Sarah's blog

Introducing Zoe Dianne Pollock

2010-05-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

Zoe arrived last Monday, May 3rd at 12:30pm. Her due date was May 24, so she was 3 weeks early. We had been planning a c section on May 14 if she hadn't come on her own by then, but we had a scare last Monday where she wasn't moving in what was normally her most active time of the day. We went to the hospital where they did a non-stress test to monitor the baby's heart rate and activity, and she was fine, but being pretty quiet. That's normal for her, but given the last baby was stillborn, and how much stress it was causing me worrying about her, the docs asked if I wanted to deliver that day. I was in complete shock, and Andrew and I talked it over, and my OB upgraded his advice to a recommendation to deliver that day. We agreed to it, and asked when they would do it, and they said they had a c section for 1:30pm (it was about 10am), so they could do it immediately before the next person - eep!

We asked if Andrew had time to run home and get the camera, and they asked where we lived, and they said "yes, but hurry" :-) By the time he got back, I was hooked up to IVs, had spoken with anesthesia, and generally been prepped ready to go. Andrew arrived, and soon after I was walking into the OR.

The c section went smoothly, and it really is the most bizarre thing. Having someone inject stuff into your spine is weird to start with, it's kinda painful, but more of a really odd sensation. Andrew just reminded me today that they tasered me to make sure the spinal was working - I'd forgotten about that. Andrew said it really did look like a taser! They started low on my abdomen, and worked their way up until I said OWWWW!!! They decided the spinal had worked fine, and they started.

About 30 minutes later, I was feeling strong pushing and shoving on my belly, and knew they were starting to get Zoe out. I was still feeling shell shocked, and starting to get really nervous too. Andrew let out a huge gasp and had stood up and was taking photos, and I just remember thinking "come on baby, please cry". Seconds later I heard the WAHHHHHH, and was overcome with emotion. Andrew and I were both sobbing, and he got to go and hold Zoe, and give her her first cuddle :-) He brought her up to me, but I was feeling very zonked, and the drape they have up was right under my chin, so I felt too scared to try and hold her. Zoe scored 9 and 9 on her APGAR tests (10 being the highest), so was in perfect health. We had been warned that while she should be fine, being 3 weeks early, and delivered by c section, she may have some minor lung issues (vaginal deliveries assist with pushing fluid and muck out of baby's lungs as they pass through the birth canal)

Andrew and Zoe went off to the Well Baby Nursery where she got weighed, measured and checked in general. She weighed 6lb 7oz, was 19.5 inches long, and had hair on her sweet little head.

They finished putting me back together, and I was moved to the recovery area, where Andrew and Zoe eventually arrived, and I was able to finally hold her, and she had a go at breast feeding.

The next few days in hospital were fairly non-eventful. I recovered from my c section, we had a private room, so Andrew was able to stay through the night which was a huge help, and we started learning how to look after a newborn.

Zoe is a great little baby, she sleeps really well, doesn't really cry, and loves to snuggle :-) Her weight dropped as expected in hospital, and she had a full day of breast feeding, but being so small, it completely wore her out and the next day she refused to breast feed. Her weight had dropped to 5lb 13oz, and they were worried because she was sitting right near the 10% weight loss mark. So we stopped breast feeding and pumped milk and bottle fed that to her to ensure she got all the nutrition she needed without having to expend too much energy.

We have had a couple of weight checks at the pediatricians since coming home on Thursday, and Friday she had lost another 1/2 ounce, Saturday she'd put on 3 ounces, and today she was another 3 ounces up. I'm still predominately pumping and bottle feeding which is nice because Andrew can help feed her, and they can have bonding time - it's about the only time she's really awake! The pediatrician said today they find babies don't start to do really well at breast feeding until they reach 7 lbs. So we'll continue to pump and bottle feed, and try to put her on the breast when she's alert and calm. If she's super sleepy, or worked up she has no interest in boob, but if she's had a really good sleep she does ok.

She is incredibly sweet, and just loves snuggling up with us. She's sleeping in her crib by day, and in a bassinet next to me at night. In the morning, I generally put her in bed with us, and we watch her squirm, and stretch and make funny facial expressions until she wakes up :-) If she's unsettled at night after her feed, I can put her in the crook of my arm in bed, and within minutes she's fast asleep and can be put back in her bassinet.

I've been letting her demand feed the last couple of nights (they wanted us to not let her go more than 3 hours between feeds when she was losing weight), and she generally does 3 1/2 hours between feeds, although last night she had a 4 1/2 hour stretch! That was probably a little long, but she woke up happy and fed really well after it.

We're so in love with this perfect little person in our lives, and are enjoying every moment of parenthood (although the first feed of the night I struggle to wake up, and Andrew generally sleeps through - I would too, except I HAVE to get up to pump as well).

Anyway, here's a couple of photos of our little poppet.

Zoe entering the world

Gooey!

My first cuddle with Zoe

She found her thumb pretty fast

Family photo

Snuggling in the hospital bed

Gangsta baby!

Zoe with her daddy

Morning feed with dad

Peaceful baby :-)

Update

2010-04-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

Time is flying by! I finally did my phlebotomy externship in March, which was 2 days a week for 4 weeks. The externship was at San Francisco General Hospital, and boy did those 4 weeks fly by! I think I was about 28 weeks pregnant when I started, so was pretty tired, and the drive up to SF plus full days of being at the hospital really wore me out. I enjoyed it though, and am glad to be done. I have sent off all my information, so should get my license soon - yay!

I am now 35 weeks pregnant and feeling it. My belly has really grown over the last 2 weeks, and I am feeling more tired now.

I have non-stress tests twice a week where they check the baby's heart rate, movement and monitor for contractions. This little rascal takes forever to pass the tests. They want to see 3 periods of movement where the baby's heart rate increases by 15 BPM for I think 10-15 seconds. This little ones wriggles around, but doesn't get her heart rate up, so I spend an hour in there for each appointment rather than the 20-40 minutes they tell you it should take. A few times she's just slept through the whole thing, with pretty much no movement and just a steady heart rate. She moves plenty when I'm at home, so I'm not too worried. The nurses end up using a "Vibro Acoustic Stimulator" on her, which is the same device people who have larynx problems hold to their voice box to allow them to speak. It makes a sound that wakes up the baby (and essentially gives them a fright), so the heart rate goes up, and they wriggle around plenty. Once she gets buzzed, she wakes up, wriggles around, and passes the test, and it's gotten to the stage now that as soon as they establish her baseline they will just buzz her immediately rather than waiting 45 minutes to decide she's not cooperating AGAIN :) Hopefully this means we'll have a nice, quiet baby on our hands! Either that, or a stubborn one...

At today's obstetrician appointment, the doctor locked in a c section date. I'm hoping for a vaginal birth this time around, but given we can't be sure if the previous stillbirth WAS due to a cord accident, the OB isn't keen to let me go too late. And because I've had a previous c section, they won't induce labour because the risk of a uterine rupture is much higher. So unless she comes on her her own, I'll be delivering by c section on Friday, May 14, at which point I'll be 38 weeks and 4 days. I don't mind it being a bit early. While I would prefer to avoid another c section, my number 1 priority is to deliver a healthy baby, and the sooner the better!

We're keeping our fingers thoroughly crossed that everything goes well!

The quandaries of an animal lover

2010-03-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

As I'm sure anyone who reads this blog knows, I am an animal lover. After reading the story of the whale Tilikum killing one of the trainers, I am once again thrown into confusion.

On the one hand I have been to SeaWorld and seen the Shamu show, and loved it. It was so cool. On the other hand, I thought it very sad seeing such huge creatures kept in tanks too small for them. They're not "small", but compared to a life of exploring the ocean, it's small. It doesn't surprise me that such a large whale saw a dangling ponytail and decided to play with it. The whale didn't understand he was killing a trainer - it was just doing what it does.

I love going to zoos and seeing my favourite creatures up close, and being able to interact with them, but it breaks my heart when zoos have no animal conservation plans in place, aren't trying to give back to the animal kingdom, and don't plan enclosures that keep with the natural environment.

I kind of assumed at SeaWorld they used mostly rescue animals and trained them up - in fact I hadn't really thought about it too much. Then I read that Tilikum has fathered 10+ offspring in his time at SeaWorld. Really?? I know that the conservation status of killer whales is considered "data deficient" due to so many unknowns. I am very interested to know if Tilikum's offspring were released into the wild, or kept as show animals. As far as I'm concerned, the only animals that should be bred in captivity are those that are of a Threatened or near threatened conservation status.

The best zoo I have ever been to is Singapore Zoo. It truly is fantastic, and it's also the reason I now don't like going to other zoos - nothing can compare. For a start, they put a lot of effort into conservation initiatives and breeding programs. According to their website "To better meet the healthcare needs of its animals and working towards its aspiration to become a leading global centre of excellence for veterinary healthcare and research, a purpose-built Wildlife Healthcare and Research Centre was set up in March 2006."

Walking through Singapore was an amazing experience. All of the enclosures were size and animal appropriate, and each animal had a good write-up of the species, location etc. I've been to some zoos where it will have the name of the animal, and that's it. The other thing I loved was that it was very interactive. A lot of the animals had feeding times, and you could join the Feeding Trails, where a keeper would feed a few different animals in the one area. This is one of the Afternoon Feeding Trail schedules:

1.05pm

1.15pm

1.25pm

1.35pm

1.40pm

2.00pm

2.10pm

2.20pm

2.30pm

Polar Bear

White Rhino

African Lion

Giraffe*

Gibbon

Treetops Trail

Otter

White Tiger

Pygmy Hippo

So you would just follow the keeper around, and they would do a short feeding of each animal and give detailed information about the animals, and you could ask questions along the way, and I found we learnt so much more about the animals this way. You could pretty much stay with different Feeding Trails all day if you wanted to. That was probably the thing that impressed me most. It was so interactive - not with the animals themselves, although there was plenty of opportunities to feed different animals along the way, but with the keepers, and you could watch all the animals being fed. A fabulous learning experience and gave us a much better appreciation for the animals.

The other zoo I really enjoyed was Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, Australia. Because there was so much space, they had room to create huge spaces for the big animals, where they could graze happily. There were almost no fences as such, just moats, or ditches or whatever was necessary to keep animals in and people out! We hired bikes for the day and got around like that, and it was well and truly worth it to see the big animals in a more natural environment.

On the contrary, I think the worst zoo I have been to was Bronx Zoo in New York. It was about 10 years ago now, and I hated it. Each animal was in a tiny cage. Birds of prey were kept in small cages. Pack animals were on their own. There was no education of the animals themselves. It was packed with people, there was no keepers around, and the zoo seemed more intent on making money through selling hot dogs and merchandise than providing an educational experience. I felt sick after going there. I hope that things have improved there since.

But back to the event that set this off, I've been annoyed reading reports of PETA demanding for the whale's release, and other groups demanding the whale's euthanasia. The whale CANNOT be released, because it's been in captivity too long, and putting him to sleep is also unthinkable - in the wild, killer whales are no threat to humans. WE brought the whale into captivity, WE pay to see him perform, WE make SeaWorld dependent on those shows to make money, so WE the human race are the ones to blame, not the whale.

Busy busy!

2010-03-02T17:00:00.000-08:00

The month of February has just flown by! The main things that happened:

I had my second trimester echo and also got an EKG due to some palpitations I'd been getting. Everything is looking great, and my heart is holding strong - woo!
We spent a fair bit of time just tidying up and organising the house.
We went and saw the Cirque du Soleil show Ovo in San Jose, which was fabulous.
Work got started on our kitchen remodel. The old kitchen has been ripped out, the walls patched up and repainted, new circuits installed, and recessed lighting installed. The cabinets have arrived, and tomorrow they'll start installing them.
Andrew and I went to New York. I stayed for 3 and a bit days, Andrew was there for a week. We had a lovely time walking through Central Park, catching up with friends, and also got to go down to Philadelphia for a day to explore there. We really enjoyed it, and are glad we can cross another city and state off our To Do list :-) Photos are here for Philadelphia, and here for Andrew's snowy days in New York after I left.

All the baby stuff is coming along. I hit my third trimester yesterday, so getting closer and closer to the due date which is exciting. I'm definitely feeling more tired these days, and am starting to get more random aches and pains and little complaints. She's an active little thing though, so it's nice to feel her wriggle around regularly :)

We've bought a crib, and today I bought a stack of gDiapers, which will be a nice alternative to old school cloth, but with the convenience of disposables. I still need to get a glider chair for nursing/soothing, and some decorations for the little one's room. I'll probably get a bunch of these cute animal print cards from Wee Gallery, and maybe some of their wall graphics too. I need to get some curtains for her room, and then I think that's about it, we should be good.

I'd love to get one of these mamaroo bouncers, which look awesome, but are kinda pricey. For the moment I'm just trying to win one :D

Quick update

2010-01-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

Just quickly checking while I have laptop access. We had the follow-up fetal MRI last week, and everything looked good - it was all clear - WHEW!!!!! Such a huge relief. I'm not sure if they could tell why it looked weird, I see my obstetrician on Tuesday so will ask him then. All I wanted to know was that everything was fine :)

The moving is going well. We've at the new place since Sunday and it's feeling and looking more like a home now. We still need to get our internet sorted out so we can have MythTV, wireless internet etc., but that should all be set up by Monday hopefully.

We still need to empty our storage area, the last bits and pieces from the kitchen and closet, and a few other random things lying around from the old place, but otherwise we're almost there!

The new house is definitely bigger, the old place seems so small when I go back now! But the extra space and many windows we now have means it's significantly colder! The back yard area is really nice - there's lots of squirrels and birds out there, so I need to get some feeders out so the kitties can watch them :) The cats are settling in ok. Smudge is loving it, she's now back to following me everywhere, exploring everything, and generally seems pretty happy. She also loves the back yard. It's got a high fence, so I'm happy for her to explore out there without worrying she'll escape. Lily is generally staying under the bed during the day, but she's happy enough otherwise - she comes out regularly for pats, cuddles with me at night, and explores mostly at night time. She comes out to eat, drink and use the litter tray, so that's fine. I now have their small cat tree in our bedroom by the glass sliding door to the balcony, so she can sit there and watch the critters which she seems to like.

So generally, all is good :)

20 week ultrasound

2010-01-08T22:09:00.001-08:00

We had our 20 week ultrasound and it delivered mixed news. For a start it's a girl, and pretty much everything looks great - yay! There's just one thing that wasn't as it should be. Apparently they normally see something called the "cavum septum pellucidum" by this time in the baby's brain, and they couldn't see it in our little girl :( So it's either there, and for whatever reason it wasn't obvious or not quite developed enough, which is the likely problem and everything is fine, or it isn't there and means there's most likely other problems with the brain. There's no clear data on what this actually means or may mean, and we don't know how many babies at the 20 week ultrasound don't have an obvious cavum septum pellucidum.

I did find this website which gives you a bit of idea though "Individuals with ASP (absent septum pellucidum) may experience vision impairment or blindness. They may also have coordination problems and hormone deficiencies that result in short stature. Intelligence is usually affected and learning disabilities are common."

So I need to get a fetal MRI on January 19 which should confirm whether it is there or not, and if not it should give a clearer picture of what's happening in the brain. We'll also meet with a pediatric neurologist to talk about what it all means.

I had the option of getting an amniocentesis yesterday where they use a long needle to draw out amniotic fluid through my belly and then grow the cells they find and test them for chromosomal abnormalities. There's an ~1 in 400 chance of miscarriage from the procedure itself and when were in the waiting room for the procedure I started doubting whether it was worth it. Results would take 2 weeks anyway, and the MRI will show us if we need to worry in the first place. It didn't seem worth taking the risk of the amnio just to find out IF there was a chromosomal problem. If there was something they could detect, we wouldn't terminate anyway - it's too far along for me to be comfortable with given how strong her movements are now, and it seems to be a problem where the baby would have quality of life even if there was a problem, and that's the main thing to me. So we decided against the amnio, at least for now.

It's been pretty stressful, but that seems to be the way our life goes!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T14:13:00.000-08:00

My oh my, it's been a busy couple of weeks. We now have the keys to our new house - yay! There's a few things we want to get done before we move in, and unfortunately that list of things keeps growing, and it's all stuff that should really get done before we move, to the cost is blowing out more as well!

Andrew's been very busy with work, so I've been running around getting quotes from various contractors, organising the new kitchen, and doing other odd jobs that seem to keep coming up.

We spent 5 days in Atlanta with friends for Christmas, which was lovely. The Peikerts used to live a few doors down from us, and moved to Atlanta mid-'09, and they're the closest thing to family over here so it was great to spend a few days just relaxing with them.

Junior seems to be growing well, my belly has really popped out the last couple of weeks, and one of my pairs of jeans that fit fine before I went to Atlanta are suddenly too tight to be done up, so I'm finally having to wear my "Belly Band". I've just started feeling the little one wriggling out a bit more the last couple of days which has been exciting. We had a fetal echo to check junior's heart and everything looks great. We get the big anatomy ultrasound this Thursday coming and we'll find out then whether junior is a Henry or a Henrietta :)

New Years was quiet, Andrew was working until about 8:45pm, and I was exhausted and had a headache that was coming and going the entire day, so we were asleep by midnight! Exciting lives we lead :)

I hope everyone had a happy 2010, and we'll certainly be hoping ours is drama-free!

Baby update

2009-12-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

I'm 19 weeks today, and can't believe how fast it's flying by.

I feel like we haven't stopped for a good couple of months, there's always something happening.

So I'm just starting to feel little movements, but nothing too obvious yet. I've had all my screenings done now for down syndrome and other such conditions, and everything looks fine. I get a fetal echo next week where they check the baby's heart - I think this is a bit of a waste of time, because even if the baby has the same condition as me, it won't be obvious until late teens, early 20s most likely. But at least we can make sure the heart looks structurally fine otherwise.

Then early January we have the big anatomy scan where we will hopefully find out the sex of the baby, so that will be good.

Otherwise, things are just pottering along. I'm excited about this pregnancy, and not as nervous as I thought I'd be (yet), but still have that little nagging fear. I know all the bad things that can happen during a pregnancy now - not just cord accident like we had, but so many other things that can cause "fetal demise". While our odds for having a healthy baby are incredibly good, I can't help but be... I'm trying to find the right word... not quite worried, maybe just "less excited". I've lost the naivety we had the first time around, and I know that nothing is certain until you have a screaming baby in your arms.

I never quite know how to answer when people ask if it's my first child. I hate saying yes, because it makes me feel like I'm "forgetting" Joshua, and I hate when people tell me how wonderful pregnancy is, and tell me how I should be feeling, when they have no idea, but if I say no, they ask how old my other children are. I have no problem telling them Joshua was stillborn, but the other person generally gets quite uncomfortable - it's a great way to stop a conversation... So it's just depending on the person and the situation, but it's still proving to be an awkward question.

