MahJongWall Ready for the iPhone!

My friend and former college roommate, Russell Wilson, has released an iPhone version of his popular shareware (and retail) computer game Mah Jongg Wall (retail version was Mah Jongg Magic). His website is http://rwdiversions.com/. Search for MahJongWall in the AppStore from your iPhone. Go check it out!

Mom Update #10

Mom finished her outpatient therapy last week. This completes the entire managed rehab. She is still doing well. She is walking without any assistance from a walker or a cane. Tomorrow (Tuesday November 17, 2009) will be eight weeks since the knee replacement surgery. Thanks again for the emails, cards, and letters that you've been sending her way. They have really encouraged her along this journey.

Mom Update #9

It's been almost a month since my last update so I thought I would catch you up on mom's progress.

Her rehab is going really good. She is going for outpatient therapy in Alabaster 3 times a week. She has the rest of this week and then three visits next week and she will be done with the outpatient therapy. Rehab at that point will be up to her. She has continued to progress at a rate beyond the goals set by the surgeon and the therapist.

Thanks for the prayers, the cards, the gifts and the calls. It's really helped keep mom rolling through all of this. No set date yet for her going back home but she can see the light at the end of the tunnel now!

Mom Update #8

Mom had her followup appointment with the surgeon today. She is bending her knee at 97 degrees. Which is very good. He removed the staples from the incisions. He was a little concerned about how the incision looked and he gave Mom another round of antibiotics to fight away any infection that might be there. Her therapy continues to go really good. She will have in home therapy for at least another week we believe.

Mom Update #7

Mom is still making good progress. She will be discharged from the rehab facility this Friday and will then move to our home. Home health care will begin to send out a therapist at that point to continue her physical therapy. Thanks for the cards that have come in. She really has enjoyed them.

Mom Update #6

On Monday, Mom had several hours of very intense therapy but she didn't miss a beat. She did everything they ask her to. She is bending her leg to 93 degrees now. Outstanding!!! Of course there is plenty of pain that goes along with this rehab. She's making it look easy but I know she is enduring great pain. At this rate she will be doing cartwheels in no time.

Mom Update #5

Mom had a restful weekend at the rehab facility. Today, Monday, she will begin the rehab. It is suppose to be a pretty intense day of therapy. I know she's just gonna show them how tough she is and of course she'll have them all smiling.

Updates...not just for Mom anymore

My wife has been sick the last couple of days. I took her to the doctor today (coordinating time around getting mom move from the hospital to the rehab center) and it turns out she has pneumonia! She is not contagious at all so that's good. The doc said she was only a day away from it being severe enough that she would have had to be hospitalized. She got some shots, a breathing treatment and some meds so she should start getting better now.

Mom Update #4

Mom continues to progress. She's bending her knee at 80 degrees now which is very good. She was discharged from the hospital today and we transported her to an inpatient rehab facility where she will be for a week. It's the Golden Living Center in Riverchase. It was a hectic day as several folks involved in getting the discharge and transport done had communication problems that caused delays. In the end though we got it done.

Mom Update #3

Wednesday brought the first little bump in the road for mom. A couple of times in the early morning hours her blood pressure dropped to a very low point. Low enough that the staff was concerned. It did come back up each time. When her surgeon came by he was told of what had happened and he ordered her a unit of blood. She got that unit and since then her blood pressure has remained stable.

She did have therapy in the room and did outstanding with it. Overall things are still going great.

Mom Update #2

The procedure today (total knee replacement) went very smooth. Mom is resting tonight in her room. If anyone would like the room number just email me and I can provide that. The therapist did get her up today and she walked to the bathroom and took a few more steps in her room on the day of the surgery!!! She is a tough one and I expect things to continue to go good with the rehab. To quote my brother mom provided us with "some great post-anesthesia comic relief!". More updates to come.

Mom Update #1

We arrived at St. Vincents bright and early this morning. They took mom to op prep around 5:45 AM. She was her usual happy talkative self :) They took her to O.R. holding area about 6:30 AM and began the procedure around 7:30 AM. They called us to the desk at 8:10 AM and were finished! The doctor said it couldn't have been any smoother and that everything was good. Now just begins the rehab which is 95% of what this procedure is all about. She should be in a room in a couple of hours.

