I got to see my heart and....

other amazing things of medical technology! Wow, over the last days I have been amazed at the advances of medical technology and what they can do. I got my event monitor on Friday. The one I have (due to insurance requirements) transmits over a landline phone. So whenever I have a strong palpitation, I record it, call the number, transmit it and viola...the technician on the other end can tell me if it is an emergency or not. He/She also passes the info onto the doctors. They have monitors that actually send everything wirelessly to everyone. That is even cooler, but I am very thankful and amazed with the one I have. I also got the opportunity today to see my heart...on a screen...in color! I had an echocardiogram with my stress test today. It was all a very amazing process. The nurse kept apologizing when she took the electrodes off of me (there were probably 15). I told her that I was just thankful that they could run tests that could check my heart out in the detail that they did.

The doctors have been able to determine what is not wrong with me, but still have no concrete answers as to the problem. We think it is palpitations that have become symptomatic. They consistently see them on all the tests they run on me and I should know more once all the doctors review the tests.

There are so many intricate details to the heart and it has caused me to worship my Creator. Our human bodies are truly amazing. I am in awe of the One who created us. And I am so very thankful that not only did He create me, but He loves me with a love that is deeper than I could ever imagine. So grateful and humbled...

My health...what in the world is going on???

Since the word has been traveling (it got a little help by an announcement by my sweet hubby on facebook) about my health, I thought I should just go ahead and blog about it. I had been thinking about blogging about it anyway, because it has been a fairly significant part of our summer and I like to keep records of such things, but I didn't want to worry anyone. However, in the process of not worrying anyone, I also don't have anyone who knows who can pray for me.

I have been in the ER three times in the past month. The latter two of those were for the same issue...or at least the same symptoms. The first one I was having some stomach issues and some pain that was not going away. We did a CT and an ultrasound for my gall bladder all which came back fine. The stomach pain left, I was feeling great and two days later I was back in the ER again. This time I got to go in an ambulance. Anytime you have tingling in all your extremities and left shoulder pain and feel as though you are going to pass out when you are lying down it is time to all 911. I got to the ER and they found (drumroll please)....absolutely nothing wrong with me. All the tests came back perfectly fine and I was back on my way home in just a few hours. We chalked it up to possible low blood sugar or low blood pressure. The following days I would occassionally have a few fainting spells (a friend & I joked that maybe I need to loosen my corset and start carrying smelling salts) but nothing like what happened the first time. Then this past Monday "it" happened again. I headed to the doctor's office this time where they determined it was either stress/anxiety attacks or heart palpitations or arrhythmia (I am learning how to spell a new word :) ). Since I have no additional new stresses in my life and we like to eliminate the most harmful first they decided to put me on a 30-day heart monitor. I didn't speak to my regular doctor; the guys I saw wanted to speak to my regular doctor who was on vacation before we began the monitor. Soooo, no monitor as of yet have I seen. Aanndd, yesterday I was back in the ER. Same symptoms...chest pain, fainting, nausea...if you look up heart attack, I pretty much had all the symptoms except maybe sweating. I don't think I was sweating. Then again, it was at least 90 degrees outside so maybe it is weird that I wasn't sweating. Anyway, this time they found (drumroll please)...nothing. Well, not absolutely nothing. They did detect a Premature Atrial Complexes (PAC) that was pretty consistent. This could mean nothing or it could be a sign of something more serious.

Today (hopefully today) I go in for a stress test. I have learned much about the heart and detection tests. While I haven't had a heart attack, that doesn't mean there still might not be a blockage. It just means that if there is a blockage there has been no heart damage. The stress test will show if there is a blockage. We are not anticipating a blockage because I have absolutely no risk factors except for family histroy. If there isn't a blockage then we proceed with the monitor to find out what the heck is going on in there.

Thank you so much for your prayers. We have tried to keep it relaxed around here, but as you can imagine, when you are dealing with possible heart issues, it causes some pause.

