Stitched up

I had some complications over the weekend. I've been lying in bed being careful & first one stitch broke and seperated, then I awoke Monday with the incision opened more and more stitches not holding. Not good.

On the way to the doc office another area opened.

The doc injected medicine to numb and stitched me up again. 

The problem is I have scars and he had to stitch to them so it did not hold well. I am laying to one side now and trying not to move around much. I want this to heal well and I am nervous for the stitches to not hold. 

I have had a lot of surgeries before but never had this happen. You just never know.

I've been up and down emotionally but trying to keep positive and be patient.

Armando is so good to me.  I really appreciate him for sticking by me through all this!

Thank you to all my friends who have checked on me and left messages. It has meant a lot to me.

I'm home!

All went very well with my surgery and I came home yesterday. I only had to stay in the hospital two days. I know it was not that long but when they said I may get to go home I clung to that thought. I did not even have my IV out yet and I was ready to get dressed for home. :)

I need to be careful with my back ( the incision is pretty big, up and down my back). I must keep the pressure off that area so for now I am on bed rest mostly and cannot lay on my back, just my left and right side. 

I will be back to normal in several weeks time.

I am so happy that I had a consultation for a new wheelchair while in the hospital which I have needed for over a year now. It will take several months to start the insurance process over and get approval again since the last company dropped the ball.  I feel relieved because without proper seating and pressure relief this surgery would have been for nothing in the long term.

So, all is looking up!

When I get the new wheelchair I will take a picture of it to show you because you have heard me babbling on for so long in frustration over it.

Armando has been the BEST through all of this. I am so lucky to have him.I feel bad for being more dependent now during recovery and he just calms me and tells me to relax and helps me through. 

What have you been up to the last few days?

Operation # ??

Honestly, I have lost count of how many surgeries that I have had. At least I am not a newbie so I know what to expect. (But is that a positive, I ask myself?) I should be in the hospital only a few days if all goes well.

I have to be there at 9 a.m. tomorrow and the surgery is not until sometime after that. I wish I had been the first case so I could zip in and zip out before the nervousness sets in. But it is not to be. One strange thing is that I have not even spoken with an anesthesiologist yet. I guess I speak to him/her the morning of surgery.

I got a good book to read and a brain teaser puzzle book. Armando arrived home and will be here for my surgery which is a big comfort to me.

Have a good several days and I will be back shortly! ;)

Just me chit-chatting

Armando arrived to Austin, Texas safely. I am glad that we can be in contact while he is there. We are so attached to one another.

I am not quite sure if I am having surgery on Monday yet or not. I will have a CAT scan tomorrow to see if all is clear there. If that comes out clear then I will be having the surgery. If not, I must postpone the back surgery and have another procedure first. 

The last few days have been cold here. Today the day looked so pretty but the cold air would cut right through you.

Beloved Pets

Our little four-legged critters are very much part of our lives. We try to spoil them as much as possible because you have to cherish the time you have together. Sadly, two of our cats have parted ways recently.

 

Our cat Macaruchi was run over by a car. He was very intelligent, extremely lovable and will be missed. He liked to help me scrapbook or would help me “arrange” my papers. Macaruchi is brother to Pumpkin Muffin. Pumpkin Muffin is Mundo Nuevo and Fluffy’s Daddy. We will miss his sweet presence.

 

Armando and Macaruchi

Chochi’s kitten Mundo Nuevo also came up missing. She is Fluffy’s brother. Her and her brother stay inside mostly but sometimes outside. Armando put her and her brother out on the porch the other night and in the morning the brother was there but no Mundo Nuevo. We called and have searched everywhere for two days and no sign of her. It is very sad but I hope whatever happened to her that she did not suffer.  I guess I must accept the fact that she is gone from us also… but it still hurts.

Fluffy on the left and Mundo Nuevo on the right.

Armando has a job interview in another state next week. I hope all goes well. If he gets the job we will be moving to Texas.

