Detroit Red Wings 21st home victory in a row!

I uploaded some new pics to the RAN3 Gallery.  The Michigan Christmas/Perynn’s Wedding gallery is up in 2011 and some pics from the hike today are in 2012.  Go check it out.

The next morning, Thursday the 3rd,  I woke up I instantly realized that my pain had not gone away or lightened up at all but I ignored it and ended up going to work.  At lunch I wound up going to Fashion Place Mall and on the return drive home the pain started getting worse.  By the time I was back at my desk the act of breathing was putting me through unbearable pain.  You know when you go to the doctor and they ask you what your pain level is, one through ten?  Yeah, mine was easily a 9.  At this point, my boss could hear me on the phone with my mom and he knew something was wrong with me.  I told him I needed to go to insta-care, he offered to drive me, but of course I wasn’t about to leave my car downtown so I told him I could drive myself.

When I arrived at the Intermountain Healthcare insta-care office they saw me immediately, I guess having problems breathing surpasses everything else.  The doctor who saw me thought the pain could be one of any in a cornucopia of ailments, like pulled muscles, kidney stones, adult chicken pox, or pulmonary embolisms.  After our talk he sent the nurses in (one of which who was a newbie in nursing school and used me to practice drawing blood on) to collect my blood.  They were looking at my white blood cell count in the first test and then my D-dimer level in the second test.  D-dimer is a product of fibrin degradation, a small protein fragment present in the blood after a blood clot is formed.  The first test was quick to run, the doctor told me my WBC (white blood cell) count was slightly elevated at 11.6.  The D-dimer test takes about 2-3 hours before a result can be interpreted so the doc gave me some prescriptions of pain kills and muscle relaxers (in case the blood results were all normal and we ended up just going with the muscle strain hypothesis) and sent me on my way.

As I left the clinic, I remember hoping it was just a muscle strain but for some reason I felt like that wasn’t the case because the pain was so intense.  While I was at Wal-Mart getting my prescriptions filled the doc gave me a call and told me he had seen the results to my D-dimer test.  A normal maximum level of D-dimer is between 4-500, my level was approximately 1,400.  Not so good, eh?  This prompted the doctor to tell me he would prefer that I get a CT scan to make sure nothing crazy was going on inside me.  I agreed and he set the appointment up at St. Marks Hospital the same day, one hour later.

At St. Marks I ended up having to check into the E.R. due to insurance complications (which I won’t get into because it will make me angry thinking about it).  After an hour in my own E.R. room the x-ray/CT tech came in and got me.  She performed CT scans on both my lower abdomen and my chest area.  Probably another hour after this the doctor came in and told me that I had pulmonary embolisms in both of my lungs, I thought he was joking.  He wasn’t.  I was told I would be on blood thinners for at least 6 months and that I wouldn’t be leaving the hospital today.  Not really what I was expecting.    I was admitted and then a nurse came in and drew 14 viles of blood from me, it was certainly not the last time I would be getting blood drawn either.

For the next two and-a-half days I sat in the hospital and got pumped full of morphine, Loratab, Coumadin, had my blood drawn a total of 20 times, and I even had to endure shots of Lovenx into my stomach.  Finally, around 1 PM on Sunday I was able to be discharged, it was a great feeling leaving that place.  I must say, however, that my nurses and doctor while I was checked in were all really fantastic.

So as it stands right now I am stuck on blood thinners for at least 6 months which takes us into April 2012.  From now til then I have to abstain from extreme physical activity (snowboarding) and drinking a lot of beers, which blows because I like them both.  On the bright side, my friends all have a permanent designated driver for a while.

I’m super thrilled for Matt and Bobbi and I am stoked that I get to be around to see this girl grow up and be “uncle” Robbie for her!

Just found out my homegirl, Bobbi, is damn near close to going into labor early.  I don’t want drop personal things she’s told me in relation to this but lets just say we are going to FINALLY meet Avery sometime in the next week.   I can’t wait!

