I made it!! IM 25!! ♥

Can you believe yesterday was my birthday? I mean I am 25 now!! It doesn't feel right! With everything that has been going on in my life yesterday became a day about new beginnings. I had a party to celebrate the end of one major chapter in my life and the beginning of a new larger chapter. As part of this I pampered myself. I paid for 2 massages at my last appointment because they were having a deal that if you buy 2 you get your second one at a discount. Therefore all i had to do was schedule the appointment and what better day then my birthday? It was such a good massage! I had her use extra pressure and really dig into my muscles. While there were parts that hurt the outcome was wonderful. I felt loose and refreshed, but it wasnt enough.
As some of you know I have been growing my hair out with intentions to donate it. Having fallen in love with the length I decided to keep growing it so it would be long when I cut it. I keep pushing it off and saying I am going to wait but yesterday it just felt right. I started thinking about it upon going to bed monday night and it just seemed like the right time to do it. I knew i wanted to darken the color again also so it was going to be a fun change.

I ended up donating the minimum which was a little sad because I had wanted to donate extra because i bet there are people with wigs who would like long hair. So once she rubber banded the hair to be cut she showed me the length my hair would come out to be. It was past my shoulders so I was happy. That was the one thing it had to be and thats so 1 it wouldnt be in my face constantly and 2 so it would still fit into a ponytail.
Once it was cut it was time to dye it. The dye came out much redder then I had anticipated but I know that it will dull out after a wash or two and be a little closer to what i had imagined. Once it was colored it was time to do the final style cut. I have wanted long bangs that were shorter then my hair but still able to go behind my ears.. I knew that short bangs looked bad so i was nervous. But after playing with my hair at home and getting a couple opinions I knew it was what I wanted.

Now that all is said and done my hair is a dark red (brighter at the roots until washing) and sits just below my shoulder with long bangs in the front that hit just below my nose. Most importantly though... I LOVE IT!!

I had thought about getting a mani/pedi done also but was exhausted when I was done. Plus the nurse called me back about not feeling well and going to the hospital last week right before I left to get my hair done. In this conversation she told me I was to be on bed rest until she called me on Thursday with an update from the doctor on what he wants to do with me.
It had been hard trying to get a hold of people up there and my coordinator called while I was getting my hair done and seemed kind of upset that I had told someone else how stressed they were making me over how hard it was to get someone to return my calls. After all was said and done I am to work with the nurse and the doctor and leave the coordinator out of it for this episode... What fun!
While it sucks being told to go on bedrest on my birthday..I did get to enjoy it as much as I would have anyways.
First I would like to thank everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday on facebook/online or via text messages...thank you for taking those few seconds to remember me. Next, I want to thank everyone who came to the party for being there as it meant a lot to me. I also want to thank you all for the gifts as they were wonderful. I want to thank my mommy for letting me live through my childhood and teen years and for giving me life in the first place. I'd also like to thank her and the family for the shirts I got...she knows me well and bought some that I had picked out and not told anyone... And last but not least I would like to thank Dan. He has put up with a lot from me and still let me have my party and buy my own gifts...In the end he still gave me something small to open on my birthday and that was special to me.

Thank you to you all for helping me have a WONDERFUL birthday!

sick on my birthday...again...tho this time its a little different!

Hey everyone!!
So I am finally get to write this. I havent been able to really sit down and write because my words havent been easy to come by.
The other day I was in the hospital just after lunch because my heart started fluttering which caused it to hurt. It ended up causing my to feel nauseous and faint. They did a bunch of tests but nothing came back abnormal. I guess that is good and bad. I wish we could figure out while I am feeling worse. They gave me oxycodone when I needed it and some nausea medication when my stomach started to hurt. There was a blood test that I caused me to not be able to eat after midnight until the blood was drawn at 8. Then they saw that I had an echo and decided I couldnt eat. I couldnt understand why, I have had tons of echos and its never caused me to be unable to eat.
When the doctors came in and asked me what they could do and I told them to let me eat. They said that there was no reason I couldnt eat. I was only having an echo not a stress echo. I bet you that intern felt pretty stupid, since she was the one saying I couldnt eat. So i was offered my breakfast that was a few hours old. (It was about 1030-11 at this point) or i could wait for my lunch try. I opted to wait but ate the apple that was my "desert" from the night before.

Anyways, by the time they decided that it would be better for everyone if I went home and medicated myself I was feeling worse, but it didnt seem to matter. I feel awful and don't know what else to do. I have slept terribly the past few nights and even took an ambien last night and didnt sleep well. Also, one of the major problems I have had is when I am walking (usually in or out of somewhere, where the atmosphere is different) I get really blurry vision. It gives me headaches and makes me faint. The past couple days have been soo much worse. I wish that everything would just get better so I could actually live my life without all this medical drama.
Because of all this I decided that since there was already an email in to Linda my coordinator that Dan wrote when I went to the ER and a call to her office to update them that I would bypass them and just leave a message for the doctor to have one of his nurses to call me as soon as they can. That way I can talk to someone as soon as I can tomorrow morning and maybe have the chance of feeling better on my birthday.

