Birthdays and Heart Caths

I have been checking the poll results on the side of my page and it seems that most of all 5 of my readers want more updates and for some odd reason I hate updating! Maybe because I am not an articulate person, I don't like typing or because I don't like to re-hash all of my doctors visits. I don't know. Oh, for the one person that wants more pictures, until I get my comp back in working order I won't be posting any.....yet.

On April 7th I went with my parents and Quintin to a very full day of information overload. I saw the transplant nurse Emily, a pharmacist, a financial advisor, a dietitian and a social worker. They each had to talk to me and give me a list of what will happen during the wait and after the transplant. After 7 hours of the 411 and another half hour in the lab giving more blood, we were finally released and went straight to the Outback Steakhouse for my pre-birthday dinner and a little relaxing. It was very little relaxing because our heads were still buzzing. I was very overwhelmed that night (nothing new there).

The next morning I woke up and instantly started thinking of everything I was told again but thanks to cute Quintin that didn't last long. He told me to hurry up and get ready because my birthday day was about to start. He took me to IHop for breakfast and I had some delicious Swedish crepes, Yum. He than took me to Thanksgiving Point to the dino museum but there were so many little kids there that we didn't really want to be the only adults there with out a stroller or a kid on a leash, so we left and went to Boondocks HAHA. There we played arcade games, rode the go-karts, went on a roller coaster simulator twice and played mini golf. We had a good time but I was so tired that I wanted a nap. I didn't get one because after we ate at Taco Bell (my choice) we went to see the cute movie How to Train Your Dragon. I was extremely wiped after that so we went home instead of going to dinner and Quintin ordered a pizza for me :)

The next night my friend Mel threw a B-day party for me at Fat Cats. It was so fun to see my friends and some that I haven't seen for years. It was so much fun and I love all of my friends!! After a dinner of even more pizza (I love pizza), our fantastic waitress Vicky got us 2 free lanes and shoes for bowling. I think this oxygen gets me some fun stuff :) I was ok for the first game but during the second game the ball got heavier and heavier and my enthusiasm was lower and lower, I still beat all 5 of the other players though :) Thank you Mel, Neighbor Dustin, Quintin, Lindsy, Shane, Justin, Chelsea, Sam, Jeff, Becky, and Pete for making my party so great!

Back to the medical stuff, I was told that I needed to get a CT scan to check out the tumor in my back, and also to make sure all of my teeth were good (watching out for bacterias and infections). I went to the dentist thinking that my candy addiction must have ruined all of my teeth but it didn't I only had one cavity and one filling repair. I didn't need any injections (tender mercy).

I had my CT scan done with the results that I don't have a tumor (tender mercy)! I guess it is just fatty tissue and not anything serious, I hate to have fatty tissue anywhere on me but in this case it is good!

Yesterday was my cath. The night before I recieved the sweetest blessing from Quintin that I would be at peace amoungst other things and it worked all day yesterday I was feeling peaceful all day even in the cath lab (tender mercy)! We got up at 5am and the cath started at 8am. I talked to my doctors beforehand. Dr Book the gastroenterologist and Dr Cowley the cath Dr. Dr Book was going to do a GI scope to check the condition of my esophagus and stomach, so she briefly went over that and then Dr Cowley came in to talk about the cath but all that I could think about was that he looked like Matthew Broderick, I told him so and he said that people have said that before. My mind has a tendency to wander when I am talking to Drs. I went into the cath lab, they got me on the table and I noticed the peace come over me as I laid there talking to the nurses. They asked me about Australia and I started talking about the cockatoos and the wallabies and then I felt a buzzy buzz in my head, the anesthesiologist looked at me as I said "Hey you just gave me something didn't you." He just said yes and laughed. So I started to talk faster to the nurses "We were in the rain forest right next to the beach, I was able to rehabilitate and bottle feed baby joeys and bats and even....." that's all I remember.

I woke up to a camera in my face as Quintin documented my day. I will have to put up that video when my computer starts to work. My throat hurt and my back hurt. I was told by my parents that my pacemaker stopped working when I was put under but it was up and running again, that the GI scope found that I had a pretty funky esophagus the closer to my stomach they got, some enlarged veins and bleeding in my stomach. I thought "meh" and went back to sleep. Later when I was much more awake I learned that I also have a hiatal hernia and that the cath was not that invasive, Dr Cowley found a vein that bypassed my lungs but if he closed it off it would make me have higher pressure and get much worse so he left it. Luckily the bleeding stomach can be controlled with prilosec (tender mercy). Dr Everitt my transplant cardiologist came in later to discuss the GI findings and said that there looked like some pre-cancerous conditions in my esophagus, I have a weird sense of humor, I started laughing and said that it would be hilarious if I died of cancer. I guess you had to be there, or high like I still kinda was. They discounted that it was pre-cancerous (tender mercy). My liver however may not recover even after a heart transplant due due to the damage done to my liver and my age. I however have a tendency to prove Drs wrong so I hope that also happens in this case.

So here I sit with a huge bandaid on my leg and a holter moniter stuck to my chest making sure that my pacer is behaving itself. I get to take both bandaid and holter off in an hour, YAY!

I learned that I will have to be away from big public places when I go on the list, or at least when they aren't that busy. I had to turn down a calling for a primary teacher because kids are icky and germy. Also the worst news by far is that I can't go on any rides when I am in California so Disneyland is out :( boo hoo. We leave on Sunday for a week and then I will be going to another Dr. appointment when I get back to check my liver out more.

Love you all thanks for your prayers and support, you don't realize how much that lifts me up!

Holly