gmail email address to email me, okay? I won’t cancel the hiwaay.net accounts until the end of the month, so if you email me at my hiwaay.net account, you’ll get a gentle reminder email asking you to change my email address in your address book. Fair enough?
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Also, if anyone out there wants to design a Christmas-themed logo for me for next month, go for it. If no one’s feeling creative, I’ll just use the one
Kat designed for me
last year.
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Friday evening at 5:30 the phone rang. Fred checked the caller ID and said “It’s Dr. Judy’s office!” Since I’d been waiting all week to hear what my test results were, I grabbed the phone out of his hand and answered it.
Now, before I go on, let me put a disclaimer up in big, bold capital letters, mm’kay?
IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW HAS THIS CONDITION OR YOU ARE A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH AN OPINION ABOUT THIS, FEEL FREE TO LEAVE A COMMENT. IF, ON THE OTHER HAND, YOU ARE ABOUT TO GO TO GOOGLE AND LOOK IT UP SO THAT YOU CAN CUT AND PASTE EVERYTHING YOU’VE LEARNED ABOUT IT, PLEASE DON’T. BECAUSE I KNOW HOW TO GOOGLE JUST AS WELL AS YOU DO, AND CHANCES ARE PRETTY DAMN GOOD I’VE ALREADY SEEN IT. THANK YOU.
End disclaimer.
The nurse told me that the echocardiogram showed that I have “mild tricuspid regurgitation” (translation via Google: Tricuspid regurgitation is leakage of blood backward through the tricuspid valve each time the right ventricle contracts.) and that if I have any medical procedures or dental word done, I need to have antibiotic prophylaxis beforehand. The Holter monitor showed occasional periods of rapid heartbeat. The nurse told me that the options were to take medication (no, she didn’t say what kind of medication, and I didn’t think to ask) or just monitor it for now. I opted to leave it alone for now, only because I don’t want to start on any medication at this point before I’ve talked to the doctor.
The office had already closed by the time the nurse called, so I wasn’t able to make an appointment on Friday. I called this morning to make an appointment and have one next Wednesday (December 1st!) in the afternoon. Hopefully I don’t keel over dead before then. (THAT WAS A JOKE. I’m not going to keel over dead, people.)
Naturally – because I am me, after all – I immediately set about trying to find ways to exploit my new “condition.” Friday night when I got upstairs I realized I’d left my book downstairs.
“I left my book downstairs,” I said to Fred, who was already laying in bed reading.
“Oh yeah?” he said.
I theatrically fell onto the bed and clutched at my chest.
“Oh, my heart,” I moaned.
He laughed, but then he went down to get my book for me. Score!
Later, I was laying on my back in the bed reading and Miz Poo decided to stomp her porky ass across my chest, and I pushed her off and said “Miz Pooty, you’re gonna give Momma a heart attack”, which I thought was mildly amusing at best, but Fred laughed so hard he about wheezed.
Last night after farting in bed (SUPPOSEDLY, because after all
I don’t fart) I said “I can’t help it! I have a heart condition!”, but he was not amused. I guess I need to be careful where and when I try to exploit it, eh?
For instance, if he drags us into another endless game of Trivial Pursuit on Thanksgiving, you can bet your ass I’ll fake a heart attack without thinking twice.
I’ll report back after I’ve seen the doctor to let y’all know what she’s said.
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From my comments:
I asked it before but perhaps I missed your answer…but why is it not bad for cats to consume raw chicken? I have heard you mention several times feeding them bits and I KNOW it can’t be bad if you and Fred feed it to them. I’m curious. Also, do your cats beg for food? My cat, Mel, has taken to meowing LOUDLY as we eat dinner wanting some bits of meat (only meat!). It becomes bothersome when you have guests and a begging cat!
I guess it’s not bad for them because they’re animals who, in the wild, consume raw squirrels (are there squirrels in the wild?) and other small animals, so their system is set up to digest raw meat. That’s the way I look at it, anyway. We don’t give them a lot of raw meat (although I bet Meester Boogers would eat three pounds of raw chicken if we’d let him), just small amounts, but so far as we know, they’ve never gotten sick from it. Meester Boogers is far and away the most interested in raw meat, with Spanky and Spot coming in a distant second. Miz Poo isn’t interested in it at all – in fact, the only kind of people food she’d interested in is the liquid from cans of canned chicken or tuna.
They don’t usually beg at the table, although Meester Boogers, Spanky, and Spot will sit and make it clear that if some food came their way, they probably wouldn’t turn it down. Oddly enough, Spot will every once in a while decide that whatever we’re eating smells really good to him, and he’ll sit next to Fred or I and meow squeakily and pat at our arm with his paw until we give him some. Without fail, he sniffs at it, turns up his nose, and walks away.
*
Hey Robyn – I wanted to know what you think of Dr. Phil this season, specifically the Cheating Husband Doctor with the Pregnant Mistress. Why on earth does his wife not leave that man??? He seems to have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old.
Oh man, Dr. Phil this season is pretty damn good. I’m sad to say that I missed the first show with the cheating husband and his wife, but I caught the second episode, and I don’t for the life of me get why she doesn’t kick his ass to the curb. I mean, it’s one thing if he’d cheated and he was really sorry and he was going to do everything he could to make it work, but this man actually asked his wife why he couldn’t have her and the mistress, too! He had sex with the mistress IN THE WIFE’S BED while she was with her dying father! When they have fights, he threatens to go be with the other woman. GAH. He’s a huge shithead, that one.
All I can guess is that it’s really important to the wife to save her marriage and/or she’s just really scared at the idea of being on her own. Only she can say for sure, but I’m thinking she deserves better.
Don’t you wonder what’s going on with people that they’re willing to show all their dirty laundry on the Dr. Phil show, with millions of people watching? I mean, the real-life desperate housewife who was selling drugs to make money to buy her own drugs – yikes!
Hi Robyn,
you could brag about having icelandic readers. We just love your blog!
Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii have Icelandic readers who loooooooooove me, and youuuuuuuuuu don’t!!!!
Speaking of Iceland, that is one seriously gorgeous country. We watched last week’s episode of Iceland and talked about how we’d love to visit one day.
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I could not wait to tell you how much I love your journal. I only check it 56,000 times a day. I think I got the link to it from jane or Nance. I can’t remember, since I am an oldie but goodie. BTW Whatever happened to that (pile)of money that was cluttering up your corner. Surely you did not spend it ALL on the freaking car. Just wondering!
Nanamama 😉
Oh, between the car and the cats, you know that pile o’ money is looooong gone. I’m not complaining, though – that corner of the room was getting mighty dusty.
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Hey, Robyn, do you have enough smiley face stuff? Sometimes, I come accross a giveaway smiley face thing, and think, “hey! I’ll send this to Robyn!” But then I think, “ah, she probably already has so much of this stuff, she doesn’t want it.” Clearly, I think of you everytime I see a happy face and probably always will!
Well, y’know, you can never have enough smiley face stuff! I got a really cool calculator in the mail a few weeks ago from the very cool
Amy that makes me grin every time I use it. And then I got smiley-face gum from Amy just a few days later! Amy rocks.
Smiley faces always make me smile!
Clearly the fact that so many of you think of me when you see smiley faces means that my plan to take over the world is almost complete…
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My family – 2 children and hubby are moving to a new home in a few weeks (not a long distance move), and I would like to know if you have any suggestions to lessen the stress I’m sure the pets will feel?
I don’t really have any good advice – the time we moved from our old house to where we are now, it was a distance of about a mile (if not less) and we had to lock the cats in the bathroom so they wouldn’t get in the way of the movers, and they were all freaked out for about two weeks straight. I would recommend that once you’re all moved into the house, you make sure to show them things that are familiar to them, whether it’s some of their toys or what they liked to sleep on in the new house, or whatever.
Anyone else have suggestions? Leave ’em in the comments.
*
Did you ever get a response to the “have you ever smoked peanut shells?” question – whether it referred to inhaling or barbecuing? I’d like to know who does that myself.
(This is regarding one of the questions in that survey I did a while back) I never did get an answer to that, and I’m still curious which it meant!
*
Why oh why Robyn must you torment us with not letting us know what car Fred drives? Can u give us even a clue? just a little clue? PUH-LEASE!! *said in the most pathetic voice possible*
and
I missed the whole thing about Fred’s car. Why is it a secret? Is he being stalked? Are there Married White Males all over the US losing weight, going from fat to phat, taking up hiking, working on computers and all the need to complete the transformation is THE SAME CAR?!?!?!?!
Sorry, got carried away. I just think it is funny that (seemingly) everything else about him is posted on the internet, why not that?
It started out that Fred didn’t want people to know what he’d bought because then everyone would give their opinion about it (“Oh, I drove one of those, and it sucked!”), and that drives him crazy sometimes. Now, he just likes to see y’all go nuts ’cause he won’t tell you what he bought. He’s a sadistic bastard, that one.
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Roar…
ROAAAAR…
RAAAAWWWWRRRRRR…
Urrrp.
(Pictures taken by
Fred)
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