Wednesday

Well, Wednesday was just an oddly decent day. I got a lot done at work, it wasn't as mind numbingly hot out as I'd suspected, Dan called me at work to fill me in on some Blackboard updates (and life updates), and I got to leave work at a decent time.

Also, of course, Jamie is home from the hospital. She went in to the ER on Monday around 1:00 AM and was admitted, so she was sort of hanging out without much to do at Chandler Regional until Tuesday evening.

She's going to see a pulmonologist (outpatient) to check up on some breathing stuff she's had going on for a while, but otherwise she seems okay. Jamie, of course, took the opportunity in the hospital to tell Dr. Chang I'd been running. He didn't exactly praise me for my astounding transformation, but it was kind of funny how he was more than ready to switch gears and discuss that instead.

So, this evening was kind of nuts with the finale of Lost (which Jamie taped, and which I will not be watching), the Suns/Mavs game and finale of American Idol. I'm kicking myself now, but since we assumed the Suns were sunk, we tuned in to AI. Obviously a very, very bad call.

That said, American Idol turned out to have, arguably, its most entertaining episode to date. Pairing contestants with showbiz success stories, it made for a pretty good variety show without all the self-congratulatory hoo-hah of an established awards show. I mean, where else will you see Mary J. Blige, Live, and Burt Bacharach under one roof? Where?

But, of course, they also had Prince, who reminded us EXACTLY what a performer can be. Thank you, Prince, I had almost forgotten. How have I never seen him live? I'm not living right.

And the show was funny. AI gave in to it's inner dorkiness for the AI Awards, giving some of the not-so-lucky contestants an opportunity to take the stage. And while Clay Aiken may now look like the lost child of Barry Manilow, it was funny to see him as a seasoned performer.

We tuned over to the Suns/Mavs game with three minutes left, saw our boys were down and tuned back. We were more than a little stunned to see the news after the show announcing a Suns victory. I am, I admit, more than a little surprised. Winning Game 1 at Dallas didn't seem to likely. Now for Game 2 the Mavs are really going to be looking for blood.

New comic day brought a conrnucopia of good stuff which I didn't get much of a chance to read. 52 is turning out to be a very interesting read thus far. I guess it's on my recommend list. It's fun to have a book to look forward to every week, so, sales willing, I'll be curious to see what lessons DC takes from 52 as far as marketing strategy.

I still have a stack of other stuff to read, including two Gail Simone written comics (Birds of Prey and the new Secret Six book).

No Superman books this week. Trimming it down to two regular titles is leaving me feeling a bit high and dry, and with JLA on hiatus until July, All-Star Superman a bi-monthly and Superman/ Batman on a wildly irregular schedule, it's just not always as easy to get my Superman fix as I'd like.

Also: Parents called. New Frescata sandwich at Wendy's was okay for what you pay, and Lucy was able to entertain herself all night with a tennis ball.

Hope your Wednesday was a good one.

Well, today was a real gem.

I'll try to keep it all short, but we headed to the ER this morning as Jamie had numerous, seemingly unrelated symptoms like a fever, a sore throat, a migraine and probably some other stuff.

However, after sitting there for two hours (I started the second Augusten Burroughs memoir) Jamie decided she really didn't feel all that bad. At least not bad enough to deal with the ER anymore. NOTE: The ER is for people with a medical emergency. about 50% of what you see come in can be dealt with by putting an ice pack on it and a splint from Walgreens.

Anyhoo, we checked out having only, really, checked in.

We kept Jamie's pre-scheduled appointment with her doctor. It seems she may be dehydrated, which is a tricky thing for a dialysis patients. She may also have developed an allergy to something out here. And she has waxy build-up on one ear.

Anyhow, nothing major. She's doing okay, but we're really going to have to keep an eye on her hydration levels.

When we got home, I guess I'd been pretty stressed. I sat down and read a few comics (this was around 4:00) and I fell sound asleep for an hour.

