Happy Birthday Rose!

Posted on September 25th, 2008 in Health by Viv

I came across this post in the City of Heroes Official Forums. I think it says it all.

Happy Birthday to RoseVortex - Organ Donors Wanted
#12044117 - 09/25/08 09:29 AM
       

Howdy Liberty-folks (Libertines?).

I wanted to wish Happy Birthday to RoseVortex (my wife) and make a request.

<Turns down the Humor Circuit to level 1>

She’s 34 today. I know you aren’t supposed to share a woman’s age, but it’s a big deal for her. She’s actually in the hospital (”Club Med”) this week getting an antibiotic “tune up”. It looks like she’ll be there right through her birthday (I’m posting this a few days early). In fact, it looks like her meds might be doing something odd to her haircolor……

For those who missed my last long and drawn out post (for *my* birthday) in April, my wife has a genetic disorder called Cystic Fibrosis (CF) for short. Don’t know what that is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cystic_fibrosis has the details. In short, your body can’t break down the mucus it produces - as a result CF patients develop persistant (and very nasty) lung infections and have digestive and other issues. Once upon a time, this was a childhood disease and most patients didn’t survive out of their teens. As the years have gone by, the median life expectancy for CF patients has risen almost every year (I believe its up to 36 now).

RoseVortex has been chasing that revised life expectency number for a while now, along the way she got married (to this weird guy), had 2 kids, graduated college, and taught high school English for a few years. Along the way through the last 14 years got sort of geeky/gamergrrl-y (which still makes me wonder if that means I have been a “good” influence or a “bad” influence…..). She started playing City of Heroes with me in January 2006, and we are pretty much only on Liberty server, where we hang out on the SisterhoodFriends global channel (which has a bunch of folks from all over the place). Rose has 3 lvl 50 toons (which makes me look like a slacker since I only have the 1….I think I might have alt-itis). She’s even managed to get the Master of Statesman TF badge on her empath (which seemed like an impossible task with Yank Shillelagh the Suicidal Scrapper along…thanks for the stress Yank ). We play mostly blueside, but both of us have a late 30’s baddie toon as well. She cheats and plays while I am at work…..

RoseV has been on the lung transplant list for about a year and a half. As of the last few days we are now up to #2 on the list at our transplant center. She has to have a double lung transplant because otherwise a “sick” lung would infect the “clean” one….otherwise I’d give her a lung in a heartbeat. Over the last 2 years we have sold our house and moved in with her Mom until after the transplant comes “someday”. At this point she’s on oxygen 24×7, so we don’t get out much. She is one of the toughest people I have ever met - she walked around with an undiagnosed pneumothorax (a collapsed lung) for a week last year saying she was “uncomfortable” - the living definition of the Willpower powerset I guess. Along the way we have kept our sense of humor (well, its gotten a bit on the dark side, but we are still laughing). Of course, if I make her laugh too hard I might pop another lung….its a delicate balancing act…

My birthday wish for Rose is not something I can buy. The Lung Store doesn’t seem to have a branch in our area.

The transplant lungs will come from someone we don’t even know. I don’t know that we will get a chance to say thank you to anyone.

My birthday request/wish for RoseVortex for all of you is this:
-If you don’t have any religious or moral objections (and I understand if you do) please go out and register as an organ donor. If you are in the US, go to http://www.organdonor.gov/donor/index.htm and find out how to register in your state (every state does it differently). According to http://www.unos.org/data/default.asp?displayType=usData there are 99,000 people on the waiting lists in the US right now. If you are outside the US, it looks like every country has their own way of handling registration, you’ll have to Google it.
-If you choose to register, make sure you discuss it with your family and they understand your wishes, because if the time comes, you won’t be around to tell them.

If you are already registered, thank you for your “birthday present” to Rose and to everyone else on the waiting lists. I will probably never get to say Thank You to whoever helps give Rose more life, so I will have to make it a general THANK YOU to everyone who has registered as a donor. It really will make a difference for somebody.

<Humor Circuit back to normal>

I don’t want any of you redside folks to get the idea of running down to the Facemaker and picking up a set of lungs. The doctors here seem to be pretty picky about knowing where the organs came from…..

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings, and please wish RoseVortex a Happy Birthday. Hopefully she’ll be back playing in a week or so.

I love you Rose.

