ionosphere

While our team was indeed defeated by St. Louis… Jim and I had a great time catching up with each other. I had not seen Jim since Sue and I were married.

The girls are growing up fast and getting prettier by the day. Boyfriends and an overly involved social agenda complicate what might almost be the mundane job of deciding what Sue and I might personally want to do. I started raising kids 30 years ago but this morning I’m taking lip from a 16 year old.

We like artwork and over the past three years I’ve been limited in what I can get involved with. When I grew up I was embar­rassed when my Dad had to drive me to a date. That was back when if you wanted to go on a date — you were driving and you were picking up the tab too. My folks didn’t have a car to just hand over to me but they were kind enough to loan me a vehicle. The Yellow Vinyl Roofed Dodge Dart that nothing ever happened in. It was reliable trans­portation until it burned up one evening, Totaled the vehicle.

The wound on my leg is doing better but the situation overall  is here to stay. If you have a wound that needs intense help — either not healing… or requires inter­vention — drop me an email through this website and I will tell you about a Doctor who has done a lot to guide and heal me. Hopefully soon I will have water­tight legs again. Three years and five months so far… the clock is still running. Going back to the Kidney Stone Doctor this week. If I’m not mistaken — my left side sill has stones awaiting Lithotripsy. Not taking anymore infusions of Remicade so hopefully my immune system is getting stronger. (this was then — I was discharged from Wound Care today in May)

It was great seeing Jim and talking about our amuse­ments of the past years in Advertising. Anyone who ever saw my illus­tration of George Washington with a surgical mask on saw a piece that was commis­sioned by Jim Novotny. A good Art Director with diverse interests. I wish Jim was out here in Pennsylvania too. He did get some water­colors and was going to give them a shot. He can draw very well when he wants to.

I’m seeing that I’d initially written this around April 28^th…

 

 

 

I would like to salute the good Doctor — Nathaniel Holzman, MD, who has managed and identified my leg wound at the St Mary’s Medical Center satellite unit — The St. Mary Wound Care and Bariatric Medicine Center of Langhorne, Pennsylvania. The Wound Care Center is on the way to the Oxford Valley Mall in CornerStone Suites.

I had a fight on my hands with the healing of this Ulcer. It was active for 3 years and 5 months. The pain that was associated with the wound was something above and beyond anything that I had ever experi­enced and narcotics and standard painkiller drugs did nothing to help that pain. It was nerve pain and in the interim period I took Gabapentin (an antiseizure drug) to help control the neural pathways’s trans­mission of the pain signal. I had some speech diffi­culty and would see little blue lights blinking in my peripheral vision. I might perhaps have taken an Oxycodone and then fallen asleep.  The only real relief that I felt was with the use of generic ibuprofen. I’d take maybe 8 at a time. It worked. The problem for me was a potential stomach bleeding issue and Dr. Dolan at the St. Mary’s Pain Center was able to prescribe the more selective Celebrex for my pain. Finally… the medicine had come along that could control the pain and let me do other things while healing.

My final pathology based diagnosis was Acroangiodermatitis that there is no real cure for. It does respond to compression and elevation. Last Summer was horrible with rash outbreaks of an unknown nature. It was pretty much beyond description and allergic reactions were considered. Blood tests showed nothing spectacular at all. Patch testing was done to try and isolate what had caused the strong reaction. Nothing was ever identified. It was also considered that it may have been caused by a year of the biological “Remicade” infusions that I also had been on for a year to try and calm a potential pyoderma gangrenosum.  That is pretty much a surface Crohns Disease. It tried to heal but the best it did was to offer up false scabs. The Remicade is known to increase the possi­bility of certain cancers — so we got off of that stuff. I had a bad case of pneumonia at Halloween a couple of years back and I was given gamma globulin and IV antibi­otics to help counteract the shape that my Immune System had gotten into. Perhaps six months before that I had a Deep Vein Thrombosis in my right groin down to my knee. While I was being treated for that Pneumonia Dr. Holzman was intro­duced to me and we made future plans to work together on getting rid of the Ulcer. I started seeing him last November — and I’m very lucky that I did.

