Jackie'sLament Manyof you have heard by now that Jackie is in the hospital. Shedeveloped a DVT inher right arm, just above theantecubital fossa. It has extended up the brachial vein, up tothethoracic outlet. Ultrasound characteristics indicate that itstarted distally and grew upward from there. She then developedone in her right leg, but I don't know the details of that. Since then, we have learned that her paternal grandmother died at aboutage 50 of a DVT. Her mate...

CTresults   For some reason, doctors and other health care professionals tendto call computerized axial tomography scans "CT scans," while everyoneelse calls them "CAT scans."  Whatever you call it, we now havethe results for Yvonne's thigh.  She has a blood clot that is3/4"  thick, four inches wide, and about 12 inches long, under theskin and over the muscle of her thigh.  That comes out to be about36 cubic inches (20 fluid ounces) of blood that bled i...

Yvonneand I are still waiting for the results of her CAT scan. Meanwhile, she's had a migraine all day and hasn't been able to domuch.  Overall, though, the positive thing for her is that she canbounce back fairly quickly after a setback, get back into her life, anddo things.  Jackie still is having problems, so that is an addedstress.  Kevin seems to be in good spirits, getting back in to theMock Trial competition, etc.  I just go to work every day and tryto mak...

Yesteray,Yvonne got the CT scan of her hip and thigh.  We are hopeful thatthis will reveal the reason for all the swelling she has had.  Meanwhile, she was started on the Duragesic patch.  Thisprovides much betterpain control, so she is able to be more active.  She gets blistersonher skin from the patch, but that is a small price to pay for beingable to actually do stuff. Liz, the lady we hired to feed the horses, has developedproblems.  She keeps getting anem...

I suppose the frequency of posts to this blog is inversely proportionalto how well I am feeling.  Since I feel better, I post less. Yvonne say a back specialist last week, who told her that the amount ofpain she has is expected.  That seems like a waste of time, but itwasn't.  Her PCP thought she should not have as much pain as shedoes.  Now, with the expert's opinion, the PCP is more comfortableprescribing enough pain medication.  The specialist also advisedher on ...

I've been getting lazy in my blogging. It is time for an update, definitely. Today is the third day I'm out of the sling. Sort of like when I first went back to work, I feel ok at the start of the day, but pretty sore by mid-afternoon. There is less intense pain, but more of an aching/burning kind of a pain. This probably is associated with the healing process. I am workinjg on improving range of motion. So far, I can get my elbow almost completely straight, and can raise my arm about 75 ...

On Saturday, I wentto lunch with the Senior Editor of Die Nienamdsblog .  We went toLotus Thai, which turned out to be a pretty goodrestaurant .   Later, Yvonne and I wentto the mall, then Best Buy, then CompUSA.  She has been playingher music too loud, and needsa new set of speakers for her computer. We didn't buy any.  Most of the good ones are either tooexpensive, or they are 5.1 sets.  Her computer does not have theright connections for 5.1...

Joeuser was inaccesible for a few days.  So, I wasn'tposting.  I just realized it is back up.  One bit ofadvice.  If anyone wants to start a serious blog, they shouldeither use a paid site, or use one like Blogspot.   Blogspotautomaticay e-mails a copy of all of your posts back to you.  Thatway, if the site goes belly up, you still have a copy of all yourwork.  It the interim, after the Joeuser site came on line again,and I didnt know it yet, my ranking fe...

Today was busy.  I wentto work, then left early for my doctor's appointment.  Then I tookYvonne back to the UM for her appointment.  I was told that my armlooks to be healing as expected.  I am to start PT.  I stillneed to wear the sling a lot, but can have it off for short periods oftime.  He basically ratified what I already had started doing. Yvonne was told she does not have an avulsion fracture, although she isskeptical of this.  It really does feel l...

Today is supposed to be the day I can take off my sling. I did that, and found that I cannot extend my arm fully. It hurts quite a lot if I try. I also cannot raise my arm more that about 30 degrees. I've lost a lot of muscle mass in my arm and shoulder. So, I am going to keep using the sling when I go out, and some of the time at home. Without it, it is hard to remember to not try to extend it all the way. Yvonne is getting bored, more so day by day; she really can't do much of anythi...

Thursday is one ofmy favorite days.  That is because I go to Albion in the afternoon.  Hardly anybody bothers me there. The students Isee are -- generally speaking -- fairly well put together, don't havecrummy insurance that gets in the way of what I am trying to do, andthey all get better fairly easily.  Oh, and they seem toappreciate my efforts.  Once a month, I have  trainingseminar in which I get to act like an expert.  Anyway, today Iended the day feeling fai...

The biggest challenge for my right now is that I am getting reallyimpatient. I have a new DVD recorder and would like to transfersome old home movies to DVD's, but I can't because I can't install thenew drive. I also would like to install aa front-mounted firewireport, but I can't do that either. We got a new prefabricated barnfor the horses. It was delivered today, but I can't put downbedding or rig a cable to hold the doors open. So, the horsescan't go in. (The barn was made by Build Mast...

Yvonne went to the trauma clinic again. They told her she has anavulsion, meaning that the thigh muscle was torn away from thebone. They are going to wait a week, then refer her to anorthopedic surgeon if it is not healing on its own. She's onnear-bedrest status until then. This means that she should nothave helped so much when Jacki and Mindi were cleaning over theweekend. It also explains all the swelling she's had. Itdoes nt explain the fever, but that has not happened again....

OK, it is Sunday evening. I got home from the hospital at about 6PM, not too bad. Yvonne found out that the last pyment we got,which wassupposed to settle the lawsuit, bounced. That was forabout 22 thousand dollars. Althugh the settlement fr for onlyabout 2/3 of what we actually lost, we he all prepared to becontent. But for the last check to bounce, well, we are nothappy. We are fixing to file a complin with the state, since hehas a contractor's lincense, and start foreclusouree of hispr...

I mentioned before, that once anyone finds out I was injured by gettingthown off a horse, I end up hearing the other person's story about howthey or someone else also almost got killed or whatever by gettingthrown or kicked et cetera. Now comes a story about someone kickedby a horse, who was saved because of a BarnCam®. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/16/horse.cam.ap/index.html Web cam watchers help woman kicked byhorse...