Crater Cake (Wish I had a picture) / Jim Update

Hi All,

How are you doing?  We are doing pretty well here.  Apologies for the lack of posting on the blog but really haven’t had much to report to you…

On Mother’s Day we had my Mom and Dad over for a nice lunch.  I had made The Pioneer Woman’s Baked Ziti with a salad, and I “attempted” to make Simply Recipe’s Walnut Mocha Torte.  I thought it looked so delicious in the photo and not too difficult to make.

Ah-hem…

Let’s just say I’m better at cooking than I am at baking…

My last baking “incident” was attempting to make We Are Not Martha’s Blood Orange Tart.

No, I’m not addicted to food blogs…  Why do you ask?

Anyways, the Blood Orange tart looked beautiful on their blog (the pictures were gorgeous!) and didn’t look difficult at all to make…  Sues makes everything look easy…  I even “attempted” to make the crust from scratch…

However, when we sat down to eat the tart, we needed a table saw to cut through it.

My Mom very innocently asked me if I had made the crust myself from scratch, and I said “why yes, I did – thank you for noticing!!” – as we were literally sawing away at the crust with our knives!!  We laughed so hard after that…

The custard part of the tart was very delicious.  However, the color of my tart versus what was pictured on their blog was very very different…  Hers was a gorgeous shade of pink.  Mine was more of a muddy gray color…  Next time I might add some food coloring to jazz it up a bit…

I think I know what went wrong with the crust.  I made it…

Just kidding (slightly).

I want to try it again but next time I will take my time working the butter into the flour.  Or is it the flour into the butter?  Does it matter?  Someone help me…

So back to the Walnut Mocha Torte…

I got up early on Mother’s Day, and I completed each step to make this tart as meticulously as I possibly could.

This was for Mom after all!!

I wanted it to be special.  However, the first issue was I realized I had inadvertently added one cup of sugar instead of the specified three-quarter cup because instead of grabbing the quarter-sized measuring cup, I had grabbed the third of a cup sized measuring cup.

Super…

OK – so it will be a little bit sweeter.  No problem, I thought.  Moving on…

I finished the batter, filled two cake pans and popped them into the oven.  It said to cook for 20-30 minutes, and typically I will cook for the least amount required because you can always add more time, right?

Right?

Twenty minutes later this sucker was DONE.  When I opened the oven door, I gasped because it had pulled away from the sides of the pans and looked very very dry…  Actually, when I touched one of them, it made a “crunchy sound…”

Eeeek…

Checked the oven temperature and it was the right temperature, but think I will pick up an oven thermometer to make sure the temperature is accurate inside the oven…

At this point, I start thinking that I really should have picked up that back-up dessert from the grocery store…

Moving on again…  I start on the frosting…

Take heavy whipping cream and beat until if you beat anymore it will turn into butter.  ?????

Okey dokey…

I took heavy cream (it didn’t say heavy “whipping” cream – does that make a difference?) and beat it until guess what – it became butter…  I then added the other ingredients which consisted of some sugar, melted chocolate chips and some strong coffee that was prepared in advance and long story short it just literally fell apart in the bowl…  Didn’t thicken at all.  I even tried to add more corn starch but it was a soupy mess.  I had over whipped the cream but seriously how do you know when to stop before it becomes butter??  I will also buy heavy whipping cream next time just to see if there is a difference.

I was so angry and was ready to throw the entire cake and frosting away and run to the grocery store when Jim asked what I was planning on doing with the cake.  I said why don’t we just try it and at least see how it tastes.  If it’s OK, maybe I’ll just pick up some frosting from the grocery store.  He was happy I said that (and surprised because he knew how mad I was) but he cut a sliver from the cake and tried it.  Then he cut a piece exactly opposite from his first cut (basically cutting one layer in half) to let me try it.  Then he pushed the two halves together…

A little frosting and no one will know the difference!!

IT WAS ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!

So off I run to the grocery store thinking I would buy one of those new Cool Whip frostings (my Hubby’s idea) that they have been advertising, but unfortunately

(or should I say of course!!)

they weren’t out yet at the time…  I instead found the new Dunkin Hines Frosting Creations where you buy a canister of frosting and an individual flavoring packet.  I was thrilled to find a Mocha flavored one…  PERFECT!