I also updated the 2011 album with some random photos taken over the past 2 weeks or so, including my doomed drive to the Uinta Mountains where I couldn’t find Matt for the Diaper Party, although that day sucked, the photos are b-e-a-utiful.

When I first moved out here I thought for SURE that I would be here 2 years max, of course, I am not Nostradomus and I had no way to predict the ultimate collapse of the economy and thus the ever-rising unemployment rates throughout the US.  At the end of next month it will be 4 years of Utah-life and I have now decided that I refuse to be here another full year.

I hate the fact that I’ve only been at my current job 8 months and I’m already trying to dip.  I know it’s important to stick with a job and learn as much as you can.  I’ve learned quite a bit here in the short time, however, even learning another language (HL7) so I hope that this will allow me to continue down my current health care/IT career path but just in the mitten state.

As of last week I have officially began my search for a new job in the D.  It’s time to go home, save some money, and maybe even buy a house (trying to not get too far ahead of myself here).  I miss everything Michigan and I’m sick of having to use my “vacation” time to go the D instead of like, oh I don’t know, the Caribbean or Mexico.

I know that it’s only a matter of time before I’m gone.  I hope that I’m around long enough to at least play Uncle Robbie to baby Avery for a little bit (only a few weeks to go!).  There certainly are a handful of people, that I know I will miss dearly when I leave, but I FULLY expect that they come visit me in Michigan (cough cough MB&A).

Definitely not excited about driving on I-80 through Nebraska and Wyoming (for the 3rd and definitely FINAL time), especially in a U-Haul with the Vibe being towed in the back, but definitely ready to be in the D for good.

Katy came on at about 9:05 PM and opened the show with “Teenage Dream”.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear that she was actually singing the songs and not lip synching like other pop stars do, it also helped that she sounded really well.  My favorite jam right now from her is “E.T.” , with or without Kanye (although, I prefer the Kanye version) so that was the only thing I really wanted to hear.  She didn’t let me down, she rocked it out about 5 songs deep into the set.

During the concert this movie would play up on the 3 big screens they had.  Mostly, this happened during her costume change, which had to be at least 6 times.  The storyline was sort of a Wizard of Oz type deal where she’s in this Oz land and she is searching for her cat, Kitty Purry.  The concert as a whole was actually really good, the stage was great, the lights, the theme, the story.

Towards the end of the show Katy did a little karaoke and sang an array of songs, notables were Jay-Z and Rebecca Black’s “Friday”.  The final song of her set was “T.G.I.F” which I kinda enjoy.  After the curtains closed the lights remained off and the crowd began to chant “Katy!” over and over.  A few minutes later the curtains opened and she returned to the stage to play her encore which was “California Gurls”.

I have to say I had a pretty good time and I was really impressed with Katy’s abilities on stage, including dancing, acting, singing.  I was also surprised at how long she played.  If you recall she came on at 9:05 PM and her encore ended at about 11:15.  Over 2 hours for a pop star?  Pretty awesome.   I put a few pictures in the 2011 album, they aren’t spectacular as they were all taken with either my phone or Carrie’s.

On Friday, I went to the rehearsal and dinner, both of which were lovely. The dinner was at Adiamo’s in Bloomfield hills (also known as the Red Fox Inn, the last place where Jimmy Hoffa was seen alive). After dinner I had to run over to CJ Mahoney’s in Rochester as I was meeting up my wedding date, Erin (whom at the time I had actually never met in person) and Ryan and Erika. I have to say, I was pretty happy that Erin was legit and not some crazy broad. She was very nice, classy, and easy to talk to.

The next day was the wedding. I’m not going to give a play-by-play here, I feel like looking at pictures will do you justice enough to see what happened (and because I want to watch Franklin and Bash on TV). The one story is that the best man forgot the rings which ended up being drama for all of 2 minutes (all before they even needed the rings). Oh ya and the cops being called on us at the church, but that’s another story.

As I said there are wedding pics now available along with 3 other new albums in the new 2011 album (took me a while to update eh?). Anyway peep out photos of 2011 so far here: 2011 Photo Album