Thursday, May 28, 2009

Thursday-7:30am

Received the book from Haiying--with a pretty card and her new colorful business card. Made copies of the pictures and will send the book on to Howard from the CBP group. :)
Have a couple of letters going.
Dagan came by after work to see if the title for the Paseo was in the glovebox--nope. So they'll have to search it out. Needs new license plate tags or I can't drive it after the 31st.

Anyways, they hadn't told me they were just down to Minneapolis for Dagan's checkup--or that he also had a cat scan of his heart back when he had his stress test. (Not that they were hiding anything from me--they are just both naturally slack at relaying information. Like two peas in a pod--hehe!) The good news is--he has better oxygenation levels than most of the Fontan folks. But the bad news is that where they put the tube-like piece inside of the upper chamber because the sides had expanded out so far--well, it has pooched out again. ?? They told him this means his heart could fail again.

I asked him what the options were--if they can redo the Fontan again or if they were talking a heart transplant--but he didn't know, so they hadn't said. I am sure Dagan and Leah were both just absorbing the facts--just as I was last night. Need time to think on it to know what to ask next time, you know?

And a lot of the time they have no answers anyway, to be perfectly honest. When Dagan was a baby there was only one other girl in France with the same series of defects who had lived past two (she was five at that time). So they don't necessarily have a lot to go by. There have been other Fontan procedures done over the years--so even if they don't have all the same defects as Dagan does there's something to go on there--hehe!

He has a new lady doctor. I wondered if this chamber enlargement might have been this way for a long time with no problems and she just noticed it and wanted to investigate further? Or if it was a new development? I have more questions today, of course--once the news has settled in. That I will ask Dagan.

It's not like we haven't gotten bad news many times over his 34 1/2 years. He's had his heart "fail" bigtime three times now. He's lived in failing or declining condition before--sometimes for years. But the last failure crisis was about 15 years ago.

Don't worry. It's not a bad situation at this time. He's doing well--still stable. Just kind of like a warning that he may decline again. And sometimes those crisis situations can come on very suddenly--like when he collapsed at the driving range the last time. But he knows how to make himself stay calm and not panic--and his angels watch over him. :):)

He's got about six months left on the pacemaker battery, so they are planning to replace it in September. He'll stay on monthly phone checks, of course. They are debating whether to replace his older leads or not this time, also.


Well--anyways--Dagan and I had dinner together (Leah was gone till later in the evening) and watched a silly movie (that we figured was going to make fun of Minnesotans) called New In Town:

The weather isn't the only drastic change for high-paid consultant Lucy Hill (Renée Zellweger) when she's sent from her home base in South Beach, Fla., to a small Minnesota town to improve the productivity of a local manufacturing plant. The town's residents also take some getting used to, especially the ruggedly handsome union boss (Harry Connick Jr.) who's doing his darnedest to make sure that Lucy doesn't cut any jobs.

Sorry, but we couldn't imagine anybody in Minnesota being rude and nasty to a stranger--especially one who held their jobs in her hand. The people tended to have the same heavier accents as some of them did in Fargo--hehe! I am always curious to see what Hollywood thinks of us. Dagan and I thought it was pretty funny in places--because of the Minnesota things that didn't ring true and the ones that did--but it wasn't that great of a movie. Very, very choppy in the middle. Had the good moral ending, tho, that us Minnesotans would probably approve of--youbetcha! ROFL!!

It's a gorgeous sunny morning. A very good day for gratitude and counting your blessings! :):)


4 comments:

Serena Lewis said...

I will keep Dagan in my thoughts and prayers in the hope they find a safe fix for his heart condition. Keeping the faith is a good thing.

I saw the ads for New In Town and it looked pretty good. I'm not sure if it's out for hire or sale yet but will check it out.

Rita said...

Thanks so much, Serena! :):) Dagan has had his heart patched up several times to keep him going. We can only pray they can figure out something again when the time comes. :)

New In Town is pretty silly fare. Light entertainment, as they say. But we were just shocked at how rude this black-haired waitress was in the beginning when Renee Zellwegger arrived in New Ulm! We've never seen anything like that, to be honest! Who'd ever treat a stranger like that? Even if you didn't like them? Where's the "Minnesota Nice" in her? hehe! :)

Serena Lewis said...

LOL...it annoys me when Aussies are portrayed wrongly in movies too.

Rita said...

I actually get a kick out of the heavy accents. My grandparents had pretty heavy Swedish accents (one grandpa came over from Sweden). Even Dagan and Leah tell me I have an Swedish accent sometimes--with certain words or phrases. Ya, I can lay it on t'ick if I want to--hehe! :):)

But you have to be able to laugh at yourself, right? (I loved the movie Fargo and the dark, sick humor--hehe!) Heck! I think some New Yorkers still think we are fighting the indians out here in the MidWest! ROFL!!