House update

2009-12-21T18:47:00.000-08:00

Everything is coming along!

We signed the loan docs this morning, the money should all go through tomorrow, and the official transfer of the title (or whatever happens...) will happen Wednesday morning with any luck, and we get the keys on Wednesday afternoon! Woo!

Buying a townhouse!

2009-12-07T12:15:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy week or so. We were looking at renting another place with 3 bedrooms and preferably a washer and dryer which would both be useful for when junior comes along.

Then we saw a house on Redfin which was a reasonable price and had a new looking kitchen and decent sized living areas. Turns out it was essentially condemned due to not having any building permits, and no inspections for any of the electrical, sewerage, or building they had done, and it would be a lot more effort than it was worth pursuing the place.

We had been accepted for a townhouse that we'd looked at renting days before that, so were tossing up what to do. I happened to have another look at Redfin last Sunday night and found an even cheaper townhouse (to buy) in a nice area which is close to us that looked really nice. We had the pre-approvals done for finance that day just in case we did decide to buy the previous house, so we knew what we could afford. We looked at the townhouse on Monday, decided we really liked it, signed a heap of paperwork and put in an offer on Tuesday morning, got it accepted as is on Tuesday afternoon, got all the finance stuff in order the next couple of days, and now we're just waiting for the finance to be approved! It's all happened incredibly fast, and we're booked in to sign over the title paperwork next Monday, and we're hoping to take ownership on December 23. We're still waiting for a more comprehensive termite inspection, and a few little things, but so far things are looking good!

The townhouse is 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, has a resonable sized kitchen with a little "breakfast nook" off to the side, nice bay windows, a nice little backyard, washer and dryer, garage, and a fabulous park out the back. It's in great condition, so we're keeping our fingers crossed!

Stumpy - August 2005 to 11 November 2009

2009-11-29T20:31:00.000-08:00

We brought Stumpy home on 5 June 2006 as a foster after she had been hit by a car. Her pelvis was fractured with a couple of small breaks, and she had a broken tail which had been amputated.

She rested for 2 1/2 weeks at the shelter, then came home with me, and worked her way into my heart. Despite her injuries she was such a sweet girl, and would always run to greet us at the bedroom door, with her back legs swaying all over the place from her injuries. Keeping her quiet was near impossible.

Over the next 3 1/2 years she showed her impish side, chewing on every cable she could - mostly when she was annoyed at not getting enough attention and would chew on the cable closest to where we were sitting. She would tear around the house like a maniac, leap up walls, climb all over our dining chairs scratching them to no end, and go sliding across our wooden dining table, well and truly leaving her mark. She drove the other cats nuts, because she just wanted to play constantly, and her version of play is like WWF wrestling, whereas Smudge and Lily's version of play is more slap and run. She would get everywhere she wasn't supposed to, and make it clear when she wanted to play. She was such a naughty girl

But she was also the sweetest, most intuitive cat I'd ever met. She was not a lap cat, and hated being picked up. She would follow me around all day at home. Wherever I was, Stumpy was sure to be. Whenever I was sick, she would come and sit by me purring away. When I had my open heart surgery, she would lie by my chest and purr, like she was trying to heal me. After we lost Joshua, anytime I would get upset at home, she would come running from wherever she was in the house, and come and curl up next to me and purr. She just KNEW when something was wrong, and would want to try and fix it. I have never met a cat as intuitive as Stumpy, she was my healer. She also protected me. I hate when Andrew is away, but when he was, she would sleep on the bed with me rather than in her bed by our door. If she heard a funny noise during the day outside, she would run to the front door growling.

Whenever we came home, she would run to her Alpine Scratcher by the front door and scratch on it in greeting. If she wanted a pat, she would walk up to us, and roll over, show us her belly and purrrrrrrrrr until she got a belly rub.

I will miss her so much. She was such a good companion, and she did not deserve to be taken so soon.

Apparently she had a major underlying heart problem - hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which could not have been picked up in her annual check ups or through her blood work, and she would have never have had a long life, despite the fact she looked so healthy. Putting her in the kennel put just enough stress on her little body, and caused her to go into acute heart failure. 24 hours of oxygen therapy and medication were not helping enough, and caused her to also go into kidney failure. She was depressed, and exhausted and hadn't really eaten for almost 6 days by this stage, and not being able to give her the required medication to help her be able to breathe properly due to her kidney failure were enough for Andrew and I to make the very difficult decision to have her euthanised immediately rather than trying to keep her going for another 3 days before one of us could get back from our trip back to Australia.

It was such a shock for such a young, healthy cat to go into such sudden heart failure and not be able to do anything, or be there for her. We were lucky to have an amazing neighbour who brought her home from the kennel and noticed something wasn't right, and got her to the vet ASAP, and was there for her when she crossed the rainbow bridge. Stumpy knew we loved her, and had a good friend to her by her side.

We will miss her crazy antics, and her absence will be greatly felt and greatly missed.

Rest in peace Stumpy, you were such a good friend.

Yes I am still alive!

2009-11-29T17:20:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's been so long since I blogged... I am a bad blogger! (Edit to add: I haven't done a read through to check for typos, I'll do that later if I can be bothered)

So I'll attempt to summarise the last 9 months, and blog more regularly. I blame Facebook - it's much easier to post a sentence there than to write a story here :-) But I do miss not having a record of what's been happening, so here we go.

Last I blogged in February, I was recovering after another staph infection in my scar post-surgery. I had been doing a Certified Nursing Assistant course at the time, and we had just started our prac at an aged care facility, but doing the course with the PICC line in my arm didn't seem safe, and I was pretty exhausted. So I ended up ditching that course, and doing a Fast-Track CNA that started not long after - it was longer hours during the day, which made it a 6 week rather than a 12 weeks course.

As is always the way, it wasn't without drama. My grandmother had been battling leukemia for a while, and was nearing the end of her battle, so I did a quick trip back in April to spend time with her while I could, which ended up being a wonderful time that I will treasure for a long time.

I got back to the US just in time for the start of the new course, which was also halfway through the middle of a busy university semester, so I was kept busy for a while.

I finished the CNA course though, and got my license, and also did fine at university (not good, but acceptable :) )

Late April, I did my crazy cat lady thing and trapped a feral cat who was heavily pregnant. A couple of days later she had a litter of kittens while in the large-ish cage I had her in! She had 6 kittens, and unfortunately they were about half the weight a newborn kitten should be, and 3 of them died in the first 36 hours. The remaining 3 grew like weeds though, and the mother cat turned out to be very receptive to human touch, so she was pretty easy to take care of. She was scared, but loved being patted, and had no problem with us touching her kittens, rubbing her belly, or cleaning out her crate.

In May, we flew up to Vancouver to renew our US visas. It was a really nice trip! We spent the weekend at Vancouver Island where Andrew's cousin lives, and they showed us around Victoria which is a really pretty city. The visa process was very simple which was nice, and we had a nice couple of days pottering around Vancouver, and spent a day driving up to Whistler to have a poke around up there. The drive up itself was gorgeous.

On May 30 my nan passed away, so I flew back to Australia for the funeral. It was a gorgeous service, and I'm glad I could be there for it, so support mum if nothing else.

I got back to the US to one of my feral kittens not walking properly - turns out he had some sort of spinal defect, and his spinal cord was outgrowing the spinal column itself which was causing paralysis :( There was no cure, and it was high enough up for it to at some point stop him from being able to go to the toilet and move his back end, and given how fast he'd gone downhill, that wasn't too far away, so we made the decision to euthanise him which was heartbreaking, we was a really sweet, handsome guy.

The rest of June saw my end of semester exams, continuing the socialisation of my feral kitty Gigi and her two remaining kittens Sun and Kate. The 3 kitties were confined to our spare room to keep them away from our cats, and they were doing great. The kittens were happy, sociable girls, and Gigi was really settling down to life as a house cat.

In July I started a phlebotomy (blood drawing) course. Given my fear of needles, Andrew found this highly amusing - until I needed volunteers to come in and be stuck as well :-) I got poked many times over the class, and now I'm pretty much over my fear of needles. Andrew was impressed with how well I drew his blood too.

The kittens also reached an adoptable age, so they and Gigi were all spayed, vaccinated, microchipped and put up for adoption. Sun and Kate went to an absolutely wonderful home together, and have thrived since. I still get regular updates, and they are happy, sociable, lovable kittens, and have 2 doggy sisters who they adore as well. This litter was hard since we had 4 of the 6 kittens die, but they wouldn't have had any more luck in the wild, and at least two of the kittens got wonderful homes. Gigi went to one of Andrew's co-workers, and seemed to be settling in ok, but unfortunately managed to escape his apartment after a couple of weeks and hasn't been seen since :-( She has lived life outside though, so we hope that she is doing ok.

We also celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary in July, with a lovely dinner at Farallon Restaurant in San Francisco, followed by seeing Wicked, the musical, which we both loved.

In August we embarked on a crazy roadtrip to Atlanta, Georgia. Our neighbours who are like family to us were moving there, so we drove on of their cars and made a road trip out of it so we could see some of the US countryside. We went through California and Arizona, and onto Roswell, New Mexico to see some aliens, then through to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma with a stop in Amarillo, Texas on the way where we had a very tasty dinner. We saw the memorial from the Oklahoma City bombing which was quite moving and had a quick look around the city. From there we drove through Arkansas and through to Memphis, Tennessee. We had high hopes for Memphis, but it was a bit of a shit hole... I'm sure there's nice parts to it, but everything we saw was dingy, run down, abandoned, and we had a horrible time finding somewhere half decent to stay, and finding somewhere half decent to eat. I thought Beale St would be really cool, but it was just filled with divey bars. So rather than spending the next day there, we decided our few hours in the evening was enough, and got out of town in the morning, and kept on driving. We drove through Mississippi, and decided to push through to Atlanta that day, so kept on driving through Alabama, and onto Georgia. We LOVED driving through Alabama in particular. The couple of places we stopped, people were SO lovely, and southern style houses were so beautiful, and everything was just so "quaint"! We'd love to go back and spend more time there.

We made it through to Atlanta, and spent a fun couple of days there checking out Stone Mountain, and the Georgia Aquarium and spending time with our friends. We really liked Atlanta as a city. We're going back there for Christmas, which we're looking forward to. Andrew has a better account of our roadtrip here.

August also saw the start of my short-lived career as a tv extra :-) NBC was filming a new show Trauma, and were looking for extras with medical experience to give the show a better sense of reality, so I signed up. I did 3 episodes - one as "tourist with camera", one as "Halloween partygoer", and one as "patient". It was great fun though being part of it and seeing how they film a biggish budget tv show. The first episode I filmed I got put into a good spot, and so when it was finally on tv, you actually got to see me a bunch of times in the scene, and they were pretty clear shots of me too, so that was exciting. I believe the series has been cancelled though, so no more fame and stardom for me :-)

September was a pretty quiet month. September 4 was the 2 year anniversary since we lost Joshua, so that was a pretty sad day. University was back in full swing, and I was struggling a bit to keep up the motivation.

But on the upside, I had one big piece of good news - I found out I was pregnant :-)

I was pretty nauseous throughout the first trimester and spent the end of September and all October really struggling with nausea and exhaustion, and struggling to function properly. I was supposed to do my phlebotomy externship in late September so I could get my license, but I wasn't up to 4 weeks of 40 hour weeks being on my feet. I lost about 4kg in about a 3 week period from being so sick, and still haven't gained any of it back.

October I just kept struggling with the pregnancy, but we did get an ultrasound showing the baby's heartbeat which was wonderful to see. University was hard because I kept feeling so sick and tired, but I struggled on.

November I finished my end of semester exams, and we flew back to Australia. My family was doing the scattering of my nan's ashes, and my mum wanted to fly me back for it, and Andrew came too since he hadn't been back in a while. We had a lovely time, and the actual ash scattering was a lovely ceremony. The trip was a bit crazy though. First of all I was incredibly nauseous the entire time, and I had thrown up on the plane on the way over. I threw up a couple of times while we were there and was generally pretty nauseous. The flight home, I threw up everything that went into my mouth, and spend pretty much the entire flight nauseous and miserable, and throwing up a bunch of times.

The worst thing about the trip home was that our beautiful kitty Stumpy passed away :( I'll do a new blog post about that though.

So our year has been about as crazy as usual - ups, downs, lots of travel, and weird and wonderful events. I'm now almost 15 weeks pregnant, and just keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes well with the pregnancy. I'm feeling pretty good about it, but I'm much more aware of everything that can and does go wrong with pregnancies - between my and my friends experiences, I have learnt nothing is a given, and you need a whole lot of luck, and just to cherish every moment.

My heart is going fine though, and they don't expect any problems to occur throughout the pregnancy, so while I'll be monitored closely by a high risk obstetrician again, it should all be ok, and I should be able to try for a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean).

Now I promise to update more regularly :-)

The kitties and their Valentine's Day dates!

2009-02-17T22:11:00.000-08:00

The girls had a lovely time for Valentine's Day. They all had very handsome dates, and they dined on caviar, drank the worlds finest milk, and indulged in some catnip to top off the evening ;)

This is Lily, my middle girl, and her date Stoli, a handsome Russian Blue

Smudge, and her date, Luxor who is an Egyptian Mau.

Stoli and Luxor are brothers and best friends, and Smudge and Lily are sisters and best friends, so they double dated :-) Their mum, Renovia, does amazing art work, particularly cat sculptures, so check out her Etsy store if you're looking for a good present.

And last, but not least - Stumpy and her date, Dorian Grey aka Dorky. They make a good pair!

I'm a Golden Retriever!

2009-02-17T21:56:00.000-08:00

According to this website, if I was a dog breed, I'd be a Golden Retriever :)

Yep, sounds like me :)

Golden Retriever

The Charmer

Laid-back, sociable and well-groomed, you've got your own hip little pack of groupies who just love to be around you. You have a brain inside that adorable little head of yours, though you use it mostly to organize your hectic social calendar. You never poop out at parties, and since you're popular with ladies and men, as well as children and adults, you dish out your wit, charm and luck to whomever is close enough to bask in it. The top dog likes you and wants to be your best friend, despite the fact that he doesn't really know what the heck you do. No one does, in fact, but everyone loves you all the same. A true foodie, you’ve got your keen ears fine-tuned to make sure you don't miss out on the opening of a trendy new place to nosh. But your youthful days of being able to wolf down food 24-7 are wagging behind you, meaning you've got to watch what you eat so you don’t pull a Brando and outgrow your coats.

So much for a more positive year!

2009-02-01T21:01:00.000-08:00

For some reason my body does not like the internal stitches they use. A little over 3 weeks ago the docs went in and removed the 8 or so wires that were wrapped around my sternum from my heart surgery. Only one of the wires was causing issues, but they were going to be "revising" my scar (chopping out all the extra tissue from where it kept getting wider), so we figured they might as well just get them all out.

On Friday the bottom of my scar was looking infected. It was red, swollen, and quite hard. I went into the clinic, and they could see a stitch right under the surface of the skin, so figured that's what was causing it, and decided to open the incision enough to remove that stitch and find the knot at the end and remove that too. They did so, and it all looked better the next day, but for some reason I was in excruciating pain, in a band across my chest just under my breasts.

I ended up going to ER where after a bunch of tests, one of the surgeons who removed my wires was called in - he was the guy on call for the weekend luckily, He knew the situation and my history, so poked around in the incision that was made the day before, and saw a bit of fluid, poked a bit harder there, and the cotton tip he was using disappeared a good cm or two under my skin which fluid came out of - a pocket of infection.

I was sure this was the culprit, so was pleased when he opened my incision a bit further using local anesthetic this time (*#^& those lidocaine injections hurt). That night was ok, but the pain started coming back. I had vicodin and a sleeping pill before bed (which would generally knock me out for at least 8 hours), but I woke 2 hours later in possibly the worst pain of my life - worse than anything post-heart surgery. It hurt to breathe, and it hurt to make any sort of movement. I have a fairly high tolerance for pain, but this was the sort of pain that took my breath away, made me nauseous and had me crying.

So back to Stanford we went, where they decided to run some more tests, then admit me. They gave me IV Delaudid which is supposed to be 8 times stronger than morphine, and it didn't do a thing for the pain. (Apparently it's also supposed to be 3 times stronger than heroin on a per mg basis...)

All tests have still been clear still, so they've had me on IV antibiotics which will hopefully sort out any hiding pockets of infection, and regular IV pain medication. They've been giving Zofran for nausea as well as the pain meds as I don't tolerate the drugs very well, and have only had 1 bout of vomiting (6 1/2 hours after the last pain meds!).

I declined pain meds after that 1pm dosage as my pain levels were finally dropping, and I was starting to move around a bit, and I wanted to know if it was due to the pain meds, or if the pain was actually going away. I went to bed around 9pm, and woke up every 2 hours (sleeping in a hospital is not easy), but I still managed to get a good amount of sleep, so that's fine. I was woken at 2am or so to get more IV antibiotics and I was in pain then, so got more pain meds. The pain wasn't as bad as the day before, and it stayed pretty much under control after that.

Given that this has happened twice now, my cardiologist, who popped in on Sunday to say hi (very nice of him, since he has weekends off!), thinks I might have some sort of allergy to the Vicryl stitches they use. They are supposed to be absorbed by the body, but I have another stitch coming out at the top of my scar (possibly another knot). It's poking through the skin, and it's not red or sore, so hopefully it will come out problem free.

So on Monday, they got test results back and confirmed it was staph. Again.

They wanted to do aggressive treatment of it given the graft in my aorta so they inserted a PICC line. It's intravenous access, but it can stay in for weeks so they can do IV fluid without me actually staying in hospital. They're assured me it's just like inserting an IV, but they feed a long tube up to a bigger vein. I was feeling quite faint just thinking of it. The bad thing about having a laptop at the hospital is when they say what they plan to do, you can Google it and flip out.

And for someone who doesn't like needles, looking at this IV thing that goes in the inside part of your upper arm (see any veins there?) and a 50cm long tube that connects to it is enough to make a sleep deprived person throw a hissy fit.

My main freak out was on Tuesday morning. I had almost no sleep thanks to the lady in the bed next to me whose oxygen levels kept dropping which meant her alarms kept going every couple of minutes (BEEP BEEP BEEP!), and it sounded like it was coming from my alarm, so it kept me awake and worrying.

I was waiting for someone to come and do an echo to make sure this infection wasn't ripping my heart valves apart (lovely thought), and waiting for someone to come and insert this scary long tube into a vein that I was sure would be impossible to find. I had no idea when either was happening, so was losing it. For those who think I'm being brave, trust me, I am not and was not.