Mom Pre-Op Update

Many of you know that mom is having her second total knee replacement procedure. We now know the schedule. She is to be at St. Vincents at 5 AM on Tuesday 22 Sep 2009. The procedure is scheduled for 7 AM. Much like I did last year, I will be posting updates along the way.

2009 League of Champions (Fantasy Football)

For the fifth year running I'm going to be the commissioner for a free fantasy football league. Free means totally free, no cost at all to play. There's also no money for winning either, just bragging rights.

The 2009 League of Champions is registered and ready for sign up. We had ten teams in the league last year and had a great time with it. It's a private league in that it's not open to just whoever might come along to sign up. I'd like to keep to folks I know or who are one step away (who know someone I know).

If you've never tried fantasy football and wondered what it is all about this league would be a good way to start learning.

If you'd like to participate just drop me an email or post a comment here on the blog and identify yourself and I'll get you the information you need to get signed up.

Let me give a shout out to last years league champions the Kennedy Stallions! And how about for the second straight year the l;eague runner up was the BamaBackers.

Update 2: Record of My May 31 - June 1 Experience

I saw the doctor on Friday and he confirmed that all the test showed good results. He believes that a spike in my blood pressure was to blame for the experience. He gave me the all clear until the end of the year when I'll have my annual physical.

Update: Record of My May 31 - June 1 Experience

I got the final results from the tests and everything did check out normal. No problems with the heart or arteries found at all.

I have a follow up appointment Friday with my doctor and we will discuss what the cause of the symptoms I experienced might have been.

Record of My May 31 - June 1 Experience

Let me say a very BIG THANK YOU to those that have been concerned and that have been praying for me the last couple of days. I wanted to create a record of exactly what happened to me on Sunday May 31 and Monday June 1. It kind of went through the communication channels and by the time it got back to me it was quite different than what really happened.

My wife and I were at the grocery store on Sunday afternoon when I got a sudden throbbing headache on the back left side of my head. I became very dizzy and nausea set in as well. I had pain in my left shoulder and down my left arm. I had no chest pain at all. I braced myself on the handle of the grocery cart with it up against one of the produce stands. I didn't pass out and I didn't fall down. I just stood there and after a couple of minutes the headache went away and the dizziness got better. We finished getting what we needed and left. I still felt kind of washed out and a little disoriented. We went home and I began to do a little reading about the symptoms that I had experienced and found a few cases that described exactly what I had felt. A couple of the cases were people that had had heart attacks and one was someone that had had a stroke. I decided to err on the side of caution and go and get it checked out.

My mom just happened to be visiting us so she got to be along for the ride and the journey we took the next 24 or so hours.

We went to the ER and I was registered and taken back pretty quick. They immediately did blood work, a cat scan (because of the throbbing headache that I had experienced) and a chest x-ray. Everything looked normal. No signs of a blood clot or tumor in the area of the headache and no abnormalities showed up on the chest x-ray. After they called and talked with my doctor they decided I should stay the night for observation and that I would have further tests the next morning.

After a near sleepless night (due to someone coming in and doing something to me every few minutes it seemed) morning came. Our doctor came in around 6:30 AM and discussed everything with me. He said all looked good no problems had shown up. He said as long as the test this morning is ok you can go home today. They took me around 7:30 AM for a graded exercise stress test (Nuclear GXT). They injected radioactive fluid into my blood stream and then took pictures for about 20 minutes. I then got on a treadmill and walked until my heart rate reached a targeted rate and then injected more radioactive fluid into my veins. I then walked about another minute and a half and then the exercise test was over. The EKG part of the test showed no problems at all. I waited about 30 minutes and then they took more pictures and I returned to the room.

From that point I just waited...and waited...and waited...and waited. At 3:30 PM I asked the nurses to call my doctor as head had requested that I do that if I hadn't heard anything from the test by 3 PM. They did and we waited some more and waited and waited. Finally at 6 PM they came and said the doctor had said I could go home but that they still didn't have the final results from the Nuclear GXT test. The doctor assured me that he expected everything to be normal but that they would contact me on Tuesday with the results.

That's where we are now. I feel fine. I did not have severe chest pains. I did not have a heart attack. I did not pass out or faint. We do not know conclusively what caused the symptoms I experienced but we do know a couple of things that it was not. It wasn't a heart attack and it wasn't a stroke or a tumor related.

I am back at work on Tuesday and will post here when I get results from the last test.