They Rushed Me to the E.R. for . . . A Stuffy Nose?

Sunday evening (01/26/2014), driving home from church, I felt some shortness of breath. As a life-long asthmatic, this is not news. "Shortness of breath" is a daily event, but this was a tad worse than usual. I didn't
think much of it, settled in for a normal evening and slept fine that night.

I felt a bit of the same getting ready for work Monday AM, but nothing that would keep me from going to work. My job involves talking over the phone all the time, so shortness of breath and/or excessive stuffiness can be a real bummer. By 3 PM, it was coming back and clearly interfering with my ability to do my job. Again, nothing all that unusual, this kind of thing usually comes up 3-4 times per year. By 4:15 I called it a day, and decided to head home early (for those of you not aware, I usually work from late morning until about 8:10 PM).

On the way home I debated with myself the merits of going to see a doctor. While my condition was a little worse than a normal asthma flair up, it wasn't much. However, knowing that I was missing work anyway, it was probably as good of a time as any to go see a doctor. The last thing I would want is to sit around all day, then need to miss MORE work later to go to a doctor. So, I went on to the urgent care in Ankeny.

After waiting quite a while, I got in to see a nurse practitioner eventually. She listened to me breathe, and agreed with me that my heart was beating a bit harder than normal (this is also common with an asthma flair up). As a precaution, she ordered a chest x-ray and an EKG.

Both of those done, (now I've been at urgent care for nearly two hours) I resumed waiting in the little room alone for about 30 minutes before hearing anything at all. Then a doctor came in (noteworthy that it was "the doctor," not the nurse practitioner this time). He asked me all the same questions that the nurse and the nurse practitioner asked me. There was a lot of hemming and hawing around, and finally he said, in essence, that he was concerned because the EKG showed a "funny looking blip." That, plus a family history of heart problems led to him calling the ambulance for me. The purpose was to take me to the emergency room so that they could run some blood tests that they don't have the ability to run at urgent care.

Whoa ... wait a minute. Seriously? Other than some minor breathing issues, and some fatigue, I actually felt normal. No hoarseness, wheezing, sore throat or anything like that. Can't I just go home and have my wife drive me there? No, I can't let you drive home. Why? Well, although the odds are very small, the "funny" EKG reading could be caused by several things, and one of those things is cardiac arrest. Another very small possibility is that you have a blood clot in your lung. Well, what else could it be? It could be - and probably is - something much more minor, like just a bad reading (ie, a "false positive"), or a staph infection could cause this kind of result, or certain kinds of viruses can, or a variety of other rare (yet minor) things. But essentially, you're saying that I MAY be having a heart problem or blood clot right now (tiny chance), and for that reason I can't drive and I need to go to the ER immediately? Yup.

Well, the Ankeny Fire Department isn't far from urgent care, so I really only had about 5 minutes to use the bathroom and call Debbi to tell her the very brief version of what's going on (poor wife!). Then, 3 paramedics came into the room and asked me all the same questions the nurse, NP, and doctor had asked me. "Do you think you can walk to the gurney [10 feet away] under your own power?" "Well, I can just walk to the ambulance perfectly fine, actually." "We're really not supposed to let you do that."

I've never ridden in an ambulance before, but I have to imagine that this was the most laid-back ride of the week for those guys. The guy in the back with me didn't even bother to do an IV. He asked me all the questions yet again, and added, "are you feeling any anxiety?" "Well, I AM NOW!!! I came in for a stuffy nose and now I'm riding to the ER in an ambulance!!!" They took another EKG in the ambulance, and this one was perfectly fine ... no "funny blips." [Oh, and also got to have the privilege of getting an "L" shape shaved into my chest to attach the probes. Yea!]

Long story short, I was greeting at the ER (Methodist Hospital) by a nice nurse and a nice PA who went over all the test results so far, and took a 3rd EKG, hooked me up to a heart monitor, and ordered a bevy of blood work. So, in the long run, I described my symptoms to (1) the nurse at urgent care (2) the nurse practitioner at urgent care (3) the attending doctor at urgent care (4) the paramedic who came in first at urgent care (5) the paramedic in the ambulance (6) the nurse at the ER, and (7) the Physician's Assistant at the ER.

