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After noticing that my (humble) husband James never posted any information on the extremely major surgery he underwent just three weeks ago today, I thought I would post my first blog on this site.
Monday, November 6th James endured a four hour open-heart surgery in order to re- repair a congenital heart defect. He was born with Dextrocardia with Situs Inversus, an Atrial Ventrical defect and a Hypoplastic Pulmonary defect. In short, what this all means is that all of James’ organs are reversed, like a mirror image and that his heart and lungs have been adversely affected. Yes, it is a WHOLE lot more difficult than this very basic explanation, but this seems to be the easiest definition for most people to grasp.
During the surgery, James had a new conduit and valve placed, and had a large heart murmur closed. At 5 ½ years old, James had a similar surgery performed on him, and it was known at that time that James would need this surgery to be redone and completed as an adult.
As it is apparent by James’ recent blogs, he is doing remarkably well, just as his doctors expected, because of his young age and his otherwise good health. Prior to his surgery, James was silently suffering from shortness of breath and irregular heartbeat. The doctors’ warned us that if he did not have this surgery, over time he would develop Pulmonary Hypertension.
Since the surgery, although James has had a bout of Pericarditis, he has been progressing very nicely and is now walking quite a bit. His doctor said today that he should be ready to get back home, start working, and even drive again soon.
We are all very proud of James’ courage, strength and determination. He has had an amazingly well-natured disposition throughout this whole experience! I am so lucky to have such a wonderful and special husband!!
First of all, we’re talkin’ about Christmas trees here, not the “assets” of Baywatch stars. Since Christmas is around the corner and we’ve been thinking about what type of Christmas tree to get this year. In the past we always had natural (“real”) trees and last year we even went to a tree lot where you pick the one you want and they cut it down for you. The problem we have with real trees is that they dry out so quickly. And now that we live in a really dry climate we’re worried that our house might burn down if we get a real tree. So, we’ve been looking at the artificial (“fake”) trees online and have found that they’re really REALLY expensive. Like $500 expensive. Sure, we could buy one at a local retailer but to us they just don’t look “real” enough.
What do you think?
[poll=2]
Thanks for participating! For more details about the pros and cons keep reading.
Real Tree – Pros
Real Tree – Cons
Fake Tree – Pros
Fake Tree – Cons
This year we enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner at the Rodriguez residence (aka Chanin’s parent’s house). We had all of the usual dishes which included a roasted turkey, cornbread stuffing, spinach salad, yams (with marshmallows of course), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes with gravy, homemade cranberry sauce, and biscuits. Oh yeah and of course the pumpkin pie for desert. Mmmmmm….
Chanin and her mom spent a lot of time over the past couple of days prepping and cooking and everything turned out perfect! My favorites were probably the green bean casserole, yams, and the turkey. Chanin lovingly placed an entire row of mini marshmallows completely over the top of the yams and they came out nice and toasty. And the green bean casserole is always one of my favorites. We offered to bring it to the Carr Thanksgiving but were denied by the boss because it contains artificial ingredients, canned ingredients, etc. Who cares about that stuff on Thanksgiving anyway?!
(click on the pictures below to see a larger size)
So, enough about the food. What am I thankful for anyway? Well, I’m most thankful for my loving wife. She always takes care of me and she’s the best cook in the entire universe. I’m also thankful for our families who are always there for us and always welcome us. And lastly I’m thankful for our health. I just had a big surgery and am doing well and Chanin is also doing well and has found a great doctor. Of course I’m also thankful for all our material possessions (house, TV, etc.) but those are definitely secondary.
Does anyone read this blog? What are YOU thankful for? Remember, you can always leave comments if you feel compelled!
The good thing about going through open heart surgery is that people want to send you goodies to make you feel better as you’re recovering. This week I received some Mrs. Fields cookies and a gift box with candies, nuts, more candies, cheeses, and sausages. A big thanks to Marie, Ronnie, and the boys for the cookies and to my Mom and Mark for the gift box. I really appreciate everything and have already started enjoying it. Thanks!
So, we were sittin’ around going through some old boxes and found some of Chanin’s doll clothes that looked like they would fit our little kitties. Of course we tried the clothes on the kitties and they looked really cute. And they didn’t even fight it! What good little kitties!
(click pictures to enlarge)
