Category: family fun

Google Search: silent heart attack

I had some chest pain last night that I couldn’t attribute to anything. It lasted the better part of an hour, but it did pass, and I slept. Had a frightening dream about Beowulf or more specifically Grendel and woke up in a sweat.

After a phone call to a nurse this morning, I was remonstrated with for not immediately calling 911 and taking an aspirin. It could have been a heart attack or more precisely, ischemia.

I’ll learn more tomorrow after I have my stent removed.

Bleacgh.

Well, one aspect of getting a fulltime gig is going to be big changes in the household schedule. We lose a housekeeper, cook, and errand boy (not that I was any good at the first of those tasks) but gain the wherewithal to replace at least the first one.

I’ll be seeing less of my kids’ smiling (or bickering) faces. But since the days are drawing out now, we’ll see what fun we can have when we are together.

It looks like I’ll be running a VPN or some other secure connection to make K’s work more flexible: CPAs are rather busy at this time of year, after all. If she can work from home some of the time, it’ll make life easier.

I’ll be dropping my part-time school job, but there was someone else interested in it, so that will work out. And they can benefit from my experience in figuring out how to get paid, since no one told me any of that information.

But now that we’re used to getting by on one income, the extra cash will be good to have. The real reason for the job is benefits and lots of ’em. Universities take care of their people that way, which makes up for the less than competitive salaries (I’ve never had some repeatedly apologize for the offered salary before now).

We’ve already agreed to celebrate Christmas on our anniversary, since by then we’ll have the money: the adult gifts were very thin this year (we had a $20 budget each). We can make up for that a bit . . . . .

Tomorrow, I have my kidneystonectomy. For this, I have to get up at 4:45, catch a bus at 5:10, to be in pre-op at 6 AM. Bleaacgh.

I expect to be home by lunch time, and since I can’t eat after midnight, I’ll be ready for it. I’m giving serious thought to bringing some provisions for the recovery room . . . . .

I’m hoping the holmium laser, scary as that sounds, is successful so I can skip the sonic lithotripsy. It will take a lot more time to do it with sound and I’m sure I’ll have some after-effects (you don’t subject the body to rock-breaking sound waves without some physical recollection).

Seattle Symphony

Beethoven Ninth Symphony
Gerard Schwarz, conductor
Seattle Symphony Chorale
Seattle Symphony
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, Choral

I have seen this performed once (Roberto Abbado leading the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus) and listened to it on radio and recordings countless times.

Astounding to think Beethoven was deaf when we wrote it: or perhaps the lack of external sound helped him hear his own music better?

Dad’s Performance Review

It’s a classic trope of American family life: the high-powered executive with a Type A personality who has no problem juggling billion-dollar deals and conference calls in his corner office, but finds himself at a loss when faced with an unhappy spouse or a troubled child at home. Now there is a tonic for this divided soul, beyond the traditional predinner tumbler of Scotch: a cutting-edge management tool that can be used to heal the wounds of the dysfunctional family.

[ . . . . ]

It is an open question whether the mysterious complexities of family life pondered by Tolstoy and Freud and Updike can really be reduced to the jargon of management theory. But with Family360, the misunderstood child of the cold father (think James Dean in ”Rebel Without a Cause,” crying ”You’re tearing me apart!” to Jim Backus) is at least able to get through to Dad in a language he can understand: the spiralbound executive summary.

So while Frank works his way through the Atkins Diet, I am exploring the world of herbal medicine.

Since the evidence of what causes/prevents kidney stones seems inconclusive or contradictory, I am passing up traditional Western allopathic medicine for stuff that seems to be solidly, if not widely, endorsed. I want to the Herbalist today and bought half a cup each of dried gravel root, hydrangea root, and marshmallow root. The person in the shop seemed to know what I was after: I mentioned gravel root and she asked if I needed the others by name. A good sign. She told me about a few other cures/treatments, mostly labelled as ‘cleanses’ but I had what I came for.

I followed her directions on my first batch of this brew, but I found a page that gave me more details. The first batch was palatable, though not what I would call appealing. I made a second batch this evening with the more complete instructions, boiling it from cold water, which brought out a lot more flavor (bleacgh). A liberal drop of honey helped . . . . .

The same page had instructions on tinctures which take longer to make (2 weeks) but last up to two years and use smaller doses. I’m looking for something I can take forever since I don’t have a lot of hope I’ll find any other solution.

At 1 AM this morning I awoke in severe abdominal pain, located just behind and above my navel. My first thought was food poisoning (I had made ravioli for dinner and both fillings I used had eggs: did they cook through?), but I had no nausea or any symptoms. I tried Aleve to mitigate the pain and PeptoBismol to counter what I thought was stomach pain, to no avail.

Finally at 5 AM I went the ER and was diagnosed with gastritis or dyspepia: a cocktail of Mylanta and lidocaine had produced some results, so I was discharged.

I made it as far as my car when I threw up the cocktail and went straight back in the ER. This time, the testing was more rigorous: I had ultrasounds, CT scans, bloodwork, and morphine (that helped a lot).

Turns out I have my third kidney stone, and the staff seemed to think it was a large-ish one. I was sent off with a prescription for percocet and the hopes and wishes of my attending physician that the thing will pass by itself.

Three of these is three too many, so I have been doing a little research on why they form and what to do about them.
Continue reading “the pain of childbirth with none of the rewards”

Leonid fireball on Nov. 17, 1998.

We got a taste of this at the Pacific Science Center observatory show this morning. Since 2002 marks the 33 year peak, it might be worth taking a thermos and some sleeping bags out to the mountains or islands to see what we can see.

My son told me today he couldn’t take a banana to school for lunch because there was no compost bin for the peel. Just as he’ll never comprehend dialing a phone or a broken record, he knows the difference between garbage and the various kinds of recycables.

I decided, in solidarity with my long-suffering wife, to give up caffienated beverages for a few days. She has herself wired for the stuff such that giving it up means headaches and general malaise. I don’t have that problem, though I drink much more of it.

I think I would have made it just fine, except it got cold and I realized one of the reasons, perhaps the primary reason, why many of us in the Northwest drink coffee and tea, is to get warm. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go fix myself a mocha . . . . .