Thanks for reading this far My posts tend to get kinda long…..

——————–
@Kalkin - Liberty
ArcherBot - lvl50 TA/A

Wish RoseVortex Happy Birthday, please become an organ donor.

Cheesecake of Doom!!!!

Posted on June 25th, 2008 in Health, Uncategorized by Viv

Turtle Pecan Cheesecake

This is a Turtle Pecan Cheesecake. It’s a recipe I first made 15 or so years ago.

Our teen recently asked me to make it for his 17th birthday, and I hadn’t made it in 6 or 7 years. It was such a hit, that I was asked to make it for Dad’s birthday party two weeks later in two forms, one with pecans and one without.

Our nephew tried the one without pecans (he can’t eat nuts) and LOVED it. I am now making one for his pre-surgery party this Sunday.

I’m also making the traditional family cheesecake for our niece that is turning 18 on Monday.

Doom. My diet is full of doom.

Check-in

Posted on April 1st, 2008 in Health, Personal, Reality by Chooch

Its been awhile, so a check-in is definitely due. The past few weeks have seen a trip to the doctor and two trips to the emergency room. Nothing drastic or life threatening on any front, but certainly not fun.

As I may have written here, we’ve been doing a lot of work in our basement. After three years of sitting there, we’ve finally cracked open most boxes and started sorting things to keep, give away, or toss. We resolved to re-carpet one room who’s floor was beyond redemption, and re-purpose most of the basement rooms to other purposes.

Each weekend we have a set of goals to complete little pieces, all leading up to a completion sometime mid to late April when we’ll have some greatly anticipated guests staying with us. Last week’s goals were first interrupted when we discovered that our dishwasher had broken. We had been contemplating replacing it for the last year or more, but its been working well enough that we decided it could be put off until we were done spending money on the basement (and see how finances for Con season held out).

So, off to the stores we went and bought a new one. I disconnected and removed the old dishwasher and started preparing to connect the new one as Viv started moving stuff around the basement and moving things to the garage. Unfortunately, she took a misstep and twisted her ankle very badly. Thus starts Emergency Room trip one for X-rays to ensure nothing was broken (which thankfully it wasn’t!). Then I completed the dishwasher installation which ran until just after midnight (do we know how to party on a Friday night or WHAT?!)

This made for a very interesting Easter luncheon with family as Viv was on crutches, an air cast, and Vicodin :)

This led into a very busy Monday as I had extra temporary duties and had to report early each day, as well as an expanded plate of responsibilities to tend to. As Viv was ordered with no weight bearing on her ankle for the week what would happen?? Our tween broke out with a strange rash and had to be rushed to urgent care one morning. The rash turned out to be nothing serious and was left to relieve on its own. Though he was subjected to a throat swab to check for strep.. and somehow I was subjected to a blood draw to check on my cholesterol (our Doc is so thoughtful you know.. didn’t want me to have to make another trip!).

The rest of the workweek was filled with little sleep (much of which was my own fault staying up to late) and early mornings. Friday night I made a trip after work to purchase carpet and pad for the aforementioned trouble floor. A friend of a friend was scheduled to come and install it for us on Saturday. That morning I did a major rearrange of remaining boxes in one room to move a couch out of the room getting the carpet, and removed everything else from the room.

As luck would happen, a twitter-friend was coming into town and an impromptu lunch outing was quickly brought together for many members of our Tribe to gather, meet (many for the first time) and socialize. Unfortunately, we couldn’t reschedule the carpet installation and Viv sacrificed the event to stay home and oversee it while I ran off to lunch (more about the lunch, and pictures, in a future post).

On Sunday we were prepared to turn the newly-carpeted room into the new video game room. I moved a TV and TV stand into the room, but to decide how we would arrange everything we needed a new reclining love seat moved from upstairs to the basement. I was able to remove the backs and the teen and I manhandled it down the stairs where it promptly got stuck at the bend in a hallway at the bottom. The teen hoisted it up sideways and got it swiveled around, however it cause one of the seats to start reclining and his finger became stuck in the reclining mechanism.

We quickly determined that setting the couch down would make things worse, so I pick the couch up a little higher (not sure if that really helped) and he was able to free his finger and immediately put pressure on a rather deep cut. I laid the couch down and we ran him upstairs to the kitchen to run the wound under the faucet. We wrapped a bunch of paper towels around it, as he returned to applying pressure and headed to the Emergency Room.

