Trisha's News

Work

Eye See You!

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risha continues to do well in her work at Marietta Eye Surgey. There are ups and downs as with any job but she seems to be enjoying it in general. They have begun doing LASiK surgery on Fridays at the surgery center which is nice because she doesn't have to work those days but if she wants to, she gets overtime.

Piece O' Cake!

If you remember David Wiesner from my wedding, then you may be happy to hear that he's getting married this May. As our gift, and Trisha's first foray into one of the biggest baking markets, Trisha is going to make their wedding cake. I'm excited for her as this is could be a big step towards her making a new career path for herself as a baker. This is something she has wanted to do for a long time and she is very talented at decorating cakes. The one sugary downside is all of the practice cakes that sometimes pile up around the house, but that is what we both have jobs for! Send all that sugary goodness out to get it consumed so that we don't turn into walking cakes ourselves.

Health

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guess everyone's general health and well being is becoming a point of notariaty in these news blurbs when we send them, so I should mention something about Trisha's. Don't worry, she's not sick (much) and she's not in need of hospitalization (for the next few months). She is, however, PREGNANT. Yep, you heard me, we've done it! We went to the doctor this Friday (April 11) for our initial visit. She is about 5-6 weeks along and doing fine. She has been inexplicably tired lately, which I suppose comes with the burden of growing a human being inside of your body.

We have our first sonogram this Tuesday (April 15) to give the doctor a better idea of where we are. Trisha is certain of the date (well...we know when it happened). We'll be getting a few extra sonograms over the course of the pregnancy as was expected during the last one. I'll be putting together a special link on here to track our progress. Information will be forthcoming.

UPDATE: 4/15/2008

We had our first sonogram today. The baby measured 5 weeks and 5 days old, 0.22cm long and heart rate was 101BPM. This was a concern for Trisha, but we were reasured by the sonographer and we were scheduled for another appointment next week to check the growth and heart rate progress of the baby. I did some extra looking on Wikipedia and found that during the first 15 weeks, heart rate increases linearly at an average rate of 3.3BPM per day so we should be seeing a rate of 124 - 127 by next Wednesday. I'll post another update after next Wednesday's appointment.


Doug's News

Heart Health

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t was that time of year again this month. Time to truck down into the belly of the beast that is the city of Atlanta for my annual heart exam. I did my usual routine which is an in-office pacemaker check / tune-up an echocardiogram and a visit / Q&A with the doctor(s). First, let's discuss the pacemaker.

Keeping Pace

So I am welcomed back by a new technician who admits upfront she is new but that she will be assisted by my normal tech. I let her know about my sensitivity to the threshold test that I love so much, HA! Anyway, I have about two and a half to three years left in the battery and there have been "no significant events" recorded by the pacemaker in the last twelve months. Everything is good on that side. I learned something new about my current pacemaker as well, it actually runs self-diagnostics on a daily / weekly basis. What that means is that the device runs a threshold test on me somewhat regularly but they are scheduled to run while I sleep so I don't notice them. Pretty cool.

One other note a coolness is in regards to my new phone testing device. I'm going to be getting a new box that is WAY easier to use then the old one. This new box just has a magnet, no EKG leads, no wetting my wrists, no person on the other end of the line! Here's how it works:

  1. The clinic schedules a day for me to do my test.
  2. I plug this new machine into the phone line, turn it on and place the magnet on my pacemaker.
  3. The box retrieves EVERYTHING the clinic grabs using the big machine in the office and transmits this data directly to the software on the clinic computer. A tech comes in the next day and reviews the data.
With this new device, they get a lot more information and can make much more accurate predictions on battery life and replacement events. Its really cool. They even have a switch on the box for setting the number dialed to get an outside line.

Echo....ohcE

Another good report from the echo world. Everything is still looking normal. All of the pressures in the chambers are where they are supposed to be. My heart size is back up to a normal size (apparently the actual size of my left chamber had gotten smaller pre-Coreg therapy). There was no evidence of scar tissue developing around the valve and I just keep ticking away.

Dr. McConnell (I absolutely love this guy as a doctor, he is awesome!) said that there are now three things to be diligent about since I am back to a good strong baseline.

  1. Scar tissue forming around my valve (no problem here so far).
  2. Clots forming either in my heart or elsewhere. (Even with anticoagulation therapy as well regulated as mine is now there is about a 1% per year chance of this happening).
  3. Endocarditis, i.e. infections from dental appointments, etc if I don't pre-medicate. Dr. McConnell said a study had been done that indicates the average person is 150,000 times more likely to develop endocarditis from something as simple as a scraped knee, but in cases like mine, I still need to premedicate regardless of the dentist's opinion on the matter.

Erratta

Based on questions by my primary care doctor pertaining to my medications, I prodded the cardiologist on one of my medications. After some discussion, he became usure of the reasoning behind this medicate (he was not the one that prescribed it). We are in the process of having them determine exactly why they are using it on me and if I need to continue on with it. Considering my complete heart block situation and the information he provided to me, it seems to me that there is little point in taking it. There is no signal traveling from atrium to ventricle in my heart and this drug is used to assist in transmitting signals. I'll have more on this once I hear from Dr. Book.

Shao-Lin

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ince starting back into Shao-Lin in February I have seen some serious improvements in myself. I am gaining back the hip and leg flexibility I had when I was regularly practicing such that I have nice high kicks. I go back to Tennessee to workout with Master Mullins (Kevin) next week, April 17.