The final diagnosis with the blood tests was a bad reading on the preliminary EKG. She explained to me that the EKG only takes a snapshot at one point in time, and, just like any machine, it can mess up. The 2nd two EKG readings were clear as a bell, no problems whatsoever. The heart monitor was fine too. In fact, she was able to tell me, you have definitely never had a heart attack, you're definitely not having a heart attack right now, and you definitely don't have any blood clots. The official diagnosis was "Upper Respiratory Infection with Asthma Flair and Shortness of Breath." I was given a prescription for Prednisone and sent home right away. Debbi got there about that time to drive me back. Thanks to Aunt Pam for watching Ben & Joe while she was coming to meet me.

I'm feeling fine this AM other than a little fatigue and still some chest tightness and shortness of breath. I will have a follow-up with my regular family doctor in about 1 week, just as a precaution.

An funny observation is that the ER I went to (Methodist Hospital) is about 1 block from where my work parking garage is. If I had just walked into the ER, I could have driven myself home, saved the ambulance ride, saved Debbi having to come get me, and saved us from having to go get my car from urgent care this AM (Tuesday). Oh well.

My take on the whole thing was that this was nothing more than "just incase" prevention mode. Once a doctor sees a reading on an EKG that indicates ANY chance of a risk, he just can't send you home no matter how tiny that risk is. On one hand, I appreciate the abundance of caution. On the other hand, the whole exercise seemed very pointless.

I have a friend who works at a hospital. After I summed up the events of the night, his comment was, "defensive medicine is the bane of efficient/affordable healthcare."

Just before I left the ER, holding the monitor wires that were hooked up to me.

Thorns & Roses

Didn't there used to be a piece in the newspaper called "Thorns & Roses?" I recall the concept was that a person/thing/event/idea would get a "thorn" if they did something bad, and a "rose" (how appropriate!) if they did something good. Well, here is my version.

A ROSE to Benjamin for often calling a cemetery a "grave garden." I think I like this term better anyhow!

A ROSE to Hardees. I like Hardees in general, and am glad that one was built at Euclid and NE 14th, even though I've only eaten there a few times. I miss the one in Ankeny, which disappeared I would guess 10+ years ago. It's the Ankeny Animal & Avian Clinic now.

A THORN to many, many patrons of gas stations. I think gas stations should have two mandatory check out lines: one for normal people and one for people who don't understand life. For example, a few weeks ago I popped in just to buy a pop and a snack -- I was in a hurry and should be in and out in 2 minutes flat.  When I got to the cashier, there we two boisterous ladies in the line. The lady who was paying had the contents of her purse splayed across the counter. After paying, she SLOWLY started reassembling the contents while laughing about something with her friend and totally ignoring everything happening around her. The young cashier was obviously thinking "um, please MOVE!" but was too timid to say anything. It only took about 90 seconds, but still, that felt like an eternity.

A THORN to the bank teller last Saturday. The man in line ahead of me was doing some kind of complicated transaction. "No, the province is Quebec..." said the man, "OK... and what country is that?" asked the teller. ("Quebec, Mexico" I said under my breath.)

A ROSE to the late Dick Layman, the WHO radio news anchor who passed away recently at the age of 59. I recall that on the morning of September 11th, 2001 I was driving to work at FBBC. (Yes, I know, driving all the way from 226 College Ave. to the Admin Building . . . I must have been late, because I heard the 8:00 news on the car radio.) "It's like something out of a movie," Layman said, "a plane has crashed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center; we'll have more details as they become available."

Florida Vacation Reflections 2013

The Rose side of the family just got back from a fun & relaxing week in Florida. Our destination was Treasure Island -- a beachfront community just west of St. Petersburg. Yes, technically, it's an island because it's separated from the main land by an inner-coastal waterway, but a series of very short causeways and drawbridges makes it so it doesn't "feel" like an island. According to Wikipedia, "Treasure Island got its name after several property owners attempted to boost sales of the properties being developed on the island by first burying and then pretending to discover a couple of wooden chests on the beach around 1915. After claiming the chests were filled with treasure, the news of the 'discovery' quickly spread and people began calling the island Treasure Island."

