We are back!

I feel so bad for neglecting this blog, but things have been a little out of hand for a while. As you might remember we went to Pittsburgh for hubby's valve repair on Thursday. They did a Cath to make sure his blood vessels were okay and well, they weren't! They found  5 vessels that were occluded, including the left main at 50% (they call that one the widowmaker, because a heart attack from that vessel is usually fatal). There was another one totally closed but had built collateral. anyway, the whole thing was a total shock for both of us and of course they were going to take care of it all the next day. Just the preparations were scary, the showering with special soap and shaving. It's like getting the cattle ready for slaughter! I was allowed to follow him downstairs into the preop room and leaving him there was the scariest thing ever. I was wondering whether I would ever seem him again. That was around 11 in the morning and aside from two little updates during the day I did not hear anything. I was told he would be done at around 4 - 4.30 and by 5.30 I was getting nervous. I called the CCU but he had not arrived yet. I called again around 6 and they told me he was on his way up. Long story short I was finally able to see him at 7PM. Poor guy, it was so sad looking, he was still intubated and tied down and he was trying to lift his hands all the time, blinking his eyes. I will spare you all the awful details. He had a lot of pain for a few days, but little by little they removed all the tubes and made him walk around and do breathing exercises with the spirometer. We finally came home on Thursday and he is really doing great! He isn't allowed to drive, but he is walking around, we have been to the Mall (just for a short walk), his appetite is great and he looks wonderful! Thank Heavens all went well and the blockage was found before any damage would have been done! so the valve trouble was truly a blessing in disguise.

Needless to say the first few days I didn't get much scrapping done, I just sat next to his bed and helped him with everything. I did one page in the CCU waiting room

I felt pretty alone that day, just me and my laptop :)

 

these are all at Designer Digitals. That last one is from a tutorial by Cassie Jones. She is pretty amazing. It was a lot of work, but gives a fun effect I think.

I just did this one for PixelCanvas. Those masks can be ordered for any name. I thought I might make one of  these pages for each of my kids and have them done on Canvas for their rooms. ArsCow.com has a special going on right now for 9.99 a canvas (8x8) which includes shipping. I think that's a pretty decent price.

Now to get back into the swing of things. I seem to be running around a lot lately, especially since he can't drive. It's going to be worse once he starts wanting to go and make rounds or something. I'll be taking him around too then. Yikes! I am just so glad he is doing so well though, so I won't complain.

It's good to be home again!!!

The Day Before...

we have to head out to Pittsburgh. Last week we had the appointment with the surgeon and surgery is scheduled for Friday. Tomorrow he is going to have a Cath done to make sure the arteries are clean, if not I guess they will do it all at once. I am scared out of my mind. He is holding up really well I must say. I know he is scared but he is doing work for weeks to come all in 3 days, so that keeps his mind off things too. And he has been able to sleep, which is wonderful. I got a room at a Hotel, so I don't have to go back and forth and my friend is coming to stay with the kids. I don't know what I would do without her, she is such a treasure! The kids are old enough to be under Gabrielle's care for a little while, but certainly not all day and over night.

The success rate for the surgery is 98 % according to the surgeon, so I hope everything will be all right and he will  get back to normal. I just wish he didn't have to go through all that and the pain...but, a couple of weeks and he will be all better I hope. He told him he'd be recuperating for 4-6 weeks, has to be on Coumadin for 3 and go through cardiac rehab. I am just taking it one day at a time...

Scrapping is my therapy, it really helps me relax and deal with things. My mind totally goes somewhere else. good thing both the hotel and the hospital have WiFi. Here are a few things I did in the last week, I was caught up with project 365:

Since I match the 2 facing pages I like to do them together anyway..

 

These are all in my DD gallery where you can find the credits for all the goodies I used!

 

these are for PixelCanvas. The last 3 are actually old ones. I did these for vinnie's book, but they weren't picked, so I can post them now. I still like them though. Again, the credits are all in my PC gallery.