His hand received its own set of X-rays to ensure nothing was broken. The evaluated the cut and determined that no arteries or tendons were cut and he received three stitches. Poor guy. He was concerned as we were driving to the hospital that he may have gotten blood on the new carpet! Very sweet kid.

Through the whirlwind of activity the past few weeks I’ve only had one workout session. I forgot to weigh in this morning, so will have a weight update tomorrow. I’m fairly certain that I gained, as I consumed a lot of Easter candy and haven’t done much to burn calories. I’ve eaten mostly well, with the exception of a Chinese food dinner and the lunch outing on Saturday. Oh and pizza Saturday night.

Hmm….. never mind, my weight loss is doomed :-/

Supposed to be Working FOR the weekend

Posted on March 3rd, 2008 in Health, Personal, Reality by Chooch

Running is on hold today. I’m sore all over from the work we did in the basement this weekend. Viv’s pedometer said we only walked two miles while shopping yesterday, but I swear it was more. Though, much of the time was spent standing.

At weigh in I’m down a pound from last week so I’m down 12 pounds overall! I’m excited about it because I thought that I was going to be flat (or maybe gain) this week. I know I over ate all week. All healthy stuff, but I just can’t seem to get my portions down. I eat the “proper” amount and wait a little bit but feel sooooo hungry that I eat more. I need to get over that and just deal with the false hunger.

After moving boxes around all weekend; bending over to strip parts out of computers; hanging shelves and the like; the backs of my legs are burning more than the Couch to 5k runs and my abdomen feels like I did a thousand crunches. We got one room completely emptied; sent another 20 cubic feet of trash to the curb; moved a couch; and relocated the podcast studio to a temporary location.

Viv did an amazing job staining our new “desk” for the studio - it looks beautiful. We made a run to Guitar Center and got some new desk stands for our microphones and a headphone amplifier - oh and a groovy rug to sit under the new work surface from Target. Pictures to come after everything is in place!

If I feel better tomorrow then I’ll kick off week 3 of the Couch to 5k program and just run Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday though I think I may have to put it off until Wednesday:(

Recovery

Posted on February 26th, 2008 in Health, Personal, Reality by Chooch

I had a another week of “fail” where I didn’t exercise that much and my weight was even — however I’ve turned this around and went down 3 pounds. This brings me 1 pound down from where I stalled and gained, so I’m back on the right track. Wait, wha? Math is hard :)

We’ve purchased a new scale that shows total fat % and stuff like that. The weight measurement is more consistent than the old scale, but I’m surprised to find the old scale was accurate, averaging the variance :)

I started the second week of the Couch to 5K podcast. I say “second week”, but we actually repeated the first week so I’m a little behind but there is still plenty of time before the Richmond race, so that’s fine. The running sections are longer (from 60 seconds to 90 seconds) but my legs don’t feel as bad as they did in the first week.

And the biggest news was that during my after-workout stretching I actually bent down and touched the ground!! Granted my legs were pretty far apart, but I haven’t been able to bend straight over and touch the ground since High School! I was so excited. Viv had to stop me from overdoing it.

Run Forest Run!

Posted on February 8th, 2008 in Health, Personal, Reality, Social by Chooch

Viv and I have been discussing off and on about running the “Race for the Cure” in DC. She has actually run it previously after her mother beat her first round of breast cancer. Due to a number of reasons we are not going to be able to do the DC race this year, however we decided to run in Richmond on May 10th.

I’ve never done any kind of marathon, or much running of any kind past PE class in Junior High and High School. I’ve done bouts of jogging as a form of exercise throughout my life but its always been short lived.

With our renewed emphasis in our health that started this year, I think that a goal, such as the RFTC is a great motivator to stay on top of our diet and exercise routines. Viv tweeted about our participation this morning and was given a link to a workout plan to prep for a marathon in two months. There’s even a companion podcast to walk you through each run.

It looks pretty aggressive, but with such a short period of time it seems it needs to be. She actually started on it today. I will likely start tomorrow. Of course, I’ll post the progress here!