We left the DSM airport on the morning of Monday, August 5th along with my Mom & Dad. (We would meet my sister and her family there). I would like to pause for just a moment to say that I'm very thankful that Allegiant Airlines decided to come to Des Moines a few years ago. Sure, they are a low- budget, no frills airline, and you have to pay for even the smallest niceties (carry on luggage, snacks, etc.) but the important thing is that they offer direct flights to a couple cities in Florida. When traveling with kids, a non-stop flight is 5 times better than something with a layover (maybe more than 5 times)! You don't have to spend a "whole day" traveling.

Even though Allegiant does fly into St. Petersburg, they didn't have a flight that day that worked for all of us, so we flew into Sanford... a nice, small airport (similar to DSM) on the north edge of the Orlando area. We got a rental van and drove about 2 hrs. and 20 minutes to our destination. (I would still rather fly once and drive 2-3 hours than have a layover.) Although we didn't stop there, we drove right through the town of "Land O' Lakes" -- I think the town is missing out on some great name-related advertising tie ins.

Our hotel was "Sunset Vistas Beachfront Suites" -- as the name says, right on the beach (see reviews here). Every room is a 2-bedroom suite. Even though we were on the north side (ocean is on the west, of course), the rooms are angled so that you still get a fairly good view of the ocean. The hotel staff was very nice, and arranged to have our rooms fairly close together. It wasn't luxurious, but was clean, accommodating, and had everything we needed. We had a small leak in one of the bathroom pipes, so a maintenance guy came to fix it part way through the week. He told me that the building was only 7 or 8 years old, and it did in fact seem rather modern. The pool wasn't fancy, but big enough to have fun, and there was a small kiddie pool. I would give it 3 1/2 stars and cheerfully recommend it. The whole town seemed more family oriented that the Daytona Beach area (where we were at 2 years ago), and less of a "party atmosphere."

Some general recollections:

- At the beginning of the week, I told Ben & Joe that when digging a hole in the sand, it's a good idea to dig down deep enough to get to standing water. For the rest of the week, they called it "standard water."

- Both boys were hesitant of going in the ocean at the beginning of our week, but had warmed up by the end, especially Ben. On our last day, he and I spent about 40 minutes bobbing in the sea right at sunset. They still liked the pool better.

- Florida seems to have a much higher proportion of rude/selfish drivers than Iowa! Not necessarily bad drivers, so much, but just a "I'm in a hurry so I'm going to merge 1/4 inch in front of you" attitude.

- Customer service in the south is different that what I perceive it "should be." Servers, cashiers, etc. seem to think that being friendly and chatting is more important than either speed or accuracy.

- Combining our prior Florida vacation and this one (the last was 2011, we weren't able to go in 2012), I finished one of my Star Wars books, "Planet of Twilight." (Yes, It took me two vacations to finish one book. I'm a slow reader, plus it was usually only a few minutes each day of actual reading.) I was pleasantly surprised; it was a decent book after a below average previous book by the same author ("Children of the Jedi").

- Whenever Ben or Joe would do something really fun in the pool (like jump in, or be thrown up in the air by dad or mom), they would often proclaim, "That was off the huzzah!" (meaning something is exciting.... Not sure where this came from, but we think it is a mispronunciation of "off the hizzook.")

- When we flew on the airplane for the first flight, Joe wanted the window shade down at takeoff, so he wouldn't see the "fire that would blast out of the engine." (I think he envisioned takeoff more like a space shuttle) Before the flight home, we explained that there is no fire involved (ideally), and then he really enjoyed watching the takeoff! It was also kind of cute that they both said, "touchdown!" when we landed both times, unprompted.

- Our flight home was very early, so factoring in driving and enough time to arrive in advance, we had to wake up about 3:00 AM. We were back in DSM before 11, ate, and took naps - all 4 of us! It was very little sleep, but one nice aspect was that we had the whole rest of the day to recover & allow Debbi to prepare for childcare kids coming the following day. Also, my current work schedule has me coming in to work a late half day on Tuesdays, so I was able to use Tuesday AM to catch up on some work around the house.

- I got to watch several episodes of "Pawn Stars" and "American Pickers" -- two shows I rather enjoy but don't get to watch much (we don't have cable or satellite at home).

