Journey of the Heart

Posted on June 4, 2013 | 2 comments

That’s it. I admit it, I am a total slacker. It has been too long since I posted anything here, but I have a good reason. Well, for a while I was at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. I went to have an ablation to stop those pesky v-tach episoded. Well, that was not as successful as I’d like, but the meds I am taking seem to be working.

I also got a new ticker box–they upgraded my old pacemaker/defibrillator to a new bi-v device. I have three wires now in my chest instead of two…wooohooo! And if being in Boston for surgery wasn’t enough, I had surgery on the day of the bombing. My husband was actually in that block only an hour or so before the explosions. God sure is looking out for us.

So with all that going on, I fell behind in EVERYTHING. I have been working very hard to get caught up and that is my reason for not posting. I have, however, come up with five new story ideas that I will probaly never get written.

I sure do miss writing…

2 Comments

Posted in Blatherings, Just for Fun, Writing

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Posted on May 2, 2013 | 7 comments

karenjones-27 Today would have been my mom’s 70th birthday. She died five days ago. I’m not sure how the rest of you feel, but I Hhave some mixed emotions. Sounds crazy, huh?

My relationship with my mother has been strained, to say the least, but I discovered something recently. I don’t know if this is normal or not, but in the last week I learned that my childhood/life wasn’t so bad. My mother and I fought horribly and there was a tremendous amount of tension between us for as long as I can remember, but since last Saturday, I have remembered a whole lot of things that I had either forgotten or blocked–misplaced anger? NancyBaar-2

We used to live in this little itty bitty (and I mean garden shed small) house at the entrance to the trailer park where my grandparents lived. It was a duplex…I kid you not. So, we had these two guys who lived in the other half and one of them worked at some kind of store and every so often he would bring home these boxes of Charms Pops, you remember the ones in the shiny-colored clear cellophane, and they would give them to my mom for me. She never said no.

Well, Christmas rolls around and our house is so small that we have no room for even a small artificial tree, but my mom was a fanatic for Christmas and refused to be held back. So I wake up on Christmas morning and there is this mound of presents for me and sitting on top of the stack is this 6 inch high Christmas tree statue–all my present under it. I was delighted.

NancyBaar-5 I also remember when I turned 10 or so, she gave me the choice of where I wanted to go for my birthday dinner. She listed off some places and ended with “The Golden Arches.” She said it with so much awe that I thought it must be the most wonderful restaurant in the world. We got all dressed up in our very best clothes and we headed out. When we pulled ito the parking lot, I was shocked and then I just giggled and giggled. She was quite proud of herself and it was one of my best birthdays.

I hope that wherever your slippers are sitting right now, Mom, that you are at peace and that you know that I have always loved you, know matter what…I guess even I didn’t know how much

7 Comments

Posted in Blatherings, Karen's Family Tree

Refund Please!

Posted on April 16, 2013 | 3 comments

broken heart My heart done been broke. I think I am done with the tests for today, but the results of everything have not been good. In fact, they have been bad. It seems that each doctor I see feels the need to give me more bad news.

Doctor #1: Monday’s – procedure went fine, no complications (except the gouge in my throat from the trach tube.) Bad news is, while we got numerous problem spots that are causing the arrhythmia, there are many more we cannot get to.

Doctor #2: We wiped out a lot of PVCs when we did the ablation, but the other spots causing PVCs cannot be ablated. This will continue to cause stress on your heart and we are putting you back on the meds you came here to get off of.

Doctor #3: Well, we really have no idea why your heart is in the horrible shape it is in, but we are going to do 1,234,487 more tests and hope we find something. Oh, and the little chunks of your heart we snipped out showed us nothing.

Doctor #4: Well, I know you have answered all these questions 2,349,345 times, but I need you to tell me now since I was not here. Blah blah blah, oh and by the way, you have two leaky valves…really leaky.

Doctor #5: You know what all the others have said and now you are going to talk to another doctor about a transplant.