Anne2Snakie

Well, of COURSE I've also had to have a colonoscopy. Now I get to have all orifices probed at regular basis. I had to have another pap smear the other week because the one before THAT was abnormal. It's okay now. But in the colonoscopy they found 2 polyps, and removed them, and had them biopsied.

Got the news today. they were PRE-cancerous. Which means if I hadn't had them removed now, my abdomen would be a tumor riddled mass within a few years and I wouldn't have been able to do a thing about it.

The good news: they got them, and I need another colonoscopy in 2 - 3 years. Joy.

Merry Christmas!

Anne

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While some things in life are fine and funny*, my depression is still strong in me. Things are starting to weigh heavy on me again, and I find myself feeling horrible and heavy and unable to find the energy to do anything. I just want to sleep- I am so fucking tired of everything. I am exhausted from not sleeping, exhausted from being being depressed, exhausted from trying to act not depressed, exhausted from being alive, exhausted from trying to carry the weight of the world on my bowing shoulders.

Gods, I'd like to just sleep forever, but my fucking BACK hurt so much when I sleep- I have nightmares from the pain and it's like I'm trapped in some bizarre HELL.

Merry Christmas.

Next year HAS to be better.

Anne

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*we were out looking at xmas lights, driving and looking, and there are some people that have those "machine in the bottom of the inflatable santa that keeps them inflated" santas in their yards, and i was making smart-ass comments to my 8 year old about how santa must have a disease because he's all swoll up. and somehow that became a talk (that was irritating rudy, actually) about how aliens must be firing fungus spores into people and santa to make them bloat up like that. while we were driving past one house, there was a santa and mrs. clause on a front porch and i said "hey, it's mr. and mrs. clause", and rudy said, after a moment, "i wonder what they are eating?" and after a beat, robbie says "fungus spores?" and i burst out laughing while rudy got a little pissed, but it was funny

My mother-in-law was painting today in town and she had her son (not Rudy) bring her back because she was feeling sick, and she ralphed three times in his car. I've been getting cold symptoms for the past few days, sorta controlled by pseudophed. Well.

Tonight, Rudy just finished yakking (it's about 4 A.M. here), every muscle in my body hurts- even my SKIN hurts, and my sinuses are running like a hose with no relief from pseudophed. I'm sitting up because my right side hurts, my back hurts, and my left side hurts. Waiting for the Tylenol(R) brand acetomeniphen to take affect.

So, I may have to go into the doctor with Rudy today. Which means I must expell the bones of those unfortunate men and women of whom I have pulled in through my vaginal canal and into my uterus where I digested them alive.

Anne

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...for the rest of the recovery. Rudy is at home- at the end of his week in the hospital, he was "recovered" to the point that Rehabilitation would have discharged him at. Does that make sense?

He walks with a four-point cane (that's the cane where the end becomes a plate with 4 feet coming off that, much more stable), slowly. He cannot move or feel his toes on his left foot, and his leg from the calf down is usually pretty cold to the touch. We hot-pack it, just in case, and it always feels cold to him even when it is actually warm.

His left hand he can use, slowly. He has very little strength in his hand, but he can move his fingers and even hold light things. Sometimes his hand goes numb.

His speech is slow. He doesn't have a problem finding the words to say- his problem is trying to get them out. There's that "wall" between thinking of the word and saying the word and most words are very hard to force through that "wall". He is also very sensitive to light and noise, as they tend to give him "sensory overload" very quickly.

But, thank God, he is home. And the neurologists at the hospital said there is a "good chance" for complete recovery. Although the are concerned with his speech right now and will order extra therapy if his speech is still bad at the end of a month.

They have his blood thickness under control (hahaha) right now- for two days his I.N.R. has been 3.5, which is the high end of where it should be.

Merry Christmas!

Anne
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It has been less than a week since Rudy had his stroke, but thank GOODNESS it was mild. Any stroke is a HORRIBLE stroke- but this was a mild stroke. We had him off to the hospital within an hour and he was put on massive amounts of heparin to dissolve clots within the three hour magic period. The first hour in a stroke is the "Golden Hour"- the best time to start treatment. After that, the next two hours are also critical and things can still be done to help minimize or remove damage. After that, it's basically help the person stay stable and wait and see.

Rudy can talk, though it is hard for him. He can find the words in his head no problem, it's just hard to actually get them out. So it's hard to say, for example, "The cat is at the top of the stairs". Very slurred, and slow for him to say that. But he can say "Cat at top of stairs" moderately easy. He can stand, though his left leg is mostly just a stabilizer and if he walks, he has to use a walker. His left arm is mostly just a club, but he can use the fingers to a very small degree. If he tries to squeeze my fingers with his left hand, there is VERY little pressure at all.

Thank God he's alive and not in worse condition. This could have been much MUCH worse.

Once we get his blood thickness stable, we're sending him off to rehabilitation. They say he is an excellent candidate, and should make a good recovery.

God I hope so.

Anne

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Rudy's surgeon down in Seattle wanted his I&R (blood thickness) to be between 3 and 3.5 and we have had trouble getting to stay in that range. Horrible troubles. Either too thick or too thin, but always we've been able to make it budge one way or the either, slowly if not WAY too quickly.

Well. Lately his I&R has been around 1.x. Two weeks ago it was 1.5, then we got it up to 1.8, and on last Monday it went back down again to 1.6. On Tuesday, Rudy admitted to me that if his cardiologist knew it was that low for that long without being able to make it move, he would have been admitted and been on a heparin IV immediately. So I started worrying right there.

On Thursday night we went and had our Christmas family pics taken. Very nice. I'll see if I can get a scan of them for y'all. But as we were coming back from getting them done, Rudy mentioned to me that his left hand was numb. As we were getting closer to home, his left arm was fully numb.

at approx. 6 P.M. December 2, 2004, my husband, Willem Van Dycken, suffered a stroke.

More later when I can.

Anne

Anne2Snakie's Snake Swallowings Site
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