I had a Venous Examination in New Jersey yesterday and there are still some remnants of that large Blood Clot behind my knee and running up my leg a bit. I have a Greenfield Filter in my Vena Cava to help protect me from possible Pulmonary Embolism. They aren’t too good for you. So while the filter will keep the PEs out the filter itself  has been there long enough that it will always be there. Any attempt to remove it could poten­tially tear the Vena Cava. That would be NFG.

Last Wednesday I had a mainte­nance Colonoscopy and the following Monday — I had a Lithotripsy with Urologist — Dr. Deven Gabale and then next day Tuesday I had my most recent visit to the Wound Care and Bariatric Medicine Center. Just a little tweaking here and there to get it all right. We are getting there and perhaps by the end of next week we can consider all of this fairly well under control.

While I thank the Good Physicians who were able to make me better — I want to acknowledge a greater power that was steering hands and thoughts here. Most of all — I want to thank Sue Beauchamp because I wouldn’t be around anymore if it were not for the love and caring that I receive from her. We have great plans and wonderful things to do on the horizon. We are absolutely going to have a wonderful life. Thanks to anyone who thought of me and I have to think that I have a big family on the other side that had a bearing on all of this. Got a few people with the same last name out there — that’s all. 

Got the materials together

Sue and I came downstairs this morning (January 1, 2013) and I started gathering up a quick kit of Watercolor supplies so we could go out and sketch at one of the parks around here. We ended up over at Playwicki Park and we had sketch­books and a palette of water­color pigments, and a brief variety of paint­brushes, sponges, mechanical pencils, graphite holders and a couple of short water containers and a quarter roll of paper towels, kneaded eraser, etc.

Despite all the usual Standards –
Draw & paint with non-judgmental abandon until you are lost in it

That’s exactly what we did too. I had brought a water­color sketchbook and a small Arches Block of 140 lb cold pressed paper. I started drawing in  my water­color sketchbook and Sue had grabbed  the regular sketchbook. The creative trance came on just like it was supposed to and when I realized that it was getting dark out… It was three hours later. I drew some of a couple small stone foundation buildings. It was great. I painted a bit and all that I had any detail on was a small stone wall in front of me. But that was just fine. Met my needs to get things moving and beside that it was a good way to start the New Year 2013.

This morning I got a Fourth Kidney Stone delivered. Oh boy. Lithotripsy is scheduled for next week. Based on scans, it looks like this will probably take a couple visits. I will be very glad to have that over with…

Bill from Android   2012-12-07  13:39:43

Medullary Sponge Kidneys are acting up again. The past month and a half has been a real nuisance. Last weekend and early this week I ejected the three stones above. Meanwhile, I also went for a CT Scan last Monday that shows a stack of stones up to about 6 cm deep in the left kidney. Lithotripsy is in the very immediate future. And laser burst pulver­ization may follow if standard lithotripsy doesn’t work. It is all pretty amazing. The stent that bypassed the right kidney which was completely blocked now has to be removed. I am doing all that I can to be super compliant. I want the holidays to be nice without any unexpected trips.

Fascinating stuff — especially if it is somebody else. Pretty uncom­fortable having the stones. Will get back to you with the size of the primary that is being targeted. My advice? Go have another couple glasses of water.

 

 

Sometimes found objects are all telling. Like a junk food bag with choles­terol, liver and kidney functions noted on the top of it. Too bad nobody brought me a hypnotic burger a week ago when Dr. Orland was operating on my Kidney and Bladder… maybe he could have signed that too. Saved me… Thanks Doc.

2012-11-15      15:06:49 EST

Not a pleasant week last week. Had some really good sized kidney stones come visit. They are still there too. Had to get a new route planned around the 4.0 cm stone in the right kidney. Very uncom­fortable, it was a 100% block on that kidney. Bleeding and hurting still today but going to go draw and take it easy for a while and maybe some of the throbbing will go away. Hope so.