Blogging from the E.R.

We're back in the hospital.

Please pray.

Alula

I'm down to about three straws

Work has been getting increasingly annoying lately.

We just got a new manager about two weeks ago, and she grates on my nerves. I'm kinda resigned to the fact that we are not going to get along.

I've been frustrated enough to start cleaning and organizing, mostly with just a trash can.

Pain in the Arch! Planter Fasciitis

Hey Ladies!

Fuzzy's recent struggles with a inflamed metatarsal has inspired me to boor you all with a overview of foot care.

The most common foot problem I see in the shoe selling bizz- is Planter Fasciitis. It is always caused from a lack of arch support, standing too much, or bad shoes. With out arch support the tendons and muscles in you feet will shorten. If you feel pain in you heal or running along the bottom of your foot its time for new shoes. The pain is usually more sever in the morning when you get out of bed, this is because the muscles have relaxed and when you stand up you are pulling them again. Planter Fasciitis can get bad enough to be surgical if left untreated, but really all you need to fix it is a good arch support. Generally speaking the arch supports found in box stores or grocers stores are worthless. ( they also seem to be increasingly more expensive. ) Not only do they not provide enough support, what support they do have is flattened in a few weeks. I am not saying this just because I sell the expensive stuff; I say it because I can tell you from personal experience use your money for what will work the first time. You should be able to find something that will last at least a year and cost you around $30-$60 at an athletic or higher end shoe store. Or call me! Treatment for Planter Fasciitis is simple better shoes, better support; there are also some exercises you can do to help. Rolling you foot over a frozen bottle of water will relax the muscles; and you can stretch it by simply sticking out you leg with you heal on the ground and raise your toes up, you should feel it pull across the bottom of you foot. DO NOT DO THIS AGAINST A WALL OR STAIRS! You could tear the muscles and tendons. When you get Planter Fasciitis it can take a few weeks with a good arch support before you start to feel releaf. I recommend an adjustment period with your old shoes and new shoes or arch-support. Wear the new shoes for a few hours then go back to the old shoes for a few hours. Its like working out when you are not use to it. Your muscles get sore and tired fast. However some people get so much releaf from the better shoes that they do not need to transition.

More boring foot trivia to come.

Proposed Event

I would like to propose a multi-purpose Get Crap Done Marathon, to tentatively take place Friday, March 19th through Sunday, March 21st.

Bring your unfinished projects and we will use group power to make you sit your butt down and help you do it. This includes anything you've procrastinated or haven't had time for in your life.

My own line items include:

-Major business items for our new online business (final approvals and whatnot so Fuzzy can submit paperwork)

-Final edited and chaptered versions of my books for submitting to publishers

-Query letters for said books to send to publishers

-writing query letters to professors to get my foot in the door for a PhD program

Most of my items I have procrastinated because I need feedback from someone (anyone) in the process of doing it--I'm sure I had more on my list, though I'm rushing right now to get to work.

In any case, if others have "Get it Done" items they want to do for such an event, let me know if you're interested and if the date works for you (if it doesn't send me an idea of your alternate availability). I would be willing to host this event at my place, or go to someone else's if you want visitors or have a major home improvement project to tackle.

Alula

Home! (...too soon?)

Mr. Borealis was released from the hospital today! :D

However, this evening he's still where he was before he went in, except with different medications and he's ten pounds heavier. I'm a little worried they sent him home too fast because he really pushed to get released. He's feverish again, nauseas, and still has bleeding ulcers.

I keep telling him we can check back in to the hospital at any time because he shouldn't be worried about the cost. We've already maxed out on whatever we would have to pay for insurance to cover everything (we had an emergency fund for such an occasion, and I'm very thankful for that right now). Insurance is kicking in and covered the insane cost of the vancomycin for his bacterial infection--we paid $25, but the cost without insurance is over $600. BTW, we have changed pharmacies to a different chain after Mr. B had trouble filling his Lialda in January, and haven't had a major issue since.

Hoping,

Alula

Sleeping in a Blue Plastic Gown

We're still in the hospital.

Thursday, after all the tests came back, we found out that Mr. B has been colonized by a bunch of bad bacteria (it's called C. Diff). Ironically, as I've found from Googling this online, he was probably exposed to this bacteria back when he was in for his first colonoscopy in January, and then the antibiotics his doctor gave him for a tummy ache gave them fuel to grow. It's been exacerbating his ulcerative colitis to an extreme extent.

C. Diff is easy to treat. Unfortunately, it is also extremely contagious to anyone who has a compromised immune system (so if you are healthy and have a normal immune system, it doesn't pose a threat, but for people who are already sick it can be detrimental). So the hospital makes us all gown up to go into his room to reduce the threat that we bring any spores back out with us:

It's a lot of fun to sleep in a chair that almost fully reclines in this ensemble, let me tell you.

So the plan of action right now is to treat the bacterial infection (it's taken over his entire large intestine at this point) and continue to treat the ulcerative colitis, and hope for the best.

Last night the nurse attempted to double dose my husband by bringing both a full dose of Lialda (which he is supposed to be on) and one of Asacol (which he is not)--both of these drugs contain mesolamine. And they tried to skip his prednisone, which could have stopped his heart, thank God we remembered when the nurse didn't! It got delivered about 6 hours late, but he's still alive.

Alula

Blogging from the Hospital

Yup. That's where I am. The view out the second story window is just as good as it was last July.

Mr. B was hospitalized this morning around 10. I was at work because when I asked him that morning if he needed me to stay home, which I would have been happy to do, he said he was fine. I remember saying something about how skinny he's gotten. He was skinny before, and now his skin is hanging.

I sent his mother a text asking her to check on him around lunch, and she sent me one back saying his dad was taking him to the hospital, orders of his doctor.

His colon has been bleeding since Monday of last week, and he had to get up about every half hour last night between going to the bathroom and a persistent stomach ache.

So I rushed out of work a little after 1. I think I scared my coworker, who telecommutes most days, because he heard the phone call where someone had been hospitalized and then I had to leave. I came straight to the hospital, except it was the wrong hospital because I was freaking out, and they had to give me directions. Then I got to the right hospital, eventually found the right building, and found my husband.

Once again, he told me he was fine.

I hung around until about 4 when I needed to run home to get his medications. I grabbed dinner on the way and then got home, fed our kitties, got together a night bag and all of his medications, mailed in the speeding ticket he got yesterday, and then came back. It was really weird coming home though, and knowing he wasn't. It kind of made my skin creep. I am really afraid of losing him.

I hope it snows tonight so I have an excuse not to go to school tomorrow; I'm still planning on making it to work, but I might use some sick leave to take that off, too.

Alula