When I was 16 I was told that by my 25th birthday I would have had a transplant or atleast be on the list. I am excited that I actually made it to my birthday. I will be a quarter of a century! How awesome is that!!!


Well its time to post this, finish getting ready for the party (put a few things away and go pick up the cake and some ice cream) and watch the end of Ugly Betty from Friday night.

Have a great day everyone. Sorry if you miss the party. Its going to be fun :)

3 Years Gone By

So its has been a long time since i wrote and I actually left off in the middle of a story. We are going to skip all that :)

Ive been thinking a lot lately about how fast this year has gone. It seems like just yesterday I was taking the Christmas tree down and now we are setting it back up. However, last night it was the 3 year anniversary of Daniel proposing. It amazing me that its been 3 years. On top of it being 3 years since Daniel proposed it has been 7 years since the very first time he emailed me. He had just gotten to Guam and gotten my email from my friend, at the time, Justin.

Time has just gone by so fast...

Here is one of our engagement pictures taken by our roommate Clayton...



and my beautiful ring

So yesterday after I finished my blog they called me back to prep and do my CT scan. I was so nervous because I had never done one before. So they got my vitals when they first took me back. When they took my tempurature though, it was neat cause it just gets slid across your forehead! No in ear or oral thermometers which was nice but I thought it was pretty cool that they could get an acurate temp. that was.
Once my vitals were over they sent dan back into the waiting room and took me into the scan room. After some discussion about my pacemaker and heart rate they decided they wanted my rate as low as 55. Therefore when I wallked in the room there was a tech to turn down my pacer.
As soon as that was done she left, the tech and other guy that was working with him (above him) was all that was left. I am not sure what the guy in the suit was doing but I know the tech preped me by putting stickers on me to monitor my heart rate .
Once all that was done I was told just to relax and take in a breath and hold it when told. They did thios for me to practice for the infusion scan and so they could calibrate the machine.
When it was time to practice the infusion itself they tech looked at my IV and said it was small and loose so he may need to change it. However instead of changing it he just kept moving it. He realize it was twisted so he tried to untwist it. I kept yelping as he moved it and I kept asking him to just change it. It hurt like hell and I have a lovely bruise in my elbow now. So after doing all that he decided that it may work.
To do the infusion of the contrast I had to have my arms up. So I put my arms up and he pressed the buton for 'sterile water' as he put it, to check the IV before they ran the contrast. The liquid started gushing out of my arm! I was freaking ouit. He grabbed my arm holding the IV in place while stopping to pump.
If I wasn't scared enough already, that sure did it. They already told me that the contrast makes you feel like your burning hot especially on your throught and that you've wet yourself. Now I was scared that another IV was going to explode all over me again. They hadn't made me change so I was wearing my shirt and got watered down blood all over the back of my sleeve. I also got very sticky which didn't make sense if it was just water. The tech said that the contrast can make you feel sticky. I was very confused because if he was using the 'practice' fluid and not the contrast why was I sticky?

Will finish later. Dun w PET and am not doing good.

Johns Hopkins Day 1 morning update

Hey everyone!
Here I am back in a hospital. Dan and I are chillin in the waiting room at Johns Hopkins waiting for my CT. I met the doctor this morning and did an echo.
The echo kind of sucked because I had to smell this really bad stuff that increases my heart rate like I did at Mayo. They also did a bubbles test where they aggrivate saline so that its bubbles and put that into my blood via IV and watch how it goes through my heart. That is how they originally found the whole in my heart but they couldn't find it.
Also done was what they call contrast. This is where they put this medicine in me (that starts with a D but I can't remember the name). It is white when aggrivated and turns the blood in my heart white so that they can see the edge of where the ventricle ends and the muscle begins.
When they do echos here they usually do treadmill stuff but thank the Lord I didn't have to do that! I got bad butterflies in my stomach when they rolled me into the door way and I saw the treadmill.
While I was in there they decided they also wanted me to have a CT scan today! I told them that I ate this morning because it said on my schedule that I couldn't for the 2 hours before my echo.
I thought that was wierd enough and when they started the echo before I saw the doctor like my schedule said I got nervous. I asked the tech (who was awesome and I'm pretty sure gay) and he said that's only for treadmill patients so it was okay.
When they started talking about the CT I told them I ate by 630 they said they would try the 2pm appt today but then came back in and told me it was at 12 and thay I needed to leave the IV in but could get dressed and wait in the waiting room.
About 45 minutes of waiting passed which was also an hour until my CT and told me that they needed referals for everything. So I gave her my primary care drs # biut told her dr Mitchell was her best bet. So within the next few minute I decided to call Nicholas who works the front desk at NavalMedCenter Cardiac Clinic and knows me and my situation very well and he said the lady was on the other line.
So just a minute ago actually she came out to tell me she got it and nicholas called me to say they did it. Yeaahhhh!! Now I don't have to pay for all this! Nicholas said that Mitchell told him if they need anything else for my appts that Nicholas can take care of it. So he gave me his pager number just in case he leaves the desk so that I can get referals and stuff done ASAP.

So that is my update of the morning. I'm typing this from my blackberry and sooo tired. I am barely staying awake and my eyes keep crossing. So I am done here and going to slouch down in my seat and doze a little until my scan.

Katie
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry