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| Home sweet home! |
| 11.30.03 (8:46 am) |
Although not cured yet, I can go home today! The doctor just stopped by to tell me the good news. With blood thinners they will try and dissolve the blood clod that it cutting off the blood flow in my right carotid artery and I am getting painkillers for my stiff neck. Once that blood clod is out of the way, my cardiologist hopes that my artery repairs itself. I have to go see him next week for an ultrasound to see how everything’s going, but other than the plethora of pills they have prescribed I am pretty much free to go and can also go back to work and thus to normal daily life. I am really lucky that this pretty serious condition turned out this well in my case. I am also really grateful for the ophthalmologist who had the clever idea to have this checked out in the hospital last Wednesday. Things could have been quite different otherwise. Anyway. I am now waiting for the nurse to come and explain my prescription in detail and Jacco just arrived with my ‘civilian’ clothes, so that I don’t have to go home in pajamas… They will probably wheel me out of the hospital, that’s common practice here (suppose you fall on your way out, they’d be liable). I’ll have new stories for you soon!
ps. Here are two pictures from my hospital room, right before I left. I was looking out over the helicopter platform.
[image]anouk_886970715.jpg[/image]
[image]anouk_1341573503.jpg[/image]
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| Can I please take a shower now? |
| 11.29.03 (6:53 pm) |
It's Saturday evening and I've seen another day passing by from behind my window in the hospital. It's weird to see NIH when you wake up and when you go to sleep. The advantage of staying here is that a lot of our friends live and work close by, so I have plenty of people visiting me. Today, I finally got to take a shower, something that I hadn't done since I was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday. I asked them yesterday, but I got no for an answer. No explanation whatsoever, which made me mad and upset. I can see that they try to do their best to get me back on track again, but I just don't take a simple no for an answer. When my doctor came yesterday evening, he said that it was alright and that he would tell the nurses about it as well. But then I got that headache and was in no shape to go anywhere, so today I finally took that shower. It's unbelievable how one can long for something simple like a shower.
***
It's about 8:30 now and I just had a friend and her mom over for a quick visit. They brought some (Dutch) magazines, so that'll give me something to do besides typing away in the blog. I hope you won't be too bored with these stories, but that's pretty much all that's going on here right now. At least after some Tylenol I feel less stiff and more like doing something. Jacco sticks to his Harry Potter book (The Order of the Phoenix), it's about 800 pages so that keeps him busy aside from helping me out here. I think it's time to stop writing, I don't feel that I am adding much to that what has already been said. Perhaps I have more (and hopefully more promising) news tomorrow and I'll let you know when I can go home. Just keep checking the log!
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| Another chance to see the helicopter... |
| 11.29.03 (7:30 am) |
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It's Saturday today. The weather looks beautiful, but I've been told by one of the nurses that it's really cold out. I had a good night sleep after a terrible headache yesterday evening. Thank god for valium... Anyway. My doctor stopped by this morming to tell me that my blood levels are not yet where he wants them to be, so I have to stay at least one more night. So I joked that I would at least have another chance to see the 911 helicopter go out and come back with some patient in terrible distress. You must know that my room is right above the platform where they take off and land. It's quiet out here, but people come visit me all the time and if there's nobody psysically present in my room, I am on the phone with some friend or relative. I don't have to stay in bed, so that's another good thing. Right now, I am waiting for my breakfast to come (you can just key in 'food' on the telephone and order whatever you like). As I am writing this, food services brought it, so I am taking a little break now. To be continued...
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| Hospital |
| 11.28.03 (8:37 pm) |
Yes, and unlike my last post a few days ago, this is about me... For those of you who have not heard by phone, email or otherwise; I have been in the hospital since last Wednesday.
It all started after our ‘little’ hike to Old Rag last Saturday. On Sunday I had quite a bit of a muscle ache, but didn’t think much of it, because it was quite a strenuous hike. Unlike the pain in my legs, my neck pain would not go away. Then on Tuesday I noticed that my right eye was a bit smaller than the left one, and that pupil would not dilate either. I decided to see what would happen overnight and with no changes whatsoever, went to my ophthalmologist (‘oogarts’ in Dutch) on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.
