Jack

Today Jack (our kitten who is 5 months old) had an appt. to get his nuts chopped off. I took a trip to the vet to drop off Mick and Jack. Mick was just getting a check up on his eye and ears and everything looks great. Later on in the morning the vet calls and say that Jack has two possibly three herneas (sp?). Apparently Jack was bitten by a 10-25 lb dog across the belly when he was laying on his back. It didn’t puncture his outer skin but his inner layer of skin which cause his fat and intestines to squeeze out of the bite marks. Holy crap! Thank goodness it wasn’t my dogs, I would have felt horrible. Before we got Jack I guess he lived with a smaller dog who used him as a chew toy. For two months now I have been letting Jack and Dinky restle the whole time keeping Jack in a deep bruised state.

The vet then finds that Jack’s diaphram may be messed up from the herneas and an xray had to be done. Since Jack was under already for the de-nutting process we didn’t have to worry about that again. Our vet is amazing. Jack’s diaphram is ok, she moved his innards back where they are supposed to be and sewed up the hernea holes. Stress city!

Jack is resting comfortably at home in the guest room. He has to be confined with minimal movement for a week. A kitten with minimal movement, right! I am realived he is ok though. Poor Jack was abused. They say he will live a long normal life after he heals though so that is good news.

Please no more drama in our life for a while please!

Billy Update

Yesterday the orinigal doc from the ER called and said his right ventricle does not speed up like most peoples when exerting themselves. Apparently his at rest blood pressure is normal but when he does exert himself his blood pressure goes up 70-90 points, a normal person 10-30 points. The goal now is to get his exercise heart rate back to normal. Once that is steady they want to replace the valve in his heart that is leaking. This will not fix the right ventricle but it sounds like it will make his quality of life better, he may be able to catch a full breath again. His right ventricle will always be slow which is why he is always tired but fixing these other two things may help relieve that a bit.

Heart surgery is in the near future which is scary but a relief from heart transplant thoughts. Evil thoughts!

He will be on the blood pressure meds for one week before getting tested again. They will adjust his meds until his active blood pressure is normal. Once this is complete the heart surgery will be scheduled. Sounds like 2 weeks - 2 months. Monday he also has a pulminary lung test. A nurse called to schedule this so we are not sure what this test is going to tell us yet but when I get the results I will let everyone know.

Billy

Two weekends ago Billy, Dad and I decided to go to Dad’s property up in Leadville. It was beautiful up there but Billy started to feel like he couldn’t breathe. We assumed it was being at 12,000 feet and he decided to tough the weekend out. He was pretty weak but he made the best of it. There are pictures of the trip on my facebook site if you are interested.

When we got back to town Billy was not getting better. On Monday he called to get a doctors apptointment and they told him to go to the ER. We checked in at 11:30 and withing minutes there were 5 or 6 doctors and nurses surrounding him like a swarm of bees completing EKGs, blood work, asking questions, etc. It was all very overwhelming and scary. About three hours later we haven’t heard anything and started to feel like he must be ok if they are ignoring us so we decided to go to the Roadhouse to celebrate when we were all done. About 30 minutes later the nurse came in and told us we were being sent to room428 for observation overnight. Sigh! Finally the doctors wandered in and explained we were staying overnight for observation which the nurse just informed us. We hung out a little longer in the ER before being escorted to room 428. Unfortunatley this was an older hospital so they weren’t private rooms like all the new hospitals. Billy was sharing a room with just as much family and friends as we had with no chairs in a tiny room. Hot and muggy.

I started calling people to watch the dogs so I could stay with Billy so maybe he would be less scared. It felt like everyone we knew came to visit. I sat in the bed next to Billy as everyone stood around us and we told the story of the weekend over and over again. My worries were draining me but I wanted to be strong for Billy. All of our friends and family said prayers with us which was great, at this point God is the only one that can fix Billy. Everyone left and me and Billy sat there watching tv for a while. A new nurse shift came in and the idiot made me leave to go sleep on a love seat that wasn’t even wide enough for my two legs to be on and it was slopped down, needless to say it was worse than sleeping on the floor. Every hour or so I went to check on him and make sure he was doing ok. During the night there was a fire alarm (no sound) but lights flashing everywhere. The fire men were in the hall at the elevator shaft so that was a huge distraction. All I needed was the hospital my husband was at to burn down. Apparently nothing tragic was happening so the firemen eventually left and a little before five in the morning I went back to sit with Billy.