Andrew thankfully left work to come spend the rest of the day with me and keep me calm. He went to speak to my cardiologist about all this. As a side note, this is what I like about the cardiac team and being in the hospital where they are. Andrew just goes to their clinic area, walks past reception, goes to find the coordinator who most probably gave him a big hug when she saw him, he asks questions about the PICC line, and she immediately calls the doc's mobile phone who comes straight in to see him (he was looking at my echo at the time that had been done not long before, so could also assure Andrew everything was fine).

My doc said that the risk of infection to my heart was increased due to the nature of the infection, and having an aortic graft, but unlikely, but there is no way anybody wants to risk it, so yes I should get a PICC line, it will be done at my bedside, under local anesthetic, and I will be fine.

I was still worried, but at least by this stage I could nap on and off with Andrew watching over me.

So the echo on my heart was clear (WHEW!), and the nurse came in the afternoon to do the PICC line. She is a PICC nurse - that's all she (and a team of others) do because it's so common in hospitals as it causes less trauma in the long run.

She was also so lovely, and she had a girl there who was interviewing for a nursing job who was just coming to watch. So my nurse was explaining everything to the interviewing nurse which was good - I like to know what's going on.

The lidocaine injection was about as hurty as I expected (I hate those), then it was fine from there on in. The nurse makes it a sterile environment, finds a good vein using ultrasound, then somehow feeds an IV into the vein in my arm (I couldn't see and didn't want to), and then places this cool thing on my chest which tracks the path of the wire inside my chest. It was pretty amazing to watch the screen and just see this little wire snaking through. Once the wire dropped down, she knew it had passed through the vein, and reached the larger superior vena cava. She then uses a "wing" lock, and stitches that to my arm to keep the tubing in place, places another lock a bit further up the tubing so if anything tugs on the tubing, it tugs on that lock rather than the tube coming out of my arm, does some more anti-tug and anti-infection measures, and covers it all up. There is also 2 ports attached to it that I can use. One of them is a bit bigger, so if they want to take blood, they can do it from there rather than poking me.

Once I had that done, I was pretty much able to leave hospital as I could then receive my IV antibiotics from home through my line. So the next day (Wednesday) I finally got released - I just had to wait for a home nurse to be available to bring me all my supplies and show me what to do, and they had to keep giving me antibiotics in the mean time.

The home nurse came, and we were quite impressed with the set up. I have a 2 week supply of IV antibiotics (sitting in the fridge between the OJ and the tortilla wraps), and a heap of saline and heparin solutions in plungers, alcohol wipes, IV tubing, and other exciting bits and pieces. Each bag of fluids is a 24 hour supply and delivers 100ml doses of antibiotics every 4 hours, and it takes 1 hour to deliver the fluid. So there's 3 hours break in between, and in that time it delivers small amounts of the same solution just to keep the line clear and flowing. So I wear this constantly, and don't need to worry about constant care throughout the day, or accidentally missing a dose which is nice. I do have to carry it everywhere for 2 weeks though. Also included is a computerised pump which controls the dosages and pumps the fluid through, so the bag doesn't need to be kept above the level of my arm.

They gave me a bag for the fluids and pump that I could throw over my shoulder and carry everywhere but by last night my back was aching - it's not the most ergonomic design. I had a think about it, and discovered the Camelbak that I used in my triathlon days would be a good size to hold it all though. So the pump and fluids are now in that, and it is easier to carry around and puts less pressure on my back.

You have to be very careful because everything comes in sterile packets, and you have to make sure everything is super clean, as the line goes straight to your central bloodstream, and you REALLY don't want to introduce germs/bacteria from touching or even breathing on anything that can be transported through the tube. It's all gone fairly smoothly apart from one small incident today when I forgot to unclamp the tube (the instructions say to clamp the tube, but don't say to unclamp it, so if you just follow the instructions, it's easy to forget), so when the time came to pump the antibiotics in me, pressure built up and exploded the filter that the antibiotics go through. No big deal, it just meant changing the line again. The whole process could definitely be more idiot proof.

So that's where things are at. I still have a hole in my chest from where they drained where they thought the infection was, so those dressings need to be changed 3 times a day (something I can do myself), the IV fluids need changing once a day (can do myself now), and showering is just a bit challenging as my left arm is covered in a plastic cover, since the PICC area can't get wet, so I have just the one arm. I also have my Camelbak sitting on the loo, next to the shower so I can shower without disconnecting everything (the tubing can get wet, just not the insertion site). All this makes showering a slightly more challenging process, which Andrew is still helping me with (washing my hair with one hand, and a line between my arm and the toilet is the most challenging thing so far).

Otherwise I'm feeling fine. I was feeling exhausted at the end of last week, but feel a bit better now. I can't lift things or move my left arm too much or the insertion site of the PICC line hurts. I'm doing a Certified Nursing Assistant course at the moment in the evenings, and we just started clinicals, which are just too hard right now, so I'm going to see if I can do the Fast Track course which they are just starting next month - it's more hours each day, but it's during the day time which is more practical for us, it will give me time to heal, and it will only finish a couple of weeks after the current course. I also have an exam on Wednesday, and I'm well behind on my study, but I should do ok still.

Oh and I should add (I copied most of this from Facebook, and know a little more now), that they think at least some of my pain may be caused by gallstones. Where the majority of the pain was is more like gallbladder pain, and I have a heap of gallstones apparently. They did an ultrasound while I was there which confirmed the gallstones, but didn't show any of the usual signs of the sort of gallbladder problems that require immediate surgery. It may be coincidence that I got them at the same time, or maybe stress from the incision brought on the gallbladder pain? Either way I need to get all my scans and get it checked out by someone who isn't a cardiologist!

Andrew's been wonderful once again - if it wasn't for him I probably would have demanded to be checked out of hospital without getting any of this done, and ended up in much worse shape. Poor thing may end up with a drinking problem by the end of this though - neither of us can take much more! The fact that he helps with dressing changes, IV bag changes, and watches people cut into me so he can hold my hand is really quite amazing.

Happy 2009!

2009-01-03T18:00:00.000-08:00

This time a year ago I was in ICU, regaining consciousness, and they were getting ready to remove my breathing tube.

I had an awesome initial recovery, but since then have had multiple (minor) problems - atrial fibrillation, staph infection in the incision that came back and needed to be reopened to drain (eww), scar continually getting wider, keloid scar, PVCs (fluttering heart beat), and now a wire causing me grief, not to mention the regular worry that something else might go wrong.

But I'd do it all again knowing that at least that it is fixed, and anything that may ever go wrong isn't likely to be life-threatening, and knowing that unlike my dad and aunt who had the same condition, I will reach my 30th birthday.

It feels like forever ago now that I had surgery!

Otherwise, everything else is going great. I passed everything in my last semester at uni which gets me past first year, and am already only a month away from final exams for my summer semester subject.

I have always been interested in being a nurse, but for various reasons have never actually done much about it (started a degree, but it wasn't the right time, and I didn't continue with it). I have done some life reevaluation, and decided that nursing is where I feel like I need to be.

So on Monday I am starting a 3 month Certified Nurse Assistant course in the evenings at a local community college, to become a qualified CNA. This will allow me to change dressings, change bed pans, help with rehab and other less-glamorous tasks. But the upside is that I can get work in one of the big hospitals (preferably Stanford) and get an idea of what life in the health industry is like. If I enjoy it, then I will continue to finish my Bachelor of Business, then when we get back to Australia, I can do a 2 year post-grad Bachelor of Nursing or Masters of Nursing, to become a qualified RN. I'm quite excited about this career change, and hope it works out - if not, I always have business as a good back up!

I'm looking forward to a successful, positive year - better than the last couple anyway!

"Fixing" my scar

2008-11-17T21:42:00.000-08:00

I say "fixing" because it's currently dark purple. The laser breaks down the blood vessels, so it's pretty much like a big bruise at the moment, and looks a little scary. I won't post a photo on the blog, I'll spare those who don't want to see this time. Pic is here - http://photos.andrew.net.au/albums/scar/scar_001.sized.jpg

Once the bruising goes away it should look pretty good - fingers crossed!

So we got to Stanford at 6:30am. This time we went to the Stanford Ambulatory Surgery Centre - it's mostly day surgery I believe. It was a really fancy place, nice wood panelling, fancy and comfortable waiting area, and 2 screens which had a heap of numbers that were associated with patients, and colour coding. So it starts with Registration Complete, then went through to Pre-op, then a range of others including surgery, stage 1 recovery, stage 2 recovery, transferred etc. (there was about 12 different codes) so you could keep an eye on where your person is up to.

Anyway, so they do the IV under a super fine needle local anesthetic, which is always my biggest worry, so that makes it nice and easy. I had to wait in the OR for about 15 minutes all ready to go because they were early and the laser wasn't quite warmed up yet, but they started pretty much on time at 8:30am, then before I knew it I was waking up at about 9:15am.

Then it was recovery, and all the check out stuff, and we were home by 11:30am, and I was feeling fine. I slept for an hour, and woke up feeling pretty good, just a bit jelly-legged.

So fingers crossed it will stop getting bigger now!

Scarred for life!

2008-11-16T00:22:00.000-08:00

Well, that was kind of expected after getting open heart surgery. Unfortunately I don't heal very well when it comes to scars. My c section scar is still quite thick and raised, whereas my friend Briana, who had a c section a few months before me, has an almost invisible scar.

So my heart surgery scar got worse after I got the staph infection - it separated as fluid built up under it, and then after the incision got opened again to drain the infection, it never quite went back to normal, and has gotten wider, thicker, and more tender over the months. It's still getting worse, so on Monday I'm going back to Stanford to get "plastic surgery". They're going to laser the scar itself to help with the appearance, and do steroid injections which will hopefully shrink some of the excess scar tissue, or at least stop it from getting any bigger, and will hopefully also help with the itchiness and some of the tenderness. It's a general anesthetic, but I'll be surprised if it takes more than half an hour.

This is how it looks now:

You can see the bottom part near my fingers looks great - that's how it should all look! It's gotten lighter over time, but wider.

This is compared to in June:

I'll put up another photo after everything is healed from whatever they do on Monday.

Study study study

2008-11-16T00:14:00.000-08:00

Since we got back from the holiday I've just been madly busy with study. I had assignments, online exams, catching up with missed study, and preparing for end of semester exams. I've been doing 3 subjects this semester, which has been quite full on to do externally, and just before we went on holiday I had a couple of weeks where I kept getting "ocular migraines" on an almost daily basis. My vision would go all weird, and I wouldn't be able to see clearly, I got really dizzy, felt nauseous, then the headache would come on. The whole process would last a couple of hours and was very disrupting, so I got behind with my study. I think I was just sitting badly, and muscles got too tight in the wrong spots. It's certainly gotten better since.

The final end of semester exams were over the last week, so I'm really glad to have them out of the way. I'm finished first year now, which is good. I'm doing just one subject over the "summer semester" so that should give me a bit of a break - new semester starts on Monday.

Catching up (yes I'm still alive)

2008-11-15T22:55:00.000-08:00

It's been a really busy few months! I'll go back to September.

We went on holiday to the Seychelles and Dubai for 2 weeks in September which was fabulous. My aunt Vicki lives there with her husband Chris and their two boys, Jack and Harry. Chris has a job as part of the United Nations, which is based in the Seychelles and they've been living there about 4 years now.

The Seychelles was fascinating. The economy is completely broken - they have the highest level of debt of any other country, and since we were there the International Monetary Fund has agreed on a $26 million rescue package, and the currency has floated and been devalued. A lot of things were run down, the roads were terrible, there's a big divide between the rich and poor and everything has to be imported, so the black market is rife.

But the beaches were gorgeous, the weather was fabulous, the sky was oh so clear at night, and the stars were stunning. Sitting out on Vicki and Chris' deck every evening watching the night sky was an amazing way to relax. We were a very short walk from the beach, and just enjoyed our 10 days there relaxing.

It was great to spend quality time with Vicki, Chris and the boys. Vicki lived with us for a few years when I was younger, so I've always felt very close to her, and Jack and Harry are such great kids, we had a lot of fun with them.

Here's a few pics from the trip:

The markets

Amazingly clear water

Full moon over the fishing boats that were at port due to the worries over the Somalian pirates

We hiked to a beach called Anse Major, which was quiet, and so pretty

On our way to Anse Major

View from Vicki and Chris' balcony

Everyone. Vicki doesn't usually look so grim, and no, Andrew didn't bother with shaving while away :)

A couple of gorgeous sunrises

After Seychelles we spent a few days in Dubai on the way home since we were flying with Emirates (best airline I've ever flown with by a long shot), and stopping in Dubai anyway.

It was Ramadan, so we couldn't eat or drink in public during daylight hours, and a number of places were either closed for the month, or closed for a few hours in the afternoon, but it wasn't a big deal. We had a really nice hotel which we got a great deal on due it being Ramadan, and therefore the low season, the city in general wasn't too busy, and we just did a double decker open top tour bus tour the 2 days we were there, which supplied us with complimentary cold bottles of water which we guzzled as soon as we got on the bus - so we probably drank more water than we would have otherwise.

It was stinking hot - over 40 c, and about 90% humidity, and the heat was disgustingly oppressive. We had a fabulous time though. It was such an interesting place, and there was so much to see and do. And being so hot, it made us very aware that we were in a desert, and the regular calls to prayer from the temples made the whole experience more authentic. It's a place I would like to go back to some time to further explore - 2 and a bit days definitely wasn't enough!

Some pics:

Down on the water - there were boats coming and going loading up with goods to be transported to other nearby countries, carrying tourists around, and general water taxis for transport.

A small selection of gold in one of the windows at the Gold Souk (market)

A shopping centre called Wafi - it had designer shops, and an upmarket "traditional" souk area - the place was deserted due to Ramadan, and most of the shops weren't opening the entire month.

One of the water taxis

Dubai is a construction zone! There were cranes everywhere you looked. The sky was never clear, it's pretty much one big sand storm. And this highway made American highways look tame!

The new Metro system they are building which will make a huge difference to traffic - you can see Burj Dubai in the background which will be the world's tallest building

In front of Burj Al Arab, Jumeirah - the water there was toasty warm!

And then Ski Dubai... so bizarre!

One of the big mosques

One of the mosques near us. They were having the evening iftar buffet (breaking of the daily fast)

And Andrew on Dubai Creek at sunset

The rest of the photos are here

Dealing with other people's pregnancies

2008-10-12T12:56:00.001-07:00

This is something I've been asked about a few times, and something I was just thinking about, so thought I'd share. In the months after Joshua's death, some people were hesitant to tell us they were pregnant in case they upset us, some tell us before anyone else because they want to tell us in person rather than on the grapevine. That really didn't bother me, I'm generally excited to hear about friends pregnancies. Ultrasounds were hard to look at, and baby showers were hard to go to, and still are. Joshua died 2 days after our baby shower, so baby showers just don't have that same level of fun anymore, memories of our loss just come flooding back.

The other thing that's hard to deal with is other people's loss, but for a slightly different reason - my heart just aches for them. A very close friend had an early miscarriage a few months ago, and my heart ached for her. Another good friend who has also had a rough year has just suffered a 2nd trimester loss, and it breaks my heart. I don't want anyone to ever feel the weight of loss like we did. I know a loss earlier in the pregnancy is probably a bit easier to deal with, but it's never easy, and once you start planning names, planning how the room will look, what you'll need, changes you'll need to make, and start thinking about the future they're going to have, it's so hard to have it all ripped away.

It's something that really affects you for a long time, and I think it's important for people to understand that.

Why the US healthcare system is ridiculous

2008-08-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

Andrew got bitten by one of the feral kittens a few weeks ago, and the little shit managed to bite through one of Andrew's fingernails (amongst other puncture wounds in his hands).

Cat bites are notoriously dangerous because of the way the tooth is shaped - they are like needles injecting bacteria under the skin, and it heals over fast, which causes an infection, and before you know it you have blood poisoning.

I was worried that we wouldn't be able to clean out the puncture in his fingernail properly, so tried to book into the doctor to get onto a course of antibiotics. They couldn't squeeze us in, so we tried going to "Urgent Care", and they were closing, so told us just to go up to the ER.

If we had have got into the doctor it would have cost $10. We just got the hospital bill, and we are responsible for $415 of the total of $4000 or so. We spent maybe 10 minutes in there, and got a prescription for antibiotics and some antiseptic put on the puncture wounds. How the hell can that cost over $4000????? And how can they charge us $415 just for that??

We paid about $1200 for my open heart surgery - apparently a prescription and antibiotics is worth 1/3 of open heart surgery, ICU and a 5 day hospital stay...

If anyone wants to contribute to the Andrew and Sarah kitten fund - feel free to!

The foster kittens!

2008-08-01T16:04:00.001-07:00

First the Google litter:

Sergey, the little guy who loves to cuddle now

Francoise, the shyest of the bunch

Larry, the most sociable of the litter from the beginning - adopted and doing great in his new home

Marissa, the sweetest, also adopted, and has melted the hearts of her new owners, and working on winning over their other cat

And the Gilroy litter:

Boots, who went home with her brother Bond (below) last night - a sweet, playful pair

James Bond, adopted with his sister as above - a VERY affectionate kitty!

Velvet, just a little thing (actually weighed 2 ounces less than Sergey who is 4 weeks younger than her!), but is super active and incredibly athletic

Adonis (now called Freddie), a long lean boy, who is loving being the only cat in his new home and getting all the attention

Blaze - long and lean like his brother, sweet, and a bit of a rascal - loves to chew toes :-)

Daisy - pure love! Loves to cuddle with her siblings, and loves getting attention from her people as well.

That's the mob!

Kitten fostering and socialising

2008-08-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

I just realised it's been a while since I last posted, and it's probably due to the recent outbreak of kittens in our house!

It all started on July 2nd when I went out to Google to trap a mother cat and her 5 kittens that staff had seen running around. I trapped the mother and one of the kittens (using 2 humane cat traps that I have), and the next morning trapped the last 4 kittens.

Trapping the last kittens was a challenge. They'd all been living in a generator, so we ended up having to get keys to open the generator, and literally grabbing the kittens and yanking them out. Finding them in the generator was hard, grabbing them was pretty easy. I just grabbed them by the scruff of the neck as they ran for cover, and put them in a cage.

That same day I was due to go down to Gilroy and pick up a litter of kittens that needed help. Their owner was on a disability pension and living in a trailer park, and was given a cat that was unspayed, and got a little too friendly with her male cat who was unneutered. A litter of kittens ensued, and while she gave them lots of love, she didn't have the space for them (she has another cat, so 3 adult cats, and 6 kittens in a much smaller space than us!) could not afford the proper nutrition for them, or to get them spayed/neutered and rehomed and didn't want to take them to a shelter where they may get euthanised.