The ophthalmologist could not find anything wrong with my eye, but suspected some neurological problem and called my primary care physician (huisarts in Dutch). Considering the upcoming holiday they decided that it was best to go to the ER (eerste hulp in Dutch) and have it checked right away.
Down in the ER they did a chest x-ray, an MRI and then an angiogram (to check my blood flow to the brain). It turned out that my right carotid artery (‘mijn rechter halsslagader’ in Dutch) is dissected (‘de lagen van de ader hebben van elkaar losgelaten’ in Dutch). So I was admitted to the step-down unit of the intensive care and hooked up to all kinds of monitors. Apparently the other three arteries had pretty much taken over the tasks of the dissected one, that is currently for 99% closed. Nobody has a clue as to what might have caused this, because it usually is a trauma-related injury or something that happens to older people. All in all, the doctors thought I was doing OK considering the circumstances, but something needs to be done nonetheless, because my other arteries cannot do this job forever.
I am now getting blood thinners and my cardiologist hopes that that will allow for some blood to flow through that artery so that it can perhaps eventually repair itself. If my blood work looks good tomorrow, i.e. if has the right density and they have gotten rid of my stiff neck and headaches, I might go home.
Once I go home, I have to keep using medicine to prevent my blood from clotting, and only when that artery gets repaired (either naturally or via surgery, something that my cardiologist at this point does not deem necessary) the nerve that causes my pupil to (not) dilate correctly can get back to normal. Fortunately, other than my slightly smaller eye, the whole problem has not affected my sight or anything else for that matter, and my cardiologist thinks my prognosis is good. All in all I did not have a great Thanksgiving as you can understand, and even though nobody can predict the future, this is certainly something to worry about…
Jacco has been my best help so far giving me physical (sometimes my body is so stiff ans sore that I can hardly get out of bed) and moral support all the way, but I would also like to thank all of you who come visit me in the hospital, call me, send email etc. Now that I have this laptop hooked up in my hospital room, I will try and add to the log every further day that I have to be here, and after that again from home. I’ll keep y’all posted!
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| Pregnant |
| 11.25.03 (7:35 am) |
No, not me, but I did grab your attention didn't I? Here's a question for y'all... What do you do when you suspect, say a collegue, is pregnant?
Do you:
a) just ask while running the risk that it's not true and the person just got a little chunky lately :oops:;
b) not ask and then run the risk that she'll think you're not interested in her life which makes you an unfavorable collegue :cry:;
c) steer the conversation towards baby's and see if she pops the news herself :wink: (although this option is no guarantee that you'll really find out either); or
d) send an anonymous 8) 'congratulations, a baby's on its way' card, make sure that she opens it in your presence and then play along with whatever her reaction is.
I opted for b) and then when she told me admitted that I suspected it for quite some time. It turned out that she was already almost seven months along the way. It's not a fair guessing game though when you can still hardly tell...
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| Stereogram |
| 11.24.03 (5:15 pm) |
We went to Ikea yesterday to buy another bookshelf. In order to put it in our bookcase I had to reorganize the books and much to my surprise I found the book that we had been looking for for some time now. It's a book on 3D stereograms, images hidden in another image.
My first encounter with a bunch of stereograms was in the Futuroscope near Poitiers in France. Jacco and I both discovered the hidden images right away and we brought a poster for his brother. It turned out that he couldn't see it. As of today, that poster is still hanging in his living room, without him ever having seen the hidden elephants...
I googled the word 'stereogram' and one of the pages that popped up was the Magic Eye of the Week. This site features a new stereogram every week and I've included this week's image below. Can you see what it is?
[image]anoukvanaanholt_62 5103155.jpg[/image]
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| Sunday slipping away... |
| 11.23.03 (1:03 pm) |
It's one of those days when you need to do all kinds of things, but simply don't get yourself to actually do them. Let's review...
We should clean our apartment, do groceries, and I should do some work I meant to do earlier this week and prepare tomorrow's classes. Instead, we've put up our litho, I've been surfing the web pretty much all morning and Jacco's been reading away in a pile of magazines we got from a friend.
