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As some of you may know, we are expanding our presence in the Bay Area into a new office.  I mean really, I just finished the build out of the last office in May.  We are moving already?  There are some that think that since I am a integral part of the procedure that I should take care of all stuff.  Wall painting, furniture stuff like that.  Um no!  IT Manager doesn’t mean painter, nor furniture builder.

Some people also thing that we will be able to move into this office right away, regardless of what I have said. It takes 30-45 working days once you order a circuit for install. That doesn’t meant that it will be ready on the 1st of October.

So last week on Monday my elbow started hurting at around 2pm.  Just tight and it hurt to set it on anything or bend it a lot.  That night around 7 it was red and not very happy.  Within 2 hours it looked like someone had inserted an egg under the skin in my elbow.  Sooooo  off to the Emergency room we went.  I do have to say that it was the fastest emergency room visit ever, in and out in 45 minutes.  Diagnosis – Bursitis in the elbow, take anti-biotic’s and vicadin for pain, wear the sling they provided

Tuesday I came to work, I was in a lot of pain, and I was taking 2-3 vicadin every 5-6 hours for pain, and it still hurt like you would not believe.  Hindsight I should have stayed home that day.  That night I started to get the sweats and chills and a mild fever (yuck), so I stayed home on Wednesday and nursed my elbow.  At this point my arm was “angry” red and swollen, it did not seem to be getting any better.  I made a follow-up appointment with the Dr on Thursday afternoon.  At that time he took one look at my elbow and said “You are going to the Hospital”

Thursday at 4:30 I was admitted to the Hospital in the “Specialty Surgery” ward.  They drew a line around the red swollen part of my elbow and  I was started on a different stronger anti-biotic and switched from vicadin to oxycodone for pain.  They told me that I could not eat nor drink after midnight as they may want to do surgery on Friday.  Honestly that freaked me out, a lot.  That evening they went from oxycodone to morphine for the pain.

Friday morning, the ortho surgeon came in and decided that there would be no surgery yet, but she wanted to keep an eye on it.  They drew blood from both arms (ouch left arm) and started a blood culture. (never did find out what it said)  There was a Dr, (can not remember which one) who thought that it was staph, specifically MRSA.  Basically a form of staph that is resistant to most anti-biotics.  So they wanted to change my meds once again, so be it.

Hold the phone!!  Along with the new drug, vancomyicin they wanted to put in a PICC line.  Basically an IV that is then threaded up the vein into the heart, They put it in with an ultrasound.  Can you say HELL NO!!!!  After much consultation (ie, them telling me to do it, and me saying no) they decided that they could give me the meds in a normal IV.  However there is a catch on that.  They would only inject 3 doses in one IV site, then a new one had to be run.  The meds were so strong they were causing issues with the veins.  Oh also, they are pumped in, over 1-2 hours.

All of that, oh and I forgot to mention, the elbow? still swelling, still red and angry.  It was spreading this whole time.   So now it was 1-2 hours of Meds every 8 hours, along with vitals every 6 hours and 2 blood draws a day to check the level of the anti-biotic in my system. Friday night and all day Saturday were miserable for me, almost no sleep, still in pain.  Miraculously Sunday things seemed to be getting better, the meds were kicking in. The swelling and the redness were going down, I had greater movement in my arm. The right arm at this point looked like a pin cushion with all the IV sites and blood draws.

I did a lot of sleeping on Sunday during the day.  That afternoon they decided to change my IV’s to every 12 hours, more meds each time.  I almost got to sleep through the night, but the vitals checks and blood draws persisted.  Monday morning came, along with that was a visit from another Dr.  I told her that I wanted to go home, she agreed.  So they sent me home on yet another anti-biotic, Bactrim, a super strong pill.

I was at work yesterday, and this morning I had a follow up with my Dr. You see the Bactrim is so strong is messes with my stomach and prevents sleep for me.  But that is the drug that is working,so I am going to suffer through it.  Only 5 more days of it.  The Bursa sacks in my elbow are still swollen, they might want to “aspirate” them after I finish my anti-biotics.  We will see.

So  Lessons learned.

Michelle is a Rock Star, she was there with me through all of it, until I sent her home to sleep.  No sense in her getting woken uvery 2-3 hours all night long.  Also I am sure that they window seat(bed) was not that comfortable.

1. PICC lines? um still No!
2. Elbows on the table,  hmmm… I have always sat with my elbows on the table.  I realize now that doing so can cause Bursitis.  Trying to stop doing that is kinda hard to be honest.  The pain in the elbow still reminds me that I should not.
3. Wireless at the hospital, While Emanuel has wireless, they do not like “brewspace” across the vpn. hmmm no idea why.
4. Pain? Contrary to what I was told Pain is not weakness leaving the body.  It means something is wrong, go see a Dr.

