Tag Archives: VA

On the road

🙁

Ok, so Friday night we get home from 12 hours at Reggae, and there’s a message on the answering machine that.. Russel has an appointment with an ENT(ear-nose-throat) doctor at the VA in SF on WEDNESDAY (2 days after Reggae)..at 11AM!!

Well long story short, it’s a lot like this entry.. in that we had to go to Eureka on Tuesday for the new engine check up and a appointment at the Eureka VA. While we were there, I was thinking about how getting up at 4am on Wed to make the 11am appointment in SF..and it wasn’t making us happy.

So we decided to go home and pack and drive to Santa Rosa on Tuesday, go the SF VA on Wednesday and drive home that day…
geez we were both so fried from Reggae to have to do all that too.
And nothing was found a miss with the ENT, so we still have no answers to Russel’s pain and congestion…meanwhile his voice gets stranger and stranger every day.

We did stop on the way home in Healdsburg…lots bigger than I remembered it being, cute/upscale downtown center area.. we ate at a thai food place, Lotus Thai, that was excellent. Will have to stop there again.

We always stop at the Real Goods and Solar Living Institute for a road break in Hopland, and we will be going down there this weekend (August 21) to see Bruce Cockburn at the Solfest.

Whew!! busy busy on the road kind of month.

In between all this I am still painting at the house and we are doing lots of work to make the house more livable, cuz well, we would like to MOVE IN someday!

9th Anniversary

It’s been so long since I posted.. don’t know where to begin!
Guess I will go backwards, as it is freshest in my mind 🙂

We had our 9th wedding anniversary on July 27, we have been together 13+ years though. Nice dinner at local Mateel Cafe with Russel’s sister Carol who is visiting from South Carolina.

The day (Monday 26) before our anniversary, part of my front tooth broke off! Yikes.. it was easier to deal with (fill) than I thought it would be. Helps if you just don’t leave the dentist office until it’s fixed *lol*. The 28th I had a dental cleaning..oh joy..2 mornings spent in the dentist office.

Meanwhile, we are trying to entertain Carol, which mostly amounts to eating out, and it’s been 100 degrees here for a least a couple of weeks.

We are still working hard at the house, and believe it or not, I am still painting! Down to 1 room, the living area, I am working on the catherdral ceiling with a light yellow paint. Threw my back/hip/sciatic out on Saturday, was down with that for a few days.

Managed to finally have a visit with friend Pam too.

The week before this we went to Eureka to pick up out Toyota truck which had been in the shop for 1 week getting a new engine (we got to drive a new 2004 Jeep suv..pretty nice ride). We actually took it to the bay for yet again another VA appointment for Russel who finally got a broncostmy… which still shows nothing to point to all the pain/congestion and need for steroid inhalers to hold that at bay. I will talk more about that trip another time..just too much to say.

I have more but gotta go help Russel with the upcoming Reggae on the River Aikido Burrito booth scheduling fiasco…more about that later too.

The long road

We went to the VA hospital in SF (5 hours drive) on Wed, met with Russel’s new doctor, she looked to be about 23, but she was bright and appeared ready to look at ‘whatever is causing this pain/cough/congestion’ in a different way. We got home late Thursday afternoon as it is just too much for us to drive there and back in one day.

We were told we would be scheduled finally for a broncostomy, usually that means a month or 2 down the road… well they called Friday eve at 7pm to say we have an appointment for Tuesday morning at 8am.

Oh joy. That is also the day we are supposed to have our truck in Eureka (1 1/2 hours north) to leave it to get a new rebuilt engine in it. The toyota people usually give us a rental when we leave our truck there for more than a day because we live so far away.

So that day looks like a very long one, up at 5am drive to Eureka drop off truck at 8am and get the loaner, drive back to here (11am), pick up luggage, and drive to San Fransisco and hope to beat the worst of the traffic by arriving at the Golden Gate before 4pm. Find a motel over on the Great Highway, collapse, and then go to the hospital.

The procedure should only take a hour or so, but I believe we will be at the hospital for at least 4 hours…then I get to drive home, if I can make it, if not we will stop at the Sandman in Santa Rosa and do the last 3 hours in the morning.

I hope this tells us something.. the last diagnosis he got was totally false one, just so the doctor could say he did give a diganosis. Meanwhile, Russel is off the Flovent already, and the pain/ichy feeling is coming back in his chest. And he can’t use advils (which we both use daily) for 48hours before the procedure, so he will be one painful mess.

