Assorted Health Reports

The Diet Report: For once, a little good news! This week's weigh-in: 1V4.5, which makes a total weight loss of 20 pounds over 20.5 weeks. I can't gauge exactly how much was lost this past week, since I didn't report the week before, due to the extreme "up and down" nature of things these past weeks.

But I hope this means I've finally started to progress downward again. (keeping my expectations low, in case things bounce around again)

The weird thing I've noticed is that, the very morning you feel fattest, and cringe at the thought of stepping on the scale, is most often when it reads lower! And when you're feeling rather slim and smug, THAT's the time you'll step on the scale have your little happy bubble burst.

OH WELL! I'll just try to cool my jets a little and realize that progress has been made, albeit slower than hoped for.
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The Loren Report: Loren has another heart biopsy at Mayo tomorrow. Though he still coughs from his cold, he feels well enough to go up himself for the overnight. (with blood draws early in the morning, going up the night before is almost a must)

I'll stay home with the kids and continue reading The Hobbit before bedtime. Maybe we'll go whole hog and read TWO chapters this evening :-)

The Carolyn and Derek Report: The last event monitor recording that I sent down over the phone to our electrophysiologist had both Derek and Carolyn on it. And both were in atrial fibrillation. Carolyn's episode only lasted for 5 minutes. Derek has been in and out of it (mostly in) for the the last two months. They've both been more active heart-wise, before and after Christmas. I think this nasty cold virus has aggravated things....but of course, that would just be anecdotal evidence from an untrained mother-type-person.

We'll call it a coincidence.

Derek's first recorded episode of sustained atrial fibrillation came when all the kids caught a slight cold in late summer. Everyone exhibited the usual symptoms of runny nose etc., except Derek. He had no outward symptoms whatsoever, just went into a-fib.

Another amazing coincidence.

Maybe people will understand now, just a little bit, why I get touchy on the subject of sick people going out in public and spreading their Christian love and charity all over the place.

(down Ma, down)

But back to Derek...when things settle down a bit, we'll be making plans--with Derek's assent--to start him on Sotalol. It's a beta blocker that has been proven to help with arrhythmias. But one of the short-term side effects is arrhythmia, so it is standard procedure to hospitalize someone starting Sotalol therapy for three days, so they can be monitored closely.

In the meantime, we'll hope and pray for another zero rejection report for Loren, and try to get the last remainders of the five week cold disposed of.

You know, I really need to get out that Christmas/New Year's/Valentine's letter before more stuff happens...after all, we wouldn't want to run out of material for later this year.
 

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