A few weeks ago in the store, a family of three was across from me in the aisle, and the wife asked where the Shake N Bake was. The man quoted from the old commercial, “It’s Shake N Bake, and I helped!” The wife and 10-or-so-year-old son looked at him like he was crazy, and then he saw me smiling and said, “She remembers!” I’m glad I could help vouch for his sanity with his family. 🙂

Am I the only person in the world who is nauseated by the scent of lilacs? I was delighted to learn that one of our bushes outside was a lilac bush a few years ago, and cut off some for a vase inside – but had to throw them out. Someone recently gave us a flower arrangement with a few lilacs in it, and first I had to put it in another room but eventually had to pull them out of the arrangement and throw them away. I was so disappointed.

I was telling my husband there needs to be a word or phrase, something like “friendly fire,” for problems you pick up at the hospital that aren’t directly related to your original issue. Like bruises from ivs and blood draws – I always look a little beaten up after a hospital stay. I also have an  allergic reactions to some adhesives, but this time was the worst ever with the dressings plus some patches on my back. With this surgery they have a more extensive kind of heart monitor, and I had three big (four-inch across) patches on my back for that plus the outline of a pad of some kind I must have been lying on that all left itchy welts (I called them my crop circles). We’ve been using lots of Benadryl cream! Then, I had been on my back for so long, and my bottom took the brunt of that pressure, so that my sciatic nerve got irritated or inflamed or something, making it extremely painful to sit down for the first few days. Thankfully all of that is much better now.

So it hasn’t been the cozy, restful recovery I was anticipating. 🙂 I’ve been doing more sleeping than reading, which is probably for the best. Years ago when I had my first surgery, Jim came across an article about an experiment in which they put healthy, fit football players under anesthesia to measure the effects of the anesthesia itself without an underlying illness, and it showed that it took about six weeks just to get back to normal from having that in their system.

Monday night I had a scare with an episode of afib that lasted about 7 hours. I had been told that the ablation itself could cause some arrhythmia, just from all the poking around they did in there, and it takes about a month for all of that to heal and settle down. I had been feeling some ripples and spasms and am on a couple of anti-arrhythmia meds, but when this went on and on, I was discouraged that the surgery hadn’t worked (I was told sometimes they have to do it twice). I wanted to go to the ER, but my husband felt we needed to talk to my doctor directly – with having just had surgery, there might be something they’re supposed to do or not do. Everything resolved by morning, and when I finally heard back from my doctor’s nurse, she reassured me that this was normal and didn’t mean the surgery wasn’t successful. So I was still a little dismayed that it happened but not as much as I had been.

But otherwise I do feel I’m gaining back strength and getting a little more back to normal every day.

July 27 was my eleven-year blog anniversary. Usually I mention that in a special post and sometimes even have a giveaway, but this year it completely slipped my mind until WordPress sent me a notice. I guess I was a little distracted with the upcoming surgery. 🙂 It’s interesting how the blog world has changed over the last decade. I miss some old blog friends who are no longer online. But I am extremely thankful for you who are reading! I’ve made some lifelong friends online! I’m still amazed that people read here, but I am grateful, and your care and comments mean the world to me. Thank you.

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I mentioned last week that I was going in for an atrial ablation to try to fix my atrial fibrillation. That was yesterday morning. Everything went well, and God helped me have peace beforehand.

I did have one setback in the hospital. They don’t stitch the little incisions they make when they thread their instruments from the groin area to the heart. You have to lie flat on your back for 6 hours so that they can heal. But when they had me stand up for the first time, one of the incisions started pouring blood – so I had to lay back down while they put pressure on it for several minutes and stay flat again for several more hours. So – that was no fun. But when they had me get up the second time, everything was fine.

Jim’s off the rest of the week, and he is a wonderful caregiver. Jason and Mittu brought over three meals, so we’re set for dinners for a few days. I am looking forward to reading and relaxing and maybe watching some TV along the way while I recuperate. 🙂

Thanks so much for your prayers and your notes!