July in pictures...

We will start at the end of the July and work toward the beginning since I didn't plan out appropriately when I posted the pictures. Last week we took a family trip to Chicago for a few days. It was fun and we made memories...maybe not all the kind of memories you would like (such as vomit and the like). But despite the stomach virus that refused to leave us alone, we had a great time.

We took the kids for their first trip on the train. We rode a couple of different lines so that they could experience an elevated train and a subway. They much preferred the elevated variety. John said the elevated train was like riding on a zip line...not that he has ever experienced a zip line.

This is John's first Chicago dog. He was the only one we could convince to try it and he LOVED it! Ashley tried her first Italian beef sandwich and felt the same way John felt about his hot dog. The other two children...well, they were experiencing the wretched stomach bug so they took it easy in the food department. We were going to try some Chicago pizza, but that will have to be another trip because, again, the bug.

The day we went eating, we also went shopping. We hit the two favorites for our kids...the Lego store and the American Girl store. We also hit up the Disney Store and the Hershey store before it got too hot to walk around downtown anymore. On the way out of town Joe and I hit up our favorites...Bass Pro and IKEA. (Soon we are going to have a Bass Pro only 20 minutes away...guess who wishes it was going to be open in time for his birthday!)

The second day in Chicago (we are working backwards, remember? Shopping and eating were on the third day) we went to the Field Museum. What an incredible museum. We would have loved to spent a little bit more time there, but alas this was the worst day of the aforementioned bug. I will say that they have very nice bathrooms...and I could tell you where they are at on every floor. This was Joe's favorite museum of all time and we are hoping to go back sometime this fall just the two of us. The kids enjoyed it, but not nearly enough to stop and read every sign. This was Nathan's favorite museum. To quote him "The Field Museum was great and my favorite mom! You know, except for the times I wasn't feeling very good."
The first day in Chicago we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. The above picture is in the ship section which was really cool. The kids' favorites at this one were the tour of the Pioneer Zephyr train, the submarine and the fairy castle. The castle was unbelievable, but it was all pretty cool.

In front of the Zephyr waiting on our tour to start. We all felt pretty good on this day, so you would be on your own as far as bathrooms are concerned. Couldn't tell you where they were and kind of like that....

We spent some family time in July. John and Sara spent some time at Grandma and Grandpa Horn's. When we were dropping them off we all got to play with Grandpa's bird dog puppies.

The kids and I spent some time with my mom and dad. We did bike rides and swam at their neighbor's pool. The girls also treated us to a fashion show.

We started out July with a celebration of our country. We had a picnic with friends and headed downtown in our small town to see the fireworks. They were really good this year. Here are the kids enjoying them.

One Year Later...

June 2010
July 2011

So. Frustrated.

I was so. frustrated. this. morning. I had just sat down at our picnic table outside with my Bible (no coffee this morning...sigh) and journal. I love the summer when God and I can start out the day with the bird singing and the sounds of a small town waking up. Only this morning, as soon as I took my seat it began to sprinkle. In my moment of frustration, I looked to the sky and said, "Seriously, Lord? Really?". See, life just hasn't been going my way the last few weeks and this was just another reminder of that. And with our family, when life typically throws us curves, for some reason it involves hospitals and waiting rooms. This summer's curves have been no different. My dad had a heart attack a couple of week's ago. He's Fine! (thanks for asking), but that was a curve and a change to our summer schedule that was unexpected. Then while the kids and I went to visit my family and Joe's last week I develop some mysterious stomach issues. I went for a ct scan yesterday and a I go for an ultrasound today (which is why I'm without coffee this morning :( ). I am actually feeling a lot better than I was over the weekend, so it may just be one of those mysterious things that God uses to bring me back to the truth. The truth that He is in control and I am not. After my minor little fit this morning, the Holy Spirit reminded me...even over the rain "I AM" is the only one in control. As much as I may think that I've got my plans made and life planned, it is all theory. As James reminds us in James 4:15 "Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." (emphasis mine) Several years ago I would have grumbled (and did grumble) to God at that. Even in knowing that He was in control somehow I was convinced my way would have been better. But now, after many reminders, I say PRAISE GOD for that! Praise God that He numbers our days and we don't number our own. Praise God that He is in control over the rain and the sun. And Praise God for His grace and His gentle reminders that perfect peace is found in resting in His control.