Tuesday Billy’s parents came at 9am, his surgery was scheduled for 11am and they were supposed to take him away at 10am. The doctor came in and prepped Billy for his cardiac catherization at 10:45. Waiting on doctors for such a serious issues was not an easy task. If they aren’t going to come get you in 10 minutes they should just say I will be back. The cardiac catherization was very painful. Apparently they stick tubes up his femeral artery and vien to his heart and meausre the pressure in each section of his heart. This was very scary for Billy and I didn’t know what to do for him. I just tried to stay strong, as soon as he was taken to the operating room I lost it. Breakdown number one. My Dad, Aunt & Grams came to take me to eat, I only wish I would have requested a change of clothes but it was good to get out of the hospital. I was very distracted though, I wanted to hear what was going on from the doctor not some family members impression of what was going on. The doctor came in when he said he would and explained the numbers came back better than planned. This was good because we wouldn’t have to do the actual heart valve replacement surgery immediatley. Sigh of relief!

Billy had to lay flat and not move for six hours after the cath procedure which was miserable for him, he was in so much pain and they wouldn’t give him any pain meds. His parents and I were with him ALL day as he was in and out of it. I just wanted to take him home and rest by ourselves for a while, everyone was great, but I was tired, stressed and sick of everybody. I am sure everyone was sick of me too not wanting to miss anything that happened but Billy is important to me and I want him around for a long time. We sat there for 4 hours, I ordered Billy a turkey, mozarella sandwich, raspberry sorbet, fruit bowl, mashed potatoes, and 7 up. He couldn’t sit up to drink or eat so I helped him with the non-finger foods. Poor Billy, he just wanted to go home to his own bed too. The doctor finally came back and said we could go home but he needs to be watched in case the artery starts to bleed out. We arrived home at 9pm, how good it was to be home. The dogs were very careful with him which was good. The next three days we stayed home on the couch, I made sure he was comfortable as possible and had what ever he needed. He was getting restless so we decided to go on an outing everyday. Wednesday we went to the Grocery Mart, it was slow going and painful for him but it was good to get out. Now we have lots of junk food for the week. Thursday we went to Chik-fil-a with my aunt which was nice but these normal errands turned into big deals. He still feels winded most of the time and his leg is so stiff and sore. I felt horrible but again really couldn’t help him.

Friday I was finally able to keep my promise and take him to the Roadhouse for dinner. Our friend Kevin joined us and we had a great time. Saturday we went to church and then to the comedy club to see Larry Miller. Breakdown number two is now brewing. I have been holding in my worries all week and I decided to ask Billy if he cared if I got my wedding ring tattooed on my finger since I can’t wear my ring without my finger practically falling off after a few hours. His response… “maybe we should wait and see if I make it through this next surgery”. Hense breakdown number two. I go to a comedy club to buy tickets crying like a baby. What a fool I am. Larry Miller was great, he even came and said hi to me and tap my shoulder.

Sunday we went to a friends house to hang out and watch movies, it was a nice afternoon. Monday Billy called the doctor and scheduled the next heart test. It was an echocardiogram stress test. Basically they do an echo, he runs, they do another echo. Yesterday was Tuesday. I picked up Billy at work and we went to do the test. The cariologist there said his at rest pressures in his heart are ok but his exerted heart pressure are not. I believe she said the right ventrical does not speed up. Most people exercise and their heart speeds up to pump blood through the body faster. Billy exercises and the one chamber of his heart does not speed up which is a problem. Apparently replacing the valve will not fix this problem. It sounded like basically it is a heart defect which cannot be fixed. And I thought the valve replacement surgery was bad… guess I was wrong, a bad heart is way worse than a valve replacement. Now all the worries of the replacement seem silly and minor compared to this.

All we are thinking is heart transplant. Crap! I can’t get that out of my head. Don’t get me wrong, the doctor NEVER said transplant so don’t freak out like I did. No fix is what made us jump to that conclusion. We will have a consultation with cardiologists in the next week but until then it is sit and wait. Billy still can’t catch his breath but I guess he is ok for the time being. Breakdown number three hasn’t occured yet, I feel at peace for this moment, I have faith God can fix Billy’s heart. I pray for him all day to fix Billy’s heart. I am sure breakdown number three will come soon but for right now I am ok.

I thank all our family and friends who have been so supportive and offered prayers and services to get us through this.

I will keep everyone updated as we hear new things, I am hoping for a second and third opinion. A bad heart is not acceptable right now.