Some of you who have read here for a long while may remember that I’ve had bouts with irregular rapid heartbeats for a number of years. At first I was diagnosed with SVTs, supraventricular tachycardia, with sudden jumps to 200 beats a minute that wouldn’t go back to normal without an ER visit. The last few years the symptoms have changed to smaller versions of palpitations with my heart feeling like it’s vibrating or quivering, usually for just a few seconds at a time, but sometimes longer. When I first shared this with my doctor, he said that it’s not unusual for “middle-aged” women to experience palpitations. But when they seemed to be increasing, I spoke to him again, and he sent me to a cardiologist. They had me wear a monitor for a couple of days and I was again diagnosed with SVTs.

From the beginning they mentioned a surgery called an ablation in with they go in through the blood vessels in the groin to the heart and “zap” the nerves causing the problem. I learned later that what they actually do is burn very, very small areas to create scar tissue to disrupt the nerve signals. I didn’t want to do anything invasive at first and tried to control it with medication, but it was getting so bothersome I finally decided to have it a couple of years ago. Some of you may remember my profound disappointment when, after putting off this surgery for years and looking forward to finally fixing the problem, they were not able to complete the procedure. With an SVT ablation they do an EP study of the heart first (for which I was awake – no fun), and that showed not SVTs but atrial problems, which required a different kind of procedure, which they evidently couldn’t do while they were in there. I distinctly remember being told that the other procedure was more risky and they only did it if the patient was at a higher risk by having diabetes and blood pressure problems, but I was later told that was a misunderstanding.

I was told that the atrial tachycardia carried a higher risk of blood clots, so I was put on a full dose of aspirin. I didn’t seriously consider an ablation for this because of my understanding that it would be riskier.

Then in June I had a bout of atrial fibrillation that lasted 13 hours and ended up spending the night in the ER. At the follow-up visit with my cardiologist, when he brought up the possibility of an ablation, I brought up what he had told me about it being riskier. He said that somehow we had miscommunicated on that and it’s actually better to do it without the risks of diabetes and high blood pressure. He said that one good thing about the ER visit was that it documented the afib: when the previous attempted ablation left me in afib, they weren’t sure it wasn’t triggered by something they did while they were in my heart. So the EKG readings they did while I was in the ER confirmed that this is what I have. He wants to do a cryoablation which uses cold rather than heat.

I wrestled a couple of days with whether to go through with this kind of ablation. They always have to tell you the worst possible scenarios (damaging the heart unintentionally, blood clots, even death. Yikes!) But that long afib event in the ER with its own possibility of causing blood clots scared me. I figured if there was a risk without having surgery and a risk with surgery, the better course would be to have the surgery and fix the problem.

So that is scheduled for next week. I’m purposefully not naming the date here because I don’t want it generally known when I won’t be home – even though it probably wouldn’t be a problem, you never know who is reading what’s online. 🙂 If you’re someone I have communicated with previously and you’d like to know, feel free to email me.

I was telling a friend on Sunday that there’s a song I hear on the radio sometimes that says something like, “If your heart keeps right, if your heart keeps right, there is joy and gladness in the darkest night.” My mind has been converting that to, “If your heart beats right…” 🙂 I am praying that this procedure will indeed help my heart “beat right.”

I you feel led to pray, I have some specific prayer requests:

1. That this date will stick if it is God’s will. It was rescheduled by the doctor’s office once already, and that involves my husband having to rearrange his time off and rearranging care for his mom – besides prolonging everything.
2. That this procedure will fix the problem this time.
3. They said some people have to have the procedure done twice. Please pray that it will get taken care of with just the one.
4. I have to go off the medications that we’re trying to keep this in control with five days ahead of the procedure, so please pray that I won’t have any serious afib (or blood clots!) during that time. One wrinkle here is that when I was in the ER, one of the medications they used was something that stays in your system for a couple of weeks, and my cardiologist said they couldn’t do the surgery while that was in my system. So not only do I really not want to go through another ER experience, I don’t want that to cause a push back for the surgery.
5. That I won’t have any blood clots or negative side effects.
6. That everything will go well with my husband’s mom at home. Though we have a hospital just minutes from us, the one we have to go to is 30 minutes away. At the closer hospital it’s easier for Jim to just run home for a few minutes and check on things or turn her or whatever. All of her needs should be covered and she’ll have someone with her at all times, but just pray that all goes well with her.
7. That God will give me a calm and peaceful heart, mind, and spirit about it all.