Anyhow, I don't have much to add, but since I've somehow accumulated dozens and dozens of comments from Sunday's posts, I thought maybe I'd step in to say thanks for all the participation! I feel like the first Summer of Superman post was a hit, so I'll try to think of some other posts I can do in keeping with the theme.

Ya'll have a good one.

Melbotis's Bubble of Blechhhh

Last night after dinner and AI, Jamie asked me to look at Mel's incision where he had his surgery. I guess earlier in the day she'd had a look and it appeared he was getting some fluid build-up behind the scar.

I pulled up his shirt and a bubble the size of my fist was right behind the scar. Mel was happy as a clam and appeared not to notice.

Our vet was long closed so we rushed to the 24 hour clinic a few miles from the house. The place was run suspiciously like a people ER. The only difference being that they weren't worried about getting sued, I guess, because the nurse in triage looked at Mel's bubble and said, "I'm going to save you two hours of wait. Go home and put some hot wash cloths on the bubble for fifteen minutes. Do this twice tonight. Go see your vet first thing in the morning."

I have no idea what this was supposed to do, but we went home and put hot wash cloths on Mel's bubble. I made arrangements to miss work in the morning, made appropriate e-mails and checked on Mel who was, still, happy as a clam.

This morning he woke up and the bubble was slightly larger. I went for my run and at 8:05 I called the vet to get an appointment. We were to go in at 10:00.

I took my shower and got cleaned up, checking on Mel through the window to see how he was doing. He was pretty much standing in the yard happily wagging his tail.

Jamie came home from dialysis, scarfed down an Eggo and we were ready to roll. Mel came inside, and I immediately noticed his bubble was gone. He had a small rupture in his scar that was no longer bleeding, where, I assume, he scratched open the bubble or it just popped. Either way, he'd drained the darn thing.

We still drove him to the vet where they added some staples to his scar and told us that, apparently, what he'd had was "serum". I'm still not sure I'm buying their answer, but it's just bodily liquid that can form at a surgery site.

Bottom line, Mel is fine and I missed 3 hours of work. And somewhere in our yard is a puddle of Mel's blecchhh...

Hey, ya'll.

Okay, so... today sucked. Jamie woke up around 3:45 AM and noticed, "Hey, I can't breathe." So we went to the ER and got her fixed up. Turns out she has a touch of the pneumonia. Fortunately, around our house, a touch of pneumonia is nothing to get all that wigged about. Now how does one get pneumonia in PHX? I have no idea, but if someone could do it, it's my wife.

Anyway, she's doing better. A little rest, a couple of pills, and we're right as rain. No need to move the house to the lee side of the stone or anything.

Anyhow, I am pretty tired, so I'll abbreviate tonight's post by celebrating the Suns' victory over the Houston Rockets, and this with both Amare and Kurt Thomas out. And, uhmmm... what else.

Man, I'm pretty tired. Ya'll are on your own.

Hi Leaguers - Mrs. League here, back from el hospital. Am typing one handed so this will be short - just wanted to thank everyone for their support and good wishes! It's good to be home and I hope this time I can stay home.

Looks like I got out of the GPS business too early:

"Turn left in 500 feet....fool!"

League Post-Thanksgiving Wrap-Up

Ugh.

So Tuesday night when I called home to see how Jamie was doing and to let her know I was en route, she had "the tone" in her voice. 'The Tone" is my catch-all indicator that something is wrong with Jamie. It's better than suddenly hearing vomiting or finding her passed out on the floor, but it's still not a lot of fun.

Anyhoo, in order to receive her pherisis and dialysis treatments, Jamie has a fistula/ shunt (whatever you want to call it) that is a vein they've sort of beefed up for easy access. Back around Halloween, Jamie had a blood clot in the fistula and she'd had surgery to clear that out.

Well, whether it was tied to the surgery or something else, Jamie had an infection on her arm.

Tuesday night we went to the ER to see about getting the red patch looked at, but with a hundred screaming children between us and a doctor, we decided to hold off until morning when Jamie was set for dialysis. Wednesday, the dialysis center sent her back to the ER where she was seen, given antibiotics and admitted.

