side and there’s a couple of hundred metre drop!!! Scared the crap out of me! Poor Andrew had to deal with me squealing every time I thought we got a bit too close to anything remotely scary (including driving over what turned out to be a twig...), and by the time we got home I was so worked up from fear (yeah so I’m the biggest wimp in the world) I had to go lie on the bed for half an hour while I calmed down! My imagination is just way too active for that kind of thing!!

Makeover!

With the help of the gorgeous Hannah my blog's had a makeover!

More pink involved now, a bit of a triathlony theme and much more colour co-ordinated :)