I had separate crates for the different litters in my spare room, but things were crazy. The Gilroy litter were about 11 weeks old, and had bad diarrhea (most probably diet related) so were super skinny, but were very sweet. The Google litter were about 7 weeks old and what I would consider semi-feral. They were hissing and spitting at me, and the mother would hiss at me, but she'd let me put my hands in the cage to change their food/water/litter without being at all aggressive - even if it meant putting my hand almost right under her nose. So I think she knew people were ok, and meant her survival, but we weren't to be completely trusted.

We were away that weekend because it was July 4, and I couldn't get the mother to be spayed until the Wednesday after, so for the first week I really had no contact with the kittens - just looking after their care, and getting them used to my voice and presence.

The 6 older kittens I got a friend to take care of for me - it was too many kittens in the house!

Meanwhile, the Google mother cat was spayed, and I had planned to keep her a few days to let her recover, then release her where I found her. Once she was at the vet for her surgery, I let the kittens out for the first time to let them start playing.

One was pretty brave, 2 were curious, and 2 were very shy. Only the brave ones came out, so getting them back in the cage was fine - it was their safe house.

The next day I tried again, only this time I could not get 2 of the kittens back in. It was very stressful for everyone involved! There was one kitten who each time we tried to socialise them would flip out - hiss, spit, strike at us, and get incredibly mad. The others were scared, but nowhere near as aggressive. To make it worse, she would run to the other kittens and then do this big act at me, which was freaking the other kittens out. The mere sight of me was enough to set her off.

I decided she really needed to be released with her mother - she would require more resources than I had (time, space, patience...), and she was scaring the other kittens and making them more wary which wasn't helping them.

So I got her spayed the next day, gave her time to recover, then released her and her mum together back to the generator where I first trapped them. The people at Google were going to keep providing them with food and water, so at least they were dry and safe, and had been fixed and vaccinated, so are hopefully a little more healthy, and can't reproduce.

Meanwhile, the Gilroy litter still had very bad diarrhea - it was pretty much pure liquid, and they weren't putting on much weight. Off to the vet I trotted with 2 of the kittens, and some stool samples. They tested negative for kitty diseases and negative for worms, but did have ear mites, but the vet could find nothing else wrong. We walked away with a large bill, medication that would hopefully help the diarrhea, and ear drops for the ear mites. Their foster mum, Scottie, did an amazing job keeping their litter boxes clean (not an easy task!), giving medicine, applying ear drops and giving them lots of love. She also started putting mashed pumpkin in their tinned food - pumpkin is supposed to help make their stools more solid. That seemed to help, and they generally have good poop now :-)

Back with the Google kittens, the more shy ones started coming out and playing more almost as soon as the cranky kitten had been released. We were no longer crating them any more, so they had the whole room to play in which they were loving.

Generally to socialise them, we did these things:

1) Using interactive toys to play with them so they associated us with fun
2) Patting them and sitting close after they eat their tinned food, as well as giving them Gerber baby food off our fingers in the early staged (kitties LOVE that)
3) Taking them individually into the bathroom for some lap time - it was easier if they were separated from their siblings
4) I took the "easy does it" approach, whereas Andrew took the "tough love" approach. So I would pretty much let them be during the day - play with them, feed them and sit nearby watching them. So they got used to having me there, and got comfortable playing, eating and using the litter tray with me right there. I would let them approach me, then try to pat them. Andrew would pull them out from their hiding places, or scruff them when they were near by, and hold them, and get them used to be handled. He got the most purrs out of them initially as he was handling them more. I think it was good to have both us doing different things - they were comfortable going about their business with me around, and they got the handling they needed from Andrew.
5) I played podcasts from my laptop in their room to get used to the sound of human voices

It was amazing watching the progress of these kittens. They were so scared and untrusting when we first got them. Then the brave kitten learned early on that being patted was good, and became very outgoing and affectionate. Then another stopped hissing when we went to pat her, and started putting her head up to be patted. Then the one who loved to play but hated being touched started letting us pat him - now we can pick him up with no problems (I still have scars from the first couple f times I tried picking him up), and he headbutts his sister out of the way if I pat her and not him. He also snuggles up under my chin if I'm lying on my belly so he can get in close, and rub against my face. He's made the most improvement. The last kitten is still very shy, but is more confident than she used to be, and purrs as soon as she thinks you're going to pat her!

We started finding homes for all the kittens, and an email to Google found us a fair bit of interest. The first appointments for their spay and neuter appointments (as well as vaccinations, microchipping, and another round of ear care/treatment for the kittens with ear mites) came around, and we did 3 kittens from the Gilroy litter, and 2 from the Google litter (the 2 Google ones had homes, so they went in the first round). The next night, one of the Gilroy kittens, and 2 Google kittens went to their new homes. Another couple also decided on 2 kittens from the Gilroy litter, but as the girl hadn't been spayed, they had to wait another week for after her appointment.

By this stage (a week ago now), I had all kittens back at our house. The Gilroy kittens are in the spare room, and the Google kittens play in our bedroom during the day, and go into the bathroom at night. The 2 Gilroy kittens went to their new home last night, so right now we are left with 3 Gilroy kittens (someone is interested in taking 2 of them, and coming to see them tonight), and 2 Google kittens.

Our kitties are curious, and handle it all very well. Stumpy has met them all and hisses if they try to play with her, but generally just wants to eat their food, and check them out. Lily met one of the kittens from the Google litter yesterday - she's always trying to get in to see the kittens, so I let them meet - they sniffed each other for a good couple of second, then Lily let out a HUGE hiss, and headed for the hills! These are the same kittens she's been watching and playing with from under the door for the last month... :-) Smudge is scared of them, she stays away from their room, and occasionally shoves her nose under the door of their room, and gets very upset if they try to wap her nose in return! So she stays downstairs, and just comes to our bedroom at night after all the kittens are in bed and settled down.

So it has all been very busy - caring for those kittens as well as socialising them, and giving our own cats attention has taken up a lot of time. It's been expensive too, but I'm charging enough for the adoption fees to pretty much cover all of my costs, so that's ok.

It has been incredibly rewarding though. The Gilroy kittens are in MUCH better health now, the Google kittens have socialised really well and have turned into wonderfully sweet kittens, they are all putting on weight nicely, they are going to excellent homes, and we have stopped 12 cats from having more babies. There's on average 5 kittens per litter, so that's about 60 less kittens that have gone into the world from just one more generation, assuming only one litter per cat! It makes all the hard work worth it.

Uni results

2008-07-10T23:36:00.000-07:00

I got my uni results today and I'm very pleased! I got an A for statistics and a B for politics. The way the results work is a bit odd at my uni - the highest mark is a HD (a 7 in other systems), then it goes A (Distinction/6), B (Credit/5), C (Pass/4), then varying degrees of fail. I hated the politics subject and thought I'd get a C, so am pretty happy.

It was a tough semester, starting 8 weeks after heart surgery, and feeling very tired, emotionally drained, and not having studied for 8 months trying to get back into the swing of things.

I'm glad it's over! I'm doing 3 subjects next semester, then I'll be finished first year - yay!

Ahhhh on holidays

2008-06-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

I finished my last exam for the semester - yay! Now I get to be sociable for 4 whole weeks! I've been pretty unsociable for a while. Between losing Joshua (it's been nearly 10 months can you believe!), preparing for surgery, recovering from surgery, then getting back into study and life in general, I haven't done very well at catching up with friends or replying to emails.

Now I can try to do both those things, plus get back into regular fitness (it's been very sporadic), read a backlog of books and do some more cooking and baking (anyone got any requests?).

There's two more things I'm looking at doing. The first is training to become a National Disaster Animal Response Team volunteer - it's run through the Humane Society of the United States, and it's a group of trained volunteers they can call on to help out when national disasters hit (floods, earthquakes, fires etc). The volunteers help evacuate the animals, provide emergency sheltering, track down owners, and generally be the animal version of the Red Cross type groups.

The other is getting some "studio" equipment for our Nikon D80 to do portrait photography. I need to get a Speedlight (external flash), stand for the speedlight, a background, and something to hold up the background, and I guess maybe an umbrella for diffusing light, and will start off with doing kids and pets for friends - just as a hobby. If anyone has any recommendations for equipment, I'd love to hear it!

I think my 4 weeks "break" will go fast!

Quest for the ultimate Polar watch

2008-06-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

Ultimate meaning "best watch for me". I started off with a basic running model, and it was ok, but didn't have the "Own Code" feature, so would pick up everyone else's heart rates as well as mine, and most annoyingly - didn't have a back light! It was very annoying to be training in low light and have no idea what was happening - the screen was a different colour than the watches with a back light, and it also made it hard to read.

The battery died on it ages ago, so since I'm getting back into exercise, I decided it was time for a new watch. I got the Polar F11 - a cute fitness watch which had a backlight (yay!), and seemed to do the basic heart rate monitoring features I figured I'd need. Only as it turns out, it doesn't do laps which is REALLY annoying while swimming as I can never keep track of laps, and once you start exercising, it will only tell you whether you're in the pre-determined OwnZone limits (it's a pain in the butt to tell it you're doing low HR exercise rather than high HR exercise or whatever), or it will tell you your total exercise time, and nothing else.

If I'm swimming, I want to know laps, I want to know lap times, or I just want to know the actual time! None of these I can do with my current watch. Sigh.

So now I'm thinking of selling the F11 (which is a nice basic HR watch if anyone wants it), and buying a watch that has:

Backlight
Laps
Own Code
Min., max. and ave. HR over the total exercise
"Heart Touch"
Foot Pod would be nice for when I start running again
And doesn't cost a fortune

So I'm looking at the Polar RS200SD which I believe has all of these things. Has anyone got one of these, and have any opinions on it?

Do you have a watch that also does these things and would recommend? I'd be open to suggestions for the Garmin Forerunner as well. Any opinions would be appreciated!

This looked like fun...

2008-06-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

From Angie

A fun game if you have a few minutes to waste!

Meme:

1. Think of the first word that comes to mind when you think of me.

2. Go to Google Images and search for that word.

3. Reply to this post with one of the pictures on the first page of results (don't tell me the word).

4. Do this in your own blog, if you wish.

New foster kitten

2008-06-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

I got an email from the volunteer coordinator at the shelter saying they had 2 kittens that needed fostering. As of yesterday, one was still looking for a foster home. Her name is Sally, she's 12 weeks old, and had been found injured at a local beauty place. They took her to an emergency vet who diagnosed her with a fractured pelvis, and transferred her to the shelter where she's been recovering in a cage.

So I picked her up today and good time too - apparently a couple of kitties have gone into the room she was in sick with upper respiratory infection (kitty cold), so glad she's out of there.

She is an absolute lovebug! She's in a cage in our spare room, and I let her out for some attention and socialisation. I've been letting her out for a half hour at a time, and have done that a few times today. Each time she has purred constantly, rubbed against us, and meowed happily. I imagine she's so pleased to get out of the cage, and some attention. After about half an hour she starts getting hyper and wants to run around the room attacking everything and climbing everything, so for her own good I have to put her back in the cage :)

Apparently when she was found she couldn't put any weight on her back legs, but now if she's just walking, she walks almost normally. Doing anything like running, pouncing, and jumping (all which I try and not let her do!), she is a bit wobbly, but looks more stable than Stumpy when we first fostered her with similar injuries. I think she'll be up for adoption within a few weeks.

Here she is:

Home!

2008-06-01T18:40:00.000-07:00

Oh it's nice to be home.

It was a typical trip... we got up at 5:30am to get our flight from Zurich which was delayed by an hour. Our landing into Heathrow was kinda scary - the pilot slammed on the brakes just after we hit the ground, and everyone's faces pretty much got slammed into the chair in front. We were still braking hard when he made a right turn, which we only just made - I was on the left of the plane, and there wasn't much concrete between the plane wheels and the grass. I believe they're mostly automatic landings, so I'm not sure what happened.

Heathrow we had a shortish transfer, but it was fine, then got to San Francisco, and our bags didn't. They're still to arrive, but were apparently on the next flight which should have gotten in by now, so hopefully we'll get them soon. They said around 7 and it's almost 7 now. I don't want to stay up too late!

The kitties were a bit blase when they first saw us, then finally realised it was us, and Smudge got appropriately excited. She was on Andrew's shoulders rolling around in ecstasy. Stumpy came and jumped on my lap purring as soon as I sat down, and Lily came out to say hi. All 3 have been following me around all evening so far.

We were up at 5:30am, and it's now about 3:45am Zurich time. I have a tired headache, but need to wait and see if the bags turn up, make the bed and maybe think about food (although food sounds too hard at the moment).

Photos are up at our photo website. There's still no captions - hopefully there will be at some point.

Price of petrol in the real world

2008-05-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

We have a lovely little, fuel efficient Prius back in the US. We would normally pay a little over $30 to fill the car, and get about 400 miles (650 km) out of a tank with regular driving, a bit more efficiency if we're doing a road trip.

We rented a Toyota Auris, which is a similar size to the Prius, to drive from Zurich to Prague. We had to change it over in Prague because the "Check Engine" and "Check Vehicle Stability Control" lights had come on and weren't going off, and the car kept beeping at us because of it.

We got a Audi A3 TDi in return, and were quite pleased because we'd put more petrol in the Toyota on the way, but it was only about half full, and we got a car with a full tank in return :-)

We managed to get the whole way to Zurich before needing to fill up. We drove about 700km (not much more than we get from the Prius), and paid a little over CHF100 (about USD$97) to fill the car with diesel.

In the US, we're paying about $4.20/gallon which is about the most expensive in the country, and has really only gone up recently, whereas in places like Zurich, they're paying $6.50/gallon! I think it won't be long until the US is up around those prices.

Next installment of photos - Prague and Deggendorf

2008-05-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

Typical building in Prague - they're all so ornate!

Looking down from Karluv Most (Charles Bridge)

The fascinating astronomical clock which dates back to 1410. The astronomical dial, representing the position of the Sun and Moon in the sky and displaying various astronomical details; "The Walk of the Apostles", a clockwork hourly show of figures of the Twelve Apostles and other moving sculptures; and a calendar dial with medallions representing the months

The Old Town bridge tower is a world renowned example of Gothic architecture-style buildings. The bridge is decorated by a continuous alley of 30 statues and statuaries, most of them Baroque-style, erected around 1700.

Can you find Andrew?

Staroměstské náměstí (aka Old Town Square), which is where the astronomical clock is. This is Church of Our Lady in front of Týn, or Týn Cathedral which was built in the 14th century. Another example of the beautiful Gothic architecture.

Moving over to Vyšehrad Castle (short walk from the hotel), which was built in the 10th century, but abandoned as a royal home in he 14th Century as Prague Castle was established.

This is in Vyšehrad Cemetery, established in 1860 as a burial ground for famous Czechs, so is quite beautiful and well kept. This is a line of the bigger, more ornate memorials for the more famous/rich people.

Many famous people, including the composer, Antonin Dvořák

Walls of Vyšehrad Castle

Door to the Church of St. Peter and Paul, Vyšehrad Castle. It amazes how much blood, sweat and tears must go into making this sort of thing

And looking from near the hotel down towards the city with Prague Castle in the background

In Deggendorf, Germany

This is a beautiful Roman Catholic Church that dates back about 1000 years. Inside is breathtaking.

The remains of St Felix - they've made him more pretty by covering him with jewels

At the top of a hill, looking over the pretty city of Deggendorf with the Danube in the back, left side.

Made it to Zurich

2008-05-25T00:53:00.000-07:00

And so it seems that "Anmelden" is "German" for Sign In according to Blogger. I now know: hello, goodbye, thank you, I speak no German, and Sign in :)

We finished our week in Prague (more photos to come), and we both really enjoyed it. Andrew got a lot out of the Ubuntu Developer Summit he was at, and got to see the main sights of Prague, and I got to have a good explore of everything I wanted to, as well as get my assignment sent off and get some study in.

Yesterday we drove to Deggendorf, Germany to see Christine and Tim and check out where they're living. They seem to have settled in really well, and Deggendorf is gorgeous! It was founded about 750, traces of settlements have been dated back to 6000BC, and a cemetery from the Bronze Age was dated back to 1500BC. It's a beautiful city with a lot of history.

We left Deggendorf late afternoon, and drove to Zurich. We went to the Google office to pick up the keys for the corporate apartment and WOW! The office is amazing! We only walked from where we parked to the front desk, but we went past a slippery slide that goes from the floor above the cafe down to the cafe, we saw "phone booths" for conducting interviews in the form of ski lifts, as well as igloo themed booths - they were very cute!

The corporate apartment is nice as well, it's 3 levels, 5 bedrooms, but not carpeted, and with 5 rooms of people, can be a little noisy. It's in a very pretty area, not far from a tram stop, and very "swiss-looking". :)

We had to return our hire car this morning, and caught public transport back to the apartment - it's all very civilised! Nice, fast trains, and regular running trams and buses that go all over the city - even on a Sunday! I love a city with good public transport.

We're just doing some washing, then will get out and do some more exploring. More to come later in the week!

How surreal...

2008-05-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

In the last couple of days here in our hotel in the Czech Republic, we've heard Ben Lee and John Butler Trio floating through the sound system in the hallways/lifts. How weird to hear such bands that I didn't think were very well known outside Australia, let alone the Czech Republic of all places.

Photographic overview of Prague so far yes, photo heavy

2008-05-21T00:54:00.000-07:00

The outer castle walls (note the arrow holes along the bottom of the wall)

The arrow holes

The entrance to Prague Castle

The front of St Vitus' Cathedral

The side of St Vitus' Cathedral

Inside the Royal Palace (within Prague Castle)

Vladislav Hall - the Royal Court, which in its day was like a public market)

All Saints' Chapel, built in the 1300s, partially rebuilt after fires in 1541

All Saints' Chapel again

The "Diet" - medieval parliament, also the Throne Room

The New Land Rolls - these rooms were decorated with the crests of clerks who worked there

St George's Basilica, founded between 920 by Vratislaus I (Duke of Bohemia), and enlarged in 973, and rebuilt following a fire in 1142.

Inside St George's Basilica, this is where we saw the classical concert

Vratislaus I of Bohemia's tomb

I'm guessing they're not his bones, but it's still kinda creepy!

The ceiling of the tomb

The back corner of the basilica

Inside St Vitus' Cathedral

One of the many beautiful stained glass windows in the cathedral

Tomb of St John Nepomuk

Chapel of St John the Baptist

St Wenceslas Chapel. Also known as, Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, he was son of Vratislav who founded St George's Basilica. St Wenceslas is also known as "Good King Wenceslas" of the Christmas Carol.

