Wow.

Photo: Wind + Tree = waking me up thinking a plane hit the house.

So I've decided that J should probably be moved outside of Kaiser and into the Health Net network...which includes John Muir. I'm going to talk to J about it tonight, but we've talked about it before and she's been for it. A friend mentioned getting her checked out by UCSF docs which I think is a great idea too.

This will take a little time I'm sure, I want to do it right so that she doesn't end up in some quasi-covered medical state where Kaiser and Health Net disagree who did what and end up doing nothing.


Photo: Not shown is me laughing hysterically...it's so fitting that this should be the only house in the neighborhood that this happened to.

New Year marker...passed.

Photo: The sad aftermath of too much New Year 'cheer'.

Well another year has arbitrarily been marked as passed...and here we are on the other side still (mostly) unradiated and non alien-invaded. We didn't even get one good asteroid scare this year. Oh well. A few things bug me though...like why does 2008 seem like 1995 only with shinier cell phones and more religion? Where are the calming, thoughtful supercomputers that try to either kill you or impregnate you? And as J always says, where are all the silver jumpsuits and jet packs??

J is doing 'OK' at the moment, she is recovering from an infection that set it on her PICC line. They had to take it out and move it to a different area. She has been 'stabilized'...with her hypertension under better control, and she has had lesser bouts of nausea recently. She is in moderate spirits overall, though we are pushing her doctors for a plan so that she doesn't sit in limbo forever. I still can't believe that she hasn't been home in over 4 months...and before that she was only home for 2 weeks out of any month for the previous 6. Ugh.

J is extremely happy about all of her gifts, and sends her thanks to everyone. She is currently learning super-secret ninja stealth techniques. The latest technique is to diguise herself as a pile of laundry to avoid blood sugar sticks and O.F.R.R.s (Overly Friendly Roommate Relatives). She is much more comfortably covered by new blankets, bathrobes, socks and slippers. She has a nice new collection of octopus/squid bathroom accessories that she loves, and some new clothes...and other things that she feels she does not deserve. She feels bad that she didn't get a chance to shop for anyone. It's OK though, I beat her with a rolled-up Kaiser mental health brochure for a hour or so and scolded her roundly for not getting to the mall in time to pick up Orange Julius gift certificates for everyone. She feels much better now.

Unrelated topic. The new re-issue of Blade Runner is worth every penny. The movie looks so rich and the sound...drool...it turns one of this humble viewer's all-time favorite movies into a festival of intense nerd fodder. Kick. Ass.

Learn about other 'new' years here

J update

Photo: Ayds. The quickest way to lose weight naturally.

J is back up to her 'usual' stable state now, and upstairs again. I am working to get all of her doctors to come together and have a meeting with us so that we can start pushing in a direction to actually get her better so she can go home.

The latest ideas are to basically kill off her kidney function, which would stop the protein spillage she is dealing with now and could possibly help control the nausea by reducing the edema in the lower bowel. In a best case scenario this would allow her to go back on a tube feeding and off of TPN allowing her to come home. The other option is for a gastrectomy, which we are trying to hold off as a last resort.

No new news other than that.

J Christmas update

Well...J tried, but had a slight overdose which made her so tired we couldn't wake her up. She was showing signs of going into DKA, so the call was made to send her to the ICU. She was moved and they gave her a regimen of drug reversal medicine to counteract the opiates and anti-nausea drugs she was on.

She 'woke up' around 22:00, and I stayed and talked to her until about 0:30. She was (normally) tired and in pain (since they took away her pain killers during the drug reversal), but they are starting to give her small amounts to treat her pain and watching for side effects.

So...I guess it's not a Christmas 'miracle', but we'll take what we can get.

J still fighting

J is still trying to get released for at least a day for Christmas, we have meetings scheduled to go over the TPN delivery machine and other items. They are not promising anything, but we're trying nonetheless.

Unrelated, the awesome S.F. artist responsible for the sculpture above here.

J fights back

J is fighting to try and get out by Christmas, the medical voice of dissent is weak and divided. I don't know the outcome yet but will post it here first for loyal readers to discover.

Had a request (Sorry K) about the Jack Frost in the last post...it comes from horror comic creator Todd Mcfarlane. He's Canadian too. Go figure.

I recommend seeing the movie "Fast Food Nation". It's not a great film, but it draws on data collected from the book of the same name and will open your eyes to the disgusting reality of the fast food industry. It also may have put me off of eating meat for good.

Update

Photo: Jack Frost is past simply 'nipping'.

J is suffering right now from a bout of nausea...

I'm worried about her hypertension, during dialysis yesterday her BP rose to 227/125. That's a critical range that puts her in immediate risk for strokes and heart attacks. They had to give her a cocktail of BP meds to reduce it down to around 160/80. This is a problem that has been getting worse over the past year...

Hypertension definition for the curious.

Christmas is coming, and so is Chaunnukah and other holidays...this is a good site to see what else is celebrated around the world at this time.

Bleh...

Um...do I ask for a tip?

Photo: A lucky consumer who took advantage of the 'Buy 3 double topping pizzas and get a free armory" offer that Dominos had a few months back.

Sometimes being grouped in with fellow gun owners is a scary thing. Anyone else notice anything missing from this picture? Like a friend? Or significant other that doesn't go 'bang'? Not shown in picture, remnants of missing pizza delivery men.


Jen is doing OK, no big changes. We're still trying to see if she can come out for a couple days for the holidays.

Upstairs again

J was moved out of the ICU and back up to the regular hospital ward last night. Her overall condition is back to what it was before the seizure.

We are going to ask her doctor if it would be possible to release her for a short time so she can have Christmas with us outside the hospital.

Merry Holiday.s.

Christmas in space

Workers unite!

J Update

So J is still groggy, though they had given her Ativan this morning so it was hard to gauge whether it was seizure related. After talking with her yesterday I found that she has no memory of the event but that is expected. Otherwise she appears to be winding back toward normalcy (of a kind). Hopefully she will be more alert this evening.

Info: Grand mal seizure

What causes seizures?

In general, seizures may be caused by many conditions, diseases, injuries, and other factors. These may include conditions such as the following abnormalities in the blood vessels of the brain, atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries supplying the brain, bleeding into the brain, such as a subarachnoid hemorrhage , brain tumors, chromosomal abnormalities, congenital diseases or conditions, high blood pressure, pregnancy and problems associated with pregnancy, stroke, transient ischemic attack, which is also called a mini-stroke.

Diseases also can be a factor in seizures, they include advanced liver disease, Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia, epilepsy, or a disease of the nervous system, hereditary diseases, infections involving the brain, including encephalitis, brain abscess, and bacterial meningitis, kidney failure, such as chronic renal failure.

Injuries that may cause seizures include choking, head injury such as a motor vehicle accident or sports injury, electrical injuries, injury during birth or in the uterus, poisonous insect bites or stings.

Additional factors that may cause seizures include alcohol withdrawal, craniotomy, which is brain surgery, high fever, especially in young children, illegal drugs such as cocaine, lead poisoning, overheating, withdrawal from some medicines, including those used to treat seizures.

J has hypertension, renal failure and was low in her Dilantin count after the seizure. Paired with a low blood sugar count this seems like a likely cause for her seizure. Her doctor thinks that since the edema has reduced in her intestines, she is actually absorbing more and her metabolism has increased. This could have led to her drug and sugar levels dropping faster than normal, leading to a 'crash' at which point she had her seizure.