Welcome, Miss Addie.....

I didn't have anything better to do after work last night. I'd only been sleeping about three hours a night all week and was so tired that the woman in line next to me at Chipotle Wednesday night felt compelled to comment on how tired I looked and admonished me to go home and get some sleep. So Thursday, as soon as the van rolled into the Wal-Mart parking lot, I hopped in my car and headed someplace other than home. I went to the hospital...........

No. I wasn't sick..... again..... I went to see our newest family member, Mary Addie Elizabeth Benjamin (sounds like a little Irish Catholic girl's name).

She's a cutie! I was able to hold her for quite awhile and did my usual "stare at the baby in awe and wonder without saying anything for a very long time" thing.

Most of the time she slept, but for awhile she just looked right back at me, nothing but peace and tranquility passing between us, and then, back to sleep......

Knocked out.....
And still sleeping.....The happy family..... My boy, Elroy..... Oh, no. That was the Jetsons. That's the big boy, Carlos III, his lovely bride Cathy (she's really quiet but very funny - we're keepin' her) and little Addie in the middle.She's pretty alert....... well, when she's awake........

And this is how I left her:

I think I may have to go see her again.

Seems Like It's All About Me

I really started this blog as a spot to put stuff about our family. I guess my timing wasn't good since it seems that it's been all about me.......

And this post is no exception.

I got to go to the hospital last week. I just wasn't having enough drama in my life and I asked myself, "What more could I do to give myself some additional pain?" Well, the answer came in a flash. How about a heart cath? Yeah!!!

Actually, I'd been to my cardiologist shortly after stopping the thyroid meds and he wanted to do a stress test. I told him he'd better hurry since I was off the meds and probably wouldn't have enough energy to complete the test if he waited too long.

When my doctor checked the stress test results he said, "For a normal person this would be a pretty good test result. But you're not normal." Well, shoot, everybody knows that. Unfortunately that meant he wanted to take a closer look at my heart and that meant an angiogram.

I was only in for a day. They used a new doohickey (medical term) to plug the hole in my femoral artery. It's an Angio-Seal and it's actually pretty cool.

Anyway, they said I have two arteries that are about 50% occluded but that they usually don't do a stent or even a balloon until they're 70%. I figure it took fifty years for me to get that plugged up, so I won't need another angiogram until I'm pushin' seventy. Hooray!

Hopefully I'll get to go back to work next week. I had hoped to see the doctor this week to get a release, but he's out of town. I'll see him on Monday and he should sign off on a release to go back to work at that time.

Maybe my next post will get to be about something else besides my worn-out carcass. I'm slowly scanning some old family photos, so maybe we'll get some Benjamin/Richardson history thrown in.