More stained glass - the detail was amazing

At the top of the 287 step staircase to the top of the Bell Tower, was a gorgeous 360 degree view around Prague

From the top of St Vitus', looking down

Looking down Vltava River

One of the spires of St Vitus', looking north-west

For the rest of the photos, check out our photo website

In Prague, Czech Republic!

2008-05-20T00:27:00.000-07:00

For reference, "Přihlásit se" means "sign in". The clever people at Google know I'm in the Czech Republic, so have changed all the Google sites into Czech for me (until I sign in, then it changes back to English).

We left the US on Friday, flew to London, then Zurich, and picked up a hire car in Zurich and drove to Prague. We had some delays, so we didn't get to our hotel in Prague until 1:30am, but that was ok. It was a really nice drive - nice, fast highways, gorgeous scenery - quaint little houses in Switzerland, snow capped mountains in Austria (wow, I typed Australia initially...) and green, pretty farmland in Germany.

Sunday we finally dragged ourselves out of bed after midday, went for a wander in the streets near the hotel, and weren't immediately impressed. It was shabby old rather than "historic old". We then found the Metro, and figured out how to get to Prague Castle. Once we stepped out of the Metro, we knew we'd found the historic Prague. Beautiful old churches, castle, palaces, cobblestones. Gorgeous. We were near closing time at the castle, so only got to wander around the grounds, but that was still impressive. We poked our heads into St Vitus Cathedral which took our breath away. It is located within Prague Castle itself, and is the biggest and most important church in the country as it contains the tombs of royalty.

The stained glass windows were beautiful, the architecture (Gothic style) was so incredibly intricate, and the church just felt sacred. There was a choir walking through the church when we arrived, and they were at the opposite end of the church to us initially, and the sound carried so well, and really set the atmosphere.

After that we were going to wander back toward the Metro, but we were stopped by people selling tickets to a "Castle Gala Concert". Members of the Prague Royal Orchestra were going to be playing Pachelbel, Mozart and Vivaldi in St George's Basilica. We figured why not?

St George's Basilica was a beautiful old building. It's a church within the castle grounds, and is long and narrow, with a raised platform at the front. The atmosphere was beautifully haunting, and of course the acoustics made the music even more lovely.

Monday was the first day of Andrew's conference, but I had to get an assignment finished, so I worked on that all day. In the evening we went for a walk toward where we heard was a nice restaurant. We're staying in Vyšehrad which turns out has a castle - aptly named Vyšehrad Castle. So we wandered through the grounds, found another beautiful old church as well as a gorgeous cemetery where the like of composer Antonín Dvořák are buried. The restaurant we found (Rio Vyšehrad) was also really nice - great quality, cheap food (as opposed to the hotel's ok, bloody expensive food).

Yesterday I worked some more on my assignment, then at lunchtime, made my way back to the castle to have another explore - this time taking photos. I got to have a good poke around in St George's Basilica and St. Vitus Cathedral (including walking up the 287 step tight, spiral staircase to get to the top of the clocktower) as well as explore some of the other buildings within the castle. It kind of blows your mind that some of these buildings are around 1000 years old.

Today's plan is to put the references into my assignment, then head back into the city to try and find a post office to post the assignment (that will be an adventure!). It's cold and wet today, so will try to find some indoor activities to do.

Made it to the pool!

2008-05-01T22:55:00.000-07:00

And it was GORGEOUS! I made it to Mountain View Pool, and the water temperature was gorgeous, and the pool was nice and clean. I also managed to swim for 30 minutes straight which was nice. I'm slow, and I feel weak, but gee it was nice to get out there!

I have a spot in my chest (on the right side) which hurts occasionally, usually when I sneeze. It's quite a sharp pain when it hurts, sometimes it's a tightness across the whole top side of my chest. It's only things like hicupping, sneezing and coughing that makes it hurt, so I'm not too worried - the docs think it may be some damaged cartilage.

It felt a little tight while swimming tonight, so hopefully the swimming will help stretch things out, and maybe help the pain.

Frustration with public swimming pools

2008-04-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

I thought given California had a pretty good climate, and people like to swim that finding good pools would be easy. Not the case!

For a start, all the pools are 25m (or worse 25 yards, which is about 22m), and there really isn't many of them. I finally found a couple nearby, and they're all outdoors, so not very pleasant in winter and you have to wear lots of sunscreen in summer.

So I finally got time to go to the pool, with the plan to go a couple of times a week during the day. I looked up the address of the pool that looked the nicest, and noticed the public swimming times - 10am - 2pm, then 6-8pm. Bummer, it was about 9am and I had to be at the shelter by 11, so wouldn't get time. It's at a school, so I understand they have some restrictions.

I looked at the 2 public pools in Mountain View, and they are ALSO only open from about 10:30-1:30, then 6-8pm. I called up to see if those hours were just for lap swimming, or if they were the opening hours. They are the only hours they are open. The pool is used for nothing else, why the hell is it closed for most of the day???

I next tried the Stanford University Pool, and once again 10-2, 6-8pm.

So apparently anyone who wants to swim has to all go at the same time during that couple of hour window. Anyone who works can only go for those 2 hours in the evening. I generally have stuff on in the middle of the day.

Every pool in Australia that I've been to is a nice, usually indoor 50m and generally open from 6am - 9pm so everyone can go when it's convenient to them.

In Canberra (population 300,000 or so) within a 10 minute drive of where we lived, I had the option of 4 different good quality pools that were open all day (except AIS which was still open more them pools here despite catering to Olympic swimmer schedules).

I can't believe that with such a big population there is not one pool that is open the entire day. The water at the beach is way too cold to swim in, so there really isn't any options.

Rant over.

Officially off restrictions

2008-04-05T09:23:00.000-07:00

I meant to post this on Thursday...

Thursday was exactly 3 months since surgery! That means I am officially off restrictions now - woohoo! I can't believe how fast it's gone. I feel perfectly fine now as well. Well, I have a couple of minor niggles. In my right chest muscle, there's a little spot which hurts when I sneeze. It's like a little pull. So I go "ahchoo OW" when I sneeze... I hope to start swimming soon, maybe that will help stretch it out and get some more movement in there.

The only other niggle is my scar itself, it's a bit tight feeling, it's still a little sore if I try to lie on my stomach - I can only do that for short periods at a time - and there's still a bit at the top that seems to pull on a nerve. They're only very minor things though, and generally I feel great.

I've been for a couple of jogs on the treadmill - jogged 1 mile (1.6km) each time. I'm still struggling a little to get back into study mode, but I'm catching up again, and hope to get ahead by the end of the mid semester break which starts next week. Once I'm caught up I'll get a better routine happening which includes regular exercise.

We're off to San Diego next week for 4 days. We're planning on going to the San Diego Zoo and Sea World which are both supposed to be very good, and the other 2 days we'll spend just relaxing at the beach and doing a bit of exploring.

Otherwise life is quiet - just the way we like it!

Scar update warning, slightly gross

2008-03-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

When they told me that the hole in my chest would close up again and you wouldn't be able to tell anything happened, I didn't believe them. 3 weeks later, and you can hardly tell!

This is the day before the abscess burst open - it's red, swollen, and sore.

This is today:

It's still a little wider where the last part of the wound closed up, and more obvious than it was before it got infected. I do recall someone saying the scar would be more vascular while it was healing.

At the very top of the scar, I get some little shooting pains off into my neck when I turn or stretch my neck. I think something (a nerve??) is pulling there when I turn, which is getting annoying. I'm sure it'll get better with time.

Given the all clear!

2008-03-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

I saw Dr Miller, my surgeon, today and he is very happy with my recovery - WOOHOO! He said I can start building up my exercise in both intensity and frequency and wants me to work on just pushing myself more over the next month, then as of April 1, I'm off restrictions!

I can start riding my bike, I'm going to start very slow jogging to see how it goes, and just try and do lots of stretching for my poor, tight muscles.

I'm so pleased to know that everything went well, and I really do feel so good now. I'm off all the drugs, I'm sleeping well, and while I get tired after a few days of walking, I know I just need to work to build this up, and rest when I need to.

The other good news is that the hole in my chest is almost completely healed! We stopped stuffing it with gauze on Friday night, and I didn't even need to cover it up today. It's looking really good, and the doctors were impressed with how fast it healed.

Interesting things from my talks with the team today:

Apparently my sternum is stronger now than it was before surgery. Something to do with when it knits together, the core is much stronger, so harder to break.

Because where my aneurysm was is in the most dangerous place for an aneurysm to be in case of rupture, and is now replaced by virtually indestructible Dacron, I'm out of the woods. If I have a dissection anywhere else on my aorta, it would be in a place where survival rates are much higher, even if it takes days to get checked out.

The "Stanford Modified Tyrone David Valve Sparing Aortic Replacement" or whatever its called is such that it recreates the natural blood flow of the aorta and sinuses through the valve, so theoretically everything should last as long as someone with no heart problems.

The condition of my aorta that was replaced was very fragile and thin, which I knew, but that's not "normal" of an aneurysm, which I did not know. Apparently it's not at all common for an aortic aneurysm to be in such a fragile state, and could certainly explain why, even though my dad got in for surgery very soon after his aneurysm dissected, that they weren't able to save him. I know that the aorta was tearing as they were trying to fix it, so if it was in the same condition as mine, there is probably no way they would have a chance in a fragile, already dissected aorta in such a vital position. Makes me even more relieved to have mine fixed.

Going in to talk to everyone is always more fun that seeing a surgical team is expected to be. Everyone is incredibly knowledgeable, friendly, professional, and gives us as much time as we need to ask all of our questions. We have never felt rushed - quite the opposite - we always spend more time talking than we thought we would! Everyone takes our concerns and questions seriously, and never seems to forget that while it's routine surgery for them, it's scary for us, which is something we really appreciate.

I know I've said this before, but we cannot speak highly enough of the Stanford team.

Netflix and the politics of it

2008-02-29T10:44:00.000-08:00

Netflix is a DVD rental service over here. You choose your movies online, and they get delivered in the mail. Netflix has been fabulous - we watch so many more movies now, and the website gives recommendations based on what you've liked (you rate movies you'v watched), and movies similar to ones you've looked at.

Whenever we went to a movie store, we would forget what we wanted to see, or wouldn't want to spend the money on a movie that only looked kinda interesting, a TV series because it'd cost a fortune to watch the whole series, or an old movie that we just hadn't seen in ages.

So now our movie queue is about 120 long and includes seasons of shows we like or didn't get to see such as Desperate Housewives and Taken, old favourites like Goonies, Gremlins and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, even older classics like Gone with the Wind, silly ones like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Spaceballs and Waynes World, documentaries that look interesting, and then of course recent releases. The other thing we really like is that if something is out at the movies but we don't think we'll get time to see it, or if it looks interesting, but not something we feel the need to seeon the big screen, we put it straight into the queue, so when it's released on DVD we can watch it.

We've had a lot of fun finding movies to put in the queue! It also means politics of what is watched. For example - I was just put through Romper Stomper which is wayyyyy too violent for my tastes, so I got to bump up the Nanny Diaries (a cute looking rom-com). When we were watching Desperate Housewives and Taken after my surgery, we alternated between one of mine, and one of Andrews to keep it fair :-)

The quality of the service is so much better than the Blockbuster equivalent we trialled in Australia which constantly lost DVDs, sent us broken DVDs, or were such bad quality they were unplayable on our older DVD player. Australia better have something better set up by the time we get home!

Cautiously optimistic...

2008-02-28T22:25:00.000-08:00

We haven't had a hospital visit this week, and at this rate, we shouldn't need to. I won't get too excited until the week is out though!

The wound is getting shorter, more narrow, and more shallow. It should be a couple more days before we can stop packing it. The top part is healing a little more slowly, so is the deepest part now (still looks fine), but the rest looks great.

We'll be keeping those fingers crossed!

No news is good news!

2008-02-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

If I don't blog for a few days now, my fans get worried :-)

Everything has been fine this week. I went back in to get the wound checked out, and they were happy, but a little worried there was a suture irritating me. The next day, low and behold a long stitch started coming out right where they said I had one irritating me. The next day it fell out. They were talking surgical removal if it didn't come out on its own - so all is good!

Uni starts in a little over a week, and am doing 2 subjects, so getting a head start on that. Otherwise, life is pretty quiet.

Just another update

2008-02-18T23:17:00.000-08:00

We're dealing with stuffing the thumb sized hole in my chest with gauze surprisingly well. I dread gauze changing time, and it stings a fair bit, but we haven't thrown up, passed out, thrown a hissy fit about having to do it or anything like that. I don't even take Percocet to get me into a nice drug induced haze anymore.

It hurts a little, and stings on and off during the day, but the overall pain I was having is so much better now. I have no idea if infection, or abscesses cause muscular pain, but it all pretty much went back to normal a day or so after it was drained and I started on antibiotics.

All I can say to anyone else going through a similar thing is to trust your instincts. I knew on Monday that something was wrong - the incision was sightly more red, slightly more raised, a little itchy, there was fluid under the incision which was causing the scar to widen a bit, and I was just feeling off. I should have pushed harder with the docs, but I was too exhausted and emotional from having a night in ER and no sleep.

I have no idea how much of a difference it would have made if it had have been drained on Monday. Given how fast it seemed to go from looking ok to bursting, I assume it was all pretty gross underneath anyway, but it would have been a few less days of pain, and I wouldn't have had to have woken up with pus everywhere...

Huh. It CAN get worse...

2008-02-15T19:07:00.000-08:00

So the infection was in the form of an abscess which got really swollen and painful overnight and burst at some point this morning. I discovered at about 6am that my shoulder was wet and realised what had happened.

I cleaned it up and saw I had a pretty big hole left where it burst. A lot of gooey stuff came out, and it was good to get some relief from the pressure build up.

So off we went back to the doctor to get it looked at and apparently it needed opening up to allow it to drain and heal. That involved numbing the area with lidocaine (holy dooley those needles HURT), and using a scalpel to cut along the incision line to open the area where the abscess was, pack it with gauze and cover it up again. Andrew held my hand the entire time, and watched the whole thing. Poor bloke is a little traumatised from watching people inflict pain on me.

So I now have a large oval shaped hole in my chest about 2cm long, 1.5cm wide, and maybe 1cm deep. Twice a day, in the shower, I have to remove the gauze, let soapy water wash over the hole to clean it out, then wet fresh gauze with saline solution, and repack the hole, then cover it with dry gauze.

We got to do this fun sounding task tonight for the first time. Getting the gauze out was a little painful - it stung where I'm guessing it was a little stuck in the deepest bits. The water running over it was ok, and Andrew repacked it for me, which was a little stingy, but not knowing what to expect was probably the worst part of it. Andrew's hands were a little shaky afterwards. It wasn't too painful, and as soon as it was done, we had a relieved giggle about it.

I don't think when Andrew said "for better or for worse", he quite bargained for this!! He has been amazing though, and I know I am incredibly lucky to have someone like him by my side.

Grumble grumble grumble

2008-02-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

Yep. The infection is back. Now I'm on a longer course of antibiotics. And the scar is separating from the fluid build up under it so looks so much worse than 2 weeks ago.

At least I should start feeling a lot better real soon!

Another trip to the emergency room

2008-02-12T19:12:00.001-08:00

It wasn't an "emergency", it's just the only place that will see you at 1am!

I've been in pain the last few days, and Sunday night it was horrible. I was in agony when I was getting ready for bed, so took 4 Ibuprofen and 2 Percocet (ie. lots of painkillers) and my sleeping tablets, and managed to sleep for about 1 1/2 when I woke up again in excruciating pain. Probably about the worst pain I can remember feeling. My incision area was hurting as was my shoulders and back.

I didn't want to have to go back to hospital because it's yucky there (Stanford is nice, but not high on my list of places I like to go) and I didn't want poor Andrew having to hang around especially when he had work the next day. It was too much pain to bear though, and given that the painkillers did absolutely nothing, I didn't really have a choice.

So in we went, and had a battery of tests done. At about 5am they said they were going to admit me to the "Clinical Diagnosis Area" which is where they monitor ER patients while they decide if they need to admit you to an actual ward. So Andrew went home to get some sleep, and I waited for my cardiologist to come see me and get the rest of the tests back.

We were most worried it was staph again as I was in a lot of pain, my incision looked a bit worse, and I was feeling pretty off. All my blood tests showed no sign of infection though, and the x-rays and CT scan were clear. They gave me IV painkillers which worked almost immediately, but unfortunately made me very nauseous and had me throwing up 4 separate times over the next 6 hours. And the painkilling effects only lasted about an hour or so which was annoying.

So the diagnosis is that it's just muscular. For some reason my muscles are having a very late reaction to everything that's happened and punishing me. I now have 2 more prescriptions - anti-nausea drugs and Valium which is amongst other things a muscle relaxant which will also knock me out completely at night time.

So each day I now take, 4 Metoprolol (beta blocker to keep my heart rate/blood pressure low), 12 Ibuprofen (for pain), 1 baby Aspirin (blood thinner just in case), 2 Ambien CR (sleeping tablet), Valium as needed (muscle relaxant), 2 Percocet (painkiller) as needed which isn't often, and a vitamin. I think that's it. :)

I'm still getting pain around the incision, and pain in my shoulder, but it's definitely not as bad as Sunday. I also feel a million times better knowing it's not staph. The cardiologist is actually wondering if it WAS actually staph last time given that I had no fever. Staph is on your skin, so it could have just picked up that. The wound cleared up within 48 hours of taking the antibiotics after weeping for close to 2 weeks, so who knows. This is what I get for being so smug about my initial recovery after surgery!

Anyway, so it's still a bit of an ongoing saga, but we're having gorgeous weather (21 degrees and blue skies and we're still in winter!), our friends here have been as awesome as usual (thanks again Shona, Bri and Lisa!!) and cheered me right back up, and I'm smiling again.

I have a massage booked tomorrow so hopefully that will be able to help with the muscular pain.

Walking this week

2008-02-10T13:56:00.000-08:00

I've managed a few good walks this week. I had my big walk on Tuesday (I think it was actually 4 miles, not 5 - I can't read a map!), Wednesday I walked to the light rail station to go to downtown Mountain View for lunch with friends, then walked the 35 minutes home after. My lower back was starting to get sore, and I was feeling pretty tired. Thursday I went with Briana and another friend Lisa and their babies to Happy Hollow Zoo in San Jose where we spent a couple of hours walking around.

By Friday my lower back was REALLY aching, and my legs were very tired, so my only exercise was down to the corner shop and back (15 minutes).