Jamie's folks came into town Wednesday, as did Doug and Kristin. Wednesday night, while Doug, Kristin, Judy and I enjoyed a lovely pasta dinner, Jamie and her dad hung back to get Jamie's ever-growing boil lanced. She also received some anti-biotics.

Thursday was mostly observation.

Friday Jamie was supposed to go home, but her surgeon showed up, saw the infection was worse than previously believed, and Jamie was scheduled for a surgery for Friday night. The surgery didn't go quite as planned, and they had to do a few extra things, but Jamie came out of it just fine, short a vein in her leg.

Luckily, lots of family around meant that Jamie has had a constant stream of family running around trying to make sure she's okay.

Everybody but Judy has now departed, and tomorrow Jamie is scheduled for a few things. I think she'll be coming home mid-week, which I am really excited about. We just bought a new Christmas tree (yes, fake, darn it!), and we need to find new decorations and a star for the top.

So what was I thankful for this year?

1. Jamie was able to fight off another potentially dangerous illness
2. Family, both here and across the country
3. Modern medicine
4. Doctors, nurses and techs of an excellent caliber at CRH
5. UT's ability to win, even when they're playing like they ate too much turkey
6. The Phoenix Suns, for being an excellent distraction while Jamie is in surgery

Hope everyone had a better Turkey Day than us.

Home for the Holidays?

Well, Mrs. League is home once again.

Last Sunday Jamie went into the hospital with some weird breathing problems. We've had some interesting medical issues here at League HQ over the years, but breathing hadn't yet made the list.

At first I thought Jamie had some sort of upper-respiratory infection, but it went from "a little trouble breathing" to "horrendous wheezing and gasping" pretty quickly. Luckily, when we hit that point we were already in the ER. (And just a quick reiteration, the real world ER is nowhere as romantic or exciting as the one on TV. Mostly you repeat your medical history ten times to ten different people and they look at you sort of blankly. Also, answering lots of insurance questions).

Mad props go out to the doctor who prescribed the upper-throat breathing treatment, because that really, really helped.

Anyhoo, Jamie was moved upstairs into the hospital around 7:00pm, and from there, Jamie's usual doctors got to work. Her blood levels were all out of whack and they needed to keep an eye on her.

Jamie's mom flew in (again) and helped out this week, sleeping in the weird pleather chairs they provide for visitors.

The bottom line is that Jamie is going to go on dialysis (again) and will get on the list for kidney transplant (again). So while we may have taken a step backward from the pheresis treatments Jamie was getting, she's gonna get on the list for a new kidney.

Jamie came home Friday, and we've been trying to just enjoy a little peace and quiet. While the hospital is as nice as they can make it, it's still the hospital, and I think Jamie is happy not to be hanging out with an IV in her arm and electrodes stuck all over her body.

If you have a kidney you aren't currently using, or one which you think you could spare, please put it in an envelope and send to

Jamie's Kidney Bank
1234 Arizona Ave.
Chandler, AZ
85249

We'll be having Jamie's side of the family in this week for Turkey Day, so expect posts to remain infrequent until after the holiday. Lots of prep to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

Anyway, that's the scoop. Hope it explains why things have been so quiet on this end.

Greetings, Leaguers - Mrs. League here. Long time no blog.

So...I get migraines. Recently I've been forced to make numerous trips to our local ER just to get some relief. I bring this up not to seek sympathy but to lay the foundation for my collection of tidbits. Folks, the emergency room is a strange place and the people who occupy it stranger still. Here are some bits and pieces from my recent travels...

TALES FROM THE ER

1) Approximately one half of patients in Chandler, AZ are seeking medical assistance for...kidney stones. No kidding. One in every two visits we are treated to medical personnel informing the person behind the next curtain that "it will pass". *shudder*

2) According to the PA (physician's assistant) in the room next to us last night, "you'd be surprised how many folks come in with bugs in their ears". No, this was not some figure of speech. The woman he was treating had, in fact, arrived with a beetle scratching at her eardrum.