It tasted good (very sweet!) but it worked…

At this point the cakes were out of their pans, on cooling racks

and

had

fallen…

I mean I’ve heard of cakes falling before, but had never seen a cake fall to this extent…  I flipped a cake layer over and placed it on top of the other cake layer thinking it would look better but didn’t make any freaking difference whatsoever!

No exaggeration – the center of the two cakes when it was together was about a half-inch thick.

I wish I had some fruit at the time that I could have mounded in the center of the cake!  I made the best of it.  Frosted it and dubbed it

Crater Cake…

When it was time for dessert, I brought it out to Mom, and we all had a good laugh at the expense of my (lack of) baking skills, but it did really taste delicious.  So delicious that I will try it again.

I now know that too much sugar can cause a cake to fall, and I definitely had added too much sugar and the house may have been too muggy – does that cause a cake to fall?  I’ll have to Google that one…

Jim Update:

Jim and I walked 1.4 miles a few weeks ago.  He did great, and I was really proud that he pushed himself.  We did stop a few times so he could rest and catch his breath so it took approximately an hour.

Now Jim has not been feeling that well over the past couple of weeks, and his weight has increased which is a sign of too much fluid (volume).  Also, when he’s sleeping at night his breathing is very raspy.  You could even tell from how he was talking that he was very short of breath.  For some reason his breathing capacity has diminished in the past few weeks.  That was a change that really disturbed me.

Something is wrong…

He finally felt bad enough to call the clinic a few days ago, and they increased his diuretics but this time it was like the diuretics stopped working.  They added another, more potent diuretic, and asked him to come in this morning for an Echocardiogram (echo), and they were going to adjust his LVAD settings to see if that would improve his symptoms.

I was in the room while they did the echo and “played” with the settings of his LVAD.  There were three doctors, two radiologists plus me and one of the LVAD Clinic Coordinators, Darlene.  Darlene came over to me and said I don’t think there were this many people in the room when they did his surgery.

LOL – she is too funny.

I did want to take a photo for the blog – it was comforting watching all five of them really focusing on Jim…  I chickened out though and didn’t take the picture but vowed next time – I will take one…

I think I said that with the last photo op I chickened out on…

They increased the RPMs of his LVAD pump and watched the echo to see the affect.  When they were done, they asked Jim to stand up and immediately the LVAD monitor went flat line.  That gives doctors a lot of information…

NOTE:  Not flat line like we see on TV…

When you sit for a period of time and then stand up and sometimes get lightheaded, that’s because for a few seconds, blood levels have dropped.  This is normal and can happen with everyone…

With LVADers, there is a “suction” that happens because not enough blood is being sent to the heart but the pump is still working.  They immediately told Jim to sit back down, and they actually ended up lowering his LVAD pump RPMs to less than what it was when he walked in the place.

They admitted that they had expected to see the right side of his heart not working properly but thankfully it actually showed improvement, and had shrunk from his echo of a year ago.

A good thing…

They were able to rule out anything bad at this point but wanted some blood work done and depending on how the blood work comes out, they are thinking of adding that potent diuretic to his pill regimen on a once-a-week basis to see if that helps.

If he doesn’t improve, they are going to have to “go in” (probably do a cardiac catheterization), and see if they can find out what’s going on.  Ugh!!

I will say that since Jim took that potent diuretic, his breathing last night was much improved – quieter.  But he still gets breathless when having a conversation.  I don’t like that…

This is the life of an LVADer.  Always trying to maintain a very delicate balance and trying to stay on top of any changes that could be signals of something going wrong.

That’s it for now.  What are your plans for the long weekend?  Even though the weather isn’t supposed to cooperate, it can still be FUN !!

Take care and LOTS OF LOVE to you guys!!

Cheryl

LVAD FRIENDS

Hi. Boy you don’t hear from me in weeks and now two posts in one day!! I forgot to mention a great Facebook page.  It’s called LVAD FRIENDS and its a great resource for people with LVADs and their caregivers.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/132128480175232/

Take care!!

