W.T.H....

What the hospital?! 

Yep, that's right. I landed up in the hospital on Thursday with as my doctor put it, "extremely high liver enzyme levels". Yikes! 

Let me back up a bit. For a couple of weeks my urine was getting darker. I felt ok but on Tuesday I thought I'd better make an appointment to see my doctor. They said they could fit me in on Friday at 3:15.  

On Wednesday I started feeling weak, tired and I was itching all over. I was feeling nauseous after I ate. So I called back to my doctors office and the receptionist said to come in tomorrow morning (Thursday). 

Doctor sent me next door for some bloodwork. It said "STAT" on the order and I've watched enough tv shows to know what that meant 😉.

I get home and about 15 minutes later I get a call from the doctors office saying my liver enzyme levels are extremely high and he wants me to pack a bag to go to the hospital. The receptionist said she will call me as soon as they have a room. I'm like !?!?! 

It wasn't 5 minutes later she called for me to head over there. Here I am in the waiting room getting ready to be admitted. 

So, they get me admitted and into a gown. Let me tell you, I wasn't as nervous as I probably should have been with my condition..I was freaked out because of COVID!! I mean really! I'm in a freaking hospital!! So I kept my mask on as much as possible. Every hospital staff member who came in would say "oh, you don't have to wear your mask in your room", and I of course wanted to know if they were vaccinated or not. Ugh!! I didn't know if I was being rude when I asked but they kept saying it's ok to not wear your mask. Ugh!! 

The attending doctor came in and said I had acute liver damage. Not sure why or how I got it. So he ordered a CT scan on my abdomen. IV was in a weird place on my forearm and hurt so bad every time they injected something into it (I'm such a pansy!!). Notice my own pillow in the picture above? If nothing else I was going to try to get some sleep. 

About a month ago, I had a horrible UTI and went to the urgent care down the street. The girl put me on Cipro, twice a day for 5 days. Then about a week after that I came down with a sinus infection that made my sinuses feel like they were filled with cement. The doctor put me on Amox/Clav Augmentin for 10 days.  

They asked in the hospital, when I had eaten last. That was around 11:00 am. They figured they could do the CT scan 8-10 hours after. I couldn't eat anything all day and then around 6:30 they came in and had me drink the contrast dye stuff. Then did the scan at 8:30 pm. I finally got back to my room and got to eat a sandwich etc. around 9:30-10. So my pillow was for naught since eating that late kept me up with indigestion and bad thoughts about the results of my scan 😬.

So the next day, Friday, they weren't completely convinced the CT scan was showing everything they wanted so they ordered an MRI and more blood work. After getting the results of the MRI they at least said they could rule out the big "C" and nasty stuff like cirrhosis of the liver. That was huge relief. We waited for the bloodwork to come back. Later in the day it did and they said my numbers were coming down and I could go home. They said absolutely no Tylenol or acetaminophen as that is processed through my liver. They said to take Ibuprofen if I needed a painkiller. Hmmm, good to know.  

So, home I am. I'm still yellow, tired, nauseous after I eat and my urine is still dark but I called the doctor this morning and he said to get more bloodwork done on Wednesday and we'll go from there. 

The doctors now believe my liver has suffered because of either the antibiotics or some kind of virus. Could be Hepatitis A from eating contaminated food or water and thank goodness no long term affects. They are leaning towards the antibiotics as the cause. 

 

So, please keep me in your thoughts and wish me luck. 

 

As always...thanks for stopping by.

  

Thankful Thursday...

 

Well, as most of you know we lost our little buddy Bentley on Saturday May 8th. We're just now (on May 20th) able to talk about him and look at some pics without crying. It's been difficult and we both miss him terribly. 

He used to sit in Paul's lap every morning while Paul worked at his computer and then when I got up, he curled up in my lap while I drank my coffee. 

At night, 95% of the time, he slept with me, crawled under the covers (have never known a dog to do that). It's hard walking in the door and he's not there to greet us.  

Here's a few pics before I go on to what I'm thankful for. 

On my lap

                                    

With his buddy, Sawyer

I'd like to say he loved playing catch but it was keep away he loved! 

He loved car rides

He loved Willow

But most of ALL, he loved his dad 💓

I'm thankful this Thursday that we have Katniss and Arya and that Arya greets us at the door when we come home. It helps. 

I'm thankful that Arya sits on Paul's lap in the mornings and tries to fill that void. 

