Sunday, June 24, 2007

Latest From My Doctor

I went to go see the Doc the other day. Some of you may know that I am applying for SSI (Supplemental Security Income) because of my health. This is what the Doctor had to say:

To Whom It May Concern:
William is under my care for his medical conditions. He has a history of dissection of the aorta with aortic valve insufficiency. He had this surgically repaired on December 20, 2006. As a complication to this surgery, he suffers from back and leg pain which is constant. It is doubtful that he will ever be able to return to work due to his heart problems and his chronic pain.

Sincerely,
My doctor (I'm not going to publish his name here)

Aren't I just the lucky one?

Sunday, June 10, 2007

It's Hooooooot...

Well, after nearly two summers of chugging along like a champ, our AC unit (central air) finally gave up the ghost yesterday. It ended up getting up to about 87 degrees in the house before it started to cool down. Right now we have a couple of fans blowing hell bent for leather down here on the main floor, and we've managed to keep the temperature at a relatively comfortable 82 degrees. Unfortunately, it's supposed to get up to 95 this afternoon.

I've got a call into our landlord asking him if he can get someone out here to take a look at the unit and fix it on Monday. It could be just a matter of recharging the system with freon, but it could also be the compressor that went out.

Now, I'm going to go stick my head in the freezer

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Taking Things For Granted-Repost From December 27, 2006

*This is a repost from an earlier blog from after I got out of the hospital after emergency open heart surgery back in December.*

If there is one thing that I’ve learned over the past year, it would be to never take ANYTHING for granted in your life.

Last week, I was on my way to the job site, when a horrible pain flashed across my chestand into the left side of my body. I began to have trouble breathing, and started sweating like a virgin on prom night. My partner, who was driving, looked over at me and asked if we needed to get me to the hospital. I said yes, we better get me there right away. My left side had become numb, and I was scared shitless.

We got to the McPherson Memorial Hospital Emergency Room, and I was whisked inside when I told them what symptoms I was having. They immediately started an EKG on me, and did a chest X-ray, and hooked me up to all sorts of monitoring devices, presumably to check for signs of a heart attack. They drew what seemed to be way too much blood for lab work, and told me to hold tight and the Dr. would be in to see me soon. I guess they thought I might have the spontaneous urge to go run a quick marathon or something.

After a while, the Dr came in to the examination room, and told me that it sounded like I had hyperventilated myself. I wanted to argue with him, and demand more tests, but I simply didn’t have the energy. They released me from the ER, and told me that I would be able to return to work.
I decided then that I was going to get ahold of my regular Dr, and see what he wanted to do, because I just wasn’t feeling any better, and in fact, was feeling even worse by the minute. I had my partner drive me back to Salina, and drop me off at home. By the time I got home, I could barely even stand up. My roommate Karryle, put me to bed and told me to lay there and not move until she got ahold of my Dr. Of course everyone at my Dr’s office was at lunch, so we had to wait until after lunch to find out what was wrong with me.

After 1pm, we finally got ahold of my Dr, and described the symptoms I was still having, and he said to get up to the Emergency Room here at Salina Regional right away. I was kind of pissed off, because I didn’t want to spend another few hours up at the ER just for them to tell me the same thing that McPherson did. I just wanted to lay down and rest, but it was a good thing I finally did listen to Karryle.

I got to the ER here in Salina, and they hooked me up to monitors, ran another EKG, did more chest X-rays, and gave me a CT scan.
The CT scan showed something to the ER doc that scared the crap out of him. Turns out that I had a dissected aorta. This is the same thing that killed actor John Ritter nearly 3 years ago. Doc came into my examination room and told me that I was going to have to have surgery to fix this. I was like okay, like when? I was hoping for an answer of like this month, or next week or something, but he told me that I would have to have the surgery within the next few hours if I was going to survive.

The ER team kicked into high gear, and set me up on a life-flight to Kansas Medical Center in Andover. Wow, my first surgery, airplane ride and ambulance ride all in the same day. I was scared to death. I’ve never had any kind of MAJOR health problems before in my life, and here I was facing death.

The airplane was a small cessna type “prop” plane, and I was a little nervous about the trip, as I’d never flown before, but it was a very neat experience. As soon as I got to the hospital in Andover, I was greeted by a team of what seemed like 50 people asking me questions and telling me what was going to happen. They got me into the OR and hooked me up to anesthesia, and my memories end there. While I was under the knife, they opened up my chest, and performed open heart surgery on me. As you can see, the surgery was a success, and I’m at home now recovering.

The first thing I saw when I woke up in the recovery room, was my friend Janna (Thank you so much for being there), and the only thing that I could tell her was that I had a great time on the airplane

I have a really nice looking scar down my chest, and two little holes from my chest tubes, but I’m doing well for someone that just had major surgery just a week ago.

I just want to thank all of the people that helped save my life last Wednesday, there aren’t really any words to describe how thankful I am that the fine medical team kept me among the living. I kept my promises to my family and friends that I was going to be around for a long time to come, and be able to see my kids grow up, and to be able to grow old with my wife by my side, and to spend more time on this earth with the people that I really care about.

Never, ever take anything for granted, because you never know when everything might come crashing down around you. It can happen in the blink of an eye.

Appreciate all the things that you are given in your life, and never hesitate to tell the people that you care about how you feel about them, you may not get another chance.