I've been feeling tired again, and part of my incision has gotten a bit more red and swollen over the last few days, and a bit sore and itchy (just under where it was weeping), so I'm a little worried the infection is either coming back, or never completely went. It's not weeping - it's all healed over, so it's hard to tell what's happening under there. Hopefully it'll go away, otherwise it'll mean another trip to Stanford :-)

I'm feeling fine otherwise, and it's been great to get out and get some exercise. I found a local swimming pool that looks really good, and while it IS a 50m, it's only open as "long course" during certain times in summer, otherwise it's split in half. They have good squad times, so I hope to go there to kick around, and do some water running, then when I am off restrictions, join a squad to build some strength back up.

Walked nearly 5 miles (8km) today

2008-02-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

I didn't plan to... I went back to Stanford yesterday for my check up and Michael, the nurse practitioner, said I should walk, walk, walk until I'm tired, nap, then walk some more.

So Briana (my neighbour) and I went for a walk down to the polling booth so she could vote in the Primaries. She'd been told she had to vote at the Fire Station over the road. So we'd walked down to the 7-Eleven first, then to the post box, then to the Fire Station. At the Fire Station, they said she had to vote at the Chinese Church which was about a mile (1.6km) away. It was a lovely day so we figured we'd walk there. We got there, and they said that we were in the wrong place! We found our apartment block on a map, and she told us Briana had to vote at the Fire Station!!!

We told her we'd just been there, she wasn't on the roll, and they told us to go to the church. So she gave us a number to call, and they told Bri, she was actually supposed to be at a school back in the direction we came from, plus another mile. Stupid electoral representatives!

I was feeling fine, and Clara (Briana's baby) was doing ok, so we figured we'd just get it over and done with! So in total, it was about 5 miles. I'm feeling fine now, so we'll just see how I feel tomorrow!

And the results are in.....

2008-02-04T16:22:00.001-08:00

And the disgustingly gross weeping was due tooooo..... STAPH! I'd hate to say I told them so, but I did say I thought it was getting infected when they thought it looked fine still :-)

I'm glad I know my body well enough to know when something is wrong, and I was able to get antibiotics before the infection really even took hold.

Now that everything is getting back to normal and I'm starting to get more sleep, I can start getting back into the walking again and look at slowly building endurance. 2 more weeks and my sternum should be fully healed and I can drive again. Yay!

My favourite kitty photos

2008-02-01T22:15:00.001-08:00

Just a change from surgery talk. These are my favourite photos of the kitties.

Stumpy is very photogenic, and I love this photo for the colours, her expression and how it shows off her pretty eyes. She's such a character - drives us bonkers, but she's also incredibly loving in her own way.

Lily is the shy, elegant, fraidy cat who desperately wants to be a lap cat if only she was brave enough. I love this photo of her in her favourite spot in the window, in a relaxed state.

Smudge is so hard to capture given that she's jet black, and has squinty little eyes. She ends up one big black blob in photos. I particularly like this photo of her because it captures the essence of Smudge - content, goofy, and not an ounce of grace - just pure happy Smudginess!

Another update - feeling better

2008-01-31T22:57:00.000-08:00

So much can change in a day!

Since I posted yesterday, the weeping has been slowing down, and today there was barely any. Since the (hypo-allergenic...) tape has been irritating my skin, I decided to remove the gauze and let it dry out. It has "scabbed over" nicely, and there's no swelling or soreness under where it's been weeping, so I'm assuming it's finally stopped or at least slowed down enough for the body to reabsorb the fluid. I'm assuming there was the start of an infection, and the antibiotics helped it. The test the doctors did will eventually reveal all.

So, I thought I'd take a photo - exactly 4 weeks on!

You can see the darker spot near the top - that's the bit that's been weeping incessantly. The bit underneath it is also a bit darker. That had almost completely healed, but unfortunately all the fluid building under it caused the scar to press out a bit, and therefore get wider and more obvious which is a shame. Otherwise, everything is healing really well. Apparently it can take up to 12 months to fade as much as it ever will. You can also see to the left of the top of the scar a reddish semi-circle - that's from the stupid hypo-allergenic tape irritating my skin that's been holding on the gauze...

For comparison, this is a couple of days after surgery. You can probably see toward the top of the incision, in the spot where the weeping has been it's crooked and wider. Our theory is they had only opened to about an inch below that, then realised they had to go higher to use a better artery for the heart-lung machine (that part we know happened, the incision isn't normally so high otherwise), and by that stage I was all covered, so it was hard to keep it straight when the lengthened the incision. The scar itself has straightened out though which is good.

Just an update

2008-01-30T11:03:00.000-08:00

As I've been recovering, I've been feeling worse. How silly huh? The weeping has been getting worse - more cloudy, more of it, and the tiny hole has gotten bigger where the incision is a little open. As well as that, I must have strained something as my muscles all across my chest, shoulders and neck have been incredibly painful. I spent about 3 days in agony, and got almost no sleep.

I went back to the hospital to get the incision checked out, which involved them squeezing all around it REALLY hard which killed, then they helped me up which hurt my sore muscles even more, and in my exhausted, emotional state, I started crying. So the doctors realised I was having more issues than just the incision which was good because they can fix these things! So told me to take high dosage Ibuprofen (800mg 3 times a day) since I hadn't been taking it since I wasn't in much pain, which meant I wasn't getting the anti-inflammatory benefits. So I have that to take, antibiotics since my incision is probably close to infection, and might as well prevent it, and sleeping tablets to help me get a decent night sleep.

So between all the drugs, I'm finally in a lot less pain, which makes life much more happy again, and I finally got a good night's sleep last night. I believe I actually slept the entire night - first time in nearly a month!

I'm about to get a massage to help my poor, unhappy muscles, so should sleep even better tonight. It's nice ot feel human again :-)

I'm so weepy!

2008-01-24T22:55:00.000-08:00

No, not that sort of weeping - a much more gross weeping... Part of my incision has been weeping for over a week now. It just leaks and leaks. It's so disgusting. We're assured it's not infected, there's just extra fluid in there that needs to come out. It doesn't help. It's still disgusting.

I've also got a sore, hard lump in a similar area, and as my weepy area gets swollen and tight, it stretches the sore area which makes it more sore!

I can't wait for it to heal. Because it's doing all this, I think it's going to scar in that area which is fairly high up on my neck. Sigh!

A few more hours at Stanford Hospital

2008-01-21T15:05:00.000-08:00

Everything is fine though.

Andrew and I were lying in bed watching a DVD last night, and I noticed my heart rate seemed pretty fast. After the DVD finished I tried to take my pulse, but it was too fast and a bit over the place, so I used the blood pressure monitor instead. My heart beat was all over the place, and it said my pulse was 160 . I did it 2 more times, and they both said 153.

So I called the cardiology doc on call, and she said just to go to the ER so they could do an EKG and check it out. It was already late, so it was midnight by the time we got to the hospital.

The EKG was all over the place, so they got me a bed. They hooked me up to everything, and it was fascinating watching my heart rate. It was bouncing all over the place - it wouldn't stay the same for more than half a second. It was bouncing between about 95 and 160, so definitely irregular!

They gave me some beta blocker drugs by IV, and that settled things down within about 5-10 minutes. They took blood and an x-ray, then we had to wait until all the blood test results came back.

Everything was fine, so I was released about 3am. I have to go see my cardiologist this week again, but I daresay they'll tell me to try taking extra oral beta blockers if it happens again, then go back to the ER if it continues.

The doctors last night were surprised that an aorta replacement could affect anything that had to with the bits that control the electrical impulses of the heart. So they looked at the surgery notes and apparently when they did my surgery, they had to detach, then "reimplant" the right coronary artery, which apparently CAN affect the electrical impulses. So I may have this happen again. Basically the heart is getting irritated by something (funnily enough, it's not too happy after heart surgery), and this is causing the whacky heartbeat.

So there you go. That was our fun night. Everything is fine though, we're just a little tired!

Chest x-rays

2008-01-18T18:42:00.000-08:00

The cardiologist was nice enough to email us copies of one of the chest x-rays today. You can see the wires pretty clearly that are holding the sternum together. These will stay in place, they don't ever take them out.

The other bright things you can see are from the EKG stickers where they attach the leads.

Atrial fibrillation aka "whacky heart beat"

2008-01-16T12:56:00.000-08:00

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I was feeling exhausted, and was actually requiring day time naps. Not just wanting a nap - by midday I was feeling so exhausted that I HAD to sleep (yesterday for 3 hours!). As well as that, my heart beat was super strong to the point that my pillow was shaking when I was trying to sleep, and it felt like my heart was about to beat out of my chest. It was worse after even just slight exertion (walks and stairs in particular), and worse toward the end of the day. And to add to it, something in my chest is twitching up near my collar bone, but it's as strong as the heartbeat, happens right across my chest and neck and twitches at a different rate to my heart obviously.

It felt like my heartbeat was going completely psycho, but then I figured out the heartbeat and twitching were separate. So I used my blood pressure monitor to watch my heartbeat, as it beeps with each heart beat. Sure enough, it did a double beat. I put my fingers on the pulse in my neck so see if I could pick it up, or if it was the machine being weird. It did another double beat, which I felt this time. Later in the evening, I'd just gotten up to brush my teeth and get ready for bed when I got really light headed, my chest started going nuts, and I was puffing from walking the 10 or so steps. So I checked it again, and it did a couple more double beats.

So Tuesday I went in to see the cardiologist who did an EKG, a quick echo, and checked my heart lungs with the stethoscope. There was no signs of anything wrong - no leaking, no odd sounds, and lungs were clear, so it's just atrial fibrillation. Apparently it's quite common after heart surgery, your heart is still sorting itself out after the trauma, and just needs some extra time. It feels weird, and a little scary, but it's nothing to worry about - the don't even do anything for it. I was still taking the diuretics for fluid retention, and the potassium tablets to replace the potassium lost thanks to the diuretics. The cardiologist thought lack of potassium could be contributing, so told me to stop taking the diuretics, and eat lots of foods high in potassium - bananas, tomatoes and oranges. He also said that I was having a perfect recovery and nobody is allowed a perfect recovery :-)

Feel a million times better

2008-01-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

Amazing what a night in your own bed does. I still barely slept as I was in some pain, it was hard to find a comfortable spot, and my right lung is still not so good, so was wheezing most of the night. But while I was awake, I was snuggled up in my nice cozy bed, listening to Andrew's breathing, and just knowing that he was there next to me and was feeling so relaxed and happy. It wasn't staring at the ceiling listening to the noises wondering if sleep would come, it was just relaxing.

We went for a walk a little while ago for about 20 minutes at pretty much normal pace. I felt as though I could have gone longer, but we don't want to push it too much. I got told when we got home, I would walk for 5 minutes, then would need to sleep for a couple of hours because I'd be exhausted. I certainly blew that theory out of the water... I guess that's for older people whose body doesn't cope as well. I feel completely fine now.

It's so great having Andrew home for the month, not only is he just so good about looking after me, but it's nice to have quality relaxing time together to just go to the movies, catch up on DVDs, go for walks, and whatever else takes our fancy.

I'm thinking sleeping will be even better tonight!

I'm home!!!!!

2008-01-09T12:57:00.000-08:00

Oh man it is so good to be home! Stanford Hospital is pretty good as far as hospital's go I daresay (I don't have much hospital experience), the nurses were fabulous, and I recovered really fast, but by 2 days ago I was completely over Stanford and ready to come home. By yesterday I was almost climbing the walls!

Overall it all went really well - the doctors were all very impressed with my recovery, and I felt pretty decent by the day after surgery, and even better by the next day.

But I slept badly every night, despite having a private room - it was uncomfortable and people came in constantly, so I only managed to get about 1 1/2 hours sleep at a time, and even then it was a very light sleep. The food was also terrible, and combined with a sore, swollen throat from the respirator, and screwed up taste buds (anything sweet tastes disgusting at the moment), made for a pretty stuffed up diet. I just had some mashed potatoes and gravy for lunch and it was oh so fabulous :-)

I'll do a more comprehensive update at some point, but don't expect anything any time soon, this is tiring enough :-)

Surgery tomorrow

2008-01-02T17:59:00.000-08:00

My cardiac surgery is tomorrow! We have to be there at 5:15am, and surgery is at 7:30am. Did you know that there was a 5:15 in the morning?!?!?!

I had my pre-op stuff today - talking to doctors, blood tests, EKG, chest x-ray. Nothing exciting. We asked lots of questions, so feel pretty calm about it all. I'm amazed how calm I am, but I guess it's hard to comprehend that I'm getting major surgery when I feel fine. I've also just been through emotionally traumatic surgery and had a hospital stay just a couple of months ago, so we know what to expect and how the hospital system works.

We just had 2 friends, Briana and Lisa, drop by with a care package. There was a stuffed elephant holding a heart, and they wrapped the heart in bandages. There was a "Box of hugs and kisses" - a box full of Hershey's kisses and Hershey's Hugs chocolates. There was a big box covered in bandaids and inside was a bunch of magazines, Uno card game, a Cranium card game, a card game called "Duck Duck Bruce", a heart shaped box filled with red Jelly Belly jelly beans, and heaps more chocolates. We have such an amazing support network!

For anyone considering visiting - only Andrew will be allowed in ICU, and I'll be there for a day or two. Feel free to come keep him company though. Just give him a call on his mobile to find out where he is. I'll also have my mobile diverted to him.

After ICU I'll be in the Intermediate Cardiac Care Unit (or something like that), and will be allowed visitors. When we lost Joshua they let us pretty much have a free run of visitors given the circumstances, but I believe this time, they'll limit visitor hours, limit time visiting, and make sure things are pretty quiet in the room as I'll need plenty of rest. Once again, I'm sure Andrew will appreciate company though, so feel free to drop in and hang out with him!

Thanks again for everyone's support!

E-book vs. paperback price

2007-12-30T19:14:00.000-08:00

I was looking at books about open heart surgery recovery and given that I don't have much time before surgery I was going to have to get super fast (and more expensive) shipping. I found a website for one of the books "The Open Heart Companion" by Maggie Lichtenberg. Through the website you could purchase the paperback for $20, or the e-book which was also $20. I thought it was a bit rude to charge the same for an e-book, but given the tight time frame, got it anyway.

I also sent an email to the author saying I thought it was a bit rich to charge the same costs and she replied very fast (which I was rather impressed by), and said

"Truthfully, from the hundreds of grateful comments I continually receive from heart patients and their caregivers who read/use the book, I consider the information I provide equally valuable whether provided in a paperback book or in an e-book format, hence the $20 price."

If she believes the information is worth $20, surely the paperback would be more expensive given the printing costs. When you buy the e-book, you get directed to a link and given a password to access the PDF.

I would expect an e-book to be at least $5 cheaper, since it's more of a pain to read and you have to print the 204 pages yourself. Anyone else got thoughts about this?

Surgery on Thursday

2007-12-29T17:01:00.000-08:00

We're home safe and sound after a trouble free trip to Australia, and are on the count down to my open heart surgery (5 more sleeps). I can't wait to get it over and done with!

I go in on Wednesday the 2nd for the pre-op stuff, then 7:30am on Thursday for the surgery itself. So by the time the Aussies are waking up on Friday (and by mid-afternoon Thursday US time), the surgery should be almost over. Keep an eye on Andrew's blog for updates on how I'm going.

And if anyone's considering sending flowers, I would appreciate it if you didn't... I don't particularly want to risk being allergic to them and be sneezing after having my chest cracked open! :-)

Off to the land of Oz

2007-12-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

I'm currently sitting at San Francisco Airport waiting for our flight to Sydney. We've got 6 days in Sydney, 4 in Canberra, then 11 in Brisbane (or something like that). There's so many people I can't wait to see!

Every single day we have things planned, and we really have no time free - so much for a holiday :-)

We get back on the 29th of December, then have my heart surgery on January 3rd (with pre-op stuff on the 2nd), so the next couple of month are going to fly by!

I hope everyone has a fabulous Christmas and New Years. I'll try to update before the surgery, but if not, check Andrew's blog for an update of how I'm doing.

Finally got my 2 front teeth for Christmas!

2007-12-07T21:04:00.000-08:00

I lost one of my front teeth about 20 years ago and the adult tooth didn't come through because the root was wrapped around the tooth next to it. After multiple surgeries to get it to come down, they finally removed it.

From early primary school to Grade 11 I believe, I had no front tooth. They couldn't do anything until the teeth had all come in or something, and by that stage there was only a small gap where my front tooth should have been.

So many years of braces to try and increase the gap to make space for a tooth, I finally got a fake tooth on a plate - yayyyy! I only spent most of my entire schooling with no front tooth (thanks orthodontist!), but I was very pleased to finally have something.

I finally started the process of getting a dental implant around May last year. The first surgery was a complete failure, so I went to a second surgeon resulting in a much better hunk of metal in my head. Once the titanium rod had time to properly fuse around the bone, I could get the next stage to expose the rod to get the final permanent tooth fitted. Unfortunately I was pregnant then, so they wouldn't give me a local anaesthetic, and therefore I had to wait until just recently to get the last bit done.

It took 4 visits to the dentist (should have just been one!), but it's finally done. it's been a long, frustrating, embarrassing 20 year saga, but I finally have my 2 front teeth in time for Christmas!

2 years in the US

2007-12-05T22:11:00.000-08:00

As of November 30, I have been in the US for 2 years (so now 2 years and 5 days). I can't believe it's been 2 years already, time has absolutely flown by.

In the last 2 years I have:

Fought with all sorts of Government agencies to get myself all documented up
Worked in 2 jobs - VMware and Google
Driven most of the West Coast
Been to 10 different (relatively big) cities across 6 states- Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, CA; Reno and Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; New York, NY
Been to 4 State/National Parks - Yosemite National Park, Muir Woods (which is actually a National Monument as part of National Park Service), Woods Canyon Lake (part of Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest), Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park
Skiied at 1 ski resort - Squaw Valley
Been to a bunch of tourist attractions (off the top of my head) - San Francisco Zoo, Napa and Sonoma wine regions, Alcatraz, Monterey Aquarium, Disneyland, Statue of Liberty, Winchester Mystery House, Filoli Mansion, Hollywood, Empire State Building, Seattle Space Needle
Seen 3 bands - Crowded House, Missy Higgins and John Butler Trio
Been to 3 shows - 2 Cirque du Soleil shows and Stomp
Stayed in more hotels and motels (and RVs!) than in the previous 25 years before that combined
Started my Bachelor of Business
Gotten pregnant and lost a baby
Been properly diagnosed with a heart condition and found out I have to get open heart surgery
Volunteered at an animal shelter (started that almost 2 years ago)
Adopted 3 great kitties and fostered a bunch of kitties
Run a feral cat trap-neuter-return program
Made a heap of amazing friends
Had many visitors
Driven 32,000 miles in the car (51,400km)

We have done so much since we've been here and had some truly amazing experiences - both good and bad - that we've both grown from. We've signed up for another 2 years year, so I hope the next 2 years have as much happiness and exploration, but not as much sadness!

iMovie '08 rocks

2007-12-03T22:36:00.000-08:00

The kitties got a new toy called Da Bird which they LOVE playing with. I took a couple of little videos and went about making a video using iMovie on the old Mac. We bought a new MacBook Pro on the weekend which came with iLife '08, which includes iMovie.