So far I am approaching it much more calmly than I did the last procedure, though I do have moments of “nerves” about it all. It’s like when you have to give a speech, and you’re as prepared as you can be and have given it all over to the Lord, but you still have that butterflies in the stomach feeling. I just keep giving it back to the Lord and reminding myself that He is in control and reminding myself of several people who have told me their dad/uncle/grandfather/friend/etc. has had this with no problems.Last time I was greatly helped by reading Running Scared: Fear, Worry, and the God of Rest  by Ed Welch in the time leading up to the procedure – I may look back over my notes or over passages from that this time.

I’ll have to be in the hospital overnight and avoid lifting or anything “strenuous” for several days. Jim is taking off the day of the procedure and a few days following. I’m getting some housework done ahead of time, both to keep myself and my thoughts occupied and also so hopefully nothing will be needed besides the everyday meals and dishwashing.

That’s probably much more than you wanted to know. 🙂

I appreciate your concern and interest and especially your prayers. I’ll let you know when it’s over and how it went.

The last time I did a post like this, someone suggested I should make it a regular feature, especially considering my blog name. 🙂 I don’t know if it will be a regular feature, but it will probably be an occasional one. So here are some of the things running through my brain lately, from the trivial to the more serious:

• Have you seen those pans for brownies or bar cookies that look like a maze and are designed so that all the pieces come out like edge pieces? The edge pieces are my least favorite – mine tend to get much harder than the middle. But I guess some people like crunchy brownies – or are better bakers than I am and don’t get the outside edges too hard.

• I have set up a Facebook page for the blog here for those who prefer to follow that way. Every time I post here the link automatically shows up there.

• I’m working on a poll about blogging that I hope to have up in the next week or two.

• Have you seen that there is a trend now to stop capitalizing pronouns referring to God? This post explains some of the reasons for it. I admit the middle part of it is too technical for me, but I do understand some reasons for it: those pronouns are not capitalized in the original manuscripts and even some of the oldest translations, like the KJV, don’t capitalize pronouns referring to God. Still, it has been a tradition for years, one that many people (myself included) see as respectful of God. And I think it does help clarify a sentence to have He vs. he (especially if you’re referring to another he and him in the same sentence). It’s not a hill to die on, but I hate to see it changed.

• One day last week I was trying to get something done on the computer while doing laundry, and I was getting aggravated at having to get up every 30-40 minutes to change loads. Then I got ashamed of myself. We have about the easiest way to do laundry of anyone in the world. A day or two later I saw photos on Facebook from a group in our church on a short-term medical mission trip to another country. They’re in an area of dire poverty where whole families live in the city dump. I’m sure the people love to have access just to clean water. A washing machine and dryer would seem like pure luxury to them. So while it would probably help to rearrange my tasks so that I am not doing something require a steady train of thought on laundry day, I hope I remember to count my blessings.

• I think I have mentioned that I have a medical procedure coming up called an ablation which is supposed to take care of the atrial fibrillation I’ve been experiencing. It was originally supposed to be next week, but Monday I got a call from the doctor’s office that they needed to move it back into August. I was so disappointed. I’ve been counting down the days to getting the procedure itself over with, not to mention being relieved of the afib. I don’t know if doctor’s offices realize what it means to a patient when this happens – not just the disappointment and living more days with a condition that needs surgery, but rearranging of days off for Jim and care for my mother-in-law. I know it can’t be helped sometimes, and I’m reminding myself that ultimately God is in control and there may be a good reason I shouldn’t be in surgery on the original day.

• This is the latest card I’ve made, this one for Jim’s mom’s birthday earlier in the month.

