UPDATE ON ORAL SURGERY II

Weakened, sore, and unable to see or think clearly, yesterday I returned to the ED. For a second day in a row I was dehydrated and required two 1 liter fluid bolus' of Sodium Chloride. Sodium Chloride, one percocet, and one injection of Toradol chased with a piping hot cup of the cheapest canned vegetable soup ever, later I was released to come home again. This time I was armed with a prescription of percocet.

I still feel very week, but my eyes are focusing again. It hurts to eat, talk, and rinse my mouth out with this special oral rinse that tastes horrible. It seems like I have a constant headache and the slightest little things will make me nauseous.

Anyway, I have missed valuable educational time and clinical's. Oh well, it's just cardiac...who needs to know anything about the conduction system of the heart to be a paramedic? That was sarcasm in case you missed it.

Two thumbs up to my wife. She took care of my health and spiritual needs and even picked up my slack in my household functions. I got one of the very best.

UPDATE ON ORAL SURGERY

While still in the cloud of my recovery, I thought I would write a short update.

They had a hard time sedating me, because of the long standing oral medication I take for my leg. So they chorused up three drugs, placed it under my tongue and they moisten it and told me let the finishing dissolving. I required double the dose and still never went to sleep. All of the rest of the procedure went well.

When I went home some of my regular oral meds I already take got modified. Of the two medications’ modified, one stopped and the other one changed. I could not get the pain to stop and so I started doubling my up on my pain meds bd inqreasing their frequency . I was having trouble staying awake, to the point I would fall asleep while eating. I still have trouble staying awake. If you know me, I normally have to take medication to fall asleep.

I am having trouble remembering anything. I even started to hallucinating things. I started to develop a productive cough and somehow my wife convinced me to go to the hospital. The only thing I remember about that trip was finding out, towards the end, that we weren’t there for my dogs. I remember the doctor telling my wife that nothing was showing on the x-ray of my lungs, but he definitely heard rales in my lungs. He is fairly convinced the effects were drug reacted and probable potential overdoses.

My wife tells me that I look better today, but I still have no strength, things are still confusing me, and not to mention that the pain in my mouth hurts like having to electrodes plugged into my bottom gums.

Anyway, just wanted to update you all.

Oral Surgery

I've been having a chronic reoccurring inflammation of my bottom gums where my wisdom teeth would be if they hadn't been excised when I was sixteen. Three or four days ago I started to get a sore throat. Then on Monday, after a sleepless night, my lower left gum was so sore I couldn’t eat my second breakfast burrito.

My dentist was able to work me in that day. He immediately sent me to a periodontist and now I am scheduled to have a somewhat emergent “wedge” procedure done on both gums tomorrow at 10:00 AM. The periodontist also saw something on the x-ray that might have indicated a bone related problem in the left gum as well, but she won’t know for sure or how to address it until she has filleted my gums.

I’m told I’ll be pretty sore for a week or so. I’ll try to keep up on my blog, but I imagine I’ll be on some good medicine for an undetermined period of time. I am allergic to pain, so I believe strongly in pain management.

Total Commitment

Legendary NCAA football coach Lou Holtz once said, “If you don't make a total commitment to whatever you're doing, then you start looking to bail out the first time the boat starts leaking. It's tough enough getting that boat to shore with everybody rowing, let alone when a guy stands up and starts putting his life jacket on.”

Barely into their twenties, friends of ours are getting married next month. Like all brides to be, our friend is experiencing some pre-wedding jitters. When asked, what she was nervous about her response summarized, was commitment.

I was a little shocked by the reason for her nervousness. The young couple had a daughter together while still in high school and they’ve been together ever since. They’ve both given their lives to Christ. In fact, they were baptized together on the same day my wife was baptized. He has a great career as a certified Master Technician in the auto industry and she has a good job and is attending school to become an attorney. They’re great parents, just bought their first home, and they’re doing everything right.

Lezlie and I don’t have a perfect relationship, but I would confidently describe ours as better then most that we hear and know about. Though there are days that we love each other more then others, we’ve learned that a successful marriage can’t survive on the turbulent and unpredictable nature of feelings and emotions alone. We choose to stay together.