Cheryl

Jim Update, Finally Quilting and Boston Marathon Bombing

Hi All,

Long time between posts, huh? How is everyone doing? We are doing pretty well here. We just got off a bout of too much sodium. Sneaks up on us every once in a while…

I had gone to the hairdressers to get my hair done one Saturday because we were going to a 40th Anniversary celebration, and when I got home Jim was horizontal on the sofa – completely fatigued. He also had a bad headache which was very concerning to me. He had an LVAD clinic appointment on Monday so he didn’t want to make a special trip to the hospital. He did want me to go to the party without him. I don’t think so. I can’t imagine going to a party and having a good time knowing that he’s home by himself and not feeling well. What if he passed out and couldn’t call for help.  No, I’ll stay home. Everyone understood and with the help of my brother we were able to say well-wishes via FaceTime.

We stayed home for the weekend and Jim slept a lot. His headache was really bothering him and would intensify and go away throughout the weekend.

Monday finally arrives and I drop Jim off at LVAD clinic and then take myself to my own doctor’s appointment. By the time Jim was ready to be picked up it was already after 1:00 p.m. so I decided to stay home. Mostly, because I knew that he still wasn’t feeling well. The doctors noticed that he did have some excess fluid on him and his blood pressure was too high – might explain his headache so they gave him an additional really potent diuretic. When I heard this, I swore out loud because I know what we’re in for. Now we get to go the other way. He usually will end up getting over diuresed.

Is that a word?

Sure enough, early Tuesday morning Jim yelled for me because he felt like he was going to pass out but he was able to sit down quickly until his head stopped spinning. He then said he felt better but was still unsteady on his feet and lightheaded. Blood work showed his potassium is low from the extra diuretics so we increased his potassium supplements.

I wish I could say he’s feeling a lot better now but he’s still a bit lightheaded and just overall not feeling well so we’re going to mention it at LVAD clinic tomorrow and see if we can find out what’s going on.

While Jim was sleeping, I did get a fair amount of sewing done.

Do you remember the block you signed for us at the wedding? For those of you who are wondering what I’m talking about, at the reception on our wedding day, we had permanent markers and 3-inch squares of fabric available for our guests to write brief well-wishes for us. The fabrics were stabilized to make it easier for guests to sign. I have seen some beautiful wedding memory quilts created like this and being a quilter knew that I wanted to do the same thing for our wedding day.

So, here we are approximately 8 years later – MY GOODNESS, TIME FLIES…

In my defense a lot has happened in those 8 years. I am now committed to making our wedding quilt. As I have mentioned previously on this blog, I have a habit of making projects WAAAY more difficult than they need to be, and then I SERIOUSLY overwhelm myself and put the project away. I wanted to keep things as simple as possible for this quilt.

They have these precut, already color-coordinated packages of 2 ½ strips that are all the rage. They make life much easier for us quilters. Saves on having to do a lot of cutting. I found these beautiful batiks in various shades of pinks, purples and greens which I thought would look LOVERLY in our bedroom…

Some of our friends got very creative. Isn’t this beautiful!

Check out this one…

Your honey moon “awakes” you? Do they mean AWAITS you? Wondering if one of the kids did this one?  Too cute.

Lots of memories. This one is sweet…

It was fun going down memory lane and re-reading what everyone wrote to us. I am very happy to report that only one person (out of 43) signed on the stabilizer paper instead of the fabric…  Here’s a few of them pictured here.  You can see some of the batik strips on the left-hand side.

Here is a block completed with the batik strips.

Beautiful!  Love this one.

One more

Very sweet.

I was able to get all the 43 blocks framed with the batik fabric. It’s nice because each block has a different but coordinating batik print.

Kendall wanted to help…

But then started to bite the thread because it was whizzing past her…

I picked her up and put her down.

Name that commercial!!

Sorry…

I picked her up and put her on the ironing board where she stayed for a while albeit a bit grumpy.

The next phase of this quilt is to take a few photos from the wedding (NOT MANY – maybe about 5) and using the same stabilizer I used for the 3-inch blocks copy the photos to fabric. I’m thinking of one 8×10 photo of the entire wedding party in the center of the quilt with 4×6 or 5×8 pictures in each of the corners. Something like that. Keeping it simple… Once these photos are on fabric, I can put the quilt top together. I also have a little piece left of each batik strip and I’m envisioning cornerstones with those.

