Monthly Archives: December 2007

My beloved iPod

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I have a beloved iPod that I’ve had for years. It’s a green iPod mini, they don’t even make those anymore…why I don’t know–it was one of their best ones. Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed that it doesn’t hold it’s charge that long and today I took it along with me when I took Presley for a walk. Well it didn’t even last 5 minutes before the battery was completely dead! What am I going to do, they don’t make these anymore and honestly, I can think of many more things I’d rather spend $150 on than a new, not as good, iPod. Sure mine doesn’t had a touch screen or even color screen, and it doesn’t do videos or whatever but it’s the best one…it holds 1000 songs and like I would ever fill that up anyway. It’s green and compact and my iPod–and now it’s broken, almost. I can still listen to it when it’s plugged in but doesn’t that defeat the purpose of an mp3 player? I restored the settings and updated the software this afternoon so we’ll see if that helps my beloved iPod. If not, i’m gonna have to take it to the mac store and walk up to the genius bar and say “I need a Dr. my iPod is sick…please help it, do everything you can to save it!” and they will probably say, lady this is an old outdated iPod–Buy another one! But I don’t want to, its my old, outdated iPod and I want it working again. We’ll see what happens, I’ll keep you updated because I know all of you are just on edge about my iPod issue 😉

TSO

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Jonathan and I went to the Transiberian Orchestra concert last night along with Tim and kara and some friends. This was my 4th year to go and I still love it! I don’t think I could ever get sick of going to that show…it has become a fun tradition around Christmas time. The first half of the show is a Christmas story told with rock music and a narrator telling the story. The second half of the show is just an awesome rock concert with lights and a piro show. It’s awesome! They have two of the best pianists in the world in the group–well, at least i think so. They also have an AWESOME violinist from London, England. If you’ve never heard of them or been to a show I highly suggest recommend them. They said they might start a summer tour–not the Christmas show, obviously. Hopefully they’ll be back summer of ’08.

I Rock!!!

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Jonathan and I have been on a search for a Wii gaming system so we could get Guitar Hero and be rock stars! Well we’ve had no luck–we almost had one on Wednesday but someone else decided they needed the one that was up at customer service for us, so no such luck. Last night we just decided to get a sony playstation 2 instead, they have just as many games that we would play anyway. So we got the PS2 that came with sing along rock star or whatever–its like a karaoke machine basically. But we also got Guitar Hero III and played it for a good while last night. It’s hard to get the hang of it at first but then I figured it out and Rocked Out!!! It is soo much fun.
Now we just need to get another guitar so we can have duals and play eachother!

guitar hero guitar hero

Christmas Wrap-Up

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Okay so it wasn’t the BEST Christmas ever—Now let me explain this. I woke up Saturday morning with a migraine and all that entails–yes, even bowing before the porcelain god. Eventually about 3:00 I started feeling better and Jonathan and I went to finish up some last minute Christmas shopping. Sunday we went to church and had a great service. Our friend Mary led worship and sang beautifully, as usual, and the Encounter band played the infamous Christmas Eve Seriavo. After church Jonathan and I decided to try this mexican food restaraunt that we’d been wanting to go to for a while. This is where it went downhill. We went to Amaya’s–yes I’m saying the name of the restaraunt so no one will ever go there–Amaya’s in Red Oak!! STAY AWAY. Anyway, we ate lunch and the food wasn’t anything to write home about, it was okay but not great. I just had two beef tacos and Jonathan had a beef enchilada. Well, we went home and I finished wrapping the Christmas gifts and got ready to go to his grandparents for Christmas with his family. On our way there I started feeling a little queasy and not right so we stopped and got some tums. They didn’t help–at this point Jonathan wasn’t feeling that well either. A couple of hours went by and I couldn’t take it anymore, I told him we had to go, which I felt horrible because I didn’t want to make him leave…we don’t get to see his cousins that often. Well, it’s a good thing we left because it was over when we got home. I was sick all night and then had to get up and go to work the next day. I finally stopped getting sick but I was VERY dehydrated and my blood pressure was extremely low which made work pretty difficult. I came straight home from work and went back to bed. The rest of the day (which was Christmas Eve) was just worthless, Jonathan and I were both dehydrated and worn out. Let me tell you, Pedialyte isn’t just for kids anymore….We spent our Christmas Eve on the couch drinking Pedialyte–Yippee! We were supposed to go to our parents church for the Christmas Eve service and then maybe stop by my aunts house to see my cousins and their kids. Well, that didn’t happen. Then Christmas day, my family was supposed to all come over but that wasn’t going to happen because I was about to clean the house–I could barely stand without feeling like I was going to pass out. So Christmas morning we woke up and felt better but still a little worn out and dehydrated. We opened our gifts from eachother and then went to Jonathan’s sisters house for breakfast with his family. We had a good time and then went to my parents house for lunch with my family. We had a good Christmas but probably would have enjoyed it better if we felt better. Maybe we’ll have a good New Year’s!

More Info

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I don’t want to bore you guys with medical info but for those who want to know more about IST (inappropriate sinus tachycardia) which is what my Dr. said I have. So bascially this is for my family who wants to know more. IST is an uncommon type of cardiac arrhythmia, within the category of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT)–which I have. The mechanism of the arrhythmia primarily involves the Sinus Node and peri-nodal tissue and treatments are in the form of pharmacological therapy or Catheter ablation are available, although it is currently difficult to treat successfully. So basically it’s a condition in which an individual’s resting heart rate is abnormally high (greater than 100 beats per minute), their heart rate increases rapidly with minimal exertion, and their rapid heart rate is accompanied by symptoms of palpitations, fatigue, and exercise intolerance. IST is not associated with an abnormal electrical pattern on the ECG. The heart rhythm in IST appears to arise from within the sinus node, the cardiac structure that generates the normal heart rhythm. Patients with IST are hypersensitive to adrenaline, such that a little bit of adrenaline (like a little bit of exertion) causes a marked rise in heart rate. There is evidence that the sinus node itself has structureal changes. But much other evidence suggests that a more general dysautonomia is present in these patients. (This would explain why symptoms most often seem out of proportion to the increase in heart rate.) It is the notion that the sinus node itself is intrinsically abnormal that has led electrophysiologists to resort to ablation of the sinus node as a treatment for IST.

