Alicia's headaches are becoming my headaches

Well it's been awhile since I made a post. I'm having a good night at work, everyone is sleeping. My little night owl was awake when I came at 12:00 am but he fell asleep shortly after that. Hopefully he will stay that way.
At home things are about the same. Friday I took Alicia to see Jodi. She is the PA that has been seeing her for her migraine headaches, she decided to try her on some migraine medication. Imitrex (Spelling?) I thought finally trying something new, this is good. Well she was suppose to go to work at 5:00 and she went in to take a shower about 4:00 and came out said that her heart was pounding. Checked her pulse Yup it was 120. OK so we read the paper that came with the medicine and it says should not take if you suffer from any heart problems. Well we thought her heart problems were under control, I guess maybe not.

I called the clinic and they said to bring her right in. They hooked her up to a monitor to see what her heart was doing. Then we sat in the room. A nurse came in checked her blood pressure and it was 85/46 with a pulse of 107. Earlier that morning it was 146/84. So then the Doctor (one that we have never seen before and I can't remember his name) came in asked her where it hurt. (she was also complaining of chest pain) He put her through a few things and said does it hurt now? As he pressed on her chest. No. Does it hurt when I do this? Her face is all contorted, Yes. What about when I do this? Yes. Then he said your pain is not from your heart. You can't take the Imitrex and since most of the migraine medications are made with the same ingredients you won't be able to take most of them. Then he left. The nurse came back in gave her some of the same medication she had when she was having heart problems before, and later gave her a shot for her headache which had not gone away. They took her BP again and it was 96/55. She asked about going to work and he said sure no reason you can't there is nothing wrong with you. Huh? Did we hear right? There is nothing wrong with her? Ahhh... OK... Whatever. Then they sent her home. She still has a headache mind you. But no Drs. Excuse this time, Ah yeah there's nothing wrong with her.

She called work and told them she wouldn't be in. They didn't like it but what can you do? One of her manager told her to see Jodi and get an excuse for Friday. Later when she called to ask about her schedule they told her she is not on the schedule but that when ever she feels like it she can come in to work. What??? Yes you read it right. They said she will not be on the schedule but that she can just show up when ever she feels like it. So I guess she still has a job at Mc Donalds but she only has to work when she feels like it. Have you ever heard of such a thing????? My guess is that they can't fire her because she has always had an excuse from the Dr. And if they don't put her on the schedule and she doesn't ever come in then they can fire her ass. Well she went into work today from 4:00 to 9:00. I didn't get a chance to talk to her yet, so I don't know how it worked out. I guess that will be on my next blogg. Oh and she has an appointment to see Jodi again tomorrow morning. So long for now.

Happy Valentine's Day (:

I am so proud of myself. I have been trying to put a visitors counter on my blogg for a month now and after several attempts I finally did it!!! :) pretty cool huh? Wait a minute... is it suppose to be on there after every post??


Dwight and I went out to the Ranch with Pat and Dave, for supper Saturday evening. It was our Valentine's meal. Pat and Dave are now proud grandparents for the first time. Their oldest daughter Christy had a beautiful baby girl last week. You can see a picture of Morgan at http://www.innovishealth.com/nursery_frameset.html she was 6 pounds and I think 19"
long. A real keeper. Anything over 3 lbs is, LOL right April? Christy had the same problem that I had when you were born (pre-ecalmpsia), and needed to have her by c-section. They tried to induce her first but it wasn't working. She had her in Fargo (which is where they live). So of course we got to see pictures, they were really nice. Good company and good food and good conversation. It's nice to reconnect with old friends. We use to see each other frequently before our children were born, then like Pat says we drifted apart to raise our families, now that our children are all grown up we have more time to spend with each other.


There is this cheese dip that I use to make all the time for special occasions like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthdays etc. Well you get the point. Well a couple of years ago Kraft stopped selling the one of the main ingredients 3 oz cans of finally grated American cheese. After years of looking I have finally found the perfect replacement for it. Can you believe it April?? I made it this weekend and it turned out just great. You will never believe what I did to make this dip. I had some boxes of cheese macaroni and used the macaroni for a hotdish so I had some of the dry cheese mixture left, I was trying to figure out what I could use it for and it hit me! Why didn't I think of it before?? It is the same thing I use to buy for the cheese dip. So I bought 3 boxes of cheese macaroni and used the cheese packets for the dip. It tasted exactly the way we remembered it. I wish I could say we saved some for you April, but it was soooooooooooo good. I will try to make it some time when you come home for a visit.