Good 'ole USA celebration

We started our 4th of July celebration in USA style...KFC and a hike at a state park. We decided to go to one of our favorite IL parks. It is not an all time favorite park (that would reside in our Hoosier state), but Matthiessen is a great park. It is filled with waterfalls and creekside paths. Unfortunately, our phone cameras don't take the best "in the woods by the creek" pictures, but you can get the idea. I am pretty sure these types of parks were why Crocs were invented.

We will continue our celebration today with a picnic with friends this evening and fireworks. We happen to be really blessed with awesome weather for the partying!

A couple of milestones

We reached a couple of milestones as a family on Friday. The first one involved Nate, my baby (he would be correcting me right now if he could read..."I'm not a baby mom!"). All he's been able to talk about this summer is being tall enough to go down the big slide at our local pool. Friday was the first opportunity he had to try it out. When we first arrived, he ran up the stairs, got to the top, looked at the slide and promptly walked back down the stairs. He did this a couple of times. Then he jumped into the 4 feet and swam with me. Joe arrived about 15 minutes later and did a little coaxing. They took a couple of trips up and back down...Joe via the slide and Nate via the stairs. Finally, he convinced me to go up (I'm not much of a waterslide fan...the things you do for your kids). His plan was for Joe to go down first, then himself, and then me. His logic was Joe and I would both be available if there was problems. And it worked. I wasn't at the bottom when he arrived, but according to Joe his first words were "That was awesome!" Fortunately, he only required me to go down one more time. After that, except for taking a brief break to go off the diving board twice, he was on the slide...for an hour and a half.

The second milestone was for Joe and I. After we'd been at the pool for over an hour, we were kind of done being in the water. So we found a couple of lounge chairs, took a seat and watched our kids while they swam and took in the thrills of the slide and the diving board. We sat by ourselves and didn't have to worry about any child drowning. For the first time in 10 years, we didn't have to be in the water with our kids. It was kind of like a date by the pool. I love playing with my kids in the water, but the lounge chair is definitely something I can get used to.

Daycamp!

John and Joe set out on Monday morning to their first Cub Scout Daycamp. It rained all. morning. on Monday so I wasn't sure how the first of their three day experience was. But they came home excited, happy (and a little wet) and ready to go the next day. Activities included a daily craft...bird feeder, leather stamping, arrowhead necklace (do scouts call it a necklace??), human foosball, water games, and the favorites for my boys...bow and arrows and BB guns! John earned his sharp shooter patch by the end of the week and scored the highest in his Tiger (oh wait, I think he is a Bear now) group. His dad was pretty proud, but also somewhat perplexed at John's left eye dominance and his left handed shooting. On John's wish list...targets and a bow and arrow to practice in the backyard.

The other highlight of the week was the result of a pretty serious storm that the park experienced on Tuesday night. When the guys arrived Wednesday morning they saw many trees down including part of a honeybee tree. Joe retrieved much of the hive that was on the ground and we are looking forward to harvesting the honey sometime this weekend.