I hadn’t originally intended to use both the rickrack and the lace trims. I put the rickrack on first, and it was thin enough that the plaid could be seen through it, and I just didn’t like how it came out. But I didn’t want to take it up and risk tearing the paper underneath. So I was going to put the lace one over it, but it wasn’t quite big enough to cover it completely. In fiddling with it I got the idea to layer them a bit, and I really liked how that turned out. The yellow and white scalloped circles were done with two different hole punches.

• Speaking of Jim’s mom, some of you have said that you like to hear how she’s doing from time to time. There have not been any major changes, but we continue to see a gradual decline. Her hands have been contracted for some time, and though her caregiver keeps her fingernails cut short, now we have to keep a small sock rolled up under her fingers so that her fingernails don’t dig into her palms. One finger is contracted to the side and looks like it would be painful, but the only time it seems to bother her is when it is washed. She was having physical therapy for this a few years ago, but it was all pain and no gain, so it was discontinued. In addition, the times when we can tell from her eyes that she recognizes us and is following what we’re saying is less and less. It’s heartbreaking to watch in many ways. Jim has described it as watching someone die one brain cell at a time. But she seems calm and content, and we’re trying to keep her as comfortable as possible until God takes her home.

That’s about it for now. Yesterday I enjoyed lunch with Melanie downtown, but I’ll say more about that on tomorrow’s Friday’s Fave Five.

These are some of the random things crossing my mind this week:

I don’t remember which Jane Austen book I was looking up or why I was looking it up in the first place, but in the comments section of it either at Goodreads or Amazon, someone wrote, “I’ve seen all her movies!” That struck me funny – as if she were a movie star rather than an author.

In my Things You Might Not Know About Me post a while back, I forgot to mention a major one: I can’t type. At least, not like you’re supposed to. Somehow I never had a class in it. I developed my own method (using only 2-4 fingers), and it is so ingrained now that I don’t think I could learn the right way. When my husband and I were dating in college, most girlfriends typed their boyfriend’s papers, but in our relationship, he offered to type mine. I also make tons of mistakes and hate when that shows up in my writing, making me look ignorant. I know how to spell – just not how to type. I try to let most of my writing sit a bit and come back and check it later before publicizing it so I can catch more typos that way.

We were watching America’s Got Talent one night, and whenever the “danger” acts come on, someone always says, “Don’t try this at home.” Recently I thought, “But…all these people started out by trying this at home.” Nevertheless..don’t try this at home! Those acts are not my favorite anyway – I don’t enjoy seeing people risk life and limb for entertainment.

Dontcha hate when someone calls and then doesn’t leave a message?

It seems that one of the current decorating trends is open shelving in the kitchen. Am I the only one who doesn’t like it? It just seems busy to me, plus the shelves would be constant dust magnets. I’m not a big fan of subway tiling, either – that also looks too busy to me. I’m not a fan of tile in general: the times we have had it, keeping the grout clean was a major frustration. I wonder if I’d be thought of as the “difficult” client in those shows. 🙂

When people talk about having accountability partners, it seems to me that it’s easy for that to cross over into doing things because you know you’re going to have to face that partner about it rather than doing it as unto the Lord (Ephesians 6:5b-7: “in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.”) I’ve heard people say things like that. For instance, a friend who was memorizing verses with another friend mentioned that she needed to work on her verses so she wouldn’t be ashamed when it was time to say them to her friend. I do think the Bible teaches that as Christian brothers and sisters, we’re accountable to each other, but personally I don’t know if these partnerships are the best way to work that out. I know that they seem to be a help to many, so there are probably ways to do it with a right focus.

