Where Does the Time Go?
Posted on : 26-04-2009 | By : Heather | In : Family, Jack, Just Me, Ramblings, Weight Loss
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So this is going to be my catch-up post for the past week! lol Get ready, it’s going to be a long one!
Last weekend was the BP-MS150. Day 1 was cancelled as previously reported. We spent Saturday waiting around for instructions and then carting a team to Schulenburg where they were staying. After that, Jack and I took a side trip to Waelder to see M&S’s new place out in the middle of nowhere! lol Sorry, M… it really is!
Day 2 was interesting, fun, stressful and everything you can imagine! If you’re reading this and you rode in that ride, I’m going to say the same thing I said inside the van to other cyclists… We try REALLY hard not to hit you guys, but some of you are just nuts and make it really difficult! I mean, riding on the wrong side of the yellow line? C’mon people!! Anyway, I didn’t hit anyone, and I only got yelled at by one cyclist and one DPS officer! A good day! lol The coolest part of the day was after the last rest stop. At that point, if they’ve made it that far, they’re making it to the finish. Well we picked up one very emotional lady who was devastated when her bike had a catastrophic failure. She’d worked so hard, and this was her first 150. Well Jack and I broke all the rules and a couple of barricades and got her to the finish line where she was able to walk her broken bike across the finish line! THAT was a very cool feeling!
The Monday after the MS150 was Cyclists in Suits day. A lobbying day at the Texas Capitol for bike safety laws. We visited the House and Senate chambers, then went off to visit our lawmakers. I had appointments scheduled with both our Senator and our Representative. Our Senator didn’t bother to show up that day. I still have issues with that, and the fact that he didn’t show up for the vote on the bike legislation, but that’s another issue for another day. Our Representative however… his office was awesome, and he even came off the House floor to meet us and hear what we had to say. I was TOTALLY impressed with him!
We came back home, and I was in super solder mode to get a bulk custom order done by Friday for an event. In the midst of that we had the Rest Stop captain training for the DFW Sam’s Club MS150, which is this next weekend! It’s already here believe it or not!!
Jack and I both had doctor appointments this week. He’s lost about 60 pounds as a result of his surgery, which is fantastic!! I’m so proud of him! He rode in the Muenster Metric Century bike ride this weekend. He did the 65k route, which is about 40 miles. And he’s been riding to work everyday when the weather or wind isn’t nasty. He’s my studmuffin cyclist! :o)
Friday we had a bit of a scare. I was letting the dogs out when Angel stumbled, fell and then had a seizure. We took her to the veterinarian, who did bloodwork and reported that she has autoimmune hemoglobin anemia. Basically her body is attacking her red blood cells. We’re starting her on some steroids this week, which will compromise her immune system, which means no more dog park for her. I’m going to call the vet and see if it’s ok to still take Spaz, or do we have to worry that he’ll bring something home. He’d be devastated if he couldn’t go to the park anymore!
So it’s been pretty eventful around here. We’re getting ready for the Sam’s Club MS150 this weekend… Jack is a HAM operator in a SAG van again… I’m helping with rest stops on Day 1, and captaining a rest stop on Day 2 (If you want to come help… I need the help! Sunday from 8am until around 2:30 pm… you get a shirt, and I’m really desperate!!). I’ve got to do some charms for that, and we have the last committee meeting this week. Plus I’ve got a couple of events that I’m working on, so it’s going to be a busy, busy week!!
I’ll post some photos soon!
~Heather
Being Active
Posted on : 06-04-2009 | By : Heather | In : Family, Friends, Fun Stuff, Jack, Just Me, Ramblings
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I’ve decided that I’m not going to call it “busy” anymore… just active! lol
Last weekend was the celebration of my grandfather’s 97th birthday. I made him a cake that looked like his cowboy hat that he wears to church every Sunday. I’ll post a photo soon. Most of our extended family came up for it, so it was a great time of visiting and catching up with everyone!
This past weekend Jack rode in the Tour of Dallas bike ride. 20 miles! I’m so proud of him! I’ll post photos later once I get them off the camera. I was supposed to ride too, but had some mechanical issues. Instead I was his personal SAG vehicle. :o)
Later that day we took the dogs to the off-leash dog park (which is becoming a daily thing), and since I didn’t ride that morning I decided to walk them to the park! It’s 2.05 miles… gulp! Cool thing though, I bought the Nike+ sensor thing that you can put in your tennis shoes and it feeds information about your walk to you iPod. I don’t have the Nike shoes, but there’s all kinds of ways to use it with other shoes too. When I plug my iPod into the computer it uploads my walk/run information and keeps track of it online. Cool, huh? Even cooler is the little avatar thing that I can put on my blog so that YOU can see how far/fast/etc. I’ve walked/ran and keep me accountable! Right now she’s on the right sidebar, down towards the bottom. Check her out, my mini me is pretty rockin’!