Then I can have it quilted. I might quilt this one myself – not sure yet… We’ll see how much time has transpired from now to when it’s ready to be quilted… 

I probably should talk about the Boston Marathon Bombing but to be honest I’m too exhausted right now to write anything at length.

I can tell you that around 12:30 Friday a.m., Jim had gotten up to go to the bathroom, and I heard a weird noise off in the distance that sounded something like thunder or a loud firecracker.  I just thought to myself that was a strange noise.  Then I got wired for some reason and went downstairs and turned on the TV to see breaking news on every single local channel and for the rest of the night watched the entire unbelievable manhunt unfold. It was like watching a movie that wouldn’t end. Towards the morning they started to announce things like the entire subway / bus system was suspended; no taxi service available and in certain towns people were ordered to stay inside and that businesses in those towns should stay closed. Then they flashed those towns and Cambridge (which is where I work) was one of them… I said to Jim – I don’t think I’m going to work today. Sure enough my company announced that they would remain closed today per the Governor’s orders.  I told Jim that I think I heard one of the bombs from when the police were chasing them but we both thought we were too far away to hear anything.  However, on Friday when they found the guy was hunkered down in some poor guys boat in his backyard, and we were watching all the police cars taking off in that direction, Jim muted the TV, and we could hear sirens off in the distance…

I get sick when I think about the people who were killed and injured and how young they were.  Needless.  I’m really glad it’s over, and I’m glad they got one of them alive.  I think he’s a coward though.  He could kill others, but couldn’t take his own life and was afraid of dying…  I am hoping that they get some answers out of him but judging by his injuries it might not be for awhile.  Stay strong Boston!!

Lots of Love!!  Take Care,

Cheryl

Jim’s Birthday Celebration / Kendall’s Korner? / I Try to Answer Your Most Common Question…

So, we had a nice Valentine’s Day / Jim’s Birthday celebration.  I ended up not making an extravagant meal for Valentine’s Day.  We are trying to cut back on calories and decided to save the special meal for Jim’s birthday.  For his birthday, I always have the family over and make a Beef Wellington dinner.   This is not a Gordon Ramsey recipe for Beef Wellington, mind you (although I’d like to try to make his recipe).  It’s Sara Moulton’s recipe for Mini Beef Wellingtons with Gorgonzola Cheese.  Absolutely delicious and very simple to make.

 I was also going to bake a cake but decided against it because everyone (including Moi) is trying to watch their calorie intake and for me and Jim after everyone goes home and leaves us with the leftovers, it’s just way too tempting to have a layer cake just hanging around waiting for someone to come by and smell it, fondle it, grab two handfuls and smear it all over their face and wait, what? 

 Ah hem…. 

 So I decided to go with this Pot de Crème recipe.  Individual servings – no leftovers…  I also substituted the sugar with Truvia. 

This is now my GO-TO PMS dessert!!! 

 

Whoa – where did that come from?!

You couldn’t even tell that they were made with Truvia!!  They are basically a cross between a pudding and a mousse – very yummy!! 

Kendall enjoyed Valentine’s Day as well. 

Well, what have we here?? 

This looks interesting (Translation:  Comfy…)

ANYONE IN HERE, HERE, HERE, here??  (me doing an awesome echo sound effect) 

Nice!!

What is it about cats and bags…?  They do love a good bag, don’t they?  Kendall loves it when I come home with paper grocery bags… 

Kendall?

Hello?

Yikes – no shame… 

I can never control the urge to tickle her bellies!!

I’ve been thinking of changing the blog’s name to “Kendall’s Korner.”  Or something like that…

But this blog isn’t just about being Kendall’s Mom.  It’s also about being a wife and caregiver to my Hubby who is waiting for a new heart…   

Someday it will have some quilting stories on here.

In the meantime, I wanted to take a few moments to try to address a question that Jim and I get all the time. 

When will Jim get his heart transplant? 