So, Some of you know about my back and the issues that I have had, but for those who do not, I will digress.  I have an old injury which I believe manifested itself when I was on active duty, around 1993.  I have suffered a week or so of lower back pain every year or so.

Last year around the summer time, I suffered a week or very bad pain.  I self medicated myself and went on with our lives.   About 3 months ago I had some debilitating pain in my lower back and I finally listened to Shell and went to see the Dr.  He prescribed some pain meds and sent me to Physical Therapy.

Long story short, The pain is still there, it comes and goes.  When it is here, I look like an old man shuffling along.  I had an MRI done and they said that the disk between L4 and L5 is bulging and has torn.  The fluid is leaking into the Nerve root and causing pain and numbness in my legs.  Now that everyone is caught up on the back issues.

This weekend I had Drill. (final tally 15months and 1 week of active duty and I can retire)  I had to go see the military doctor since I could not run the Physical Fitness test.  The Dr at the base put me on a “profile” which means that I am not allowed on the base to drill for pay and points for 2 months.  However my supervisor has already gotten a waiver in place so that I should be able to drill next month.  If I did not drill for 2 months, then I would not have enough points for a good year, and it would make the time till retirement much longer.   It felt very weird to lay in bed this morning and not get up at 5:30am so that I could be at the base on time.  I did talk to my supervisor today and verified that in fact the waiver will be done later this week.

Sorry to all the friends and family that follow our life in this blog.  We (read I) have not been doing a good job keeping this updated.  FAIL!

To recap all in a short time frame.

November – We hosted thanksgiving at our house with friends and family there.  My mom and step-dad came, along with one of my sisters.  Also in attendance were good friend Stephanie and Benjamin, and Mike and Joleine.  The food was good, the company was better.

Also we got the kids so that we could go get a Christmas Tree together for the house.  We went hunting with Jim and Becka and their kids.  It was a good time for all.  The tree was decorated beautifully and the kids got to help with all of it.

December – This was a good time for us, our first Xmas together.  Shell had to go to LA for a funeral right before our time with the kids, and she got snowed out.  Yep you heard me, snowed out.  All of the flights into PDX were grounded due to snow and weather.  I was at home with the 4 kids and Brody in the snow.  We had rented a cabin up closer to the mountain to take the kids to so that we could all get away, but we were unable to make it there due to the weather also.  Luckily Twitter came to the rescue, Jim had twittered about his Mom driving up from California, so I got Shell in touch with him, in touch with LuAnn and the end result was Shell in the back seat of the car coming home.  If she had not made that, it could have been after Christmas when she got home.

Gonna fast forward a bit

March – The divorce was final this month, thank goodness.  It took a long time, but it was finally over

April – The weather in Portland has been really weird lately, rain one day and sunshine the next.  I just want the sun and warmth. We had the kids for Easter weekend and Mome came up to visit with us that weekend.  She got to meet the kids and they all got along wonderfully

May – Shell and I got away for a weekend this month and went to Seattle.  It was my job to prepare the weekend and surprise her.  We left on a Saturday morning and drove up to Seattle.  I had booked us a room at the Pan Pacific Seatlle hotel.  Super nice!  We went for a walk down to Pikes Market and ate a happy hour.  Dinner that night was at the Sky restaurant in the Space Needle.  The motion was not a good thing and we ended up back in our room with take-out.  Sunday we went on the Duck tour of Seatlle, we both had a great time doing it.  Also I had made arrangements for Hot Stone massages for us.  They were awesome!!! Monday we left to come home in the afternoon, but with stops at the Seattle Aquarium and the Boeing Museum of Flight.  Very cool places.

That brings us to the here and now I think.

This last weekend Shell and I had the kids, well 3 of them anyway.  Abi is still having a hard time with … well I don’t know exactly cause she doesn’t tell me.  But anyway, I got the kids on Friday and we came back to work to get Shell and them home, dinner consisted of taco’s and we watched a movie with them.  Then off to bed as Saturday was full of things to do.

I woke them up Saturday, after breakfast we went off to the pumpkin patch at Rock Creek PCC.  Cheri (my sister) had told us about this and we decided to go.  The kids all got get pumpkins and we rode a hay trailer behind a tractor, they loved that part of it.  Shell and I decided that we needed to get some decent size pumkins so we drove out to the Roloff Farms (little people, big world) and got some pumpkins there.  That place was a mad house!!!  Back at the house, we let the kids scoop out the pumpkins (with our help of course) and then we ate dinner before we carved them.  The kids did a good job carving pumpkins, Shell did an amazing job on scooby doo for Logan.

Sunday was homemade waffles for breakfast, and a relaxed morning.  We went to the park and the kids got to play with the foam swords that we got, They were a huge hit!  Back at home we let the kids cut out cookies and then after they cooled down, they got to decorate them.

The weekend was good, full of stuff to do and places to go and things to see.

Pictures located here.