Automated muscle pump on right leg. Automated muscle pump on left leg. Automated BP cuff on left arm that sounds like a Donkey Kong machine. Red diode pulse ox sensor clothespined to my left index finger. Nellcore pulse ox sensor taped to my right ring finger. Peripheral cannula (IV heplock) on the back of my right hand (the infusion pump is quite talkative – beeps and lights). Bair Paws hospital gown with integrated climate control. Nasal cannula supplementing my O2.
Spent part of my day catheterized & on a ventilator after being filled with IV contrast, measured by a digital scale, and imaged by a laser guided talking magnet table.
Did I sign up for the space program? If so, is it enough that my blood went through the centrifuge, or do they have to send me?
Published on Thursday, April 7th, 2011 by LisaDiane
Joey found this poster, and thought I might like to have it for my office. I really love it, and am bummed that I will be out of town, and so will not get to spend time in my office for a whole week! It was good encouragement today. I had a really big deadline for work this week, and I am taking off work tomorrow, so I had to fit everything in today! I managed it, in the end.
Tomorrow morning early I am off to Chicago to meet up with Laura, and see her sing.
While I was getting ready to take the photo of the poster, Elanor came and sat next to me. KatyDog used to cross her paws like this, and recently Elanor has started. She looked so cute, I had to take a picture.
Published on Saturday, April 2nd, 2011 by LisaDiane
Today was my nephew’s third birthday party (his actual birthday was yesterday). His birthday party was at the Northwest Recreation Center. My older godson was very excited about attending the party because he remembered that the Northwest Recreation Center is the “park with the climbing tree”. He actually climbed the tree several times. I took a few nice pictures, all of which were vetted and approved by their subject.
Joey has many more pictures of the party itself, which I am sure he will post in a day or two.
Published on Thursday, March 31st, 2011 by LisaDiane
Joey and I went to Opal Divine’s tonight for dinner. I decided to try some new beers, so I got a flight of beer, including: Southern Star Blond Bombshell, Thirsty Planet Armadillo Wheat, Circle Brewing Envy Amber, and Southern Star Buried Hatchet Stout. The two Southern Star beers were by far my favorites. While we waited for our food, I worked on Mom’s socks, for which I am using yarn called Opal Hundertwasser by Zwerger Garn. Coincidence? I think not.
Published on Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 by LisaDiane
Cali came to stay with us this week, since Lee and Billy were out of town. She and Elanor actually shared the green dog bed for a bit, while they guarded the door to Joey’s office.
Today I went to see Anne. She suggested that we dye my hair really dark and add purple and chartreuse feathers. It just so happens that the colors she suggested exactly match the pair of socks that I am making. I agreed to her idea, and you can see the results below. In a previous post I had mentioned that I made a pair of knitted gloves for Anne as a barter. Her end of the bargain was to make a collar for Elanor. You can check out Elanor’s new look in the picture, and you can check out more of Anne’s art on her website (which Joey created, by the way).
Published on Tuesday, March 1st, 2011 by LisaDiane
Elanor loves to chase lights and anything shiny, like the dot from a laser pointer or the light reflected off a mirror. She also likes things that dart around on the television. She will actually watch TV if there are dogs barking or if there is something moving quickly across the screen that catches her eye. Selecting movies on Netflix is one of the things she really likes to watch – she doesn’t much care once we pick the movie, but the actual selection is a blast as far as Elanor is concerned. Happily I had my iPhone handy, and managed to record her antics.
Published on Sunday, February 27th, 2011 by LisaDiane
Several years ago I bought a pair of Haflinger slippers with a sheep on them. The sheep is gray. It started out gray. But Lee and Billy thought that it started out white, and that I just took such bad care of my things that they turned gray from dirt. They didn’t tell me that for a long time, it came out years after the fact. Of course, I still have the sheep slippers. We now refer to the slippers as the “dirty, dirty sheep”.
Last week Joey was taking care of Liam and I was working in my home office. Joey, Liam and Elanor came in to visit for a minute. Liam found one of the sheep slippers. He was completely fascinated by it. After about a minute of watching him play, I took out the iPhone and recorded his play. Enjoy!
Published on Friday, February 25th, 2011 by LisaDiane
While I was in North Carolina I had a bit of a scratchy throat, and some allergy type symptoms. Nothing too terrible. Then I got on a plane and flew home. While I am glad to be home, the airplane air, and the pressure that flying put on my ears pushed me over into really congested and uncomfortable!
I landed back in Austin later than expected due to a delayed flight out of Raleigh-Durham airport this morning. The flight delay was due to “crew rest”. Sujata commented on that, “crew rest = hangover”. In any case, the flight took off late enough that I missed my connection in Dallas, and that put me in Austin too late for Sujata to pick me up at the airport. We had a meeting at 14:00 that she was in charge of, and I didn’t hit the ground in Austin until 13:45.
No problemo. I got my luggage, and hopped in a cab for the very short trip over to the office. I should have walked into Sujata’s office at about 14:05. No such luck. As my cab turned into the office parking lot the truck that had made the turn just in front of us stopped suddenly and my cab smashed into the back of it! So I sat there, just a few meters from the door of the office, waiting for the driver to sort out the insurance stuff with the driver of the truck. Happily it was very low speed, and no one was hurt. The cars were barely scratched.
I finally made it to Sujata’s office. We finished up our meeting, and then we went over to the Tea Embassy to visit, drink tea, and relax. Sujata was kind enough to shuttle me and my luggage a bit further north to meet Joey.
Later in the evening Joey and I went over to see Megan and Robert. They were throwing a little party to thank the folks who have taken care of their dogs when they are out of town. We had a great time. As always, Megan had a tasty and elegantly laid out spread. It was a very long day, but other than the congestion and the wreck, it was totally awesome.