3) If you are an 8 year old with a Lite-Brite bulb stuck up your nose, you will be rushed down the 'Fast Track' hallway.

**with the two above examples, I am seriously considering stuffing a walnut up my nose next time we go in just to see if I can get a room faster.

4) It is perfectly acceptable to treat your 2 year old (who is there to for medical attention I might add) to Diet Pepsi and handfuls of Skittles at 4 a.m.

5) No matter what the programming or what time of day, the volume on the waiting room television is set to 180 decibels. This is especially peaceful in the wee hours of televangelists and infomercials.

6) If you already feel as if you’re going to throw up, Everybody Loves Raymond playing at previously noted decibel level *will* push you that extra mile.

7) Last night we witnessed a parade of around 10 family members of one patient (mostly children of around 10) marching back to their loved one’s treatment area with dinner in hand.

8) It is literally impossible to shock anyone working in the ER. These people have seen everything. You could walk in with a barracuda attached to your forearm and the triage nurse would blandly ask “and how long have you been having this problem?”

9) Bags of McDonald’s can be seen accompanying one out of four waiting room parties. Apparently, the emergency room is a great place for “lovin’” a chocolate shake and fries.

10) It is often impossible to tell which member of the Mickey-D’s group is actually sick. The hospital arm band is the only giveaway for the injured individual. This is especially true with children, and why it is difficult to have patience when these happy tykes get whisked away to treatment before you even see the folks in billing.


I hope I have passed on some useful information should you ever need to visit this magical land.

So, this past week will surely go down in my personal history as The Week of General Annoyance and Chaos.

Returning home from last weekend's wedding, I felt a bit drained. Tuesday by lunch, I pretty much knew I was not going to make it to work on Wednesday (especially when, in the middle of sentences, my throat would sort of quit making noises, and I sounded like someone was turning my personal volume up and down).

Wednesday I stayed home, tried to take it easy, and generally felt pretty lousy.

Thursday I went to work, felt awful, skipped out early and I have no idea what I did or said Monday, Tuesday or Thursday while I was in the office.

Thursday night around 4:30 a.m., Lucy began hacking with a horrible cough. She's a puppy, and, naturally, I totally wigged out. But at the same time, my vet's office doesn't even open until 8:00, and aside from the hacking cough, she seemed fine. "It's Kennel Cough," Jamie and I decided and went back to bed to try to sleep.

At 8:00 I finally got ahold of the vet, got an appointment for 11:30, realized I was still pretty sick, and flopped on the couch.

By 9:30, Lucy was now no longer coughing. She was just hopping about in the yard looking happy as a clam.

At 11:10 I tossed her in the portable kennel and got her to the vet. The only coughing she would do was when she would pull too hard on her collar. "Oh, it's kennel cough," they said. Told me it's viral, sucks to be me, and told me to wait it out. I got an anti-biotic (in case it wasn't viral) and was told to give my puppy robitussin. Seriously.

Lucy hasn't coughed since.

That didn't keep her from crying for no reason at 12:00 Friday night, which got her butt kicked outside until the next morning.

Saturday Jamie got up before me, made pancake batter, woke me up, told me it was pancake time. We had lovely pancakes.

I was still sipping my tea when she leaped up and began cleaning the dishes. After washing and drying the large, class cutting board, she took a sharp left turn from the sink to put the cutting board onto the island and turned directly into the open dishwasher door. This has the effect of putting a massive hole in her leg that was gross and bloody.

To her credit, 1) Jamie put the cutting board down square on the counter. 2) She never yelled, or cried or passed out. And believe me, this gash was worth yelling, crying and passing out about.

Long story short, we lost Saturday at the emergency room while Jamie got sutures in her leg to make sure she didn't unravel like a cheap sweater.

After we got back from the ER, we more or less took it easy.

Last night we saw Kung Fu Hustle, which is, Leaguers, the best entertainment for your dollar in the cinema at this moment. Great action, very funny, and a pretty good story.

