OK!!!!! OK!!!!!!!!

I have been getting a lot of flack (not you Anna!) about not posting for a while, from my family, so here I am but I do this with a disclaimer..........I have been in a perpetual bad mood for about two weeks now!!! There is no real reason that I can think of...just ticked off and cry at the drop of a hat. Stupid huh??? Just sick and tired of being sick and tired!!! It just seems to be a real struggle to have the desire to do anything. Now, enough of the "pity-party".

Things here are well. Like I said, I am having a little bit of trouble not going nuts, but other than that, I am fine.

Norm had a doctor visit yesterday and she is pretty pleased. His blood sugar is really good and she seemed really happy about the improvements he has made. The first thing she said when she came in the room was that he looked like a "new man". People look at me funny when I say that I can see improvements every single day. Really I can. She was happy about the fact that his legs aren't nearly so swollen because of water retention. Of course a lot of that has to do with the fact that his heart is working like it is supposed to and the fact that he is moving around a lot more.

He is making huge strides with Cardiac Rehab too. Yesterday he went 30 minutes on the treadmill without stopping. That is a first!!!

Usually I drop him off at the front door of the hospital, then go park the car, he has to go up one floor to the cardiac rehab unit. Chad (the guy that is over the unit) wants Norm to be using his oxygen when he exercises so he takes it up there with him, but doesn't use it on the way, so, his oxygen saturation is usually pretty low by the time he gets up there. It should be 90 or above. Before it has been in the mid to high 80's. The last few times it has been in the low 90's!!! That is really good. And while he is on the treadmill, they take his "sats" and they are in the mid 90's usually, soooooooooo, things are moving along.

His heart is still in a regular rhythm and it is not a "paced" rhythm and that is another plus. Before, the pacemaker was keeping his rhythm regulated, but now it is Norms heart that is keeping things running right. The "maze procedure" that was done on his heart when they were doing all of that other stuff, was to try to keep his heartbeat normal, but it didn't work at first. Dr. Mitchell told us that it may not work for several months because the heart has to have time to heal. Well, after three cardioversions, and the pacemaker, it looks like the "maze" is working. The "maze" requires that they actually cauterize the parts of the heart that are "firing" irregularly so that needs to heal and form scar tissue...that is my understanding anyway. So, now we are hoping the "maze" is working. Dr. Mitchell really wants to get Norm off Cumadin (rat poison) and you can't be in a-fib to do that. Dr. Walker (the cardiologist) said that maybe we can take him off of it in a few weeks!!!! That is such good news.

So, things really are improving all of the time. The doctor visits have slowed down a ton, so we are not running all of the time. That helps a lot and we have a little time to just do stuff.

My puppy is still not doing very well. We took him up to Salt Lake for a re-check and they say he is doing pretty well and think that we will be able to save his sight. I am glad that they can see that, because I sure can't. That's why we pay them the big bucks, I guess. He bumps into stuff and his eye is teary and itchy and all white. He has had to stay in his cage with a cone on his head now, for about two weeks. He is so sad. Last night when we were watching the Olympics I took him out of his cage and put him on my lap. He just stayed right there and slept. It has been really hard to sit and look at this week after week. I know, I know, he is just a dog, but he is my buddy. Always there, no conditions. He does not deserve this. (See, I told you I was having a "pity-party")

So, I am going to do whatever I can for him, and the doctors say that there is a good chance that his sight can be saved, so, I am going to stick with it, but I sure do hate it. I feel so bad for him. He just loves to dig and play, and those days are over, at least for a while. It would be nice to be able to explain to him that I am not being mean, that this is all to keep his eye safe and to let it heal. Soooo, ok, enough about my dog. Sorry.

Last week, when I had a particularly "poopy" day, I went out to sit on the front porch when it cooled off and this is what I saw:

Now, how does one continue in a bad mood when you see beauty like this??? I could have looked at this all night, but this transformation took only a matter of a couple of minutes. I know that I need to "cowboy up", but, that is going to take some work!!!!

Count the garden by the flowers, never by the leaves that fall. Count your life with smiles and not the tears that roll.

~Author Unknown