Okay guys, keep your fingers crossed, keep us in your prayers. I will keep you updated as much as I can when I am going nuts in the room. :)

The Day After

The Fourth that is :) We didn't do anything much, we were invited to our neighbor's house, it's sort of  like a standing invitation. He always goes to Ohio to buy these awesome fireworks and then the whole neighborhood watches and oohs and aahs over them. It's kind of fun, hard to take pics though when you are right underneath. We had a little scare though. Phil arrived a little later (cause he hates this kind of stuff) and as soon as he sat down his heart started to race like crazy. He has had this before, sometimes after jogging. Usually it breaks after a while. I had to take him home and he felt like he couldn't breath. With all that's going on it was really scary. After a while it did break. The last time this happened it didn't break and I wound up taking him to the ER. No sooner did they have him hooked up to the EKG it broke. So he felt really stupid (for no reason of course) Well, long story short, he is okay, but it did scare him because of his wide open valve, which brings me to the middle of the week.

He was scheduled for the transesophogal Echocardiogram, which the surgeon in Pittsburgh requested. I was pacing in the waiting room (well, not literally, but emotionally) when the nurse came in to get me. I swear I thought my heart just fell into my shoes. I thought for sure  they found something that would need immediate attention. There the doctor just wanted me to be there when he explained his findings to Phil. I go in there and he is lying on his side while the cardiologist shows him the screen and explains stuff, colleague to colleague. That much for being the patient :) Anyway, he still thinks it's repairable, even more so now, so that was good news. The valve is wide open, but his heart is strong, so again, we need to wait to hear from Pittsburgh.

I scrapped a few pages from the day we were at our friend's house in Altoona. We picked the cherries off their tree, finding a new way to get them. Rachel was doing the cutsy thing in the bushes, she is good at that :)

from there we went to the party at our other friend's

their new puppy is so adorable, I did that page about him stealing the hohos before. That was on the same day. Our friend is usually very quiet and proper, so it was so funny so see her do this.

This is Max sticking his head out of the window while I am driving. I took this shot with my Iphone, so it's not the greatest, but it's the best I could get.

Here is one I did for PixelCanvas

Credits as always in my galleries on the right. It's just too much work to list them all again.

Well, that was the excitement for the last few days, enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Today is the day

Phil had the Echo done today. He just called me a little while ago. He definitely has leakage around the valve but the cardiologist thinks it has something to do with him having Mitral Valve Prolapse to begin with. Sooo, the hope is that the valve can be fixed and won't have to be replaced. We won't know though until the surgeon goes in there to look. He seems to be okay with it, he expected that if not worse. Now the cardiologist will send the pictures to Pittsburgh to be looked over by the Dr. he knows who would assumably do the surgery. More waiting...he said there is no immediate urgency, so we'll just settle back and wait. His doc said that he would be off for about 3 1/2 weeks if he pushed it after surgery. Of course Phil is concerned about the loss of income and losing his patients if he is off too long. So we'll see what happens.

Right now I am sitting at the piano teacher's home waiting for the kids lessons to be done. It's a perfect time for me to scrap or do this. I just finished a page for PixelCanvas, I really like all their new stuff, the girls are so darn talented.

Isn't Michael just too cute on his little skateboard?

I also did a couple of 365 pages. I am caught up to last week now, yeah! I tried a different format again, Katie has this stack of  templates and some of them are perfect for 7 days.

I like how the 2 pages look together, not exactly the same, but similar. I think this will work.

Some other stuff

Credits can be found in my gallery, see the link on the right!

It's still chilly here, it doesn't even seem like summer! It's already July and it doesn't seem that summer has even arrived. At least the guys finally put my solar cover out, so that I won't lose the last bit of heat I still have in the water, since my heater still doesn't work. My cleaning lady is on vacation, so it's scrubbing the house too, yuck! Not that I drive myself crazy with the cleaning, but some things just have to be done. The floors look disgusting, so I had to start on them. I need to put the kids to work a little more...

I made an appointment with the chiropractor today, I'll try it one more time and then I'll just give up. The PT just doesn't seem to do anything and they don't seem to know what to do with me anymore. My muscles are pulling into spasms, why? There has to be a reason and the stim and the heat only help for a little while. I can do stretching by myself.

Okay, that's it for now...