Philly--- Day 6

Wow.. really? Day 6 already? On one side it feels like I've only been here a couple days, yet on the other it feels like I've been here a month. So last night after I blogged, I played a few games online, watched a little TV and then at 12am, that is to say, midnight, I received another dose of my medicines. Once again the thorazine knocked me out.... but only for about 3 hours. At 3am I got up to use the restroom facility, and whilst sitting on the toilet started feeling nauseated, light headed and all around bad. I proceeded to finish up my business and head back to bed. By the time I made it to my bed, I had "tunnel vision" and a loud humming/buzzing sound in my ears, and I could hardly hear the nurse talking to me.... also my blood pressure bottomed out. They said this is probably a result of the thorazine, but that I should be ok. So back to sleep I went.
I woke up this morning at 4:45am with no headache... YAY... but that quickly changed as the longer I stayed up, the worse it got... BOO. It's now to about a 7 out of 10 on the pain scale. I saw my doctor this morning, and he's taking me off of one of the meds, but keeping me on the lidocaine and thorazine, as well as benadryl. Also he's adding more fluids to my IV, so I'll be going thru like a liter of saline an hour. He said if things aren't better by tomorrow, then he's going to order a nerve block to be done.... which is where they umm block the nerves... but seriously they inject a numbing agent like novacaine or something similar into the back of your head where those nerves are located. So hopefully that will relieve the pain.... if not, I dunno what the next step is.
So there is your update for the day. If anything else changes or I have anymore wild reactions to medicines, I'll let you know. Also, for those of you who don't see this side of me very often, forgive my silliness... I am doped up ya know... although it'd probably be cheaper to find somebody on a street corner to help me get doped up.... I KID I KID.....

Philly--- Day 5, Late post

Hey all... sorry for such a late post today... I was actually fasting from the computer to see if being on the laptop here had anything to do with my headaches. Obviously it didn't, because today has been my worst day yet. The rest of the week, my headaches have been in the 5-6(out of 10) range on the pain scale... which is still better than at home, when the daily average is 7-8. But today my headache has been up a notch to 6-7. Also, after the morning visit from the doctor, they upped my lidocaine and droperidol(sp?). Then, right before lunch I started feeling very restless.... I chalked it up to "cabin fever", having not been outside for almost a week. I tried to take a nap, took a walk down the halls, all with no relief. Finally, when the doctors came to visit this evening, they said that it was probably the increse of my droperidol that was causing it and thus, changed that to thorazine..... these medicines are given to combat the nausea that the headache meds can cause. A problem with the thorazine however is that it makes you drowsy.... REALLY, drowsy.... I mean can't even function drowsy... that is to say, it makes one sleepy. So here it is 10pmish, and I've just woken from a 3 hour siesta cause by the thorazine. And that my friends and family is the update for today. Sorry for no photo.... and Angie, to answer your question from earlier in the week, I don't have any photos of my docs and nurses because I'm too big a wuss to say "Hey, can I take your picture." Good night and good luck.

Philly--- Day 4

Call for help

Not much to update this evening really. They're still pumping the same meds thru me, and said that the lidocaine usually doesn't start working till 36-48 hours after you start it.... and weird part, it leaves your system quickly... so quickly that I can only shower every other day now, and my shower can't last longer than 5 minutes, because the medicine loses it's effect that quick... craziness I tell ya.

On a plus side, they finally got a meal right tonight with my dinner. YAAAAY! Every other meal there's been something wrong with my meal, whether it be a muffin instead of a biscuit, or the wrong salad dressing, etc... how hard is it to look at what I've circled and give me what I ask for?? Sorry, that's my vent for the day. Until tomorrow....

Philly--- Day 3

What I stare at most of the day... time passes slowly....

Not much has changed from yesterday to today. I've been sleeping a lot, which comes from all of the meds they're pumping thru my IV. There's a total of 4 things that go thru a few times a day. Some of that will be changing tomorrow. I haven't heard about what my MRV scan looked like, but I guess that's a good sign. I saw my doctors yesterday evening and they're taking me off one of the meds I've been taking at home, and upping the dose on one of the others. Other than that, not much to report back to ya.

Oh, and for those who didn't hear... they charge me for my TV... $5 a day. Craziness... but they said they don't own the TVs so they have to rent them, so if you want it in your room you have to pay. Ugh... It wouldn't be as bad if it was good reception and/or lots of channels, but it's only about 10 channels and none of them come in very well at all.

Scene from a hospital bed.

Philly--- Day 2

I woke up this morning and opened my window shade to see snow here in Philly... and also traffic... loud, crazy, traffic... but also as I looked closer, I saw peace in all the noise... I didn't notice until this morning, but theres a church across the street from my window. Seeing the cross reminded me that amid all this city noise, God is still with me, watching over me while I'm here.

Also, last night after I posted, they came and took me to have another MRV scan done. So hopefully I'll have the results from that and more to post later today.

my mobile of medicine

Philly--- Day 1

So I'm finally in Philly.... I left VA last night around 7, got to Newville and Steph's parents around 11:30pm.... slept, got up and left their house at 7:15ish....

Let me just say, Philly is craziness... traffic is ridiculous, and it's just... wow... I can't even describe it.

Now I'm just laying in the hospital bed.... They hooked up a PICC line a little bit ago... now I don't know what that stands for, but pretty much it's a sophisticated IV that they put in my upper arm, and they ran a catheter from there to the top portion of my heart.... Have you ever had that done? It feels weird as hell to have something sliding thru your vein...and then when it got to my heart, my heart kinda jumped a little....