It’s Live!

My website is finally live. I still have a few pictures to take and post but the products will be great.
Check it out:

www.stickymonkeysweets.com

Catering Ups and Downs

Back in November my aunt and I started a catering company. My aunt is a decorating genius and works very hard at her business and her life. I look up to my aunt very much and think her knowledge of running her own business will help in this adventure of ours. We have learned a lot in the few jobs we have had. I think that larger parties are more fun but was excited to try this smaller birthday party for 60 people. That one was this weekend, it was another “probono” job because we are learning. I just wonder how long do we have to learn before we get paid.

The biggest things I learned this week is that if you are catering at a home you simply drop food off in disposable dishes so you don’t have to wait around for the minglers to eat.  The problem was, my aunt decorates better than anyone and we knew she could make the party so much better with her touch. Her touch is always nice and disposable doesn’t fit into that style of serving. Now we have to learn how to balance the two. Tonight worked out because everyone LOVED the decorations and the food and we ended up leaving everything there for them to clean up. Since it was for a family friend they will bring us our catering stuff all clean. Yeah for clean dishes.

The one pet peeve I have with this new job is that the party of 60 seemed to take as much work as the wedding for 325 people. Tons less to carry, tons less to make, tons less space to decorate… Why is the workload equal?

One thing I think we struggle with is we are both morning people and most of our jobs are at night. We get up early to make sure we have everything done perfectly and on time but by 6 we are exhausted and crabby. This makes me impatient and cannot be shown in a business setting if I want more business. I don’t know what to do. I was trying to think of how we could advertise to businesses that work normal business hours. We could do business meetings, parties, etc and still be done by bed time without wanting to kill anyone in the process. A new challenge for us.

Today was a success and I don’t think it was a waste of time, we learned so much about private parties and how much we need to adjust our style of catering for those types of parties.

Video’s For Lisa – Enjoy!

These are a few more videos of the dogs playing and the snow storm this weekend. I know you don’t get a lot of snow and thought you might like to see it falling.

The Dogs Making Noise As Promised

Here is the video of the dogs being crazy.

It’s Been Awhile

I will catch up and post pictures from graduation in the next few days. In the mean time here are some pictures from our Spring storm the last couple days. Billy and I helped my dad with snow removal last night and then today I played with dogs outside for a bit. Once everyone had enough of the snow we came inside and the dogs decided it would be fun to sing us songs, it was pretty funny.

Here is Mick, he likes to keep his butt warm by keeping it inside and the rest sitting on the ramp outside.

Taking a break from shoveling.

I can’t figure out how to convert the video file of the dogs barking and singing but when I do I promise to post it. Maybe one of my wordpress friends will know how to convert an AVI file to something wordpress accepts…

My First Tier Cake

Everything about this cake was new to me, except the cake part of course. I decided instead of the traditional yellow cake I default to, to try a german chocolate cake, my grandma’s recipe. The cake had a lot of ingredients but turned out great. The Coconut filling is a cooked filling, it calls for regular sugar and wouldn’t you know this is the day I run out.  I took a chance and used brown sugar and it turned out even better, I think I will change the recipe to always use brown sugar. I then put a very thin butter cream crumb coat on and freezed the cakes till it was time to put the fondant on. Fondant is expensive but looks nice because it is smooth, very popular for weddings now days.

Once the fondant was on I had to cut dowels to place in the cake to hold up each layer. This part was pretty much common sense, cut the dowels to the height of your cake and stick them in. I then had to pipe the borders which was a whole other issue. I am not great at piping and piping dark chocolate on white fondant is very noticable. The top layer was a bit shaky but I finally realized what I wanted my hands to do and the bottom to layers turned out great.

The sash is just marbled fondant. The flowers are made out of modeling chocolate (basically tootsie rolls). The flowers took me about 10 hours and over the 6 weeks of carrying them in and out of my car they got a little beat up but I think they still turned out nice.

My First Sheet Cake

The cake was a marbled cake which came out great, the filling was a Bavarian cream which I am not a fan of, the frosting butter cream which I like even less. If you like swallowing a stick of butter with your cake then this will be your favorite frosting. Chef made us use this frosting because he says it is the number one ordered frosting outside of fondant with cake orders. This surprises me but, whatever. Making the flowers was easier than I thought it was going to be but I still felt like a 5 year old learning to use scissors. Weird! I would say for my first one though, I am pleased!