This month is going to be super, super ACTIVE!! Next weekend is Easter and we’ve got family egg hunts, and more. The next weekend we travel to Houston and Austin to drive a SAG van in the BP MS 150 bike ride. Monday, April 20th we’ll also be in Austin for the Cyclists in Suits lobbying day at the Capital. Then there’s a soldering class I’m helping out with. Then the next weekend (the first weekend in May) is the Sam’s Club MS 150 in Dallas/Fort Worth where Jack is HAM’ing, and I’m helping with the rest stops! Whew! So basically, if you don’t see me, don’t get responses to emails, etc. during the month of April, don’t send out a search party just yet! lol
Today, I’m chilling out at Panera Bread, taking advantage of their free wi-fi while waiting to go to my doctor’s appointment, then heading to the office after that. Also working on a new website for Jack, but more on that later.
Lots of stuff for “later!” So I’ll definitely be posting again real soon!
~Heather
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I miss having Spring Break! I could really use a break right now! Yes, I know that I was off last week with Jack’s surgery, but that’s not really a break. I don’t remember the last time I really took a “vacation” with vacation time! It’s usually me taking a day off because I’m behind on something, or have a committment to something else! Oh well! :o)
Jack is doing really good! I’m seriously impressed at how good he’s doing. He’s also been updating his blog (needlegeek.com) a lot, so be sure to check that out!
I’ve been creating a new website and online identity for a top secret event that we’ll be announcing soon. Trust me, you’ll get all the scoopage here! And if you’re a crafty person, you’re gonna want the scoopage!
This week is a Bike MS steering committee meeting, I need to get some fondant pieces started for a cowboy hat cake for next weekend, I finished some MS charms tonight (yay!), and there’s some more designing to be done. There’s always designing to be done! But I love it!
Oh, one more thing, we upgraded the OS on our Mac and with it came the new version of iLife. SO COOL! It recognizes faces!! That’s just awesome! And I can’t wait to see what Apple has in store in tomorrow’s announcement for the iPhone!
~Heather
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So I had all these good intentions of blogging during the day while hanging out at the hospital and Jack got his surgical stuff done. Instead… I tweeted. A lot. So much so that I think I annoyed my greatest friend in the world, but I digress.
The surgery went well. The doc was pleased. As pleased as he can be… he’s a man of few words and even fewer emotional demonstrations. The COMPLETE AND TOTAL opposite of Jack plastic surgeon! But again, I digress.
We got there around 5:15 AM, surgery was supposed to happen at 7:15 AM, however said doc was “late as usual” (nurse’s words, not mine!), we wondered if he forgot to change his clock! lol Finally went into surgery around 7:45 AM.
Around 10:30 I finally asked the desk clerk for an update, and after a few terse words (which involved me not checking in with her, to which I replied, “I’m sorry, YOU weren’t HERE at 5:00 this morning for me to check in with!”), the doc came out, said everything went well, he’d be in recovery soon, and have a nice day (minus the have a nice day part!)
Jack was in a regular room around 11:30, then down to radiology for a gastro x-ray to make sure his pouch pooched like it was supposed to. Jack was surprisingly mobile! Even when they brought him back into the room, he got up off the gurney (slowly of course!), and walked to the bed. Then for the trip to radiology he got up, walked to the wheelchair, etc. etc. Doc’s orders, he has to walk as much as possible. We made three trips down the hall tonight before he went to bed, and we’ll be making more, and longer trips tomorrow (so prepare yourself, Jack!!).
I came home around 10:45 PM, for some sleep and to let the dogs have some normalcy, although they immediately started hunting for Jack. Sorry guys! I’ll go back in the morning, and he’ll be released at some point, probably before lunchtime.
I left for a few hours in the middle of the afternoon for my own doctor’s appointment across town. But I’ll blog about that later…. maybe tomorrow… over at the Build-A-Family blog.
So for now…. hello bed!