Life is going to be rough. Feelings often change. Things that are important today might not be important tomorrow. Even our values system changes some from time to time. Times will be turbulent and meager and other times will be smooth and rich. Everyday you have to purpose to stick it out. Too many people live their lives based on feelings and that’s why so many things in life end in failure.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I love my wife dearly. Nothing else in this world is more important to me. There are all kinds of other variables in marriage that can make it more or less bearable, like your ability to communicate and/or your willingness to compromise. I guess my point is, if you don’t enter into a marriage with the notion that you’re going to see it through until the very end, no matter what, and if you’re marriage isn’t grounded on a firm foundation (Christ) then it will eventually fail.

Marriage is a lifetime commitment. It isn’t “for as long as our love shall last.” It is, “for as long as we both shall live.” It definitely isn’t something easy and it will require nurturing and attention. It may not come easy to you. Like any relationship, you have to work at it.

If you’re going to bail out at the first sign of trouble and leave the rest of the boat to sink then marriage isn’t for you. If you can make the commitment knowing that the boat will leak from time to time then you will be successful.

Knowing our young friends as well as I do, I personally have great confidence in the success of their upcoming nuptial. I believe they understand the Biblical teachings and significance placed on the family and I have confidence in their ability to know when to seek out the guidance they need. I expect that they’ll have many happy and memorable years together.

Doctors Are More Dangerous Than Guns!

Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health Human Services.

(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year is 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.

Now think about this:

Statistics courtesy of the FBI.

(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000 (Yes, that's 80 million).
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188.

So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, "Guns don't kill people, doctors do."

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN,
BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors.

Out of concern for the public at large, we have withheld the statistics on lawyers!

My Mother-In-Law

My mother-in-law, Cheryl, is awesome. She and I got off to a bad start when my marriage to her daughter first came to pass. But we’ve worked through that and we actually get along very well now.

Last year she traveled from her home in the greater St. Louis area to come help us paint the inside of our home. The paint we used then wasn’t very good and in the end, it was just not a nice finish. This year we decided to repaint using Sherman Williams and the paint looks amazing.

Now I’d like to tell you all that it looks so amazing because of the brand of paint that we used, but that would only be a fraction of the truth. The truth is, my mother-in-law is a very talented and crafty person and she loaned those talents to us two years in a row to make our home more livable.

How do you say thank you for something like that? It isn’t as if you can simply repay the favor. If we could paint, we wouldn’t have needed her talents. The truth is that we needed her help very much and we are so appreciative of her willingness to travel six hours and spend her personal down time giving to us her time, talent, and energy.

It was a joy having you around this weekend Cheryl. I promise the next time you come, we will not be taskmasters and it will be all about fun. Thank you seems petty after the beauty that you have added to our home and our lives, but please accept my heart felt gratitude.

See you if a few weeks.

Cows, The Constitution, & The Ten Commandments

COWS

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give them all a cow.

THE CONSTITUTION

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and we're not using it anymore.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse...You cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians -- it creates a hostile work environment.

Peace and Quiet

Today I got to do something I love to do, but rarely get to. While vacationing in Peoria, we went to a private pond and went fishing. A good size pond, a friend and I rowed the boat out to the middle and sat for a couple of hours and just fished. No cell phone, no computer, no business, no kids…just us and the beautiful water and a nice breeze.

I didn’t count the fish, but we caught in my estimation more than 30 bluegill, perch, and one catfish. We used a variety of bait and tackle, but in the end, it didn’t really matter what we used; as soon as our line hit the water, we had a fish on it. Almost all of the bluegills were keepers, averaging about the size of my hand or larger. We chose not to keep them and clean them because we only left due to an approaching storm front.

It was an excellent time. I love to fish, but the boys are still too young to enjoy it and I hate to go by myself. It’s always a good time though, when you don’t really even have to use bait to get a fish on a hook. I’m surprised they didn’t just jump out of the water and into the boat on their own.