 

Answer:

 

Unfortunately, we’ll need the crystal ball to answer that question…

This is what we can tell you…  Right now, Jim is one of 20 transplant candidates (this is his standing at the hospital).  Four (including Jim) have the same blood type.  What’s Jim’s blood type, you ask?  That’s a very good question, but I forget at the moment because I’m an Iggy… 

Anyways, the hospital did 17 transplants last year.  For me, that was AWESOME news, because I thought they only did 4 or 5 transplants a year so to hear that they had done 17 last year was unreal. 

It’s a brand new day!! 

They also said that transplants seem to happen in “clusters” and that unfortunately they have seen a serious decline in organ donations over the years -  which is very sad.  Not enough marketing if you ask me.

So if you look at it that way, we are still probably about 1-½ – 2 years from getting the Call… 

THIS is the hardest part – the waiting… 

I hope that helps to answer your question…  If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!!

That’s it for now!  Have a great weekend!!

Lots and lots of love to you!!

Cheryl

Blizzard 2013

Hi All!!

Did you guys survive the storm OK?  That was a LOT of snow!!  It took me and my parents (Dad with a snow blower) four hours to shovel out…  Jim felt bad that he couldn’t help but he made up for it by making breakfast complete with home fries and eggs and dinner which was a Giada de Laurentiis recipe for swordfish and a salad…

I went food shopping before the storm.  I hadn’t been to the grocery store in a couple of weeks, and we were out of almost everything – bread, milk, eggs, toilet paper – you get the idea…

 

OMG…

 

I thought it would be best to go Wednesday night instead of the night before the storm because – well, you know how it gets the night before we get any type of a major snow storm.  Unfortunately, everyone else in New England had the same idea.

So, I’m at Stop and Shop with my list, doing my thing and a woman near me makes this comment about how “everyone is going just crazy” and she’s looking in MY cart!!  I just looked at her and said Hey, this isn’t blizzard shopping!!  This is grocery shopping…  We had a good laugh…  She was blizzard shopping, by the way.

Here are some photos I took before, during and after the storm…  I apologize in advance for my lack of talent in the photography department…

Here are the front stairs just as the storm started on Friday:

The storm starting to ramp up as we were heading off to bed:

Here are the stairs after the storm on Saturday:

Mom in waist deep…  Poor Dad snow blowing the plow-made pile at the end of the driveways – yes, plural…

Our cars – UGH!!

Here is Kendall supervising our shoveling / snow blowing from the safety of her spot in the bay window…  It overlooks our porch right by our front stairs so she’s typically there to say goodbye and to greet us when we return home unless she’s sleeping of course…

I did bake some bread that day.  Hey, if I’m going to be house-bound for a weekend, I’M COOKING – Errr – BAKING – Errr – BOTH!!  Anyways, I made this awesome Cranberry Orange bread – it’s beyond easy and delicious!!  Check out Maya’s site while you’re there – Alaska From Scratch.  She has some great recipes and hearing about life from another part of the world is very fun.  I’ve tried a few recipes now and they’ve been great!

Jim Update

Jim drove into work the other day.  I did my best to not worry and send out positive thoughts.  He said it went well and that it was a nice ride.  I’m still not happy that he’s driving but what are you going to do.  Like I’ve said before, I can’t sit on the guy.  Between you and me though, I think he really enjoyed it…

Things have been going well since the last “incident” we had.  Actually, I don’t think I even told you guys about the latest incident.  I’m going to start calling my Posts “Monday Morning Surprises.”  (If I posted them on time, that is J…)  Things always seem to happen very early on Monday mornings…

So Jim has recovered fully since collapsing in the bathroom and hitting his head on the tub.  I’m still having some PTS but am slowly getting my sense of humor back…

On January 28^th Jim woke me up around 2:00 a.m. because he woke up from some wetness on his pillow.  Turned a light on to see three good-sized circles of blood on it.  His new $100 Comfort Revolution Pillow, mind you…  It was like he had a bloody nose but instead it was coming out his right ear.  I suggested we go to the ER, but he said that since he had an LVAD clinic appointment in five hours, he’d rather wait and go back to sleep.  Had my half asleep-self remembered that he had hit his head two to three weeks prior, we would have gone to the ER then, but, it had apparently stopped, so he wasn’t concerned.

