Kevin's Watch

I dunno why u say goodbye, I say hello?

Hullo!


Ohhh... also, in unrelated Watcher how-do-you-feel-today - I knew I'd forgotten something.
Sorus - so the new boss appears law-abiding. Yay, an upgrade. maybe.

BABA ORLY?

Linna wrote:SD- I hadn't thought about Menolly's leukemia and stuff... darn.
So like, what she's on for that is like a constant, less-extreme-than-some-kinds kind of chemo?

Yes, she will be on a milder form of oral chemo in perpetuity, along with the daily thyroid hormone replacement she's taken since 2011 and Dam-sel has taken since 1980. There are issues, but it is still better than the full-strength chemo Dam-et went through in 2013 to quash his leukemia. He had his five-year check last week and is still free of any hint of reoccurrence.

I'll mention this thread to Menolly and allow her to measure how much more detail she wants put out there on treatment specifics. Not really my story to tell, nu?

Esmer wrote:BABA ORLY?

Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven

Skyweir wrote:...picking up Darth on Monday...

Yeah, give him hell for not visiting the Watch enough.

Ah well, Monday again. Looks like they're going to be releasing my brother today, so will have to do the fetching and carrying etc.

--A

Ran the Chicago Triathlon yesterday, so very sore. 90 degrees with a heat index of 100. (32 and 38 for you Celsius types.) Rough day, but I finished.

Great job Khaliban! I think it is amazing feat for all people who can complete these!

Request for healing prayers, well wishes, good thoughts, and Love and Light, please. SD has given us a scare and is currently admitted to the Cardiac ICU at the Swedish Cherry Hill campus in Seattle.

Thanks!

Avatar wrote:
Ah well, Monday again. Looks like they're going to be releasing my brother today, so will have to do the fetching and carrying etc.

--A

That sounds like good news. For him, anyway. Hope he has a fast recovery.

Menolly wrote:Request for healing prayers, well wishes, good thoughts, and Love and Light, please. SD has given us a scare and is currently admitted to the Cardiac ICU at the Swedish Cherry Hill campus in Seattle.

Thanks!

I'm sorry. Hope everything is okay.

Oh my gosh certainly Menolly .. sending only the very best of good thoughts, vibes and lots and lots of love, light and healing.

Send him our best .. and our hopes he makes a speedy recovery.

Pointing positive vibes and energy so Savor Dam feels better soon.
I have been thinking about how I could broach the subject of Edward S Curtis photography with SD without seeming like a nonce. Please tell him I wanna have that discussion!

Sorry to hear about SD. Chin up, good thoughts and all that stuff.

--A

Sheesh, I feel like the place is a bit empty...

--A

Nah .. its the middle of the week thats all

I feel pretty chill about now .. had a day down the coast and the weather was perfect.


Bought what I thought was a little pot with a lid with an echidna painted on it .. and I thought oh .. how sweet only to get home and my husband tell me .. its an American Indian headdress with feathers all around .. damn .. wasnt wearing my glasses when I bought it.

Meh its still functional and attractive

Any news about SD? I see he's been online, so hoping that's a good sign, but I don't see any posts.

Skyweir wrote:
Bought what I thought was a little pot with a lid with an echidna painted on it ....its an American Indian headdress with feathers all around...wasnt wearing my glasses when I bought it.

That's funny. (And mid-week has nothing to do with it...people just getting slack.)

--A

I would prefer he post himself, but don't want to leave y'all hanging. The story, as I understand it is thus:

Ever since a week ago last Sunday, SD hasn't felt well. Shortness of breath, mostly. But claminess and lack of appetite as well. However, two weeks ago this past Monday, SD has been serving jury duty in downtown Seattle, so he hasn't had a chance to rest. The commute to the courthouse from here can take 90 minutes to 2 hours each way, and he served from 8:45-ish to 4:30-ish, I believe.

Dam-sel and I didn't push too hard for SD to follow up on the way he was feeling, as the air quality here last week was terrible due to the smoke from the wild fires in Canada and California blowing this way.

SD apparently felt better on Friday, and throughout the weekend, but when he had to get up early again on Monday morning, he was feeling terrible, but decided to push on to jury duty.

By the time he got downtown, he could barely transverse the pedestrian tunnel from the transit stop to the courthouse. One of the security saw him leaning against the wall, and asked if he was alright. SD showed his jurors badge, and said he needed to get to court. Instead, the security called the bailiff, who took one look at him and said, "I'm calling 911."