The video I started on the old Mac was a bit of a pain to do - it was slow, and there wasn't many features and it was a little annoying to use. As well as that, right near the end of my video, it crashed and I lost everything.

So this time, I uploaded those videos and a couple of new ones to the MacBook Pro and checked out the new iMovie. It's so much easier to use, much more user friendly, so much faster and has great new features. Now you just move the mouse over the little clips that it makes and it plays video which makes it easier to select little chunks you don't want to delete them.

It took me maybe a third of the time to make a much longer movie with better editing, add a soundtrack, adjust the sound and light levels of the movie, remove my voice from it, add in the transitional bits, and even add a little ending. I am very impressed with how easy it was. I imagine there'll be lots more movies to come. As well as that, it saves as it goes along so if it DOES crash, you don't lose everything. What a novel idea :-)

Then to make life even more exciting, I right clicked on my project and one of the options that came up was "Publish to YouTube"! Yep, it definitely rocks.

My only one complaint is with the old iMovie, you could easily chop up songs to have it start from a particular point in the song, whereas with the new one it didn't seem to give any option for chopping up the song. I was happy to start from the beginning of the song, so didn't look very hard.

So here's the video of the kitties playing:

Fabulous and easy meatloaf recipe

2007-12-02T11:06:00.001-08:00

I don't want to lose this, so I'll put it here to share it as well :-)

1 1/2 lbs mince (we used buffalo last time and it was fantastic)
1 onion
4 egg whites
1 cup salsa
3/4 cup oats
1 pkg Vegetable soup mix
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup ketchup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Mix all ingredients together except for ketchup and push into greased meatloaf pan
Add ketchup on top (I don't measure the ketchup, I just squeeze it into pretty patterns on the top)

Bake for 1 hour and enjoy!

How ironic

2007-11-25T21:15:00.000-08:00

Has anyone else noted the irony of the MS Explorer crashing in Antartica? I'd say it was very aptly named :-)

Very Thanksgiving!

2007-11-25T18:57:00.000-08:00

This is my first Thanksgiving in the US and we managed to have 2 of them! Last year we were in Australia, and the year before I hadn't yet arrived (but was only a few days away, expect a 2 year post very soon!).

We celebrated our first Thanksgiving on the Saturday before Thanksgiving at our apartment with our neighbours who have made our lives so much more fulfilling. We have amazing neighbours who are kind, fun and friendly, so it was great to spend it with them. There was 10 at the dinner table and as you can see we had plenty of fabulous food.

The next day we drove to Phoenix to see our friends Craig and Sarah and spend a few days with them. We spent about 48 hours in Phoenix sweating it out in the heat before driving to Woods Canyon Lake where we froze our butts off!

Craig and Sarah have a swish RV, and were camping there with a bunch of friends for a few days. It was incredibly cold all day and night so there was a roaring campfire going the entire time. The group there were a lot of fun and all really nice people, and made us feel very welcome into their group. We spent Thanksgiving Day fishing down at Woods Canyon Lake which was cold and windy but still a really nice day.

Thanksgiving dinner was on Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) at about 4pm, and the 28 of us sat outside in 33 degree F (0 celsius) eating our dinner. We had heaps of food including deep fried turkeys which are very tasty despite our hesitation about such a cooking method. All the food was very traditional Thanksgiving food and incredibly tasty. It wasn't long before everyone moved back to the warmth of the camp fire though!

A great time was had, and now we prepare to head to Australia in a little under 2 weeks for Christmas.

Quick update

2007-11-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

The week before last I went on a roadtrip with mum and Aunty Glenda while Andrew was in Boston for work.

I seem to have lost the motivation for a big write up so here's the quick version.

Friday (October 26) - drove from Mountain View to Yosemite and had a look at Bridalveil Falls

Saturday - Walked to the top of Sentinel Dome and went to Mariposa Grove to check out the Giant Sequoias. Drove to Las Vegas and arrive close to midnight.

Sunday - Walked up and down most of the Las Vegas Strip and checked out all the main hotels. Apparently I'm over Vegas - 3 times in 12 months is more than enough!

Monday - Mum and Glenda did a tour of the Grand Canyon while I caught up with our friends Brent and Amy who also happened to be touring there. In the afternoon we drove to Anaheim (Los Angeles).

Tuesday and Wednesday - Disneyland. Oh man Disneyland is so much fun. The 2 day pass also gives you access to the Californian Adventure Park next door and we spent so much time at Disneyland that we only got there late on the second day. We did get to do the California Screaming rollercoaster and the rapids ride there which were both fabulous, so that's ok. Wednesday evening we drove to Hollywood and stayed there Wednesday and Thursday nights.

Thursday - looked around Hollywood - also very over Hollywood. Mum and Glenda did a tour while I caught up with Cara, my "aneurysm friend", and Caitlin and Mick from home so I ended up having a great time.

Friday - drove back to Mountain View and crashed! Crashed in bed that is, didn't crash the car... Mum and Glenda flew back to Australia that night. The house is so quiet now!

Total round trip - 1000 miles (2400km)

We're having a Thanksgiving dinner this Saturday night coming with our neighbours at our place (for 10 adults!), then Sunday we drive to Phoenix, Arizona to spend the week there with Craig and Sarah for the week of Thanksgiving and have another Thanksgiving dinner there.

After that I don't want to drive anywhere for a long while...

Email address

2007-10-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

I now have an email address to the right (under my profile) if you would like to email me!

Road trip!

2007-10-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

Mum and my Aunt Glenda are visiting at the moment and are currently on the East Coast. They get back on Thursday evening, and on Friday morning I'm going on a road trip with them! Andrew's off to Boston for a week for work on Monday, so I'm playing tour guide.

Friday morning we drive to Yosemite and spend the rest of Friday and Saturday morning there. Saturday afternoon we drive to Las Vegas, and stay there Saturday and Sunday nights. We'll wander around there on Sunday, then Monday morning Mum and Glenda do a day trip to Grand Canyon - I plan to stay in Las Vegas and relax since I've done that same Grand Canyon trip already.

When they get back from the trip we'll drive out to Los Angeles. Monday night we'll stay in Anaheim, and spend Tuesday at Disneyland. Tuesday night we'll stay in Anaheim again, then Wednesday drive into Hollywood, stay there Wednesday and Thursday nights, and spend Wednesday and Thursday around the Hollywood area sightseeing, then drive back home on Friday morning so mum and Glenda can fly back to Australia Friday night.

It's going to be a very action packed week!

It does... stuff!

2007-10-18T20:20:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhh US drug ads!!! They need to disclose everything in ads. We saw an ad for an allergy nasal spray called Veramyst, and one of the things that flashed across the screen (after "Side effects include nosebleed or nasal sores. Nasal fungal infection, glaucoma, or cataracts may occur") was the fabulous quote:

"The way VERAMYST works is not fully understood."

Nice. Makes you want to shove it up your nose doesn't it?

Big day followed by Missy Higgins

2007-10-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

Friends of ours, Brent and Amy, are visiting from Australia so we've been having fun playing tour guide again. Yesterday morning we were up early to leave the house at 8am to get into San Francisco. Brent and Amy toured Alcatraz in the morning while Andrew and I went to Ghirardelli Square where we had fabulous a Ghirardelli Hot Chocolate. Ghirardelli chocolate is a local premium chocolate which is probably the best American chocolate I've tasted. Ghirardelli Square is where the chocolate factory was, and is now a nice little shopping area built around the original preserved buildings.

After that, we wandered around Fisherman's Wharf until Brent and Amy finished at Alcatraz, then had lunch and did the Super Sightseeing Bus Tour with them of San Francisco.

We discovered recently that Missy Higgins was playing in San Francisco, and I missed her last time she played so made sure I got tickets this time.

It turned out that it was the same day we'd planned to spend in San Francisco, so figured we'd do a big day of touring, then see Missy afterwards, so it worked out well.

Missy was playing at a little place called Cafe Du Nord, which was a gorgeous little place. The venue was about 30m long and about 10m wide I guess. There was about 150 people there and was sold out, so was a really nice, intimate show.

Missy was fabulous. She sounded exactly as she does on her album. Her voice was gorgeous and strong, and the acoustics of the small venue just added to how good she sounded. She also talked to the crowd a lot, and explained how she got the inspiration for each song which was really interesting. I have a lot of respect for her for the fact that she's what I consider a REAL musician - she writes her own music, plays the instruments herself, and has a fabulous voice. She can get up on stage with a keyboard and guitar and swap between them for different songs and have nothing else but a guy backing her up with a guitar to sound just like her album.

She didn't start until 9:45pm though (she had 2 backup artists), and finished at 11:15pm, so we didn't get home until after midnight (after leaving the house at 8am). Needless to say we've slept in today and not done too much!!

To Kirk, the commenter :-)

2007-10-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

My aneurysm is currently at around 4.5cm, and I am also seeing Dr Liang at Stanford - I actually see him tomorrow! As an aside - how fabulous is Sunny Pellone??!?! :-)

I don't think I'm a 'normal' case - my dad and aunt both died in their 20's with aneurysms in the same place which they don't think were terribly large. I was previously told they wouldn't fix it until it got bigger, but given that it grew a bit during pregnancy and we want to go through more pregnancies, they want to fix it.

And in the next episode...

2007-10-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, there's a new installment in the latest drama of the Pollock lives :-)

I've had another echocardiogram since we lost Joshua and they've compared that with all my other echos I've had done in the 18 months I've been seeing the cardiologist here at Stanford and have determined it's gotten bigger, and was at it's biggest in the last ultrasound before I lost Joshua. So it's gotten bigger, and pregnancy made it worse.

Since we still want kids, they want me to have the aneurysm fixed before I go through another pregnancy. So we saw the cardiac surgeon yesterday, and are booked in to get it repaired on January 3, 2008.

I had a CT scan so they could get a good view of my heart, so here's that pic which I have put some labels on.

And this is kind of what it should look like:

So the Sinuses of Valsalva (the round things) are more prominent than they should be, and that's where the valves are that do all work. If that splits down there, I'm in big trouble!

The next thing is that in the diagram, you can see the ascending and descending aorta are a similar size. In my CT scan, you can see that my ascending aorta is wider than my descending aorta. So pretty much all of my ascending aorta is weakened, and that's what they want to replace.

Also, interesting to note is the 3 tubes coming off the aortic arch - the left carotid artery (LCA), right carotid artery (RCA) and left subclavian artery (LSCA). In my CT scan, the RCA branches off the LCA rather than off the aorta itself like in the diagram. That's not terribly common, but the cardiac surgeon said that they find patients with genetic aneurysm conditions often have that. It's nothing bad, and causes no problems, just interesting.

So, they replace from the Sinuses of Valsalva up to between the RCA and LSCA - you can see a line on the diagram which is where they'll fix up to, and the little hand drawn diagram to the right of that is the diagram the cardiac surgeon did to show how they do it - so they keep the bit of aorta where the arteries come off it, and just replace around it.

They should be able to keep my valves since they look good (as opposed to replacing them with a pigs valve or mechanical valve if they are also problematic), so they have a thick bit of Dacron for the ascending aneurysm (I think he said about 6/7 inches long?), then sew that onto a short, more narrow piece of Dacron where the aortic root is, and the valves will be inside the more narrow bit of Dacron.

They gave us a bit of Dacron to keep as well. This is the wider piece of Dacron.

Then, because they have to be fiddling with the bits around the arteries that deliver blood to my brain, they have to cool my body right down and stop my heart, then clamp the arteries, and hook them up to a heart bypass machine which will keep delivering cooled blood to my brain while they replace that bit of aorta. Apparently once they're down and starting warming up your body again, your heart just starts beating on its own again - they rarely have use the defibrillator to actually get it going again.

It's all pretty fascinating what they can do, and while it's pretty daunting that they're messing with my heart and the arteries leading to my brain, I have one of the world's best surgeons at this sort of operation, in one of the best heart hospitals in the US, and the risk itself is very low, especially given that I'm young, and it's being fixed before it's too damaged.

I think it'll be about 8 hours between putting me to sleep, and waking me up again - poor Andrew is going to be beside himself waiting for me to get out of surgery!!! Then I'll have about 5 days in hospital, then the next 4 weeks at home will be just focusing on recovering. Apparently you're not in pain so much (despite having your chest cracked open...), but just REALLY tired. Your body is using up every calorie available to heal and it just wipes you out. The nurse we spoke to said I have to walk, walk, walk as much as I can, but initially I'll walk for 5 minutes then have to sleep for a couple of hours out of exhaustion, but gradually I'll build up the walks, and won't have to sleep so much, and by 5-6 weeks after I'll be feeling close to normal, then by 12 weeks post surgery I'll have absolutely no restriction - I can run, ride, lift weights - basically do everything I'm not allowed to currently do. And most importantly, we can go ahead and have as many babies as we want, whereas they only wanted us to have one child if my heart didn't get fixed.

So it's scary and daunting, but I'm looking forward to getting it out of the way - it'll be a huge relief, and it'll take a load off our minds not to be worrying about it anymore.

Stumpy aka "Cool kitty"

2007-10-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

She got sweet wheels!

This is the original image:

Someone else did the photoshopping, but I'll have to have a go myself and maybe put her in some other vehicles :-)

Joshua's home

2007-09-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

We finally got to bring Joshua home, unfortunately not in the way we had planned.

Sad day

2007-09-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

September 17. Today should have been Joshua's birthday. If things had have gone to plan, we would be at the hospital right now with our boy in our arms wondering how this breastfeeding thing is supposed to work.

Instead we went to Half Moon Bay, to the cliffs by the Ritz Carlton and released 2 helium balloons, one with a photo of Joshua on it as a memorial to him and to say good-bye. It's amazing how suddenly life can change. We'd planned so many things in our future that we were going to do with Joshua.

So today was sad, but I certainly wasn't as depressed as I thought I would be. I thought today would have a huge significance, but it turned out to be just another day.

We're definitely moving on and getting on with our lives. Physically I feel much better which I think helps. We went for a walk to downtown Mountain View yesterday to go to the markets, and I think we did about 1 1/2 hours of walking in total, and I felt fine.

Life goes on. I'm sure we'll still have bad days, and we'll shed more tears, but there's no use dwelling on what should have been. Andrew's back at work tomorrow, and I'll start doing more exploring with mum of the local area. I've also seen a job I'm interested in, so am thinking about applying for that.

Our baby Joshua

2007-09-08T12:37:00.001-07:00

Some photos we got of Joshua

Family photo on Tuesday

Me with Joshua on Tuesday

Mum with Joshua

Baby Joshua on Friday - looks like he's just sleeping

We lost Joshua

2007-09-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

I still can't believe I'm having to write this, but little Joshua died, most likely sometime on Monday in what they believe was a cord accident. I still had to deliver him by c section, and when he came out he had the umbilical cord tightly wrapped around his neck twice, and once around his body.

Andrew's written a comprehensive blog post about what happened, so pop on over here to read more.

Baby shower

2007-09-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

Our neighbours were nice enough to organise a baby shower for us which we had today. We went to a nearby park and had a really nice BBQ just hanging out with friends, relaxing and enjoying the gorgeous Californian weather!

We were lucky enough to receive some really nice gifts from people - all we need now is a baby!

Only 2 weeks and a couple of days to go!

Crowded House concert

2007-09-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

I found out last Saturday that Crowded House was in the area for a bunch of concerts. Unfortunately tickets were almost sold out so I had to sit on my own, but that was fine. They were playing at a local winery, which was a beautiful, small outdoors venue. It was a gorgeous night and there was a full moon the night before and the sun was just starting to set, so the moon rose throughout the concert.

Crowded House were fabulous and it was awesome to see them in such a small venue. They alternated between one new and one old song, and seemed to be having a really good time which made the concert even more enjoyable.

One of the ushers was nice enough to move me to the disabled section where I could have a chair with a back rather than the wooden bench I was originally sitting on (she understood the fun of being pregnant...), so that was nice! I was probably 40m away from the stage, so had a great view!

Overall a great night :-)

Kitties!!!!

2007-08-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

It's about time I posted about the kitties, it's been a while!!

They've all recently had their annual checkups, and they all came through with a clean bill of health.

First of all, here's Stumpy - she's about 19 months old now, and still has regular psycho spells... She's a very active kitty who loves to play! She's also very in tune with my feelings. At the start of my pregnancy when I constantly nauseous she would constantly snuggle up to my belly at night time whereas normally she sleeps in her bed outside our room, and she's also just recently started sleeping with us again. If I'm ever feeling tired and emotional, she always seems to know, and comes up to me and headbutts and purrs to me, and patting her always helps - she's very therapeutic.

And Lily - our beautiful, shy girl. She's still a scaredy cat, but has come out of her shell a lot, and is the biggest sweetheart once she feels safe - usually once we're in bed, or I'm sitting on the couch. Lily is best friends with both of the other kitties, and is such a beautiful cat. She's definitely the elegant one of the three :-)

And our baby Smudge, who's almost a year old!! She's only got a little body, and her eyes are still squinty due to birth defects, but she's the friendliest, sweetest cat (and also weighs more than Stumpy who LOOKS bigger than Smudge!). she adores Andrew, and her favourite time of the day is when she can sit on his chest and snuggle up to him. She sleeps on my pillow at night and waits for him to wake up in the morning and roll onto his back so she can properly smooch up to him. She's uncoordinated, and we think she has no depth perception, but we love her all the same!

And his birthday will be...

2007-08-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

September 17! I'm booked in for an amniocentesis at 8:45am that day to check that his lungs are mature enough, and if that's all fine (and I daresay it should be), then they'll do the c section in the afternoon.

I have 2 nephews, Seth and Mason. Mason's birthday is also September 17 - so he'll be exactly one year older than his cousin. Seth's birthday is September 26, and I guess he'll be 4 this year. So mum's 3 grandchildren will all have birthdays 9 days apart :-)

Belly photos!

2007-08-10T15:06:00.000-07:00

Due to popular demand! (Hi Zoe and Na!!!)

28 weeks

31 weeks

18 weeks

28 weeks

31 weeks

I didn't think my belly had really grown at all in the last couple of weeks, but according to the pics it's definitely looking rounder now!

Uhhhh.... 5 weeks to go?!!!

2007-08-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

We saw the new obstetrician on Tuesday who we liked much more than our other OB who's going on sabbatical. He has more experience in cardiac issues I believe, and he explained things much better and sounded a lot more rational then our previous ultra conservative OB.