I typically do not go with him to Clinic.  I work full-time and only have so many days a year for vacation or sick time.  On a typical Monday, I drop him off in the morning, head to work and then pick him up during my lunch-hour, bring him home, plug him in and head back to work.  This time since he was bleeding from his ear (which is close to his brain, you know), and he was complaining of being a bit light-headed, I decided to take a day off from work and accompany him.  It was the doctor who recalled that he had collapsed and hit his head on the tub two or three weeks prior and thought it a good idea to re-check the CAT scan.  Thankfully, they confirmed that it looked fine.  They decided to have an Ear, Nose & Throat Specialist take a peak, and this doctor determined that Jim had a small blood vessel rupture.  If that happened to you or me, we probably wouldn’t have even noticed, but when you’re taking Coumadin, it’s an entirely different story.  He gave us some medication though in the event it happens again.

What is it about being at the hospital that wipes a person out?  We were there from 8:00 a.m. until early afternoon and when we got home, I was completely wiped out and needed a nap…  I had actually been debating on going into work until I got in the door and decided I needed a nap instead…

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!!

Jim’s birthday is February 16^th (we have a lot to celebrate this year!!)  Since it’s so close to Valentine’s Day, I have always tried to do something special.  This year I’d like to make a nice dinner for Valentine’s Day.  It’s once a year…  He deserves it.  I’m thinking Shrimp Scampi with something very chocolaty rich for dessert.  How about this recipe?  Or this one?  If you’re not familiar with The Pioneer Woman, check out her Web site.  Awesome!!  She always has great recipes (I know – I’ve tried a bunch), great stories, lots of giveaways and it’s very fun reading about life on a working cattle ranch.

For Jim’s birthday I always invite the family over and make a Beef Wellington dinner.  For dessert, I always bake a chocolate cake but this year I’m going to try to make a carrot cake (Jim’s favorite so I don’t know why I bake a chocolate cake)…  Anyways, I’m taking this Friday off because I have a lot of shopping, prepping and cooking to do…

That’s it for now.  One of these days I swear I will do a quilting-related post.

Be safe!!  Love you guys!!

Cheryl

Wednesday, January 16th

Hi All,

Hope all is going well.  Things are going well here.

Jim has recovered from his incident last week and is doing very well.  He is going back to work tomorrow.  He does want to start driving (against my wishes but I can’t sit on him, I suppose) so he has a service taking him tomorrow, and we are going to go out again on Saturday to see how he does during and after the drive.  I googled “driving with an LVAD” and was surprised that a lot of people with LVADs are driving and had tips such as wearing some sort of information packet around your neck so if you are (God forbid!)  in an accident, the EMTs will know what to do.  People with LVADs do not have a pulse so we want to make sure no one is erroneously pronounced dead because a pulse couldn’t be found.  No chest compressions either…  Someone else suggested putting a pillow in front of the steering wheel in order to help absorb the airbag should it deploy in an accident.  Ugh!!  All things I don’t want to be thinking about, but like I said before I can’t sit on the guy…

He did assure me that:

1)  he would listen to his body before getting in a car;

2)  he wouldn’t be working every day;

3)  he would return home before it got dark and

4)  he would have me on the phone for his entire trip.

OK just joking (slightly) on #4. 

Not long ago, I had put my foot down and insisted we hire a cleaning service to take care of the domestic housecleaning…  Things are crazy enough with working full-time; grocery shopping, meal-planning; paying bills, laundry – goodness the laundry!; doing daily dressing changes / infusions – even just having to take out the trash can seem overwhelming sometimes and oh by the way – I have to remind myself that I have chronic illnesses…  For the most part, I make it through a day unscathed, however, I can get fatigued if not careful…  Having said all of that…

It is still very important to have a clean house…

Thank you EcoClean!!!!  They have been with us for a while now and do a fantastic job each and every time!  Plus, they do not use any type of horrible chemical when cleaning your house…

Another way I’ve tried to simplify life – a Slow Cooker.  Thanks to my parents (DAD!! or Mom but blaming Dad – it’s hard to tell), I now have quite the library of slow-cooker cookbooks.  It does make life a a lot easier to not have to do much to prepare dinner (or clean up dinner J) when I get home from work…  I made Chicken Tortilla soup the other night.  It came out pretty good (although spicy!!).  Last night I made a Curry Beef Stew.  I was concerned because Curry can be very strong.  I remember a friend of mine telling me she had made veggie curry in her crockpot and when she got home the entire house, her closet of  clothes, her sofa, her curtains, her dog – everything smelled like Curry.