I'm thankful I have the best friends and family anyone could ask for. 

I'm thankful that we've all been vaccinated, and no one in our family was hospitalized with Covid.

I'm thankful the country is on the mend and we now have lifted the mask and 6' mandate (although I haven't been in a store yet without my mask). 

I'm thankful I have a beautiful home to wake up to each morning. 

I'm thankful I got to spend what little time we had with Bentley. He was a goofy dog and we loved him. 

What are you thankful for? I'd love to hear. 

As always...thanks for stopping by.

February...

 Ugh! It's been months!! So, let's go back to February and try to catch up month by month. 

Our little man Ethan turned a month old on the 16th. What a sweetheart he is! 

And...after mourning my Toby for 6 months and realizing I can talk about him without balling my eyes out, I decided it was time to give love to another cat. This time we decided to get 2. When I called the shelter asking about a little boy kitten, the lady told me he wasn't great around kids. Well, that fell apart quickly. She said she had a little calico named Sparkles that was available. Well, I've always wanted a calico kitty. She mentioned that the kitten had become quite attached to another female kitten that was really shy. They thought Sparkles would help the other kitten socialize etc. 

So, Paul and I took the drive to Fenton, MI. 

We both fell in love with these 2. Took us a week or so to actually come up with names for them. As their personalities began to show, we knew the calico would be Arya, from Game Of Thrones. 

Arya

And the other little doll we named Katniss, from The Hunger Games. 

Katniss

Both are named after female bad asses 😁 This is the first time we've ever had females, cats or dogs.

We had a big concern with Bentley. He's sooo jealous and has a terrible time with anyone new entering the house. So, we set up the spare bedroom with some toys for Katniss and Arya, the connecting bathroom had their litter and food and water. We decided to keep them in there and gradually introduce them to Bentley.

Well, after just a few hours, we opened the door with a baby gate put in place hoping if the kittens needed to get away from Bentley they could easily hop the gate whereas Bentley could not. It went SURPRISINGLY well! Katniss was very reluctant but Arya was so curious about the house this long haired dude. He got pretty excited and is now best buds with Arya.

Jenn, Dan, Elliott and Ethan came over. Elliott got such a kick of playing with Arya. Katniss was hiding in my closet. 
 

My baby girl turned 36! 

I finished Paul's scarf. Yay!! 

So the girlfriend scarf now has a new home at the Goodwill 😊

FINALLY!! After almost 5 months our bed arrived. 

Before

After...YAY!! We love it! 

We got snow...boo!!! 

Looking at these pictures of snow if February makes me so happy we've already made our reservations, flight plans and everything for Imperial Velentin Riviera Maya next February...✈🌴🌞 I can't wait!! 

So, February turned out to be a busy time. I have loads of pictures and I'll leave you with a few of those special ones. Paul will probably kill me for posting a couple of these 🎀😂

He just looks so natural with a bow in his beard. 

As always...thanks for stopping by.

Project Life December 2020

 Finally!! I got my mojo back. It's been a long time and with the move, trying to unpack, trying to set up my craft space and find my stuff..it feels good to be working on Project Life again. 

I finished December because I thought it best to go backwards. I left off last year with March. To be honest, I don't like going backwards. 

So, I'll start working on January 2021 and April of last year. 

Thanks again to Persnickety Prints for their free Covid Printables

the back of the Covid Timeline

As always...thanks for stopping by.

The Girlfriend Scarf

 Yep. We have one of those. It's a really funny story. 

It's not often we move, we moved from Mississippi to Maryland for a year back in 1976, moved back to Mississippi, moved to Avon Lake, Ohio in 1986, moved to Avon in 2012 and moved to Waterville recently. 

Every time we move, I look at this scarf Paul had from before we were married and I ask him, "You still want this scarf"? "Yea", he says. "I'll keep it." 

The 45 year old girlfriend scarf. I think my boys used to wear this while playing in the snow. 

Fast forward to this current move. I'm cleaning out hats, gloves and scarves for the Goodwill. I ask Paul, "You still want this scarf"? 

He says "well, if I ever need a scarf, it's the ONLY one I have since my wife, who's a knitter, has never knit me one. Or anything else". 👀

He's right! This is a man who wears shorts and flip flops in 6" of snow to run next door to borrow a sledge hammer so it never really occurred to me.  

So, my new knitting project is...

Cleveland Brown's Scarf.

I hope you have a good week. 

As always...thanks for stopping by.