Well I guess I couldn't avoid it forever. My family has been through a *MILD* case of the flu. I am grateful as it could have been much worse. However, I managed to jump on board with the rest of them, so I've been rather under the weather since Monday (it's now Friday). Would love to report some positive gains, but I've taken quite a few steps backward with constantly feeling nauseous (at least all of us have been, so we don't have to make huge meals). While everyone else bounces back quickly, I seem to take a LONG time to get back to where I was -- and even at that, I hadn't established a new normal yet. I don't know what my normal should look like at this point. Life seems to be flying by well enough without my intervention. The world keep spinning, and taxes keep increasing. Thankfully, the hugs from the kids keep coming. Grateful for my blessings, I keep pluggin' along.

Right side feeling very weak today. Very discouraging.



You said
You´d never leave or forsake me
When you said
This life is gonna shake me
You said
This world is gonna bring trouble on my soul
This I know

When everything falls apart
Your arms hold me together
When everything falls apart
You´re the only hope for this heart
When everything falls apart
And my strength is gone
I find you mighty and strong
You keep holding on
You keep holding on

When I see
The darkness all around me
When I see
The tragedy has found me
I still believe
Your faithful arms will never let me go
And still I know

When everything falls apart
Your arms hold me together
When everything falls apart
You´re the only hope for this heart
When everything falls apart
And my strength is gone
I find you mighty and strong
You keep holding on
You keep holding on

Sorrow may last for the night
But hope is rising with the sun
Its rising with the sun
There will be storms in this life
But I know You will overcome

When everything falls apart
Your arms hold me together
When everything falls apart
You´re the only hope for this heart
When everything falls apart
And my strength is gone
I find You mighty and strong
You keep holding on

When everything falls apart
Your arms hold me together
When everything falls apart
You´re the only hope for this heart
When everything falls apart
And my strength is gone
I find You mighty and strong
You keep holding on
You keep holding on

A friend contacted me today asking me how I *really* feel.. as I haven't said much lately.   Okay, here it is:

1. This morning, my hands are cold.  They seem to fluctuate back and forth.  Prior to the procedure, they were generally warm. I wonder if this is part of a healing process, as after my first procedure I had the fluctuating back and forth from cold to warm a lot too.
2. Last night from around 8pm until 11pm I was not having a good time.  My right leg felt as though it was going crazy.. I wanted to pull it off and throw it away. I can't describe what it was doing.. like my skin was crawling and I just had to get rid of my leg.  I then felt like I had been there before -- sometime in my past, but when?  AHA!  I then remembered!  Years ago after my lung surgery, the hospital had been giving me demerol shots.  But, upon leaving the hospital, at home I had to deal with withdrawal, and it was not pretty.  It was then that I had the same feeling in my legs.  I have no idea why this would happen again, perhaps because of all the aspirin I have been taking, and I have been phasing it out in the last 24 hours?   
3. At the same time as the leg thing started bothering me, my bladder issue went crazy. (Where I feel the urgency to go, but I don't really need to go).  So it was a double whammy of mental anguish.  I had no idea how I was going to go to sleep with this type of mental discomfort.  I paced and paced for quite some time (as movement helps distract me from those feelings), took one 325mg aspirin and then went to bed, playing with Kirk's iphone.  Shortly thereafter, I lay my head down and fell asleep.  Is it an aspirin issue?  I had a good night but woke feeling very tired (what's new?)
4. I've also had ringing in my ears the last three days and I don't know why.  Again I'm wondering if the higher doses of aspirin in my system are playing a role.
5. Even though I'm having strange things happen to me each day, I can feel a little stronger each day.  And remember, I'm trying to cut back on the aspirin each day so while I still feel neck pain (just a dull aching feeling now), it's because I'm lowering my doses and hopefully there will be a day soon where I won't need it at all and can function without it.   
6. It's so hard to judge as to if my feet and leg numbness on the skin is better or not.  How does one judge when one's tool for judging is one's hands.. which are also numb?  Post procedure, they have actually become more numb.  So it is very difficult to tell what is numb or not when I use my hands to feel. 
7. Emotionally, I still walk on thin ice.  One moment I am coping fine, telling myself I am hanging in here for the long haul, not expecting changes right away.  Another part of my day, I will be somewhere which will trigger tears within me as I re-live all the losses from the past year.  It definitely is a constant battle to fight away depression which knocks on my door.  It is easy to give in to it if you start allowing yourself to posture an attitude of entitlement.  It's definitely a training of my heart each and every day to try to focus on the moment and my blessings of NOW, rather than all the losses.
8. I can't say that I have had much pain, but mind you, you tend to get used to a "new normal".  I feel every day like I  have a slight flu .. just that overall aching feeling.  Certainly nothing debilitating.
9. The itching on my skin (on my arms) has almost been non-existent, except for a day or two last week, so that has gone down.  Hopefully it never comes back!
10. Brain fog?  I don't know.. I can't remember. Seriously, I haven't noticed any issues, but I haven't had to challenge my brain lately.
11. My voice is still fairly crackly, so that hasn't gone away.  Still hoping!!!