I hope that wasn’t to medical for you but it’s a synopsis of what it is.

We’re Even!

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A while back I wrote a post about Jonathan doing the laundry and how I asked him kindly to never to the laundry again because I ended up with a pink shirt that was white and another shirt that had a blue tint to it. I had to explain that women’s clothing is different than men’s clothing and you can’t wash some of them the same. I thought we had an understanding. He has been trying to do more around the house to help me out even though I tell him he doesn’t need to b/c I can still do it. I know he was just trying to help and he didn’t malliciously do laundry to ruin clothes. He did laundry last night for me, and I do appreciate his help, but what he didn’t realize is that I had some jeans in there I just got and hadn’t been washed yet. These jeans needed to be washed by themselves because they will bleed and they also needed to be laid flat to dry because they will shrink. Anyway, I didn’ tknow what he washed last night, I was thinking it was the whites because you really can’t screw them up unless you put a red sock mixed in. well this morning I stuck my scrubs in the dryer to iron them-ha-and when I opened the door I saw these jeans and then saw my favorite white sweater. I pulled the sweater out and it is now a light gray-blue color along with some other white shirts I have. And for the jeans, they are now too small to wear…so the new jeans I have never worn will never be worn.

But to be fair I went out and mowed the backyard and a good part of the front yard yesterday when I got home after he told me to rest and not do anything. I think he was a little mad when I told him and I feel bad for that. I know he worries about me but at the same time I know my limitations and because I felt bad to begin with doing certain things doesn’t necessarily make it worse. I’d feel bad either way and I might as well get stuff done that needs it. But I will admit I probably shouldn’t have mowed the yard because it did wear me out and I didn’t feel great afterwards. So that being said we are even, he did the laundry and I mowed the yard.

Answers

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After all the tests and blood work and everything we have an answer to why I’ve felt so bad. For those who haven’t heard anything I have had a rough week and a half or so. Since last Sunday (not this past one but the one before that) my heart has been going crazy. I woke up Sunday morning and my heart was pounding out of my chest which in turn made it really hard for me to breath and really tired. After a couple of days of this it started to make me feel lightheaded and dizzy and just overall weak feeling. So I called my Dr. and she oreder an Echocardiogram to check the status of my mitral valve prolapse and regurgitation and functionality of my heart. The ordered blood tests and an EKG to check the electrical aspect of my heart. Then finally yesterday morning she ordered a monitor to record my hearts activity that I wore for 24 hours. She called me this morning and said there had been no change in my echo and my heart was working just like it was a year ago–good news. My blood work was all normal except for a low potassium and for those who aren’t in the medical field, a low potassium affects your heart. It wasn’t extremely low or anything just lower than it should be. So I’m just eating more potassium rich foods. My EKG from yesterday morning showed a high heart rate–around 125-130 and I was just sitting there. The monitor from the last 24 hours showed a high heart rate as well and numerous PVC’s (premature ventricular contractions). The PVC’s we already knew I had and for that I’m alreaady on medication. The surgery I had last October was for the PVCs but was unsuccesful so that’s why I’m on medication. Anyway–all it comes down to is I have a pretty high heart rate and low potassium and that’s what has been causing all my issues the last week or two. I asked her why my heart rate was so high and she said “It’s just who you are–your body is in constant overdrive and it’s a part of your make up.” I have, or had before surgery, SVT which is where your heart rate shoots up to 300 beats per minute and that is an abnormal heart arythmia. She told me that people who have SVT are prone to have inapropriate sinus tachycardia…which is a normal heart rhythm but just fast and makes everything into overdrive. That along with my other syndrome makes my heart rate fast. When she first put me on medicaion a while back it helped my heart rate but over time my body has just gotten used to it and now we need to up my dose. So she doubled my medication and it should all be back to normal–for me! Oh ya and I’m definitely supposed to stop drinking caffiene now! DOH! I was drinking a monster when she called-HA. I don’t drink a whole lot of caffiene but I do drink some so I guess I’ll have to stop now. So that’s the news–thanks for your prayers and hopefully I’ll start feeling better within the next day or two.

Carnival Ride

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I just recently got Carrie Underwood’s new CD Carnival Ride. I absolutely love it. It’s almost as good as her first album, if not better. This album is more country than her first with hints of banjos and foot stomping tempos. You know its a country album when there’s a song about being drunk at the alter and you don’t know your new last name. It’s similar to Alan Jackson’s song “I don’t even know your name”. Then there’s the song about how the more boys she meets the more she loves her dog. My brother didn’t seem to like that song but I love it. Beofre I met Jonathan, that’s how I felt. Over all it’s a great album and I’m already ready for her third!

Update

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I went to the cardiologist yesterday to get an echo of my heart and some blood work. I haven’t heard anything because the echo techs aren’t supposed to say anything and my blood work wasn’t going to be read until today. I’m not sure what all she tested for with the blood work but I do know she did a BNP test, which is what they use to asses heart failure. Now I don’t think she thinks I have that, she’s probably just ruling it out or something. So when I hear something from my Dr. I’ll post something.