Another finish for me.

Here is the second fish that goes int he center of the baby blanket. I finished him Friday and started the ducky in the inner tube. Hopefully ducky will be done tomorrow.

This now gives me 22 finishes.

My doctors appointments

Well I figured I had better update my blogs with my doctors appointments before some of you start knocking down my door.

I saw the Cardiologist on May 13. She was in a pretty good mood this time. Her nurse is a pain in the you know what tho. Anyhow a another storey for another day. Well the Cardiologist was not to happy that my stress test results were way down. But like I said I haven't been able to do any real exercise in a long time so that could be a good reason. I was down 3 minutes in length or 3 stages as they say. Which is not all that great. WE had quite the discussion about how much I should weigh and how much I want to lose. She almost had a hissy fit when I told her how much I wanted to lose. I now weigh 158 lbs and would like to get down to 120 lbs. The cardiologist flipped and said that was way to low. Her nurse said that would put me at a BMI of 20. The cardiologist said first of all she didn't think I needed to lose any weight ( yeah right I have a thick roll/s around the middle) then she said that I was to go to no less that 130 lbs. WE shall see who wins that discussion (probably me).

We discussed my meds and if I could change them. My only problem is one of the drugs I was on 5 almost 6 years ago nearly killed me. That is the drug I actually wanted to go back on. NO I don't have a death wish. But it just controls my arrhythmias alot better than any other drug has and I have way less side effects on it. Minus the nearly killing me. She said that a small dose might be ok but she was not going to do it since Toronto is looking after my arrhythmias and pacemaker. So it was left that I would talk with the Electrophysiologist this week when I saw him.

Well I went Thrusday May 22 for that appointment only it didn't happen. Unfortunately he was away cause his mother passed away that morning. Ok I understand but now he is gone for the next 2 weeks to India to do some procedures. His secretary will talk with him as soon as he gets back on June 9.

I got my pacemaker interrogated after some disscussion and presuading. So I knew I was having alot of arrhythmias since I saw them March 18 which was 9 weeks ago. I had done pretty good from my Ablation January 17 to March 18 only 20 episods. Not bad. That was way down compaired to what I had been having prior to the Ablation. I figured I had maybe another 20 to 25 since the last time I was there. Well we find out I had 71 episodes in the 9 weeks. Had my EP been there I am almost 100% sure he would have said that he was booking me for another Ablation. That will make Ablation #5. Like a friend of mine said to me the other day is it really worth having the ablations since the don't last? I wasn't able to talk to my EP about the drugs. I did speak with the doctor who deals with my pacemaker. She said that she could not in good concience put me back on the drug that nearly killed me. So that was out and a few others because any other drug in that class will do the same thing. Then since I am so drug sensitive that eliminates a few other drugs. So she made the changes to the pacemaker that she could but now there is nothing else that can be done that way. Part of it is because there are several programs they want to use but either they are not programmed into my pacer or they will drain the battery faster than they would like. Which we are watching cause that is coming close to start considering replacement. So there is no drugs, nothing that can be done with the pacemaker and they are at the end of their options. I was basically told that the arrhythmias are not serious or life threatening, they are annoying but there is nothing else they can do right now so I essentially have to suck it up and live with it.

That is easy for them to say they have not experienced what I have gone through. I just have to wait and plead my case to the EP when he comes back and see where that will get me. The only thing is his secretary told me she is booking in August now for his follow ups. I can't wait that long. Then the pacemaker clinic told me they are booked solid till the end of August and to see the doc I always do that would be mid September. Not good when you are told 3 months and no going over that because of the battery.

Life sucks.

My garden is planted

Yeah tonight I finally finished planting my garden. I am so happy. Now I have to clean up a few areas and do some general matinence (dead heading, pulling out a few dead things, etc) then I can mulch the garden. Once that is done then I will start feeding it. Mackenzie and I planted her gardens the other day so they are done now too. They just need to be fed, mulched and thinned as the plants start growing. I just have the vegatable garden left to plant now. I still need to pick up tomatoes and zucchini for that. I am starting to feel better that the major garden projects are getting finished. Mom planted some in her garden tonight. Since I am finished mine I probably will plant hers so she doesn't totally wreck her back.

Today we went to St. Jacobs which is a little town where Mennonites live. We went to the "farmers" market but it is mostly hucksters not very many farmers anymore. We were able to get fresh asparagus tips (yum) which is great and we got some fresh pure Maple Syrup. The market was such a disapointment cuase it used to be really good. We stopped at a little Mennonite backery on the way up. They have execellent bread and pies and such.

Today was not a bad day.

2 Finishes and a WIP

Here is my second Baby blanket. I am doing the 4 corners and the 2 center squares just for something different. This is square #2. The second fish.The green fish is the first center square. I did him 4 times. He is full of mistakes but I was not taking him out again. You would never know unless you had the pattern right there and did a line by line search.

Here is the first corner. This little fish was a fairly quick stitch only took me two days.

Dinos done

Here is the last Dino for my blanket. It took me a little longer than I had hoped but that is ok since I have been busy doing other things. Here is a pic of all 4 of the dinos together on the baby blanket. I was a fairly quick stitch.Today I started another baby blanket. This one has waterbabies on it. I started the one fish in the middle and took it out about 4 times. I almost have it finished but found a mistake in it. I have worked it in the best I can cause I am NOT taking it out again. IF this is how easy the first square went in I hate to see how much trouble I will have with the other 5.

I have my garden almost completely planted now. Still have a few plants in the backyard to go in and still need to buy some more. I will take some pictures tomorrow of what is done as of now and will make an album of last year and this year. There have been major changes.

My rhythms have been bothering me terriably. I have been out of rhythm everyday since last Sunday with the pacemaker going off 4 different times yesterday and 3 times so far today. I am trying to just continue life as normal but some times it is hard.

Dino's

Here is Dino #3 done and what I did today on dino #4. Hopefully #4 will be done either tomorrow or Tuesday. Here is a pice of what I have finished so far. This has been a quick and easy project to stitch up. I finished 3 dino's in one week. Not too shabby. Like I said before hopefully this last one will be finished in the next day or so.

Well Wednesday last week I had a pile of tests at the hospital. They are just routine ones I have yearly and then more often if the need arises. Well the echocardiogram wasn't too bad. They had to call my cardiologist cause it was a new tech doing it and the one that knows me really well was busy. Then came the Stress (exercise) test. That didn't go so well. Last year I did 7:30 minutes or a little over 7 stages. This time I did 4:30 or just 4 stages right on. So there is a large drop there which is not great. Part of it is cause I haven't been able to exercsie for so long and part of it is my meds. Then I had the Pulmonary Function Test (PFTs or breathing tests) and they were modified cause the drugs they have me on for my arrhythmias is causing me lung problems. I find that I can't get enough air into my lungs and I am gasping for air. All this has started since we uped the dose in March. Well finally yesterday I droped the dose back to where I was not haveing problems. So time will tell. I have to go on the 13th of May and get the results from the Cardiologist (don't think she will be too happy) and then on the 22nd I go see the Electrophysiologsit.

Oh yes we now have a name for the newest family member. It is Bugs like Bugs Bunny but only Bugs cause you can't call a fish a bunny. My Niece is inthrawled with this stupid fish. She spent most of Thursday morning last week staring at Bugs and singing to him. She told him on Friday before she left for school that I was looking after him till she came back. That would have been ok but we had to do it in fish speak (blub, glub glub, blub, glub) or something like that. I don't speak fish.