Last week was a good week at work. All the students slept. It was a first time for one of the boys. He did wake up one time two of the nights but always went back to his room after a drink of water or a trip to the bathroom. Before he would wake up anytime between 1:30 or 3:30 and not go back to sleep until the next evening. So it was great that he was able to sleep. I told him I was so proud of him and you can see it in his face that he is proud of himself too. He is such a nice kid, he just had trouble staying asleep at night and nothing seemed to help. His parents have been taking him to see a Dr. Last week they tried something new, a patch that goes on and stays on for 1 week. Not sure the name of the drug, but it appears to be working. He was out at 2:00 am tonight but after a drink of water went right back to bed. I hope it keeps working for his sake cause I'm sure he is doing better in school when he is getting more than 2 or 3 hours of sleep. Well enough for tonight. Wow I was quite windy today.

April this is for you and your blog you typed yesterday.  

April guess who?? 

This is me not the best picture but I have a lot more that look worse.Just want to make sure I still know how to do this. 

Alicia has Migraine headaches.

Alicia and I went to see a neurologist for her headaches. He told us that he can definitely say that she has no underling cause for her headaches such as tumors or diseases. Which is good. He also said there is no doubt that she is experiencing Migraine headaches. That there is no possible way to prove it but several ways she could lessen the severity. Such as going to bed the same time every night, getting up the same time each day, eat sensibility (Like eat 3 small meals daily and not one or two big ones.) She was told to only take medications such as Tylenol or Ibuprophen no more than 2 times in one week. To prevent over use of analgesic (pain medicine) which can also cause headaches. Great huh? Well I don't know how much of that she is actually going to do but she kinda got off on the wrong foot by staying up late watching videos last night. But she doesn't have to work today and she is 18 so what can you expect we all do it from time to time right? He also has put her on Amitriptyline which is been use for a long time to treat migraine headaches. She will take it once a day at bed time. It should also help her sleep better. So cross your fingers and hope that it helps. April maybe you could try using some of these same ideas. can't hurt to try.

We saw April for a little bit, she was working and didn't have a lot of time for us. We called her at 6:25 and offered to feed her, but Kevin was in town and he ranks much higher on her VIP list then we do. Which we fully understand. April saw the Dr. Yesterday too. She has an ear infection Hope you are feeling better soon.

Oh and by the way...

If anyone talks to Alicia and she tells you that I almost kill her and myself because of my driving in GF don't listen to her. She doesn't know what she is talking about. Ok I admit I missed 2 stop signs, but we were kinda out of town and there were no other cars in sight. I was looking for landmarks. And if she says we got lost. No we didn't get lost we just missed a turn and we were heading towards Fargo for a couple of blocks, instead of DL. Never did we not know where we were, or how to get back on track. After all that she said, she would drive and we did almost die when she was driving cuz she almost turned into the wrong lane and we almost hit a car!! Well that's all I wanted to say. I thought I would tell it like it was, before anyone got her exaggerated version. Till next time...

My Art

My daughter, April suggested that I display some of my art, thought sure why not. So here are some that I drew a few years ago. I thought about how long it had been since I sat down and tried to draw something. So I got out my sketch pad blew off the dust and I will give it another shot. Hard to say how long it will be before I am satisfied with any thing... for I am my own worse critic. Sometimes I draw from photos and sometimes I just draw whatever, which I like the best because I don't have anything to compare it with, and you can't really make mistakes that way. Well it's almost bed time and I have some phone calls to make before I can do that so good night all.

April 

Happy Baby 

bulldog 

Multiple sclerosis

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It's been so long.

I realize that I have been neglecting my blog but I have been busy. A week ago Monday I took a spill down our outside stairs, twisted my ankle and scraped up my knee. Well after limping around for a week I had an appointment to see a PA for blood work up and I showed her my ankle and got it x-rayed. No fractures but she thought it was a bad enough sprain and put me in an air cast, not as bad as it sounds, but threaten me with a real cast if I didn't take care of it. Meaning I was to stay off it, use crutches keep it up and ice ice ice. Well before I left I got her to agree to using a cane. (Which sucks buy is better than crutches) and I have done my best to stay off it and I use the ice at work when I think about it. It actually looks better tonight. I was going to write this last night but one of the kids here decided to wake up at 2:00 am, and never went back to sleep. So we entertained each other the rest of the night. He was nice to me gave me some artificial flowers and later told me were for his teacher. I told him he should give them to his teacher, because that is who he bought it for, then he went into his backpack and gave me a piece of saltwater taffy. He can be so sweet sometimes when he is not getting into things. Well another student was just awake, wanted water, he dose that almost every night. He drinks the water and goes back to sleep. April is home for a few days it's nice to see her even though she is out with her friends most of the time. She went to play Bingo tonight. Hope that she wins she could use the money. Well I don't have any thing else to say. Until next time.