~Heather
Jack dropped me off this morning and headed to the hospital for his pre-op appointment to get the bloodwork, chest x-ray, etc. before his surgery on Monday. The appointment was scheduled for 8:30 and they estimated it would take about 2 hours. He calls me at 9:00 saying “it’s over.” What? That was quick! Nope… they demanded $2,000 up front before they’d even do the tests. And no $2,000 meant no surgery!
WHAT?!?! The coordinator in the surgeon’s office told us that insurance was covering 100%! The INSURANCE company told us they were covering 100%! WTH people?!?! Apparently what they failed to tell us is they cover 100% AFTER our out of pocket…. which is $2,000!
Now, this would be no problem… had they told us a month ago, or even two weeks ago! But no, they wait and tell us this THREE DAYS BEFORE SURGERY! YIKES!!
So after much panicking, much distress, a little bit of yelling, and yes, even some tears (on both sides), we figured out how to come up with the money. Wasn’t fun, wasn’t easy, and we’re still holding onto shoestring hope that it’s all going to work out, but the important thing is… Jack’s still on for surgery on Monday…. hospital be damned!
I miss Baylor!
One Week
Posted on : 01-03-2009 | By : Heather | In : Family, Friends, Jack, Just Me, MS Walk, Ramblings
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One week from tonight we’ll hopefully be asleep (since we have to show up at the hospital at 5:30 AM, which is 4:30 AM thanks to the time change!), but we’ll be looking at a new challenge, a new day, a new chapter, and another new normal for our little family of two.
We had lunch today with my parents… my dad had LapBand surgery about 2 years ago… and they had much advice for us. I had seen my dad go through it, but there was so much that I didn’t see that I learned about today. Oh gracious! But we can do this! Jack is uber excited and anxious to get it done. Me, I’m cautiously optomistic. But that’s us! lol
This week is crazy! I’m visiting a bunch of different venues to try to nail down a place for our annual company banquet, we’re delivering lots of coinage to the MS Society from our coin drive at work (it’s MS Awareness Week, by the way!), and Jack has his pre-op appointment at the hospital, plus a bonus appointment with his plastic surgeon to take a last look at his leg before surgery.
Tonight we had dinner at a great mexican place for a friend’s 30th birthday (happy “getting older” Grant!). We gave him nicely wrapped Geritol and Hemmroid cream! lol
I took the plunge and signed up for Twitter this week. It’s interesting. I just wish I could merge Facebook, Twitter and my blog all in one place! Then I’d actually be able to keep up! :o) So if you’re interested, I’m at twitter.com/jackandheather. I’m still learning though!
Ok, time to head to bed, start another week, another month (can you believe it’s March already?!?!), and get on with it!
~Heather
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Now we can really prepare… Jack surgery is scheduled for Monday, March 9th at 7:00 AM, which means we have to be there at 5:45 AM! Yikes! It will be interesting to say the least. He’ll be there overnight, so we’ll be coming home sometime on Tuesday. I’ll try and blog with his update as I can.
Jack is completely and totally excited! Me, I’m a little nervous! lol
Your prayers are completely and totally requested! It’s yet a new chapter in our lives!
~Heather
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Since Jack’s accident he’s had trouble getting around due to pain and swelling in his leg and foot. He’s built up his stamina, but it’s been a catch-22 – his injury prevents him from a lot of physical activity, but his weight and lack of physical activity hinders the healing in his leg.
For the past six months, Jack has been seeing the doctor, the nutritionist and even the psychologist, in prepation for having LapBand surgery. Well, the six months are up, the information has been submitted, insurance has been approved, and now it’s time.
Jack has the final meeting with his surgeon this week, and they’ll schedule his surgery. We’re hoping they’ll be willing to schedule it for next Monday, March 3rd. He’s already starting on the preparation diet… soft foods for a week, then liquids only for the 2-3 days before. We’ll find out for sure on Tuesday when the surgery will be.
It’s strange. Jack has had so many surgeries. But they’ve all been necessary, not elective. And… they’ve all been at the same hospital, we’ve known what to expect. This time, it’s all unknown… unknown place, unknown people, unknown processes. So it will be interesting.
Keep us in your prayers. I’ll be updating here as we know more.
~Heather
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Jack’s going back in for more surgery next week. Outpatient surgery, but nonetheless, it’s another surgery. I think we’re up to number 19. Dr. Kelton, the plastic surgeon, wants to do a flap and see if that works. We’ll see how it goes…. please keep us in your prayers!