Anyways, they have some saline going thru me right now, and they're supposed to hook up the rest of my meds this evening. My nurse said that most people are in here a week, some a little longer.... So who knows when I'll get back home.

Also, I know this goes without saying, but the food here sucks.... it sounds good on the menu, and then.... ugh... So if any of you try to surprise me with a visit, you better run by Geno's or Pat's and get me a cheesesteak.... Otherwise you're not permitted in here...haha More tomorrow....

This dragon(along with some other sea creatures) was made entirely of Legos! Amazing!

Mia having a blast feeding some duckies!Disney balloons... Holga style...

Long exposure at night... several hours.... you can see the star trails if you look close enough behind the tree... ya never realize how much light is in the "city" till you try something like this.

I leave tomorrow to head up to PA, spend the night at my in-laws, and then on to Philly Monday morning to be admitted to the hospital for 3-14 days. I'm taking Stephanie's laptop, so I hope to do some blogging from the hospital bed, but just in case I'm unable to for some reason, I wanted my devoted readers... or reader... whatever... to know where I was. And so, I'll leave you with a few photos, a couple from Disney and one or 2 from my latest roll of film... enjoy

Epcot

Ok... finally I can start posting pics from Disney.... and Pegg, I may have failed the challenge you set forth... there was so much going on and so much to do... Anyhooooo....

Back....

Ok, so I'm back from Disney and there will be shots from there posted soon.... however, I have 1000+ pictures to go thru from last week, so it may be a while before I get some up..... then there should be enough to make a year's worth of posts... haha... Anyhoo, until I get thru them, enjoy some polaroid shots....

Guitar Hero

I couldn't resist coming back for one post after I took this one the other night....

For real though, I'm gone this time... packing for Disney awaits. And Pegg, I feel challenged now to get a terrifying shot of Mickey... I'm thinking terrifying with the Holga.... yeeeessss...

Another Hiatus

Just a note to say that I won't be blogging again until about... ummm... the 18th. We're going to Disney World!! Nice huh? Stephanie's sister has been wanting to go for yeeeeeaaaars and since I'm not working, Stephanie doesn't have school till the 20th, and my mother-in-law is off from work as well..... it's perfect timing. And since we can't afford it, Steph's sister has graciously paid our way. Anyways, I'm sure I'll have tons of photos for ya when I get back.... so stay tuned.

So I think I'll leave you with this.... I was tagged about 8 years ago, and I think I'm supposed to list 6 things that you may not know about me.... or as it's gonna turn out, 6 things that make me seem like a freak.... Here we go....

1. I cannot and will not use public restrooms.... unless the restroom is completely empty, then I can manage sometimes.

2. When I go to buy books or magazines at a store, I won't buy the book that's first out on the shelf, I have to have one that's behind.... minty if you will... if there's only one, I usually won't buy it.

3. I get giddy everytimg I open a roll of film and load it into a camera.

4. You know those plastic films that protect electronic screens and the such? I love pulling those off.... I leave them on until the last possible second, and get pissed if anyone pulls it off before I do.

5. I'm obsessed with coffee makers. If I had the money, I'd buy one of each type that I see in stores.

6. I'm a very spur of the moment person. I'm not one to plan things. I'd rather just go with the flow and make decisions at the last minute.... Luckily I married Stephanie who is a little more organized...

Aunt Gi Gi

The Scare

Maybe most of you have heard about the latest drama in my life, but in case you haven't... here we go....

My doctors at Jefferson Headache Clinic ordered a MRV scan for me... which is basically like an MRI, only the look at the veins/vessels in your head instead of everything else. So I went and had that done Friday afternoon....

Well Friday evening I was down in the bed with a pretty bad headache, and get a phone call from my primary care doctor's office, and they say "Hi Chris, this is Dr. SoandSo, your MRV scan shows and abnormality.... you have a blood clot. You probably should go ahead and go to the ER so we can get you started on some blood thinners."

Wow.... needless to say, after I fully woke up and realized what was going on, we headed to the ER. When we first got there, they couldn't find my scan or the report.... so we waited..... and waited a little more. Then they find the report and tell me "You have about a 2.5cm blood clot in your right jugular." Really??? The jugular? come on!

So as the night goes on a bit, they decide that maybe it's just an artifact on the scan, like maybe I moved somehow during the scan... for the record, I didn't.... maybe I swallowed, but that's about the only movement I made during the scan other than regular breathing. Anyhooo, so they want me to see a vascular surgeon the next morning in Roanoke, and have a venogram done... this will make sure that it's a blood clot or nothing there. Just in case though, they give me a shot of some meds to make sure that the blood clot(if it's there) doesn't get bigger and no others form.... this shot is given to me in the stomach! yeah, not pleasant at all.

The next morning I call the doc in Roanoke to schedule my scan and what not.... he has to make some calls and so he calls me back and says "Well I had a neuro radiologist look at your scan and he and I have come to the conclusion that there's no blood clot there and you should just forget this all ever happened."

And so.... That's my story... I went from a blood clot in the jugular to nothing.... I hope..... Anyways, if I die from a blood clot that's in my jugular, I guess Stephanie and Mia will be set for life.

Seriously though, from the time I found out about the "blood clot", calls went out to my family, my friends, my church family, etc... and the prayers started going up. Obviously God heard the prayers and answered them, and so I thank each of you for taking the time to lift me up!