Can't think of anything else at the moment. I'll update this as I remember symptoms.

Well, I didn't make it to church today, but I did make it to some friends for brunch!  I actually felt okay until mid-afternoon, at which point I felt my body quickly draining of all energy.  I managed to push myself through the rest of the day with a trip to Costco for some much needed groceries and an important church meeting in the evening.  Probably not the best choices for my body as it really screamed at me to go lay down to rest.

I should note one change I noticed today:  I have a ringing in my ears which seems to come and go.  I hope that it's something that won't stay, perhaps just something telling me I'm needing more rest?

I am thankful that I was able to do as much as I did, and hopeful that tomorrow will bring the ability to do as much or more, with less fatigue.

Some of you may know my brother has Parkinson's Disease. He is having a very difficult time right now and would greatly appreciate your prayers.   Merv's Blog

I have had a rough few days.   Just after I wrote on Day 6, I started to having an increase of pressure and pain in my neck, left side.  It increased for the past 36 hours so I changed from Advil to aspirin (thinking maybe it would help prevent any blood clots that might want to pop up).  I decided to go into the local hospital today to ask them their opinion.  I really didn't have anyone to answer my questions about these symptoms I was having, and needed someone that knew.  Well, as it turns out, the doc in the emergency room told me he really had no experience with jugular vein issues and didn't know what to tell me.  He talked with a radiologist and they decided to at least do an ultrasound of my neck to see if there were any issues (clots, tears, etc.).   After spending a few hours in emerg, I found out that the scan looked fine, albeit some inflammation.  So, I guess I just take longer to heal than normal?   My IR mentioned that perhaps because I had the left IJV ballooned last year, and this latest treatment was quite agressive (with an 80% blockage), that this might be a reason why it's taking a lot longer for the inflammation to calm down.

Good news anyway. I just have to keep taking it easy (THIS IS HARD FOR ME!).  At least the snow has all melted, and with that, the temptation to shovel the driveway.  Wait, what is that I see where the snow used to be?  Weeds?!  (Kidding, I'll definitely resist that temptation!)

What a contrast from yesterday.  Last night I had a fairly decent sleep. I woke a few times, but not from pain.   This morning I felt a little off, but nothing that would keep me in bed as yesterday's beginnings!  Very encouraging indeed.

I continue to feel weird feelings of warmth and tingling in my feet.  I am hoping that this could be the start of some changes to my numbness.  I can only pray.  I had a little more energy today and was able to get out and do an errand.  It makes one feel almost normal when one gets to go out and do the same things other people do (even if they are menial tasks)!

I received my printed procedure report today from the Seattle clinic, which I found very enlightening. I will include some of it below:

IMPRESSION: 
Bilateral Internal Jugular vein stenoses: 80% left / 80% right
Azygous vein genu stenosis (80%) and Left Common Iliac vein stenosis (80%) treated with multi-level angioplasty successfully. 

Amazing that I had such blockages .. no wonder I was feeling so terrible last year!  I can only pray that improvements are impending!

I have NO idea what happened.  Sometime during the night, my body seemed to take a turn for the worse.  My husband in the middle of the night asked if I was okay.  I apparently kept moaning in my sleep.  This morning when I awoke, I could barely move.  I felt like my body had been hit by a truck.  Breathing and blinking took all the energy I could muster.   "How am I going to function today?" I thought.   I asked my husband to get me another Advil .. hoping that would at least help a little.  In about an hour, I was able to move a little.  My eldest son helped me out (before leaving for University for the day) by making me an egg and coffee in bed.  So here I sit, borrowing his laptop in my bed, at 10:00am.  I'm at least able to sit up now without feeling like I'm going to pass out.  I'll really have to be proactive to keep on top of my Advil dosing today!   Seeking out something to give me a positive focus on my day, I thought I'd type in "daily devotional" into my laptop search engine.  Normally you would be given a list of search results to choose from.  Rather than a list of options, it went straight to a web page which promptly loaded on my screen (http://odb.org/2011/01/11/why-not-now/). I thought it was very odd that it went directly to a website rather than giving me google's results.  I really didn't expect it to have much relevance since I wasn't able to "choose" which page I wanted to see.  Contrary to my assumptions, it was very fitting to thoughts which often pop into my head.  I thought I would share it with you today.