Sicko

Posted on February 8th, 2008 in Health, Personal, Reality by Chooch

I was sick all week. I don’t even know for sure what it was. I’m guessing stomach flu as I was somewhat nauseous for much of the time and generally achy. The largest symptom was just extreme fatigue. It has mostly passed now, but it kept me from working out all week. I’m expecting bad news when I hit the scales tomorrow. I might skip the weigh-in this week and see what happens next week.

Oh, and speaking of scales: as of my weigh-in last week, I dropped another two pounds. So my total weight loss for January was 10 pounds! Hopefully the lack of working out this week won’t bring a bring a backslide.

Resolutions? Nah, just goals

Posted on December 29th, 2007 in Health, Personal, Reality, Writing by Chooch

I want to try and blog more on here. I’ve enjoyed reading through some other peoples blogs and noticed that its the little things from day to day (for instance Neil Gaiman’s blog) rather than the media and video links (ala BoingBoing) that are holding my interest right now.

Of course, both of them are actually written by “somebody” (or several somebodies in the case of the latter) which definitely helps :)

Oh well. We can try.

Another goal I have is to actually comment on peoples blogs and, more specifically, to actually write reviews on iTunes and other resources for podcasts or other things that I enjoy. I’m starting to really wish that people would write some reviews of our podcasts and realized that I can’t expect anybody else to write a review for my podcast if I’ve never written any for the ones that I’ve enjoyed.

Now, I’ve posted comments; phoned-in; written e-mails; and recorded mp3 comments for other peoples podcasts. I’ve posted reviews to my blog here and played podcast promos too.. but I’ve never written reviews - which seems to have the biggest impact as far as helping them get more listeners.

Non-online goals include calling my son more often; reading more; writing more fiction; recording more music; getting to bed earlier; getting to work earlier in the morning; eating better; and getting into a real exercise habit. The eating and exercising seem to go well for about a month or two, but then falls apart. I need to make them no-brainer habits so that I stick with them.

With that said, its bed time.

And I shall live forever!

Posted on December 4th, 2007 in Funny, Health, Reality by Chooch

The Germans know how to pick their research topics!

10 Minutes Of Staring at Boobs Daily Prolongs Man’s Life by 5 Years

By: Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

BoobsListen, guys, now we know why Pamela Anderson made her transplants: to make us healthier. “Angels of mercy” like Jordan just prolong our life and Hugh Hefner knows it.

A German research published in New England Journal of Medicine and Weekly World News said that men staring at women’s breasts in fact prolong their lives with years.

“Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female such as Baywatch actress Pamela Lee is equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out,” said author Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist.

The team led by Weatherby was made up of researchers at three hospitals in Frankfurt, Germany, and found this results after monitoring for 5 years the health of 200 male subjects, half of whom were asked to look at busty females daily, while the other half had to abstain from doing so.

For five years, the boob oglers presented a lower blood pressure, slower resting pulse rates and decreased risk of coronary artery disease.

“Sexual excitement gets the heart pumping and improves blood circulation. There’s no question: Gazing at large breasts makes men healthier. Our study indicates that engaging in this activity a few minutes daily cuts the risk of stroke and heart attack in half.” said Weatherby, who even recommended that men aged over 40 should spend at least 10 minutes daily admiring breasts sized “D-cup” or larger.

She said that this was as healthy as going to the gym for 30 minutes daily and prolonged a man’s life by five years.

“We believe that by doing so consistently, the average man can extend his life four to five years.” said Weatherby.

This is indeed a very serious reason for men to enjoy without shame those midnight TVdownload low-budget women-in-prison movies and collect such instructive and health beneficial magazines like Playboy and Hustler.

Fast-food comparison chart

Posted on November 14th, 2007 in Health, Reality by Chooch

The fact that this site is comparing triple cheese burgers for how (un)healthy they are is pretty funny. There’s some pretty interesting information in here to help you pick the “best of the worst” though.

From BoingBoing:

Fast-food toxicity comparison chart

 

 

ffrycompar.jpg

The Calorie Counter website has pulled together a great chart comparing the “nutritional” information from the “kitchens” of a variety of junk-food fast-food places. If you’re trying to figure out how to slow down the rate at which your trans-fat/ high-fructose/ ground-grade-z- beef habit is killing you, you can use this chart to pick the best of the worst. And hell, if you’re trying to commit suicide-by-burger, here’s the roadmap you need to get yourself into the grave ASAP. Link (via Kottke)