Mittu asked me recently what I had on my “bucket list, which, if you’re not familiar with the term, is a list of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket.” I had to think about it. I don’t travel well, so going exploring and seeing sites aren’t on my ideal list of things to do. The only two places I can think of that I’d like to see some day are the “Anne of Green Gables” house in Prince Edward Isle and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Rocky Ridge farm, her last home. But I don’t want to see either of them enough to make the effort at this point. I’d also like to visit where my son lives in RI some day. We were just talking about that last night. My one overarching thing I would like to do is write a book. Or two. I thought when all the kids graduated and the busy school years were over, there would be time for more writing. Not so far, at least not in wide open swatches like I thought there would be. So I struggle with how to arrange my time and whether that desire is from the Lord or a personal ambition. Most of the things I’d like to do someday involve learning something: how to play the piano or cello, how to quilt, how to use Photoshop, taking voice lessons. Except for Photoshop, I don’t know if I’ll ever delve into those. I have often thought that the practice it would take to be able to play music enough to enjoy it would probably be more than I want to put into it at this stage. That’s another aspect of “middle age” that I should have mentioned in a recent post: when you know you only have so much time left, you become selective about how you it. But I do want to keep challenging myself and my brain with new things, and from time to time I do entertain thoughts on those possibilities. For now, most of my ambitions are quiet ones: finishing some of the projects that are in the back of my mind to do, spending time with loved ones, reading, blogging, etc.

How about you? Do you have any burning ambitions to pursue with the rest of your time on Earth?

…is not a very restful one.

Some of you may remember that I have some heart rhythm problems, originally diagnosed as supraventricular tachycardia, but a couple of years ago was changed to atrial fibrillation (or maybe I’ve had both – I have never gotten a straight answer on that). Anyway, the afib feels like heart palpitations, or vibrating or quivering or jumpiness, then usually goes back to normal within a few seconds or minutes at most. But Friday afternoon it started up – and kept on. By the time Jim came home from work, it had been going on a couple of hours, so we went straight to the ER.

When I was having SVTs, the ER would give me a dose of adenosine which, I was told, stops the heart for just a second. It feels like you’ve been kicked in the chest, but it “resets” the heart to a normal rhythm. Then I’d have to stay under observation for a couple of hours to make sure everything was stable before I was released.

With afib, however, they don’t use adenosine. They said they had to try to bring down my heart rate slowly, making sure my blood pressure didn’t go too low, especially with one of the drugs they tried. They tried 2 or 3 before going to this last one, which required an iv drip that took six hours to run. Because I needed to be monitored while on it, I had to stay in the ER. They did bring in an actual hospital bed, which was much more comfortable than the ER bed.

It ended up taking 13 hours all together before my heart rate “converted” back to a normal rhythm, and then I had to stay a few more hours to make sure everything was ok, so I was there about 18 hours altogether.

The hardest thing was being so sleepy, but just about the time we drifted off, something would beep or some noise would happen. I was going to take a nap when we got home (after a good shower!), but that kept happening then, too. Well, not beeping, but something or someone making a noise that woke me up. But maybe that’s just as well — maybe I’ll sleep better tonight.

Anyway, all is well now. I have to follow up with my cardiologist and primary care doctor in the next few days and discuss whether to change or adjust medications.

As far as ER visits go, this one went well – except for not being able to sleep and my heart rate taking so long to convert. The RN was probably the best nurse I’ve ever had, as far as explaining things, answering questions, being attentive, etc. I hadn’t eaten anything since about 3 p.m. Friday afternoon, and around 5:30 a.m., he scrounged up some turkey sandwiches, soft drinks, graham crackers, and animal crackers for us. I told Jim we could pretend like we were having a picnic. 🙂 Not quite the atmosphere for a romantic get-away, though. 🙂

Jim’s mom’s caregiver was able to come feed her dinner and get her ready for bed, and the rest of the time, while she was just sleeping, Jesse kept an eye on her with the monitor. We have another monitor also that works through a camera in her room and an app on our phone, so Jim could look in on her through the night. Thankfully the hospital is near where we live, so he could run home in the middle of the night to turn her over and then in the morning to make her breakfast before her caregiver came again. Then we were back home before her caregiver had to leave.

One frustration with the whole scenario is that it feels like a colossal waste of time. But I trust God has some purpose in it. Now I am praying for wisdom about what, if anything, we need to change in how we treat it. I’m going to do some research on the new drug they sent me home with before I see the doctor next week.

And that’s how my weekend has gone so far. 🙂