So we talked about the delivery date with him, and he said they have to find a good balance between my heart's health and the baby's development. The heart reaches its maximum workload between 28-32 weeks, and stays at that workload until the end of the pregnancy, so they basically want to put my heart under that much pressure for as little time as possible.

So we asked about dates, and he said he thought 36 weeks would be a good time, which would be September 14 - EEK!!!! That's 5 weeks away... We wanted October 8 since my mum gets here on October 6 but he said it's really better not to wait that long. The date may still change, they may bring it forward even earlier if they feel they need to, and they may push it back a bit if everything continues to go well, but I don't think they want to let it go much further than 36 weeks.

So yeah... 5 weeks to go. OMG.

Well Labour and Delivery is nice!

2007-08-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

We had a 4 hour or so trip to L&D yesterday. Last weekend we were at the shops and I started to get blurry vision to the point where I couldn't read anything, and saw big bright spots in front of my eyes, and got dizzy and felt not so good. For me that's usually the first sign of a migraine, but I only got a fairly mild headache, not the migraine.

It happened again yesterday, so I thought I should ring and check if it was anything to worry about, and they told me to go straight to Labour and Delivery to get checked out.

So we did that, and they hooked me up to the baby monitor to check the baby (and we got to hear him kicking and hiccuping!), and checked my blood pressure and took a urine sample, and a blood sample. Turns out blurry vision is one of the signs of preeclampsia which is what they were worried about.

Everything tested fine though, and they did a basic test to make sure it wasn't neurological, so that was nice to know.

So they think it probably is a migraine, but the symptoms are just presenting differently, possibly due to the pregnancy. Which is fine - as long as I don't have the headache that leaves me curled up in agony in a dark room I'm happy!!!!

The good news is that we were very impressed with the hospital. We were at Lucile Packard Childrens Hospital which is the hospital attached to Stanford where I'll be delivering the baby. The facilities were really nice, the staff were all fabulous, they were efficient, I asked if it was ok for Andrew to go get me a sandwich, and they said not to worry and brought me a tray of food which was pretty tasty. We peeked in at the labour recovery rooms and they were pretty nice.

So we got a sneak preview of what it might be like (without the pain and lack of sleep), and we were pretty happy! We certainly feel confident we'll be looked after!

Back to being a busy bee!

2007-08-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

We've gotten rid of the bed in the spare room, put a heap more stuff in storage, set up the crib, bought and set up a (second hand) dresser/changing table combo unit which was fun to try and get home, washed all the sheets and clothes we've been given (people are so amazingly generous!), and put them away, and will go out and buy a stroller and car seat in the next couple of weeks. We'll also get a rocking chair or glider at some point, but I'm in no rush for that.

I'm also thinking about buying a bunch of nappies sometime soon. Our neighbours buy theirs online and they work out cheaper than the stores, and arrive in 2 days, so I think we'll give that a go. I thought I might get some smaller packs of a couple of different brands, then just see if we have a preference. We're told that the best brand is very baby dependent - what's good for one baby may not work for another baby.

So I'll start getting those, wipes, and things like that so we're all organised.

I change obstetrician's next week - hooray! We haven't really liked the current OB, and she's going on leave, so we're actually being transferred over to someone who we actually wanted in the first place but couldn't see because HE was on leave. He's got more knowledge of heart conditions, specifically of aneurysms, so I think he'll be good.

He'll be able to let us know when he wants to deliver the baby as well, since I'll be having a cesarean. We want to wait until October 8 since mum gets here on October 6, but they may not want to wait that long and risk me going into labor early and needing am emergency c section.

Apparently they like to do cesarean's at 38 weeks which would be September 28 - ie. end of next month!!!!! OMG! I know it's not much sooner, but I've had October 12 (mid-October) in my head for so long, so for it to be the month before which is NEXT MONTH just seems so close!

So between getting ready for baby, going to lots of doctor's appointments (which are all going relatively smoothly), studying, doing an online introductory photography course and learning how to create a website from scratch (ie. not using any templates) so I can make mine look much prettier, life is busy!

I'm also now part of 2 mothers groups and I'm not even a mother yet :-) One of them is organised by one of the girls in my complex, as there's heaps of mothers with young kids in the complex. We meet once a week by the pool for a general hang out which is nice. It's only new, so the only ones going are 4 of us who already know each other and see each other regularly, but I'm sure others will come! The other one is an Aussie mums and bubs group that I've just been invited to. I've been along to 2 of them now, and the other mums are wonderful, lovely people! They've all got young kids (most of them are under 2), so that extra support network is fantastic to have!

Anyway, I've procrastinated reading everything I need to for my assignment long enough, now I REALLY need to get into it :-)

Definitely feeling pregnant...

2007-07-29T19:03:00.001-07:00

I've been super tired the last couple of days, I'm not sleeping well, I've been on the verge of a migraine all day, my back was hurting from sitting in the car today, then I got tired fast from walking around and I've had heartburn a couple of times this week (which is easily fixed by Tums luckily).

10 weeks to go...

Weekend in Napa

2007-07-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

It's our second wedding anniversary tomorrow, so we thought we'd get away for a nice weekend away together since we won't have too many more chances to do that in the future for a while!

We decided to go to the Napa Valley since I haven't actually been there yet (it's the local winery region). We stayed at Gaia Hotel and Spa which is actually in American Canyon - about a 15 minute drive away from Napa - it's "The Gateway to Napa". It was fairly cheap, looked nice enough, and had massages there which I thought would be nice. It was also touted as an "Environmentally Friendly Hotel and Spa", and had a lot of environmentally conscious initiatives, so that was an extra little interesting thing about it.

Being a bit further out of Napa definitely wasn't an issue and the hotel was nice enough. It was more like a very classy motel than a nice hotel, but that was fine too. The walls were a bit thin, but the beds were comfy and we slept fine.

So we arrived Friday night, then on Saturday did absolutely nothing all morning. Slept in, then just lay in bed watching cartoons and reading. Went for massages at 11, then after that we decided to go for a drive into downtown Napa. We ended up going to a bunch of wineries instead! I wasn't drinking, so Andrew got to have all the wine and Napa is very different to other wine regions we've been to. They charge for the tastings - the first few we went to were all $15 for 3-5 wines, and you can't pick which ones you want to taste, it's a set "menu".

We found some cheaper ones though which had much better selections and a more laidback atmosphere, and would waive the tasting fee if you bought some wine. Andrew was beginning to feel pretty tipsy since it was nearing 2pm, it was hot, he was doing all the large portioned tastings and we hadn't eaten! So we went to Rutherford Grill for lunch which I'd heard very good things about. And it was a fabulous choice! Andrew had ribs which he claims to be the best ribs he's ever had - the meat just fell off the bone. And I had ribeye steak which was also delicious!

We went to another couple of wineries after that, got back to the hotel about 5:30pm and were both ready to sleep!!!!

Then today (Sunday) we went on the , which is a gorgeous old train that slowly makes it's way through Napa, then back again. We got one of the lunch options which was a 3 course meal and the food was once again divine! For most of the trip up we were in one rail car where we sat in lounge chairs and had appetizers served, then when we neared the turnaround we got seated in the dining car where the 3 course meal was served, and we finished dessert not long before we got back to the station.

Everything about the weekend was wonderful and relaxing and just how we wanted to spend our anniversary weekend. We also came home with 16 bottles of wine, so our wine rack is nice and stocked and should keep us going for a while (especially since I can't really drink anything at the moment, and won't be able to for a while!

And here's the wineries we REALLY liked:

Baldacci Vineyards - I think $5 for tastings, but they waived that if you bought wine. They ask for reservations for tastings, but we walked in on a recommendation from a couple we met at another winery, and they were happy to accommodate us. We bought a Gewurtztraminer and a Syrah (Shiraz) from there.

Miner Wines - $10 for tastings, and they served 5 different wines, all of which were very good and I'm pretty sure he didn't charge for the tasting since we bought wine. We also asked if they had any Shiraz, which wasn't on the tasting menu, so he opened a bottle for us to give us a tasting of that as well which was very nice. Andrew's not a big Merlot fan, but their Merlot was very good - we got that, a Sangiovese and a Viognier from there.

Whitehall Lane Winery - also $10 for tasting, and had I think 5 wines which were also very good - one of the few to do dessert wines. The wines were very tasty, and they also waived the charge since we bought wine. We got 3 bottles there also including 2 of their Belmuscato dessert wine.

BV Wines also get a special mention because we just wanted to try their Syrah, which wasn't on the tasting menu, so the girl opened a bottle for us to try and didn't charge for it which we thought was nice...

Note to those who haven't been - I recommend paying for one tasting between 2 people since the servings are pretty big and visiting a larger number of wineries. There's guides around which have the prices for tastings, so use that as a guide as well. I grabbed one and will scan that sometime soon and link to it for those who want to check it out.

Note to self

2007-07-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

Must go here for dinner sometime - CreoLa Bistro looks like it's got lots of authentic, yummy looking New Orleans style food.

Only in America...

2007-07-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

Right near the ranch we were staying at, there was a small private airport. There's a small housing estate next to the airport which has streets wide enough to taxi your plane down. So people can fly in, and drive the plane right up to your plane sized garage next to the house. Crazy!!

Weekend at a ranch!

2007-07-15T20:52:00.000-07:00

We joined our our friends Eric and Katie at Eric's mum's house for the weekend. She lives on a 200 acre ranch out past Sacramento. The property is owned by Eric's grandfather, who also has a large, beautiful house on the property.

The houses were gorgeous, there was a couple of ponds there, one with a deck and gets dredged and cleaned of weeds and so forth so is great for swimming. They've got a sweet 18 month old German Vizsla who was a sweet, energetic lap dog and Eric's sister was also there with her 3 month old Labrador. The 2 dogs were great fun and had a great time playing and wrestling together.

On Saturday we drove out to the local river where there's little rapids to swim in. The water was clear, fresh and cool, and just what we needed given the temperature was 30+ degrees!

Sunday we had breakfast at the local country club and looked at the local multi-million dollar homes. After we got back, we went for a walk, then jumped in the pond for a paddle.

Overall it was a fabulous weekend, nice and relaxing, great company, and lots of laughs watching the dogs playing!

Here's some pics!

The river

View from the top of a hill on the ranch

Cuddling with the dogs - they were both lap dogs!

Floating at the pond

Uni results

2007-07-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

Got my result last night for my computer subject for uni and....

I GOT A HD!!!!!!!!

I can't believe it. I've never gotten top marks for anything before I don't think. I'm pretty darn pleased with myself :-D

So I got 91.5/100 and 95/100 for my 2 assignments, and 100/100 for the in class activities (you got full marks just for completing the work), and for my final exam I got 79/100. And that was with completely skipping 2 questions worth 15 marks total. So if you exclude those 2 questions, I got 79/85 - almost full marks! One of the questions required definitions for a hub, switch, router and something else and I had no idea. I knew Andrew would kill me for not knowing those.... ;-) I can't remember what the other question was now...

I'm so excited... Now hopefully I can keep up the higher marks - I got B's for my last 2 subjects, and drag my GPA up a bit more.

Awesome cartoon

2007-07-09T21:33:00.000-07:00

I've found this awesome cartoon strip called Baby Blues. I've been going through the archives having a good giggle. This is my favourite so far :)

Milestones!

2007-07-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

I have now less than 100 days to go on the pregnancy (98 until the due date), and I think I'm now officially in the third trimester. Different websites and books have different dates, but I've got 3 months and a couple of days until the due date, so that's close enough for me :)

Here's a new belly pic as well! And yes, terrible posture, I know. I must work on that....

Things are still going well, the little guy is kicking and jumping around lots - he's a very active little boy!! He's waking me up at about 5:30/6am every day with his morning exercise routine. Andrew and I love to just watch my belly ripple and jump from his movements :) I haven't had any major problems with the pregnancy so far. The worst thing has been occasional heartburn, but a couple of Tums fixes that within minutes. I'm constantly tired as well, but not working gives me the opportunity to nap on an almost daily basis. I find if I don't get my daily nap, I'm absolutely wrecked by the end of the day. It's taking me a while to get to sleep at night, and I wake up at about 3am often (possibly from the kicking), and again at 5:30ish, and I don't normally get much more sleep after that since Andrew gets up and ready for work, so the nap is definitely needed!

We're starting to plan strollers, car seats, and the last bits of furniture that we need. We still need to get rid of the queen sized bed in the spare room so we can convert it to a baby room, but I believe we have a couple more visitors over the next month, so we'll wait until they've come and gone before we get rid of the spare bed.

It's all very exciting :)

Who needs a Kwik-E-Mart? I doooooooooo.....

2007-07-02T23:20:00.000-07:00

Twelve 7-Elevens across the US have been rebranded as Kwik-E-Mart's for the release of the Simpsons movie and we're lucky enough to have one just down the road! WOOHOO!

They've got Squishee machines, pink frosted donuts, Krusty-O branded cereal, Buzz Cola, Radioactive Man comics, Kwik-E-Mart branded Esky's and a bunch of other fun things.

I'm going to head back tomorrow to pick up some more Squishee collectors cups, try and find the Radioactive Man comics and some other bits and pieces for myself and some friends back home.

Here's some pics from our outing!

Vet rant

2007-06-29T17:16:00.000-07:00

I got a stand in vet when Smudge got her annual check up yesterday because someone was out sick and I couldn't see my regular vet. He drove me nuts. It was like he'd just read "Taking Care of Cats for Dummies".

I mentioned I foster kitties, run a feral cat trap-neuter-return program, and volunteer at the local animal shelter. First sign that maybe I know something about cats...

1. He asked how many cats I had - I said 3 and told him their stories (2 "failed" fosters, 1 semi-feral), and he asked how many litter trays I had. I said 2. He said "well the general rule is that you should have 1 per cat plus one extra, so you should get 2 more". I said "well, that's not exactly a hard and fast rule. I mean, I have 2 large, deep litter boxes, and 3 small cats. I use good quality clumping litter which is kept a few inches deep, and I scoop at least once a day, so it's never very dirty. I imagine this is better than 4 small litter trays with low-quality smelly litter that I only clean every couple of days. If I ever had any inappropriate peeing, or urinary tract problems that could be caused by them not wanting to use a dirty litter tray, then yes, I will get extra litter trays, otherwise I believe it's just fine as it is." He sort of huffed and puffed and said "well that's just what's recommended". I mean gee, surely it's better to get more information than just spout off stuff he learnt in vet school??

2. He asked if Smudge was on any flea treatment, and I said yes, Advantage. he then said "well make sure you apply it every 4 weeks religiously". I considered holding my tongue, but decided against it... I said "well actually I've talked to Dr Chen (the usual vet), and she said since I'm not fostering at the moment, and they really don't go outside (just little occasional trips to chew grass right near our front door, and even then it's really only Stumpy), and we've never had a flea problem, it was fine to do it more like every 6 weeks so they're not absorbing too many chemicals unnecessarily". He didn't like that either...

3. I brought along all of Smudge's records including her records from the animal eye doctor, and told him all about her eyes, and what we'd done, and she'd had an eye checkup the previous week and passed with flying colours (they're not particularly good, but they shouldn't get any worse). Then he read the reports, looked at her eyes, and told me all about the condition trichiasis which she has, and that her vision probably wasn't all that good, and how I shouldn't let her be an outside cat because of her eyes, but it shouldn't bet any worse blah blah blah.

I was like ARRRGGGHHH!!!! ARE YOU NOT LISTENING TO ME?!?!?!?!? I'd said they're indoor girls, and Smudge rarely goes out anyway, and it's always little supervised trips outside, I'd seen the eye specialist numerous times, and had told him all about her eyes, so obviously knew enough already, and had JUST had a check up, so you could assume that the specialist had already told me all I needed to know....

4. He asked what I fed the cats and I said Felidae wet and dry. And he asked what sort and I said "just the regular Felidae for Cats and Kittens". He said he'd never heard of it, and I should try to feed them a good high quality diet. I had to explain that Felidae was actually a fairly well known brand, and the dog version was called Canidae (also fairly well known), and it was actually a premium quality pet food.

It was SUCH a frustrating time, and he was a fair bit older, and it seemed he just wasn't keeping up with current vet trends, or wasn't used to dealing with cats and cat problems, or he just refused to listen and wanted to spout off textbook info without finding out any information from me. My other 2 kitties go there for their checkups which I'd told him, so you'd think my regular vet would have discussed basic kitty care if she thought I needed it.

I mean, that's why I love my other vet, she understood my experiences, and asked the right sort of questions, and knew I was sensible enough to follow a "less strict" kitty care regime where I thought appropriate. For future vet visits I'm going to make it clear that I ONLY want to see my vet, and if she's not available, I'll reschedule.

Sarah's blog

Introducing Zoe Dianne Pollock

Update

The quandaries of an animal lover

Busy busy!

Quick update

20 week ultrasound

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Baby update

House update

Buying a townhouse!

Stumpy - August 2005 to 11 November 2009

Yes I am still alive!

The kitties and their Valentine's Day dates!

I'm a Golden Retriever!

So much for a more positive year!

Happy 2009!

"Fixing" my scar

Scarred for life!

Study study study

Catching up (yes I'm still alive)

Dealing with other people's pregnancies

Why the US healthcare system is ridiculous

The foster kittens!

Kitten fostering and socialising

Uni results

Ahhhh on holidays

Quest for the ultimate Polar watch

This looked like fun...

New foster kitten

Home!

Price of petrol in the real world

Next installment of photos - Prague and Deggendorf

Made it to Zurich

How surreal...

Photographic overview of Prague so far *yes, photo heavy*

In Prague, Czech Republic!

Made it to the pool!

Frustration with public swimming pools

Officially off restrictions

Scar update *warning, slightly gross*

Given the all clear!

Netflix and the politics of it

Cautiously optimistic...

No news is good news!

Just another update

Huh. It CAN get worse...

Grumble grumble grumble

Another trip to the emergency room

Walking this week

Walked nearly 5 miles (8km) today

And the results are in.....

My favourite kitty photos

Another update - feeling better

Just an update

I'm so weepy!

A few more hours at Stanford Hospital

Chest x-rays

Atrial fibrillation aka "whacky heart beat"

Feel a million times better

I'm home!!!!!

Surgery tomorrow

E-book vs. paperback price

Surgery on Thursday

Off to the land of Oz

Finally got my 2 front teeth for Christmas!

2 years in the US

iMovie '08 rocks

Fabulous and easy meatloaf recipe

How ironic

Very Thanksgiving!

Quick update

Email address

Road trip!

It does... stuff!

Big day followed by Missy Higgins

To Kirk, the commenter :-)

And in the next episode...

Stumpy aka "Cool kitty"

Joshua's home

Photographic overview of Prague so far yes, photo heavy

Scar update warning, slightly gross