Just another day.

Well today was a busy day. After work I went to see the eye Doctor. I ordered new glasses, It was the first time I picked out a pair and ordered the same day. Usually I ponder on them for a week and end up with the first pair that I chose any way, so today I just said I will take these. I was going to just get new lenses but the person I was talking to said that they were in the process of discontinuing my frames which means that if any thing happens to my frames they may not have replacement pieces. This way I have an extra pair. Something I need because I can't drive with out them and I would be up a creek with out a paddle with out them so to speak. Alicia also broke hers and I took them in for repair. She lost a lens and they are bent up a little but shouldn't be too hard to fix. When I got home I had some phone calls to make and I didn't get back to sleep until after 11:00 that's kind of late for me. I slept until 5pm which isn't too bad. Dwight cooked supper tonight. Well I actually made a suggestion that he start the oven and go down stairs and get a pizza and put it in, and he did it. Food always taste better when someone else cooks it even if it's just pizza. Tonight when I was on my way to work I was stepping down the second to the last step and my ankle twisted and down I went. I don't understand why I keep doing that lately. I'm fine. My ankle is a little puffy and stiff but I can still walk on it, my knee was scraped up, and my dignity was bruised, but I'll live. So that was my day aren't you glad you read my blogg?? April if you're reading this hope you feel better. I taped Tabs' few minutes of fame. What do you want me to do with it? Did you manage to stay up and watch it? I wish we could have seen a final shot of her with her hair cut done. Were you there when they taped it? Have you seen her new cut yet, or get any pictures? I bet it's cute. Well this is long enough for anyone that happens to read the whole boring story sorry if I bored you.

It's 4am What to do what to say???

Well it's January 7, 2005 4am. I'm sitting at work with nothing to do. The students have been so good since Christmas Vacation I just hope it will last. I forgot to bring my VCR recoroding tonight and I already made out most of our bills and sent them out yesterday. So I just need to find something to keep me intertained and keep me awake. SO I'm guessing that this blogg will be some what random off the top type rambling. So if I'm not making a lot of sence just go to the next blogg and visit them. I have done that on occation. But have found several that are not in english and I don't know any other languages. Wait that's not true, I know sign language. Which I have yet to see on any of the bloggs. Maybe when I get home, I can send send some pictures that I have and explain them to everyone. I can't do that here cuz I don't have the same pictures here and really don't know if there is any on this computer. I'm sure that there are many web sights. Want me to find some for you? Well let me see... http://www.where.com/scott.net/asl/ This is a very fun page if you know ASL you can pratice finger spelling. It will even spell out any word that you want to learn. If you don't know any sign language you can learn from this page, check it out and let me know what you think. I hope that you enjoy yourselves. I think I'm going to stop writing now I want to see if I did this right.
I added a link, hopefully it will be my name finger spelled out. Cool huh? Ok sorry you have to put what ever name you want. But it's still cool.

Life with out snoring!

Well I haven't blogged since the new year and here it is January 6th. What have I been doing? I'm back at work for one thing. The kids are great, They are all sleeping through the night. Tuesday I picked up my CPAP machine (continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) which is the most common effective treatment for sleep apnea. In this procedure, the patient (me) wears a mask over the nose during sleep, and pressure from an air blower forces air through the nasal passages. The air pressure is adjusted so that it is just enough to prevent the throat from collapsing during sleep. Nasal CPAP prevents airway closure while in use, but apnea episodes return when CPAP is stopped or it is used improperly. ) which basically means that it is going to make sure I don't stop breathing while I'm sleeping. Oh and it also keeps me from snoring. Which I'm sure my husband will appreciate. But since I work nights he won't find out what it is like until Friday night. Hey that's only one night away. Wow time goes fast. Any way if he doesn't feel like he is sleeping with some kind of alien, I'm hoping that he will be able to sleep better knowing that I'm not going to stop breathing and of course that I'm not snoring. If you want to learn more about sleep apnea go to http://www.sleepfoundation.org/publications/sleepap.cfm or http://www.sleepapnea.org/
Now aren't you glad you read my blog today. You get to learn more then you thought possible reading a blog, maybe even more than you ever wanted to know about snoring and sleep apnea.
But I understand that there are a lot of people out there that have it, and don't know it. So if I help even one person out there learn more about him or herself I'm glad I shared this. I cheated a little by coping and pasting so if something doesn't read right it's because I'm working and it's 4:35 am and this old mind just isn't made to do this kind of stuff at this time of night. Why?? Cause I should be sleeping like everyone else that's why. Hope you all have a restful night bye for now.