Tonight’s Surprise
Posted on : 19-10-2008 | By : Heather | In : Family, Fun Stuff, Jack, Just Me, Ramblings
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We had a special surprise tonight after dinner. well sort of at dinner. lol For his gift, we gave my dad tickets to the Mavericks game tonight! I kind of cheated. our gift limit was $5, and these were $150 seats, but I kind of didn’t cheat because my boss gave them to me from his season tickets! :o) I’m such a cheater!
Here’s a few shots from the game… me and Jack, my guys (Jack, my dad and my brother), and a panorama of the game.
The panorama shot is actually four shots merged together (which is why you see players at both ends of the court! lol). If you have any version of Photoshop, go to File -> Automate -> Photomerge and Photoshop will automagically merge together photos that have common pieces. So it will put your panoramas together for you! Cool, huh? Now you can never say you didn’t learn anything from this blog! lol
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Wow, this weekend seem to FLY by!
Saturday was the Advanced Soldering class taught by the fabulous Heather Ales. Afterwards we hung out at her house for workshop time. I got quite a few charms done. I’m hoping to get some up on Etsy sometime this week.
Today I spent most of the day finishing up a freelance graphic design project. This thing has been an absolute BEAR!! I swear I’ve been working on it for a month! But it is DONE!! Woo hoo!!
And now, we start another week…
Yes, I have another cake class this week. We’re going to learn about fondant!
An intermediate soldering class on Saturday.
Then Saturday night we have a family birthday dinner… all the adults in our immediate family have birthdays in October or December (except Jack, whose birthday was at the tail end of September). So we are celebrating them all with one dinner… which I’ll make the cake for, of course! lol
As far as the week is concerned, lots of work stuff getting me stressed out, and I need to get focused on scanning my grandmother’s photos so I can take them back to her at Thanksgiving!
Whew! It’s gonna be a week, people! lol
~Heather
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Originally uploaded by dacriscloset
When our waiter found put we were celebrating our anniversary he insisted on bringing us a complimentary dessert… This AWESOME cheesecake!!! It was seriously wonderful, not that frozen cheesecake like most places serve! LOL.
Overall a great (yet overpriced!) meal!
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Originally uploaded by dacriscloset
Had to share this photo of Jack enjoying his dinner too! Can’t forget Jack! :o) He was in the midst of picking up a roll when I snapped this!
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Originally uploaded by dacriscloset
We decided to celebrate our anniversary by dinning at Fogo de Chao this evening. Cool experience but seriously pricey!! Oh, and definitely NOT a place for vegetarians! LOL.
If you’re not familiar with this place, basically you have a little card that is green on one side and red on the other. When you want them to bring food, you turn it to the green side. When you want them to stop, you turn it to the red side.
What kind of food? Well… meat! Seriously, it’s men running around with meat loaded up on these sword looking ka bob thingys! Bacon wrapped chicken, filet mingon, garlic steak, lamb, prime rib, parmesan pork loin, and much more! Then you get sides (those little silver dishes in the middle) of mashed potatoes, polenta and caramelized banana or plaintains (we couldn’t figure out which it was!).
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This week had just been exhausting! I love watching the summer Olympics. But this schedule is just killing me! I swear every night that I’m going to bed at 10pm regardless. But then something happens, and I’m on the edge of my seat, and I look up and it’s after midnight! Ugh! And the alarm goes off way too early! But I love the games. The heartwarming and heartbreaking stories… the dreams that are realized…. it’s just an exciting time.
Yes, we’ve been following the saga of Michael Phelps. Believe it or not, Jack was a competitive swimmer in high school, so he’s been watching it closely. And of course no race is complete without his post-race analysis! lol
Speaking of Jack, everything is looking good with his leg right now. The doctors expect this latest treatment to give him 75%-80% coverage of the remaining open wound. Most likely they will try another round of this treatment once it’s done to get complete coverage, so it’s looking good. A lot of people have asked why Jack still has an open wound almost 3 years after the accident. No, he’s not diabetic. He lost 2 out of the 3 arteries in his leg, so the blood flow is extremely compromised. And the open portion is in the back, where you have lower blood flow anyway. Add to that the scar tissue that fights the progress of skin growth and you’ve just got everything working against growth.
On my end of things…. I went and saw the fertility specialist on Thursday and things went well. Everything looks good. Even though it’s late in my cycle, we’re still going to do the drugs and see if we can make something happen this month. So I’m scheduled to go in on Friday of this week for a sonogram to see if things are cooking. If they are, then probably next week (the last week in August), we’ll look at doing intrauterine insemination (IUI). So we’ll see what happens. Keep us in your prayers… if it’s meant to be, it will be!