I will be having surgery on January 19^th. The wound is not healing and it has been nearly a year so I am having a procedure to hopefully help me.

Easy Swedish Apple Pie

I baked this pie tonight and served it with vanilla ice cream on top.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Swedish-Apple-Pie/Detail.aspx

 

Yum!

Palm Centro & Other Thingamajiggies

Armando and I upgraded to a Palm Centro Smart phone recently. It is so nice to have phone and palm organizer in one instead of having to charge my Palm Zire and the cell phone.

I have not tried the online features yet but Armando has tried the facebook feature and posted a picture and it worked well. I will try  and check out the blogger features on here later and options to see if I can post pictures from the phone here. That will be very fun for when we go places so I can share things with you.

I do not think I told you but I recently sold my handicap van. I was so thankful because I had it up for sale for a long time and I did not use that van. We use the car mostly because gas was very high and I never felt comfortable driving that big van.

My sister and her family are coming down on Christmas Eve. I am so excited!

I am still having wound issues. Two wounds are trying to heal and one was not progressing. I am trying to get used to changing positions every two hours but it is difficult. I am not used to doing that. I started taking a lot of different vitamins recently and Omega 3’s and my appetite has picked up lately which I hope will help the one heal. Armando said it is looking better. I do not want the wound to stay around much longer because the longer I have it, the more chance there is for an infection.

Classes are going well. I did some transcribing in the Pharmacology section. I am beginning to realize how difficult it is to train your ears to hear a doctor racing through a Medication list. What makes it challenging is that I am not yet familiar with the medication names. I am sure that will change as I get more in the habit of hearing the medicines.

Have a great rest of the weekend! It is early morning and I am not sleepy so I thought I would update my blog.

Recent Projects – Part 3

Kitty cat mp3 player case

 

Recent Projects - Part 2

I made the brown teddy bear on the left for my nephew’s Christmas gift.

I am almost finished with Pharmacology in class. Next is Building The Medical Record.

 

I have been staying busy with the usual things and then making Christmas gifts. I hope next year to start in January and have my gifts finished by Christmas.

Crochet Projects

I said quite a while back that I would show pictures of a few projects that I have been working on. I will share a few pictures over the next few days with you.

 

For starters, Here is the first doily that I have ever made. It is a small one.

I cannot believe it is less than two weeks until Christmas!

Lately

Those of you who follow my blog may remember a post from the past with me mentioning that somebody had left me beautiful sunflowers and a watermelon on my porch. I did not who had done such a sweet thing. I found out tonight. It was my friend Lupi. She came to visit. I invited her and her two children to eat dinner with us. It was cooking as they arrived and almost ready. It was a good chance to practice speaking Spanish since she is Mexican.

I made Beef Stroganoff for our dinner. It was a new recipe I tried and I liked it. My sister gave it to me. Get the recipe HERE

I have had a busy last couple of days. Saturday we went for a wedding photography consultation in Birmingham. Afterward we had lunch with my sister and her family. We went to their house and visited a while. She made us delicious coffee and chocolates. The kids were adorable and had grown so much!

My driver’s license expired last month without me realizing it. I went yesterday and renewed them. The lady in the office was yawning constantly and making me feel like yawning. I just knew my driver’s license photograph was going to be of me with a big yawn!

Let me tell you about some shoes that are light as a feather! They sell men and women shoes. They can be a bit pricey but if you find them on sale or clearance, even better. Armando bought me a pair yesterday and I love them. They are so comfortable and have sheepskin inside.

Look for Patagonia HERE

I am a slacker for two days in a row. I have not studied but I plan to study the rest of the week to make up for it.

Today I attended a Webinar (like a web seminar) called CMT / RMT: Steps to Credentialing. It was very interesting and explained the tests and credentialing process for becoming a Certified or Registered Medical Transcriptionist. The Registered Medical Transcriptionist must re-test every three years whereas The Certified Medical Transcriptionist re-certifies each year with Continued Education credits. It was good to find out more details about how that works.

