Thursday, April 30, 2009

One of the kids must have stepped on a crack

Hi everyone:

This blog has been quiet for some time, which is a good thing, because Patty is still going strong on the heart front. Her last pacemaker/ICD check, this past week, showed that aside from one recent minor incident (her heart skipped five beats...apparently no biggie), her heart has been performing fine. Her pacemaker still paces her heart 80% of the time, at a minimum rate of 70; without it, her heart rate drops to 50. A low resting heart rate is great for a superathlete...but for Patty this means she'd have trouble functioning.

There is a bit of a problem with Patty's health, though. She has been getting back into shape, and has so far lost about 15 pounds. That's not the problem...what is a problem is that she fell while rollerblading the other day and fractured one of the thoracic vertabrae in her back (and put a pretty good bruising on her tailbone). She's in some discomfort but, with her doctor's blessing, is still able to exercise at a moderate rate. Her goal is to (a) get back into some smaller clothes she loves, and (b) get into good shape before a procedure she may have this summer, if she's one of the 50% randomly chosen for a study. More on this later...

Aside from life in an economy that sucks, all else is pretty well for our family. We have two kids attending college this fall (Devin studying video game design in Toronto, PJ attending the Art Institute of Chicago), and all the others of our brood are chugging along. That's it for now...more if it arises...

Love,
Brian