Damsel got a phone call about 90 minutes later, saying SD was taken to the Cardiac unit at the Cherry Hill campus of Swedish hospital. The nurse she first talk to had the story a little wrong, and said when the paramedics got to SD, they couldn't find a pulse. At least, that's what she relayed to me. So, while we both had been taking it easy, we rushed to get dressed and hurry downtown.

While we were dressing, Dam-sel missed a phone call from the cardiac doctor on staff. In the voice mail he left, he assured her that SD was all right, and although he presented as a heart attack patient, that wasn't what they determined it was.

When we arrived, SD had been moved to Cardiac ICU, and was alert and looking better than he had in days. He apparently caught some type of virus, possibly while commuting to and from the courthouse, which settled as an infection around his heart and led to fluid building up around his heart. The condition is called pericardium, or something like that.

If SD posts, I'll let him go into detail about what they put him through to try and get a catheter in him to drain the fluid from around his heart.

He was finally moved off of the Cardiac ICU floor today, and the drain was removed. He is on a medication which we hope will fight the infection and prevent more fluid from building up. He is still being observed, and has some more testing to be subject to tomorrow. But the nurse is hopeful he may be released tomorrow.

I hope so.
He is missed.

Menolly wrote:I would prefer he post himself, but don't want to leave y'all hanging...

Thaaank you.

I have been wondering often!

Thank you all for your concern. Menolly told the tale pretty well, and y'all surely understand that I was focusing on getting well enough to go home, rather than writing about what I was going through. Today seems to be the day they might let me go.

(Some of this may be TMI. I kinda think so; apologies if you feel similarly)

Since retiring, I had given up the two-hours-each-way trips on packed commute buses into Seattle. I suspect my immunities weakened in the absence of all that exposure to other people's germs. When I resumed the commute for a few weeks of jury duty, apparently a virus found me...and attacked the pericardium, which surrounds the heart. As fluid filled that space, it reduced the room in which my heart could beat. I'd felt off for a week or more, but attributed it to the bad air from wildfire smoke. With jury duty and the associated commute taking up my entire week, I really didn't have opportunities to seek care...although retrospect surely highlights that I should have.

When the bailiff-summoned paramedics arrived, my blood pressure was non-existent, since the heart was stifled by all the fluid around it. They tried to tell me I was having a heart attack, and were not too receptive to my responses as to why this did not present as a heart attack. I'm sure they are used to people being in denial, but less accustomed to people who know whereof they speak.

We did agree that I needed care, and at the hospital, the doctors were able to understand the differential diagnosis and determine that this was pericardial effusion with tamponade (fancy words for what I described above). In a cardiac catheterization lab, they inserted a chest tube and drained about a third of a liter of liquid from around my heart and sent me to the cardiac ICU. Over the next few days, they pulled about that much fluid out before removing the tube and moving me to a normal hospital room yesterday.

[cues up Band on the Run]
Stuck inside these four walls...
If I ever get out of here...

Glad to hear you're on the road to recovery, and thanks for the update, Menolly.


Just finished my own jury duty, which was a rather unpleasant experience in and of itself. And between the lady on my right, who would check the time every two minutes and sigh dramatically (yes, we all get that you don't want to be here, now does that really help?) and the fellow on my left who kept falling asleep - the bailiff would come over and poke him when he started snoring - I hope I am never in the position where such individuals would have power in deciding my future.

SD wrote:When the bailiff-summoned paramedics arrived, my blood pressure was non-existent, since the heart was stifled by all the fluid around it. They tried to tell me I was having a heart attack, and were not too receptive to my responses as to why this did not present as a heart attack. I'm sure they are used to people being in denial, but less accustomed to people who know whereof they speak.

I cannot think of ANYONE in my house who self-diagnoses a lot and runs into similar problems.

Once I implied that my husband was really good with knowing things about medical-related things, and the lady I was talking to asked, "Is he a doctor?" and I realized I had no good way to explain...

Had you been reading up specifically on cardiac stuff in the last few days / weeks, or was that prior knowledge?

Sorus wrote:Just finished my own jury duty, which was a rather unpleasant experience in and of itself. And between the lady on my right, who would check the time every two minutes and sigh dramatically (yes, we all get that you don't want to be here, now does that really help?) and the fellow on my left who kept falling asleep - the bailiff would come over and poke him when he started snoring - I hope I am never in the position where such individuals would have power in deciding my future.

Ohhhh boy...