5 months

really...  it has been 5 months since Larry had teeth....   he has been such a trooper through all of this past year... He used to say he was a wimp with pain, but he isn’t any longer... I have been amazed....

He had good strong teeth, very few problems, but at a dental checkup in August, they discovered he had gum disease....  for a person with heart disease, this is a huge danger....  that bacteria can cause a heart patient to be on antibiotics for the rest of their lives...

So he and the oral surgeon decided to do it all.....   under anesthesia of course... what was to be a one night stay turned into 9 nights because his kidnies went into shock.....  but that is done.

Today he got his new teeth.....   no steak tonight, has to get used to eating and talking, but to the future......

The process in photos.....

LVAD video on local news

Even though this is not our hospital, it is a great video to explain a LVAD procedure.


KATV news LVAD video


The katv news tonight had a segment on Larry Chastain, who received a heart transplant, he was in CVICU beside Larry and got his LVAD a week before....  congrats to him and Jan....  I will post that link when it becomes available......

Sadly my Larry is not eligible for a transplant because of his diabetes.....  

Larry's dr. follow up today was good.... it has been 3 months since his last doctor visit.
Last summer when we were seeing Dr Ransom every week, I never thought this day would come...
He was in the hospital for GI bleeds, then he had to get teeth removed... it was a really long 9 months of in and outs, weekly visits, lab tests...  and concern....

 But today hus xray, labs, echocardiogram, 6 minute walk, all good...  next appointment is in 3 months......  we need lots of prayers and probably akways will....   he is good, but he still has Congestive Heart Failure, he is still insulin dependent diabetic, he still has kidney issues.....  and I still celebrate each and every day as if it is our last one together.......
one day at a time........  

first we celebrate his 1 year LVAD on March 7....

Think the new generator is a great LVAD birthday present........  for maybe the rest of his life.....  ha

Yes it is a new year, 2018, but I think I will choose to celebrate a new year on March 7.......

Smile....  whats going on.....
*** Well, I began passing a kidney stone new years eve, unfortunately the stone didnt pass until January 12th...... I sure hope that doesnt indicate how the rest of the year is going to go.

*** Larry had his gum procedure on Jan. 11th, oral surgeon opened up 2 places on his front gums, ground and snipped the bone, smoothed it, and stitched it back up....   not much bleeding and pain wasnt bad....  so he is healing just fine. Should be able to try his new dentures next week.

*** discovered the leak we thought was the upstairs bathroom must be the tub, so contracted with Lowes to get new tub, the kicker on that is there is a window over the tub, a panel surround wont work, so we will have to tile....  gonna be a basic white subway tile, I was hurting too bad with my stone that I didnt even go pick it out...

*** have had really cold weather, the coldest I remember, and then snow....  I began experiment with freezing bubbles.

*** had the power go out in the middle if the night.... THE LVAD ALARMS DO WORK.....  they were loud.  Larry jumped up and switched to battery faster than I could even blink....  so proud of him.   I texted Entergy, and then we lit the gas fireplace in the bedroom and the wood fire insert in the living room, thankfully the power came back on about 7am....  but that was 7 hours....

Larry has 3 sets of batteries that he rotates and keeps charged, but that is only about 36 hours at most.
Thinking bck we were without power a few years ago for 5 days, and in the summer we lose power from squirrels playing in the transformers and spring storms......  so a few months ago he bought a nice size portable generator, but that means going out, hooking it to power cords, running them in and starting it up.....   well after a long discussion we decided to go ahead and invest most of our savings into a whole house backup system....   life is hard to put a price tag on.....  yes it is a tax write off, but that is next year....

I did some research, no grants available, and even the people in the natural disaster areas could not get help with getting one of these units.....   it will be a gas unit that hooks into our existing line and will start up within minutes in an outage..... but at a hefty pricetag....

Ok some frozen bubble photos.....

2017, the YEAR in photos

The past year in photos, unfortunately they are not in chronological order like I tried to post