This is not how this next week was supposed to happen, I have to cancel a long over due lunch date, I have a bunch of cds to burn for trading and dvds for a trading tree I am on… once again, time is too short, so if I don’t post back here for awhile, those of you who wonder — well now you know where I’ll be.

98 degrees in the shade

98 degrees in the shade… A great reggae song…but a bit much to deal with. Spent a hour in the neighbors pool, that’s some relief.

I guess I am still on the way to being an old ‘crone’… false alarm I guess, ‘cept I still feel crampy and very irritable, Russel can attest to that fact, he say I am really hard to be around right now… well hey, I ain’t having much fun either!

Supposed to go to the land tomorrow and I was gonna paint some more, but this heat may make it a short day.

We’re going to SF to the VA hospital again on Wed. Russel gets to see a new doctor this time.. he is still using the inhaler and his voice is getting weird sounding. The pain is mostly gone, but the feeling of congestion still is.

This is turning into a bitch post so I will stop now..
life really is good.. it’s just hormones.

Lois Lane..

I remember a line in one of the first Superman movies, where after Clark took away her memory, she comes into work and asks “What’s happening in the world?” There’s a feeling I get from that line, not that I am not aware of what’s happening in the world, but that my life has been so busy and full, that I sometimes wonder just where I am at.

That said, still trying to learn my way around my new computer system, see Zippadeedodah!. Going to load Mozilla this week end, need to hook up the new Canon i960 printer and the new Canon LiDE 80 scanner.
I haven’t even transferred the email or favorites as I want to wade through a lot of stuff and keep it off this machine.

We just got back from the bay (SF-VA) again seeing Russel’s doctor. He gave us a sort of diagnosis, it still is not a for sure.

“Eosinophilic bronchitis is a recently described syndrome. Subjects with eosinophilic bronchitis have cough with eosinophilic airway inflammation characteristic of that seen in asthma; however, these patients have normal lung function, negative methacholine challenges, and no evidence of variable airflow obstruction. The cough in this condition responds nicely to inhaled corticosteroids.”

We need to do more research on this, but at least at this point he feels a lot better and hasn’t taken pain killers for 3 weeks. The chest congestion is still there and the inhalers make his voice sound hoarse and weird.

The Garberville farmers market started today, to my surprise.. but i am glad. The Catching Cactus and Succulent folks were there once again with just wonderful displays. Next week I will take my camera and try to get better shots than i did last year.

We are working on the house, more painting, I will scan new colors when i get the new scanner hooked up. I hope to put the garden in next weekend. We are having some problems with all aspects of our water system which has Russel stressed, we will get it fixed, it’s all just part of homesteading.

This and That

Bruce Cockburn at the Mateel

Tonight’s the show. Very excited. Hope to make sound check, get some photos signed and tonight get some great shots. Wish me luck.

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On other things, this should go in new post, but.. Russel has an appointment for a bone scan, the final test in the saga of trying to find out what the hell is wrong with him. This is on Friday again in SF, but this time I am not going. More on that later.

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I updated the Portfolio page on my business website. Added a few new sites, and took a couple off.

I am very close to launching Russel’s Aikido For Kids, he just needs to give me some CONTENT! [still waiting!]

Much more tomorrow.. the after the show review.

MRI Results – Nothing

There’s nothing wrong. The VA and AMA cannot find the source of Russel’s pain. There are no real indicators for any more tests, although we may get a bone scan. I think his doctor can’t think outside his little box, something is wrong, and it’s not in his head… the next step according to this guy is for ‘pain managment clinic’ which is bull shit.

We are frustrated. He is hurting. We have to find yet another avenue to go down. I am thinking .. just maybe… allergies? Or still something to do with his bronchials, although mentioning that to the doctor brought “there are no indicators for those kinds of tests” … what? coughing and chest pain, and a feeling of congestion in the bronchials doesn’t indicate a broncostomy or something??

Good news…we know his heart and lungs are good, if we believe what the test results have been.

Sorry to have taken so long to post back here. Life has just been busy, and the no news thing ..no real answers and there for no real plan of attack to fix this pain have really taken us down.

Finally…going to get the MRI

We leave for the city (SF) very early on Thursday morning. Russel has a stress treadmill test at 1pm. The following day he finally gets the MRI. I am only hoping that this gives us a diagnosis. His pain has gotten worse, the pain killers less helpful, and the stress of it all is really getting us down.

I am trying not to play the ‘What if’ game. He is so strong and healthy in every other way that it seems this should be a treatable thing. I mean look at this smile.

He has to be ok. Just give us something we can fix. Please.

On My Beat

Living in the hills of southern Humboldt