Project Mania

I am a project oriented type of person. I wake up in the morning, get my to-do list going and enjoy my day. In the summer, I tend to become manager of a staff made up of kids...sometimes. There are several reasons for this. First, I have come to learn that if my kids have some structure to their day, they enjoy the unstructured portion much better. Secondly, in our house, if you live here, you must contribute. I also find summers to be the perfect time for teaching some life skills. I tend to run out of time on the life skills front during the school year. So we tackle cooking, laundry, specific cleaning skills, yardwork, etc. Today we cleaned the siding on the house, weeded the gardens, and mowed the grass. John is going to learn how to do his laundry this summer. The windows all need cleaned, closets and cabinets need organized...I have a long list. Now, before you start feeling sorry for my children, we also play hard in the summer. In fact, part of the purpose of this post is to prove to my children in 20 years that their summers weren't completely miserable. I have proof in the form of pictures. Today we worked hard and then went and played hard at the bowling alley. I am embarassed to say that I came in 3rd out of 4...with the bumpers...and I was actually trying...sigh. After the bowling alley, we hit up the DQ on the way home. Tomorrow I think we may hit the movie theater ($1 summer movies) before we go shopping for Dad's Father's Day gift. But not until we have done some mopping :)

I LOVE SUMMER!!!

This is a vacation wrap blog post, but I couldn't help expressing my feelings about this time of year. I'm sure you'll hear details in posts to come about our day to day activities in this blissful time of the year. Our summer started out with vacation. We have kind of fallen into a tradition of starting our summer with vacation. Our VBS has been towards the end of summer and we have found some good deals at the beginning of summer because we can travel before some schools are out. This year we did a "split" vacation. Joe & I traveled for a week and then we are going to do a family thing in July. We had 15 years of marriage to celebrate. The kids headed to Grandpa & Grandma's on the Horn side and also got to hang out with some aunt's an uncle and some cousins. The enjoyed some banana splits, pond swimming, new puppies, outside movies, trips to the library, problem solving riddles (courtesy their math teacher aunt) and lots of being loved on. Ashley got to spend a few extra days there just herself. I'm not sure she even misses us although she is definitely being missed around here. Her sister called her about 3 hours after arriving home. I think absence has made the heart grow founder.

Joe & I headed to south Florida...Ft. Lauderdale area. It is the land of the Porche and million dollar yachts parked next to the multi-million dollar home. I truly had no idea the kind of wealth that was in parts of Ft. Lauderdale (um, not the part we stayed in, in case you were wondering). For some reason I always thought the wealth resided in Miami down there. I've been all over the U.S. so it is always a treat for me to visit somewhere that I've never been. The sunrise...We LOVE sitting on the beach...especially me early in the morning. However, we also find great relaxation in exploring. So this trip we hit the Everglades and the Keys. The everglades are in a drought right now so there was much more wildlife than there typically is. And I saw way more alligators than I had planned or enjoyed to see. Probably shouldn't have watched so much Swamp People before our trip. It was still so fun and so interesting. It looked totally different than what I expected. And I didn't think it looked anything like the Louisana/Mississippi swamps.

A couple of days after visiting the Everglades and getting some more beach time in, we headed down to the Keys. Our primary goal was a glass bottom boat ride out to the reef. I cannot even tell you how excited I was about this. I've never seen a reef before. So we arrived in the Keys first thing in the morning for our trip, dosed up on Dramamine, and after a short wait got on our boat. I feared I may have problems when the captain kept emphasizing the importance of those with motion sickness issues to take medicine, but I was completely fine on the 30 minute ride out to the reef. When we arrived, this is what we saw and were suppose to see...only with more fish, etc. for the 45 minute duration of the time on the reef.

I lasted maybe five minutes with this view. And I spent the remainder of the time with this view.

Staring at the horizon, sucking on mints and praying that I didn't throw up. The waves were 3-4 ft. so not that horrible. But we were definitely rocking and I just can't handle that. I should have known considering I can't even really get on a swing these days without some motion sickness. As gross as I felt, I would still do it again. It is probably something I'll never get to experience again....the blueness of the ocean was unbelievable.

We had planned on driving down further south in to the Keys, but the boat ride kind of did us in. So we will have to experience the furthest point south in the U.S. on another trip.

All in all it was such a great way to kick off our summer. We came back feeling refreshed, completely blessed to be married to each other and ready to face the world again.