Sounds familiar? Why on earth does everyone long for the weekend if it slips away like this anyway?
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| Old Rag |
| 11.22.03 (9:52 pm) |
So we went up Old Rag today, three of us. We've done it before, but halfway up the mountain, I always wonder: "Why do I drag myself up here again?" Well, just look at this:
[image]anoukvanaanholt_12 58011972.jpg[/image]
Having lunch with such a view less than two hours from home, you simply don't get to experience that in Holland. And once up there, you forget all about the slippery rocks, the pain and fatigue. You just sit, relax and try not to think about the fact that the way down is about 2/3 of the total trip...
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| Litho |
| 11.22.03 (6:39 am) |
Upon special request, an image of the litho. And yes... it did arrive yesterday evening. Gotta go now, because we're hiking Old Rag (VA) today (5 hours, 8 miles and a 2000 ft. climb).
[image]anoukvanaanholt_34 4016378.jpg[/image]
(Image: Kessler Art)
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| UPS |
| 11.21.03 (2:02 pm) |
[image]anoukvanaanholt_84 9879058.jpg[/image]
I am waiting for my pack of wild dogs... it's a litho made by Daniel Kessler, a local artist. Unfortunately, UPS, the shipper of all goods, will not deliver it without my signature. So when we came home last night we found a nice little note that stated that the second attempt to deliver would be today between 10:30 AM and 5:00 PM... Why not just leave it in front of the door, with a neighbor, or with the leasing office?
You must know that Chevy Chase is a very safe town, especially our neighborhood, since we have two cops living in our apartment community. One of which has decided that the little traffic circle in front of our apartment (which is technically a fire route but allows big trucks to turn and come down the hill again) can serve as his private little parking spot (see banner above). None of us have private parking spots, but rather a parking permit that allows you to park in any spot on the premises and although the traffic circle is used by many to unload groceries, we all get towed if we park there for more than an hour.
I always thought that the police was supposed to be an example for society, nice role model don't you think? Oh well... If the UPS man cannot make the turn when he comes to deliver my package, perhaps he can *accidentally* bump that car aside...
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| Out with the Caddy... in with the Golf |
| 11.21.03 (9:21 am) |
Those of you who know us know we owned an old Cadillac. It was brownish, had a plastic roof and although everybody thought it was great, it really was plain ugly. We got it because it was an American car and there's no way you can drive a monster like that in Europe. We drove it around for a good three years. The Caddy grew older and older though... Its airconditioning had to be fixed on a regular basis (and believe me, you need an AC during one of those hot 'n sticky DC summers) and as of lately it would just simply stall while waiting for a traffic light.
Not good. So we decided that we needed something else. We tried a Mini. Very mini and not that cheap actually... So, we trotted to a VW dealer to look at some Jetta's (a Bora in Holland). The salesperson pointed out that he had a bright red Golf and asked us whether or not we would like to test drive it. Sure why not...
And this is where the bargaining started... Finally we ended up closing a deal at another dealer, about an hour and a half after closing time (hey, it takes time to come to an agreement...). They even gave us some money for the old Caddy. We explained that we had to move money from one account to the other and that we could come pick it up a few days later. But no... there's no way they let you leave without the new car. So you call your insurance, right there at 10:30 PM, sign a financing contract that they'll rip up as soon as you give them the check and off you go...
Perhaps Americans think this is all perfectly normal, but you Dutch people have got to admit, that this would have never happened on the other side of the Atlantic, right?
:arrow: Pics
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| Up and running... |
| 11.20.03 (10:39 pm) |
Well, I guess this is the first official post to let you all know that the weblog is finally up and running. Besides the pictures on our website, I will now try to keep up with the log and tell you what's going on in DC. For all you Dutch readers out there... I've decided to keep the log in tune with the website and as such will post in English. You guys can read it anyway... :lol: Enjoy, and please let me know what you think, either as a comment in the log or via the guestbook!
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| And again... |
| 11.20.03 (6:20 pm) |
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We'll give it another shot
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| Test |
| 11.20.03 (6:01 pm) |
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Okay, let's see if I can get this weblog to work and incorporated into the site...
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