Why Not Now?

January 11, 2011 — by David H. Roper

I have a dear friend who served as a missionary in Suriname for many years, but in his final years he was stricken with an illness that paralyzed him. At times he wondered why God allowed him to linger. He longed to depart and to be with his Lord.
Perhaps life is very hard for you or a loved one, and you are wondering why God has allowed you or your loved one to linger. When Jesus said He was going to heaven, Peter asked, “Lord, why can I not follow You now?” (John 13:37). You, like Peter, may wonder why entry into heaven has been postponed: “Why not now?”
God has a wise and loving purpose in leaving us behind. There is work to be done in us that can only be accomplished here on earth. Our afflictions, which are for the moment, are working for us “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). And there is work to be done for others—if only to love and to pray. Our presence may also be for the purpose of giving others an opportunity to learn love and compassion.
So, though you may desire release for yourself or a loved one, to live on in the flesh can mean fruitfulness (Phil. 1:21). And there is comfort in waiting: Though heaven may be delayed, God has His reasons. No doubt about it!

Not so in haste, my heart!
Have faith in God, and wait;
Although He seems to linger long
He never comes too late. —Torrey

Our greatest comfort is to know that God is in control.

If your symptoms/dysfunction improved only slighty and only for a brief period, you should wait at least 4 months before considering a 'tune-up.' This is because you can only have 3-4 repeat venoplasties before considering a stent that has increased risks, and because it may take this long for CNS flow changes to stabilize. On post-venoplasty testing we have seen that sometimes flow may even appear worse during this stabilization process.

This will be short, as I'm reaaaaaally tired and it's very late.  I have had some out of town company and unable to write until now.

There isn't much else to note today except I almost see an increase of discomfort in my neck and body core. Also, my hands and feet seem to be burning more (ie electrical type pain).  This could be due to my body's immune response.   The IR said to me that Advil was a good idea after the procedure, especially to keep inflammation down. I tend to stay away from pain meds unless absolutely necessary, so I often forget there are other benefits other than just alleviating pain.  So, after a sleep that wasn't very restful, and a morning filled with discomfort, I decided to be more consistent with the Advil and I must say it has helped quite a bit.  So I am going to try to keep on top of it every 4 hours.  The only problem with that is, the better I feel, the less I will rest.  It's just a problem I have.  I see what needs to be done and I MUST do it.



Let's take snow as an example. I LOVE snow.  For those of you that know me personally, you will know that that is a complete understatement!  One of my favorite things to do in life is to shovel snow. So, imagine my surprise that this morning we woke to a dump of snow covering everything.  I know that I couldn't shovel it, but it was very tempting!  I wasn't even dressed yet and I heard something out side, only to find my husband shoveling the driveway!   He had gotten dressed quickly and gone outside to shovel before I could get the idea to go out and do it myself.  It's just what I do.. I can make bad choices because I think "I can do it".  It's hard to learn to rest, rest and rest more.



Thanks again for all that are helping with meals and even other means of support, prayer, etc.   It means so much to us!

For now, it's good to be home, yet that always brings inherent danger -- for I tend to do more than I should when I'm  here.  Trying to take it easy for the next few weeks (doc's orders) will definitely prove to be a challenge!

Post-Procedure ..do I look a little drugged? ha ha

Well, there's my quick update.

Well, I thought I'd post a quick update before I head off to bed for some hopefully DEEP and restful sleep. I have just spent the past week with my family in Oregon, vacationing.  On the way back home, we have now stopped in Seattle, staying in a hotel for a few nights -- and tomorrow morning I will go to a local clinic for my second CCSVI procedure. We spent the afternoon and evening together, going out for a great meal (and throwing peanut shells on the floor), swimming in the hotel pool, eating popcorn, and giving lots of hugs.   In trying to recall my feelings from the first time around.. on the night before:  Was I pensive?  Was I excited or anxious?  I honestly cannot remember. I think most of my issues were with trying to figure out how the lights in the Polish hotel turned on! (It's not a simple light switch!).  I think tonight I'm too tired to feel anxiety.  I have been through it before, so I kind of know what to expect so the "unknown" is out of the picture.   I would like to equate my calm feelings to God's grace in granting me peace about this procedure.

Tonight, as I recall the day spent with my family, I realize that I'm blessed.  Yet, I do know that I have a failing body and I need to give it one last shot at trying to gain some physical well-being for them.

My 4 blessings

I will keep you posted as to how everything went .. my appointment is an early one at 8am.
Thanks for your prayers!