I never saw Kill Bill (either Vol. 1 or 2), and I sort of got the feeling that the scenes with Lucy Liu must have lifted bits from Kung Fu Hustle. If anyone has seen both movies, let me know.

The day, today, went fine. Ran some errands. Bought some pants (khaki and olive) and a belt (black, leather, gold finish belt buckle) and an official Amare Stoudemire jersey I found on sale for half off.

And how did this come in handy? Leaguers, Mr. and Mrs. League spent this glorious evening witnessing Game 1 of Round 1 for the Phoenix Suns in the 2005 NBA Play-Offs.

Boo-yah.

The Grizzlies played a good game, but just didn't have it in them to defeat the mighty Phoenix Suns in this game. Game 2 might be another story. Tonight, however, The Suns landed a 114-103 win.

(What the @%$& happened to the Spurs, man? Let me tell you, The Purple Palace went beserk when they heard that score announced.)

Sadly, our seats were surrounded by many more children this time than the previous game, and some sweet, white haired ladies two rows down, so I felt compelled to self-edit before shouting at the refs, Grizzlies, and the Gorilla.

And, before you ask... no, the half-time show was not the Blues Bothers again. But, they did keep a theme of blue. This game had The Blue Man Group at half-time. These guys were actually pretty fun. Unfortunately, nobody will ever get me to pay for Blue Man tickets in the future now that I have seen them more or less for free.

Anyhow, my voice is gone and I'm still in a good mood, despite my otherwise jacked-up week.

Suns in the play-offs. Hurray!

So I may or may not have broken Jamie's hand. Ker-whack.

Nothing like injuring the wife to make yourself feel like a total heel.

We were at the gym and I tossed her a medicine ball. According to some reports, I tossed it too quickly or something. I'm not sure. I thought the speed was okay. Maybe she lacks hand-eye coordination. I cannot say. I do know it was I who threw the ball, and she has the injured hand.

I also know that we spent three or four hours at the ER today listening to the lady in the next room get manually cleared of her terrible constipation.

Look, if I had to listen to the whole ordeal, you have to think about it for a few seconds.

Jamie is doing okay. She needs to go for an additional X-Ray later this week, and then she'll know for certain. In the meantime, she's in a sort of cast/ splint and a sling.

And I feel like a jerk.

Luckily, there was my mom on the other end of the phone, lending her undying love and support.

"What did you do that to her for?"
"Mom, I just tossed her the ball."
"Well, you threw it too hard."
"I didn't throw it too hard, Ma. It was a freak accident."
"Why weren't you being more careful?"
"I was being careful. It was an accident."
"It doesn't sound to me like you were being careful."
"I was."
"Well, Jamie can't catch a ball like that. What kind of ball was this?"
"It was a medicine ball."
"I never heard of such a thing. Why were you throwing it at her?"
"Because my trainer told me to. We were like five feet apart."
"It sounds like you weren't being careful."

Sigh.

So, admittedly, I flipped out today.

I had planned to take the day off from work as my employing university is currently enjoying Spring Break. So, Monday I sat and stared at my hands all day, cleaned my desk and desk area, ate some lunch, blogged some and kind of spaced out.

By 4:00 I didn;t think I'd be coming into work, so I kept saying "Shhheeeeeyooot, I do not think I'm coming in tomorrow."

See, I have a school project to do which I haven't done either jack or shit on, and I really need to get rolling. So I was to stay home today and work on it, and maybe run out and do some stuff I can't usually do when Jamie tags along. I had a full day of nuthin' planned.

At 7:00-something, Jamie, ignorant of my plan, shook me and asked if I was going to work. "Nope!" I barked and fell back asleep. A moment later she shook me again.
"I'm going to drive myself to the ER."
roughly translated that means: Hey, chubby, I'm about to spew chunks from my migraine. Get your lazy ass out of bed and get me to the ER.