This recipe only called for 1-½ Tbls. of Curry so it wasn’t

CUUUURRRRYY!!  Whoa, where did that come from?

Anyways, the stew was delicious.  The recipe is a keeper…

Today, I am making a roast pork soup with ginger, soba noodles and bok choy.  I couldn’t find any soba noodles in the international aisle at Stop and Shop so Vermicelli it is!!  I haven’t tried it yet but Jim called and said it tasted really good.  Errr – thanks Hon, but that’s for dinner…

Note:  Do not put the Vermicelli in at the start.  Cook it separate and add it to the soup when you’re ready to serve.  Trust me on this J…  Jim had to add more broth because the noodles soaked them all up…  It also looked like I could have added about half the amount of Vermicelli…  Learning curve.  I definitely want to try it again though.

Next is a ground turkey 3-bean chili, but I might save that for Game Day – Go Pats!!

Gotta run but will write later.  Thanks for stopping by – appreciate it!

Lots of Love!!

Cheryl

PS:  I haven’t mentioned Kendall in a while so here is a picture of her playing with one of the new toys that Santa had brought her.

A Reminder…

Hi All – how are you all doing.  We are doing well here.  Apologies (again ) for the lack of posts, but I have been on vacation since December 21^st.  It was a great vacation – We enjoyed Christmas and New Year’s, rested (took naps) and just putzed around the house getting various things done.  My Dad took care of a lot of the stuff around the house – I helped a little bit – not much…) 

 I am happy to report that we now have curtains!! 

Also, for the first time since 2004, my laundry is all caught up!!

 Jim has been getting great reports during his LVAD clinic visits.  Life has been good.  Unfortunately, we were being lulled into a false sense of security – I was actually entertaining thoughts of somehow going to Quilt Camp this spring…  Jim had been doing 5, 10 or 15 minutes on the treadmill each day – depending on how he was feeling, and he was following a rather aggressive diet plan.  Then, this past Monday he got the go-ahead to drive…  If Jim could have done cart-wheels in the halls at Tufts, he would have.  I have to admit that I wasn’t happy with the idea of Jim driving.  I hated to pop his bubble of happiness and independence, but I asked him to really REALLY listen to his body and to not drive to work every day…  He humored me but did promise that he would “of course” listen to his body before hopping into a car… 

 On Saturday we did a drive to his work to see how he would be during and after the drive.  I have to admit (and I told him this) that I was concerned.  He was hugging the guard rail for some reason and twice the car alarm came on because he got too close to the car in front of him – in other words, he didn’t hit the brake fast enough.  I wasn’t happy…  We made it to and from and didn’t get in an accident but it wasn’t pretty…  Also, and this was weird, we had signed paperwork from Tufts about driving with an LVAD and it talked about how an LVAD alarm should it happen could be a big distraction to a driver, and I brought this up to make sure he understood that and would keep his cool if his LVAD alarmed.  Not even 5 minutes later, the LVAD lets off one beep.  The DC power cord must have loosened or something but the timing was weird and yes, it did distract him while he was trying to look at his LVAD.

 Yesterday (Sunday) we slept in late and we went to HomeGoods to go look at artwork for the house.  We have a gift card (thank you Kathy and Paula!!) and wanted to see what they had.  When we were done checking out the wall décor, Jim told me he needed something to eat like right now…  So we went home and made sandwiches.  I also started roasting two chickens so we would have something for dinner later in the week.  We had one of the chickens, carrots and some roasted potatoes for dinner.  His potassium was a little low (it gets checked twice a week) and potatoes are high in potassium.  We went to bed relatively early for us and around midnight Jim got up to go to the bathroom and came back jokingly saying don’t check him for a DUI – he was feeling very lightheaded and shaky on his feet and he wanted something to eat.  I talked him out of it because he was trying to lose weight.  He opted for a diet caffeine-free Coke instead.  I know you’re wondering why we seemingly poo-pooed this symptom, but you should also know that last Monday they doubled one of his blood pressure meds and said he might feel light-headed a bit.  We just thought it was the result of the higher dose…