The weather was mostly cooperative all week, save for a couple typical 1-2 hour Florida rainstorms -- come in as a massive downpour very suddenly, then once over it's back to beautiful & sunny within 10 minutes. One came on the only evening we went out to eat -- at "Bubba Gump's." We spent a few minutes trying to skilfully walk around St. John's Pass without not having a covered walkway over our heads! We also did some souvenier shopping that evening (without actually buying anything!), and I played two brief games of skee-ball at a rinky-dink arcade. The sunsets were beautiful. I never pulled myself out of bed early enough to see a sunrise. (We tried to keep sleep schedules to central time to not mess up the boys' internal clocks, so that would have been like voluntarily waking up at 5:30 central time - no thanks!)

It was also a good time with the family all around, just a time to relax and fellowship.

Thanks, Mom & Dad!!!

I think this picture should be on a postcard!

This looks like a Polaroid from the 80's
because the lens was foggy from the humidity.

Goodbye, WAPELLO

During the summer of 1995, before my junior year of high school, I got my first car, and therefore, my first license plate: 426 CWI.

Since that time, I traded in my Blue '88 Pontiac Grand Am for a Green '99 Buick Century (shortly before our wedding in 2001), and subsequently traded that in for our present Brown '06 Buick Rendezvou (shortly before the boys were born in 2008). In both cases, the license plate was taken off the old vehicle and put straight onto the new one.

So, even though I haven't lived in Wapello county since August of 1997, I've had "WAPELLO" on my license plate as long as I've had a car. I even remember when I moved off campus in the 2000-01 school year, and I became an "official" Polk county resident, I called the Wapello county courthouse. "Just send the car registration form & payment to us, and we'll automatically forward the registration to Polk county next year." So, even though the registration paperwork and the sticker came from Polk county each year, the license plate itself remained the same.

 It seems like about 3-4 times every year, I would have someone ask me, "are you from Wapello county?" or, "are you from Ottumwa?" I didn't mind; in fact, it was kind of fun. I think this is how I found out that a couple in my church (Ray & Jeanne Taylor) used to live in Ottumwa; also, when we bought Ben & Joe's mattresses just back in March, the manager of Mattress Discounter in Des Moines told me that his folks used to own a furniture store in Ottumwa, because he saw the license plate.

However, it all came to an end.

My birthday is in March, so my car registrations are always due by the end of April. After paying this year, and without warning, two new license plates unceremoniously showed up in the mail box. This is the "newer" kind with the more reflective surface and without the raised numbers & letters. Oddly, it is now in the letters-then-numbers format instead of the numbers-then-letters format.

So, as of the 3rd week in April, 2013, I am no longer "from" Wapello county. Truly, the end of an era.

Old faded plate on top, new dark plate on bottom. (No, I don't want the whole world knowing my license plate.)

Rants

Driving:

- If you are making a left turn, the law requires you turn into the nearest lane. If I obey this law, and you, the guy behind me, disobeys and turns directly into the right lane and then guns it to pass me, you don't have validation to be angry when I then merge properly 1 second later and almost hit your front end.




- I don't mind if someone passes me on the freeway. What I do mind is someone tailgating me when the left lane is wide open!


Bathroom:

- If you use a stall in a public bathroom, lock the door! There is nothing more embarrassing (for both parties) than opening a door on someone!

Work:

- If you are in a position of authority to give out information, you should probably know the information before you give it out. Example:
  - A lady called in the other day; she was under the impression that once you turn age 59 1/2, you can take money out of a pre-tax retirement plan and not pay taxes on it. Now, this is an unfortunately common misconception (For those wondering, no, you can't put money into an IRA, 401K, etc. and never pay taxes on it. You either pay taxes now or later. There is no escape). In this case, however, toward the end of the conversation she said, "Well, I'm really busy this time of year because I'm a C.P.A." REALLY? I feel sorry for your clients...

Life in General:

- What's the deal with the rise of jogging pants? (for non-jogging situations)

April 16th . . . First Day of Spring

I know that the "real" first day of Spring occurs somewhere between March 19th and 21st each year.

In my mind, though, we're not "in the clear" until today.

Here is why -- On April 15th, 1996, there was a short lived yet nasty snow storm. On this link, you can see the picture of the snow flake on the 15th, and that the prior Thursday it got up to 82 degrees. Some of my buddies and I even played some touch football that prior week, only to get snowed on a few days later. Pretty standard Iowa weather.