Jamie's medical history, in brief:

1992: bops head on ice while skating
1992: diagnosed with FSGS, a nasty kidney disease
1993: has jaw surgery, changes identities
1993: begins college, sleeps most of time, avoids drunken League at party as he tries to pick up future Mrs. League
1994: kidney transplant
1995: League bags future Mrs. League
1996: first trip to hospital with Jamie. Much confusion. Delighted to discover chairs fold out into beds. With free food from hospital, League doesn't get up for two days.
1997: Jamie in hospital repeatedly, goofy Christmas in San Antonio, Plasma pheseris is weird and reminds League of reel to reel player
1998: cohabitation, Jamie sick with alarming frequency from migraines
1999: Jamie being sick old hat for League.
1999: DIALYSIS. Jamie gets up at 4:30 am to go. Must never drink too much soda. Perplexes League.
1999: Heart attack? When the hell did she have a heart attack? Weird...
2000: Wedding. Spend good deal of time of honeymoon reading National Geographic in waiting room of Dialysis clinic in Orlando. Jamie is trooper and allows multiple rides on Space Mountain.
2001: New kidney for Jamie. Transplant is exciting. Forced three weeks off work. Get opportunity to read all of Kavalier and Clay while at home. Grow to resent Montel Williams.
2001: Jamie loses job. God bless Medicare.
2002: Arizona?

In between the major events, we've just had her migraines to deal with, which hasn't been much fun. I suspect the heart attack occured during 1998 when she was getting sick from them a lot. It's called a "silent heart attack" when you never knew you had one. A Dr. McMinn just mentioned it in passing after an EKG.
"So, you know, because of the previous heart attack, you're going to want to be careful..."
"Previous what attack?"
But there was a time we were doing this so often, I got kind of casual about it and the one time I left Jamie at the ER so I could (look, you can't hate me for this) go home and get some shut eye, she came home in a cab, bright pink like an easter egg.
"What happened to you?"
"They gave me something new. I'm allergic. I itch inside my skin."
"Well I'll be dipped."

So this morning was trip number 40 or so to the ER for this business. And we were in and out in a few hours and Jamie is fine.

But I left her to sleep and went and ran my preplanned errands and wound up at Best Buy. Where I bought a ton of CDs, because I realized that I had been telling myself for ten years I was going to replace some of these from tape, or others were albums which disappeared, or just records friends used to have.

So screw it. I am now the proud owner of Public Enemy's Greatest Hits.

I've been having foot problems since I moved out here. Actually, I remember the first outbreak by date (9.11.02) as I sat in the ER watching Bush on TV as he landed at Ground Zero in New York. Anyhoo, it's come back several times since. It's always something that just pops up first thing in the morning when I jump out of bed, and there's no common thread to any particular activity.

I assumed these were TaeKwonDo injuries from my days of doling out boots to the head. I suffered from what was probably the same symptom when I was in TaeKwonDo, but like a good little TaeKwonDo trooper, I went to class anyway and sucked it up. A little adrenalin usually helped me get through doing exercises I knew probably weren't very good for me.

Symptoms cropped up again yesterday morning and were so bad by this morning when I woke, I sought out a doctor. BTW, the CIGNA Healtchare website is extremely useless. Thanks, CIGNA. Could not even find my randomly assigned PCP in the phonebook, let alone on their site. But I wanted to see a doctor as last night I garnered some new information about the hurty toe. See, about a month ago my brother came down with a similar ailment, and because he does not fear and loathe doctors, he actually sought medical help.

Turns out we share a common genetic problem. We're both prone to The Gout. Apparently little crystals of uric acid build up in your blood stream and make your foot hurt like a mother. According to this description, it also probably wouldn't occur if I weren't a fatty.

Sigh. At any rate, the painkiller I was given to keep me from gnawing off my own toe knocked my butt out for most of today. I was calmly eating an early lunch so I could take my pills, and suddenly I was woken by a 1:30 phone call from my lovely wife. Ay carumba.

Stupid gout, I hate you. You make my toe hurt and remind me of my unhealthy lifestyle.