Anyways, around 6:30 a.m. on Monday he awoke again to go to the bathroom.  I am awaken to the sound of Jim coughing and dry heaving rather loudly.  Concerned, I get up out of bed and look down the hall into the bathroom, and I see Jim clutching his stomach and starting to pass out.  The rest is in extreme slow motion…  I am now running down the hall screaming the entire way as I watch Jim falling, taking down the shower curtain and rod, his head hitting the tub and landing in a heap on the floor of the bathroom.  I am still screaming (I had no idea I could scream like that – it was so involuntary and was like I was hearing another person screaming) but Jim is not responding to me at all.  His eyes are wide open / looking at me but only the whites are showing.  Reminded me of a horror movie – scared me like you can’t believe…  I run back to the bedroom to grab the phone, call 911 and run back into the bathroom.  Again, this is all in slow motion.  I want to know why my screaming self didn’t think to grab the phone BEFORE running down the hall to the bathroom…  Jim has now gained consciousness at this point and literally while he’s lying on the floor with his head on the side of the tub is looking at me (with eyeballs this time) and says “I’m OK.”  I start a dialogue of questions.  He could feel and move his legs and arms, he knew his name, he knew where he was but the weird part was he just didn’t seem to care that he was lying on the bathroom floor, and he was perfectly fine to sleep there.  The ambulance was there in minutes but seemed like hours.  They asked him a series of questions, strapped him to a board and then brought him directly to Tufts Medical Center in Boston since that’s where he’s being seen.  While they were questioning Jim, my parents came in the house.  Jim and I live in a duplex style house and my parents live on the other side…  Apparently, they heard the “THUD” when Jim collapsed.  

They also heard my screaming… 

 I am someone who is proud of the fact that at work over the years my reviews have always stated that I can stay calm in any situation.  I handle whatever comes through the door with maturity, calm and professionalism.  It’s my job.  I remember a former boss giving me an example that even if the roof fell in we do not run around yelling Holy Crap – the roof fell in!!  We instead simply say – OK, the roof fell in, let’s fix it… 

I can still hear my screaming…  I need to get a grip… 

It’s about 10:30 p.m. now.  I’m home watching Ice Loves Coco.  It’s all I can handle right now.  It’s a very sweet show, and I just love their dogs.  I know that I should go to sleep now because I’m planning on going into work tomorrow, but I just can’t get myself up the stairs to go to bed.  I’m extremely on edge…  

 Jim is in the Cardiomyopathy Unit at Tufts.  He is much better now.  They did a CT scan because he hit his head and takes Coumadin (a blood thinner) and a brain bleed would just be really bad right now.  Thank goodness that came back fine. 

 They also interrogated his internal defibrillator and they determined it didn’t fire so that’s not the reason he passed out. 

 They are thinking he passed out because his potassium was too low and he might be dehydrated.  They gave him some IV potassium and some fluids and he feels much better.  They are keeping him overnight to monitor him and they want to interrogate his LVAD as well.  “Drink water”  is something that people with heart failure usually don’t hear very often.  It’s usually “watch your fluid intake.”  I am thinking that with his walking on the treadmill he might be sweating out more fluids than he’s taking in.  The LVAD is also good at keeping the fluids moving and we have to remember that – it’s very difficult trying to find the fluid balance…  

 This was a reminder.  A reminder that things can go wrong very quickly.  We were just starting to get into a comfortable routine.  We had a good run – 6 months…  Maybe this was God’s way of saying – no driving…  Imagine if this happened when he was behind the wheel!!  Ugh – I shudder to think…  Jim and I will need to discuss his driving – I just don’t think it’s a good idea…  Sorry Lovey!  We’ll talk when you get out of the hospital… 

 Signing off (it’s now midnight and I’m watching Jay Leno) but probably not going to bed…  Talk w/you later.

 Lots of Love to you all!! 

 Cheryl