I have been drinking a Holiday Hot Tea that I got the other day with honey in it. It is really good. It has become my new favorite evening drink but the sad thing is that it is limited edition so I better enjoy it while it lasts. :)

Saturday is my cousin Katrina’s baby shower in a city about 2 hours away. My Mom and I had fun shopping for her and getting to pick out such cute little bitty baby things. I plan to give her a set of my little animal crochet pacifier holders as a gift.

My Aunt lives in California near where the fires are and she told my Mom that the ashes made it look like snow coming down. I feel so much for the people going through the fires. Send your positive thoughts to Medico Musings  and all others directly in or near the fires there.

Kite flying

It has been grey, cold and windy for a few days here.

Great weather for flying a kite, which is exactly what we did today.

It is a great way to brighten up a grey sky!

 

A picture of our kite in the air.

Time for Change

I finally did it. I voted for the first time today ever! I have thought about doing it for a while but did not do it until this year. I was so nervous filling out the ballot though. When it was completed, I had my “I voted” sticker on my chest and a smile.

It takes time to overcome long standing reasons of why you are not taking action. My parents did not vote that I ever recall. One day you wake up and think, but I am not my parents! How many people were tortured for this privilege that I am not exercising? If I do not let my voice be heard then I have no right to complain later.

No matter who wins this race, I feel good because I made a change for the better by voting.

Aaahh Weekends!

It is nice to relax on weekends. I slept in and it felt great.

I went to the Dollar Tree which was fun. I got some warm socks and snack food (Tropical trail mix, cashews and banana chips) and wrapping paper.

There is going to be a power outage tonight in our city from 11 p.m. for several hours while they work on some transformers. Since we are night owls we are going to another city to the movie theater to watch a scary late night movie. I am having a better tolerance level for scary movies now. I can handle a lot more than before meeting Armando. He loves scary movies!

I have not been able to read blogs as often lately since I have been studying. I am sorry for that. I miss reading your blogs but I have a lot of material that I need to cover and absorb well in class so most of my time when not doing the normal things that must be done is spent hitting the books. Some nights when I do not have my studying in I will stay up until early a.m. studying to get modules completed. It is so important to me that I reach the goal of completion that I have set for myself. I look at the date every day to motivate me to move forward. I am so thankful for having the opportunity and funding to study that I want to do my very best with it.

I have been making all family Birthday gifts this year. I want to make Christmas gifts too but I am not sure if I will be able to have time to do them all. Perhaps just some will be handmade.

I bought a book that had crochet and knit sock patterns and I tried to make two different crochet sock patterns and I could not do it. I will have to figure out where I am going wrong. I have never made socks before only slippers.

Well, I need to scoot. The lights are out in 30 minutes so that means I need to get my stuff together in preparation.

Cookie “Foot” in box

Cat in the box from Armando on Vimeo.

 

This video shows our cat Cookie. Armando was getting a box ready to send to Chile. Excuse my background noise. I was talking to Armando about a Birthday reminder that came on our cell phone and later realized he was recording! :0

Well, Cookie is funny. Enjoy another video from our Cat saga series! LOL

Fluffy and Mundo Nuevo (New World)

227 Waterfall video

 

227 Waterfall Guntersville from Armando on Vimeo.

We saw this beautiful waterfall today.

Armando made this video.

Enjoy!

Getting in touch with nature

Last week Armando and I took a stroll in the park. The evening light, exercise, and trees were a spirit booster.

Trees at Arab City Park Originally uploaded by alabamagal

Cats in a basket

Fun with the basket from Armando on Vimeo.

Chochi’s babies

Here is an updated video of our cat Chochi’s kittens. Haven’t they grown a lot?

 

Mundo Nuevo and Fluffy from Armando on Vimeo.