~Heather
Has it seriously been that long since I blogged? Holy cow!
The MS Walk was a huge success! I met my fundraising goal and our whole team raised a good amount of money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society! Woo Hoo!! We had about 30 people walk in the event… amazing!
This past weekend Jack and I participated as volunteers at the MS 150 Bike Ride, from Frisco to Fort Worth! It was an awesome experience! It’s a two day ride – 86 miles on Saturday, 74 miles on Sunday (yes, that adds up to 160 and not 150!). Jack has his amateur radio license so he was part of the communications team on a support van. I volunteered all over the place! lol Frisco, Texas Motor Speedway, Sundance Square, you name it! I feel like I drove all over the metroplex last weekend. I’m proud to say, though, that I was at the start line and the finish line on both days. It’s so cool to cheer on these riders, I mean they did something amazing riding all that way. Someone made the comment, regarding the route, that these guys rode bicycles to places we won’t drive because it’s “too far!”
We had such an amazing time that we’ve already signed up to volunteer (hopefully as a SAG team this time) at the Valero MS 150 Bike to the Beach from San Antonio to Corpus Christi, AND the BP MS 150 from Houston to Austin in early 2009! Jack wants to shoot for riding in next year’s North Texas MS 150, but we’ll see!
Other than that, we’ve just been staying busy. Hopefully life will be settling down a little bit… or maybe not! I start working part time this week for the Grand Praire AirHogs baseball team doing customer service/information desk during home games. I’m super, super excited about it!
Jack’s doing good. He’s seeing the doc at Baylor every week, and they’ve made good progress on getting his wound closed. They just switched him to a new product this week that is based on honey! Very interesting stuff!
That’s it for now. Hopefully I’ll be blogging again soon!
~Heather
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I guess it’s time to post again! lol
Staying busy, working on some graphics projects for a client, doing some scanning for another… just busy, busy! Catching up for all the time that I was sick!
Saturday night was our company banquet. I did a special video where I taped a bunch of employees and then put it all together into one DVD. Everyone LOVED it! I was very proud! Oh, and I got an award too, so that was nice. Now I turn to planning the company golf tournament in May, so that should be fun.
Jack’s doing good. The doctor considers his left leg (the MRSA) closed. YAY! The right leg, after being open for over 2 years, is FINALLY looking like it’s going to close! DOUBLE YAY!!! They finally ordered a jobst garment (compression), and that had to wait until it was closed, so the doctors have confidence too!
Other than that, we’re just living life! I’m preparing for the MS Walk. I’m selling soldered charms to help raise money, so if you’re interested, email me! They make GREAT mother’s day gifts!!
~Heather
V-Day And Other Stuff
Posted on : 16-02-2008 | By : Heather | In : Holidays, Jack, MS Walk, Ramblings
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We had a great Valentine’s Day this year. We didn’t do gifts or anything, we just had a nice quiet dinner at a local hibachi/sushi restaurant that wasn’t very busy, and then came home to chocolate covered strawberries from Central Market – yum!!
I’ve been working on a special video project for work lately and it’s turning out so much better than I expected! After the big reveal at our Spring Banquet I’ll share a piece of it here. It’s actually two pieces – one consists of video clips and the other is all made up of still photos. So much fun to play around with!
Very excited to say that I was honored as an Employee of the Month for February, thanks in BIG part to my work on the tradeshow! It’s very cool to be recognized when you put in a lot of hard work. So what do I get? A nice certificate and a reserved parking spot for the month, complete with my name on it! I’ll have to post a picture… when I remember to take one! lol
MS Walk Status – I’m slowly but surely moving towards my fundraising goal! Check out http://www.nationalmssociety.org/goto/heatheratpollock to make a tax-deductible donation of any amount! Every little bit helps!
Have a great week!
~Heather
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I’m a true southern gal… which means I have drank a lot of tea in my life. Usually sweet iced tea. Is there any other kind? Tonight, I found out, there is.
Jack and I stopped at the Galleria tonight just to watch people ice skating, waste some time, and get Jack a new pen. On our way out we found a store called Teavana. Wow… I’ve never seen or tasted so many teas in my life! Jack was in heaven, he totally loves hot tea and has been on this kick lately.
Well, needless to say we left with a conglomeration of teas, and a couple of little brew pot things. So tonight I’m sipping on a blend of Queen of Babylon White Tea and Rooibos Rose Garden… over ice of course!
~Heather
