Mike left for "the stans" as we call them (Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, you get the picture) followed by trips to Algeria and Saudi last Tuesday for about three weeks. His travel schedule seems to have been ramped up more than a notch but at least THIS time (a) I'm not sick as a dog and (b) I'm up in Keller with 3/5 of the grandchildren, getting to see the other 2/5 both weekends leading up to Mike's departure. It's always a good day/week/month when we get to be with the kids and grandkids!
I did have a "blip" on the scale following my breathing treatments last month. I woke up early Thursday morning following Mike's return on the 5th to an irregular heartbeat - just woke me up around 2am. My heart was doing the waltz when it SHOULD have been doing the Two Step! I went into my PA on Thursday morning and she got me into a cardiologist that very afternoon. To say we were a wee bit concerned is an understatement. But by the time I went to the cardiologist, after hearing about how I wasn't able to travel anywhere for at least a month, possibly a hospital admittance for 3 or 4 days, a whole slew of medication I was going to have to take, blah, blah, blah, they ran another ECG and shockers, the rhythm was back to normal!!! All on it's own, it went back into normal rhythm. So they are pretty sure it was a side affect of the albuterol in the breathing treatments I was having 3 times a day for over 2 weeks. To say we were relieved is, again, an understatement.
As soon as we left the PA's office, Mike got on the phone to put me on the prayer list at church. When my appointment with the cardiologist was over, I lost no time calling my friend Marilyn at the church office to say that I wanted to be the poster child for the quickest response to a "News Flash" prayer request in history! (A "News Flash" is an email sent out to members with important information rather than waiting till the next service.) So thanks be to God and the brethren who prayed for me!
Now they are just monitoring it for awhile with some prophylactic meds to be on the safe side and I am able to travel - I think the possibility of not getting to see the Austin Drennon's that next weekend bothered me as much as possibly having a heart issue! But once they ran that ECG, it was business as usual except for no caffeine, which has been harder to adapt to than I originally thought (no iced tea, no green tea, no coffee except decaf which does NOTHING to jump start you in the morning - I had no idea how much I was having throughout the day - a good wake-up call???) I just can't have albuterol anymore which is FINE WITH ME! It made me fidgety and an insomniac as well. Between the bronchitis and the heart issue, I was beginning to feel like I'd mortgaged my body and foreclosure was imminent! :) I went back for a recheck before heading up here to Keller and everything checked out fine. I don't even have to go back for a couple of months. I just have to get some lab work done periodically to make sure the meds they put me on are the correct dosage.
We spent our Valentine's Day in low key fashion opting to go to Beck's Prime for a burger and Caesar Salad over a more "romantic" (read "expensive") venue. We were not alone - the place was full of couples in their jeans, companionably eating dressed casually in their jeans, enjoying each other's company and a basket of the best fries in the universe (if you've never been to Beck's in Houston, you HAVE to go when you are there - they do homemade fries that are amazing! Mike likes their shakes but they are too rich for me.) It was perfect.
So ends my soliloquy. Nothing funny nor profound. But it's my life of late so there you have it. Oh, and if you've never seen an abnormal ECG, it sort of looks like a Spirograph drawing rather than the peaks and valleys of the normal ones. An interesting observation now that the drama is over!
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