It was my Junior year in high school, and that year there were something like 15-20 snow days (at least it felt that way). This is significant because in Ottumwa (at least), seniors graduated about 2 weeks before the school year actually ended. AND, if there were snow days, seniors didn't have to make them up. Of course, the thing that ticks me off is that MY senior year there were only 2 or 3 snow days. Grrrr.

I went sledding that day, just so that I could say I went sledding on April 15th. IIRC, my friends Peter Hemmings and Brian Harrison got their car stuck on another car's bumper in the slope between the upper and lower pit.

So, take the shovel out of the trunk of your car, plant some squash, take down the snow fence, etc. We're in the clear now, folks!

Our Hearts Were Young (Are They Still?)

Can you guess what was 20 years ago today?

Our Hearts Were Young, which was the title of my 8th grade play, debuted on March 19th, 1993.

The script was actually titled Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, as was the namesake of the original book from 1942. In order to prevent a large heap of middle school giggles, the directors truncated the "and Gay" portion.

Ian and I were convinced that the Courier had
somehow photoshopped  the picture to remove half
 of his neck and add it to mine.

The plot, as I remember it, is as follows: Two girls, Cornelia (Erin Alberty) and Emily (Libby Paluska) get on a boat to go to France. One girl's parents may have been with her (Shawn Neary as "the dad" and Katy Krieger as "the mom"). They meet two guys, Dick (Ian Kenning) and Leo (myself). While on board they meet a boisterous French man (Alex Stroda) and a host of crew members (Mark Barron, Josh Linebaugh, Sarah Chmelar, Brian Harrison, Emily Kinsinger, Sarah Schrantz, Jim Bob Carnahan, and others I may be missing).

Wackiness ensues.

Ian and Erin (I think . . .)

I know it sounds a little funny to sum up the plot as "wackiness ensues," but that's because I genuinely don't remember any actual plot. There probably was a thin plot in there somewhere, but when you are in a play, you never actually get to watch the whole play. I do know there were some specific events:

- Emily matches up with Dick; Cornelia matches up with Leo

- Leo (me) at some point runs into the stewardess (Emily K.) [in a literal sense]

Brian Harrison, Ian Kenning, Myself

- The two "couples" enter some kind of card-playing tournament. When it comes to playing cards, Leo is thoroughly impressed with Cornelia, and declares that she is "wonderful!"

Well, that's about it for my memory of how the play actually goes. I'm sure there is some kind of conflict and resolution. If anyone knows what they are, feel free to share.





Of course, one awkward moment stand out head and shoulders above all others.

Emily Kinsinger, Libby Paluska, Jim Bob Carnahan,
Sarah Schrantz

There was a scene where Erin and I were supposed to have some kind of cheesy moment, and just as I lean in, about to give her a kiss on the cheek, Ian and [someone? maybe Libby] were supposed to barge in and interrupt the moment. Erin had said that if something ever went wrong, or there was a delay, she would fake slap me to prevent actual contact [something that seems plausible in the 1920's].

Well, the senior citizen's matinee, student performance, and Friday night performance all went fine; but on the final night, there was a very large delay, and after what felt like a long delay (but was probably only a couple seconds), I leaned in, anticipating the stage slap that was coming . . . but it never happened, and I actually did kiss her on the cheek to a lot of hoots and whistles. Erin turned as red as a tomato with embarrassment and THEN Ian barged in. I later found out that Ian delayed his entrance on purpose to mildly humiliate me.

Sarah Chmelar, Josh Linebaugh, Mark Barron

There was a lot of down time - since, of course, not everyone was in every scene - so there were plenty of opportunities to wander the school with minimal supervision, have fun, ride the elevator, (normally not allowed!) etc. I also remember hanging out with friends on the light & sound crew during these down moments, including Peter Hemmings, Scott Hecker, Sarah Burke, et al.

Catherine McMillan, Erin Alberty, Shawn Neary, Meghan Neary (unsure), Angie Crisswell (sp?),
Ian Kenning

Footnote: Most of these pictures were taken on my Kodak "Disc" camera, where the film was actually shaped like a disk . . . it was horribly inefficient, and could only take like 12 pictures per disk, but for some reason I liked it. It was the same camera I took on the 8th grade Washington D.C. trip. I'm sure there were a lot more pictures, but for whatever reason, these were the only ones found in a box recently. If you have pictures, please send them to me and I'll gladly add some!